Nell’s attack on the canal towpath is a sudden act of violence that leaves her injured and afraid to leave the house. Although the assailant escapes before he can be identified, the episode changes Nell’s daily life and leads Sunday Small and Biddy Spooner to take practical steps to protect the household’s girls.

Circumstances and Attack

The attack took place on a Wednesday while Sunday Small was in London. Biddy Spooner had sent Nell into town, and Nell chose to use part of the canal towpath as a shortcut on her way home. Annie later recounts the incident to Biddy Spooner, presenting the route as quiet and the assault as abrupt: a man emerged from a hedge, knocked Nell down, and beat her. He then appeared to threaten a sexual assault, but did not carry it through.

The location matters to the sequence of events. Nell was alone on an isolated stretch, with little opportunity to defend herself or summon help. The account does not establish why she chose that particular shortcut beyond its convenience, nor does it identify any prior connection between her and the attacker. The danger comes from an unknown man who appears suddenly and can leave before anyone has a clear view of him.

Interruption and Immediate Response

A horse pulling a barge approached along the towpath at the moment the attacker was preparing to continue. The man fled, leaving Nell there; the bargee found her and brought her home. His arrival prevented the assault from proceeding further, but did not result in the attacker’s capture. The intervention is therefore both decisive and limited: it ends the immediate danger, while leaving the person responsible free.

After Nell was brought home, Mickey went to fetch a doctor. Nell remained in bed for the rest of the week. When Sunday returned and visited her, Nell was still visibly affected by what had happened, and Sunday comforted her and promised that someone from the household would accompany her whenever she went out until the attacker was caught. Nell replied that the police had given little hope of finding him. The bargee had pursued the man but failed to catch him, and Mickey had also searched after Nell was brought home; by then, the attacker had disappeared.

Uncertainty and Suspicion

The man’s identity remains unresolved. He had covered the lower part of his face with a scarf and wore a hat, so Nell had not been able to see him clearly. Biddy Spooner initially wondered whether he was Albert Pinnegar, but Annie reported that Nell doubted this: the assailant seemed too thin. That distinction matters because the household’s suspicion does not become proof. Biddy considered the attack alongside other incidents that had occurred within the same week and suspected that Albert Pinnegar might be behind them, while acknowledging that suspicion and evidence were not the same thing.

The narrative consequently keeps two possibilities in view without resolving them. Nell’s own impression weighs against identifying the attacker as Albert Pinnegar, but her limited view of a masked man cannot establish who he was. Biddy Spooner’s broader suspicion links the assault to a pattern, yet the account supplies no confirmation that the incidents share a perpetrator. The unresolved identity leaves the household responding to a real threat without knowing where it will appear next.

Recovery and Changed Routine

Nell’s recovery proceeds unevenly. Two weeks after the attack, she is able to resume gentle tasks around the house, but she adamantly refuses to go to market even when accompanied by Mickey. She ventures no farther than the laundry room and the back yard. Her return to some work marks physical improvement, while the limits she places on her movements show that recovery has not restored her previous confidence outside the house.

Biddy Spooner treats that reluctance as something Nell needs time to overcome, rather than as a refusal to be corrected. She assigns the market trips to Sunday Small again, but makes Mickey accompany her and instructs that neither girl is to go out alone for the time being. This arrangement gives Nell room to recover while changing the routines of the other young women in the household. The protective response is collective: Nell’s fear is taken seriously, and the household alters its movements in recognition that the attacker remains at large.

Narrative Significance

The incident makes the canal a place of renewed fear for Sunday Small. When she hears it mentioned, she recalls Daisy Branning’s death there and finds the association so distressing that she avoids the canal. Nell’s attack therefore adds a separate threat to a setting already connected, for Sunday, with loss. The two events are not presented as having the same cause; their connection lies in the way the place now carries accumulated danger for her.

The episode also shifts attention from the assault itself to its aftermath: unsuccessful searches, uncertainty about the attacker, Nell’s restricted movements, and the precautions adopted by those around her. The household cannot promise that the police will catch the man, and its members cannot prove Biddy Spooner’s suspicion about Albert Pinnegar. What they can do is accompany one another and adapt daily work to the risk. Nell’s gradual return to household tasks, alongside her continued refusal to go to market, preserves the difference between outward recovery and restored confidence.