THAT they must come to Blackwall Pier was assured. For there were no
streets, no crowds, no rumbling waggons; there were the wide sky and the
unresting river, the breeze, the ships, and the endless train of
brown-sailed barges. No unseamanlike garden-seats dishonoured the quay
then, and strolling lovers sat on bollards or chains, or sat not at all.
Here came Johnny and Nora Sansom when the shrinking arc of daylight was
far and yellow in the west, and the Kentish hills away to the left grew
dusk and mysterious. The tide ran high, and tugs were busy. A nest of
them, with steam up, lay under the wharf wall to the right of the
pier-barge, waiting for work; some were already lighted, and, on the
rest, men were trimming the lamps or running them up, while a cheerful
glow came from each tiny cabin and engine-room. Rascal boys flitted
about the quays and gangways--the boys that are always near boats and
water, ever failing to get drowned, and ever dodging the pestered men who
try to prevent it.
The first star of the evening steadied and brightened, and soon was lost
amid other stars. Below, the river set its constellations as silently,
one after another, trembling and blinking; and meteor tugs shot across
its firmament, in white and green and red. Along shore the old Artichoke
Tavern, gables and piles, darkened and melted away, and then lit into a
little Orion, a bright cluster in the bespangled riverside. Ever some
new sail came like a ghost up reach out of the gloom, rounded the point,
and faded away; and by times some distant voice was heard in measured cry
over water.
They said little; for what need to talk? They loitered awhile near the
locks, and saw the turning Trinity light with its long, solemn wink,
heard a great steamer hoot, far down Woolwich reach. Now the yellow in
the sky was far and dull indeed, and a myriad of stars trembled over the
brimming river. A tug puffed and sobbed, and swung out from the group
under the wharf, beating a glistering tail of spray, and steaming off at
the head of a train of lighters. Out from the dark of Woolwich Reach
came a sailing-ship under bare spars, drawn by another tug. In the
middle of the river the ship dropped anchor, and the tug fell back to
wait, keeping its place under gentle steam.
They walked on the wharf, by the iron cranes, and far to the end, under
the windows of the abandoned Brunswick Hotel. Here they were quite
alone, and here they sat together on a broad and flat-topped old bollard.
Presently said Johnny, "Are you sorry for the dance now--Nora?" And lost
his breath at the name.
Nora--he called her Nora; was she afraid or was she glad? What was this
before her? But with her eyes she saw only the twinkling river, with the
lights and the stars.
Presently she answered. "I was very sorry," she said slowly . . . "of
course."
"But now--Nora?"
Still she saw but the river and the lights; but she was glad; timid, too,
but very glad. Johnny's hand stole to her side, took hers, and kept it.
. . . "No," she said, "not sorry--now."
"Say Johnny."
What was before her mattered nothing; he sat by her--held her hand. . . .
"Not sorry now--Johnny!"
Why came tears so readily to her eyes? Truly they had long worn their
path. But this--this was joy. . . . He bent his head, and kissed her.
The wise old Trinity light winked very slowly, and winked again.
So they sat and talked; sometimes whispered. Vows, promises, nonsense
all--what mattered the words to so wonderful a tune? And the eternal
stars, a million ages away, were nearer, all nearer, than the world of
common life about them. What was for her she knew now and saw--she also:
a new heaven and a new earth.
Over the water from the ship came, swinging and slow, a stave of the
chanty:--
"I'm a flying-fish sailor straight home from Hong-Kong--
Aye! Aye! Blow the man down!
Blow the man down, bully, blow the man down--
O give us some time to blow the man down!
Ye're a dirty Black-Baller just in from New York--
Aye! Aye! Blow the man down!
Blow the man down, bully, blow the man down--
O give us some time to blow the man down!"
Time went, but time was not for them. Where the tug-engineer, thrusting
up his head for a little fresh air, saw but a prentice-lad and his
sweetheart on a bollard, there sat Man and Woman, enthroned and exultant
in face of the worlds.
The ship swung round on the tide, bringing her lights square and her stem
for the opening lock. The chanty went wailing to its end:--
"Blow the man down, bully, blow the man down--
To my Aye! Aye! Blow the man down!
Singapore Harbour to gay London town--
O give us some time to blow the man down!"
The tug headed for the dock and the ship went in her wake with slow
state, a gallant shadow amid the blue.
Soon the tide stood, and stood, and then began its ebb. For a space
there was a deeper stillness as the dim wharves hung in mid-mist, and
water and sky were one. Then the air stirred and chilled, stars grew
sharper, and the Thames turned its traffic seaward.