MR. ROWE ON BARGE-WOMEN—THE RIVER—NINE ELMS—A MYSTERIOUS
NOISE—ROUGH QUARTERS—A CHEAP SUPPER—JOHN'S BERTH—WE MAKE OUR
ESCAPE—OUT INTO THE WORLD.
Mr. Rowe is quite right. A canal is nothing to a river.
There was a wide piece of water between us and one of the banks now,
and other barges went by us, some sailing, some towing only, and two
or three with women at the rudder, and children on the deck.
"I wouldn't have my wife and fam'ly on board for something!" said Mr.
Rowe grimly.
"Have you got a family, Mr. Rowe?" I inquired.
"Yes, sir," said the barge-master. "I have, like other folk. But women
and children's best ashore."
"Of course they are," said I.
"If you was to turn over in your mind what they _might_ be good for
now," he continued, with an unfathomable eye on the mistress of a
passing canal-boat, "you'd say washing the decks and keeping the pots
clean. And they don't do it as well as a man—not by half."
"They seem to steer pretty well," said I.
"I've served in very different vessels to what I'm in now," said Mr.
Rowe, avoiding a reply, "and I _may_ come as low as a monkey-barge and
coal; but I'm blessed if ever I see myself walk on the towing-path and
leave the missus in command on board."
At this moment a barge came sailing alongside of us.
"Oh look!" cried Fred, "it's got a white horse painted on the sail."
"That's a lime barge, sir," said Mr. Rowe; "all lime barges is marked
that way."
She was homeward bound, and empty, and soon passed us, but we went at
a pretty good pace ourselves. The wind kept favourable, a matter in
which Fred and I took the deepest interest. We licked our fingers, and
held them up to see which side got cooled by the breeze, and whenever
this experiment convinced me that it was still behind us, I could not
help running back to Fred to say with triumph, "The wind's dead aft,"
as if he knew nothing about it.
At last this seemed to annoy him, so I went to contain myself by
sitting on the potato-tub and watching the shore.
We got into the Thames earlier than usual, thanks to the fair wind.
The world is certainly a very beautiful place. I suppose when I get
right out into it, and go to sea, and to other countries, I shall
think nothing of England and the Thames, but it was all new and
wonderful to Fred and me then. The green slopes and fine trees, and
the houses with gardens down to the river, and boats rocking by the
steps, the osier islands, which Mr. Rowe called "Aits," and the
bridges where the mast had to be lowered, all the craft on the
water—the red-sailed barges with one man on board—the steamers with
crowded decks and gay awnings—the schooners, yachts, and pleasure
boats—and all the people on shore, the fishers, and the people with
water-dogs and sticks, the ladies with fine dresses and parasols, and
the ragged boys who cheered us as we went by—everything we saw and
heard delighted us, and the only sore place in my heart was where I
longed for Rupert and Henrietta to enjoy it too.
Later on we saw London. It was in the moonlight that we passed
Chelsea. Mr. Rowe pointed out the Hospital, in which the pensioners
must have been asleep, for not a wooden leg was stirring. In less than
half-an-hour afterwards we were at the end of our voyage.
The first thing which struck me about Nine Elms was that they were not
to be seen. I had thought of those elms more than once under the
burning sun of the first day. I had imagined that we should land at
last on some green bank, where the shelter of a majestic grove might
tempt Mr. Rowe to sleep, while Fred and I should steal gently away to
the neighbouring city, and begin a quite independent search for
adventures. But I think I must have mixed up with my expectations a
story of one of the captain's escapes—from a savage chief in a
mango-grove.
Our journey's end was not quite what I had thought it would be, but it
was novel and interesting enough. We seemed to have thoroughly got to
the town. Very old houses with feeble lights in their paper-patched
windows made strange reflections on the river. The pier looked dark
and dirty even by moonlight, and threw blacker and stranger shadows
still.
Mr. Rowe was busy and tired, and—we thought—a little inclined to be
cross.
"I wonder where we shall sleep!" said Fred, looking timidly up at the
dark old houses.
I have said before that I find it hard work to be very brave after
dark, but I put a good face on the matter, and said I dared say old
Rowe would find us a cheap bedroom.
"London's an awful place for robbers and murders, you know," said
Fred.
I was hoping the cold shiver running down my back was due to what the
barge-master called "the damps from the water"—when a wail like the
cry of a hurt child made my skin stiffen into goose-prickles. A wilder
moan succeeded, and then one of the windows of one of the dark houses
was opened, and something thrown out which fell heavily down. Mr. Rowe
was just coming on board again, and I found courage in the emergency
to gasp out, "What was that?"
"Wot's wot?" said Mr. Rowe testily.
"That noise and the falling thing."
"Somebody throwing, somethin' at a cat," said the barge-master. "Stand
aside, sir, _if_ you please."
It was a relief, but when at length Mr. Rowe came up to me with his
cap off, in the act of taking out his handkerchief, and said, "I
suppose you're no richer than you was yesterday, young gentlemen—how
about a bed?"—I said, "No—o. That is, I mean if you can get us a
cheap one in a safe—I mean a respectable place."
"If you leaves a comfortable 'ome, sir," moralized the barge-master,
"to go a-looking for adventures in this fashion, you must put up with
rough quarters, and wot you can get."
"We'll go anywhere you think right, Mr. Rowe," said I diplomatically.
"I knows a waterman," said Mr. Rowe, "that was in the Royal Navy like
myself. He lives near here, and they're decent folk. The place is a
poor place, but you'll have to make the best of it, young gentlemen,
and a shilling 'll cover the damage. If you wants supper you must pay
for it. Give the missis the money, and she'll do the best she can, and
bring you the change to a half-farthing."
My courage was now fully restored, but Fred was very much overwhelmed
by the roughness of the streets we passed through, the drunken,
quarrelling, poverty-struck people, and the grim, dirty old houses.
"We shall be out of it directly," I whispered, and indeed in a few
minutes more Mr. Rowe turned up a shabby entry, and led us to one of
several lower buildings round a small court. The house he stopped at
was cleaner within than without, and the woman was very civil.
"It's a very poor place, sir," said she; "but we always keep a berth,
as his father calls it, for our son John."
"But we can't take your son's bed," said I; "we'll sit up here, if you
will let us."
"Bless ye, love," said the woman, "John's in foreign parts. He's a
sailor, sir, like his father before him; but John's in the merchant
service."
Mr. Rowe now bade us good-night. "I'll be round in the morning," said
he.
"What o'clock, Mr. Rowe?" I asked; I had a reason for asking.
"There ain't much in the way of return cargo," he replied; "but I've a
bit of business to do for your father, Mr. Fred, that'll take me until
half-past nine. I'll be here by then, young gentlemen, and show you
about a bit."
"It's roughish quarters for you," added the bargemaster, looking
round; "but you'll find rougher quarters at sea, Master Charles."
Mr. Howe's moralizings nettled me, and they did no good, for my whole
thoughts were now bent on evading his guardianship and getting to sea,
but poor Fred was quite overpowered. "I wish we were safe home again,"
he almost sobbed when I went up to the corner into which he had
huddled himself.
"You'll be all right when we're afloat," said I.
"I'm so hungry," he moaned.
I was hungry myself, and decided to order some supper, so when the
woman came up and civilly asked if she could do anything for us before
we went to bed, I said, "If you please we're rather hungry, but we
can't afford anything very expensive. Do you think you can get us
anything—rather cheap—for supper?"
"A red herring?" she suggested.
"What price are they?" I felt bound to inquire.
"Mrs. Jones has them beautiful and mild at two for a penny. You _can_
get 'em at three a penny, but you wouldn't like 'em, sir."
I felt convinced by the expression of her face that I should not, so I
ordered two.
"And a penny loaf?" suggested our landlady, getting her bonnet from
behind the door.
"If you please."
"And a bunch of radishes and a pint of fourpenny would be
fivepence-half-penny the lot, sir."
"If you please. And, if you please, that will do," said I, drawing a
shilling from the bag, for the thought of the herrings made me
ravenous, and I wanted her to go. She returned quickly with the bread,
and herrings. The "fourpenny" proved to be beer. She gave me
sixpence-half-penny in change, which puzzled my calculations.
"You said _fourpenny_," said I, indicating the beer.
"Yes, sir, but it's a pint," was the reply; and it was only when in
after-years I learned that beer at fourpence a quart is known to some
people as "fourpenny" that I got that part of the reckoning of the
canvas bag straight in my own mind.
The room had an unwholesome smell about it, which the odour from our
fried herrings soon pleasantly overpowered. The bread was good, and
the beer did us no harm. Fred picked up his spirits again; when Mr.
Rowe's old mate came home he found us very cheerful and chatty. Fred
asked him about the son who was at sea, but I had some more important
questions to put, and I managed so to do, and with a sufficiently
careless air.
"I suppose there are lots of ships at London?" said I.
"In the Docks, sir, plenty," said our host.
"And where are the Docks?" I inquired. "Are they far from you?"
"Well, you see, sir, there's a many docks. There's the East India
Docks, St. Katharine's Docks, and the Commercial Docks, and Victoria
Dock, and lots more."
I pondered. Ships in the East India Dock probably went only to India.
St. Katharine conveyed nothing to my mind. I did not fancy Commercial
Docks. I felt a loyal inclination towards the Victoria Dock.
"How do people get from here to Victoria Dock now, if they want to?" I
asked.
"Well, of course, sir, you can go down the river, or part that way and
then by rail from Fenchurch Street."
"Where is Fenchurch Street, Mr. Smith?" said I, becoming a good deal
ashamed of my pertinacity.
"In the city, sir," said Mr. Smith.
The city! Now I never heard of any one in any story going out into the
world to seek his fortune, and coming to a city, who did not go into
it to see what was to be seen. Leaving the king's only daughter and
those kinds of things, which belong to story-books, out of the
question, I do not believe the captain would have passed a new city
without looking into it.
"You go down the river to Fenchurch Street—in a barge?" I suggested.
"Bless ye, no, sir!" said Mr. Smith, getting the smoke of his pipe
down his throat the wrong way with laughing, till I thought his
coughing-fit would never allow him to give me the important
information I required. "There's boats, sir, plenty on 'em. I could
take you myself, and be thankful, and there's steamers calls at the
wharf every quarter of an hour or so through the day, from nine in the
morning, and takes you to London Bridge for threepence. It ain't many
minutes' walk to Fenchurch Street, and the train takes you straight to
the Docks."
After this we conversed on general seafaring matters. Mr. Smith was
not a very able-bodied man, in consequence of many years' service in
unhealthy climates, he said; and he complained of his trade as a
"poor one," and very different from what it had been in his father's
time, and before new London Bridge was built, which "anybody and
anything could get through" now without watermen's assistance. In his
present depressed condition he seemed to look back on his seafaring
days with pride and tender regret, and when we asked for tales of his
adventures he was checked by none of the scruples which withheld Mr.
Rowe from encouraging me to be a sailor.
"John's berth" proved to be a truckle-bed in a closet which just held
it, and which also held more nasty smells than I could have believed
there was room for. Opening the window seemed only to let in fresh
ones. When Fred threw himself on his face on the bed, and said, "What
a beastly hole!" and cried bitterly, I was afraid he was going to be
ill; and when I had said my prayers and persuaded him to say his and
come to bed, I thought that if we got safely through the night we
would make the return voyage with Mr. Rowe, and for the future leave
events and emergencies to those who liked danger and discomfort.
But when we woke with the sun shining on our faces, and through the
little window beheld it sparkling on the river below us, and on the
distant city, we felt all right again, and stuck to our plans.
"Let's go by the city," said Fred, "I should like to see some of the
town."
"If we don't get off before half-past nine we're lost," said I.
We found an unexpected clog in Mr. Smith, who seemed inclined to stick
to us and repeat the stories he had told us overnight. At about
half-past eight, however, he went off to his boat, saying he supposed
we should wait for Mr. Rowe, and when his wife went into a neighbour's
house I laid a shilling on the table, and Fred and I slipped out and
made our way to the pier.
Mr. Rowe was not there, and a church clock near struck nine. This was
echoed from the city more than once, and then we began to look
anxiously for the steamer. Five, ten minutes must have passed—they
seemed hours to me—when I asked a man who was waiting also when the
steamer from London Bridge would come.
"She'll be here soon," said he.
"So will old Rowe," whispered Fred.
But the steamer came first, and we went on board; and the paddles
began to splash, and our escape was accomplished.
It was a lovely morning, and the tall, dirty old houses looked almost
grand in the sunlight as we left Nine Elms. The distant city came
nearer and shone brighter, and when the fretted front of the Houses
of Parliament went by us like a fairy palace, and towers and blocks of
buildings rose solidly one behind another in shining tints of white
and grey against the blue summer sky, and when above the noise of our
paddle-wheels came the distant roar of the busy streets—Fred pressed
the arm I had pushed through his and said, "We're out in the world at
last!"