‘And sometimes I think a soul was gi’ed them with the blows.’
When the barge _Osprey_ berthed at Fleetwick Quay to unload stones for
our roads we went on board, and took our old friend Elijah Wadely, the
skipper, into our confidence.
’Ef yaou’re a goin’ to buy a little ould barge, sir,’ said Elijah,
‘what yaou wants to know is ’er constitootion. My meanin’ is, ef yaou
knaow who built she, yaou’ll know ef she was well built; and ef yaou
knaow what trade she’s bin’ in you can learn from that. Naow ef she’s
a carryin’ wheat, or any o’ them grains, what must be kept dry,
yaou’ll knaow she can’t be makin’ any water, or _do_, she ’ouldn’t be
a carryin’ ’em. Then agin, water don’t improve cement, and that’s a
cargo what’s wonnerful heavy on a barge is cement, and ef bags is
spoilt that’s a loss to the skipper, that is. So you can take it that
barges what carry same as grain and oilcake and cement and bricks and
such-like is mostly good too.
‘And when yaou knaows what she’s bin a carryin’ yaou wants to know
where she’s bin a carryin’ it to; for some berths is good and some is
wonnerful bad, specially draw-docks,[2] and what sort of condition
she’s in is all accordin’ to where she’s bin a settin’ abaout. I’ve
knaowed many a barge strain herself settin’ in a bad berth, whereas a
barge of good constitootion settin’ in the same berth will maybe wring
a bit and make water for a trip or two, but she’ll take up agin. Yes,
sir, ef yaou’re a goin’ to buy a little ould barge--and there ain’t a
craft afloat as ’ud make a better ’ome, as my missis ’as said scores
o’ times--yaou must study ’er constitootion.’
[2] Berths on the river bed, where carts come alongside at low
water to unload the barges.
‘How’s trade, Lijah?’
‘Well, sir, I’ve bin bargin’ forty years, and I don’t fare to remember
when times was so bad in bargin’ afore.’
‘What do you think we could get a decent 120-ton barge for, Lijah,
supposing we wanted a big one?’
‘I doubt yaou ’ont get ’un under five or six hundred paounds. Yaou
see, sir, what bit o’ trade there is them bigger barges same as 120
tons and up’ards gits, for they on’y carries two ’ands same as we,
what can on’y carry 95 ton, though by rights they ought to carry a
third ’and.’
‘Do you think we could get a sound 90 tonner for two hundred pounds,
because that’s the size we’ve practically decided on?’
‘I don’t want to think nawthen about that, I _knaow_ yaou can. Why,
on’y last week the _Ada_ was sould for one ’undred and sixty pound, as
good a little ould thing as any man ever wanted under ’im. But yaou
wants to be wonnerful careful-like in buyin’ a barge. Yaou know that,
sir, as well as I do, and my meanin’ is there’s barges and barges. As
I was a tellin’ yer, yaou wants to know her constitootion first, and
then yaou wants to knaow her character. Yaou don’t want to take up
with a craft what yaou can’t press a bit, or what’ll bury ’er jowl or
keep all on a gnawin’ to wind’ard or ’ont lay at anchor easy or is
unlucky in gettin’ run into.’
‘Why, you’re not superstitious, are you, Lijah?’
‘No, no, sir. I’m on’y tellin’ yer there’s barges and barges. Look at
this little ould _Osprey_, sir. Yaou can see she’s got a new bowsprit.
Well an’ that’s the third time she’s bin in trouble since yaou’ve
knaowed she, ain’t it? We’d just come off the loadin’ pier at Southend
to make room for another barge, and we layed on that ould moorin’
under the pier right agin the foot of the beach ready for the mornin’s
high water. Well, she took the graound all right, for she d’ent on’y
float there about faour hours out of the twelve, and I went belaow to
turn in for a bit. She ’adn’t barely flet when I felt her snub, and
there was a barge atop ’o she and aour bowsprit gone. I knaow wessels
has laid on that ould moorin’ for the last twenty year, and never
ain’t heard tell of one bein’ in trouble afore.
‘Soon as we’d got t’other barge clear, I went up and tould the guvnor.
“Lijah,” ’e says, “ef I was to put that little ould _Osprey_ in my
back-yard she’d get run into.” Yes, that’s the truth, that is; you
can’t leave that ould barge anywhere, no matter where that is, but the
ould thing’ll have suthen atop o’ she. And what’s more, the guvnor’s
lost every case he’s took up on ’er so far, though he was allus in the
right.
‘Naow the _Alma_, what my wife’s cousin Bill Stebbins is skipper of,
is all the other way raound. That ould thing’s bin run into twice
since Bill’s had ’er, once on her transom and once on her port side
just abaft the leeboards, and there warn’t no law case nor nawthen,
but each time the party what done it agreed on a sum and paid it, and
the ould thing made money over it for ’er guvnor.
‘I once see’d the _Alma_ do a thing what I wouldn’t ’ave believed not
if forty thaousand people told me. She was a layin’ in Limehouse
reach, stackloaded and risin’ to abaout twenty fathom o’ chain. There
was a strong wind daown, and she was a sheered in towards the shore.
Bill’s mate was a goin’ ashore for beer, and I ’eard Bill tellin’ ’im
to ’urry up. I knaowed why he tould the mate to be quick, because that
blessed ould ebb was running wonnerful ’ard, and sometimes that’ll
frickle abaout and make a barge take a sheer aout, and p’raps break
her chain, which barges do sometimes in the London River. Well,
suddenly I seed that little ould _Alma_ sheer right off into the river
and snub up with a master great jerk what pulled her ould head raound
agin. Then I see’d ’er with her chain up and daown a drivin’ straight
for the laower pier, where I reckoned she’d be stove in or suthen, and
there was Bill alone on board as ’elpless as a new-born babe, as the
sayin’ is, for a’ course ’e couldn’t lay aout no kedge nor nawthen by
’isself.
‘Well, as true as I’m a settin’ ’ere that lucky ould thing come a
drivin’ athwart till she fetches into the eddy tide below the upper
pier, and then she goes away to wind’ard, although there was a strong
wind daown, mind yer, till she fetches up alongside another barge, the
_Mabel_, what was a layin’ there, and all Bill ’ad to do was to pass
the _Alma’s_ stay fall raound the _Mabel’s_ baow cleat and back agin.
Yes, sir, that was the head masterpiece that ever I did see.’
A few days afterwards we happened to see the _Norah Emily_ down in the
mouth of our river. This was the barge commanded by Bill Stebbins, the
former skipper of the _Alma_. We took a rather mischievous pleasure in
going on board to find out whether Bill Stebbins would confirm all
Elijah had told us. We fancied that Elijah would have spoken more
circumspectly about the unfailing luck of the _Alma_, if he had
guessed that Bill was likely to come round our way. But our doubts
soon became remorse. Elijah was vindicated.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Bill, ‘that ould _Alma_ was the luckiest ould basket
ever built; that d’ent matter where yaou left she, she d’ent never git
into trouble. There was faour on us once’t a layin’ in the middle
crick below the Haven, the _Lucy_, the _Susan_, the _Fanny_, and my
little ould _Alma_. We had to wait our turn at the quay for loadin’
straw, so the mate and me went off home for a day or two. Well, that
come on to blaow suthen hard, that did, and all they there barges was
in some kind of trouble, but the _Alma_ she just stayed where she were
and d’ent come to no manner o’ harm.
‘Then agin, same as in the London docks, yaou ast any barge skipper
yaou like haow long a barge can lay there without a lighter or a tug
or suthen wantin’ she to shift. None the more for that, I’ve bin,
there plenties o’ times with that little ould _Alma_, and she warn’t
niver in no one’s way. I remember off Pickford’s wharf, Charing Cross,
we ’ad to shift to make room for another barge. I ’ad to goo off to
fix up another freight, but reckoned to be back by six o’clock, so I
tould the mate to git a hand to help shift she and make fast in case I
warn’t back tide-time. Well, arter I got my freight I meets one or two
friends, and what with one thing and another, I den’t git back till
eleven o’clock o’ night. I couldn’t find that mate, or, _do_, I’d a
given he suthen, for there was that blessed ould thing made fast with
a doddy bit o’ line no bigger’n yaour finger, whereas by rights she
ought to have had three or faour of aour biggest ropes to hold she
from slippin’ daown the wind. Anyway, there she lay end on just right
for slippin’ off, and niver even offered to move. As yaou knaow, sir,
scores and scores o’ barges ’av bruk the biggest rope they carry that
way and gone slidin’ daown the wind. The _Mary Jane_ did, just above
Bricklesey[3] on the way to Toozy,[4] and buried her ould jowl that
deep in the mud on t’other side of the gut that I was skeered she
wasn’t goin’ to fleet.
[3] Brightlingsea.
[4] St. Osyth.
‘But there y’are, that _Mary Jane_ ’ouldn’t never set anywhere where
any other barge would; and ef her rope was strong enough she’d have
tore the main cross chock or anything else aout o’ she. That’s the
masterousest thing, that is, but I s’pose that’s all accordin’ to the
way her bottom is. But that ould _Alma_--well, I’ve heard plenties o’
times afore I took she what a lucky bit o’ wood she were. Look at
here, sir. We was up Oil Mill Crick by Thames Haven there and the wind
straight in, and us had a bit o’ bad luck comin’ aout, for us stuck on
that slopin’ shelf o’ mud right agin the salts there. I felt wonnerful
anxious, for there warn’t three foot to spare, and ef she’d a slipped
off she’d a bruk ’erself to pieces. I don’t reckon any other barge
’ud have hild on there, but that ould _Alma_ did. She just set up
there same as a cat might on a table.
‘In Shelly Bay, too, just above the Chapman Light, she done a thing
what no other barge ’ould have done. Us couldn’t let goo our anchor
where us wanted to, as there was another barge, the _Louisa_, agin the
quay. I had to goo off to see the guvnor, so I ast the skipper o’ the
_Louisa_ to give my mate a hand when the _Louisa_ come off, for a
course the _Alma_ hadn’t got near enough chain aout. Well, that bein’
a calm then my mate tould the skipper o’ the _Louisa_ not to trouble,
as he warn’t goin’ to shift till the mornin’. That bein’ a calm then
warn’t to say that ’ud be a calm in the mornin’; and it warn’t, for
that come on to blaow a strorng hard wind straight on shore.
‘That ould thing begun to drag her anchor, but as soon as ever her
ould starn tailed on to that beach her anchor hild, and she lay head
on to the sea as comfortable as yaou could want to be. There ain’t a
mite o’ doubt but what ninety-nine barges out ’er a hundred ’ud have
paid off one way or t’other, and come ashore broadside on and done
some damage, for there’s a nasty swell comes in there.’
* * * * *
Barges came and went in our river. We inspected some at the quay, and
sailed down in the _Playmate_ to talk to the skippers of others. We
soon learned enough about barges to fill a book. We heard how the day
the _Invicta_ was launched she ran into another vessel and her
skipper’s hand was badly cut; how his wife tried (in the Essex phrase)
to ‘stench’ the bleeding; how the skipper swore that the ship would be
unlucky, as blood had fallen on her on the day she was launched; and
how the wife herself died on board on the third trip. We heard of good
barges and bad, of lucky barges and unlucky; of barges that would
always foul their anchors, and others that never did; of barges that
would carry away spars or lose men overboard, or break away from their
berths, and of others that were as gentle as doves.
[Illustration: BARGES AT AN ESSEX MILL]
It seemed that barges are much like human beings; when young, they can
stand strains and do heavy work which they have to give up when
middle-aged. If they have a weakness of constitution it reveals itself
when they are young; but having passed the critical age, they settle
down to a long useful life, and it is not uncommon for them to be
still at work after fifty or sixty years. But the most important
result of our researches was the universal opinion that a sound 90
tonner was to be got at our price.
At least, that was the most important fact from my point of view; but
I ought in truthfulness to say that while I had been making notes
likely to help me to buy a good barge with a sound constitution, the
Mate had looked upon our accumulated information from a different
angle, and had been giving her attention to barges’ characters.
I might have foreseen this, for she always looked on the _Playmate_ as
a living thing. She has the feeling of the bargemen, who say of an old
vessel, ’Is she still alive?’ I was not prepared, however, for her to
tell me that, however sound a barge might be, I was not to buy her
unless her character was good. I argued in vain.
‘Do you think I would be left with the children on board a barge like
the _Osprey_, always being run into? Or like the _Mildred_, always
dragging her anchor? Or the _Charlotte_, who has thrown two men
overboard? Not I!’
I pointed out that she had so successfully acquired the spirit of
barging that she was evidently made for the life. The suggestion was
received with favour. We were indeed now so deep in the business that
we were beyond recall. Nothing remained but to choose our particular
90 tonner with a good character.