DOWN IN THE MARSHES.
Comparatively few of those who nowadays run down to Southend for a
breath of fresh air give a thought to the fact that the wide stretch of
low country lying between the railroad and the Thames, from Pitsea to
Leigh, was at one time, and that not so many centuries back, a mud flat,
a continuation of the great line of sand that still, with but a short
break here and there, stretches down beyond Yarmouth; still less that,
were it not for the watchfulness of those who dwell upon it, it would in
a short time revert to its original condition, the country lying below
the level of higher water.
Along the whole face of the river run banks--the work, doubtless, of
engineers brought over by Dutch William--strong, massive, and
stone-faced, as they need be to withstand the rush and fret of the tide
and the action of the waves when, as is often the case, the east wind
knocks up ridges of short, angry water in Sea Reach. Similarly, the
winding creeks are all embanked, but here dams of earth are sufficient
to retain within its bounds the sluggish water as it rises and falls.
Standing on any of these, the farmhouses and little homesteads lie
below, their eaves for the most part level with the top of the bank,
though there are a few knolls which rise above the level of the tidal
water.
The most conspicuous objects are the brown sails of the barges, which
seem to stand up in the midst of the brownish-green fields, the hulls
being invisible. This cannot be called marsh land, for the ground is
intersected by ditches, having sluices through which they discharge
their water at low tide. Very fertile is the land in some spots,
notably in Canvey Island, where there are great stretches of wheat and
broad meadows deep with rich waving grass; but there are other places
where the grass is brown and coarse, showing that, though the surface
may be hard and dry, water lies not far below. Here a few cattle gather
a scanty living, and the little homesteads are few and far between. Most
of the houses are placed near the banks of the creeks. The barges serve
as their wagons, and carry their hay up to London and bring down manure
and other things required, or carry coal and lime to the wharves of
Pitsea.
A rare place was this in the old smuggling days, and indeed until quite
lately the trade was carried on, though upon a reduced scale. Vessels
drifting slowly up the river would show a light as they passed a barge
at anchor or a bawley hanging to its trawl, a light would be shown in
answer, and a moment later a boat would row off to the ship, and a score
of tubs or a dozen bales of tobacco be quickly transferred, and before
morning the contents would be stowed in underground cellars in some of
the little farmhouses on the creeks, or be hidden away in the Leigh
marshes.
"Will Bill be in to-night with the barge?" a child asked a woman, as he
came down from the bank to a not uncomfortable-looking homestead ten
yards from its foot.
"I told you that you are to call him uncle," the woman said sharply, but
not unkindly. "I have told you so over and over again, child."
"I generally do now, but one forgets sometimes."
"There is never any saying"--the woman went on in reply to his
question--"there is never any saying; it all depends on tide and wind.
Sometimes they have to anchor and lose a tide, or maybe two. Sometimes
they get a cargo directly they get into the Pool or at Rochester;
sometimes they wait two or three days. They have been away four days
now; they might have been here yesterday, but may not come till
to-morrow. One thing is certain, whenever he do come he will want
something to eat, and I hope that they will bring it with them, for
there is nothing here but bread and bacon."
"And do you think that I shall soon go home again, aunt?"
"There is no saying," the woman said evasively. "You are very
comfortable here, aint you?"
"Oh, yes! There are the dogs and the ducks and the chickens, and uncle
says that he will take me sometimes for a sail with him in the barge."
"Yes, I expect it won't be long first. You know, I used to go with him
regular till, as I have told you, my little Billy fell overboard one
night, and we knew nothing of it until he was gone, and I have never
liked the barge since. Besides, I have plenty to do here. But I am going
across to Rochester very soon. It's a good place for shopping, and I
want groceries and little things for myself and more things for you. I
will take you with me, but you will have to promise to be very good and
careful."
"I will be careful," the child said confidently, "and you know that
uncle said that when spring comes he will teach me to swim; and I shall
like that, and if I tumble overboard it won't matter. He says that when
I get a few years older I shall go with him regularly, and learn to
steer and to manage the sails. I shall like that; but I should like to
go back sometimes to see Hilda and Netta and my grandpapa."
"Well, well, my dear, we will see about it; they can't take you at
present. I think that they have gone away traveling, and may not be back
for a long time. And mind, you know you are not to talk about them. Just
when you are here with me I don't care; but you know uncle does not like
it, and if anyone asks, you must say just what he told you, that your
father and mother are dead, and that Uncle Bill has took you."
"I shan't forget," the boy said. "I never do talk about it before him;
it makes him angry. I don't know why, but it does."
"But he is always kind to you, Jack?"
"Oh, yes, he is very kind, and he often brings me things when he comes
back; he brought me my dear little kitten. Pussy, where have you hidden
yourself? Puss! puss!" And in answer a little ball of white fur bounded
out from behind a chair, and the child was soon engaged in a game of
romps with it.
"It is a shame!" the woman said, as she watched them; "I don't mind the
other things, but I never liked this. I wonder who the poor little chap
is. By the way he talked when he first came, about his home and his
nurse and horses and carriages, his friends must be rich people. Bill
has never understood why they wanted to get rid of him; but I suppose
that he was in somebody's way, and, as he never speaks of his father and
mother, but only of those two girls and his grandfather, who seems to
have been an invalid, I expect that he must have lost his father and
mother before he can remember. Well, he will be right enough here; I
should miss him dreadful if he were to go away; he seems to have taken
the place of my little Billy. And Bill takes to him, too, wonderfully.
He said the other day that when the boy grew up he would buy a barge, a
new one of the best kind, and that some day it should be the boy's own.
So he won't do so bad, after all."
A stranger would have wondered at the comfort in the interior of the
little farmhouse. The land round it was very poor. Three horses--which
seemed as if they had nothing to do but to nibble the coarse grass--and
a couple of cows wandered about on a few acres of land, inclosed by deep
water ditches; a score or two of ducks and geese paddled in the mud in
the bottom of the creek at low tide, or swam about in the water when it
was up; and a patch of garden ground, attended to chiefly by the woman,
surrounded the cottage. But all this would have afforded a scanty living
indeed, were it not that the master, Bill Nibson, was the owner of the
_Mary Ann_ barge, an old craft with a somewhat dilapidated sail, which
journeyed up and down the river with more or less regularity, laden, for
the most part, with manure, hay, lime, bricks, or coal. This he
navigated with the aid of a lad of fourteen, a waif, whose mother, a
tramp, had died by the roadside one bitter cold night four years before.
Bill had been summoned on the coroner's jury and had offered to take the
boy.
"I can do with him on board the barge," he said; "he is only a little
nipper now, but in a year or two he will be useful. The boy I have got
wants to go to sea, and I shan't be sorry to get rid of him; he is
getting too knowing for me altogether."
As no one else wanted the boy he was handed over to Bill, and was now a
sharp lad, who, never having been instructed in the niceties of right
and wrong, and being especially ignorant that there was any harm in
cheating Her Majesty's Customs, was in all things a useful assistant to
his master. He had, indeed, very soon imbibed the spirit, not uncommon
among the dwellers on the marshes, that if managed without detection,
the smuggling of tobacco and spirits was a meritorious action,
advantageous to the community at large, and hurting no one except that
mysterious and unknown entity, the queen's revenue. He was greatly
attached to Bill, and took an occasional thrashing as a matter of
course; regarding him as having saved him from the workhouse and having
put him in a fair way of making a man of himself.
The next day at twelve o'clock the child, playing on the bank, ran in
and reported that Joshua was coming along the bank, and in a few minutes
the boy appeared.
"Morning, missis," he said. "Master sent me on to say that the barge got
into the haven this morning, and that she will come on with the evening
tide. He sent me on with this lump of meat, and these rokers he got from
a bawley which came in just as we were getting up sail off Grain Spit.
He says he has got a barrel of beer on board, that he will land as he
passes. He will be along about nine o'clock. Well, Jack, how are you?"
"I am all right," the child said, "and so is Kitty. I am glad that you
are back. How long are you going to stay?"
"I suppose that it will take us a couple of days to unload. Master is
going as usual to hire a couple of men to get the line out, so I shall
be over here by breakfast. He says that I may as well do a job of
digging in the garden, as he wants to get some things in before we get
frosty nights. Have you any message for him, missis?"
"You can tell him he may as well get a dish of eels from one of the
Dutchmen there. I suppose there is one in the haven?"
"Two of them, missis; he will be able to get them, for one of them is
the _Marden_, and the skipper has always let master have some, though he
won't sell an eel to anyone else."
"Is there any business to be done?" the woman asked significantly.
The boy nodded.
"All right; tell him that I will get the horses in."
The child was put to bed upstairs at seven o'clock, although he in vain
petitioned to be allowed to stop up until the barge came along. He
already knew, however, by experience, that his request was not likely to
be granted, as when the barge came along after dark he was always put to
bed, the woman telling him that Bill didn't like him to be up when he
came in, as he wanted to have a talk with her in quiet, and to eat his
supper in peace.
An hour after dark the woman went out onto the bank and listened. In a
quarter of an hour she heard the rattle of a block in the distance. She
went down, stirred up the fire, and put on the kettle, and in twenty
minutes the barge came along. The boat, instead of towing behind as
usual, was alongside.
"You take her on, Joshua," its owner said, as he quietly got into the
boat; "run in where the water is deep alongside, a quarter of a mile
this side Pitsea. I will come along and get on board there as soon as I
have finished this job. Keep a sharp lookout on the banks; some of the
coastguardsmen may be about. If they hail you and ask if I am on board,
say I landed as we passed here, to have a cup of tea, and that I shall
not be five minutes."
Then he pushed the boat to shore. "Well, Betsy, how are you? I have got
twenty kegs here, and five or six hundredweight of tobacco. I will get
it up the bank, and you had better stow it away at once; I will lend you
a hand as soon as it is all up."
As fast as he could carry the kegs up the banks she slipped slings round
them, two at a time, hooked them to a milkmaid's yoke, and went off with
them to a shed which served as a stable and cowhouse in the winter.
Against this was a rick of hay. Putting the kegs down she returned for
more, and by the time that they were all in the stable her husband had
finished his share of the work and had carried the heavy bales of
tobacco to the shed. The three horses were already there.
"Are you going to take them out at once?"
"No, not until I come back. I must get on board the barge as soon as
possible. We will bundle them all in, in case any of those fellows
should come along."
Three planks were removed from the side of the shed next to the stack,
and an opening was seen. Some turf was taken up and a trapdoor exposed.
The kegs and tobacco were speedily carried down into a large cellar, the
trapdoor was closed, and the boards placed securely in position and
fastened by six long screws. Then they returned to the house. The teapot
and cups were on the table, the kettle was boiling, and in two or three
minutes they were taking tea. Scarcely had they begun their meal when
there was a knock at the door. Bill got up and opened it, and two
coastguards entered.
"We saw there was a light burning, and thought that you might be here,
Bill. The wind is bitter cold."
"Come in and have a cup of tea or a glass of rum, whichever you like
best. As you say, the wind is bitter cold, and I thought that I would
land and have a cup of tea. I shall catch the barge up before she gets
to Pitsea."
The coastguardsmen accepted the offer of a cup of tea, glancing
furtively round the room as they drank it.
"It is good tea."
"'Tis that," Bill said, "and it has never paid duty. I got it from an
Indiaman that was on the Nore three weeks ago. She transshipped part of
her cargo on my barge and floated next tide. It was one of the best jobs
I've had for some time, and stood me in fifty pounds and a pound or two
of tea."
"Perhaps a chest of it!" one of the men said with a laugh.
"Well, well, I am not sure that it was not a chest. I like my cup of
tea, and so does Betsy; and there is no getting tea like this at
Stanford."
They chatted for about ten minutes, when Bill remarked, "I must be
going," and they went out together, and taking his place in his boat he
rowed up the creek, while the coastguards continued their walk along the
bank.
"He is not a bad 'un, Tom," one of them said. "I guess he is like a good
many of the others, runs a keg occasionally. However, his place has been
searched half a dozen times, and nothing has been found. We have drunk
many a glass of ale with him at the 'Lobster Smack' at Hole Haven, and I
am sure I don't want to catch him unless there is some information to go
on. The barge passed us half an hour ago, and I knew that it was no use
looking in her, but of course when the boatswain said this afternoon,
'Just follow that barge when she gets under way, and see if she goes on
to Pitsea,' we had to do it; but the boat was late for us where the
creek branches off round the island, and before we were across he must
have got more than half an hour's start of us. And I am not sorry, Tom.
We have got to do our duty, but we don't want to be at war with every
good fellow on the marshes."
"Right you are, Dick; besides, they are as slippery as eels. Who can
tell what they have got under their lime or manure? Short of unloading
it to the bottom there would be no finding it, if they had anything;
and it is a job that I should not care for. Besides, there aint no place
to empty it on; and we could not go and chuck a cargo overboard unless
we were quite certain that we should find something underneath. As you
say, I dare say Bill runs a keg or two now and then, but I don't suppose
that he is worse than his neighbors; I have always suspected that it was
he who left a keg of whisky at our door last Christmas."
In the meantime Bill had overtaken his barge, and they soon had her
alongside of the little wharf at Pitsea.
"Tide is just turning. She will be aground in half an hour," he said.
"As soon as you have got these mooring ropes fastened, you had better
fry that steak and have your supper. I shall be over by seven o'clock in
the morning. If Harvey and Wilson come alongside before that, tell them
they can have the job at the usual price, and can set to work without
waiting for me. It will be pretty late before I am in bed to-night."
It was over a mile walk back to his cottage. As soon as he arrived he
sat down to a hearty supper which his wife had prepared for him. He then
got three pack-saddles out of the cellar, put them on the horses, and
fastened four kegs on each horse. Tying one behind the other, he
started, and in an hour the kegs were stowed in the cellars of four
farmers near Stanford. It was midnight before he returned home. At
half-past six he was down to breakfast.
"Well, uncle, how are you?" he asked the child, who was already up.
"I am not your uncle," the boy replied; "you are my uncle."
"Ah, well, it's a way of speaking down here. It does not mean that
anyone is one's uncle; it is just a way of speaking."
The child nodded. He was learning many things.
"Then it is a way of speaking when I call you uncle?"
"No, no! That is different. A child like you would not call anyone
uncle unless he was uncle; while a man my age calls anyone uncle."
"That is funny, isn't it?"
"Well, I suppose, when you think of it, it is; but, as I said, it is a
way we have in this part of the country. Well, mother, have you got that
fish nearly fried?"
"It will be ready in five minutes. This roker is a very thick one. I put
it on as soon as I heard you stirring, and it is not quite ready yet.
That was a pretty near escape last night, Bill."
"Yes; but, you see, they can hardly catch us unless they send men down
in the afternoon. They cannot get along from the station without passing
two or three creeks; and coming along with the tide, especially when
there is a breath of wind to help her, we can do it in half the time.
You see, I always get the things out from under the cargo and into the
boat as we come along, so that the barge shall not be stopped."
"But they might send down a boat from the Thames Haven station, Bill."
"Yes; but then they don't know when the barge is in, or when it is going
to start. So we get the best of them in that way. Besides, they have a
good bit to go along the river face, and they have to cross a dozen deep
cuts to get there. No, I have no fear of them, nor of the others either,
as far as that goes. I have more than once had a word dropped, meant to
put me on my guard, and instead of landing the things here have dropped
them in a deep hole in the creek, where I could pick them up the next
night I came in. Things have changed with us for the better, lass. Five
years ago we had pretty hard work, with the farm and the old boat, to
live at all comfortable; but since I have got into the swim things have
changed with us, and I can tell you that I am making money hand over
fist. I allow that there is a certain risk in it, but, after all, one
likes it all the better for that. If the worst came to the worst they
could but confiscate the old barge; if they gave me a heavy fine I could
pay it, and if they gave me six months I could work it out, and buy a
new barge and half a dozen farms like this on the day I came out."
"But the other would be more serious, Bill?"
"Well, yes; but I don't see any chance of that being found out. A gent
comes to me at a spot we have settled on, say on the road halfway
between Pitsea and Stanford; he hands me a box, sometimes two; I puts
them on one of the horses, and rides over here with them; then I stows
them away in that secret place off the store, where there aint a shadow
of a chance of the sharpest-eyed coastguardsman ever finding them. They
would be too delighted to light on the spirits and bacca to think of
digging up the floor underneath. There they lie, till I take them down
to the _Marden_. They put them into the eel tank, and next morning off
she sails."
"But you have had heavy cases brought once or twice?"
"Only once--heavy enough to be troublesome. Ten cases there was then,
each as heavy as a man could lift. It took me three journeys with three
horses, and I had to dig a big hole in the garden to bury them till the
_Marden_ had got rid of her eels, and was ready to sail again. Yes, that
was a heavy job, and I got a couple of hundred pounds for my share of
the business. I should not mind having such a job twice a week. A few
months of that, and I could buy the biggest farm on this side of
Essex--that is to say, if I could make up my mind to cut it and settle
down as a farmer."
"You will never do that, Bill; but you might settle down in Rochester,
and buy half a dozen barges, with a tip-top one you would sail yourself.
You might have a couple of men and a cabin forward, and a nice roomy
place for yourself and me aft; and you could just steer when you liked,
or sit down and smoke your pipe and watch her going through the fleet as
we worked through the swatchway. That would be more your sort, Bill, and
mine too. I know you have money enough laid by to get such a barge."
"That is so, Betsy. I allow that I could do that. I have been thinking
of it for some time, but somehow or other one never works one's self up
to the right point to give it all up of a sudden and cut the old place.
Well, I suppose one of these days I shall do it, if it is only to please
you."
"It would please me, you know, Bill. I don't see no harm in running the
kegs or the bacca--it's what the people about here have been doing for
hundreds of years--but I don't like this other business. You don't know
what is in the cases, and you don't ask, but there aint much difficulty
in guessing. And I don't much like this business of the child. I did not
like it at all at first; but when I found that he had no father nor
mother as he knew of, and so it was certain that no one was breaking
their heart about him, I did not mind it; and I have taken to him, and
he has pretty nearly forgotten about his home, and is as contented as if
he had been here all his life. I have nothing more to say about him,
though it is as certain as eggs is eggs that it has been a bad business.
The boy has been cheated out of his money, and if his friends ever find
him it is a nice row that we shall get into."
"You need not bother yourself about that," the man said; "he aint more
likely to be found here than if he was across the seas in Ameriky. We
have had him near nine months now, and in another three months, if you
were to put him down in front of his own house, he would not know it.
Everyone about here believes as he is my nevvy, the son of a brother of
yours who died down in the Midlands, and left him motherless. No one
asks any questions about him now, no more than they does about Joshua.
No, no; we are all right there, missis; and the hundred pounds that we
had down with him, and fifty pounds a year till he gets big enough to
earn his own grub on the barge, all helps. Anyhow, if something should
happen to me before I have made up my mind to quit this, you know where
the pot of money is hidden. You can settle in Rochester, and get him
some schooling, and then apprentice him to a barge-owner and start him
with a barge of his own as soon as he is out of his time. You bear it in
mind that is what I should like done."
"I will mind," she said quietly; "but I am as likely to be carried to
the churchyard as you are, and you remember what I should like, and try,
Bill, if you give up the water yourself, to see that he is with a man as
doesn't drink. Most of the things we hears of--of barges being run down,
and of men falling overboard on a dark night--are just drink, and
nothing else. You are not a man as drinks yourself; you take your glass
when the barge is in the creek, but I have never seen you the worse for
liquor since you courted me fifteen years ago, and I tell you there is
not a night when you are out on the barge as I don't thank God that it
is so. I says to myself, when the wind is blowing on a dark night, 'He
is anchored somewheres under a weather shore, and he is snug asleep in
his cabin. There is no fear of his driving along through it and carrying
on sail; there is no fear of his stumbling as he goes forward and
pitching over'; and no one but myself knows what a comfort it is to me.
You bring him up in the same way, Bill. You teach him as it is always a
good thing to keep from liquor, though a pint with an old mate aint
neither here nor there, but that he might almost as well take poison as
to drink down in the cabin."
"I will mind, missis; I like the child, and have got it in my mind to
bring him up straight, so let us have no more words about it."