Wondering whether Molly told the truth when she declared that she had
never been false since the last parting at Wapping Old Stairs, and
forming our own opinion upon the matter in a way decidedly unfavourable
towards the trowsers washing, grog-making lady, in consequence of
comparisons made with the feline damsels lurking at the corners of the
courts, I came to an open door. Then without pausing to think that
comparisons are odious, I confronted a pluffy-looking old gentleman
busily engaged in building leaning Towers of Pisa with the bronze
coinage of our realm. He was a gentleman of a subdued jovial expression
of countenance, evidently not overburdened with toil, from the jaunty
way in which he shifted from his left to his right foot, took my penny
and allowed the turnstile to give its "click, click;" when passing
through a pair of swing doors, I stood in a sort of dirty-looking
whispering gallery, gazing down upon what appeared to be a sham chalet,
minus the stones upon the roof. Right, left, and in front were painted
views of sea-ports and landscapes, all looking like the dark half of
that portrait exhibited by the gentleman who cleans and restores
paintings; while assailing the nostrils was a peculiar odour something
like the essence of stale theatre bottled and buried for many years in a
damp cellar.
But there were stairs innumerable to descend before I could enter the
famed tunnel of the Thames; and then, after a rat like progress,
re-appear in Rotherhithe.
Lower, lower, lower, with a sense of depression attacking one at every
step, I persevered till I reached the bottom, to be assailed by a loud
man sitting in the gas-lit chalet, which displayed the well-known lens
of the popular penny peep-show of our youth. And 'twas even so, for in
a wild _crescendo_, which rose to a roar when refusing to listen to the
voice of the charmer I passed on, the land man called upon me to come
and see "all these beautiful views" for the low charge of one penny.
And I wouldn't.
No; though his appeal ended with a regular snap, and came after me like
the voice of the giant from his cave when longing for John Bunyan's
pilgrims--I would not; but entered the cellar-like tunnel, and stood
gazing along the gloomy, doleful vista, made doubly depressing by the
stringent order that no smoking was allowed. Why it would have been a
blessing to the place; and done a little at all events to take off the
cellary flavour which greeted the palate. For the place was decidedly
cellary, and looked as if a poor tenant had just quitted the house
above, leaving nothing but a cleanly-swept place without vestige of wine
or coal.
Dull, echoing, and gloomy, a place where the suction power of a
pneumatic engine would be a blessing, it was melancholy to peer through
arch after arch at the side tunnel, now turned into a large lumber room;
while at about every second or third arch there was a gas-lit stall,
where melancholy, saddened people presided over divers subfluvial
ornaments, ranged in rows with a few dreary toys--evidently things which
nobody ever bought, for their aspect was enough to startle any
well-regulated child. They seemed the buried remains of playthings and
chimney ornaments of the past--the very fossils of a Camberwell fair
stall. Upon one gloomy pillar was inscribed "Temple of Amusement;" but
no amusement was there; while, if the words had announced that it was
the chamber of torture, less surprise would have been excited.
Amusement! in a place that actually smelt of racks, thumbscrews, and
scavenger's daughters; ay! and of the parent scavenger as well.
At every gas-lit spot one expected to see coffins, from the crypt-like
pillars and smells; but, no; where there was not a dreary, whitewashed
blank, appeared another stall. On one appeared the notice, "_Hier
spricht man Deutsche_." Yes, it was a fact, "_Deutsche_," and not a
ventriloquistal tongue, a bowels of the earth speech, as gnomish.
On still, till there was a cellar vista front and rear, and a sensation
upon one of having been in a railway accident, and escaped into the
tunnel, while with a shiver one listened for the noise of the
approaching trains, and paused to see whether of the lines, up or down,
'twas on. And now an oasis in the great desert. "Refreshments!" a real
refreshment room in the long cellar. The first refreshment was for the
eye, and that organ rested upon funereal yew decorating the vault-like
aisle, while paper roses starred its gloomy green. And the refreshments
for the internal economy? There were cards with names of wines upon
them, and a melancholy person, most un-Ganymedean of aspect; but who
could eat or drink in so depressing a spot, without forced in such a
nether region to partake of a diabolical dish presented hot by a tailed
imp, and consisting of brimstone, _sans_ treacle?
Again onward, and more refreshments: a coffee room where coffee was not,
and the place savouring of mushroom spawn. And again onward, to be
startled by an apparition, back from his arch, a very gnome, busy at
some fiery task--of what? Glassblowing, and spinning strange silky
skeins from his glowing light.
More stalls, more Tunbridge and alabaster fossils, more echoes, more
commands not to smoke, more gas light, and more desolate-looking people.
Had I an enemy I would delude him into speculating in a stall below
there; and then laugh in triumph at the wreck he would soon become, for
this must be the home of melancholy mania. And now I stood at last in
the southern approach, almost a fac-simile of its Wapping brother: the
same smell, the same staircases, the same pictures, but no chalet. So
back I turned to make my escape at the other end, which I reached in
safety, passed the giant in his cave, a monster who lives upon the
bronze extracted from unwary passers-by; and then reaching the top of
the many stairs I stood once more gazing at the mouldy pictures, and the
foul, fungus-furred wall. Fancy the pictures of the four seasons facing
you in an atmosphere which resembled the whole four boiled down, and
then served up skimmed, while the pot has boiled over furiously, so as
to mingle hydrogen in excess with the smell.
Then with the shout of the chalet giant lingering in my ears, and a
sensation as though I were an English Tam O' Shanter on foot, with the
ghosts of all the poor wretches drowned while making the ghastly bore in
full pursuit, I passed through the moving doors which said "way out;"
composed myself; and walked calmly through the egress turnstile, though
the pluffy man looked at me as if he thought I had burglarious
intentions, and ought to be searched for fossil pincushions; and then I
stood once more in the full light of day.
Of course if ever I travel by East London Line in days to come, I must
resign myself to fate, and allow my person to be whistled and shrieked
through; but saving such an occasion as that, in the words of Jerry
Cruncher, I say--"Never no more--never no more," will I venture through
the melancholy cellar; while in my own I say, that I'll wager that no
man dare walk through at the stilly midnight hour, with the gas
extinguished, and none to hear him while he hurries his echoing steps--
at least I'm sure that I would not.