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Great Emergency, a fiction by Juliana Horatia Ewing |
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Chapter 11 |
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_ CHAPTER XI 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.
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!" _ |
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