第46章

Between the crowded houses of Gravesend and the monstrous red-brick pile on the Essex shore the ship is surrendered fairly to the grasp of the river.That hint of loneliness, that soul of the sea which had accompanied her as far as the Lower Hope Reach, abandons her at the turn of the first bend above.The salt, acrid flavour is gone out of the air, together with a sense of unlimited space opening free beyond the threshold of sandbanks below the Nore.The waters of the sea rush on past Gravesend, tumbling the big mooring buoys laid along the face of the town; but the sea-freedom stops short there, surrendering the salt tide to the needs, the artifices, the contrivances of toiling men.Wharves, landing-places, dock-gates, waterside stairs, follow each other continuously right up to London Bridge, and the hum of men's work fills the river with a menacing, muttering note as of a breathless, ever-driving gale.The water-way, so fair above and wide below, flows oppressed by bricks and mortar and stone, by blackened timber and grimed glass and rusty iron, covered with black barges, whipped up by paddles and screws, overburdened with craft, overhung with chains, overshadowed by walls making a steep gorge for its bed, filled with a haze of smoke and dust.

This stretch of the Thames from London Bridge to the Albert Docks is to other watersides of river ports what a virgin forest would be to a garden.It is a thing grown up, not made.It recalls a jungle by the confused, varied, and impenetrable aspect of the buildings that line the shore, not according to a planned purpose, but as if sprung up by accident from scattered seeds.Like the matted growth of bushes and creepers veiling the silent depths of an unexplored wilderness, they hide the depths of London's infinitely varied, vigorous, seething life.In other river ports it is not so.They lie open to their stream, with quays like broad clearings, with streets like avenues cut through thick timber for the convenience of trade.I am thinking now of river ports I have seen - of Antwerp, for instance; of Nantes or Bordeaux, or even old Rouen, where the night-watchmen of ships, elbows on rail, gaze at shop-windows and brilliant cafes, and see the audience go in and come out of the opera-house.But London, the oldest and greatest of river ports, does not possess as much as a hundred yards of open quays upon its river front.Dark and impenetrable at night, like the face of a forest, is the London waterside.It is the waterside of watersides, where only one aspect of the world's life can be seen, and only one kind of men toils on the edge of the stream.

The lightless walls seem to spring from the very mud upon which the stranded barges lie; and the narrow lanes coming down to the foreshore resemble the paths of smashed bushes and crumbled earth where big game comes to drink on the banks of tropical streams.

Behind the growth of the London waterside the docks of London spread out unsuspected, smooth, and placid, lost amongst the buildings like dark lagoons hidden in a thick forest.They lie concealed in the intricate growth of houses with a few stalks of mastheads here and there overtopping the roof of some four-story warehouse.

It is a strange conjunction this of roofs and mastheads, of walls and yard-arms.I remember once having the incongruity of the relation brought home to me in a practical way.I was the chief officer of a fine ship, just docked with a cargo of wool from Sydney, after a ninety days' passage.In fact, we had not been in more than half an hour and I was still busy making her fast to the stone posts of a very narrow quay in front of a lofty warehouse.

An old man with a gray whisker under the chin and brass buttons on his pilot-cloth jacket, hurried up along the quay hailing my ship by name.He was one of those officials called berthing-masters -not the one who had berthed us, but another, who, apparently, had been busy securing a steamer at the other end of the dock.I could see from afar his hard blue eyes staring at us, as if fascinated, with a queer sort of absorption.I wondered what that worthy sea-dog had found to criticise in my ship's rigging.And I, too, glanced aloft anxiously.I could see nothing wrong there.But perhaps that superannuated fellow-craftsman was simply admiring the ship's perfect order aloft, I thought, with some secret pride; for the chief officer is responsible for his ship's appearance, and as to her outward condition, he is the man open to praise or blame.

Meantime the old salt ("ex-coasting skipper" was writ large all over his person) had hobbled up alongside in his bumpy, shiny boots, and, waving an arm, short and thick like the flipper of a seal, terminated by a paw red as an uncooked beef-steak, addressed the poop in a muffled, faint, roaring voice, as if a sample of every North-Sea fog of his life had been permanently lodged in his throat: "Haul 'em round, Mr.Mate!" were his words."If you don't look sharp, you'll have your topgallant yards through the windows of that 'ere warehouse presently!" This was the only cause of his interest in the ship's beautiful spars.I own that for a time Iwas struck dumb by the bizarre associations of yard-arms and window-panes.To break windows is the last thing one would think of in connection with a ship's topgallant yard, unless, indeed, one were an experienced berthing-master in one of the London docks.

This old chap was doing his little share of the world's work with proper efficiency.His little blue eyes had made out the danger many hundred yards off.His rheumaticky feet, tired with balancing that squat body for many years upon the decks of small coasters, and made sore by miles of tramping upon the flagstones of the dock side, had hurried up in time to avert a ridiculous catastrophe.Ianswered him pettishly, I fear, and as if I had known all about it before.

"All right, all right! can't do everything at once."He remained near by, muttering to himself till the yards had been hauled round at my order, and then raised again his foggy, thick voice:

"None too soon," he observed, with a critical glance up at the towering side of the warehouse."That's a half-sovereign in your pocket, Mr.Mate.You should always look first how you are for them windows before you begin to breast in your ship to the quay."It was good advice.But one cannot think of everything or foresee contacts of things apparently as remote as stars and hop-poles.