Chương Chương 54 · It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind

. It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind

blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. We

had our pea-coats with us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly

possessions I took no more than the few necessaries that filled the

bag. Where I might go, what I might do, or when I might return, were

questions utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mind with them, for

it was wholly set on Provis’s safety. I only wondered for the passing

moment, as I stopped at the door and looked back, under what altered

circumstances I should next see those rooms, if ever.

We loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood loitering there, as if

we were not quite decided to go upon the water at all. Of course, I had

taken care that the boat should be ready and everything in order. After

a little show of indecision, which there were none to see but the two

or three amphibious creatures belonging to our Temple stairs, we went

on board and cast off; Herbert in the bow, I steering. It was then

about high-water,—half-past eight.

Our plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down at nine, and being

with us until three, we intended still to creep on after it had turned,

and row against it until dark. We should then be well in those long

reaches below Gravesend, between Kent and Essex, where the river is

broad and solitary, where the water-side inhabitants are very few, and

where lone public-houses are scattered here and there, of which we

could choose one for a resting-place. There, we meant to lie by all

night. The steamer for Hamburg and the steamer for Rotterdam would

start from London at about nine on Thursday morning. We should know at

what time to expect them, according to where we were, and would hail

the first; so that, if by any accident we were not taken abroad, we

should have another chance. We knew the distinguishing marks of each

vessel.

The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the purpose was

so great to me that I felt it difficult to realise the condition in

which I had been a few hours before. The crisp air, the sunlight, the

movement on the river, and the moving river itself,—the road that ran

with us, seeming to sympathise with us, animate us, and encourage us

on,—freshened me with new hope. I felt mortified to be of so little use

in the boat; but, there were few better oarsmen than my two friends,

and they rowed with a steady stroke that was to last all day.

At that time, the steam-traffic on the Thames was far below its present

extent, and watermen’s boats were far more numerous. Of barges, sailing

colliers, and coasting-traders, there were perhaps, as many as now; but

of steam-ships, great and small, not a tithe or a twentieth part so

many. Early as it was, there were plenty of scullers going here and

there that morning, and plenty of barges dropping down with the tide;

the navigation of the river between bridges, in an open boat, was a

much easier and commoner matter in those days than it is in these; and

we went ahead among many skiffs and wherries briskly.

Old London Bridge was soon passed, and old Billingsgate Market with its

oyster-boats and Dutchmen, and the White Tower and Traitor’s Gate, and

we were in among the tiers of shipping. Here were the Leith, Aberdeen,

and Glasgow steamers, loading and unloading goods, and looking

immensely high out of the water as we passed alongside; here, were

colliers by the score and score, with the coal-whippers plunging off

stages on deck, as counterweights to measures of coal swinging up,

which were then rattled over the side into barges; here, at her

moorings was to-morrow’s steamer for Rotterdam, of which we took good

notice; and here to-morrow’s for Hamburg, under whose bowsprit we

crossed. And now I, sitting in the stern, could see, with a faster

beating heart, Mill Pond Bank and Mill Pond stairs.

“Is he there?” said Herbert.

“Not yet.”

“Right! He was not to come down till he saw us. Can you see his

signal?”

“Not well from here; but I think I see it.—Now I see him! Pull both.

Easy, Herbert. Oars!”

We touched the stairs lightly for a single moment, and he was on board,

and we were off again. He had a boat-cloak with him, and a black canvas

bag; and he looked as like a river-pilot as my heart could have wished.

“Dear boy!” he said, putting his arm on my shoulder, as he took his

seat. “Faithful dear boy, well done. Thankye, thankye!”

Again among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding rusty

chain-cables frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing buoys, sinking for the

moment floating broken baskets, scattering floating chips of wood and

shaving, cleaving floating scum of coal, in and out, under the

figure-head of the _John of Sunderland_ making a speech to the winds

(as is done by many Johns), and the _Betsy of Yarmouth_ with a firm

formality of bosom and her knobby eyes starting two inches out of her

head; in and out, hammers going in ship-builders’ yards, saws going at

timber, clashing engines going at things unknown, pumps going in leaky

ships, capstans going, ships going out to sea, and unintelligible

sea-creatures roaring curses over the bulwarks at respondent

lightermen, in and out,—out at last upon the clearer river, where the

ships’ boys might take their fenders in, no longer fishing in troubled

waters with them over the side, and where the festooned sails might fly

out to the wind.

At the stairs where we had taken him abroad, and ever since, I had

looked warily for any token of our being suspected. I had seen none. We

certainly had not been, and at that time as certainly we were not

either attended or followed by any boat. If we had been waited on by

any boat, I should have run in to shore, and have obliged her to go on,

or to make her purpose evident. But we held our own without any

appearance of molestation.

He had his boat-cloak on him, and looked, as I have said, a natural

part of the scene. It was remarkable (but perhaps the wretched life he

had led accounted for it) that he was the least anxious of any of us.

He was not indifferent, for he told me that he hoped to live to see his

gentleman one of the best of gentlemen in a foreign country; he was not

disposed to be passive or resigned, as I understood it; but he had no

notion of meeting danger half way. When it came upon him, he confronted

it, but it must come before he troubled himself.

“If you knowed, dear boy,” he said to me, “what it is to sit here

alonger my dear boy and have my smoke, arter having been day by day

betwixt four walls, you’d envy me. But you don’t know what it is.”

“I think I know the delights of freedom,” I answered.

“Ah,” said he, shaking his head gravely. “But you don’t know it equal

to me. You must have been under lock and key, dear boy, to know it

equal to me,—but I ain’t a-going to be low.”

It occurred to me as inconsistent, that, for any mastering idea, he

should have endangered his freedom, and even his life. But I reflected

that perhaps freedom without danger was too much apart from all the

habit of his existence to be to him what it would be to another man. I

was not far out, since he said, after smoking a little:—

“You see, dear boy, when I was over yonder, t’other side the world, I

was always a looking to this side; and it come flat to be there, for

all I was a growing rich. Everybody knowed Magwitch, and Magwitch could

come, and Magwitch could go, and nobody’s head would be troubled about

him. They ain’t so easy concerning me here, dear boy,—wouldn’t be,

leastwise, if they knowed where I was.”

“If all goes well,” said I, “you will be perfectly free and safe again

within a few hours.”

“Well,” he returned, drawing a long breath, “I hope so.”

“And think so?”

He dipped his hand in the water over the boat’s gunwale, and said,

smiling with that softened air upon him which was not new to me:—

“Ay, I s’pose I think so, dear boy. We’d be puzzled to be more quiet

and easy-going than we are at present. But—it’s a flowing so soft and

pleasant through the water, p’raps, as makes me think it—I was a

thinking through my smoke just then, that we can no more see to the

bottom of the next few hours than we can see to the bottom of this

river what I catches hold of. Nor yet we can’t no more hold their tide

than I can hold this. And it’s run through my fingers and gone, you

see!” holding up his dripping hand.

“But for your face I should think you were a little despondent,” said