The bridge was now at hand. Over the parapet to the left, and considerably below them, long rows of lights, illuminating the walls and doorways of life-deserted warehouses, filled with merchandise from all parts of the world, pointed out the site of that thronged and noisy gully Thames Street. Before them, farther on, lost in mist, and yet lingering smoke, which gave to sky, buildings, and water, one common neutral colour, rose beyond the water one solitary tower, looming darker than all around it, but relieved still farther back by a flush of dull, mysterious light, which, though it showed nothing distinctly, yet emphatically marked the existence, to an undefined extent, of many an unseen mass of building like that by which they were immediately surrounded. And now they are on the bridge alone. It is not yet five. The sight is magnificent. Behold these two sides of a mighty city separated by a scarcely-seen gulf, on which streams of light, reflected from night-lamps afar off, ripple as though so many of the pillars of fire that lighted the Israelites of old were on the waves. Up the great stream, or down it,—the uprear-ing of men's hands,—house, church, and palace appear alike illimitable. All those mean and minor details, which confound the eye and distract the attention during daylight, are now swallowed up and resolved into one broad whole. The dense and unmeasured mass of building which meets the sight every way, seems resolved into a solid. Line on line and height on height extending away till lost utterly in the far obscurity of the void horizon. Without any great strain of the imagination this scene might be mistaken for a splendid dream of Tyre or Palmyra, or of Babylon on the Euphrates, great cities of old, whose giant memories loom in the mind as images that cannot be fully compassed from their very vastness. While under our feet flows the ghastly river, the dull, deceptive stream that has borne on its bosom the wealth of kingdoms; that has found in its bed a thousand last resting-places for human misery, when the link that bound unhappiness and life together became too galling to be any more endured; and that in its stormy wrath has swallowed happiness suddenly, when jollity forgot in its temporary delirium that boats are frail, and that but a slender plank, which a wave might founder, stood between itself and a deep grave.
As Colin cast a scrutinizing eye around, in the hope of meeting with his appointed and unknown correspondent, the city clocks far and near, some together, and some after each other, chimed five. Almost with the last stroke of the bell footsteps were heard rising upon the city side of the bridge. A bricklayer s labourer, with a short pipe in his mouth, passed by; and then a woman,—if woman she could be called,—torn, dirty, and deplorable to look upon, staggering forwards under the influence of the last night's excesses: but neither made a sign. Behind them followed an old man, roughly clad in the costume of the poorer classes of the residents of our country villages, saving that a long coat supplied the place of smock-frock, while his nether extremities were finished off with quarter boots, tightly laced up to the ankles with leathern thongs.
An unaccountable feeling, which displayed itself in his flushed features, shot through Colin's veins as the first momentary sight of this man came across him. Had he seen him before? It almost seemed so; but when? where? on what occasion?
The old man hesitated a moment or two as he gazed on Colin, and then cast a searching glance around, in order to ascertain whether he was alone. The figure of Mr. Lupton was dimly visible at some distance. Colin leaned idly against the wall with his eyes fixed intently on the old man, who now again approached him. In another moment the sign was made—the cross in the air—and our hero advanced and accosted him.
“I believe, sir, you wish to speak to me: you sent a letter addressed to me a short time ago.”
“Nay—nay, now!” replied the old man, “what occasion have you to tell me that? If I wrote you a letter I know it without your explanation; and your appearance here is a sufficient assurance to me that you have duly received it. Do you know who I am?”
“I do not,” said Colin, “though it seems to me as though I had seen you before somewhere or other.”
“Humph! well—well!” exclaimed the old man, “then you are now talking to old Jerry Clink, your own grandfather.”
“Your name Clink!” ejaculated the young man, astonished, “and my grandfather!”
“Now, why ask me again? Hav'n't I just now answer'd 'em. And if you can't believe me the first time, I 'm sure you won't on a repetition.”