And now, on this calm autumn evening the chains of fifteen years fell from him and the spirit of Edward Povey underwent a change. He began to think that it was a good, full world—a world in which there were more things and higher possibilities than the evil-smelling counting-house of Kyser, Schultz & Company. He told himself that he had wasted nearly a quarter of a century.
The city was settling to quietude under a pall of smoky opal. The warehouses and buildings stood out gaunt and grey. The river flowing under the railway arches up-stream was splashed with the glory of the setting sun, little elusive reflections showing blood-red on the muddy water. Edward had crossed London Bridge for many years, but he did not remember ever having seen a sunset there.
Clapham! The world was bigger than Clapham.—Forty years of age! Why, it was the prime of a man's life, rather before the prime, in fact. Edward stopped, there was no hurry to-night, and leant over the parapet of the bridge. Below him, on the wharf, they were unloading a tramp steamer of boxes of fruit. The men swarming like ants up the long gangways were carrying on their backs light crates. One of these boxes had come apart and lay on the grimy deck shedding a little pool of golden oranges. The clatter of winches, the jangling of cranes, all served to make up a picture of life and movement that appealed strongly to the man who was leaning over the stone balustrade. He could read the name on the stern of the boat, "Isabella—Barcelona."
There were other boats too, and barges, huddling together as though for warmth like little chickens in an incubator. The bascules of the Tower Bridge, showing dimly in the haze, were being raised to let a white-funneled steamer that was cautiously sidling out into mid-stream slip down to the sea. Two men were working vigorously with long poles, guiding a barge laden with straw out of her way. Edward Povey watched her, telling himself that in a few hours she would be making her way down Channel or breasting the waves in the North Sea. Later she would be in some palm-fringed Southern port, or perhaps amid the romantic islands and fjords of the North.
He wished that he, too, could go abroad, that he too could slide out of London on the dingy bosom of Father Thames. He longed to breathe the large airs of the ocean, to feel the sting of the salt spray, and to reach the places blazoned so bravely forth in gold letters upon the sterns below him. Barcelona, for instance, spoke of sunny skies and indolence and romance, and he felt a great pity for the surging masses of which he had so lately been one, who pushed past him with never a glance for the river or the sunset, or for the Isabella from Barcelona.
A light tap on his shoulder brought him out of his reverie, to see the genial face of Mr. Kyser, the other partner of the firm to whom he had been correspondence clerk for so many years. Edward had never had much to do with the junior partner, but what small relations they had had seemed to be touched with more humanity than was the case with Mr. Schultz.
"——and so you are leaving us, Mr. Povey?" Kyser was saying.
"Yes, sir, I——"
"Well, Povey, I'm sorry, yes, I'm sorry; but there, I can't interfere with what Mr. Schultz does, it's his department, you know, but I didn't want to pass you without a handshake. Let me see, you live at Clapham, don't you?"
Edward Povey nodded.