Once fairly up among the war-ships at Chatham, the Rob Roy anchors by the Powder Magazine, and while a waterman rows away for the usual supplies—“Two eggs, pat of butter, and the ‘Times’”—we inspect the Royal Engineers as they are engaged alongside at pontooning, and are frequently pulled up by the command of a smart sergeant—“Eyes—right,” for they will take furtive glances at my dingey gyrating so as they had never seen boat spin round before. This comment on the dingey’s shape was ventured, too, “It’s for hall the world like ’alf a hegg.”
Pushing on again, still up the river, the Rob Roy had to beat against an east wind all through the densely packed brigs and barges in the narrow bend at Rochester, where the difficulty of working her added zest to the journey, and now and then a resounding crash from some great barge drifting down against other vessels, told me that not every one of the craft was as fortunate in navigation as the yawl. Before us is the Cathedral, but it is far too stiff in its sharp outline to arrest the eye for a moment. On the other side, the fine old weatherworn and time-eaten Castle rears its great tower, and challenges a long and satisfying look, especially as this was the only ancient ruin we had seen in the tour, and so there had long been a yearning in the mind for such, just as there is when you travel in Norway or America, until at last the hunger for old things becomes ravenous and intolerable.
The yawl’s mast will be able to pass under the bridge, for the tide is low, and beyond it now we are in sunny green fields, and sailing on smoothly amid quiet villages, rich pastures, and the exuberant hop-grounds of thoroughly English Kent.
Three boys bathing from a boat came near, and for a treat we took them on board, while their hair dripped wet and their teeth chattered fast after too long a swim, but they had read the name on my white flag, and they had also read two canoe books, and so for miles they devoured all that was said and shewn on the yawl; then thanking much because they were “awfully glad,” and they rowed home. How pleasant it is to give pleasure to boys!
The Rob Roy got aground only once in this trip above the bridge, and that only for five minutes, which, except the bump on a rock at Bembridge, was her sole mishap of this sort, an immunity quite extraordinary from the seaman’s dreaded foe, the shore. The barges that were now floating up the crowded Medway interested me exceedingly, and acquaintance was readily made with their inhabitants almost every day for the next three weeks, until it became evident that “Barge Life” is a stratum of society quite as full of character and incident as any other, and wide open for examination by those who would study a genus of mankind very little known. Large and important duties are entrusted to these men; rich cargoes are committed to their honesty and skill; families live on barges by thousands, [280] and the coasting journey of a barge is by no means an easy thing or a dull one.
We must not judge of them by those great black boxes full of coals, that float on the water above London Bridge, with one man and a long oar, and yet even a coal barge is worth watching. In the dank mist of a dull November evening it will drift unseen past the Temple Gardens. Wonderful sounds launch into the fog from an invisible shouter on board, whose “Tom” or “Bill” on a wharf ashore instantly knows the call, and answers. Then there is a colloquy loud, and public in the extreme, yet utterly private in its meaning to any one besides the two who are talking. It is only paralleled by the shrill interjections of London street boys calling to each other across the Strand, of which the grown-up public cannot make out one syllable, but which the stratum below them, of three feet high, is perfectly contented with, discerning every word.
The barges that trade to the Medway are fine, strong sea-boats; their sailing qualities are excellent, and they are improved every year by a regatta specially for them, where forty gay-dressed, bluff and burly craft compete for prizes. In this match the utmost of skill, sharpened by years of river sailing, is shewn in the wind and tide, and knowledge of intricate channels, and among such competitors “fouling is fair.”
As the yawl glides on the water among hayricks and whetting scythes, one of these gallant barges floated beside us with the name on its stern—S.E.C.P.T.E.R.—dubious in import, we allow, whether it means that the stout matter-of-fact lighter has been christened as a shadowy ghost, or a royal symbol. The veriest urchin steers her, with a little fat hand on the heavy tiller twelve feet long, and a hunch of good rye-bread in his other fist. Now and then he sings out in a thin soprano, “Fayther, boat’s a’ead,” and his father, (hidden below), answers deep-toned, from the cabin, “Keep ’er away, lad.” From him I asked, “How old is your boy?” and the parent’s head popped up to see, but it was the child that smartly answered, “Eight years old.” He looked five. Round the next reach the barge bears down, and shakes her sails in the wind to arrest progress a little. They have come near home, but not to stop. It is only their country house, and up steps the bargee mother from out her small boudoir in the cabin below, and jumping heavily into a boat, she pulls ashore to where a little girl is meekly waiting ready for orders—“Get the fish directly, Hagnes,” and the daughter runs off fleetly and back soon, and the mother is speedily aboard again—all this marketing being done while the barge has been drifting slowly past, and then her sails are filled to continue the voyage.
Night fell, and the yawl anchored by a soft green field, with the bowsprit among the rushes. Bright furnaces for lime and plaster works show here and there around, and they roared and blazed up fitfully with waving jets of flame, like the iron works in Shropshire, while the reflections glittered on the river, and reddened long reaches in a glow. The barges kept streaming by in the dark laden with rich commerce, and merry, singing crews—a very curious scene. To them the Rob Roy, of course, looked quite as strange, and one hailed us gruffly—“Who’re you?” answer, “I’m the Rob Roy!”—“What in the world did you come here for?” “To look at the beautiful lights on your river.” In a murmuring grumble, he said to that, “Too many on ’em there is—we can’t see where we’re goin’ with them;” and this is indeed perfectly true, for the light of these furnaces dazzles by its brightness, which is not diffused, whereas if no lights were there at all, the men could see well enough, for it is marvellous how the eye will perceive at least the bounds between land and water, when practice sharpens keen vision and no false light is shining. It is, however, quite true also, that the language of the barge-world is not to be found complete in Johnson’s dictionary. It is far more powerful than elegant. Words that are unused ashore except in anger or the coarsest abuse seem to be the gentle appellations of endearment between father and son afloat. But we must not forget that it is the meaning attached to a word by speaker and hearer, and not that given to it by a world outside of both, which the word will represent. [284]
From the highest point we could reach towards Maidstone, we soon ran down again to Rochester, and various were the conflicting verdicts of bargees as to whether or not my mast would now go under the bridge, for the tide was very high, and I sailed back and forward, getting opinions, and surveying the bridge on all sides. At length I determined it could be done, and my heart beat nervously as the yawl neared the centre arch—not as to danger, but the dishonour of breaking a goodly spar at the end of a cruise, and in so trumpery a feat. It passed clear, however, by inches.