At every mooring-chain and rope, at every stationery boat or barge that split the current into a broad-arrowhead, at the offsets from the piers of Southwark Bridge, at the paddles of the river steamboats as they beat the filthy water, at the floating logs of timber lashed together lying off certain wharves, his shining eyes darted a hungry look. After a darkening hour or so, suddenly the rudder-lines tightened in his hold, and he steered hard towards the Surrey shore.
Always watching his face, the girl instantly answered to the action in her sculling; presently the boat swung round, quivered as from a sudden jerk, and the upper half of the man was stretched out over the stern.
The girl pulled the hood of a cloak she wore, over her head and over her face, and, looking backward so that the front folds of this hood were turned down the river, kept the boat in that direction going before the tide. Until now, the boat had barely held her own, and had hovered about one spot; but now, the banks changed swiftly, and the deepening shadows and the kindling lights of London Bridge were passed, and the tiers of shipping lay on either hand.
It was not until now that the upper half of the man came back into the boat. His arms were wet and dirty, and he washed them over the side. In his right hand he held something, and he washed that in the river too. It was money. He chinked it once, and he blew upon it once, and he spat upon it once,—′for luck,′ he hoarsely said—before he put it in his pocket.
′Lizzie!′
The girl turned her face towards him with a start, and rowed in silence. Her face was very pale. He was a hook-nosed man, and with that and his bright eyes and his ruffled head, bore a certain likeness to a roused bird of prey.
′Take that thing off your face.′
She put it back.
′Here! and give me hold of the sculls. I′ll take the rest of the spell.′
′No, no, father! No! I can′t indeed. Father!—I cannot sit so near it!′
He was moving towards her to change places, but her terrified expostulation stopped him and he resumed his seat.
′What hurt can it do you?′
′None, none. But I cannot bear it.′
′It′s my belief you hate the sight of the very river.′
′I—I do not like it, father.′
′As if it wasn′t your living! As if it wasn′t meat and drink to you!′
At these latter words the girl shivered again, and for a moment paused in her rowing, seeming to turn deadly faint. It escaped his attention, for he was glancing over the stern at something the boat had in tow.
′How can you be so thankless to your best friend, Lizzie? The very fire that warmed you when you were a babby, was picked out of the river alongside the coal barges. The very basket that you slept in, the tide washed ashore. The very rockers that I put it upon to make a cradle of it, I cut out of a piece of wood that drifted from some ship or another.′
Lizzie took her right hand from the scull it held, and touched her lips with it, and for a moment held it out lovingly towards him: then, without speaking, she resumed her rowing, as another boat of similar appearance, though in rather better trim, came out from a dark place and dropped softly alongside.
′In luck again, Gaffer?′ said a man with a squinting leer, who sculled her and who was alone, ′I know′d you was in luck again, by your wake as you come down.′
′Ah!′ replied the other, drily. ′So you′re out, are you?′
′Yes, pardner.
© e-libr.com
feedback