London River

nt River a steamer called. Mrs. Williams did not see me, for her grey head was turned away. She was watching, a little down the street, an officer of the Merchant Service, wit

for the door-key, and the girl was laughing at his pretended lively nervousness in not finding it. Mrs. Williams ha

ee the bottles of sweet-stuff and the bundles of wood in the window, but to make out the large print of a bill stuck to a pane announcing a concert at the Wesleyan Mission Room. The lamp was alight also in the little beer-house next door to it, where the Shipping Gazette could be borrowed, if i

e glory of the sky's afterglow reflected on its wet pavements, as though briefly exalted with an unexpected revelation. The radiance died. Night came, and it was as if t

ou see that? That lamplighter! When Williams was at sea, and I was alone, it was quite hopeful when the lamplighter did that. It look

on his cap? My eyes were better than hers. She trusted it would be all right for them. They were starting very young. It was better to start young. She looked such a good little soul, that gir

ange for the worse. I don't know, I'm sure. He thinks nothing really good except the old days." She laughed quietly, bending to

e says he doesn't want to hear about them. What do they know about the sea? You know his way. What do they know about the sea? That's

t superior height, too slight for the task, ministered to the overcoat of the big figure which was making, all unconsciously, disdainful noises in its throat. It would have been worse than useless for me to interfere

artly folded, giving him the piercing look of a bird of prey; and the swarthiness of his face, massive, hairless, and acutely ridged, with its crown of tousled white hair, his was a figure which made it easy to b

concern the big petulant face above her. She said to him: "Number Ten

eard what he had been told. He did not look at her, but talked gravely to the fire. "I met Dennison today," he said, as if speaking aloud to himself, in surprise at meeting Dennison. "Years since I saw him," he continued, turning to me. "Wh

wife was at his elbow. She, too, was watching them, still with his coat over her arm. She spoke aloud, thoug

wife. "What's that? Let's have tea, Mrs. Williams. We're both dreaming, and t

per, the Oberon-it was central over the mantel-shelf-and recall her voyages, and the days in each voyage, and just how the weather was, what canvas she carried, and how thin

r in the Southern Ocean, when we got there, was like the death of the world. I was aware that we were under foresail, lower topsails, and stay-sails only, and they were too much. They were driving us under, and t

d the captain's wife once, when we we

ing his forefinger pointing to his old ship; thinking, perhaps,

d see her. He's been gone a week now. He must be crossing th

o listen to the immediate weather without. It was certa

ddressing the picture on the wall. "She means the man down the street. An engineer

tory act, hoping to lower the masts of the next astern deeper beneath the horizon, and to keep them there till he was off Blackwall Point. He then found he wanted to show me a lette

e behind the other, in processions. They have nothing to overcome. They do not fail, and they cannot triumph. They are predestined engines, and the sea is but their track. Yet it had been otherwise. And the old man would brood into the greater past, his voice would grow quiet, and he would gently emphasize his argument by letting one hand, from a fixed w

r eyes, as though she had just repelled that mean print in a malicious attempt at injury. Her husband took no notice. She handed me the paper, with a finger o

aughing at him. As I left the house I could see in the dusk, a little down the street, the girl stan