THE RIVER 



stream, black as their freight, by the horses that are 

 nibbling the hawthorn hedge ; while by the wharf, 

 labourers are wheeling barrows over bending planks 

 from the barges to the carts upon the shore. A 

 tug comes under the bridge, panting, every puff 

 re-echoed from the arches, dragging by sheer force 

 deeply laden flats behind it. The water in front 

 of their bluff bows rises in a wave nearly to the 

 deck, and then swoops in a sweeping curve to the 

 rear. 



The current by the port runs back on the 

 wharf side towards its source, and the foam drifts 

 up the river instead of down. Green flags on 

 a sandbank far out in the stream, their roots 

 covered and their bent tips only visible, now swing 

 with the water and now heel over with the breeze. 

 The Edwin and Angelina lies at anchor, waiting 

 to be warped into her berth, her sails furled, her 

 green painted water barrel lashed by the stern, her 

 tiller idle after the long and toilsome voyage from 

 Rochester. 



For there are perils of the deep even to those 

 who only go down to it in barges. Barge as she 

 is, she is not without a certain beauty, and a 

 certain interest, inseparable from all that has re- 

 ceived the buffet of the salt water, and over which 

 the salt spray has flown. Barge too, as she is, she 

 bears her part in the commerce of the world. 

 163 



