140 NATUItE NEAR LONDON. 



strings Lis boat almost as a violinist strings his 

 violin, with the greatest care and heed, and with a 

 right adjustment of curve and due proportion. There 

 is not much clinking, or sawing, or thumping ; little 

 noise, but much skill. 



Gradually the scene opens. Far down a white 

 bridge spans the river; on the shore red-tiled and 

 gabled houses crowd to the very edge ; and behind 

 them a church tow^er stands out clear against the 

 sky. There are barges everywhere. By the towing- 

 path colliers are waiting to be drawn up 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 Hags 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 Kochester. 



For there are perils of the deep even to those who 

 only go down to it in barges. Barge as she is, she is 



