Martin Hyde | Page 9

nothing else. It boiled about the bridge piers so
fiercely that I was scared to see it. I had seen the sea in storm; but then
one does not put to sea in a storm. This waterfall tumbled daily, even in
a calm. I shuddered to think of small boats, caught in the current above
it, being drawn down, slowly at first, then with a whirl, till all was
whelmed in the tumble below the arches. I saw how hatefully the back
wash seemed to saunter back to the fall along the banks. I thought that
if I was not careful I might be caught in the back wash, drawn slowly
along it by the undertow, till the cataract sank me. As I watched the fall,
fascinated, yet scared by it, there came a shooting rush, with shouts of
triumph. A four-oared wherry with two passengers shot through the
arch over the worst of the water into the quiet of the midstream. They
waved to me, evidently very pleased with their exploit. That set me
wondering whether the water were really as bad as it looked. My first
feat was to back up cautiously almost to the fall, till my boat was
dancing so vigorously that I was spattered all over. Standing up in the
boat there, I could see the oily water, like a great arched snake's back,
swirl past the arch towards me, bubbleless, almost without a ripple, till

it showed all its teeth at once in breaking down. The piers of the arches
jutted far out below the fall, like pointed islands. I was about to try to
climb on the top of one from the boat, a piece of madness which would
probably have ended in my death, but some boys in one of the houses
on the bridge began to pelt me with pebbles, so that I had to sheer off. I
pulled down among the shipping, examining every vessel in the Pool.
Then I pulled down the stream, with the ebb, as far as Wapping, where
I was much shocked by the sight of the pirates' gallows, with seven
dead men hung in chains together there, for taking the ship Delight, so
a waterman told me, on the Guinea Coast, the year before. I left my
boat at Wapping Stairs, while I went into a pastry-cook's shop to buy
cake; for I was now hungry. The pastry-cook was also a vintner. His
tables were pretty well crowded with men, mostly seafaring men, who
were drinking wine together, talking of politics. I knew nothing
whatever about politics, but hearing the Duke of Monmouth named I
pricked up my ears to listen. My father had told me, in his last illness,
when the news of the death of Charles the Second reached us, that
trouble would come to England through this Duke, because, he said,
"he will never agree with King James." Many people (the Duke himself
being one of them) believed that this James Scott, Duke of Monmouth,
was the son of a very beautiful woman by Charles the Second, who (so
the tale went) had married her in his wanderings abroad, while
Cromwell ruled in England here. I myself shall ever believe this story. I
am quite sure, now, in my own mind, that Monmouth was our rightful
King. I have heard accounts of this marriage of Charles the Second
from people who were with him in his wanderings. When Charles the
Second died (being poisoned, some said, by his brother James, who
wished to seize the throne while Monmouth was abroad, unable to
claim his rights) James succeeded to the crown. At the time of which I
write he had been King for about two months. I did not know anything
about his merits as a King; but hearing the name of Monmouth I felt
sure, from the first, that I should hear more of what my father had told
me.
One of the seamen, a sour-looking, pale-faced man, was saying that
Holland was full of talk that the Duke was coming over, to try for the
Kingdom. Another said that it wasn't the Duke of Monmouth but the

Duke of Argyle that was coming, to try, not for England, but for
Scotland. A third said that all this was talk, for how could a single man,
without twenty friends in the world, get through a cruising fleet? "How
could he do anything, even if he did land?"
"Ah," said another man. "They say that the West is ready to rally
around him. That's what they say."
"Well," said the first, raising his cup. "Here's to King James, I say.
England's had enough of civil troubles." The other men drank the toast
with applause. It is curious to remember how cautious people were in
those