What an anxious and protracted glance Todd cast around him when he found that he was fairly upon the river. How his eyes, with fox-like cunning, glistening like two lead-coloured stars, were here, and there, and everywhere, in the course of a few moments. Then he contrived to speak, as he thought, craftily enough. "There are but few boats on the river."
"No, sir," said the young waterman. "It isn't everybody that cares to come on the water in such weather as this."
"No—no. But I have business."
"Exactly so, sir. That's it."
"Yes," added Todd, in quite a contemplative tone of voice, "the fact is, that I have just heard that at Gravesend there resides a family, with whom I was once intimate, but had lost sight of. They have, as I hear, dropped into poverty, amounting to destitution, and I could not rest until I had gone after them to relieve them."
"Did you say Gravesend?" said the old man.
"Why, yes; but I don't ask you to go so far. I will try and find a conveyance on land at Greenwich; but—if—you like to pull all the way to Gravesend, I don't mind paying, for I prefer the water."
"Couldn't do it," said the old man.
"Certainly not," said the young one.
Todd felt mortified that his plan of getting to Gravesend, by the aid of the boat, was thus put an end to; but he could not help feeling how very impolitic it would be to show any amount of chagrin upon such a subject, so he spoke as cheerfully as he could, merely saying—
"Well, of course, I don't want you to do it; I merely offer you the job, as I am so fond of a little boating, that I would not mind a few guineas more upon such an account."
"No use trying it," said the old man, sententiously. "There's several turns in the river, and we should be down one at this time before we could get there. Gravesend is quite another thing."
"So it is," said Todd.
He felt perfectly certain by the tone and the manner of the old man, that it would be of no use urging the matter any further; and the great dread he had of exciting suspicion that he was a fugitive, had the effect of making him as cautious as possible regarding what he said. In stern and moody silence, then, he reclined in the stern of the boat, while it cleaved through the black water; and, as the old boatman prophesied, the wind each moment went down until it left nothing but a freshness upon the surface of the water, which, although it was bitterly cold, in no way effected the progress of the boat.
But a slight rain now began to fall, and every moment the night got darker and darker still, until the lights upon the banks of the river looked like little stars afar off; and it was only when they got quite close to it, that they became aware of the proximity of Blackfriars Bridge. It was Todd that saw it first appearing like some gigantic object rising up out of the water to destroy them. He could not resist uttering an exclamation of terror, and then he added—
"What is it? Oh, what is it?"
"What—what?" said the young waterman, shipping his oars and looking rather terrified.
The old man gave his head a slight jerk as he said—
"I fancy it's Blackfriars."
"Oh, yes, yes," said Todd, with a feeling of great relief. "It's the bridge, of course—it's the bridge; but in the darkness of the night, it looked awful and strange; and as we approached it, it had all the effect as if it were something big enough to crush the world rising up out of the water.
"Ay—ay," said the old man. "I have seen it on all sorts of nights, and was looking out for it. It's all right. Easy with your larboard over there. That will do—there we go."
The boat shot under one of the arches of the old bridge, and for a moment, the effect was like going into some deep and horrible cavern, the lower part of which was a sea of ink.
Todd shuddered, but he did not say anything. He thought that after his affected raptures at sailing, that if he made any sort of remark indicative of his terrors at the passage of the bridge, they would sound rather inconsistent.
It was quite a relief when they had shot through the dim and dusky arch, and emerged again upon the broad open water; and owing to the terrible darkness that was beneath that arch, the night upon the river, after they had passed through it, did not seem to be nearly so black as it had been before, thus showing that, after all, most of our sensations are those of comparison, even including those dependant upon the physical changes of nature.
"This is cheering," said Todd. "It is lighter now upon the river. Don't you think it is?"
"Why," said the old man, "perhaps it is just a cloud or two lighter; but it's after coming through the arch that it makes the principal difference, I take it."
"Yes," said the other, "that's it; and the rain, to my thinking, will be a lasting one, for it comes down straight, and with a good will to continue. Don't you think so?"
The question was addressed to the old man, who answered it slowly and sententiously, keeping time with his words to the oars as they made a slight noise jerking in the rollocks.
"If it don't rain till sun-rise, just ask me to eat the old boat, and I'll do it!"
"That's settled," said the young waterman.
The weather, in so far as rain or not rain was concerned, was not to Todd a matter of much concern. So long as there was no stormy aspect of the elements to prevent him from speeding upon his journey, he, upon the whole, rather liked the darkness and the rain, as it probably acted as a better shield for his escape, and he rather chuckled than not on the idea that the rain would last. Besides, it was evident that as it fell, it smoothed the surface of the river, so that the oars dipped clear into the stream, and the boat shot on the better.
"Well—well," he said, "we can but get wet."
"That's all," said the old man, "and I hold it to be quite a folly to make a fuss about that. If you sit still, the rain will, of course, soak into your clothes; but if you go on sitting still, it will in time give you up as a bad job, and begin to run out again. So you have nothing, you see, to do, but take it easy, and think of something else all the while."
"That is very true, my friend," said Todd, in a kind and conciliatory tone; "but you get wet through in the process."
"Just so. Pull away."
The younger man, for the last five minutes, had glanced several times through one of his hands along the line of the surface of the river, and the injunction to pull away was probably on account of his having been a little amiss in that particular. The old man had spoken the words rather sharply than otherwise.
"Yes&............