They kept me very quiet all day, and kept my arm constantlydressed, and gave me cooling drinks. Whenever I fell asleep, Iawoke with the notion I had had in the sluice-house, that a longtime had elapsed and the opportunity to save him was gone. Aboutmidnight I got out of bed and went to Herbert, with the convictionthat I had been asleep for four-and-twenty hours, and thatWednesday was past. It was the last self-exhausting effort of myfretfulness, for, after that, I slept soundly.

Wednesday morning was dawning when I looked out of window. Thewinking lights upon the bridges were already pale, the coming sunwas like a marsh of fire on the horizon. The river, still dark andmysterious, was spanned by bridges that were turning coldly grey,with here and there at top a warm touch from the burning in thesky. As I looked along the clustered roofs, with Church towers andspires shooting into the unusually clear air, the sun rose up, anda veil seemed to be drawn from the river, and millions of sparklesburst out upon its waters. From me too, a veil seemed to be drawn,and I felt strong and well.

Herbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellow-student layasleep on the sofa. I could not dress myself without help, but Imade up the fire, which was still burning, and got some coffeeready for them. In good time they too started up strong and well,and we admitted the sharp morning air at the windows, and looked atthe tide that was still flowing towards us.

"When it turns at nine o'clock," said Herbert, cheerfully, "lookout for us, and stand ready, you over there at Mill Pond Bank!"

Chapter 54

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the windblows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in theshade. We had out pea-coats with us, and I took a bag. Of all myworldly possessions I took no more than the few necessaries thatfilled the bag. Where I might go, what I might do, or when I mightreturn, were questions utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mindwith them, for it was wholly set on Provis's safety. I onlywondered for the passing moment, as I stopped at the door andlooked back, under what altered circumstances I should next seethose rooms, if ever.

We loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood loitering there,as if we were not quite decided to go upon the water at all. Ofcourse I had taken care that the boat should be ready andeverything in order. After a little show of indecision, which therewere none to see but the two or three amphibious creaturesbelonging to our Temple stairs, we went on board and cast off;Herbert in the bow, I steering. It was then about high-water -half-past eight.

Our plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down at nine, andbeing with us until three, we intended still to creep on after ithad turned, and row against it until dark. We should then be wellin those long reaches below Gravesend, between Kent and Essex,where the river is broad and solitary, where the watersideinhabitants are very few, and where lone public-houses arescattered here and there, of which we could choose one for aresting-place. There, we meant to lie by, all night. The steamerfor Hamburg, and the steamer for Rotterdam, would start from Londonat about nine on Thursday morning. We should know at what time toexpect them, according to where we were, and would hail the first;so that if by any accident we were not taken abroad, we should haveanother chance. We knew the distinguishing marks of each vessel.

The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of thepurpose, was so great to me that I felt it difficult to realize thecondition in which I had been a few hours before. The crisp air,the sunlight, the movement on the river, and the moving riveritself - the road that ran with us, seeming to sympathize with us,animate us, and encourage us on - freshened me with new hope. Ifelt mortified to be of so little use in the boat; but, there werefew better oarsmen than my two friends, and they rowed with asteady stroke that was to last all day.

At that time, the steam-traffic on the Thames was far below itspresent extent, and watermen's boats were far more numerous. Ofbarges, sailing colliers, and coasting traders, there were perhapsas many as now; but, of steam-ships, great and small, not a titheor a twentieth part so many. Early as it was, there were plenty ofscullers going here and there that morning, and plenty of bargesdropping down with the tide; the navigation of the river betweenbridges, in an open boat, was a much easier and commoner matter inthose days than it is in these; and we went ahead among many skiffsand wherries, briskly.

Old London Bridge was soon passed, and old Billingsgate market withits oyster-boats and Dutchmen, and the White Tower and Traitor'sGate, and we were in among the tiers of shipping. Here, were theLeith, Aberdeen, and Glasgow steamers, loading and unloading goods,and looking immensely high out of the water as we passed alongside;here, were colliers by the score and score, with the coal-whippersplunging off stages on deck, as counterweights to measures of coalswinging up, which were then rattled over the side into barges;here, at her moorings was to-morrow's steamer for Rotterdam, ofwhich we took good notice; and here to-morrow's for Hamburg, underwhose bowsprit we crossed. And now I, sitting in the stern, couldsee with a faster beating heart, Mill Pond Bank and Mill Pondstairs.

"Is he there?" said Herbert.

"Not yet."

"Right! He was not to come down till he saw us. Can you see hissignal?"

"Not well from here; but I think I see it. - Now, I see him! Pullboth. Easy, Herbert. Oars!"

We touched the stairs lightly for a single moment, and he was onboard and we were off again. He had a boat-cloak with him, and ablack canvas bag, and he looked as like a river-pilot as my heartcould have wished. "Dear boy!" he said, putting his arm on myshoulder as he took his seat. "Faithful dear boy, well done.Thankye, thankye!"

Again among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding rustychain-cables frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing buoys, sinking forthe moment floating broken baskets, scattering floating chips ofwood and shaving, cleaving floating scum of coal, in and out, underthe figure-head of the John of Sunderland making a speech to thewinds (as is done by many Johns), and the Betsy of Yarmouth with afirm formality of bosom and her nobby eyes starting two inches outof her head, in and out, hammers going in shipbuilders'yards, sawsgoing at timber, clashing engines going at things unknown, pumpsgoing in leaky ships, capstans going, ships going out to sea, andunintelligible sea-creatures roaring curses over the bulwarks atrespondent lightermen, in and out - out at last upon the clearerriver, where the ships' boys might take their fenders in, no longerfishing in troubled waters with them over the side, and where thefestooned sails might fly out to the wind.

At the Stairs where we had taken him abroad, and ever since, I hadlooked warily for any token of our being suspected. I had seennone. We certainly had not been, and at that time as certainly wewere not, either attended or followed by any boat. If we had beenwaited on by any boat, I should have run in to shore, and haveobliged her to go on, or to make her purpose evident. But, we heldour own, without any appearance of molestation.

He had his boat-cloak on him, and looked, as I have said, a naturalpart of the scene. It was remarkable (but perhaps the wretched lifehe had led, accounted for it), that he was the least anxious of anyof us. He was not indifferent, for he told me that he hoped to liveto see his gentleman one of the best of gentlemen in a foreigncountry; he was not disposed to be passive or resigned, as Iunderstood it; but he had no notion of meeting danger half way.When it came upon him, he confronted it, but it must come before hetroubled himself.

"If you knowed, dear boy," he said to me, "what it is to sit herealonger my dear boy and have my smoke, arter having been day by daybetwixt four walls, you'd envy me. But you don't know what it is."

"I think I know the delights of freedom," I answered.

"Ah," said he, shaking his head gravely. "But you don't know itequal to me. You must have been under lock and key, dear boy, toknow it equal to me - but I ain't a-going to be low."

It occurred to me as inconsistent, that for any mastering idea, heshould have endangered his freedom and even his life. But Ireflected that perhaps freedom without danger was too much apartfrom all the habit of his existence to be to him what it would beto another man. I was not far out, since he said, after smoking alittle:

"You see, dear boy, when I was over yonder, t'other side the world,I was always a-looking to this side; and it come flat to be there,for all I was a-growing rich. Everybody knowed Magwitch, andMagwitch could come, and Magwitch could go, and nobody's head wouldbe troubled about him. They ain't so easy concerning me here, dearboy - wouldn't be, leastwise, if they knowed where I was."

"If all goes well," said I, "you will be perfectly free and safeagain, within a few hours."

"Well," he returned, drawing a long breath, "I hope so."

"And think so?"

He dipped his hand in the water over the boat's gunwale, and said,smiling with that softened air upon him which was not new to me:

"Ay, I s'pose I think so, dear boy. We'd be puzzled to be morequiet and easy-going than we are at present. But - it's a-flowingso soft and pleasant through the water, p'raps, as makes me thinkit - I was a-thinking through my smoke just then, that we can nomore see to the bottom of the next few hours, than we can see tothe bottom of this river what I catches hold of. Nor yet we can'tno more hold their tide than I can hold this. And it's run throughmy fingers and gone, you see!" holding up his dripping hand.

"But for your face, I should think you were a little despondent,"said I.

"Not a bit on it, dear boy! It comes of flowing on so quiet, and ofthat there rippling at the boat's head making a sort of a Sundaytune. Maybe I'm a-growing a trifle old besides."

He put his pipe back in his mouth with an undisturbed expression offace, and sat as composed and contented as if we were already outof England. Yet he was as submissive to a word of advice as if hehad been in constant terror, for, when we ran ashore to get somebottles of beer into the boat, and he was stepping out, I hintedthat I thought he would be safest where he was, and he said. "Doyou, dear boy?" and quietly sat down again.

The air felt cold upon the river, but it was a bright day, and thesunshine was very cheering. The tide ran strong, I took care tolose none of it, and our steady stroke carried us on thoroughlywell. By imperceptible degrees, as the tide ran out, we lost moreand more of the nearer woods and hills, and dropped lower and lowerbetween the muddy banks, but the tide was yet with us when we wereoff Gravesend. As our charge was wrapped in his cloak, I purposelypassed within a boat or two's length of the floating Custom House,and so out to catch the stream, alongside of two emigrant ships,and under the bows of a large transport with troops on theforecastle looking down at us. And soon the tide began to slacken,and the craft lying at anchor to swing, and presently they had allswung round, and the ships that were taking advantage of the newtide to get up to the Pool, began to crowd upon us in a fleet, andwe kept under the shore, as much out of the strength of the tidenow as we could, standing carefully off from low shallows andmudbanks.

Our oarsmen were so fresh, by dint of having occasionally let herdrive with the tide for a minute or two, that a quarter of anhour's rest proved full as much as they wanted. We got ashore amongsome slippery stones while we ate and drank what we had with us,and looked about. It was like my own marsh country, flat andmonotonous, and with a dim horizon; while the winding river turnedand turned, and the great floating buoys upon it turned and turned,and everything else seemed stranded and still. For, now, the lastof the fleet of ships was round the last low point we had headed;and the last green barge, straw-laden, with a brown sail, hadfollowed; and some ballast-lighters, shaped like a child's firstrude imitation of a boat, lay low in the mud; and a little squatshoal-lighthouse on open piles, stood crippled in the mud on stiltsand crutches; and slimy stakes stuck out of the mud, and slimystones stuck out of the mud, and red landmarks and tidemarks stuckout of the mud, and an old landing-stage and an old roofless buildingslipped into the mud, and all about us was stagnation and mud.

We pushed off again, and made what way we could. It was much harderwork now, but Herbert and Startop persevered, and rowed, and rowed,and rowed, until the sun went down. By that time the river hadlifted us a little, so that we could see above the bank. There wasthe red sun, on the low level of the shore, in a purple haze, fastdeepening into black; and there was the solitary flat marsh; andfar away there were the rising grounds, between which and us thereseemed to be no life, save here and there in the foreground amelancholy gull.

As the night was fast falling, and as the moon, being past thefull, would not rise early, we held a little council: a short one,for clearly our course was to lie by at the first lonely tavern wecould find. So, they plied their oars once more, and I looked outfor anything like a house. Thus we held on, speaking little, forfour or five dull miles. It was very cold, and, a collier coming byus, with her galley-fire smoking and flaring, looked like acomfortable home. The night was as dark by this time as it would beuntil morning; and what light we had, seemed to come more from theriver than the sky, as the oars in their dipping struck at a fewreflected stars.

At this dismal time we were evidently all possessed by the idea thatwe were followed. As the tide made, it flapped heavily at irregularintervals against the shore; and whenever such a sound came, one orother of us was sure to start and look in that direction. Here andthere, the set of the current had worn down the bank into a littlecreek, and we were all suspicious of such places, and eyed themnervously. Sometimes, "What was that ripple?" one of us would sayin a low voice. Or another, "Is that a boat yonder?" Andafterwards, we would fall into a dead silence, and I would sitimpatiently thinking with what an unusual amount of noise the oarsworked in the thowels.

Title: Great Expectations
Author: Charles Dickens
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