Chapter II (2)

In this way they went up the river among sailing-vessels of all kinds, and between the merchants’ ‘forest of masts,’ like some huge antediluvian water-reptile deliberately winding its way up a broad river between the woods of a region unknown to man.

‘But here’s a steamer!’ shouted Flashley.—‘We shall be run down, or she’ll go slap over us!’

The man at the wheel, however, knew better. He had dealt with lightermen before to-day. He therefore turned off the sharp nose of the steamer, so as not merely to clear it, but dexterously to send the ‘swell’ in a long rolling swath up against the lighter, over which it completely ran, leaving the performer at the oars drenched up to the hips, and carrying Flashley clean overboard. He was swept away in the rolling wave, and might have been drowned, had not a coalheaver at one of the wharfs put off a skiff to his rescue.

So now behold Flashley at work among the wharfingers of Bankside.

Before the coals are put into the sack, they undergo a process called ‘screening.’ This consists in throwing them up against a slanting sieve of iron wire, through which the fine coal and coal-dust runs: all that falls on the outer side of the screen is then sacked. But many having found that the coals are often broken still more by this process, to their loss, (as few people will buy the small coal and dust, except at breweries and waterworks), they have adopted the plan of a round sieve held in the hand, and filled by a shovel. The delightful and lucrative appointment of holding the sieve was, of course, conferred upon Flashley. His shoulders and arms ached as though they would drop off long before his day’s work was done; but what he gained in especial, was the fine coal-dust which the wind carried into his face—often at one gust, filling his eyes, mouth, nostrils, and the windward ear.

In the condition to which this post soon brought his ‘personal appearance,’ Flashley was one morning called up at five to go with a waggon-load of coals a few miles into the country, in company with two coalheavers and a carman. Up he got. And off they went.

Flashley, having worked hard all the previous day, was in no sprightly condition on his early rising; so, by the time the waggon had got beyond the outskirts of London, and begun to labour slowly up hill with its heavy load, he was fain to ask in a humble voice of the head coalheaver, permission to lay hold of a rope which dangled behind, in order to help himself onwards. This being granted with a smile, the good-nature of which (and how seldom do we meet with a coalheaver who is not a good-natured fellow) shone even through his dust-begrimed visage, Flashley continued to follow the waggon till he had several times nearly gone to sleep; and was only reminded of the fact by a stumble which brought him with his nose very near the ground. The head coalheaver, observing this, took compassion on him; and being a gigantic man, laid hold of Flashley’s trowsers, and with one lift of his arm deposited the young man upon the top of the second tier of coal-sacks. There he at once resigned himself to a delicious repose.

The waggon meanwhile pursued its heavy journey, with an occasional pause for a slight moistening of the mouth of men and horses. At length the removal of one or two of the upper tier of sacks caused Flashley to raise his drowsy head, and look round him.

The waggon had pulled up close to a garden-gate, on the other side of which were a crowd of apple-trees. The ripe fruit loaded the branches till they hung in a vista, beneath which the sacks of coals had to be carried. All the horses had their nose-bags on, and were very busy. It was a bright autumn day; the sun was fast setting; a rich beam of crimson and gold cast its splendours over the garden, and lighted up the ripe apples to a most romantic degree.

The garden gates were thrown open; the passage of coal-sacks beneath the hanging boughs commenced.

Not an apple was knocked down, even by the tall figure of the leading coalheaver. Stooping and dodging, and gently humouring a special difficulty, he performed his walk of thirty yards, and more, till he turned the shrubbery corner, and thence made his way into the coal-cellar. His companion followed him, in turn, imitating his great example; and, if we make exception of three lemon-pippins and a codlin, with equal success. But where these accidental apples fell, there they remained; none were promoted to mouth or pocket.

It was now half-past four, and ‘the milk’ arriving at the gate, was deposited in its little tin can on a strawberry bed just beyond the gate-post. The head coalheaver’s turn with his load being next, he observed the milk as he approached, and bending his long legs, by judicious gradations, till he reached the little can with the fingers of his left hand, balancing the sack of coals at the same time, so that not a fragment tumbled out of the open mouth, he slowly rose again to his right position, holding out the can at arm’s length to prevent any coal-dust finding its way to the delicate surface within. In this fashion, with tenfold care bestowed on the ounce and a half in his left hand, to that which he gave to the two hundred weight of coals on his back (not reckoning the sack, which, being an old and patched one, weighed fifteen pounds more) the coalheaver made his way, stooping and sideling beneath the apple-boughs as before, all of which he passed without knocking a single apple down, and deposited the little can in the hands of an admiring maidservant, as he passed the kitchen window on his way to the coal-cellar.

After the sacks had all been shot in the cellar, and the hats of each man filled with apples by the applauding master of the house, the counting of the empty sacks commenced. Having been thrice exhorted to be present at this ceremony by a wise neighbour, who stood looking on anxiously, from the next garden, with his nostrils resting on the top of the wall, the owner of the apple garden went forth to the gate, and with a grave countenance beheld the sacks counted. Orders for beer being then given on the nearest country alehouse, the coalheavers carefully gathered up all the odd coals which had fallen here and there, then swept the paths, and with hot and smiling visages took their departure, slowly lounging after the waggon and stretching their brawny arms and backs after their herculean work.

As the men thus proceeded down the winding lane, crunching apples, and thinking of beer to follow, the carman was the first to speak.

‘How _cute_ the chap was arter _they_ sacks!’ said he with a grin, and half turning round to look back.

‘There’s a gennelman,’ said the head coalheaver, ‘as don’t ought to be wronged out of the vally of _that_!’ the amount in question being a pinch of coal-dust which the speaker took up from one side of the waggon, and sprinkled in the air.

‘He allus gives a ticket for beer,’ said the second coalheaver, ‘but last time the apples warn’t ripe.’

‘He counted the _sacks_ nation sharp, howsever,’ pursued the carman with a very knowing look.

At this both the coalheavers laughed loudly.

‘Ah!’ said the second coalheaver; ‘people think that makes all sure. They don’t think of the ease of bringing an empty sack with us, after dropping a full one by the way. Not they. Nobody yet was ever wise enough to count the full sacks when they first come.’

On hearing this, the carman’s face presented a confounded and perplexed look of irritated stupidity, marked in such very hard lines, that the coalheavers laughed for the next five minutes with the recollection of it.

Towards dusk the waggon returned to the wharf, and next day Flashley resumed his usual duties.

One morning, after several hours’ work with the sieve in ‘screening,’ when his face and hands were, if possible, more hopelessly black than they had ever been before, Flashley was called to take a note to a merchant at the Coal Exchange. This merchant’s name seemed rather an unusual one to meet with in England—being no less a person than Haji Ali Camaralzaman and Co.

The merchant was a short, solid-built figure, and stood with a heavy immobility that gave the effect of a metallic image rather than a man. He was a Moor, though nearly black, and with very sparkling eyes. He was dressed in a long dark blouse, open at the breast, and displaying a black satin waistcoat, embroidered with golden sprigs and tendrils. It seemed to Flashley that he spoke a foreign language; and yet he understood him, though without having any idea what language it was. Something passed between them in a very earnest tone, almost a whisper, about Sinbad the Sailor, and a sort of confused discussion as to the geographical position of the Valley of Black Diamonds; also, if coals were ever burnt in the east; then a confused voice from within the hall called out loudly, ‘The North Star!’ to which a chorus of coal-merchants responded in a low chant, ‘What money does he owe the divan?’

‘Yes,’ said the great Camaralzaman, ‘and what lost time does he owe to nature and to knowledge? Let the North Star look to it.’

‘It does, great Sir!’ responded the chorus of coal-merchants, in the same low chant. ‘It shines directly over the shaft of the William Pitt mine.’

‘Enough,’ said Camaralzaman.

At this all the merchants fell softly into a heap of white ashes.

Then the Moor, turning to Flashley, said, ‘You must reflect a little on all these things. Coals are more valuable to the world than the riches of other mines—more important than gold and silver, and diamonds of the first water, because they are the means of advancing and extending the comforts and refinements of life—the industrial arts, the trades, the ornamental arts. Are not these great things? Behold, there are greater yet which are indebted to the coal-fires. For, may I not name Science, Agriculture (in the making of iron, and the steam-ploughs which are forthcoming), Commerce and Navigation. Moreover, do they not tend, by the generation of steam, to annihilate space and time, and are they not rapidly carrying knowledge and civilisation to the remotest corners of the habitable globe? By myriads of jets, in countless forms, they turn the dark night into the brightness of day. Their history commences from the infancy of the earth; they proceed through gradations of wonders; are no less wonderful in the varieties and magnitude of their utility, and do not cease to be of use to man, even when the bright fire is utterly extinguished, and its materials can no more be re-illumined, but are claimed for the garden and the brickfield, not by the dinging and tolling of the bell-man of your grandsires, but by the long-drawn wail of the queer-kneed dusky figure in the flap-hat, who wanders down your streets yowling ‘’Sto—e! o—e!’

‘And is it then all over? Verily, it doth appear when the coal fire is fairly burnt out to cinders and ashes, that it hath performed its complete circle, and is for ever ended. It is _not_ so. The antediluvian forests absorbed the gases of the atmosphere; much of these have been drawn off; and appropriated, but some portions have remained locked up and hidden in the depths of the earth ever since. Lo! the coal fire is lighted!—flames, for the first time, ascend from it. Then, also for the first time, are liberated gases which are of the date of those primæval forests; they ascend into the atmosphere, and once more form a portion of those elements which are again to assist in the growth of forests. The Coal-Spirit has then performed his grand cycle—and recommences his journey through future cycles of formation.’

A great blaze of light now smote across the hall, in which everything vanished. Then passed a rushing panorama through Flashley’s brain, wherein he saw whirling by, the stage of a saloon theatre, with a lighted cigar and two tankards dancing a ridiculous reel, till the whole scene changed to a melancholy swamp, out of which arose, to solemn music, an antediluvian forest. The Elfin of the Coal-mine came and stood in the midst, and some one held an iron umbrella over Flashley’s head, which instantly caused him to sink deep through the earth, and he soon found himself crawling in a dark trench terminating in a chasm looking out upon the sea. He was immediately whisked across by a black eagle, and dropped in a bright-green field, where he met a tall dusky figure carrying a sack of coals and a ‘ha’p’orth’ of milk; but just as he was about to speak to him, a voice called out ‘Nancy!’ and all was darkness, while through the horrid gloom he saw the glaring eye-ball of a horse. ‘Camaralzaman!’ cried the voice again: ‘Have you been sleeping here all night in the arm chair?’ Then a vivid flame shot over Flashley’s eyelids—there was a great fire blazing before him, in the midst of which he saw the head of the Elfin, who gave him a nod full of meaning, and also like bidding farewell, and disappeared in the fire,—while at his side stood Margery with the carpet-broom.

It was six in the morning, and she had just lighted the parlour fire. Without replying to any of her interrogations of surprise, Flashley slowly rose, and went out to take a few turns round the garden; where he fell into a train of thought which, in all probability, will have a salutary influence on his future life.

SUPPOSING!

Supposing, we were to change the Property and Income Tax a little, and make it somewhat heavier on realised property, and somewhat lighter on mere income, fixed and uncertain, I wonder whether we should be committing any violent injustice!

Supposing, we were to be more Christian and less mystical, agreeing more about the spirit and fighting less about the letter, I wonder whether we should present a very irreligious and indecent spectacle to the mass of mankind!

Supposing, the Honorable Member for White troubled his head a little less about the Honorable Member for Black, and _vice versâ_, and that both applied themselves a little more in earnest to the real business of the honorable people and the honorable country, I wonder whether it would be unparliamentary!

Supposing, that, when there was a surplus in the Public Treasury, we laid aside our own particular whims, and all agreed that there were four elements necessary to the existence of our fellow creatures, to wit, earth, air, fire, and water, and that these were the first grand necessaries to be uncooped and untaxed, I wonder whether it would be unreasonable!

Supposing, we had at this day a Baron Jenner, or a Viscount Watt, or an Earl Stephenson, or a Marquess of Brunel, or a dormant Shakespeare peerage, or a Hogarth baronetcy, I wonder whether it would be cruelly disgraceful to our old nobility!

Supposing, we were all of us to come off our pedestals and mix a little more with those below us, with no fear but that genius, rank, and wealth, would always sufficiently assert their own superiority, I wonder whether we should lower ourselves beyond retrieval!

Supposing, we were to have less botheration and more real education, I wonder whether we should have less or more compulsory colonisation, and Cape of Good Hope very natural indignation!

Supposing, we were materially to simplify the laws, and to abrogate the absurd fiction that everybody is supposed to be acquainted with them, when we know very well that such acquaintance is the study of a life in which some fifty men may have been proficient perhaps in five times fifty years, I wonder whether laws would be respected less?

Supposing, we maintained too many of such fictions altogether, and found their stabling come exceedingly expensive!

Supposing, we looked about us, and seeing a cattle-market originally established in an open place, standing in the midst of a great city because of the unforeseen growth of that great city all about it, and, hearing it asserted that the market was still adapted to the requirements and conveniences of the great city, made up our minds to say that this was stark-mad nonsense and we wouldn’t bear it, I wonder whether we should be revolutionary!

Supposing, we were to harbour a small suspicion that there was too much doing in the diplomatic line of business, and that the world would get on better with that shop shut up three days a week, I wonder whether it would be a huge impiety!

Supposing, Governments were to consider public questions less with reference to their own time, and more with reference to all time, I wonder how we should get on then!

Supposing, the wisdom of our ancestors should turn out to be a mere phrase, and that if there were any sense in it, it should follow that we ought to be believers in the worship of the Druids at this hour, I wonder whether any people would have talked mere moonshine all their lives!

Supposing, we were clearly to perceive that we cannot keep some men out of their share in the administration of affairs, and were to say to them, ‘Come, brothers, let us take counsel together, and see how we can best manage this; and don’t expect too much from what you get; and let us all in our degree put our shoulders to the wheel, and strive; and let us all improve ourselves and all abandon something of our extreme opinions for the general harmony,’ I wonder whether we should want so many special constables on any future tenth of April, or should talk so much about it any more!

I wonder whether people who are quite easy about anything, usually _do_ talk quite so much about it!

Mr. Lane, the traveller, tells us of a superstition the Egyptians have, that the mischievous Genii are driven away by iron, of which they have an instinctive dread. Supposing, this should foreshadow the disappearance of the evil spirits and ignorances besetting this earth, before the iron steam-engines and roads, I wonder whether we could expedite their flight at all by iron energy!

Supposing, we were just to try two or three of these experiments!

Published at the Office, No. 16, Wellington Street North, Strand.
Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Renumbered footnotes. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● The caret (^) serves as a superscript indicator, applicable to individual characters (like 2^d) and even entire phrases (like 1^{st}).