Hayes to bed, Billings remembered that he
had a parcel to carry to some person in the neighbourhood of the
Strand; and, as the night was remarkably fine, he and Mr. Wood
agreed to walk together, and set forth accordingly.
(Here follows a description of the THAMES AT MIDNIGHT, in a fine
historical style; with an account of Lambeth, Westminster, the
Savoy, Baynard's Castle, Arundel House, the Temple; of Old London
Bridge, with its twenty arches, "on which be houses builded, so that
it seemeth rather a continuall street than a bridge;"--of Bankside,
and the "Globe" and the "Fortune" Theatres; of the ferries across
the river, and of the pirates who infest the same--namely,
tinklermen, petermen, hebbermen, trawlermen; of the fleet of barges
that lay at the Savoy steps; and of the long lines of slim wherries
sleeping on the river banks and basking and shining in the
moonbeams. A combat on the river is described, that takes place
between the crews of a tinklerman's boat and the water-bailiffs.
Shouting his war-cry, "St. Mary Overy a la rescousse!" the
water-bailiff sprung at the throat of the tinklerman captain. The
crews of both vessels, as if aware that the struggle of their chiefs
would decide the contest, ceased hostilities, and awaited on their
respective poops the issue of the death-shock.
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