At night I see them again, silent, mysterious; searching the
darkness with unwinking yellow stare, led by a great green light.
They creep up under the bridge which spans the river with its
watching eyes, and vanish, crying back a warning note as they make
the upper reach, or strident hail, as a chain of kindred phantoms
passes, ploughing a contrary tide.
Throughout the long watches of the night I follow them; and in the
early morning they slide by, their eyes pale in the twilight; while
the stars flicker and fade, and the gas lamps die down into a dull
yellow blotch against the glory and glow of a new day.
CHAPTER II
February is here, February fill-dyke; the month of purification, of
cleansing rains and pulsing bounding streams, and white mist
clinging insistent to field and hedgerow so that when her veil is
withdrawn greenness may make us glad.
The river has been uniformly grey of late, with no wind to ruffle
its surface or to speed the barges dropping slowly and sullenly
down with the tide through a blurring haze. I watched one
yesterday, its useless sails half-furled and no sign of life save
the man at the helm. It drifted stealthily past, and a little
behind, flying low, came a solitary seagull, grey as the river's
haze--a following bird.
Once again I lay on my back in the bottom of the tarry old fishing
smack, blue sky above and no sound but the knock, knock of the
waves, and the thud and curl of falling foam as the old boat's
blunt nose breasted the coming sea.
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