im came over me, making me
rebellious to my finger-tips. I would go on the river, I said to myself,
I would go aboard all the ships in the Pool. I would show them all that
I could handle a boat anywhere. So in a moment my good angel was beaten.
I was in the boat-house, prying at the staple of the outer door, like
the young rogue that I was. Well, I paid a heavy price for that day of
disobedience. It was the most dearly bought day's row I ever heard of.

It took me a few moments to open the outer door. Then, with a thrill of
pleasure, such as only those who love the water can fed, I thrust out
into the river, on to the last of the ebb, then fast ebbing. The fall
under the bridge at that state of the tide was truly terrifying. It
roared so loudly that I could hear nothing else. It boiled about the
bridge piers so fiercely that I was scared to see it. I had seen the sea
in storm; but then one does not put to sea in a storm. This waterfall
tumbled daily, even in a calm. I shuddered to think of small boats,
caught in the current above it, being drawn down, slowly at first, then
with a whirl, till all was whelmed in the tumble below the arches. I saw
how hatefully the back wash seemed to saunter back to the fall along the
banks. I thought that if I was not careful I might be caught in the back
wash, drawn slowly along it by the undertow, till the cataract sank
me. As I watched the fall, fascinated, yet scared by it, there came
a shooting rush, with shouts of triumph. A four-oared wherry with two
passengers shot through the arch over the worst of the water into the
quiet of the midstream. They waved to me, evidently very pleased with
their exploit. That set me wondering whether the water were really as
bad as it looked. My first feat was to back up cautiously almost to the
fall, till my boat was dancing so vigorously that I was spattered all
over. Standing up in the boat there, I could see the oily water, like a
great arched snake's back, swirl past the arch towards me, bubbleless,
almost without a ripple, till it showed all its teeth at once in
breaking down. The piers of the arches jutted far out below the fall,
like pointed islands. I was about to try to climb on the top of one
from the boat, a piece of madness which would probably have ended in my
death, but some boys in one of the houses on the bridge began to pelt
me with pebbles, so that I had to sheer off. I pulled down among the
shipping, examining every vessel in the