, was friendly to me. I hated all this
noisy city, so full of dirty jumbled houses. I longed to be in my
coracle on the Waveney, paddling along among the reeds, chucking pebbles
at the water-rats. But when I went out into the garden I found that even
London held something for me, not so good as the Broads, perhaps, but
pleasant in its way.

Now before I go further, I must tell you that my uncle's house was one
of the old houses in Billingsgate. It stood in a narrow, crowded lane,
at the western end of Thames Street, close to the river. Few of the
houses thereabouts were old; for the fire of London had nearly destroyed
that part of the city, but my uncle's house, with a few more in the
same lane, being built of brick, had escaped. The bricks of some of the
houses were scorched black. I remember, also, at the corner house, three
doors from my uncle's house, the melted end of a water pipe, hanging
from the roof like a long leaden icicle, just as it had run from the
heat eighteen years before. I used to long for that icicle: it would
have made such fine bullets for my sling. I have said that Fish Lane,
where my uncle lived, was narrow. It was very narrow. The upper stories
of the houses opposite could be touched from my bed-room window with an
eight-foot fishing rod. If one leaned well out, one could see right into
their upper rooms. You could even hear the people talking in them.

At the back of the house there was a garden of potherbs. It sloped down
to the river-bank, where there were stairs to the water. The stairs
were covered in, so as to form a boat-house, in which (as I learned
afterwards) my uncle's skiffs were kept. You may be sure that I lost
no time in getting down to the water, after I had breakfasted with my
uncle, on the morning after my arrival.

A low stone parapet, topped by iron rails, shut off the garden from the
beach. Just beyond the parapet, within slingshot, as I soon proved, was
the famous Pool of London, full of ships of all sorts, some with flags
flying. The mild spring sun (it was early in April) made the sight
glorious. There must have been a hundred ships there, all marshalled in
ranks, at double-moorings, head to flood. Boats full of merchandise were
pulling to the wharves by the Custom House. Men were working aloft on
the yards, bending or unbending sails. In some ships the sails hung
loose, drying in the sun. In others, the men were singing out as they
walked round the capstan, hoisting go