I was wakened partly by
the pie-dish slipping off my lap, and partly by Fred saying in an
eager tone,
"Oh, Charlie! LOOK! _Are they all ships_?"
We stuffed our heads through the window, and my hat was nearly blown
away, so the man with the black face and the white jacket gave it to
the woman with the troublesome baby to take care of for me, and he
held us by our legs for fear we should fall out.
On we flew! There was wind enough in our faces to have filled the
barge-sail three times over, and Fred licked his lips and said, "I do
believe there's salt in it!"
But what he woke me up to show me drove me nearly wild. When I had
seen a couple of big barges lying together with their two bare masts
leaning towards each other I used to think how dignified and beautiful
they looked. But here were hundreds of masts, standing as thick as
tree-trunks in a fir-wood, and they were not bare poles, but lofty and
slender, and crossed by innumerable yards, and covered with ropes in
orderly profusion, which showed in the sunshine as cobwebs shine out
in a field in summer. Gay flags and pennons fluttered in the wind;
brown sails, grey sails, and gleaming white sails went up and down;
and behind it all the water sparkled and dazzled our eyes like the
glittering reflections from a mirror moving in the sun.
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