Port of London Authority<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n And why do we tell you this? Because now we continue our serialisation of Alan M Clark<\/strong>\u2018s short illustrated novella Mudlarks And The Silent Highwayman, <\/em>with three new segments today.<\/p>\n For segments 1 & 2, see http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/mudlarks-and-the-silent-highwayman\/<\/a><\/p>\n Albert couldn<\/span>\u2019t go home until his clothes had dried some or his mum would know he<\/span>\u2019d been in the river.<\/span><\/p>\n He slipped the cloth inside his shirt for safekeeping, and made his way along the foreshore. Finding himself headed south on the western edge of the Isle of Dogs, he decided to risk a quick exploration among the rushes growing near the drain for the white lead works, a good spot to check since most of the scavengers avoided the area. While much of the foreshore of the Thames offered a firm gravel or sand surface at low tide, the stretch he presently walked held pockets of deep, thick mud that made progress difficult.<\/p>\n Approaching the structure that supported the drain, he saw an unusual dark shape among the oversized grasses, one that he told himself was likely mere shadow. As he got close enough to see between the foliage, the doubt protecting him from unreasonable hope began to fall away. Indeed, the shape held true form and mass\u2014he\u2019d found the wreck of a clinker-built wherry, much like the one his father had once piloted to carry fares up and down, to and fro, along the Thames when he was a waterman.<\/p>\n Pushing the long leaves out of his way, Albert<\/span> made out<\/span> the shapes of several crates, a metal chest, and a firkin, all held fast in the mud within the boat<\/span>.<\/p>\n Though he wanted to shout for joy, he knew better than to draw attention to the find. Instead, he stood holding his head, his heart thumping giddily in his chest. Plainly, the boat had sat unnoticed for a while, lying on its side, half-buried in the silt among the rushes. He imagined the vessel got free during recent wind storms, possibly at night while no one was watching. In his mind\u2019s eye, he saw it wander down-stream beneath dim, flickering stars until it fetched up on the foreshore beside him.<\/p>\n How<\/span> might he present the possible treasure trove to his mother without her knowing where it came from?<\/span><\/p>\n That he did not have her permission to work the river had always rankled. \u201cIt\u2019s too dangerous,\u201d she\u2019d said the first time he\u2019d brought it up. \u201cThe grundylows don\u2019t just spread disease\u2014they like to pull children down. You want to be the next to go missing, turn up drowned?\u201d<\/p>\n Albert had told Turvey what his mother said. He\u2019d laughed. \u201cThey\u2019re not grundylows! They\u2019re grindylows. The mums of all scavengers tell that tall tale to keep their children from the water\u2019s edge.\u201d Turvey shook his head, giggling. \u201cYou are a gulpy one.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t say I believed!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou needn\u2019t have done. I\u2019ve seen the way you look at the water.\u201d<\/p>\n That forced Albert to reason it out. If there were such creatures drowning mudlarks, Turvey would have gone missing long ago. Albert had never seen anyone so willing to venture out into the river.<\/p>\n With all that, he still imagined the creatures just beneath the glare on the rippling surface whenever he dangled his legs close to the water, or while wading out into it.<\/p>\n Despite the childish fears, Albert was simply drawn to the water and scavenging. The possibility of finding unexpected reward held his interest like nothing else had in his short life. And ever since his father had run off, a year past, Albert had thought he should make decisions for himself about how to earn. After all, he would soon be a man.<\/p>\n Knowing how much<\/span> Papa<\/span>\u2019s departure had hurt her, Albert didn<\/span>\u2019t want to<\/span> challenge his mum or bring further grief by disappointing her, so he\u2019d kept his activities at the river a secret.<\/span><\/p>\n He knew what she\u2019d say:<\/span> \u201c<\/span>You<\/span>\u2019ll be charged as a thief!<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n Yet here he\u2019d made a real find, at long last\u2014valuable goods, gold, jewels perhaps!<\/p>\n Albert pried at the crates trying to get them open<\/span>.<\/p>\n The landlord hasn\u2019t been paid in almost a month. She knows we must take every chance to earn. Yet I must know what I\u2019ve found before I say anything, or she\u2019ll become cross with me. If it<\/span>\u2019s worth enough, if it\u2019s wonderful, <\/span>Mum\u2019ll have a change of heart.<\/span><\/p>\n The lids to the crates were nailed down tight.<\/p>\n \u201cBloody butt and six toes,\u201d he cursed aloud. Then, fearing that someone might have heard, he calmed himself and looked up and down the foreshore. Though he saw no one nearby, he crouched lower amidst the rushes and felt himself sink further into the mud.<\/p>\n He abandoned the crates in favor of the metal chest. That, he decided, was the most promising container. The thing was a foot square and half a foot deep. Trying unsuccessfully to open it, he found a keyhole and decided it was locked. That meant it indeed held something valuable. He wiped some of the grit and mud from its surface. Seeing that where exposed, the metal gleamed brightly, he stopped<\/span>.<\/p>\n How might he keep it concealed while carrying it? He thought that heaping more mud on the chest would help disguise the shape, but anyone seeing him would know he carried a large object. Though he\u2019d be able to lift the heavy box, he couldn\u2019t run with it if spotted.<\/p>\n Likewise the crates and firkin would be heavy and stand out if he tried to carry them away. Too bad he\u2019d lost his heavy canvas sack in the fight with the tree limb. He needed to get the containers open and find a new sack to put things in, one he could dirty up and throw over his shoulder. A shapeless thing like that\u2014no one would suspect he carried anything of value. The only other sack he had big enough<\/span> hung on a hook back at the lodgings.<\/span><\/p>\n With the shadows grown long, Albert knew the hour had become late<\/span>. He didn\u2019t have what he needed to open the containers and reveal his treasure, let alone haul it all away with him.<\/span><\/p>\n He sat back and surveyed the scene again. Resting high on the foreshore beside the drain, surrounded with<\/span> dense <\/span>orange rush<\/span>es, and hidden within the deepening shadows,<\/span> the wherry wasn<\/span>\u2019t easy to spot. With the unusual color of the plants, and a fear that the drain exhausted poisons into the river, most of the scavengers, including George Hardly, avoided the area.<\/span><\/p>\n The coming high tide wasn\u2019t likely to dislodge any of the find from the mud\u2019s tight grip, <\/span>yet Albert had small hope that the wherry would remain hidden for <\/span>long<\/span>. Eventually,<\/span> even if Hardly didn\u2019t find it, someone on nearby Hutching<\/span>\u2019s Wharf would see the wreck and investigate, or another river scavenger unconcerned about the drain would stumble upon the site. Albert would return with a lantern to aid his salvage in the dark, but feared that would only draw attention to the find.<\/span><\/p>\n No, he had to go home. Mum would be in their lodgings in Narrow Street, preparing a meal with what little they had.<\/span> The s<\/span>alvage<\/span> would have to wait until morning. Hopefully, no one would stumbled upon it in the night.<\/span><\/p>\n Albert pulled his feet from the sucking mud. Placing them on the firmest patches of the foreshore, he made his way north toward home. One misplaced step found his left leg penetrating the muck half-way to the buttoned knee of his breeches. He wriggled and tugged it loose, and kept moving.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Filthy and panting heavily in the chill autumn air, Albert arrived at the shadows under the West India Docks Pier. He was relieved to find his shoes, socks, and jacket still in<\/span> the spot where he\u2019d hidden them; a hole <\/span>beneath<\/span> a collapsed stone stairway that began at the base of the eroded embankment<\/span>. Though his shoes had become hopelessly ragged\u2014holes in their soles and the right one missing its heel\u2014another scavenger would gladly take them. The leather alone could be sold to makers of Prussian-blue pigment.<\/span><\/p>\n Mr. Halpert, the marine store dealer, would buy almost any common item found along the river, if only for a tiny sum. He\u2019d take anything made of metal, any type of bone, any spun or woven materials, as long as the items weren\u2019t too rotten. Those who made fertilizer would buy items of paper, wood, or small dead animals.<\/p>\n Albert took the easiest route back to street-level, a steep erosion seam, worn into the crumbling bank by weather and the passage of countless others like him.<\/p>\n Seeing Thomas Conway standing near the cast iron bridge of the pier, Albert hid behind a stack of containers. Not wanting the bother of talking to the boy, he would wait for him to turn and look away before crossing the road.<\/p>\n The tow-headed child, a year younger than Albert, stood about five feet from the where the bridge met the river bank at the end of Cuba Street. Thomas craned his neck as if looking for someone. He seemed unaware that he was in the way, as a group of merchants moved around him. One of the gentlemen smacked him on the back of the head as he went by. Thomas stumbled under the blow and ran into a laborer carrying a heavy coil of cable. The man shoved the boy to one side, nearly knocking him down. The lad took the rough treatment without complaint.<\/p>\n New to the river banks and green, the younger boy was a nuisance. His clothing\u2014gray woolen jacket, blue cotton shirt, brown woolen breeches, and gray<\/span> socks<\/span>\u2014though worn and patched many times over, didn<\/span>\u2019t look ragged. His brown shoes had been carefully repaired with pieces of black leather. Someone looked out for the boy<\/span>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s the best place to search for valuables,\u201d Thomas had asked on the day they\u2019d met.<\/p>\n \u201cSalvage turns up most anywhere along the river,\u201d Albert said, with an indefinite wave toward the water. \u201cThe thing is to be the first to find it. Take care not to anger the others with prying questions.\u201d<\/p>\n The advice did little good. The younger boy tried to befriend and question all the other scavengers in a similar way. He had purple bruises and a black eye after approaching George Hardly. Then, Thomas\u2019s father, a frightening Irishman who earned writing gallows ballads, came to the river and set the scavengers straight on how his son should be treated.<\/p>\n Thereafter, none of the boys, nor the few girls who scavenged the river, would talk to Thomas. All, that is, except for Albert, and he made certain no one saw him speak to the lad.<\/p>\n When T<\/span>homas <\/span>finally turned and looked away, Albert slipped from behind the containers and hurried into Cuba Street, mixing with those walking beside the warehouse to his right. He thought he\u2019d got by unnoticed.<\/span><\/p>\n No such luck. \u201cAlbert!\u201d Thomas cried. Something about his tone suggested he\u2019d found the one he sought.<\/p>\n Albert<\/span> stopped, looked around,<\/span> saw no one of any concern watching. He walked back around to the western wall of the warehouse and faced the river as the boy approached.<\/span><\/p>\n Thomas held a single leaf torn from a newspaper or a magazine between two of his grubby fingers, as if he didn\u2019t want to hold the page tightly. A breeze tried to snatch the paper away. With a grimace of reluctance, he added more fingers to his grip.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother give me this. It\u2019s from Punch. It\u2019s old, but she says he\u2019s still on the river, looking to nail children, and take them to the underworld.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Albert looked at the illustration on the yellowing, wrinkled page. The engraving depicted a phantom in the form of a cloaked skeleton, rowing a boat on the river. Dead animals bobbed on the nearby surface of the water. \u201cLooks a bit like Hardly, does he?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t think\u2026?\u201d Thomas asked, his eyes wide with fear.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d Albert chuckled to hear the boy take the suggestion seriously. \u201cWhat are the words beneath the picture,\u201d he asked, embarrassed to reveal he couldn\u2019t read.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018The Silent Highwayman: Your Money or your Life.\u2019<\/span>\u201d Thomas\u2019s dirt-smudged brow furrowed with concern.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe the ghost of a waterman?\u201d Albert thought about his father, presumed dead.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, he\u2019s not like us\u2014never lived among us\u2014an evil on the water, is all. Mother says he puts the bad smells in the river, the ones what make illness. Then he harvests the children as die, takes them away with him.\u201d<\/p>\n That sounded something like what Mum had said about illnesses.<\/p>\n Albert\u2019s father, Albert Senior or just Papa<\/span>, had talked about a ferryman of the dead, named Charon<\/span>. Papa\u2019s mother, whose family had come from Greece, had filled him full of ancient Greek tales that he shared with young Albert. \u201cBelief in Charon is very <\/span>old,<\/span>\u201d he<\/span>\u2019d said.<\/span> \u201c<\/span>My mum thought him mere fancy. But <\/span>serving in the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean, I met some who still believe we cross over a river to reach the afterlife. Told one fellow I\u2019d been a waterman and he looked at me like he were seeing a ghost, had no more to do with me after that.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n With his father\u2019s dread description of the gaunt Charon, Albert had found a fear of one day meeting up with the ferryman<\/span>. Since his father had abandoned the family, Albert tried not to think about the things he\u2019d said.<\/span><\/p>\n Thomas\u2019s picture of the Silent Highwayman, had resurrected the foreboding, and Albert got a chill.<\/p>\n Since beginning his work of mucking about in the river, he\u2019d become ill numerous time<\/span>s, mostly ailments of the gut, yet he\u2019d also had sore eyes and skin, strange rashes, and cuts on his feet, legs, and hands that had swelled with corruption and given him fevers before slowly healing. He\u2019d succeeded in hiding most of that from Mum.<\/span><\/p>\n Albert looked out on the water for the Silent Highwayman, glanced around the vicinity of the pier again to make certain they weren\u2019t watched. George Hardly stood out in the water two hundred yards away, poking around the weed and refuse caught up on the stump of a rotten dolphin.<\/p>\n Turning back to Thomas, Albert saw the boy\u2019s eyes brimmed, tears glistening, ready to fall.<\/p>\n Is he truly so fearful?<\/p>\n \u201cShe doesn\u2019t want me to work the river,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cI-I don\u2019t want to believe her.\u201d<\/p>\n Thomas\u2019s mother didn\u2019t want him working the foreshore no doubt for the same reasons Mum didn\u2019t want Albert doing it: the risks of disease and accidents. And Thomas\u2019s mother was trying to dissuade her son with fear, much the way Mum had tried to scare Albert. Mum knew nothing of the dangers of the likes of Hardly. Albert had told her he worked as a pure finder, collecting dog shit from the streets for the Rouel Tannery in Bermondsey.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you believe he\u2019s on the river?\u201d Thomas asked, waving the illustration in his hand. He gave an impression he might not want the answer. \u201cHave you heard anyone say?\u201d<\/p>\n Albert wanted to point to Hardly\u2014still poking around the rotten dolphin\u2014and say, He\u2019s the one you should worry about. Instead, he decided he should try having a hard heart. Thomas\u2019s fear of the phantom might keep him off the river. \u201cA word or two\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Thomas\u2019s look of concern deepened and his eyes grew wide. He let go the magazine page. The paper flipped over and lifted on the breeze, floating around the corner of the warehouse.<\/p>\n The younger boy turned the corner too, and ran away from the river along Cuba Street.<\/p>\n The page danced upward through the hazy air, flying northward. Though Albert had a chuckle watching the boy run, he didn\u2019t like encouraging Thomas\u2019s fear.<\/p>\n Mum had done the same to him, putting the grundylows in his head. Whether the fears were well-founded or pure fancy<\/span>, Albert did have a feeling that something more terrible than George Hardly made sinister mischief along the river.<\/span><\/p>\n Occupied with his dark thoughts, he sat, donned his tattered socks and raggedy shoes, and trudged home.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mum was up and down in the night many times to use the chamber pot. Trying to sleep in the bed next to her, while full of excitement over the hope of the salvage, Albert got little rest.<\/p>\n In the morning, to his frustration, he found himself attending Mum in her illness.<\/p>\n \u201cI am expected to deliver my collection to the Tannery\u2019s man this morning,\u201d he told her.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore you go, fetch water for me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Seeing that they were indeed out of fresh water, Albert winced, but dutifully picked up the bucket and went out. The closest public pump was in the passage to White\u2019s Rents. He ran there, about a quarter mile, then wobbled his way back home along the stone streets as fast as possible, trying not to spill.<\/p>\n Mum drank deeply of the water upon his return. \u201cYou must steady me to the privy and wait to aid my return,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve become light in the head, and fear a fall.\u201d<\/p>\n She remained in the crooked wooden privy behind their lodgings long enough that he might have run to the wreck of the wherry and returned. Not that that would have given him the time he needed, but the thought fed his frustration. Just as he considered making his excuses and leaving her to fend for herself, she stepped out and grasped his steadying arm.<\/p>\n Over the next few hours, h<\/span>e found<\/span> no reasonable excuse to leave her without admitting<\/span> his goal and revealing that he scavenged the river.<\/span><\/p>\n Mum was in a desperate state. He continued to fetch and tote for her through the afternoon, as she had little strength to do for herself. She moaned and writhed, complained of muscle cramps, and retched to no effect in the basin several times. When she lay back on the bed, to his alarm, he saw a rapid pulsing of the vessels in her neck.<\/p>\n \u201cShall I get someone to help?\u201d he asked, \u201cAunt Gert is on my way to meet the man what pays for my findings. I could tell her to come help you.\u201d If he got away from his mother, he might look in on his find. Aunt Gertrude lived in a room in Tooke Street on the Isle of Dogs, very close to the wrecked wherry. At the least, he could go to the marine store\u2014not nearly as far away\u2014and sell his half of the linen cloth he and Turvey had found.<\/p>\n \u201cYour findings will not go bad. The tannery can wait. Aunt Gertrude has her own problems, and I need you.\u201d<\/p>\n Albert felt ashamed of himself for trying so hard to deceive his mother.<\/p>\n Although he<\/span> had seen Mum looking rough when ill before, he<\/span>\u2019d never feared her beauty would not return as he did presently<\/span>. Her rich auburn hair was plastered to her head with perspiration, dark circles grew under her beautiful eyes, and her soft skin looked increasingly pale and gray. Albert didn\u2019t know what to do for her. He grudgingly accepted her need to have him nearby.<\/span><\/p>\n Segments 6 & 7 follow in a couple of days. You can also see the full story unfolding daily here:<\/strong><\/p>\n https:\/\/ifdpublishing.com\/blog\/f\/mudlarks-and-the-silent-highwayman<\/a><\/p>\n The Mudlarks<\/em> book itself, illustrated throughout by Alan, is available now on Amazon, and directly from the publisher through the links below:<\/strong><\/p>\n mudlark ebook \u2013 ifd publishing<\/a><\/p>\n mudlark paperback \u2013 ifd publishing<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Did you know that until recently, you were still able to get a ‘mudlarks’ permit for the Thames? \u00a385 a year for an adult, no digging deeper than three inches. True! Anyone searching the tidal Thames foreshore from Teddington to the Thames Barrier – in any way for any reason – must hold a current … Continue reading MUDLARKS Part Two<\/span>
\n
\nMUDLARKS AND THE SILENT HIGHWAYMAN<\/h1>\n
SEGMENT<\/span> 3<\/span><\/h2>\n
![\"mudlarks\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/VampyrrhicRites_alt.jpg?resize=406%2C648\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nMUDLARKS AND THE SILENT HIGHWAYMAN<\/h2>\n
SEGMENT<\/span> 4<\/span><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/death.jpg?resize=417%2C319\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nMUDLARKS AND THE SILENT HIGHWAYMAN<\/h2>\n
SEGMENT<\/span> 5<\/span><\/h1>\n
![\"mudlarks\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/OnTheEveOfCholera.jpg?resize=377%2C602\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/AlbertsSickMum.jpg?resize=366%2C584\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\n![\"mudlarks\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Cover_MudlarksAndTheSilentHighwayman_WarpedText.jpg?resize=197%2C300\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n