The Master Craftsman

How does one get to Wapping? It is not, I believe, generally known that there are trains which take the explorer to this secluded hamlet. They are the same trains which go under the Thames Tunnel. Before entering upon that half-mile of danger, the engine stops at a station, dark and uncertain, deep down in the bowels of the earth, and unprovided with a lift. It is a fearful climb to the top of those stairs, but when you do arrive, you find yourself in the very heart of the quarter—in fact, in Wapping High Street itself. This is one way of getting to Wapping. Another, and a much better way, is to walk there from Tower Hill, past St. Katherine’s Docks, where you may drop a tear over the wanton destruction of what should have been Eastminster, the Cathedral of East London, the House and Church of St. Katherine by the Tower, with its Deanery, its Close, its gardens all ready for promotion, and even, like Westminster, its adjacent slums. The traveller then enters Nightingale Lane, wondering when the nightingale was last heard here, and presently finds himself in a long riverside street. Tall warehouses and wharves are on the south side; on the north side, offices. North of the offices are the Docks. Between the warehouses are stairs. Here are Hermitage Stairs, and since there is a Hermitage Street, there was probably at one time or other a hermit established on this spot. A most desirable spot it must have been for a hermit of a gloomy turn, being then a moist, swampy, oozy, marshy, tidal kind of place, most eligible for any hermit who desired all the discomforts of his profession.

In those days the place was Wapping-in-the-Ouse: afterwards it became Wapping-on-the-Wall, and a dry place, without even a frog or an evet, or a single shake of ague. And then the hermit fled in disgust to Canvey Island, and only the memory of him now remains. Then one comes to Wapping Old Stairs; a name for ever for the sake of the Faithful One; and Execution Stairs, where they drowned people, tying them to a stake up which the rising tide gradually crept—oh! how gradually, how slowly!—till it came to the chin and the lips. Then the bargee, going up with the flood, saw above the surface of the lapping wave, half a face, white, with staring eyes that took their last look of the sunshine and the ships and the broad river, while the water rose a half-inch more, and life indignant fled!

Then one saw a black, brown or red lump above the water, with floating hair—for sailors wore it long; then this too disappeared, and there was nothing left but the top of the stake and the quiet whisper of the water as it flowed past. For three times, ebb and flow, that criminal remained upon his stake; the first for the doing unto death; the next two for an example unto the young and a terror unto evil-doers. After that they took him up and buried him, or hung him in chains, tarred but not feathered. Gruesome are the memories of Execution Dock; many are the ghosts who haunt, all unseen—because there is nobody in wharf or warehouse after business hours to see them—the spot where they were done to death. It was, however, lower down the river, round the Isle of Dogs, that they hung up the black body in creaking chains until it dropped to pieces.

If you want to see the river—the view of the river was the pride of Wapping until the warehouses replaced the old gabled timber-houses—go down one of the lanes which lead to the Stairs. Then you will obtain a panoramic view set in a frame—a tall, narrow picture, a section of the busy river, across which pass all day long up or down the great ocean steamer, the little river steamer, the noisy tug, the sailing-ship, the barge laden with hay, or iron, or casks, down to the water’s edge, the wherries, with which this part of the Thames is always crowded. What they do; what makes them so full of business and zeal—no one can discover.

Beyond the river are the mills and granaries and warehouses of Rotherhithe, with the white steeple of the church. The lane in which you stand is, in fact, a much finer kinetoscope than Mr. Edison has invented; it presents you with a picture of ceaseless, changeful motion; of restless activity; of ordered purpose.

Then go back and resume your walk along the street. It is, like the river itself, a busy highway of trade; the tall warehouses were built for trade; the cranes are out on the topmost floor, conducting the trade; men are swinging out heavy bales of goods and lowering them into waggons, which will distribute the trade among other hands. The street, indeed, is full of waggons loaded and waggons unloaded; waggons standing under the cranes, waggons going away loaded and coming back empty. You would not believe there were so many waggons in London. Except for the drivers of the waggons and the men in the upper stories tossing about the bales, there are no people to be seen in the street. Passengers there are none. Nobody walks in Wapping High Street except to and from his warehouse or his wharf. He goes there on business. Of shops there are but two or three, and those not of the best. And this is Wapping. It seems at first to be nothing but a narrow slip between the river and the docks. This is not quite true, however, as we shall presently see.

I entered the cradle of my race, fortunately, by the best way, the Tower Hill way. It seems a cradle to be proud of; all ancient crafts are honourable, but some are more honourable than others; surely boat-building is a very honourable craft. Consider: Noah was an eminent boat-builder; the finest example of his work has never been surpassed; we are all descended from Noah, therefore we ought all to have boat-building instincts. As to the antiquity of boats, it goes back beyond the time of Noah. The first boat, if you think of it—the only way to get at prehistoric history is to think of it—was a cradle, a wicker basket cradle, lined with soft fur; there was a baby in it—an antediluvian Patriarch baby. The cradle—I am giving away quite a new Archæological discovery—was placed by the child’s mother by the riverside, and left, but only for a few minutes; then the waters suddenly rose and swept the cradle away; the agonized mother saw it in the midst of the flood, pursued by a hungry crocodile. She looked to see the cradle sink; it did not, it quietly drifted into a bank or haven of refuge, the baby unhurt, and the baffled crocodile sullenly sank to the bottom. Hence arose the building of the first boat, the shape of which, and of all boats to follow, was copied from the cradle. The first boat-builder, I believe, was named Burnikel, whose grand-daughter married Noah’s father. However, it was not so much out of pride in the boat-yard that I came to Wapping as from the desire to see more of this strange, strong, resolute, ambitious cousin of mine.

Of course, I had never been here before. Men of my upbringing know nothing, hear nothing, and understand nothing, of the busy life, the productions, the exports, the imports, the enterprise, the risks, the fluctuations, the skill, the courage, which belong to the trade of our great ports. The merchant adventurer is unknown to us. We ignore, or we despise, the men by whose enterprise we actually live. Not that we understand this; yet it is a hard fact that the gilded youth depends upon the trade of the country as much as the merchant who directs, the shopkeeper who distributes, the very waggoner and the bargee, and the man who slings the bales upon the crane. Money, you see, can no longer be carried about in sacks of gold. It must be invested: and every investment, whether gas, or water, or railways, or mines, or trading companies, or municipal bonds, or even consols, depends upon the success of a venture. And since agriculture is dead or dying, there is nothing left except these ventures. Should they fail, should disaster suddenly overtake the British industries, then the whole wealth of the country would vanish at once, and the youth of Piccadilly would be as penniless as the poor fellows of the warehouses, thrown out of work. But this the youth of Piccadilly knows not. I know these things because I have been made to learn them.

For the first time, therefore, I found myself in the midst of trade, actual, visible, tangible—fragrant, even. It was a kind of discovery to me. I walked along slowly revolving the thing. Exports and imports one reads about: they are words which to me had then little or no meaning. Here were people actually exporting and importing with tremendous zeal. The street was a hive of industry. Not one face but was full of business; not one but was set, absorbed, serious, observing nothing because it was so full of thought. No one lit cigarettes; no one lounged; no one talked or laughed with his neighbour. All were occupied, all wrapt in thought. All walked with a purpose: no less a purpose, indeed, than the winning of the daily bread, or the creation of a pile on which the children—which would be the very greatest misfortune for them—could live in idleness.

Presently I came to the mouth of the London Dock, where a swing-bridge crosses the narrow entrance, and is rolled back on hinges to let the ships pass in and out. It was open when I reached the place, and a ship was slowly passing through: a three-masted sailing-ship, of which there are still some left. I watched the beautiful thing with the tall masts and shrouds—man never made anything more beautiful than a sailing-ship. Looking to the left, I saw the crowded masts in the dock; looking to the right, I saw the ships going down the river, and heard the dulcet note of the Siren. All this meant, I perceived dimly, buying and selling. The ships bring immense cargoes to be sold in London and distributed everywhere. All the selling must be at a profit, otherwise these waggons would not be employed, and these warehouses would be closed, and Wapping-on-the-Wall would be as silent and as solitary as Tadmor-in-the-Desert. All this buying and selling meant the employment and the maintenance of millions. Trade, I began to understand, is a very big thing indeed—a thing which demands enterprise and courage; which requires also knowledge and skill; which abounds with chances and changes and perils and hopes.

The ship passed through: the bridge swung round: I passed over it and continued my way. At this point Wapping widens and becomes a right-angled triangle, whose hypothenuse is the river and whose altitude is the East London Dock. This triangle, with the riverside street, is all that the docks have left of old Wapping village. On this occasion, however, I did not discover the triangle; I walked on, the street continuing with its warehouses and its wharves and its river stairs.

A little beyond the bridge I came to a house which would have arrested my attention by its appearance alone, apart from the name upon its door-plate. For it was a solid red brick, eighteenth-century house. The bricks were of the kind which grow more beautiful with years. The door, with a shell decoration above it, was in the middle, and there was one window on each side of it. In the two stories above there were three windows in each: the roof was of warm red tiles. There were green shutters to the lower windows: a solid, comfortable old house. It was well kept up: the paint was fresh; the windows were clean; the steps were white; the brass door-plate, which was small, was burnished bright, and on it, in letters half effaced, I read the name of Burnikel.

‘The cradle!’ I thought. ‘Here was born the ancestral builder of boats. But where is the yard?’

On the other side of the street stood a huge rambling shed—two sheds side by side, built of wood and painted black. Through the wide-open door I saw the stout ribs of a half-built barge sticking up in readiness to receive the planking of her sides. And there was the sound of hammers. And, to make quite sure, there was painted across the shed in white letters the name ‘Burnikel and Burnikel, Boat and Barge Builders.’

I stepped in and looked round. There were one or two unfinished boats beside the big barge; wood was lying about everywhere, stacked on the low rafters of the roof, in heaps, thick wood and thin wood; there were tools and appliances—some I understood, some were new to me. Men were working. At the sight of all this carpentry work, my spirits rose. This was the kind of work I loved. A beautiful place, such a place, I thought, as I would like to work in myself. Even in those early days, you see, I had a soul above a lathe in a study. A lathe is a toy; this yard was for serious work. And picturesque, too, with its high roof and its black rafters, and its front open to the river, commanding a noble panorama, wider than is afforded by any of the stairs in those narrow lanes.

Nobody took any notice of me. The men just looked up and went on hammering. A well-ordered yard, apparently.

At that moment the master came out of a little enclosed box in the corner, called ‘Office,’ which was big enough, at least, for a high desk and some books.

At the outset, in the evening, I had remarked the curious resemblance of my cousin to myself. By daylight the resemblance was not so marked, partly because the man was so much bigger. He was one of those men with whom a simple six-foot in height makes them tower over all other men. He looked tall and broad, and strong above any of his fellows. So looked Saul. He looked around him quickly as he came out, as if to see that his men were all working with zeal and knowledge. Then he stepped across the yard and greeted his visitor gravely.

‘I saw you come in,’ he said. ‘I only half expected you, because, I thought, why should you want to see the old place?’

‘Well, I did want to see the old place. And I wanted to see you again.’

‘Here it is, then, and here I am. Not much of a place, after all, but there’s a tidy business done here, and always has been, and no change in the place since it was first put up, and that’s two hundred years ago. Just the same; the yard is the same, the beams of the roof are the same, if the tiles have been removed, and the work is the same. If your ancestor was to look in here, he’d see nothing changed but the workmen’s clothes. They’ve left off aprons, and they’ve left off stockings. That’s all.’

‘Good. We are thus in the last century.’

‘Yes. The river’s changed, though. The Port of London was a much finer place formerly, when there were no docks, and the ships were ranged in double line all down the Pool, and all the landing was done by barges—Burnikel’s barges—and the river was covered with boats—Burnikel’s boats—cruising about among the ships. We’ll go for a cruise if you like, any day, in my boat. It is the old boat; here she is.’ The boat was lying in the river, made fast to the quay pile. ‘We used to board the ships as they came in for the repair of their boats. Now there’s no need. They all go into dock. There are some pictures over the way of the river in the last century. You shall see them presently.’

‘Thank you.’

‘We can’t make better boats now than they made a hundred and fifty years ago; we can’t put in better work nor better material. They knew good work. Everything except steam things they knew how to make, then, far better than we do now. Burnikel’s barges are built after the old pattern. This barge, for instance’—he laid his hand on a rib of the unfinished craft—‘she is built on eighteenth-century lines.’

‘She looks substantial enough.’

‘She is. Well. Look around you, Sir George. This is where your great-grandfather worked, and your great-great-grandfather, and so on, ever so far back. This is where you came from.’

He took his visitor over the little yard, pointing out something of the craft and mystery of boat-building.

‘All this,’ I said, ‘interests me enormously. You know I’ve got a lathe, and I know a little how to make things—useless things. It is all I can do—my one accomplishment.’

‘There’s not many of your sort who can do so much. Well, there’s not much here to make a show, but there’s a good deal to learn in boat-building, let me tell you.’

‘I ought to have boat-building in the blood,’ I observed. ‘The mystery seems familiar to me. Don’t you think that so many generations of boat-building—with this little break of just two lives, one a Judge, and one a—nothing—ought to make me take to the trade naturally, as a duck to water?’

Robert Burnikel answered seriously. He was a very serious young man. Besides, light conversation is unknown at Wapping.

‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Natural aptitude must come with generations of work. There is a kind of caste in every trade. I know a succession of carpenters, from father to son; and a succession of watchmakers; and a succession of blacksmiths. These men of mine are all the sons of boat-builders; they grew up in the trade. I don’t think they could have done anything else so well. As for you—well, your grandfather was a Judge.’

‘For the first time in my life, I am ashamed to say that he was.’

‘Not that you need be ashamed, I suppose, but, still, he broke the succession. All the rest of us have always been boat-builders or sailors.’

‘For the moment I feel an enthusiasm of boat-building. The only practical work worth considering is this. I am convinced it is the hereditary instinct.’

‘Well, you can’t know anything about it, instinct or not.’

‘I suppose, now, that you could make a boat yourself, with your own hands, from keel to gunwale, from stem to stern?’

‘He would be a poor kind of master who couldn’t do anything better than his men. I used to work, hammer, and saw, and plane, with the men when I was a prentice.’

We talked about boats and boat-building till the subject was exhausted. The Master Craftsman looked at his watch.

‘Four o’clock,’ he said. ‘Now come over the way. I live in the old house built by the first of them who came here. We can talk for an hour or so before tea. I told them you might be coming to tea.’