Читать книгу Liverpool a few years since: by an old stager - James Aspinall - Страница 4

We are not great at statistics. We do not pretend to be accurate to an hour in dates, chronology, and so forth. We write, indeed, entirely from memory, and therefore may perhaps occasionally go wrong in fixing “the hour for the man, and the man for the hour,” as we dot down a few of our recollections of the “good old town of Liverpool,” from the time when we cast off our swaddling clothes, crept out of our cradle, opened our eyes, and began to exercise our reasoning powers on men and things as in those days they presented themselves to our view. We think that our memory has a faint glimmering of the illuminations which took place when peace was made with Napoleon, in 1801. We also remember being called out of our bed to gaze at the terrible flames when the Goree warehouses were burnt down, and how we crept out of the house at day dawn, and rushed to see the blazing mass and all its tottering ruins in dangerous proximity.

It might only have happened yesterday, so vividly is the scene impressed upon our mind. But what was Liverpool in those days of early hours, pigtails, routs and hair-powder?

The docks ended with George’s at one extremity and the Queen’s at the other. There was a battery near the latter and another near the former. Farther north was a large fort of some thirty guns, and halfway towards Bootle, a smaller one with nine. The town hardly on one side extended beyond Colquitt-street. The greater part of Upper Duke-street was unbuilt. Cornwallis-street, the large house which Mr. Morrall erected, the ground on which St. Michael’s Church stands, all were fields at the time of which we speak. There was a picturesque-looking mill at the top of Duke-street, and behind Rodney-street we had a narrow lane, with a high bank overgrown with roses. Russell-street, Seymour-street, and all beyond were still free from bricks. Lime-street was bounded by a field, in which many a time we watched rough lads chasing cocks on Shrove Tuesday for a prize, the competitors having their hands tied behind them, and catching at the victims with their mouths. Edge-hill, Everton, and Kirkdale were villages, as yet untouched by the huge Colossus which has since absorbed them and transmuted them into suburbs. What pilgrimages we children used to achieve to the second of these places, the very Mecca of our affections, that we might expend our small cash upon genuine Molly Bushell’s toffee. And what wonderful tales we heard from our nurses and companions about Prince Rupert’s Cottage, – only lately demolished by some modern Goth, under the plea of improvement! And then we crept on to peep at the old beacon at San Domingo, thinking what a clever device it was to rouse and alarm the country, never dreaming in our young heads of telegraphs, and electric telegraphs, and other inventions, which have now superseded the rude makeshifts of our forefathers. And what a grand house we thought Mr. Harper’s, at Everton, now turned into barracks. And Hope-street, now so central, then gave no hopes of existence. It was country altogether. At one end of it were two gentlemen’s seats, inhabited by the families of Corrie and Thomas, and far removed from the smoke and bustle of the town.

But go we back to the docks. There were no steamers in those days to tow out our vessels. The wind ruled supreme, without a rival. The consequence was, that when, after a long stretch of contrary winds, a change took place, and a favourable breeze set in, a whole fleet of ships would at once be hauled out of dock, and start upon their several voyages. It was a glorious spectacle. It was the delight of our younger days to be present on all such occasions. How we used to fly about, sometimes watching the dashing American ships as they left the King’s and Queen’s Docks, and sometimes taking a peep at the coasters in the Salthouse Dock, or at the African traders in the Old Dock, since filled up, at the instigation of some goose anxious to emulate the fame of the man who set fire to the Temple at Ephesus. This fatal blunder it was which first gave a wrong direction to our docks, stretching them out northwards and southwards in extenso, instead of centralising and keeping them together. But we must not moralise. We are at the dock side, or on the pierhead. The tide is rising, the wind is favourable, “The sea, the sea, the open sea,” is the word with all. What bustle and confusion! What making fast and casting off of ropes! How the captains shout! How the men swear! How the dock-masters rush about! What horrible “confusion worse confounded” seems to prevail! And yet there is method in all this seeming madness. Order will presently come out of all this apparent chaos. The vessels pass through the dockgates. Meat and bread are tossed on board of them at the last moment. Friends are bidding farewell! Wives tremble and look pale. There is a tear in the stout-hearted sailor’s eye as he waves his adieu. But, “Give way, give way there, my lads; heave away my hearties!” The vessel clears the dock, passes through the gut, and then pauses for a brief space at the pier, while the sails are set and trimmed. Then comes the final word, “Cast off that rope!” and many a time have we, at hearing it, tugged with our tiny hands until we have succeeded in effecting it, and then strutted away as proudly as if we had just won Waterloo or Trafalgar. And now the sails fill; she moves, she starts, there is a cheer, “Off she goes!” dashing the spray on either side of her as soon as ever she feels the breeze. And now all the river is alive. The heavy Baltic vessels are creeping away. The Americans, always the same, are cracking along with every stitch of canvas they can carry. The West Indiamen sail nobly along, like the very rulers of the ocean. There are the coasters, and the Irish traders, and packets, while the smart pilot-boat dashes along under easy sail, here, there, and everywhere almost at the same time. And so they go on, until, like a dissolving view, they are lost behind the Rock, and we retire from our post, with the determination to be there again when the same scene is repeated.