Page:Bill the minder.djvu/64

 THE ANCIENT MARINER from Cherry Garden Pier for Margate with a cargo of camels, in the year 1840, and has never since been heard of.

'Though a born sailor, I succeeded my father in what was one of the best corn-chandler's businesses in that part of Barking. By my industry and thrift I, in time, so bettered my position and improved my business that I felt fully entitled to settle down and enter into the state of matrimony. For some years I had had my eye on the enchanting Jane Osbaldistone de Trevor, whose father kept a large brill farm by Barking Creek,—in fact, the largest of the many brill farms that used, in those days, to line the river from Limehouse Reach to Cherry Garden Pier.

'His wealth and importance did not deter me from aspiring to the hand of his fascinating daughter; and why should they have done so? Was not I in the very promising position of owning the largest corn-chandler's store, from Wapping Old Stairs even as far down as Barking Creek? And then, again, was not I as well born as he, for did not my ancestors chandle corn in Barking long before the De Trevors had crossed the Channel, when they may, indeed, have earned a precarious livelihood by letting bathing-machines on the beach at Boulogne?

'Nevertheless, on my broaching the subject to the old gentleman, he threw every conceivable obstacle in my way, and made conditions that were wellnigh impossible of being carried out. "If," said he, "you 36