I was about to try to climb on the top of one
from the boat, a piece of madness which would probably have ended
in my death, but some boys in one of the houses on the bridge
began to pelt me with pebbles, so that I had to sheer off. I
pulled down among the shipping, examining every vessel in the
Pool. Then I pulled down the stream, with the ebb, as far as
Wapping, where I was much shocked by the sight of the pirates'
gallows, with seven dead men hung in chains together there, for
taking the ship Delight, so a waterman told me, on the Guinea
Coast, the year before. I left my boat at Wapping Stairs, while I
went into a pastry-cook's shop to buy cake; for I was now hungry.
The pastry-cook was also a vintner. His tables were pretty well
crowded with men, mostly seafaring men, who were drinking wine
together, talking of politics. I knew nothing whatever about
politics, but hearing the Duke of Monmouth named I pricked up my
ears to listen. My father had told me, in his last illness, when
the news of the death of Charles the Second reached us, that
trouble would come to England through this Duke, because, he
said, "he will never agree with King James." Many people (the
Duke himself being one of them) believed that this James Scott,
Duke of Monmouth, was the son of a very beautiful woman by
Charles the Second, who (so the tale went) had married her in his
wanderings abroad, while Cromwell ruled in England here. I myself
shall ever believe this story.
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