She wondered whether the press of people on either side of her would buoy her up and carry her along if she fell, or whether she would be trampled underfoot and kicked into the Thames. She had heard that thousands of people crossed the bridge every hour, a human river flowing north to south and south to north, the current ebbing at night but flowing heavily again before dawn. The water of the Thames moved west to east beneath the granite pillars, stodgy and filthy now at the turn of the tide. There was a low roar of human voices roundabout her, ships’ bells clanging, a constant shouting from men on hundreds of busy decks, masts like a forest of leafless trees against the backdrop of waterfront buildings and docks, black smoke rising from the steam packets passing under the bridge, so that the still air was very nearly as murky as the water beneath it. Mother Laswell had spent the better part of her life at war with the filth and clamor of industry, but she feared that it was merely another tide that couldn’t be turned back or spanned by a bridge.
