out, not a few, in those palmy days, were still dusty ornaments of
its somewhat antique office. But as time went on, and the age of
iron intervened, and the advance on the Clyde and the Tyne had made
Thames ship-building a thing of the past, Blackpool Dock had ceased
to be of commercial importance. No more ships were built there, and
fewer ships put in to be overhauled and painted; while even these
were for the most part of a class viewed at Lloyd's with scant
favour, which seemed, like the yard itself, to have fallen somewhat
behind the day. The original Rainham had not bequeathed his energy
along with his hoards to his descendants; and, indeed, the last of
these, Philip Rainham, a man of weak health, original Rainham had
not bequeathed his energy along with his hoards to his descendants;
and, indeed, the last of these, Philip Rainham, a man of weak
health, whose tastes, although these were veiled in obscurity, were
supposed to trench little upon shipping, let the business jog along
so much after its own fashion, that the popular view hinted at its
imminent dissolution. A dignified, scarcely prosperous quiet seemed
the normal air of Blackpool Dock, so that even when it was busiest
--and work still came in, almost by tradition, with a certain
steadiness--when the hammers of the riveters and the shipwrights
awoke the echoes from sunrise to sunset, with a ferocious regularity
which the present proprietor could almost deplore, there was still a
suggestion of mildewed antiquity about it all that was, at least to
the nostrils of the outsider, not unpleasing. And when the ships
were painted, and had departed, it resumed very easily its more
regular aspect of picturesque dilapidation. For in spite of its
sordid surroundings and its occasional lapses into bustle, Blackpool
Dock, as Rainham would sometimes remind himself, when its commercial
motive was pressed upon him too forcibly, was deeply permeated by
the spirit of the picturesque.