Mr. Wood heard the cry.  But his own situation was too perilous to admit of his rendering any assistance to the ill-fated waterman.  He fancied, indeed, that he beheld a figure spring upon the starling at the moment when the boats came in contact; but, as he could perceive no one near him, he concluded he must have been mistaken.

In order to make Mr. Wood’s present position, and subsequent proceedings fully intelligible, it may be necessary to give some notion of the shape and structure of the platform on which he had taken refuge.  It has been said, that the pier of each arch, or lock of Old London Bridge, was defended from the force of the tide by a huge projecting spur called a starling.  These starlings varied in width, according to the bulk of the pier they surrounded.  But they were all pretty nearly of the same length, and built somewhat after the model of a boat, having extremities as sharp and pointed as the keel of a canoe.  Cased and ribbed with stone, and braced with horizontal beams of timber, the piles, which formed the foundation of these jetties, had resisted the strong encroachments of the current for centuries.  Some of them are now buried at the bottom of the Thames.  The starling, on which the carpenter stood, was the fourth from the Surrey shore.  It might be three yards in width, and a few more in length; but it was covered with ooze and slime, and the waves continually broke over it.  The transverse spars before mentioned were as slippery as ice; and the hollows between them were filled ankle-deep with water.

The carpenter threw himself flat upon the starling to avoid the fury of the wind.  But in this posture he fared worse than ever.  If he ran less risk of being blown over, he stood a much greater chance of being washed off, or stifled.  As he lay on his back, he fancied himself gradually slipping off the platform.  Springing to his feet in an ecstasy of terror, he stumbled, and had well nigh realized his worst apprehensions.  He, next, tried to clamber up the flying buttresses and soffits of the pier, in the hope of reaching some of the windows and other apertures with which, as a man-of-war is studded with port-holes, the sides of the bridge were pierced.  But this wild scheme was speedily abandoned; and, nerved by despair, the carpenter resolved to hazard an attempt, from the execution, almost from the contemplation, of which he had hitherto shrunk.  This was to pass under the arch, along the narrow ledge of the starling, and, if possible, attain the eastern platform, where, protected by the bridge, he would suffer less from the excessive violence of the gale.

Assured, if he remained much longer where he was, he would inevitably perish, Wood recommended himself to the protection of Heaven, and began his perilous course.  Carefully sustaining the child which, even in that terrible extremity, he had not the heart to abandon, he fell upon his knees, and, guiding himself with his right hand, crept slowly on.  He had scarcely entered the arch, when the indraught was so violent, and the noise of the wind so dreadful and astounding, that he almost determined to relinquish the undertaking.  But the love of life prevailed over his fears.  He went on.