Summary

The story begins with the narrator describing the Thames, the river that runs through London. This river is very dirty, and no one drinks from it, not even animals like the Mudlarks. He continues by contending that once raindrops touch London, it becomes dirty like the river. The narrator sees a woman walking near the docks; she is looking towards the ships as she has done for years. She speaks to the narrator and explains that her son wanted to be a sailor. She objected, as her husband had never come back from a sea voyage (she explains that he is either dead or in Amsterdam).

Her son runs away and becomes a sailor on a ship with possible ill omens associated with it. A storm hit and the surviving sailors fled on a lifeboat. Eventually, as hunger set in...