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\hyphenation{Mont-mo-r-en-cy}

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\title{THREE MEN IN A BOAT\\
{\normalsize (To Say Nothing of the Dog)}}


\author{Jerome Klapka Jerome}

\maketitle
\vspace*{\stretch{1}}

\noindent This text (Project Gutenberg designation {}``3boat10'')
is in the public domain in the U.S. Scanning and first proof by David
Price <ccx074@coventry.ac.uk>. Second proof: Mar\-gar\-et Price.

\bigskip{}
\noindent The text was subsequently converted to \LaTeX{} using \textbf{GutenMark}
software and re-edited (primarily for formatting) by Ron Burkey. The
Preface and a frontispiece lacking in the Project Gutenberg edition
were also added. Report problems to info@sandroid.org.

\begin{description}
\item [B~12/14/02.]Proofing completed.
\item [B1~01/05/03.]Removed remnants of the scanned frontispiece borders
and corrected the \LaTeX{} em-dash construct.
\item [B2~01/12/03.]Justification of chapter sub-headings changed to something
(hopefully) more attractive.
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\frontmatter


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\mainmatter



\chapter*{PREFACE}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{PREFACE}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{PREFACE}

The chief beauty of this book lies not so much in its literary style,
or in the extent and usefulness of the information it conveys, as
in its simple truthfulness. Its pages form the record of events that
really happened. All that has been done is to color them; and for
this, no extra charge has been made. George and Harris and Montmorency
are not poetic ideals, but things of flesh and blood\mdash{}especially
George, who weighs about twelve stone. Other works may excel this
in depth of thought and knowledge of human nature; other books may
rival it in originality and size; but, for hopeless and incurable
veracity, nothing yet discovered can surpass it. This, more than all
its other charms, will, it is felt, make the volume precious in the
eye of the earnest reader, and will lend additional weight to the
lesson that the story teaches.

\noindent \begin{center}\noun{London, August 1889.}\end{center}


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER I.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER I}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER I}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Three invalids.\mdash{} Sufferings of
Ge\-o\-r\-ge and Harris.\mdash{} A victim to one}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{hundred}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{and}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{seven}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{fatal}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{ma\-l\-a\-d\-ies}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Useful}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{prescriptions}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Cure}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{for
liver}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{complaint}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{in}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{children}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{We}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{agree}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{that}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{we}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{are}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{overworked}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{,}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{and}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{need
rest}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{} A}}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{week}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{on}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{the}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{rolling}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{deep}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{?\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{George}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{suggests}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{the}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{river}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Montmorency}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{lodges}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{an}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{objection}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Original}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{motion}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{carried}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{by}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{majority}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{of three}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{to}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{one}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.}}}}

\textit{\emph{There}} were four of us\mdash{}George, and William
Samuel Harris, and myself, and \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}. We were
sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were\mdash{}bad
from a medical point of view I mean, of course.

We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about
it. Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come
over him at times, that he hardly knew what he was doing; and then
George said that \textit{he} had fits of giddiness too, and hardly
knew what \textit{he} was doing. With me, it was my liver that was
out of order. I knew it was my liver that was out of order, because
I had just been reading a patent liver-pill circular, in which were
detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver
was out of order. I had them all.

It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine
advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering
from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent
form. The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with
all the sensations that I have ever felt.

I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment
for some slight ailment of which I had a touch\mdash{}hay fever,
I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read;
and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began
to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first
distemper I plunged into\mdash{}some fearful, devastating scourge,
I know\mdash{}and, before I had glanced half down the list of {}``premonitory
symptoms,'' it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.

I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness
of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever\mdash{}read
the symptoms\mdash{}discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have
had it for months without knowing it\mdash{}wondered what else I
had got; turned up St.\ Vitus's Dance\mdash{}found, as I expected,
that I had that too,\mdash{}began to get interested in my case, and
determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically\mdash{}read
up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute
stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright's disease,
I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far
as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with
severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with.
I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the
only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.

I felt rather hurt about this at first; it seemed somehow to be a
sort of slight. Why hadn't I got housemaid's knee? Why this invidious
reservation? After a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed.
I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology,
and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid's
knee. Gout, in its most malignant stage, it would appear, had seized
me without my being aware of it; and zymosis I had evidently been
suffering with from boyhood. There were no more diseases after zymosis,
so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me.

I sat and pondered. I thought what an interesting case I must be from
a medical point of view, what an acquisition I should be to a class!
Students would have no need to {}``walk the hospitals,'' if they
had me. I was a hospital in myself. All they need do would be to walk
round me, and, after that, take their diploma.

Then I wondered how long I had to live. I tried to examine myself.
I felt my pulse. I could not at first feel any pulse at all. Then,
all of a sudden, it seemed to start off. I pulled out my watch and
timed it. I made it a hundred and forty-seven to the minute. I tried
to feel my heart. I could not feel my heart. It had stopped beating.
I have since been induced to come to the opinion that it must have
been there all the time, and must have been beating, but I cannot
account for it. I patted myself all over my front, from what I call
my waist up to my head, and I went a bit round each side, and a little
way up the back. But I could not feel or hear anything. I tried to
look at my tongue. I stuck it out as far as ever it would go, and
I shut one eye, and tried to examine it with the other. I could only
see the tip, and the only thing that I could gain from that was to
feel more certain than before that I had scarlet fever.

I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled
out a decrepit wreck.

I went to my medical man. He is an old chum of mine, and feels my
pulse, and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather, all for
nothing, when I fancy I'm ill; so I thought I would do him a good
turn by going to him now. {}``What a doctor wants,'' I said, {}``is
practice. He shall have me. He will get more practice out of me than
out of seventeen hundred of your ordinary, commonplace patients, with
only one or two diseases each.'' So I went straight up and saw him,
and he said:

{}``Well, what's the matter with you?''

I said:

{}``I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what
is the matter with me. Life is brief, and you might pass away before
I had finished. But I will tell you what is \textit{not} the matter
with me. I have not got housemaid's knee. Why I have not got housemaid's
knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got
it. Everything else, however, I \textit{have} got.''

And I told him how I came to discover it all.

Then he opened me and looked down me, and clutched hold of my wrist,
and then he hit me over the chest when I wasn't expecting it\mdash{}a
cowardly thing to do, I call it\mdash{}and immediately afterwards
butted me with the side of his head. After that, he sat down and wrote
out a prescription, and folded it up and gave it me, and I put it
in my pocket and went out.

I did not open it. I took it to the nearest chemist's, and handed
it in. 

The man read it, and then handed it back.

He said he didn't keep it.

I said:

{}``You are a chemist?''

He said:

{}``I am a chemist. If I was a co-operative stores and family hotel
combined, I might be able to oblige you. Being only a chemist hampers
me.''

I read the prescription. It ran: \begin{flushleft} \begin{verse} \small

``1 lb.beefsteak, with \\*

1 pt. bitter beer every 6 hours. \\*

1 ten-mile walk every morning. \\*

1 bed at 11 sharp every night. 

\end{verse} \end{flushleft} And don't stuff up your head with things you don't understand.''

I followed the directions, with the happy result\mdash{}speaking
for myself\mdash{}that my life was preserved, and is still going
on.

In the present instance, going back to the liver-pill circular, I
had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being {}``a
general disinclination to work of any kind.''

What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy
I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left
me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical
science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to
put it down to laziness.

{}``Why, you skulking little devil, you,'' they would say, {}``get
up and do something for your living, can't you?''\mdash{}not knowing,
of course, that I was ill.

And they didn't give me pills; they gave me clumps on the side of
the head. And, strange as it may appear, those clumps on the head
often cured me\mdash{}for the time being. I have known one clump
on the head have more effect upon my liver, and make me feel more
anxious to go straight away then and there, and do what was wanted
to be done, without further loss of time, than a whole box of pills
does now.

You know, it often is so\mdash{}those simple, old-fashioned remedies
are sometimes more efficacious than all the dispensary stuff.

We sat there for half-an-hour, describing to each other our maladies.
I explained to George and William Harris how I felt when I got up
in the morning, and William Harris told us how he felt when he went
to bed; and George stood on the hearth-rug, and gave us a clever and
powerful piece of acting, illustrative of how he felt in the night.

George \textit{fancies} he is ill; but there's never anything really
the matter with him, you know.

At this point, Mrs.\ Poppets knocked at the door to know if we were
ready for supper. We smiled sadly at one another, and said we supposed
we had better try to swallow a bit. Harris said a little something
in one's stomach often kept the disease in check; and Mrs.\ Poppets
brought the tray in, and we drew up to the table, and toyed with a
little steak and onions, and some rhubarb tart.

I must have been very weak at the time; because I know, after the
first half-hour or so, I seemed to take no interest whatever in my
food\mdash{}an unusual thing for me\mdash{}and I didn't want any
cheese.

This duty done, we refilled our glasses, lit our pipes, and resumed
the discussion upon our state of health. What it was that was actually
the matter with us, we none of us could be sure of; but the unanimous
opinion was that it\mdash{}whatever it was\mdash{}had been brought
on by overwork.

{}``What we want is rest,'' said Harris.

{}``Rest and a complete change,'' said George. {}``The overstrain
upon our brains has produced a general depression throughout the system.
Change of scene, and absence of the necessity for thought, will restore
the mental equilibrium.''

George has a cousin, who is usually described in the charge-sheet
as a medical student, so that he naturally has a somewhat family-physicianary
way of putting things.

I agreed with George, and suggested that we should seek out some retired
and old-world spot, far from the madding crowd, and dream away a sunny
week among its drowsy lanes\mdash{}some half-forgotten nook, hidden
away by the fairies, out of reach of the noisy world\mdash{}some
quaint-perched eyrie on the cliffs of Time, from whence the surging
waves of the nineteenth century would sound far-off and faint.

Harris said he thought it would be humpy. He said he knew the sort
of place I meant; where everybody went to bed at eight o'clock, and
you couldn't get a \textit{Referee} for love or money, and had to
walk ten miles to get your baccy.

{}``No,'' said Harris, {}``if you want rest and change, you can't
beat a sea trip.''

I objected to the sea trip strongly. A sea trip does you good when
you are going to have a couple of months of it, but, for a week, it
is wicked.

You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you
are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the boys on
shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you
were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all
rolled into one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn't come. On Wednesday,
Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are
able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, and answer
with a wan, sweet smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel
now. On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, and take solid food.
And on Monday morning, as, with your bag and umbrella in your hand,
you stand by the gunwale, waiting to step ashore, you begin to thoroughly
like it.

I remember my brother-in-law going for a short sea trip once, for
the benefit of his health. He took a return berth from London to Liverpool;
and when he got to Liverpool, the only thing he was anxious about
was to sell that return ticket.

It was offered round the town at a tremendous reduction, so I am told;
and was eventually sold for eighteenpence to a bilious-looking youth
who had just been advised by his medical men to go to the sea-side,
and take exercise.

{}``Sea-side!''\ said my brother-in-law, pressing the ticket affectionately
into his hand; {}``why, you'll have enough to last you a lifetime;
and as for exercise! why, you'll get more exercise, sitting down on
that ship, than you would turning somersaults on dry land.''

He himself\mdash{}my brother-in-law\mdash{}came back by train. He
said the North-Western Railway was healthy enough for him.

Another fellow I knew went for a week's voyage round the coast, and,
before they started, the steward came to him to ask whether he would
pay for each meal as he had it, or arrange beforehand for the whole
series.

The steward recommended the latter course, as it would come so much
cheaper. He said they would do him for the whole week at two pounds
five. He said for breakfast there would be fish, followed by a grill.
Lunch was at one, and consisted of four courses. Dinner at six\mdash{}soup,
fish, entree, joint, poultry, salad, sweets, cheese, and dessert.
And a light meat supper at ten.

My friend thought he would close on the two-pound-five job (he is
a hearty eater), and did so.

Lunch came just as they were off Sheerness. He didn't feel so hungry
as he thought he should, and so contented himself with a bit of boiled
beef, and some strawberries and cream. He pondered a good deal during
the afternoon, and at one time it seemed to him that he had been eating
nothing but boiled beef for weeks, and at other times it seemed that
he must have been living on strawberries and cream for years.

Neither the beef nor the strawberries and cream seemed happy, either\mdash{}seemed
discontented like.

At six, they came and told him dinner was ready. The announcement
aroused no enthusiasm within him, but he felt that there was some
of that two-pound-five to be worked off, and he held on to ropes and
things and went down. A pleasant odour of onions and hot ham, mingled
with fried fish and greens, greeted him at the bottom of the ladder;
and then the steward came up with an oily smile, and said:

{}``What can I get you, sir?''

{}``Get me out of this,'' was the feeble reply.

And they ran him up quick, and propped him up, over to leeward, and
left him.

For the next four days he lived a simple and blameless life on thin
captain's biscuits (I mean that the biscuits were thin, not the captain)
and soda-water; but, towards Saturday, he got uppish, and went in
for weak tea and dry toast, and on Monday he was gorging himself on
chicken broth. He left the ship on Tuesday, and as it steamed away
from the landing-stage he gazed after it regretfully.

{}``There she goes,'' he said, {}``there she goes, with two pounds'
worth of food on board that belongs to me, and that I haven't had.''

He said that if they had given him another day he thought he could
have put it straight.

\bigskip{}
So I set my face against the sea trip. Not, as I explained, upon my
own account. I was never queer. But I was afraid for George. George
said he should be all right, and would rather like it, but he would
advise Harris and me not to think of it, as he felt sure we should
both be ill. Harris said that, to himself, it was always a mystery
how people managed to get sick at sea\mdash{}said he thought people
must do it on purpose, from affectation\mdash{}said he had often
wished to be, but had never been able.

Then he told us anecdotes of how he had gone across the Channel when
it was so rough that the passengers had to be tied into their berths,
and he and the captain were the only two living souls on board who
were not ill. Sometimes it was he and the second mate who were not
ill; but it was generally he and one other man. If not he and another
man, then it was he by himself.

It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is sea-sick\mdash{}on land.
At sea, you come across plenty of people very bad indeed, whole boat-loads
of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at
all what it was to be sea-sick. Where the thousands upon thousands
of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they
are on land is a mystery.

If most men were like a fellow I saw on the Yarmouth boat one day,
I could account for the seeming enigma easily enough. It was just
off Southend Pier, I recollect, and he was leaning out through one
of the port-holes in a very dangerous position. I went up to him to
try and save him.

{}``Hi! come further in,'' I said, shaking him by the shoulder.
{}``You'll be overboard.''

{}``Oh my! I wish I was,'' was the only answer I could get; and
there I had to leave him.

Three weeks afterwards, I met him in the coffee-room of a Bath hotel,
talking about his voyages, and explaining, with enthusiasm, how he
loved the sea.

{}``Good sailor!'' he replied in answer to a mild young man's envious
query; {}``well, I did feel a little queer \textit{once}, I confess.
It was off Cape Horn. The vessel was wrecked the next morning.''

I said:

{}``Weren't you a little shaky by Southend Pier one day, and wanted
to be thrown overboard?''

{}``Southend Pier!''\ he replied, with a puzzled expression.

{}``Yes; going down to Yarmouth, last Friday three weeks.''

{}``Oh, ah\mdash{}yes,'' he answered, brightening up; {}``I remember
now. I did have a headache that afternoon. It was the pickles, you
know. They were the most disgraceful pickles I ever tasted in a respectable
boat. Did you have any?''

For myself, I have discovered an excellent preventive against sea-sickness,
in balancing myself. You stand in the centre of the deck, and, as
the ship heaves and pitches, you move your body about, so as to keep
it always straight. When the front of the ship rises, you lean forward,
till the deck almost touches your nose; and when its back end gets
up, you lean backwards. This is all very well for an hour or two;
but you can't balance yourself for a week.

\bigskip{}
George said:

{}``Let's go up the river.''

He said we should have fresh air, exercise and quiet; the constant
change of scene would occupy our minds (including what there was of
Harris's); and the hard work would give us a good appetite, and make
us sleep well.

Harris said he didn't think George ought to do anything that would
have a tendency to make him sleepier than he always was, as it might
be dangerous.

He said he didn't very well understand how George was going to sleep
any more than he did now, seeing that there were only twenty-four
hours in each day, summer and winter alike; but thought that if he
\textit{did} sleep any more, he might just as well be dead, and so
save his board and lodging.

Harris said, however, that the river would suit him to a {}``T.''
I don't know what a {}``T'' is (except a sixpenny one, which includes
bread-and-butter and cake \textit{ad} \textit{lib}., and is cheap
at the price, if you haven't had any dinner). It seems to suit everybody,
however, which is greatly to its credit.

It suited me to a {}``T'' too, and Harris and I both said it was
a good idea of George's; and we said it in a tone that seemed to somehow
imply that we were surprised that George should have come out so sensible.

The only one who was not struck with the suggestion was \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}.
He never did care for the river, did \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}.

{}``It's all very well for you fellows,'' he says; {}``you like
it, but I don't. There's nothing for me to do. Scenery is not in my
line, and I don't smoke. If I see a rat, you won't stop; and if I
go to sleep, you get fooling about with the boat, and slop me overboard.
If you ask me, I call the whole thing bally foolishness.''

We were three to one, however, and the motion was carried.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER II.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER II}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER II}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Plans discussed.\mdash{} Pleasures of
{}``camp\-ing-out,'' on fine nights.\mdash{} Ditto,}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{wet}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{nights}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Compromise}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{decided}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{on}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Mont\-mor\-en\-cy}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{,}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{first}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{impressions}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{of}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Fears}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{lest}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{he}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{is}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{too}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{good}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{for}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{this}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{world}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{,}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{fears}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{subsequently}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{dismissed}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{as}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{groundless}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Meeting}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{adjourns}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.}}}}

\textit{\emph{We}} pulled out the maps, and discussed plans.

We arranged to start on the following Saturday from Kingston. Harris
and I would go down in the morning, and take the boat up to Chertsey,
and George, who would not be able to get away from the City till the
afternoon (George goes to sleep at a bank from ten to four each day,
except Saturdays, when they wake him up and put him outside at two),
would meet us there.

Should we {}``camp out'' or sleep at inns?

George and I were for camping out. We said it would be so wild and
free, so patriarchal like.

Slowly the golden memory of the dead sun fades from the hearts of
the cold, sad clouds. Silent, like sorrowing children, the birds have
ceased their song, and only the moorhen's plaintive cry and the harsh
croak of the corncrake stirs the awed hush around the couch of waters,
where the dying day breathes out her last.

From the dim woods on either bank, Night's ghostly army, the grey
shadows, creep out with noiseless tread to chase away the lingering
rear-guard of the light, and pass, with noiseless, unseen feet, above
the waving river-grass, and through the sighing rushes; and Night,
upon her sombre throne, folds her black wings above the darkening
world, and, from her phantom palace, lit by the pale stars, reigns
in stillness.

Then we run our little boat into some quiet nook, and the tent is
pitched, and the frugal supper cooked and eaten. Then the big pipes
are filled and lighted, and the pleasant chat goes round in musical
undertone; while, in the pauses of our talk, the river, playing round
the boat, prattles strange old tales and secrets, sings low the old
child's song that it has sung so many thousand years\mdash{}will
sing so many thousand years to come, before its voice grows harsh
and old\mdash{}a song that we, who have learnt to love its changing
face, who have so often nestled on its yielding bosom, think, somehow,
we understand, though we could not tell you in mere words the story
that we listen to.

And we sit there, by its margin, while the moon, who loves it too,
stoops down to kiss it with a sister's kiss, and throws her silver
arms around it clingingly; and we watch it as it flows, ever singing,
ever whispering, out to meet its king, the sea\mdash{}till our voices
die away in silence, and the pipes go out\mdash{}till we, common-place,
everyday young men enough, feel strangely full of thoughts, half sad,
half sweet, and do not care or want to speak\mdash{}till we laugh,
and, rising, knock the ashes from our burnt-out pipes, and say {}``Good-night,''
and, lulled by the lapping water and the rustling trees, we fall asleep
beneath the great, still stars, and dream that the world is young
again\mdash{}young and sweet as she used to be ere the centuries
of fret and care had furrowed her fair face, ere her children's sins
and follies had made old her loving heart\mdash{}sweet as she was
in those bygone days when, a new-made mother, she nursed us, her children,
upon her own deep breast\mdash{}ere the wiles of painted civilization
had lured us away from her fond arms, and the poisoned sneers of artificiality
had made us ashamed of the simple life we led with her, and the simple,
stately home where mankind was born so many thousands years ago.

\bigskip{}
Harris said:

{}``How about when it rained?''

You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry about Harris\mdash{}no
wild yearning for the unattainable. Harris never {}``weeps, he knows
not why.'' If Harris's eyes fill with tears, you can bet it is because
Harris has been eating raw onions, or has put too much Worcester over
his chop.

If you were to stand at night by the sea-shore with Harris, and say:

{}``Hark! do you not hear? Is it but the mermaids singing deep below
the waving waters; or sad spirits, chanting dirges for white corpses,
held by seaweed?'' Harris would take you by the arm, and say:

{}``I know what it is, old man; you've got a chill. Now, you come
along with me. I know a place round the corner here, where you can
get a drop of the finest Scotch whisky you ever tasted\mdash{}put
you right in less than no time.''

Harris always does know a place round the corner where you can get
something brilliant in the drinking line. I believe that if you met
Harris up in Paradise (supposing such a thing likely), he would immediately
greet you with:

{}``So glad you've come, old fellow; I've found a nice place round
the corner here, where you can get some really first-class nectar.''

In the present instance, however, as regarded the camping out, his
practical view of the matter came as a very timely hint. Camping out
in rainy weather is not pleasant.

It is evening. You are wet through, and there is a good two inches
of water in the boat, and all the things are damp. You find a place
on the banks that is not quite so puddly as other places you have
seen, and you land and lug out the tent, and two of you proceed to
fix it.

It is soaked and heavy, and it flops about, and tumbles down on you,
and clings round your head and makes you mad. The rain is pouring
steadily down all the time. It is difficult enough to fix a tent in
dry weather: in wet, the task becomes herculean. Instead of helping
you, it seems to you that the other man is simply playing the fool.
Just as you get your side beautifully fixed, he gives it a hoist from
his end, and spoils it all.

{}``Here! what are you up to?'' you call out.

{}``What are \textit{you} up to?'' he retorts; {}``\textit{leggo},
can't you?''

{}``Don't pull it; you've got it all wrong, you stupid ass!'' you
shout.

{}``No, I haven't,'' he yells back; {}``let go your side!''

{}``I tell you you've got it all wrong!'' you roar, wishing that
you could get at him; and you give your ropes a lug that pulls all
his pegs out.

{}``Ah, the bally idiot!'' you hear him mutter to himself; and then
comes a savage haul, and away goes your side. You lay down the mallet
and start to go round and tell him what you think about the whole
business, and, at the same time, he starts round in the same direction
to come and explain his views to you. And you follow each other round
and round, swearing at one another, until the tent tumbles down in
a heap, and leaves you looking at each other across its ruins, when
you both indignantly exclaim, in the same breath:

{}``There you are! what did I tell you?''

Meanwhile the third man, who has been baling out the boat, and who
has spilled the water down his sleeve, and has been cursing away to
himself steadily for the last ten minutes, wants to know what the
thundering blazes you're playing at, and why the blarmed tent isn't
up yet.

At last, somehow or other, it does get up, and you land the things.
It is hopeless attempting to make a wood fire, so you light the methylated
spirit stove, and crowd round that.

Rainwater is the chief article of diet at supper. The bread is two-thirds
rainwater, the beefsteak-pie is exceedingly rich in it, and the jam,
and the butter, and the salt, and the coffee have all combined with
it to make soup.

After supper, you find your tobacco is damp, and you cannot smoke.
Luckily you have a bottle of the stuff that cheers and inebriates,
if taken in proper quantity, and this restores to you sufficient interest
in life to induce you to go to bed.

There you dream that an elephant has suddenly sat down on your chest,
and that the volcano has exploded and thrown you down to the bottom
of the sea\mdash{}the elephant still sleeping peacefully on your
bosom. You wake up and grasp the idea that something terrible really
has happened. Your first impression is that the end of the world has
come; and then you think that this cannot be, and that it is thieves
and murderers, or else fire, and this opinion you express in the usual
method. No help comes, however, and all you know is that thousands
of people are kicking you, and you are being smothered.

Somebody else seems in trouble, too. You can hear his faint cries
coming from underneath your bed. Determining, at all events, to sell
your life dearly, you struggle frantically, hitting out right and
left with arms and legs, and yelling lustily the while, and at last
something gives way, and you find your head in the fresh air. Two
feet off, you dimly observe a half-dressed ruffian, waiting to kill
you, and you are preparing for a life-and-death struggle with him,
when it begins to dawn upon you that it's Jim.

{}``Oh, it's you, is it?'' he says, recognising you at the same
moment.

{}``Yes,'' you answer, rubbing your eyes; {}``what's happened?''

{}``Bally tent's blown down, I think,'' he says.

{}``Where's Bill?''

Then you both raise up your voices and shout for {}``Bill!''\ and
the ground beneath you heaves and rocks, and the muffled voice that
you heard before replies from out the ruin:

{}``Get off my head, can't you?''

And Bill struggles out, a muddy, trampled wreck, and in an unnecessarily
aggressive mood\mdash{}he being under the evident belief that the
whole thing has been done on purpose.

In the morning you are all three speechless, owing to having caught
severe colds in the night; you also feel very quarrelsome, and you
swear at each other in hoarse whispers during the whole of breakfast
time.

\bigskip{}
We therefore decided that we would sleep out on fine nights; and hotel
it, and inn it, and pub.\ it, like respectable folks, when it was
wet, or when we felt inclined for a change.

\textit{\emph{Montmorency}} hailed this compromise with much approval.
He does not revel in romantic solitude. Give him something noisy;
and if a trifle low, so much the jollier. To look at \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}
you would imagine that he was an angel sent upon the earth, for some
reason withheld from mankind, in the shape of a small fox-terrier.
There is a sort of Oh\,-\,what\,-a-wicked-world-this\,-is\,-and-how-I\,-wish\,-I-could-do-something-to-make-it-better-and-nobler
expression about \textit{\emph{Montmorency}} that has been known to
bring the tears into the eyes of pious old ladies and gentlemen.

When first he came to live at my expense, I never thought I should
be able to get him to stop long. I used to sit down and look at him,
as he sat on the rug and looked up at me, and think: {}``Oh, that
dog will never live. He will be snatched up to the bright skies in
a chariot, that is what will happen to him.''

But, when I had paid for about a dozen chickens that he had killed;
and had dragged him, growling and kicking, by the scruff of his neck,
out of a hundred and fourteen street fights; and had had a dead cat
brought round for my inspection by an irate female, who called me
a murderer; and had been summoned by the man next door but one for
having a ferocious dog at large, that had kept him pinned up in his
own tool-shed, afraid to venture his nose outside the door for over
two hours on a cold night; and had learned that the gardener, unknown
to myself, had won thirty shillings by backing him to kill rats against
time, then I began to think that maybe they'd let him remain on earth
for a bit longer, after all.

To hang about a stable, and collect a gang of the most disreputable
dogs to be found in the town, and lead them out to march round the
slums to fight other disreputable dogs, is Montmorency's idea of {}``life;''
and so, as I before observed, he gave to the suggestion of inns, and
pubs., and hotels his most emphatic approbation.

Having thus settled the sleeping arrangements to the satisfaction
of all four of us, the only thing left to discuss was what we should
take with us; and this we had begun to argue, when Harris said he'd
had enough oratory for one night, and proposed that we should go out
and have a smile, saying that he had found a place, round by the square,
where you could really get a drop of Irish worth drinking.

George said he felt thirsty (I never knew George when he didn't);
and, as I had a presentiment that a little whisky, warm, with a slice
of lemon, would do my complaint good, the debate was, by common assent,
adjourned to the following night; and the assembly put on its hats
and went out.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER III.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER III}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER III}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Arrangements settled.\mdash{} Harris's
method of doing work.\mdash{} How the elderly,}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{family}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{-}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{man}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{puts}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{up}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{a}}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{picture}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{George}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{makes}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{a}}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{sensible}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{,}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{remark}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Delights}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{of}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{early}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{morning}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{bathing}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Provisions}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{for}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{getting}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{upset}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.}}}}

\textit{\emph{So}}, on the following evening, we again assembled,
to discuss and arrange our plans. Harris said:

{}``Now, the first thing to settle is what to take with us. Now,
you get a bit of paper and write down, J., and you get the grocery
catalogue, George, and somebody give me a bit of pencil, and then
I'll make out a list.''

That's Harris all over\mdash{}so ready to take the burden of everything
himself, and put it on the backs of other people.

He always reminds me of my poor Uncle Podger. You never saw such a
commotion up and down a house, in all your life, as when my Uncle
Podger undertook to do a job. A picture would have come home from
the frame-maker's, and be standing in the dining-room, waiting to
be put up; and Aunt Podger would ask what was to be done with it,
and Uncle Podger would say:

{}``Oh, you leave that to \textit{me}. Don't you, any of you, worry
yourselves about that. \textit{I'll} do all that.''

And then he would take off his coat, and begin. He would send the
girl out for sixpen'orth of nails, and then one of the boys after
her to tell her what size to get; and, from that, he would gradually
work down, and start the whole house.

{}``Now you go and get me my hammer, Will,'' he would shout; {}``and
you bring me the rule, Tom; and I shall want the step-ladder, and
I had better have a kitchen-chair, too; and, Jim! you run round to
Mr.\ Goggles, and tell him, `Pa's kind regards, and hopes his leg's
better; and will he lend him his spirit-level?' And don't you go,
Maria, because I shall want somebody to hold me the light; and when
the girl comes back, she must go out again for a bit of picture-cord;
and Tom!\mdash{}where's Tom?\mdash{}Tom, you come here; I shall
want you to hand me up the picture.''

And then he would lift up the picture, and drop it, and it would come
out of the frame, and he would try to save the glass, and cut himself;
and then he would spring round the room, looking for his handkerchief.
He could not find his handkerchief, because it was in the pocket of
the coat he had taken off, and he did not know where he had put the
coat, and all the house had to leave off looking for his tools, and
start looking for his coat; while he would dance round and hinder
them.

{}``Doesn't anybody in the whole house know where my coat is? I never
came across such a set in all my life\mdash{}upon my word I didn't.
Six of you!\mdash{}and you can't find a coat that I put down not
five minutes ago! Well, of all the\mdash{}''

Then he'd get up, and find that he had been sitting on it, and would
call out:

{}``Oh, you can give it up! I've found it myself now. Might just
as well ask the cat to find anything as expect you people to find
it.''

And, when half an hour had been spent in tying up his finger, and
a new glass had been got, and the tools, and the ladder, and the chair,
and the candle had been brought, he would have another go, the whole
family, including the girl and the charwoman, standing round in a
semi-circle, ready to help. Two people would have to hold the chair,
and a third would help him up on it, and hold him there, and a fourth
would hand him a nail, and a fifth would pass him up the hammer, and
he would take hold of the nail, and drop it.

{}``There!'' he would say, in an injured tone, {}``now the nail's
gone.''

And we would all have to go down on our knees and grovel for it, while
he would stand on the chair, and grunt, and want to know if he was
to be kept there all the evening.

The nail would be found at last, but by that time he would have lost
the hammer.

{}``Where's the hammer? What did I do with the hammer? Great heavens!
Seven of you, gaping round there, and you don't know what I did with
the hammer!''

We would find the hammer for him, and then he would have lost sight
of the mark he had made on the wall, where the nail was to go in,
and each of us had to get up on the chair, beside him, and see if
we could find it; and we would each discover it in a different place,
and he would call us all fools, one after another, and tell us to
get down. And he would take the rule, and re-measure, and find that
he wanted half thirty-one and three-eighths inches from the corner,
and would try to do it in his head, and go mad.

And we would all try to do it in our heads, and all arrive at different
results, and sneer at one another. And in the general row, the original
number would be forgotten, and Uncle Podger would have to measure
it again.

He would use a bit of string this time, and at the critical moment,
when the old fool was leaning over the chair at an angle of forty-five,
and trying to reach a point three inches beyond what was possible
for him to reach, the string would slip, and down he would slide on
to the piano, a really fine musical effect being produced by the suddenness
with which his head and body struck all the notes at the same time.

And Aunt Maria would say that she would not allow the children to
stand round and hear such language.

At last, Uncle Podger would get the spot fixed again, and put the
point of the nail on it with his left hand, and take the hammer in
his right hand. And, with the first blow, he would smash his thumb,
and drop the hammer, with a yell, on somebody's toes.

Aunt Maria would mildly observe that, next time Uncle Podger was going
to hammer a nail into the wall, she hoped he'd let her know in time,
so that she could make arrangements to go and spend a week with her
mother while it was being done.

{}``Oh!\ you women, you make such a fuss over everything,'' Uncle
Podger would reply, picking himself up. {}``Why, I \textit{like}
doing a little job of this sort.''

And then he would have another try, and, at the second blow, the nail
would go clean through the plaster, and half the hammer after it,
and Uncle Podger be precipitated against the wall with force nearly
sufficient to flatten his nose.

Then we had to find the rule and the string again, and a new hole
was made; and, about midnight, the picture would be up\mdash{}very
crooked and insecure, the wall for yards round looking as if it had
been smoothed down with a rake, and everybody dead beat and wretched\mdash{}except
Uncle Podger.

{}``There you are,'' he would say, stepping heavily off the chair
on to the charwoman's corns, and surveying the mess he had made with
evident pride. {}``Why, some people would have had a man in to do
a little thing like that!''

Harris will be just that sort of man when he grows up, I know, and
I told him so. I said I could not permit him to take so much labour
upon himself. I said:

{}``No; \textit{you} get the paper, and the pencil, and the catalogue,
and George write down, and I'll do the work.''

The first list we made out had to be discarded. It was clear that
the upper reaches of the Thames would not allow of the navigation
of a boat sufficiently large to take the things we had set down as
indispensable; so we tore the list up, and looked at one another!

George said:

{}``You know we are on a wrong track altogether. We must not think
of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can't
do without.''

George comes out really quite sensible at times. You'd be surprised.
I call that downright wisdom, not merely as regards the present case,
but with reference to our trip up the river of life, generally. How
many people, on that voyage, load up the boat till it is ever in danger
of swamping with a store of foolish things which they think essential
to the pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only
useless lumber.

How they pile the poor little craft mast-high with fine clothes and
big houses; with useless servants, and a host of swell friends that
do not care twopence for them, and that they do not care three ha'pence
for; with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities
and fashions, with pretence and ostentation, and with\mdash{}oh,
heaviest, maddest lumber of all!\mdash{}the dread of what will my
neighbour think, with luxuries that only cloy, with pleasures that
bore, with empty show that, like the criminal's iron crown of yore,
makes to bleed and swoon the aching head that wears it!

It is lumber, man\mdash{}all lumber! Throw it overboard. It makes
the boat so heavy to pull, you nearly faint at the oars. It makes
it so cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment's
freedom from anxiety and care, never gain a moment's rest for dreamy
laziness\mdash{}no time to watch the windy shadows skimming lightly
o'er the shallows, or the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out
among the ripples, or the great trees by the margin looking down at
their own image, or the woods all green and golden, or the lilies
white and yellow, or the sombre-waving rushes, or the sedges, or the
orchis, or the blue forget-me-nots.

Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed
with only what you need\mdash{}a homely home and simple pleasures,
one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to
love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough
to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous
thing.

You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so
liable to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset;
good, plain merchandise will stand water. You will have time to think
as well as to work. Time to drink in life's sunshine\mdash{}time
to listen to the \AE olian music that the wind of God draws from
the human heart-strings around us\mdash{}time to\mdash{}

I beg your pardon, really. I quite forgot.

Well, we left the list to George, and he began it.

{}``We won't take a tent, suggested George; {}``we will have a boat
with a cover. It is ever so much simpler, and more comfortable.''

It seemed a good thought, and we adopted it. I do not know whether
you have ever seen the thing I mean. You fix iron hoops up over the
boat, and stretch a huge canvas over them, and fasten it down all
round, from stem to stern, and it converts the boat into a sort of
little house, and it is beautifully cosy, though a trifle stuffy;
but there, everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when his
mother-in-law died, and they came down upon him for the funeral expenses.

George said that in that case we must take a rug each, a lamp, some
soap, a brush and comb (between us), a toothbrush (each), a basin,
some tooth-powder, some shaving tackle (sounds like a French exercise,
doesn't it?), and a couple of big-towels for bathing. I notice that
people always make gigantic arrangements for bathing when they are
going anywhere near the water, but that they don't bathe much when
they are there.

It is the same when you go to the sea-side. I always determine\mdash{}when
thinking over the matter in London\mdash{}that I'll get up early
every morning, and go and have a dip before breakfast, and I religiously
pack up a pair of drawers and a bath towel. I always get red bathing
drawers. I rather fancy myself in red drawers. They suit my complexion
so. But when I get to the sea I don't feel somehow that I want that
early morning bathe nearly so much as I did when I was in town.

On the contrary, I feel more that I want to stop in bed till the last
moment, and then come down and have my breakfast. Once or twice virtue
has triumphed, and I have got out at six and half-dressed myself,
and have taken my drawers and towel, and stumbled dismally off. But
I haven't enjoyed it. They seem to keep a specially cutting east wind,
waiting for me, when I go to bathe in the early morning; and they
pick out all the three-cornered stones, and put them on the top, and
they sharpen up the rocks and cover the points over with a bit of
sand so that I can't see them, and they take the sea and put it two
miles out, so that I have to huddle myself up in my arms and hop,
shivering, through six inches of water. And when I do get to the sea,
it is rough and quite insulting.

One huge wave catches me up and chucks me in a sitting posture, as
hard as ever it can, down on to a rock which has been put there for
me. And, before I've said {}``Oh! Ugh!''\ and found out what has
gone, the wave comes back and carries me out to mid-ocean. I begin
to strike out frantically for the shore, and wonder if I shall ever
see home and friends again, and wish I'd been kinder to my little
sister when a boy (when \emph{I} was a boy, I mean). Just when I have
given up all hope, a wave retires and leaves me sprawling like a star-fish
on the sand, and I get up and look back and find that I've been swimming
for my life in two feet of water. I hop back and dress, and crawl
home, where I have to pretend I liked it.

\bigskip{}
In the present instance, we all talked as if we were going to have
a long swim every morning.

George said it was so pleasant to wake up in the boat in the fresh
morning, and plunge into the limpid river. Harris said there was nothing
like a swim before breakfast to give you an appetite. He said it always
gave him an appetite. George said that if it was going to make Harris
eat more than Harris ordinarily ate, then he should protest against
Harris having a bath at all.

He said there would be quite enough hard work in towing sufficient
food for Harris up against stream, as it was.

I urged upon George, however, how much pleasanter it would be to have
Harris clean and fresh about the boat, even if we did have to take
a few more hundredweight of provisions; and he got to see it in my
light, and withdrew his opposition to Harris's bath.

Agreed, finally, that we should take \textit{three} bath towels, so
as not to keep each other waiting.

For clothes, George said two suits of flannel would be sufficient,
as we could wash them ourselves, in the river, when they got dirty.
We asked him if he had ever tried washing flannels in the river, and
he replied: {}``No, not exactly himself like; but he knew some fellows
who had, and it was easy enough;'' and Harris and I were weak enough
to fancy he knew what he was talking about, and that three respectable
young men, without position or influence, and with no experience in
washing, could really clean their own shirts and trousers in the river
Thames with a bit of soap.

We were to learn in the days to come, when it was too late, that George
was a miserable impostor, who could evidently have known nothing whatever
about the matter. If you had seen these clothes after\mdash{}but,
as the shilling shockers say, we anticipate.

George impressed upon us to take a change of under-things and plenty
of socks, in case we got upset and wanted a change; also plenty of
handkerchiefs, as they would do to wipe things, and a pair of leather
boots as well as our boating shoes, as we should want them if we got
upset.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER IV.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER IV}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER IV}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{The food question.\mdash{} Objections
to}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{paraffine}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{oil}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{as}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{an}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{atmosphere}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Advantages}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{of}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{cheese}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{as}}}} \textmd{\noun{a}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{travelling}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{companion}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\noun{A}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{married}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{woman}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{deserts her}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{home}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Further}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{provision}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{for}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{getting}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{upset}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{I pack}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Cussedness of}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{tooth}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{-}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{brushes}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{George}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{and}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Harris}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{pack}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Awful}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{behaviour}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{of montmorency}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{We}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{retire}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{to}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{rest}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.}}}}

\textit{\emph{Then}} we discussed the food question. George said:

{}``Begin with breakfast.'' (George is so practical.) {}``Now for
breakfast we shall want a frying-pan''\mdash{}(Harris said it was
indigestible; but we merely urged him not to be an ass, and George
went on)\mdash{}{}``a tea-pot and a kettle, and a methylated spirit
stove.''

{}``No oil,'' said George, with a significant look; and Harris and
I agreed.

We had taken up an oil-stove once, but {}``never again.'' It had
been like living in an oil-shop that week. It oozed. I never saw such
a thing as \textit{\emph{paraffine}} \emph{}\textit{\emph{oil}} is
to ooze. We kept it in the nose of the boat, and, from there, it oozed
down to the rudder, impregnating the whole boat and everything in
it on its way, and it oozed over the river, and saturated the scenery
and spoilt the atmosphere. Sometimes a westerly oily wind blew, and
at other times an easterly oily wind, and sometimes it blew a northerly
oily wind, and maybe a southerly oily wind; but whether it came from
the Arctic snows, or was raised in the waste of the desert sands,
it came alike to us laden with the fragrance of \textit{\emph{paraffine}}
\textit{\emph{oil}}.

And that oil oozed up and ruined the sunset; and as for the moonbeams,
they positively reeked of \textit{\emph{paraffine}}.

We tried to get away from it at Marlow. We left the boat by the bridge,
and took a walk through the town to escape it, but it followed us.
The whole town was full of oil. We passed through the church-yard,
and it seemed as if the people had been buried in oil. The High Street
stunk of oil; we wondered how people could live in it. And we walked
miles upon miles out Birmingham way; but it was no use, the country
was steeped in oil.

At the end of that trip we met together at midnight in a lonely field,
under a blasted oak, and took an awful oath (we had been swearing
for a whole week about the thing in an ordinary, middle-class way,
but this was a swell affair)\mdash{}an awful oath never to take \textit{\emph{paraffine}}
\textit{\emph{oil}} with us in a boat again\mdash{}except, of course,
in case of sickness.

Therefore, in the present instance, we confined ourselves to methylated
spirit. Even that is bad enough. You get methylated pie and methylated
cake. But methylated spirit is more wholesome when taken into the
system in large quantities than \textit{\emph{paraffine}} \textit{\emph{oil}}.

For other breakfast things, George suggested eggs and bacon, which
were easy to cook, cold meat, tea, bread and butter, and jam. For
lunch, he said, we could have biscuits, cold meat, bread and butter,
and jam\mdash{}but \textit{no} \textit{cheese}. Cheese, like oil,
makes too much of itself. It wants the whole boat to itself. It goes
through the hamper, and gives a cheesy flavour to everything else
there. You can't tell whether you are eating apple-pie or German sausage,
or strawberries and cream. It all seems cheese. There is too much
odour about cheese.

I remember a friend of mine, buying a couple of cheeses at Liverpool.
Splendid cheeses they were, ripe and mellow, and with a two hundred
horse-power scent about them that might have been warranted to carry
three miles, and knock a man over at two hundred yards. I was in Liverpool
at the time, and my friend said that if I didn't mind he would get
me to take them back with me to London, as he should not be coming
up for a day or two himself, and he did not think the cheeses ought
to be kept much longer.

{}``Oh, with pleasure, dear boy,'' I replied, {}``with pleasure.''

I called for the cheeses, and took them away in a cab. It was a ramshackle
affair, dragged along by a knock-kneed, broken-winded somnambulist,
which his owner, in a moment of enthusiasm, during conversation, referred
to as a horse. I put the cheeses on the top, and we started off at
a shamble that would have done credit to the swiftest steam-roller
ever built, and all went merry as a funeral bell, until we turned
the corner. There, the wind carried a whiff from the cheeses full
on to our steed. It woke him up, and, with a snort of terror, he dashed
off at three miles an hour. The wind still blew in his direction,
and before we reached the end of the street he was laying himself
out at the rate of nearly four miles an hour, leaving the cripples
and stout old ladies simply nowhere.

It took two porters as well as the driver to hold him in at the station;
and I do not think they would have done it, even then, had not one
of the men had the presence of mind to put a handkerchief over his
nose, and to light a bit of brown paper.

I took my ticket, and marched proudly up the platform, with my cheeses,
the people falling back respectfully on either side. The train was
crowded, and I had to get into a carriage where there were already
seven other people. One crusty old gentleman objected, but I got in,
notwithstanding; and, putting my cheeses upon the rack, squeezed down
with a pleasant smile, and said it was a warm day.

A few moments passed, and then the old gentleman began to fidget.

{}``Very close in here,'' he said.

{}``Quite oppressive,'' said the man next him.

And then they both began sniffing, and, at the third sniff, they caught
it right on the chest, and rose up without another word and went out.
And then a stout lady got up, and said it was disgraceful that a respectable
married woman should be harried about in this way, and gathered up
a bag and eight parcels and went. The remaining four passengers sat
on for a while, until a solemn-looking man in the corner, who, from
his dress and general appearance, seemed to belong to the undertaker
class, said it put him in mind of dead baby; and the other three passengers
tried to get out of the door at the same time, and hurt themselves.

I smiled at the black gentleman, and said I thought we were going
to have the carriage to ourselves; and he laughed pleasantly, and
said that some people made such a fuss over a little thing. But even
he grew strangely depressed after we had started, and so, when we
reached Crewe, I asked him to come and have a drink. He accepted,
and we forced our way into the buffet, where we yelled, and stamped,
and waved our umbrellas for a quarter of an hour; and then a young
lady came, and asked us if we wanted anything.

{}``What's yours?''\ I said, turning to my friend.

{}``I'll have half-a-crown's worth of brandy, neat, if you please,
miss,'' he responded.

And he went off quietly after he had drunk it and got into another
carriage, which I thought mean.

From Crewe I had the compartment to myself, though the train was crowded.
As we drew up at the different stations, the people, seeing my empty
carriage, would rush for it. {}``Here y' are, Maria; come along,
plenty of room.'' {}``All right, Tom; we'll get in here,'' they
would shout. And they would run along, carrying heavy bags, and fight
round the door to get in first. And one would open the door and mount
the steps, and stagger back into the arms of the man behind him; and
they would all come and have a sniff, and then droop off and squeeze
into other carriages, or pay the difference and go first.

From Euston, I took the cheeses down to my friend's house. When his
wife came into the room she smelt round for an instant. Then she said:

{}``What is it? Tell me the worst.''

I said:

{}``It's cheeses. Tom bought them in Liverpool, and asked me to bring
them up with me.''

And I added that I hoped she understood that it had nothing to do
with me; and she said that she was sure of that, but that she would
speak to Tom about it when he came back.

My friend was detained in Liverpool longer than he expected; and,
three days later, as he hadn't returned home, his wife called on me.
She said:

{}``What did Tom say about those cheeses?''

I replied that he had directed they were to be kept in a moist place,
and that nobody was to touch them.

She said:

{}``Nobody's likely to touch them. Had he smelt them?''

I thought he had, and added that he seemed greatly attached to them.

{}``You think he would be upset,'' she queried, {}``if I gave a
man a sovereign to take them away and bury them?''

I answered that I thought he would never smile again.

An idea struck her. She said:

{}``Do you mind keeping them for him? Let me send them round to you.''

{}``Madam,'' I replied, {}``for myself I like the smell of cheese,
and the journey the other day with them from Liverpool I shall ever
look back upon as a happy ending to a pleasant holiday. But, in this
world, we must consider others. The lady under whose roof I have the
honour of residing is a widow, and, for all I know, possibly an orphan
too. She has a strong, I may say an eloquent, objection to being what
she terms `put upon.' The presence of your husband's cheeses in her
house she would, I instinctively feel, regard as a `put upon'; and
it shall never be said that I put upon the widow and the orphan.''

{}``Very well, then,'' said my friend's wife, rising, {}``all I
have to say is, that I shall take the children and go to an hotel
until those cheeses are eaten. I decline to live any longer in the
same house with them.''

She kept her word, leaving the place in charge of the charwoman, who,
when asked if she could stand the smell, replied, {}``What smell?''\ and
who, when taken close to the cheeses and told to sniff hard, said
she could detect a faint odour of melons. It was argued from this
that little injury could result to the woman from the atmosphere,
and she was left.

The hotel bill came to fifteen guineas; and my friend, after reckoning
everything up, found that the cheeses had cost him eight-and-sixpence
a pound. He said he dearly loved a bit of cheese, but it was beyond
his means; so he determined to get rid of them. He threw them into
the canal; but had to fish them out again, as the bargemen complained.
They said it made them feel quite faint. And, after that, he took
them one dark night and left them in the parish mortuary. But the
coroner discovered them, and made a fearful fuss.

He said it was a plot to deprive him of his living by waking up the
corpses.

My friend got rid of them, at last, by taking them down to a sea-side
town, and burying them on the beach. It gained the place quite a reputation.
Visitors said they had never noticed before how strong the air was,
and weak-chested and consumptive people used to throng there for years
afterwards.

Fond as I am of cheese, therefore, I hold that George was right in
declining to take any.

{}``We shan't want any tea,'' said George (Harris's face fell at
this); {}``but we'll have a good round, square, slap-up meal at seven\mdash{}dinner,
tea, and supper combined.''

Harris grew more cheerful. George suggested meat and fruit pies, cold
meat, tomatoes, fruit, and green stuff. For drink, we took some wonderful
sticky concoction of Harris's, which you mixed with water and called
lemonade, plenty of tea, and a bottle of whisky, in case, as George
said, we got upset.

It seemed to me that George harped too much on the getting-upset idea.
It seemed to me the wrong spirit to go about the trip in.

But I'm glad we took the whisky.

We didn't take beer or wine. They are a mistake up the river. They
make you feel sleepy and heavy. A glass in the evening when you are
doing a mouch round the town and looking at the girls is all right
enough; but don't drink when the sun is blazing down on your head,
and you've got hard work to do.

We made a list of the things to be taken, and a pretty lengthy one
it was, before we parted that evening. The next day, which was Friday,
we got them all together, and met in the evening to pack. We got a
big Gladstone for the clothes, and a couple of hampers for the victuals
and the cooking utensils. We moved the table up against the window,
piled everything in a heap in the middle of the floor, and sat round
and looked at it.

I said I'd pack.

I rather pride myself on my packing. Packing is one of those many
things that I feel I know more about than any other person living.\ 
(It surprises me myself, sometimes, how many of these subjects there
are.) I impressed the fact upon George and Harris, and told them that
they had better leave the whole matter entirely to me. They fell into
the suggestion with a readiness that had something uncanny about it.
George put on a pipe and spread himself over the easy-chair, and Harris
cocked his legs on the table and lit a cigar.

This was hardly what I intended. What I had meant, of course, was,
that I should boss the job, and that Harris and George should potter
about under my directions, I pushing them aside every now and then
with, {}``Oh, you\mdash{}!'' {}``Here, let me do it.'' {}``There
you are, simple enough!''\mdash{}really teaching them, as you might
say. Their taking it in the way they did irritated me. There is nothing
does irritate me more than seeing other people sitting about doing
nothing when I'm working.

I lived with a man once who used to make me mad that way. He would
loll on the sofa and watch me doing things by the hour together, following
me round the room with his eyes, wherever I went. He said it did him
real good to look on at me, messing about. He said it made him feel
that life was not an idle dream to be gaped and yawned through, but
a noble task, full of duty and stern work. He said he often wondered
now how he could have gone on before he met me, never having anybody
to look at while they worked.

Now, I'm not like that. I can't sit still and see another man slaving
and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with
my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic
nature. I can't help it.

However, I did not say anything, but started the packing. It seemed
a longer job than I had thought it was going to be; but I got the
bag finished at last, and I sat on it and strapped it.

{}``Ain't you going to put the boots in?'' said Harris.

And I looked round, and found I had forgotten them. That's just like
Harris. He couldn't have said a word until I'd got the bag shut and
strapped, of course. And George laughed\mdash{}one of those irritating,
senseless, chuckle-headed, crack-jawed laughs of his. They do make
me so wild.

I opened the bag and packed the boots in; and then, just as I was
going to close it, a horrible idea occurred to me. Had I packed my
tooth-brush? I don't know how it is, but I never do know whether I've
packed my tooth-brush.

My tooth-brush is a thing that haunts me when I'm travelling, and
makes my life a misery. I dream that I haven't packed it, and wake
up in a cold perspiration, and get out of bed and hunt for it. And,
in the morning, I pack it before I have used it, and have to unpack
again to get it, and it is always the last thing I turn out of the
bag; and then I repack and forget it, and have to rush upstairs for
it at the last moment and carry it to the railway station, wrapped
up in my pocket-handkerchief.

Of course I had to turn every mortal thing out now, and, of course,
I could not find it. I rummaged the things up into much the same state
that they must have been before the world was created, and when chaos
reigned. Of course, I found George's and Harris's eighteen times over,
but I couldn't find my own. I put the things back one by one, and
held everything up and shook it. Then I found it inside a boot. I
repacked once more.

When I had finished, George asked if the soap was in. I said I didn't
care a hang whether the soap was in or whether it wasn't; and I slammed
the bag to and strapped it, and found that I had packed my tobacco-pouch
in it, and had to re-open it. It got shut up finally at 10.05 p.m.,
and then there remained the hampers to do. Harris said that we should
be wanting to start in less than twelve hours' time, and thought that
he and George had better do the rest; and I agreed and sat down, and
they had a go.

They began in a light-hearted spirit, evidently intending to show
me how to do it. I made no comment; I only waited. When George is
hanged, Harris will be the worst packer in this world; and I looked
at the piles of plates and cups, and kettles, and bottles and jars,
and pies, and stoves, and cakes, and tomatoes, \&c., and felt that
the thing would soon become exciting.

It did. They started with breaking a cup. That was the first thing
they did. They did that just to show you what they \textit{could}
do, and to get you interested.

Then Harris packed the strawberry jam on top of a tomato and squashed
it, and they had to pick out the tomato with a teaspoon.

And then it was George's turn, and he trod on the butter. I didn't
say anything, but I came over and sat on the edge of the table and
watched them. It irritated them more than anything I could have said.
I felt that. It made them nervous and excited, and they stepped on
things, and put things behind them, and then couldn't find them when
they wanted them; and they packed the pies at the bottom, and put
heavy things on top, and smashed the pies in.

They upset salt over everything, and as for the butter! I never saw
two men do more with one-and-twopence worth of butter in my whole
life than they did. After George had got it off his slipper, they
tried to put it in the kettle. It wouldn't go in, and what \textit{was}
in wouldn't come out. They did scrape it out at last, and put it down
on a chair, and Harris sat on it, and it stuck to him, and they went
looking for it all over the room.

{}``I'll take my oath I put it down on that chair,'' said George,
staring at the empty seat.

{}``I saw you do it myself, not a minute ago,'' said Harris.

Then they started round the room again looking for it; and then they
met again in the centre, and stared at one another.

{}``Most extraordinary thing I ever heard of,'' said George.

{}``So mysterious!'' said Harris.

Then George got round at the back of Harris and saw it.

{}``Why, here it is all the time,'' he exclaimed, indignantly.

{}``Where?'' cried Harris, spinning round.

{}``Stand still, can't you!'' roared George, flying after him.

And they got it off, and packed it in the teapot.

\textit{\emph{Montmorency}} was in it all, of course. Montmorency's
ambition in life, is to get in the way and be sworn at. If he can
squirm in anywhere where he particularly is not wanted, and be a perfect
nuisance, and make people mad, and have things thrown at his head,
then he feels his day has not been wasted.

To get somebody to stumble over him, and curse him steadily for an
hour, is his highest aim and object; and, when he has succeeded in
accomplishing this, his conceit becomes quite unbearable.

He came and sat down on things, just when they were wanted to be packed;
and he laboured under the fixed belief that, whenever Harris or George
reached out their hand for anything, it was his cold, damp nose that
they wanted. He put his leg into the jam, and he worried the teaspoons,
and he pretended that the lemons were rats, and got into the hamper
and killed three of them before Harris could land him with the frying-pan.

Harris said I encouraged him. I didn't encourage him. A dog like that
don't want any encouragement. It's the natural, original sin that
is born in him that makes him do things like that.

The packing was done at 12.50; and Harris sat on the big hamper, and
said he hoped nothing would be found broken. George said that if anything
was broken it was broken, which reflection seemed to comfort him.
He also said he was ready for bed.

We were all ready for bed. Harris was to sleep with us that night,
and we went upstairs.

We tossed for beds, and Harris had to sleep with me. He said:

{}``Do you prefer the inside or the outside, J.?''

I said I generally preferred to sleep \textit{inside} a bed.

Harris said it was old.

George said:

{}``What time shall I wake you fellows?''

Harris said:

{}``Seven.''

I said:

{}``No\mdash{}six,'' because I wanted to write some letters.

Harris and I had a bit of a row over it, but at last split the difference,
and said half-past six.

{}``Wake us at 6.30, George,'' we said.

George made no answer, and we found, on going over, that he had been
asleep for some time; so we placed the bath where he could tumble
into it on getting out in the morning, and went to bed ourselves.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER V.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER V}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER V}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Mrs.\ P.\ Arouses us.\mdash{} George,
the sluggard.\mdash{} The {}``Weather forecast''}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Swindle}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Our}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{luggage}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Depravity}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{of}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{the}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{small}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{boy}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{The}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{people}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{gather round}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{us}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{We}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{drive}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{off}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{in}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{great}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{style}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{,}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{and}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{arrive}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{at}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Waterloo}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}
}}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Innocence}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{of}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{South}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Western}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{officials}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{concerning}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{such}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{worldly}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{things}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{as trains}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{We}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{are}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{afloat}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{,}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{afloat}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{in}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{an}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{open}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{boat}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.}}}}

\textit{\emph{It}} was Mrs.\ Poppets that woke me up next morning.

She said:

{}``Do you know that it's nearly nine o'clock, sir?''

{}``Nine o' what?'' I cried, starting up.

{}``Nine o'clock,'' she replied, through the keyhole. {}``I thought
you was a-oversleeping yourselves.''

I woke Harris, and told him. He said:

{}``I thought you wanted to get up at six?''

{}``So I did,'' I answered; {}``why didn't you wake me?''

{}``How could I wake you, when you didn't wake me?'' he retorted.
{}``Now we shan't get on the water till after twelve. I wonder you
take the trouble to get up at all.''

{}``Um,'' I replied, {}``lucky for you that I do. If I hadn't woke
you, you'd have lain there for the whole fortnight.''

We snarled at one another in this strain for the next few minutes,
when we were interrupted by a defiant snore from George.

It reminded us, for the first time since our being called, of his
existence.

There he lay\mdash{}the man who had wanted to know what time he should
wake us\mdash{}on his back, with his mouth wide open, and his knees
stuck up.

I don't know why it should be, I am sure; but the sight of another
man asleep in bed when I am up, maddens me. It seems to me so shocking
to see the precious hours of a man's life\mdash{}the priceless moments
that will never come back to him again\mdash{}being wasted in mere
brutish sleep.

There was George, throwing away in hideous sloth the inestimable gift
of time; his valuable life, every second of which he would have to
account for hereafter, passing away from him, unused. He might have
been up stuffing himself with eggs and bacon, irritating the dog,
or flirting with the slavey, instead of sprawling there, sunk in soul-clogging
oblivion.

It was a terrible thought. Harris and I appeared to be struck by it
at the same instant. We determined to save him, and, in this noble
resolve, our own dispute was forgotten. We flew across and slung the
clothes off him, and Harris landed him one with a slipper, and I shouted
in his ear, and he awoke.

{}``Wasermarrer?'' he observed, sitting up.

{}``Get up, you fat-headed chunk!''\ roared Harris. {}``It's quarter
to ten.''

{}``What!''\ he shrieked, jumping out of bed into the bath; {}``Who
the thunder put this thing here?''

We told him he must have been a fool not to see the bath.

We finished dressing, and, when it came to the extras, we remembered
that we had packed the tooth-brushes and the brush and comb (that
tooth-brush of mine will be the death of me, I know), and we had to
go downstairs, and fish them out of the bag. And when we had done
that George wanted the shaving tackle. We told him that he would have
to go without shaving that morning, as we weren't going to unpack
that bag again for him, nor for anyone like him.

He said:

{}``Don't be absurd. How can I go into the City like this?''

It was certainly rather rough on the City, but what cared we for human
suffering? As Harris said, in his common, vulgar way, the City would
have to lump it.

We went downstairs to breakfast. \textit{\emph{Montmorency}} had invited
two other dogs to come and see him off, and they were whiling away
the time by fighting on the doorstep. We calmed them with an umbrella,
and sat down to chops and cold beef.

Harris said:

{}``The great thing is to make a good breakfast,'' and he started
with a couple of chops, saying that he would take these while they
were hot, as the beef could wait.

George got hold of the paper, and read us out the boating fatalities,
and the weather forecast, which latter prophesied {}``rain, cold,
wet to fine'' (whatever more than usually ghastly thing in weather
that may be), {}``occasional local thunder-storms, east wind, with
general depression over the Midland Counties (London and Channel).
Bar.\ falling.''

I do think that, of all the silly, irritating tomfoolishness by which
we are plagued, this {}``weather-forecast'' fraud is about the most
aggravating. It {}``forecasts'' precisely what happened yesterday
or the day before, and precisely the opposite of what is going to
happen to-day.

I remember a holiday of mine being completely ruined one late autumn
by our paying attention to the weather report of the local newspaper.
{}``Heavy showers, with thunderstorms, may be expected to-day,''
it would say on Monday, and so we would give up our picnic, and stop
indoors all day, waiting for the rain.\mdash{} And people would pass
the house, going off in wagonettes and coaches as jolly and merry
as could be, the sun shining out, and not a cloud to be seen.

{}``Ah!''\ we said, as we stood looking out at them through the
window, {}``won't they come home soaked!''

And we chuckled to think how wet they were going to get, and came
back and stirred the fire, and got our books, and arranged our specimens
of seaweed and cockle shells. By twelve o'clock, with the sun pouring
into the room, the heat became quite oppressive, and we wondered when
those heavy showers and occasional thunderstorms were going to begin.

{}``Ah!\ they'll come in the afternoon, you'll find,'' we said
to each other. {}``Oh, \textit{won't} those people get wet. What
a lark!''

At one o'clock, the landlady would come in to ask if we weren't going
out, as it seemed such a lovely day.

{}``No, no,'' we replied, with a knowing chuckle, {}``not we. \textit{We}
don't mean to get wet\mdash{}no, no.''

And when the afternoon was nearly gone, and still there was no sign
of rain, we tried to cheer ourselves up with the idea that it would
come down all at once, just as the people had started for home, and
were out of the reach of any shelter, and that they would thus get
more drenched than ever. But not a drop ever fell, and it finished
a grand day, and a lovely night after it.

The next morning we would read that it was going to be a {}``warm,
fine to set-fair day; much heat;'' and we would dress ourselves in
flimsy things, and go out, and, half-an-hour after we had started,
it would commence to rain hard, and a bitterly cold wind would spring
up, and both would keep on steadily for the whole day, and we would
come home with colds and rheumatism all over us, and go to bed.

The weather is a thing that is beyond me altogether. I never can understand
it. The barometer is useless: it is as misleading as the newspaper
forecast.

There was one hanging up in a hotel at Oxford at which I was staying
last spring, and, when I got there, it was pointing to {}``set fair.''
It was simply pouring with rain outside, and had been all day; and
I couldn't quite make matters out. I tapped the barometer, and it
jumped up and pointed to {}``very dry.'' The Boots stopped as he
was passing, and said he expected it meant to-morrow. I fancied that
maybe it was thinking of the week before last, but Boots said, No,
he thought not.

I tapped it again the next morning, and it went up still higher, and
the rain came down faster than ever. On Wednesday I went and hit it
again, and the pointer went round towards {}``set fair,'' {}``very
dry,'' and {}``much heat,'' until it was stopped by the peg, and
couldn't go any further. It tried its best, but the instrument was
built so that it couldn't prophesy fine weather any harder than it
did without breaking itself. It evidently wanted to go on, and prognosticate
drought, and water famine, and sunstroke, and simooms, and such things,
but the peg prevented it, and it had to be content with pointing to
the mere commonplace {}``very dry.''

Meanwhile, the rain came down in a steady torrent, and the lower part
of the town was under water, owing to the river having overflowed.

Boots said it was evident that we were going to have a prolonged spell
of grand weather \textit{some} \textit{time}, and read out a poem
which was printed over the top of the oracle, about

\begin{flushleft} \begin{verse}

``Long foretold, long last; \\*

Short notice, soon past.''

\end{verse} \end{flushleft}

The fine weather never came that summer. I expect that machine must
have been referring to the following spring.

Then there are those new style of barometers, the long straight ones.
I never can make head or tail of those. There is one side for 10 a.m.\ 
yesterday, and one side for 10 a.m.\ to-day; but you can't always
get there as early as ten, you know. It rises or falls for rain and
fine, with much or less wind, and one end is {}``Nly'' and the other
{}``Ely'' (what's Ely got to do with it?), and if you tap it, it
doesn't tell you anything. And you've got to correct it to sea-level,
and reduce it to Fahrenheit, and even then I don't know the answer.

But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it
comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.
The prophet we like is the old man who, on the particularly gloomy-looking
morning of some day when we particularly want it to be fine, looks
round the horizon with a particularly knowing eye, and says:

{}``Oh no, sir, I think it will clear up all right. It will break
all right enough, sir.''

{}``Ah, he knows'', we say, as we wish him good-morning, and start
off; {}``wonderful how these old fellows can tell!''

And we feel an affection for that man which is not at all lessened
by the circumstances of its \textit{not} clearing up, but continuing
to rain steadily all day.

{}``Ah, well,'' we feel, {}``he did his best.''

For the man that prophesies us bad weather, on the contrary, we entertain
only bitter and revengeful thoughts.

{}``Going to clear up, d'ye think?'' we shout, cheerily, as we pass.

{}``Well, no, sir; I'm afraid it's settled down for the day,'' he
replies, shaking his head.

{}``Stupid old fool!''\ we mutter, {}``what's \textit{he} know
about it?'' And, if his portent proves correct, we come back feeling
still more angry against him, and with a vague notion that, somehow
or other, he has had something to do with it.

\bigskip{}
It was too bright and sunny on this especial morning for George's
blood-curdling readings about {}``Bar.\ falling,'' {}``atmospheric
disturbance, passing in an oblique line over Southern Europe,'' and
{}``pressure increasing,'' to very much upset us: and so, finding
that he could not make us wretched, and was only wasting his time,
he sneaked the cigarette that I had carefully rolled up for myself,
and went.

Then Harris and I, having finished up the few things left on the table,
carted out our luggage on to the doorstep, and waited for a cab.

There seemed a good deal of luggage, when we put it all together.
There was the Gladstone and the small hand-bag, and the two hampers,
and a large roll of rugs, and some four or five overcoats and macintoshes,
and a few umbrellas, and then there was a melon by itself in a bag,
because it was too bulky to go in anywhere, and a couple of pounds
of grapes in another bag, and a Japanese paper umbrella, and a frying
pan, which, being too long to pack, we had wrapped round with brown
paper.

It did look a lot, and Harris and I began to feel rather ashamed of
it, though why we should be, I can't see. No cab came by, but the
street boys did, and got interested in the show, apparently, and stopped.

Biggs's boy was the first to come round. Biggs is our greengrocer,
and his chief talent lies in securing the services of the most abandoned
and unprincipled errand-boys that civilisation has as yet produced.
If anything more than usually villainous in the boy-line crops up
in our neighbourhood, we know that it is Biggs's latest. I was told
that, at the time of the Great Coram Street murder, it was promptly
concluded by our street that Biggs's boy (for that period) was at
the bottom of it, and had he not been able, in reply to the severe
cross-examination to which he was subjected by No.\ 19, when he called
there for orders the morning after the crime (assisted by No.\ 21,
who happened to be on the step at the time), to prove a complete \textit{alibi},
it would have gone hard with him. I didn't know Biggs's boy at that
time, but, from what I have seen of them since, I should not have
attached much importance to that \textit{alibi} myself.

Biggs's boy, as I have said, came round the corner. He was evidently
in a great hurry when he first dawned upon the vision, but, on catching
sight of Harris and me, and \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}, and the things,
he eased up and stared. Harris and I frowned at him. This might have
wounded a more sensitive nature, but Biggs's boys are not, as a rule,
touchy. He came to a dead stop, a yard from our step, and, leaning
up against the railings, and selecting a straw to chew, fixed us with
his eye. He evidently meant to see this thing out.

In another moment, the grocer's boy passed on the opposite side of
the street. Biggs's boy hailed him:

{}``Hi! ground floor o' 42's a-moving.''

The grocer's boy came across, and took up a position on the other
side of the step. Then the young gentleman from the boot-shop stopped,
and joined Biggs's boy; while the empty-can superintendent from {}``The
Blue Posts'' took up an independent position on the curb.

{}``They ain't a-going to starve, are they?''\ said the gentleman
from the boot-shop.

{}``Ah! you'd want to take a thing or two with \textit{you},'' retorted
{}``The Blue Posts,'' {}``if you was a-going to cross the Atlantic
in a small boat.''

{}``They ain't a-going to cross the Atlantic,'' struck in Biggs's
boy; {}``they're a-going to find Stanley.''

By this time, quite a small crowd had collected, and people were asking
each other what was the matter. One party (the young and giddy portion
of the crowd) held that it was a wedding, and pointed out Harris as
the bridegroom; while the elder and more thoughtful among the populace
inclined to the idea that it was a funeral, and that I was probably
the corpse's brother.

At last, an empty cab turned up (it is a street where, as a rule,
and when they are not wanted, empty cabs pass at the rate of three
a minute, and hang about, and get in your way), and packing ourselves
and our belongings into it, and shooting out a couple of Montmorency's
friends, who had evidently sworn never to forsake him, we drove away
amidst the cheers of the crowd, Biggs's boy shying a carrot after
us for luck.

We got to Waterloo at eleven, and asked where the eleven-five started
from. Of course nobody knew; nobody at Waterloo ever does know where
a train is going to start from, or where a train when it does start
is going to, or anything about it. The porter who took our things
thought it would go from number two platform, while another porter,
with whom he discussed the question, had heard a rumour that it would
go from number one. The station-master, on the other hand, was convinced
it would start from the local.

To put an end to the matter, we went upstairs, and asked the traffic
superintendent, and he told us that he had just met a man, who said
he had seen it at number three platform. We went to number three platform,
but the authorities there said that they rather thought that train
was the Southampton express, or else the Windsor loop. But they were
sure it wasn't the Kingston train, though why they were sure it wasn't
they couldn't say.

Then our porter said he thought that must be it on the high-level
platform; said he thought he knew the train. So we went to the high-level
platform, and saw the engine-driver, and asked him if he was going
to Kingston. He said he couldn't say for certain of course, but that
he rather thought he was. Anyhow, if he wasn't the 11.05 for Kingston,
he said he was pretty confident he was the 9.32 for Virginia Water,
or the 10 a.m.\ express for the Isle of Wight, or somewhere in that
direction, and we should all know when we got there. We slipped half-a-crown
into his hand, and begged him to be the 11.05 for Kingston.

{}``Nobody will ever know, on this line,'' we said, {}``what you
are, or where you're going. You know the way, you slip off quietly
and go to Kingston.''

{}``Well, I don't know, gents,'' replied the noble fellow, {}``but
I suppose \textit{some} train's got to go to Kingston; and I'll do
it. Gimme the half-crown.''

Thus we got to Kingston by the London and South-Western Railway.

We learnt, afterwards, that the train we had come by was really the
Exeter mail, and that they had spent hours at Waterloo, looking for
it, and nobody knew what had become of it.

Our boat was waiting for us at Kingston just below bridge, and to
it we wended our way, and round it we stored our luggage, and into
it we stepped.

{}``Are you all right, sir?'' said the man.

{}``Right it is,'' we answered; and with Harris at the sculls and
I at the tiller-lines, and \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}, unhappy and
deeply suspicious, in the prow, out we shot on to the waters which,
for a fortnight, were to be our home.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER VI.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VI}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER VI}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Kingston.\mdash{} Instructive remarks
on early English history.\mdash{} Instructive}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{observations}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{on}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{carved}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{oak}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{and}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{life}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{in}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{general}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Sad}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{case}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{of}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Stivvings}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{,}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Junior}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Musings}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{on}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Antiquity}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\noun{I}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{forget}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{that}}}}
\textmd{\noun{I}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{am}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{steering}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Interesting}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{result}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Hampton}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{court}}}}
\textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{maze}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.\mdash{}}}}
\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{Harris}}}} \textmd{\emph{\noun{}}}\textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{as}}}}
\textmd{\noun{a}} \textmd{\textit{\emph{\noun{guide}}}}\textmd{\emph{\noun{.}}}}

\textit{\emph{It}} was a glorious morning, late spring or early summer,
as you care to take it, when the dainty sheen of grass and leaf is
blushing to a deeper green; and the year seems like a fair young maid,
trembling with strange, wakening pulses on the brink of womanhood.

The quaint back streets of Kingston, where they came down to the water's
edge, looked quite picturesque in the flashing sunlight, the glinting
river with its drifting barges, the wooded towpath, the trim-kept
villas on the other side, Harris, in a red and orange blazer, grunting
away at the sculls, the distant glimpses of the grey old palace of
the Tudors, all made a sunny picture, so bright but calm, so full
of life, and yet so peaceful, that, early in the day though it was,
I felt myself being dreamily lulled off into a musing fit.

I mused on Kingston, or {}``Kyningestun,'' as it was once called
in the days when Saxon {}``kinges'' were crowned there. Great C\ae sar
crossed the river there, and the Roman legions camped upon its sloping
uplands. C\ae sar, like, in later years, Elizabeth, seems to have
stopped everywhere: only he was more respectable than good Queen Bess;
he didn't put up at the public-houses.

She was nuts on public-houses, was England's Virgin Queen. There's
scarcely a pub.\ of any attractions within ten miles of London that
she does not seem to have looked in at, or stopped at, or slept at,
some time or other. I wonder now, supposing Harris, say, turned over
a new leaf, and became a great and good man, and got to be Prime Minister,
and died, if they would put up signs over the public-houses that he
had patronised: {}``Harris had a glass of bitter in this house;''
{}``Harris had two of Scotch cold here in the summer of '88;'' {}``Harris
was chucked from here in December, 1886.''

No, there would be too many of them! It would be the houses that he
had never entered that would become famous. {}``Only house in South
London that Harris never had a drink in!'' The people would flock
to it to see what could have been the matter with it.

How poor weak-minded King Edwy must have hated Kyningestun! The coronation
feast had been too much for him. Maybe boar's head stuffed with sugar-plums
did not agree with him (it wouldn't with me, I know), and he had had
enough of sack and mead; so he slipped from the noisy revel to steal
a quiet moonlight hour with his beloved Elgiva.

Perhaps, from the casement, standing hand-in-hand, they were watching
the calm moonlight on the river, while from the distant halls the
boisterous revelry floated in broken bursts of faint-heard din and
tumult.

Then brutal Odo and St.\ Dunstan force their rude way into the quiet
room, and hurl coarse insults at the sweet-faced Queen, and drag poor
Edwy back to the loud clamour of the drunken brawl.

Years later, to the crash of battle-music, Saxon kings and Saxon revelry
were buried side by side, and Kingston's greatness passed away for
a time, to rise once more when Hampton Court became the palace of
the Tudors and the Stuarts, and the royal barges strained at their
moorings on the river's bank, and bright-cloaked gallants swaggered
down the water-steps to cry: {}``What Ferry, ho! Gadzooks, gramercy.''

Many of the old houses, round about, speak very plainly of those days
when Kingston was a royal borough, and nobles and courtiers lived
there, near their King, and the long road to the palace gates was
gay all day with clanking steel and prancing palfreys, and rustling
silks and velvets, and fair faces. The large and spacious houses,
with their oriel, latticed windows, their huge fireplaces, and their
gabled roofs, breathe of the days of hose and doublet, of pearl-embroidered
stomachers, and complicated oaths. They were upraised in the days
{}``when men knew how to build.'' The hard red bricks have only
grown more firmly set with time, and their oak stairs do not creak
and grunt when you try to go down them quietly.

Speaking of oak staircases reminds me that there is a magnificent
carved oak staircase in one of the houses in Kingston. It is a shop
now, in the market-place, but it was evidently once the mansion of
some great personage. A friend of mine, who lives at Kingston, went
in there to buy a hat one day, and, in a thoughtless moment, put his
hand in his pocket and paid for it then and there.

The shopman (he knows my friend) was naturally a little staggered
at first; but, quickly recovering himself, and feeling that something
ought to be done to encourage this sort of thing, asked our hero if
he would like to see some fine old carved oak. My friend said he would,
and the shopman, thereupon, took him through the shop, and up the
staircase of the house. The balusters were a superb piece of workmanship,
and the wall all the way up was oak-panelled, with carving that would
have done credit to a palace.

From the stairs, they went into the drawing-room, which was a large,
bright room, decorated with a somewhat startling though cheerful paper
of a blue ground. There was nothing, however, remarkable about the
apartment, and my friend wondered why he had been brought there. The
proprietor went up to the paper, and tapped it. It gave forth a wooden
sound.

{}``Oak,'' he explained. {}``All carved oak, right up to the ceiling,
just the same as you saw on the staircase.''

{}``But, great C\ae sar! man,'' expostulated my friend; {}``you
don't mean to say you have covered over carved oak with blue wall-paper?''

{}``Yes,'' was the reply: {}``it was expensive work. Had to match-board
it all over first, of course. But the room looks cheerful now. It
was awful gloomy before.''

I can't say I altogether blame the man (which is doubtless a great
relief to his mind). From his point of view, which would be that of
the average householder, desiring to take life as lightly as possible,
and not that of the old-curiosity-shop maniac, there is reason on
his side. Carved oak is very pleasant to look at, and to have a little
of, but it is no doubt somewhat depressing to live in, for those whose
fancy does not lie that way. It would be like living in a church.

No, what was sad in his case was that he, who didn't care for carved
oak, should have his drawing-room panelled with it, while people who
do care for it have to pay enormous prices to get it. It seems to
be the rule of this world. Each person has what he doesn't want, and
other people have what he does want.

Married men have wives, and don't seem to want them; and young single
fellows cry out that they can't get them. Poor people who can hardly
keep themselves have eight hearty children. Rich old couples, with
no one to leave their money to, die childless.

Then there are girls with lovers. The girls that have lovers never
want them. They say they would rather be without them, that they bother
them, and why don't they go and make love to Miss Smith and Miss Brown,
who are plain and elderly, and haven't got any lovers? They themselves
don't want lovers. They never mean to marry.

It does not do to dwell on these things; it makes one so sad.

There was a boy at our school, we used to call him Sandford and Merton.
His real name was Stivvings. He was the most extraordinary lad I ever
came across. I believe he really liked study. He used to get into
awful rows for sitting up in bed and reading Greek; and as for French
irregular verbs there was simply no keeping him away from them. He
was full of weird and unnatural notions about being a credit to his
parents and an honour to the school; and he yearned to win prizes,
and grow up and be a clever man, and had all those sorts of weak-minded
ideas. I never knew such a strange creature, yet harmless, mind you,
as the babe unborn.

Well, that boy used to get ill about twice a week, so that he couldn't
go to school. There never was such a boy to get ill as that Sandford
and Merton. If there was any known disease going within ten miles
of him, he had it, and had it badly. He would take bronchitis in the
dog-days, and have hay-fever at Christmas. After a six weeks' period
of drought, he would be stricken down with rheumatic fever; and he
would go out in a November fog and come home with a sunstroke.

They put him under laughing-gas one year, poor lad, and drew all his
teeth, and gave him a false set, because he suffered so terribly with
toothache; and then it turned to neuralgia and ear-ache. He was never
without a cold, except once for nine weeks while he had scarlet fever;
and he always had chilblains. During the great cholera scare of 1871,
our neighbourhood was singularly free from it. There was only one
reputed case in the whole parish: that case was young Stivvings.

He had to stop in bed when he was ill, and eat chicken and custards
and hot-house grapes; and he would lie there and sob, because they
wouldn't let him do Latin exercises, and took his German grammar away
from him.

And we other boys, who would have sacrificed ten terms of our school-life
for the sake of being ill for a day, and had no desire whatever to
give our parents any excuse for being stuck-up about us, couldn't
catch so much as a stiff neck. We fooled about in draughts, and it
did us good, and freshened us up; and we took things to make us sick,
and they made us fat, and gave us an appetite. Nothing we could think
of seemed to make us ill until the holidays began. Then, on the breaking-up
day, we caught colds, and whooping cough, and all kinds of disorders,
which lasted till the term recommenced; when, in spite of everything
we could man\oe uvre to the contrary, we would get suddenly well
again, and be better than ever.

Such is life; and we are but as grass that is cut down, and put into
the oven and baked.

To go back to the carved-oak question, they must have had very fair
notions of the artistic and the beautiful, our great-great-grandfathers.
Why, all our art treasures of to-day are only the dug-up commonplaces
of three or four hundred years ago. I wonder if there is real intrinsic
beauty in the old soup-plates, beer-mugs, and candle-snuffers that
we prize so now, or if it is only the halo of age glowing around them
that gives them their charms in our eyes. The {}``old blue'' that
we hang about our walls as ornaments were the common every-day household
utensils of a few centuries ago; and the pink shepherds and the yellow
shepherdesses that we hand round now for all our friends to gush over,
and pretend they understand, were the unvalued mantel-ornaments that
the mother of the eighteenth century would have given the baby to
suck when he cried.

Will it be the same in the future? Will the prized treasures of to-day
always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern
dinner-plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the
years 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and the
beautiful gold flower inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes
now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended,
and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house?

That china dog that ornaments the bedroom of my furnished lodgings.
It is a white dog. Its eyes blue. Its nose is a delicate red, with
spots. Its head is painfully erect, its expression is amiability carried
to verge of imbecility. I do not admire it myself. Considered as a
work of art, I may say it irritates me. Thoughtless friends jeer at
it, and even my landlady herself has no admiration for it, and excuses
its presence by the circumstance that her aunt gave it to her.

But in 200 years' time it is more than probable that that dog will
be dug up from somewhere or other, minus its legs, and with its tail
broken, and will be sold for old china, and put in a glass cabinet.
And people will pass it round, and admire it. They will be struck
by the wonderful depth of the colour on the nose, and speculate as
to how beautiful the bit of the tail that is lost no doubt was.

We, in this age, do not see the beauty of that dog. We are too familiar
with it. It is like the sunset and the stars: we are not awed by their
loveliness because they are common to our eyes. So it is with that
china dog. In 2288 people will gush over it. The making of such dogs
will have become a lost art. Our descendants will wonder how we did
it, and say how clever we were. We shall be referred to lovingly as
{}``those grand old artists that flourished in the nineteenth century,
and produced those china dogs.''

The {}``sampler'' that the eldest daughter did at school will be
spoken of as {}``tapestry of the Victorian era,'' and be almost
priceless. The blue-and-white mugs of the present-day roadside inn
will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight
in gold, and rich people will use them for claret cups; and travellers
from Japan will buy up all the {}``Presents from Ramsgate,'' and
{}``Souvenirs of Margate,'' that may have escaped destruction, and
take them back to Jedo as ancient English curios.

\bigskip{}
At this point Harris threw away the sculls, got up and left his seat,
and sat on his back, and stuck his legs in the air. \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}
howled, and turned a somersault, and the top hamper jumped up, and
all the things came out.

I was somewhat surprised, but I did not lose my temper. I said, pleasantly
enough:

{}``Hulloa! what's that for?''

{}``What's that for? Why\mdash{}''

No, on second thoughts, I will not repeat what Harris said. I may
have been to blame, I admit it; but nothing excuses violence of language
and coarseness of expression, especially in a man who has been carefully
brought up, as I know Harris has been. I was thinking of other things,
and forgot, as any one might easily understand, that I was steering,
and the consequence was that we had got mixed up a good deal with
the tow-path. It was difficult to say, for the moment, which was us
and which was the Middlesex bank of the river; but we found out after
a while, and separated ourselves.

Harris, however, said he had done enough for a bit, and proposed that
I should take a turn; so, as we were in, I got out and took the tow-line,
and ran the boat on past Hampton Court. What a dear old wall that
is that runs along by the river there! I never pass it without feeling
better for the sight of it. Such a mellow, bright, sweet old wall;
what a charming picture it would make, with the lichen creeping here,
and the moss growing there, a shy young vine peeping over the top
at this spot, to see what is going on upon the busy river, and the
sober old ivy clustering a little farther down! There are fifty shades
and tints and hues in every ten yards of that old wall. If I could
only draw, and knew how to paint, I could make a lovely sketch of
that old wall, I'm sure. I've often thought I should like to live
at Hampton Court. It looks so peaceful and so quiet, and it is such
a dear old place to ramble round in the early morning before many
people are about.

But, there, I don't suppose I should really care for it when it came
to actual practice. It would be so ghastly dull and depressing in
the evening, when your lamp cast uncanny shadows on the panelled walls,
and the echo of distant feet rang through the cold stone corridors,
and now drew nearer, and now died away, and all was death-like silence,
save the beating of one's own heart.

We are creatures of the sun, we men and women. We love light and life.
That is why we crowd into the towns and cities, and the country grows
more and more deserted every year. In the sunlight\mdash{}in the
daytime, when Nature is alive and busy all around us, we like the
open hill-sides and the deep woods well enough: but in the night,
when our Mother Earth has gone to sleep, and left us waking, oh!\ the
world seems so lonesome, and we get frightened, like children in a
silent house. Then we sit and sob, and long for the gas-lit streets,
and the sound of human voices, and the answering throb of human life.
We feel so helpless and so little in the great stillness, when the
dark trees rustle in the night-wind. There are so many ghosts about,
and their silent sighs make us feel so sad. Let us gather together
in the great cities, and light huge bonfires of a million gas-jets,
and shout and sing together, and feel brave.

\bigskip{}
Harris asked me if I'd ever been in the maze at Hampton Court. He
said he went in once to show somebody else the way. He had studied
it up in a map, and it was so simple that it seemed foolish\mdash{}hardly
worth the twopence charged for admission. Harris said he thought that
map must have been got up as a practical joke, because it wasn't a
bit like the real thing, and only misleading. It was a country cousin
that Harris took in. He said:

{}``We'll just go in here, so that you can say you've been, but it's
very simple. It's absurd to call it a maze. You keep on taking the
first turning to the right. We'll just walk round for ten minutes,
and then go and get some lunch.''

They met some people soon after they had got inside, who said they
had been there for three-quarters of an hour, and had had about enough
of it. Harris told them they could follow him, if they liked; he was
just going in, and then should turn round and come out again. They
said it was very kind of him, and fell behind, and followed.

They picked up various other people who wanted to get it over, as
they went along, until they had absorbed all the persons in the maze.
People who had given up all hopes of ever getting either in or out,
or of ever seeing their home and friends again, plucked up courage
at the sight of Harris and his party, and joined the procession, blessing
him. Harris said he should judge there must have been twenty people,
following him, in all; and one woman with a baby, who had been there
all the morning, insisted on taking his arm, for fear of losing him.

Harris kept on turning to the right, but it seemed a long way, and
his cousin said he supposed it was a very big maze.

{}``Oh, one of the largest in Europe,'' said Harris.

{}``Yes, it must be,'' replied the cousin, {}``because we've walked
a good two miles already.''

Harris began to think it rather strange himself, but he held on until,
at last, they passed the half of a penny bun on the ground that Harris's
cousin swore he had noticed there seven minutes ago. Harris said:
{}``Oh, impossible!'' but the woman with the baby said, {}``Not
at all,'' as she herself had taken it from the child, and thrown
it down there, just before she met Harris. She also added that she
wished she never had met Harris, and expressed an opinion that he
was an impostor. That made Harris mad, and he produced his map, and
explained his theory.

{}``The map may be all right enough,'' said one of the party, {}``if
you know whereabouts in it we are now.''

Harris didn't know, and suggested that the best thing to do would
be to go back to the entrance, and begin again. For the beginning
again part of it there was not much enthusiasm; but with regard to
the advisability of going back to the entrance there was complete
unanimity, and so they turned, and trailed after Harris again, in
the opposite direction. About ten minutes more passed, and then they
found themselves in the centre.

Harris thought at first of pretending that that was what he had been
aiming at; but the crowd looked dangerous, and he decided to treat
it as an accident.

Anyhow, they had got something to start from then. They did know where
they were, and the map was once more consulted, and the thing seemed
simpler than ever, and off they started for the third time.

And three minutes later they were back in the centre again.

After that, they simply couldn't get anywhere else. Whatever way they
turned brought them back to the middle. It became so regular at length,
that some of the people stopped there, and waited for the others to
take a walk round, and come back to them. Harris drew out his map
again, after a while, but the sight of it only infuriated the mob,
and they told him to go and curl his hair with it. Harris said that
he couldn't help feeling that, to a certain extent, he had become
unpopular.

They all got crazy at last, and sang out for the keeper, and the man
came and climbed up the ladder outside, and shouted out directions
to them. But all their heads were, by this time, in such a confused
whirl that they were incapable of grasping anything, and so the man
told them to stop where they were, and he would come to them. They
huddled together, and waited; and he climbed down, and came in.

He was a young keeper, as luck would have it, and new to the business;
and when he got in, he couldn't find them, and he wandered about,
trying to get to them, and then \textit{he} got lost. They caught
sight of him, every now and then, rushing about the other side of
the hedge, and he would see them, and rush to get to them, and they
would wait there for about five minutes, and then he would reappear
again in exactly the same spot, and ask them where they had been.

They had to wait till one of the old keepers came back from his dinner
before they got out.

Harris said he thought it was a very fine maze, so far as he was a
judge; and we agreed that we would try to get George to go into it,
on our way back.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER VII.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VII}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER VII}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{The river in its Sunday Garb.\mdash{}
Dress on the river.\mdash{} A chance for the}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{men}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Absence}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{taste}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{in}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Harris}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{George's}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{blazer}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{day}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{with}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the fashion}}}\textmd{\noun{-}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{plate}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{young}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{lady}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Mrs}}}\textmd{\noun{.\ }}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Thomas's}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{tomb}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{The}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{man}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{who}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{loves}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{not graves}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{coffins}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{skulls}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Harris}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{mad}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{His}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{views}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{on}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{George}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and banks}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{lemonade}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{He}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{performs}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{tricks}}}\textmd{\noun{.}}}

\textit{\emph{It}} was while passing through Moulsey Lock that Harris
told me about his maze experience. It took us some time to pass through,
as we were the only boat, and it is a big lock. I don't think I ever
remember to have seen Moulsey Lock, before, with only one boat in
it. It is, I suppose, Boulter's not even excepted, the busiest lock
on the river.

I have stood and watched it, sometimes, when you could not see any
water at all, but only a brilliant tangle of bright blazers, and gay
caps, and saucy hats, and many-coloured parasols, and silken rugs,
and cloaks, and streaming ribbons, and dainty whites; when looking
down into the lock from the quay, you might fancy it was a huge box
into which flowers of every hue and shade had been thrown pell-mell,
and lay piled up in a rainbow heap, that covered every corner.

On a fine Sunday it presents this appearance nearly all day long,
while, up the stream, and down the stream, lie, waiting their turn,
outside the gates, long lines of still more boats; and boats are drawing
near and passing away, so that the sunny river, from the Palace up
to Hampton Church, is dotted and decked with yellow, and blue, and
orange, and white, and red, and pink. All the inhabitants of Hampton
and Moulsey dress themselves up in boating costume, and come and mouch
round the lock with their dogs, and flirt, and smoke, and watch the
boats; and, altogether, what with the caps and jackets of the men,
the pretty coloured dresses of the women, the excited dogs, the moving
boats, the white sails, the pleasant landscape, and the sparkling
water, it is one of the gayest sights I know of near this dull old
London town.

The river affords a good opportunity for dress. For once in a way,
we men are able to show our taste in colours, and I think we come
out very natty, if you ask me. I always like a little red in my things\mdash{}red
and black. You know my hair is a sort of golden brown, rather a pretty
shade I've been told, and a dark red matches it beautifully; and then
I always think a light-blue necktie goes so well with it, and a pair
of those Russian-leather shoes and a red silk handkerchief round the
waist\mdash{}a handkerchief looks so much better than a belt.

Harris always keeps to shades or mixtures of orange or yellow, but
I don't think he is at all wise in this. His complexion is too dark
for yellows. Yellows don't suit him: there can be no question about
it. I want him to take to blue as a background, with white or cream
for relief; but, there!\ the less taste a person has in dress, the
more obstinate he always seems to be. It is a great pity, because
he will never be a success as it is, while there are one or two colours
in which he might not really look so bad, with his hat on.

George has bought some new things for this trip, and I'm rather vexed
about them. The blazer is loud. I should not like George to know that
I thought so, but there really is no other word for it. He brought
it home and showed it to us on Thursday evening. We asked him what
colour he called it, and he said he didn't know. He didn't think there
was a name for the colour. The man had told him it was an Oriental
design. George put it on, and asked us what we thought of it. Harris
said that, as an object to hang over a flower-bed in early spring
to frighten the birds away, he should respect it; but that, considered
as an article of dress for any human being, except a Margate nigger,
it made him ill. George got quite huffy; but, as Harris said, if he
didn't want his opinion, why did he ask for it?

What troubles Harris and myself, with regard to it, is that we are
afraid it will attract attention to the boat.

Girls, also, don't look half bad in a boat, if prettily dressed. Nothing
is more fetching, to my thinking, than a tasteful boating costume.
But a {}``boating costume,'' it would be as well if all ladies would
understand, ought to be a costume that can be worn in a boat, and
not merely under a glass-case. It utterly spoils an excursion if you
have folk in the boat who are thinking all the time a good deal more
of their dress than of the trip. It was my misfortune once to go for
a water picnic with two ladies of this kind. We did have a lively
time!

They were both beautifully got up\mdash{}all lace and silky stuff,
and flowers, and ribbons, and dainty shoes, and light gloves. But
they were dressed for a photographic studio, not for a river picnic.
They were the {}``boating costumes'' of a French fashion-plate.
It was ridiculous, fooling about in them anywhere near real earth,
air, and water.

The first thing was that they thought the boat was not clean. We dusted
all the seats for them, and then assured them that it was, but they
didn't believe us. One of them rubbed the cushion with the forefinger
of her glove, and showed the result to the other, and they both sighed,
and sat down, with the air of early Christian martyrs trying to make
themselves comfortable up against the stake. You are liable to occasionally
splash a little when sculling, and it appeared that a drop of water
ruined those costumes. The mark never came out, and a stain was left
on the dress for ever.

I was stroke. I did my best. I feathered some two feet high, and I
paused at the end of each stroke to let the blades drip before returning
them, and I picked out a smooth bit of water to drop them into again
each time.\  (Bow said, after a while, that he did not feel himself
a sufficiently accomplished oarsman to pull with me, but that he would
sit still, if I would allow him, and study my stroke. He said it interested
him.) But, notwithstanding all this, and try as I would, I could not
help an occasional flicker of water from going over those dresses.

The girls did not complain, but they huddled up close together, and
set their lips firm, and every time a drop touched them, they visibly
shrank and shuddered. It was a noble sight to see them suffering thus
in silence, but it unnerved me altogether. I am too sensitive. I got
wild and fitful in my rowing, and splashed more and more, the harder
I tried not to.

I gave it up at last; I said I'd row bow. Bow thought the arrangement
would be better too, and we changed places. The ladies gave an involuntary
sigh of relief when they saw me go, and quite brightened up for a
moment. Poor girls!\ they had better have put up with me. The man
they had got now was a jolly, light-hearted, thick-headed sort of
a chap, with about as much sensitiveness in him as there might be
in a Newfoundland puppy. You might look daggers at him for an hour
and he would not notice it, and it would not trouble him if he did.
He set a good, rollicking, dashing stroke that sent the spray playing
all over the boat like a fountain, and made the whole crowd sit up
straight in no time. When he spread more than pint of water over one
of those dresses, he would give a pleasant little laugh, and say:

{}``I beg your pardon, I'm sure;'' and offer them his handkerchief
to wipe it off with.

{}``Oh, it's of no consequence,'' the poor girls would murmur in
reply, and covertly draw rugs and coats over themselves, and try and
protect themselves with their lace parasols.

At lunch they had a very bad time of it. People wanted them to sit
on the grass, and the grass was dusty; and the tree-trunks, against
which they were invited to lean, did not appear to have been brushed
for weeks; so they spread their handkerchiefs on the ground and sat
on those, bolt upright. Somebody, in walking about with a plate of
beef-steak pie, tripped up over a root, and sent the pie flying. None
of it went over them, fortunately, but the accident suggested a fresh
danger to them, and agitated them; and, whenever anybody moved about,
after that, with anything in his hand that could fall and make a mess,
they watched that person with growing anxiety until he sat down again.

{}``Now then, you girls,'' said our friend Bow to them, cheerily,
after it was all over, {}``come along, you've got to wash up!''

They didn't understand him at first. When they grasped the idea, they
said they feared they did not know how to wash up.

{}``Oh, I'll soon show you,'' he cried; {}``it's rare fun! You
lie down on your\mdash{}I mean you lean over the bank, you know,
and sloush the things about in the water.''

The elder sister said that she was afraid that they hadn't got on
dresses suited to the work.

{}``Oh, they'll be all right,'' said he light-heartedly; {}``tuck
'em up.''

And he made them do it, too. He told them that that sort of thing
was half the fun of a picnic. They said it was very interesting.

Now I come to think it over, was that young man as dense-headed as
we thought?\ or was he\mdash{}no, impossible!\ there was such a
simple, child-like expression about him!

\bigskip{}
Harris wanted to get out at Hampton Church, to go and see Mrs.\ Thomas's
tomb.

{}``Who is Mrs.\ Thomas?''\ I asked.

{}``How should I know?''\ replied Harris. {}``She's a lady that's
got a funny tomb, and I want to see it.''

I objected. I don't know whether it is that I am built wrong, but
I never did seem to hanker after tombstones myself. I know that the
proper thing to do, when you get to a village or town, is to rush
off to the churchyard, and enjoy the graves; but it is a recreation
that I always deny myself. I take no interest in creeping round dim
and chilly churches behind wheezy old men, and reading epitaphs. Not
even the sight of a bit of cracked brass let into a stone affords
me what I call real happiness.

I shock respectable sextons by the imperturbability I am able to assume
before exciting inscriptions, and by my lack of enthusiasm for the
local family history, while my ill-concealed anxiety to get outside
wounds their feelings.

One golden morning of a sunny day, I leant against the low stone wall
that guarded a little village church, and I smoked, and drank in deep,
calm gladness from the sweet, restful scene\mdash{}the grey old church
with its clustering ivy and its quaint carved wooden porch, the white
lane winding down the hill between tall rows of elms, the thatched-roof
cottages peeping above their trim-kept hedges, the silver river in
the hollow, the wooded hills beyond!

It was a lovely landscape. It was idyllic, poetical, and it inspired
me. I felt good and noble. I felt I didn't want to be sinful and wicked
any more. I would come and live here, and never do any more wrong,
and lead a blameless, beautiful life, and have silver hair when I
got old, and all that sort of thing.

In that moment I forgave all my friends and relations for their wickedness
and cussedness, and I blessed them. They did not know that I blessed
them. They went their abandoned way all unconscious of what I, far
away in that peaceful village, was doing for them; but I did it, and
I wished that I could let them know that I had done it, because I
wanted to make them happy. I was going on thinking away all these
grand, tender thoughts, when my reverie was broken in upon by a shrill
piping voice crying out:

{}``All right, sur, I'm a-coming, I'm a-coming. It's all right, sur;
don't you be in a hurry.''

I looked up, and saw an old bald-headed man hobbling across the churchyard
towards me, carrying a huge bunch of keys in his hand that shook and
jingled at every step.

I motioned him away with silent dignity, but he still advanced, screeching
out the while:

{}``I'm a-coming, sur, I'm a-coming. I'm a little lame. I ain't as
spry as I used to be. This way, sur.''

{}``Go away, you miserable old man,'' I said.

{}``I've come as soon as I could, sur,'' he replied. {}``My missis
never see you till just this minute. You follow me, sur.''

{}``Go away,'' I repeated; {}``leave me before I get over the wall,
and slay you.''

He seemed surprised.

{}``Don't you want to see the tombs?'' he said.

{}``No,'' I answered, {}``I don't. I want to stop here, leaning
up against this gritty old wall. Go away, and don't disturb me. I
am chock full of beautiful and noble thoughts, and I want to stop
like it, because it feels nice and good. Don't you come fooling about,
making me mad, chivying away all my better feelings with this silly
tombstone nonsense of yours. Go away, and get somebody to bury you
cheap, and I'll pay half the expense.''

He was bewildered for a moment. He rubbed his eyes, and looked hard
at me. I seemed human enough on the outside: he couldn't make it out.

He said:

{}``Yuise a stranger in these parts? You don't live here?''

{}``No,'' I said, {}``I don't. \textit{You} wouldn't if I did.''

{}``Well then,'' he said, {}``you want to see the tombs\mdash{}graves\mdash{}folks
been buried, you know\mdash{}coffins!''

{}``You are an untruther,'' I replied, getting roused; {}``I do
not want to see tombs\mdash{}not your tombs. Why should I? We have
graves of our own, our family has. Why my uncle Podger has a tomb
in Kensal Green Cemetery, that is the pride of all that country-side;
and my grandfather's vault at Bow is capable of accommodating eight
visitors, while my great-aunt Susan has a brick grave in Finchley
Churchyard, with a headstone with a coffee-pot sort of thing in bas-relief
upon it, and a six-inch best white stone coping all the way round,
that cost pounds. When I want graves, it is to those places that I
go and revel. I do not want other folk's. When you yourself are buried,
I will come and see yours. That is all I can do for you.''

He burst into tears. He said that one of the tombs had a bit of stone
upon the top of it that had been said by some to be probably part
of the remains of the figure of a man, and that another had some words,
carved upon it, that nobody had ever been able to decipher.

I still remained obdurate, and, in broken-hearted tones, he said:

{}``Well, won't you come and see the memorial window?''

I would not even see that, so he fired his last shot. He drew near,
and whispered hoarsely:

{}``I've got a couple of skulls down in the crypt,'' he said; {}``come
and see those. Oh, do come and see the skulls! You are a young man
out for a holiday, and you want to enjoy yourself. Come and see the
skulls!''

Then I turned and fled, and as I sped I heard him calling to me:

{}``Oh, come and see the skulls; come back and see the skulls!''

Harris, however, revels in tombs, and graves, and epitaphs, and monumental
inscriptions, and the thought of not seeing Mrs.\ Thomas's grave
made him crazy. He said he had looked forward to seeing Mrs.\  Thomas's
grave from the first moment that the trip was proposed\mdash{}said
he wouldn't have joined if it hadn't been for the idea of seeing Mrs.\ 
Thomas's tomb.

I reminded him of George, and how we had to get the boat up to Shepperton
by five o'clock to meet him, and then he went for George. Why was
George to fool about all day, and leave us to lug this lumbering old
top-heavy barge up and down the river by ourselves to meet him? Why
couldn't George come and do some work? Why couldn't he have got the
day off, and come down with us? Bank be blowed! What good was he at
the bank?

{}``I never see him doing any work there,'' continued Harris, {}``whenever
I go in. He sits behind a bit of glass all day, trying to look as
if he was doing something. What's the good of a man behind a bit of
glass? I have to work for my living. Why can't he work. What use is
he there, and what's the good of their banks? They take your money,
and then, when you draw a cheque, they send it back smeared all over
with `No effects,' `Refer to drawer.' What's the good of that? That's
the sort of trick they served me twice last week. I'm not going to
stand it much longer. I shall withdraw my account. If he was here,
we could go and see that tomb. I don't believe he's at the bank at
all. He's larking about somewhere, that's what he's doing, leaving
us to do all the work. I'm going to get out, and have a drink.''

I pointed out to him that we were miles away from a pub.; and then
he went on about the river, and what was the good of the river, and
was everyone who came on the river to die of thirst?

It is always best to let Harris have his head when he gets like this.
Then he pumps himself out, and is quiet afterwards.

I reminded him that there was concentrated lemonade in the hamper,
and a gallon-jar of water in the nose of the boat, and that the two
only wanted mixing to make a cool and refreshing beverage.

Then he flew off about lemonade, and {}``such-like Sunday-school
slops,'' as he termed them, ginger-beer, raspberry syrup, \&c., \&c.
He said they all produced dyspepsia, and ruined body and soul alike,
and were the cause of half the crime in England.

He said he must drink something, however, and climbed upon the seat,
and leant over to get the bottle. It was right at the bottom of the
hamper, and seemed difficult to find, and he had to lean over further
and further, and, in trying to steer at the same time, from a topsy-turvy
point of view, he pulled the wrong line, and sent the boat into the
bank, and the shock upset him, and he dived down right into the hamper,
and stood there on his head, holding on to the sides of the boat like
grim death, his legs sticking up into the air. He dared not move for
fear of going over, and had to stay there till I could get hold of
his legs, and haul him back, and that made him madder than ever.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER VIII.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER VIII}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER VIII}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Blackmailing.\mdash{} The proper course
to pursue.\mdash{} Selfish boorishness of}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{river}}}\textmd{\noun{-}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{side}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{landowner}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
{}``}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Notice}}}\textmd{\noun{''}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{Boards}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
Unchristianlike}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{feelings}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of
Harris}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{How}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Harris}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{sings}}}
\textmd{\noun{a}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{comic}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{song}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{high}}}\textmd{\noun{-}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{class}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{party}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Shameful conduct}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{two}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{abandoned}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{young}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{men}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Some}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{useless}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{information}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{George Buys}}} \textmd{\noun{A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{banjo}}}\textmd{\noun{.}}}

\textit{\emph{We}} stopped under the willows by Kempton Park, and
lunched. It is a pretty little spot there: a pleasant grass plateau,
running along by the water's edge, and overhung by willows. We had
just commenced the third course\mdash{}the bread and jam\mdash{}when
a gentleman in shirt-sleeves and a short pipe came along, and wanted
to know if we knew that we were trespassing. We said we hadn't given
the matter sufficient consideration as yet to enable us to arrive
at a definite conclusion on that point, but that, if he assured us
on his word as a gentleman that we \textit{were} trespassing, we would,
without further hesitation, believe it.

He gave us the required assurance, and we thanked him, but he still
hung about, and seemed to be dissatisfied, so we asked him if there
was anything further that we could do for him; and Harris, who is
of a chummy disposition, offered him a bit of bread and jam.

I fancy he must have belonged to some society sworn to abstain from
bread and jam; for he declined it quite gruffly, as if he were vexed
at being tempted with it, and he added that it was his duty to turn
us off.

Harris said that if it was a duty it ought to be done, and asked the
man what was his idea with regard to the best means for accomplishing
it. Harris is what you would call a well-made man of about number
one size, and looks hard and bony, and the man measured him up and
down, and said he would go and consult his master, and then come back
and chuck us both into the river.

Of course, we never saw him any more, and, of course, all he really
wanted was a shilling. There are a certain number of riverside roughs
who make quite an income, during the summer, by slouching about the
banks and blackmailing weak-minded noodles in this way. They represent
themselves as sent by the proprietor. The proper course to pursue
is to offer your name and address, and leave the owner, if he really
has anything to do with the matter, to summon you, and prove what
damage you have done to his land by sitting down on a bit of it. But
the majority of people are so intensely lazy and timid, that they
prefer to encourage the imposition by giving in to it rather than
put an end to it by the exertion of a little firmness.

Where it is really the owners that are to blame, they ought to be
shown up. The selfishness of the riparian proprietor grows with every
year. If these men had their way they would close the river Thames
altogether. They actually do this along the minor tributary streams
and in the backwaters. They drive posts into the bed of the stream,
and draw chains across from bank to bank, and nail huge notice-boards
on every tree. The sight of those notice-boards rouses every evil
instinct in my nature. I feel I want to tear each one down, and hammer
it over the head of the man who put it up, until I have killed him,
and then I would bury him, and put the board up over the grave as
a tombstone.

I mentioned these feelings of mine to Harris, and he said he had them
worse than that. He said he not only felt he wanted to kill the man
who caused the board to be put up, but that he should like to slaughter
the whole of his family and all his friends and relations, and then
burn down his house. This seemed to me to be going too far, and I
said so to Harris; but he answered:

{}``Not a bit of it. Serve 'em all jolly well right, and I'd go and
sing comic songs on the ruins.''

I was vexed to hear Harris go on in this blood-thirsty strain. We
never ought to allow our instincts of justice to degenerate into mere
vindictiveness. It was a long while before I could get Harris to take
a more Christian view of the subject, but I succeeded at last, and
he promised me that he would spare the friends and relations at all
events, and would not sing comic songs on the ruins.

You have never heard Harris sing a comic song, or you would understand
the service I had rendered to mankind. It is one of Harris's fixed
ideas that he \textit{can} sing a comic song; the fixed idea, on the
contrary, among those of Harris's friends who have heard him try,
is that he \textit{can't} and never will be able to, and that he ought
not to be allowed to try.

When Harris is at a party, and is asked to sing, he replies: {}``Well,
I can only sing a \textit{comic} song, you know;'' and he says it
in a tone that implies that his singing of \textit{that}, however,
is a thing that you ought to hear once, and then die.

{}``Oh, that \textit{is} nice,'' says the hostess. {}``Do sing
one, Mr.\ Harris;'' and Harris gets up, and makes for the piano,
with the beaming cheeriness of a generous-minded man who is just about
to give somebody something.

{}``Now, silence, please, everybody'' says the hostess, turning
round; {}``Mr.\  Harris is going to sing a comic song!''

{}``Oh, how jolly!''\ they murmur; and they hurry in from the conservatory,
and come up from the stairs, and go and fetch each other from all
over the house, and crowd into the drawing-room, and sit round, all
smirking in anticipation.

Then Harris begins.

Well, you don't look for much of a voice in a comic song. You don't
expect correct phrasing or vocalization. You don't mind if a man does
find out, when in the middle of a note, that he is too high, and comes
down with a jerk. You don't bother about time. You don't mind a man
being two bars in front of the accompaniment, and easing up in the
middle of a line to argue it out with the pianist, and then starting
the verse afresh. But you do expect the words.

You don't expect a man to never remember more than the first three
lines of the first verse, and to keep on repeating these until it
is time to begin the chorus. You don't expect a man to break off in
the middle of a line, and snigger, and say, it's very funny, but he's
blest if he can think of the rest of it, and then try and make it
up for himself, and, afterwards, suddenly recollect it, when he has
got to an entirely different part of the song, and break off, without
a word of warning, to go back and let you have it then and there.
You don't\mdash{}well, I will just give you an idea of Harris's comic
singing, and then you can judge of it for yourself.

\textit{\emph{\noun{Harris}}} (\textit{standing} \textit{up} \textit{in}
\textit{front} \textit{of} \textit{piano} \textit{and} \textit{addressing}
\textit{the} \textit{expectant} \textit{mob}): {}``I'm afraid it's
a very old thing, you know. I expect you all know it, you know. But
it's the only thing I know. It's the Judge's song out of \textit{\emph{Pinafore}}\mdash{}no,
I don't mean \textit{\emph{Pinafore}}\mdash{}I mean\mdash{}you know
what I mean\mdash{}the other thing, you know. You must all join in
the chorus, you know.''

{[}\emph{Murmurs of delight and anxiety to join in the chorus. Brilliant
performance of prelude to the Judge's song in {}``Trial by Jury''
by nervous Pianist. Moment arrives for Harris to join in. Harris takes
no notice of it. Nervous pianist commences prelude over again, and
Harris, commencing singing at the same time, dashes off the first
two lines of the First Lord's song out of {}``Pinafore.'' Nervous
pianist tries to push on with prelude, gives it up, and tries to follow
Harris with accompaniment to Judge's song out {}``Trial by Jury,''
finds that doesn't answer, and tries to recollect what he is doing,
and where he is, feels his mind giving way, and stops short}.{]}

\textit{\emph{\noun{Harris}}} (\textit{with} \textit{kindly} \textit{encouragement}):
{}``It's all right. You're doing it very well, indeed\mdash{}go
on.''

\textit{\emph{\noun{Nervous}}} \emph{\noun{}}\textit{\emph{\noun{pianist}}}:
{}``I'm afraid there's a mistake somewhere. What are you singing?''

\textit{\emph{\noun{Harris}}} (\textit{promptly}): {}``Why the
Judge's song out of Trial by Jury. Don't you know it?''

\textit{\emph{\noun{Some}}} \emph{\noun{}}\textit{\emph{\noun{friend}}}
\emph{\noun{}}\textit{\emph{\noun{of}}} \emph{\noun{}}\textit{\emph{\noun{Harris's}}}
(\textit{from} \textit{the} \textit{back} \textit{of} \textit{the}
\textit{room}): {}``No, you're not, you chuckle-head, you're singing
the Admiral's song from \textit{\emph{Pinafore}}.''

{[}\emph{Long argument between Harris and Harris's friend as to what
Harris is really singing. Friend finally suggests that it doesn't
matter what Harris is singing so long as Harris gets on and sings
it, and Harris, with an evident sense of injustice rankling inside
him, requests pianist to begin again. Pianist, thereupon, starts prelude
to the Admiral's song, and Harris, seizing what he considers to be
a favourable opening in the music, begins.}{]}\pagebreak[4]

\textit{\emph{\noun{Harris}}}: \nopagebreak[4] \begin{flushleft} \begin{verse} \footnotesize \ \\

\mbox{``{}`When I was young and called to the Bar.'{}''}\\

\end{verse} \end{flushleft}

{[}\textit{General} \textit{roar} \textit{of} \textit{laughter}, \textit{taken}
\textit{by} \textit{Harris} \textit{as} \textit{a compliment}. \textit{Pianist},
\textit{thinking} \textit{of} \textit{his} \textit{wife} \textit{and}
\textit{family}, \textit{gives} \textit{up} \textit{the} \textit{unequal}
\textit{contest} \textit{and} \textit{retires}; \textit{his} \textit{place}
\textit{being} \textit{taken} \textit{by} \textit{a stronger}-\textit{nerved}
\textit{man}.{]}

\textit{\emph{\noun{The}}} \emph{\noun{}}\textit{\emph{\noun{new}}}
\emph{\noun{}}\textit{\emph{\noun{pianist}}} (\textit{cheerily}):
{}``Now then, old man, you start off, and I'll follow. We won't bother
about any prelude.''

\textit{\emph{\noun{Harris}}} (\textit{upon} \textit{whom} \textit{the}
\textit{explanation} \textit{of} \textit{matters} \textit{has} \textit{slowly}
\textit{dawned}\mdash{}\textit{laughing}): {}``By Jove! I beg your
pardon. Of course\mdash{}I've been mixing up the two songs. It was
Jenkins confused me, you know. Now then. {[}\textit{Singing}; \textit{his}
\textit{voice} \textit{appearing} \textit{to} \textit{come} \textit{from}
\textit{the} \textit{Cellar}, \textit{and} \textit{suggesting} \textit{the}
\textit{first} \textit{low} \textit{warnings} \textit{of} \textit{an}
\textit{approaching} \textit{earthquake}.{]} \begin{flushleft} \begin{verse} \footnotesize

`When I was young I served a term \\*

As office-boy to an attorney's firm.'

\end{verse} \end{flushleft} (Aside to pianist): {}``It is too low, old man; we'll have that
over again, if you don't mind.'' {[}\textit{Sings} \textit{first}
\textit{two} \textit{lines} \textit{over} \textit{again}, \textit{in}
\emph{a} \textit{high} \textit{falsetto} \textit{this} \textit{time}.
\textit{Great} \textit{surprise} \textit{on} \textit{the} \textit{part}
\textit{of} \textit{the} \textit{audience}. \textit{Nervous} \textit{old}
\textit{lady} \textit{near} \textit{the} \textit{fire} \textit{begins}
\textit{to} \textit{cry}, \textit{and} \textit{has} \textit{to} \textit{be}
\textit{led} \textit{out}.{]}\pagebreak[4]

\textit{\emph{\noun{Harris}}} (continuing): \begin{flushleft} \begin{verse} \footnotesize \ \\

\mbox{``{}`I swept the windows and I swept the door,}\\*

And I---'\\

\end{verse} \end{flushleft} {}``No\mdash{}no, I cleaned the windows of the big front door.
And I polished up the floor\mdash{}no, dash it\mdash{}I beg your
pardon\mdash{}funny thing, I can't think of that line. And I\mdash{}and
I\mdash{}Oh, well, we'll get on to the chorus, and chance it (\textit{sings}):
\begin{flushleft} \footnotesize

\mbox{`And I diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-de,} \\*

\mbox{Till now I am the ruler of the Queen's navee.'}\\

\end{flushleft} Now then, chorus\mdash{}it is the last two lines repeated, you know.
\begin{flushleft} \footnotesize

\mbox{`And he diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-dee'd,} \\*

\mbox{Till now he is the ruler of the Queen's navee.'{}''}\\

\end{flushleft}

And Harris never sees what an ass he is making of himself, and how
he is annoying a lot of people who never did him any harm. He honestly
imagines that he has given them a treat, and says he will sing another
comic song after supper.

Speaking of comic songs and parties, reminds me of a rather curious
incident at which I once assisted; which, as it throws much light
upon the inner mental working of human nature in general, ought, I
think, to be recorded in these pages.

We were a fashionable and highly cultured party. We had on our best
clothes, and we talked pretty, and were very happy\mdash{}all except
two young fellows, students, just returned from Germany, commonplace
young men, who seemed restless and uncomfortable, as if they found
the proceedings slow. The truth was, we were too clever for them.
Our brilliant but polished conversation, and our high-class tastes,
were beyond them. They were out of place, among us. They never ought
to have been there at all. Everybody agreed upon that, later on.

We played \emph{Morceaux} from the old German masters. We discussed
philosophy and ethics. We flirted with graceful dignity. We were even
humorous\mdash{}in a high-class way.

Somebody recited a French poem after supper, and we said it was beautiful;
and then a lady sang a sentimental ballad in Spanish, and it made
one or two of us weep\mdash{}it was so pathetic.

And then those two young men got up, and asked us if we had ever heard
Herr Slossenn Boschen (who had just arrived, and was then down in
the supper-room) sing his great German comic song.

None of us had heard it, that we could remember.

The young men said it was the funniest song that had ever been written,
and that, if we liked, they would get Herr Slossenn Boschen, whom
they knew very well, to sing it. They said it was so funny that, when
Herr Slossenn Boschen had sung it once before the German Emperor,
he (the German Emperor) had had to be carried off to bed.

They said nobody could sing it like Herr Slossenn Boschen; he was
so intensely serious all through it that you might fancy he was reciting
a tragedy, and that, of course, made it all the funnier. They said
he never once suggested by his tone or manner that he was singing
anything funny\mdash{}that would spoil it. It was his air of seriousness,
almost of pathos, that made it so irresistibly amusing.

We said we yearned to hear it, that we wanted a good laugh; and they
went downstairs, and fetched Herr Slossenn Boschen.

He appeared to be quite pleased to sing it, for he came up at once,
and sat down to the piano without another word.

{}``Oh, it will amuse you. You will laugh,'' whispered the two young
men, as they passed through the room, and took up an unobtrusive position
behind the Professor's back.

Herr Slossenn Boschen accompanied himself. The prelude did not suggest
a comic song exactly. It was a weird, soulful air. It quite made one's
flesh creep; but we murmured to one another that it was the German
method, and prepared to enjoy it.

I don't understand German myself. I learned it at school, but forgot
every word of it two years after I had left, and have felt much better
ever since. Still, I did not want the people there to guess my ignorance;
so I hit upon what I thought to be rather a good idea. I kept my eye
on the two young students, and followed them. When they tittered,
I tittered; when they roared, I roared; and I also threw in a little
snigger all by myself now and then, as if I had seen a bit of humour
that had escaped the others. I considered this particularly artful
on my part.

I noticed, as the song progressed, that a good many other people seemed
to have their eye fixed on the two young men, as well as myself. These
other people also tittered when the young men tittered, and roared
when the young men roared; and, as the two young men tittered and
roared and exploded with laughter pretty continuously all through
the song, it went exceedingly well.

And yet that German Professor did not seem happy. At first, when we
began to laugh, the expression of his face was one of intense surprise,
as if laughter were the very last thing he had expected to be greeted
with. We thought this very funny: we said his earnest manner was half
the humour. The slightest hint on his part that he knew how funny
he was would have completely ruined it all. As we continued to laugh,
his surprise gave way to an air of annoyance and indignation, and
he scowled fiercely round upon us all (except upon the two young men
who, being behind him, he could not see). That sent us into convulsions.
We told each other that it would be the death of us, this thing. The
words alone, we said, were enough to send us into fits, but added
to his mock seriousness\mdash{}oh, it was too much!

In the last verse, he surpassed himself. He glowered round upon us
with a look of such concentrated ferocity that, but for our being
forewarned as to the German method of comic singing, we should have
been nervous; and he threw such a wailing note of agony into the weird
music that, if we had not known it was a funny song, we might have
wept.

He finished amid a perfect shriek of laughter. We said it was the
funniest thing we had ever heard in all our lives. We said how strange
it was that, in the face of things like these, there should be a popular
notion that the Germans hadn't any sense of humour. And we asked the
Professor why he didn't translate the song into English, so that the
common people could understand it, and hear what a real comic song
was like.

Then Herr Slossenn Boschen got up, and went on awful. He swore at
us in German (which I should judge to be a singularly effective language
for that purpose), and he danced, and shook his fists, and called
us all the English he knew. He said he had never been so insulted
in all his life.

It appeared that the song was not a comic song at all. It was about
a young girl who lived in the Hartz Mountains, and who had given up
her life to save her lover's soul; and he died, and met her spirit
in the air; and then, in the last verse, he jilted her spirit, and
went on with another spirit\mdash{}I'm not quite sure of the details,
but it was something very sad, I know. Herr Boschen said he had sung
it once before the German Emperor, and he (the German Emperor) had
sobbed like a little child. He (Herr Boschen) said it was generally
acknowledged to be one of the most tragic and pathetic songs in the
German language.

It was a trying situation for us\mdash{}very trying. There seemed
to be no answer. We looked around for the two young men who had done
this thing, but they had left the house in an unostentatious manner
immediately after the end of the song.

That was the end of that party. I never saw a party break up so quietly,
and with so little fuss. We never said good-night even to one another.
We came downstairs one at a time, walking softly, and keeping the
shady side. We asked the servant for our hats and coats in whispers,
and opened the door for ourselves, and slipped out, and got round
the corner quickly, avoiding each other as much as possible.

I have never taken much interest in German songs since then.

We reached Sunbury Lock at half-past three. The river is sweetly pretty
just there before you come to the gates, and the backwater is charming;
but don't attempt to row up it.

I tried to do so once. I was sculling, and asked the fellows who were
steering if they thought it could be done, and they said, oh, yes,
they thought so, if I pulled hard. We were just under the little foot-bridge
that crosses it between the two weirs, when they said this, and I
bent down over the sculls, and set myself up, and pulled.

I pulled splendidly. I got well into a steady rhythmical swing. I
put my arms, and my legs, and my back into it. I set myself a good,
quick, dashing stroke, and worked in really grand style. My two friends
said it was a pleasure to watch me. At the end of five minutes, I
thought we ought to be pretty near the weir, and I looked up. We were
under the bridge, in exactly the same spot that we were when I began,
and there were those two idiots, injuring themselves by violent laughing.
I had been grinding away like mad to keep that boat stuck still under
that bridge. I let other people pull up backwaters against strong
streams now.

We sculled up to Walton, a rather large place for a riverside town.
As with all riverside places, only the tiniest corner of it comes
down to the water, so that from the boat you might fancy it was a
village of some half-dozen houses, all told. Windsor and Abingdon
are the only towns between London and Oxford that you can really see
anything of from the stream. All the others hide round corners, and
merely peep at the river down one street: my thanks to them for being
so considerate, and leaving the river-banks to woods and fields and
water-works.

Even Reading, though it does its best to spoil and sully and make
hideous as much of the river as it can reach, is good-natured enough
to keep its ugly face a good deal out of sight.

C\ae sar, of course, had a little place at Walton\mdash{}a camp,
or an entrenchment, or something of that sort. C\ae sar was a regular
up-river man. Also Queen Elizabeth, she was there, too. You can never
get away from that woman, go where you will. Cromwell and Bradshaw
(not the guide man, but the King Charles's head man) likewise sojourned
here. They must have been quite a pleasant little party, altogether.

There is an iron {}``scold's bridle'' in Walton Church. They used
these things in ancient days for curbing women's tongues. They have
given up the attempt now. I suppose iron was getting scarce, and nothing
else would be strong enough.

There are also tombs of note in the church, and I was afraid I should
never get Harris past them; but he didn't seem to think of them, and
we went on. Above the bridge the river winds tremendously. This makes
it look picturesque; but it irritates you from a towing or sculling
point of view, and causes argument between the man who is pulling
and the man who is steering.

You pass Oatlands Park on the right bank here. It is a famous old
place. Henry VIII.\ stole it from some one or the other, I forget
whom now, and lived in it. There is a grotto in the park which you
can see for a fee, and which is supposed to be very wonderful; but
I cannot see much in it myself. The late Duchess of York, who lived
at Oatlands, was very fond of dogs, and kept an immense number. She
had a special graveyard made, in which to bury them when they died,
and there they lie, about fifty of them, with a tombstone over each,
and an epitaph inscribed thereon.

Well, I dare say they deserve it quite as much as the average Christian
does.

At {}``Corway Stakes''\mdash{}the first bend above Walton Bridge\mdash{}was
fought a battle between C\ae sar and Cassivelaunus. Cassivelaunus
had prepared the river for C\ae sar, by planting it full of stakes
(and had, no doubt, put up a notice-board). But C\ae sar crossed
in spite of this. You couldn't choke C\ae sar off that river. He
is the sort of man we want round the backwaters now.

Halliford and Shepperton are both pretty little spots where they touch
the river; but there is nothing remarkable about either of them. There
is a tomb in Shepperton churchyard, however, with a poem on it, and
I was nervous lest Harris should want to get out and fool round it.
I saw him fix a longing eye on the landing-stage as we drew near it,
so I managed, by an adroit movement, to jerk his cap into the water,
and in the excitement of recovering that, and his indignation at my
clumsiness, he forgot all about his beloved graves.

At Weybridge, the Wey (a pretty little stream, navigable for small
boats up to Guildford, and one which I have always been making up
my mind to explore, and never have), the Bourne, and the Basingstoke
Canal all enter the Thames together. The lock is just opposite the
town, and the first thing that we saw, when we came in view of it,
was George's blazer on one of the lock gates, closer inspection showing
that George was inside it.

\textit{\emph{Montmorency}} \emph{}\textit{\emph{set}} up a furious
barking, I shrieked, Harris roared; George waved his hat, and yelled
back. The lock-keeper rushed out with a drag, under the impression
that somebody had fallen into the lock, and appeared annoyed at finding
that no one had.

George had rather a curious oilskin-covered parcel in his hand. It
was round and flat at one end, with a long straight handle sticking
out of it.

{}``What's that?''\ said Harris\mdash{}{}``a frying-pan?''

{}``No,'' said George, with a strange, wild look glittering in his
eyes; {}``they are all the rage this season; everybody has got them
up the river. It's a banjo.''

{}``I never knew you played the banjo!'' cried Harris and I, in
one breath.

{}``Not exactly,'' replied George: {}``but it's very easy, they
tell me; and I've got the instruction book!''


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER IX.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER IX}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER IX}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{George is introduced to work.\mdash{}
Heathenish instincts of tow-lines.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{Ungrateful}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{conduct}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}}
\textmd{\noun{a}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{double}}}\textmd{\noun{-}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{sculling}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{skiff}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Towers}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{towed}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{use}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{discovered}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{for}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{lovers}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Strange}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{disappearance}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{an}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{elderly}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{lady}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Much}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{haste}}}\textmd{\noun{,}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{less}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Speed}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Being}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{towed}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{by}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{girls}}}\textmd{\noun{:}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Exciting}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{sensation}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{The missing}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{lock}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{or}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{haunted}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{river}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Music}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{Saved}}}\textmd{\noun{!}}}

\textit{\emph{We}} made George work, now we had got him. He did not
want to work, of course; that goes without saying. He had had a hard
time in the City, so he explained. Harris, who is callous in his nature,
and not prone to pity, said:

{}``Ah! and now you are going to have a hard time on the river for
a change; change is good for everyone. Out you get!''

He could not in conscience\mdash{}not even George's conscience\mdash{}object,
though he did suggest that, perhaps, it would be better for him to
stop in the boat, and get tea ready, while Harris and I towed, because
getting tea was such a worrying work, and Harris and I looked tired.
The only reply we made to this, however, was to pass him over the
tow-line, and he took it, and stepped out.

There is something very strange and unaccountable about a tow-line.
You roll it up with as much patience and care as you would take to
fold up a new pair of trousers, and five minutes afterwards, when
you pick it up, it is one ghastly, soul-revolting tangle.

I do not wish to be insulting, but I firmly believe that if you took
an average tow-line, and stretched it out straight across the middle
of a field, and then turned your back on it for thirty seconds, that,
when you looked round again, you would find that it had got itself
altogether in a heap in the middle of the field, and had twisted itself
up, and tied itself into knots, and lost its two ends, and become
all loops; and it would take you a good half-hour, sitting down there
on the grass and swearing all the while, to disentangle it again.

That is my opinion of tow-lines in general. Of course, there may be
honourable exceptions; I do not say that there are not. There may
be tow-lines that are a credit to their profession\mdash{}conscientious,
respectable tow-lines\mdash{}tow-lines that do not imagine they are
crochet-work, and try to knit themselves up into antimacassars the
instant they are left to themselves. I say there \textit{may} be such
tow-lines; I sincerely hope there are. But I have not met with them.

This tow-line I had taken in myself just before we had got to the
lock. I would not let Harris touch it, because he is careless. I had
looped it round slowly and cautiously, and tied it up in the middle,
and folded it in two, and laid it down gently at the bottom of the
boat. Harris had lifted it up scientifically, and had put it into
George's hand. George had taken it firmly, and held it away from him,
and had begun to unravel it as if he were taking the swaddling clothes
off a new-born infant; and, before he had unwound a dozen yards, the
thing was more like a badly-made door-mat than anything else.

It is always the same, and the same sort of thing always goes on in
connection with it. The man on the bank, who is trying to disentangle
it, thinks all the fault lies with the man who rolled it up; and when
a man up the river thinks a thing, he says it.

{}``What have you been trying to do with it, make a fishing-net of
it? You've made a nice mess you have; why couldn't you wind it up
properly, you silly dummy?''\ he grunts from time to time as he
struggles wildly with it, and lays it out flat on the tow-path, and
runs round and round it, trying to find the end.

On the other hand, the man who wound it up thinks the whole cause
of the muddle rests with the man who is trying to unwind it.

{}``It was all right when you took it!'' he exclaims indignantly.
{}``Why don't you think what you are doing? You go about things in
such a slap-dash style. You'd get a scaffolding pole entangled you
would!''

And they feel so angry with one another that they would like to hang
each other with the thing.

Ten minutes go by, and the first man gives a yell and goes mad, and
dances on the rope, and tries to pull it straight by seizing hold
of the first piece that comes to his hand and hauling at it. Of course,
this only gets it into a tighter tangle than ever. Then the second
man climbs out of the boat and comes to help him, and they get in
each other's way, and hinder one another. They both get hold of the
same bit of line, and pull at it in opposite directions, and wonder
where it is caught. In the end, they do get it clear, and then turn
round and find that the boat has drifted off, and is making straight
for the weir.

This really happened once to my own knowledge. It was up by Boveney,
one rather windy morning. We were pulling down stream, and, as we
came round the bend, we noticed a couple of men on the bank. They
were looking at each other with as bewildered and helplessly miserable
expression as I have ever witnessed on any human countenance before
or since, and they held a long tow-line between them. It was clear
that something had happened, so we eased up and asked them what was
the matter.

{}``Why, our boat's gone off!'' they replied in an indignant tone.
{}``We just got out to disentangle the tow-line, and when we looked
round, it was gone!''

And they seemed hurt at what they evidently regarded as a mean and
ungrateful act on the part of the boat.

We found the truant for them half a mile further down, held by some
rushes, and we brought it back to them. I bet they did not give that
boat another chance for a week.

I shall never forget the picture of those two men walking up and down
the bank with a tow-line, looking for their boat.

One sees a good many funny incidents up the river in connection with
towing. One of the most common is the sight of a couple of towers,
walking briskly along, deep in an animated discussion, while the man
in the boat, a hundred yards behind them, is vainly shrieking to them
to stop, and making frantic signs of distress with a scull. Something
has gone wrong; the rudder has come off, or the boat-hook has slipped
overboard, or his hat has dropped into the water and is floating rapidly
down stream.

He calls to them to stop, quite gently and politely at first.

{}``Hi!\ stop a minute, will you?''\ he shouts cheerily. {}``I've
dropped my hat over-board.''

Then: {}``Hi! Tom\mdash{}Dick! can't you hear?''\ not quite so
affably this time.

Then: {}``Hi! Confound \textit{you}, you dunder-headed idiots! Hi!\ stop!
Oh you\mdash{}!''

After that he springs up, and dances about, and roars himself red
in the face, and curses everything he knows. And the small boys on
the bank stop and jeer at him, and pitch stones at him as he is pulled
along past them, at the rate of four miles an hour, and can't get
out.

Much of this sort of trouble would be saved if those who are towing
would keep remembering that they are towing, and give a pretty frequent
look round to see how their man is getting on. It is best to let one
person tow. When two are doing it, they get chattering, and forget,
and the boat itself, offering, as it does, but little resistance,
is of no real service in reminding them of the fact.

As an example of how utterly oblivious a pair of towers can be to
their work, George told us, later on in the evening, when we were
discussing the subject after supper, of a very curious instance.

He and three other men, so he said, were sculling a very heavily laden
boat up from Maidenhead one evening, and a little above Cookham lock
they noticed a fellow and a girl, walking along the towpath, both
deep in an apparently interesting and absorbing conversation. They
were carrying a boat-hook between them, and, attached to the boat-hook
was a tow-line, which trailed behind them, its end in the water. No
boat was near, no boat was in sight. There must have been a boat attached
to that tow-line at some time or other, that was certain; but what
had become of it, what ghastly fate had overtaken it, and those who
had been left in it, was buried in mystery. Whatever the accident
may have been, however, it had in no way disturbed the young lady
and gentleman, who were towing. They had the boat-hook and they had
the line, and that seemed to be all that they thought necessary to
their work.

George was about to call out and wake them up, but, at that moment,
a bright idea flashed across him, and he didn't. He got the hitcher
instead, and reached over, and drew in the end of the tow-line; and
they made a loop in it, and put it over their mast, and then they
tidied up the sculls, and went and sat down in the stern, and lit
their pipes.

And that young man and young woman towed those four hulking chaps
and a heavy boat up to Marlow.

George said he never saw so much thoughtful sadness concentrated into
one glance before, as when, at the lock, that young couple grasped
the idea that, for the last two miles, they had been towing the wrong
boat. George fancied that, if it had not been for the restraining
influence of the sweet woman at his side, the young man might have
given way to violent language.

The maiden was the first to recover from her surprise, and, when she
did, she clasped her hands, and said, wildly:

{}``Oh, Henry, then \textit{where} is auntie?''

{}``Did they ever recover the old lady?'' asked Harris.

George replied he did not know.

\bigskip{}
Another example of the dangerous want of sympathy between tower and
towed was witnessed by George and myself once up near Walton. It was
where the tow-path shelves gently down into the water, and we were
camping on the opposite bank, noticing things in general. By-and-by
a small boat came in sight, towed through the water at a tremendous
pace by a powerful barge horse, on which sat a very small boy. Scattered
about the boat, in dreamy and reposeful attitudes, lay five fellows,
the man who was steering having a particularly restful appearance.

{}``I should like to see him pull the wrong line,'' murmured George,
as they passed. And at that precise moment the man did it, and the
boat rushed up the bank with a noise like the ripping up of forty
thousand linen sheets. Two men, a hamper, and three oars immediately
left the boat on the larboard side, and reclined on the bank, and
one and a half moments afterwards, two other men disembarked from
the starboard, and sat down among boat-hooks and sails and carpet-bags
and bottles. The last man went on twenty yards further, and then got
out on his head.

This seemed to sort of lighten the boat, and it went on much easier,
the small boy shouting at the top of his voice, and urging his steed
into a gallop. The fellows sat up and stared at one another. It was
some seconds before they realised what had happened to them, but,
when they did, they began to shout lustily for the boy to stop. He,
however, was too much occupied with the horse to hear them, and we
watched them, flying after him, until the distance hid them from view.

I cannot say I was sorry at their mishap. Indeed, I only wish that
all the young fools who have their boats towed in this fashion\mdash{}and
plenty do\mdash{}could meet with similar misfortunes. Besides the
risk they run themselves, they become a danger and an annoyance to
every other boat they pass. Going at the pace they do, it is impossible
for them to get out of anybody else's way, or for anybody else to
get out of theirs. Their line gets hitched across your mast, and overturns
you, or it catches somebody in the boat, and either throws them into
the water, or cuts their face open. The best plan is to stand your
ground, and be prepared to keep them off with the butt-end of a mast.

Of all experiences in connection with towing, the most exciting is
being towed by girls. It is a sensation that nobody ought to miss.
It takes three girls to tow always; two hold the rope, and the other
one runs round and round, and giggles. They generally begin by getting
themselves tied up. They get the line round their legs, and have to
sit down on the path and undo each other, and then they twist it round
their necks, and are nearly strangled. They fix it straight, however,
at last, and start off at a run, pulling the boat along at quite a
dangerous pace. At the end of a hundred yards they are naturally breathless,
and suddenly stop, and all sit down on the grass and laugh, and your
boat drifts out to mid-stream and turns round, before you know what
has happened, or can get hold of a scull. Then they stand up, and
are surprised.

{}``Oh, look!'' they say; {}``he's gone right out into the middle.''

They pull on pretty steadily for a bit, after this, and then it all
at once occurs to one of them that she will pin up her frock, and
they ease up for the purpose, and the boat runs aground.

You jump up, and push it off, and you shout to them not to stop.

{}``Yes. What's the matter?'' they shout back.

{}``Don't stop,'' you roar.

{}``Don't what?''

{}``Don't stop\mdash{}go on\mdash{}go on!''

{}``Go back, Emily, and see what it is they want,'' says one; and
Emily comes back, and asks what it is.

{}``What do you want?''\ she says; {}``anything happened?''

{}``No,'' you reply, {}``it's all right; only go on, you know\mdash{}don't
stop.''

{}``Why not?''

{}``Why, we can't steer, if you keep stopping. You must keep some
way on the boat.''

{}``Keep some what?''

{}``Some way\mdash{}you must keep the boat moving.''

{}``Oh, all right, I'll tell 'em. Are we doing it all right?''

{}``Oh, yes, very nicely, indeed, only don't stop.''

{}``It doesn't seem difficult at all. I thought it was so hard.''

{}``Oh, no, it's simple enough. You want to keep on steady at it,
that's all.''

{}``I see. Give me out my red shawl, it's under the cushion.''

You find the shawl, and hand it out, and by this time another one
has come back and thinks she will have hers too, and they take Mary's
on chance, and Mary does not want it, so they bring it back and have
a pocket-comb instead. It is about twenty minutes before they get
off again, and, at the next corner, they see a cow, and you have to
leave the boat to chivy the cow out of their way.

There is never a dull moment in the boat while girls are towing it.

\bigskip{}
George got the line right after a while, and towed us steadily on
to Penton Hook. There we discussed the important question of camping.
We had decided to sleep on board that night, and we had either to
lay up just about there, or go on past Staines. It seemed early to
think about shutting up then, however, with the sun still in the heavens,
and we settled to push straight on for Runnymead, three and a half
miles further, a quiet wooded part of the river, and where there is
good shelter.

We all wished, however, afterward that we had stopped at Penton Hook.
Three or four miles up stream is a trifle, early in the morning, but
it is a weary pull at the end of a long day. You take no interest
in the scenery during these last few miles. You do not chat and laugh.
Every half-mile you cover seems like two. You can hardly believe you
are only where you are, and you are convinced that the map must be
wrong; and, when you have trudged along for what seems to you at least
ten miles, and still the lock is not in sight, you begin to seriously
fear that somebody must have sneaked it, and run off with it.

I remember being terribly upset once up the river (in a figurative
sense, I mean). I was out with a young lady\mdash{}cousin on my mother's
side\mdash{}and we were pulling down to Goring. It was rather late,
and we were anxious to get in\mdash{}at least \textit{she} was anxious
to get in. It was half-past six when we reached Benson's lock, and
dusk was drawing on, and she began to get excited then. She said she
must be in to supper. I said it was a thing I felt I wanted to be
in at, too; and I drew out a map I had with me to see exactly how
far it was. I saw it was just a mile and a half to the next lock\mdash{}Wallingford\mdash{}and
five on from there to Cleeve.

{}``Oh, it's all right!'' I said. {}``We'll be through the next
lock before seven, and then there is only one more;'' and I settled
down and pulled steadily away.

We passed the bridge, and soon after that I asked if she saw the lock.
She said no, she did not see any lock; and I said, {}``Oh!''\ and
pulled on. Another five minutes went by, and then I asked her to look
again.

{}``No,'' she said; {}``I can't see any signs of a lock.''

{}``You\mdash{}you are sure you know a lock, when you do see one?''
I asked hesitatingly, not wishing to offend her.

The question did offend her, however, and she suggested that I had
better look for myself; so I laid down the sculls, and took a view.
The river stretched out straight before us in the twilight for about
a mile; not a ghost of a lock was to be seen.

{}``You don't think we have lost our way, do you?'' asked my companion.

I did not see how that was possible; though, as I suggested, we might
have somehow got into the weir stream, and be making for the falls.

This idea did not comfort her in the least, and she began to cry.
She said we should both be drowned, and that it was a judgment on
her for coming out with me.

It seemed an excessive punishment, I thought; but my cousin thought
not, and hoped it would all soon be over.

I tried to reassure her, and to make light of the whole affair. I
said that the fact evidently was that I was not rowing as fast as
I fancied I was, but that we should soon reach the lock now; and I
pulled on for another mile.

Then I began to get nervous myself. I looked again at the map. There
was Wallingford lock, clearly marked, a mile and a half below Benson's.
It was a good, reliable map; and, besides, I recollected the lock
myself. I had been through it twice. Where were we? What had happened
to us? I began to think it must be all a dream, and that I was really
asleep in bed, and should wake up in a minute, and be told it was
past ten.

I asked my cousin if she thought it could be a dream, and she replied
that she was just about to ask me the same question; and then we both
wondered if we were both asleep, and if so, who was the real one that
was dreaming, and who was the one that was only a dream; it got quite
interesting.

I still went on pulling, however, and still no lock came in sight,
and the river grew more and more gloomy and mysterious under the gathering
shadows of night, and things seemed to be getting weird and uncanny.
I thought of hobgoblins and banshees, and will-o'-the-wisps, and those
wicked girls who sit up all night on rocks, and lure people into whirl-pools
and things; and I wished I had been a better man, and knew more hymns;
and in the middle of these reflections I heard the blessed strains
of {}``He's got 'em on,'' played, badly, on a concertina, and knew
that we were saved.

I do not admire the tones of a concertina, as a rule; but, oh!\ how
beautiful the music seemed to us both then\mdash{}far, far more beautiful
than the voice of Orpheus or the lute of Apollo, or anything of that
sort could have sounded. Heavenly melody, in our then state of mind,
would only have still further harrowed us. A soul-moving harmony,
correctly performed, we should have taken as a spirit-warning, and
have given up all hope. But about the strains of {}``He's got 'em
on,'' jerked spasmodically, and with involuntary variations, out
of a wheezy accordion, there was something singularly human and reassuring.

The sweet sounds drew nearer, and soon the boat from which they were
worked lay alongside us.

It contained a party of provincial 'Arrys and 'Arriets, out for a
moonlight sail.\  (There was not any moon, but that was not their
fault.) I never saw more attractive, lovable people in all my life.
I hailed them, and asked if they could tell me the way to Wallingford
lock; and I explained that I had been looking for it for the last
two hours.

{}``Wallingford lock!''\ they answered. {}``Lor' love you, sir,
that's been done away with for over a year. There ain't no Wallingford
lock now, sir. You're close to Cleeve now. Blow me tight if 'ere ain't
a gentleman been looking for Wallingford lock, Bill!''

I had never thought of that. I wanted to fall upon all their necks
and bless them; but the stream was running too strong just there to
allow of this, so I had to content myself with mere cold-sounding
words of gratitude.

We thanked them over and over again, and we said it was a lovely night,
and we wished them a pleasant trip, and, I think, I invited them all
to come and spend a week with me, and my cousin said her mother would
be so pleased to see them. And we sang the soldiers' chorus out of
\textit{Faust}, and got home in time for supper, after all.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER X.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER X}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER X}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Our first night.\mdash{} Under canvas.\mdash{}
An appeal for help.\mdash{} Contrariness of}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{tea}}}\textmd{\noun{-}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{kettles}}}\textmd{\noun{,}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{how}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{to}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{overcome}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Supper}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{How}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{to}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{feel}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{virtuous}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Wanted}}}\textmd{\noun{! A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{comfortably}}}\textmd{\noun{-}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{appointed}}}\textmd{\noun{,}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{well}}}\textmd{\noun{-}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{drained}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{desert}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{island}}}\textmd{\noun{,}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{neighbourhood}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of
South}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Pacific}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{ocean}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{preferred}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Funny}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{thing}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{that}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{happened}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{to}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{George's
father}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{} A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{restless}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{night}}}\textmd{\noun{.}}}

\textit{\emph{Harris}} and I began to think that Bell Weir lock must
have been done away with after the same manner. George had towed us
up to Staines, and we had taken the boat from there, and it seemed
that we were dragging fifty tons after us, and were walking forty
miles. It was half-past seven when we were through, and we all got
in, and sculled up close to the left bank, looking out for a spot
to haul up in.

We had originally intended to go on to Magna Charta Island, a sweetly
pretty part of the river, where it winds through a soft, green valley,
and to camp in one of the many picturesque inlets to be found round
that tiny shore. But, somehow, we did not feel that we yearned for
the picturesque nearly so much now as we had earlier in the day. A
bit of water between a coal-barge and a gas-works would have quite
satisfied us for that night. We did not want scenery. We wanted to
have our supper and go to bed. However, we did pull up to the point\mdash{}{}``Picnic
Point,'' it is called\mdash{}and dropped into a very pleasant nook
under a great elm-tree, to the spreading roots of which we fastened
the boat.

Then we thought we were going to have supper (we had dispensed with
tea, so as to save time), but George said no; that we had better get
the canvas up first, before it got quite dark, and while we could
see what we were doing. Then, he said, all our work would be done,
and we could sit down to eat with an easy mind.

That canvas wanted more putting up than I think any of us had bargained
for. It looked so simple in the abstract. You took five iron arches,
like gigantic croquet hoops, and fitted them up over the boat, and
then stretched the canvas over them, and fastened it down: it would
take quite ten minutes, we thought.

That was an under-estimate.

We took up the hoops, and began to drop them into the sockets placed
for them. You would not imagine this to be dangerous work; but, looking
back now, the wonder to me is that any of us are alive to tell the
tale. They were not hoops, they were demons. First they would not
fit into their sockets at all, and we had to jump on them, and kick
them, and hammer at them with the boat-hook; and, when they were in,
it turned out that they were the wrong hoops for those particular
sockets, and they had to come out again.

But they would not come out, until two of us had gone and struggled
with them for five minutes, when they would jump up suddenly, and
try and throw us into the water and drown us. They had hinges in the
middle, and, when we were not looking, they nipped us with these hinges
in delicate parts of the body; and, while we were wrestling with one
side of the hoop, and endeavouring to persuade it to do its duty,
the other side would come behind us in a cowardly manner, and hit
us over the head.

We got them fixed at last, and then all that was to be done was to
arrange the covering over them. George unrolled it, and fastened one
end over the nose of the boat. Harris stood in the middle to take
it from George and roll it on to me, and I kept by the stern to receive
it. It was a long time coming down to me. George did his part all
right, but it was new work to Harris, and he bungled it.

How he managed it I do not know, he could not explain himself; but
by some mysterious process or other he succeeded, after ten minutes
of superhuman effort, in getting himself completely rolled up in it.
He was so firmly wrapped round and tucked in and folded over, that
he could not get out. He, of course, made frantic struggles for freedom\mdash{}the
birthright of every Englishman,\mdash{}and, in doing so (I learned
this afterwards), knocked over George; and then George, swearing at
Harris, began to struggle too, and got himself entangled and rolled
up.

I knew nothing about all this at the time. I did not understand the
business at all myself. I had been told to stand where I was, and
wait till the canvas came to me, and \textit{\emph{Montmorency}} and
I stood there and waited, both as good as gold. We could see the canvas
being violently jerked and tossed about, pretty considerably; but
we supposed this was part of the method, and did not interfere.

We also heard much smothered language coming from underneath it, and
we guessed that they were finding the job rather troublesome, and
concluded that we would wait until things had got a little simpler
before we joined in.

We waited some time, but matters seemed to get only more and more
involved, until, at last, George's head came wriggling out over the
side of the boat, and spoke up.

It said:

{}``Give us a hand here, can't you, you cuckoo; standing there like
a stuffed mummy, when you see we are both being suffocated, you dummy!''

I never could withstand an appeal for help, so I went and undid them;
not before it was time, either, for Harris was nearly black in the
face.

It took us half an hour's hard labour, after that, before it was properly
up, and then we cleared the decks, and got out supper. We put the
kettle on to boil, up in the nose of the boat, and went down to the
stern and pretended to take no notice of it, but set to work to get
the other things out.

That is the only way to get a kettle to boil up the river. If it sees
that you are waiting for it and are anxious, it will never even sing.
You have to go away and begin your meal, as if you were not going
to have any tea at all. You must not even look round at it. Then you
will soon hear it sputtering away, mad to be made into tea.

It is a good plan, too, if you are in a great hurry, to talk very
loudly to each other about how you don't need any tea, and are not
going to have any. You get near the kettle, so that it can overhear
you, and then you shout out, {}``I don't want any tea; do you, George?''
to which George shouts back, {}``Oh, no, I don't like tea; we'll
have lemonade instead\mdash{}tea's so indigestible.'' Upon which
the kettle boils over, and puts the stove out.

We adopted this harmless bit of trickery, and the result was that,
by the time everything else was ready, the tea was waiting. Then we
lit the lantern, and squatted down to supper.

We wanted that supper.

For five-and-thirty minutes not a sound was heard throughout the length
and breadth of that boat, save the clank of cutlery and crockery,
and the steady grinding of four sets of molars. At the end of five-and-thirty
minutes, Harris said, {}``Ah!'' and took his left leg out from under
him and put his right one there instead.

Five minutes afterwards, George said, {}``Ah!'' too, and threw his
plate out on the bank; and, three minutes later than that, \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}
\emph{}\textit{\emph{gave}} the first sign of contentment he had exhibited
since we had started, and rolled over on his side, and spread his
legs out; and then I said, {}``Ah!'' and bent my head back, and
bumped it against one of the hoops, but I did not mind it. I did not
even swear.

How good one feels when one is full\mdash{}how satisfied with ourselves
and with the world! People who have tried it, tell me that a clear
conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach
does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained.
One feels so forgiving and generous after a substantial and well-digested
meal\mdash{}so noble-minded, so kindly-hearted.

It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive
organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills
so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon,
it says, {}``Work!'' After beefsteak and porter, it says, {}``Sleep!''
After a cup of tea (two spoonsful for each cup, and don't let it stand
more than three minutes), it says to the brain, {}``Now, rise, and
show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a
clear eye, into Nature and into life; spread your white wings of quivering
thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world beneath
you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!''

After hot muffins, it says, {}``Be dull and soulless, like a beast
of the field\mdash{}a brainless animal, with listless eye, unlit
by any ray of fancy, or of hope, or fear, or love, or life.'' And
after brandy, taken in sufficient quantity, it says, {}``Now, come,
fool, grin and tumble, that your fellow-men may laugh\mdash{}drivel
in folly, and splutter in senseless sounds, and show what a helpless
ninny is poor man whose wit and will are drowned, like kittens, side
by side, in half an inch of alcohol.''

We are but the veriest, sorriest slaves of our stomach. Reach not
after morality and righteousness, my friends; watch vigilantly your
stomach, and diet it with care and judgment. Then virtue and contentment
will come and reign within your heart, unsought by any effort of your
own; and you will be a good citizen, a loving husband, and a tender
father\mdash{}a noble, pious man.

Before our supper, Harris and George and I were quarrelsome and snappy
and ill-tempered; after our supper, we sat and beamed on one another,
and we beamed upon the dog, too. We loved each other, we loved everybody.
Harris, in moving about, trod on George's corn. Had this happened
before supper, George would have expressed wishes and desires concerning
Harris's fate in this world and the next that would have made a thoughtful
man shudder.

As it was, he said: {}``Steady, old man; 'ware wheat.''

And Harris, instead of merely observing, in his most unpleasant tones,
that a fellow could hardly help treading on some bit of George's foot,
if he had to move about at all within ten yards of where George was
sitting, suggesting that George never ought to come into an ordinary
sized boat with feet that length, and advising him to hang them over
the side, as he would have done before supper, now said: {}``Oh,
I'm so sorry, old chap; I hope I haven't hurt you.''

And George said: {}``Not at all;'' that it was his fault; and Harris
said no, it was his.

It was quite pretty to hear them.

We lit our pipes, and sat, looking out on the quiet night, and talked.

George said why could not we be always like this\mdash{}away from
the world, with its sin and temptation, leading sober, peaceful lives,
and doing good. I said it was the sort of thing I had often longed
for myself; and we discussed the possibility of our going away, we
four, to some handy, well-fitted desert island, and living there in
the woods.

Harris said that the danger about desert islands, as far as he had
heard, was that they were so damp: but George said no, not if properly
drained.

And then we got on to drains, and that put George in mind of a very
funny thing that happened to his father once. He said his father was
travelling with another fellow through Wales, and, one night, they
stopped at a little inn, where there were some other fellows, and
they joined the other fellows, and spent the evening with them.

They had a very jolly evening, and sat up late, and, by the time they
came to go to bed, they (this was when George's father was a very
young man) were slightly jolly, too. They (George's father and George's
father's friend) were to sleep in the same room, but in different
beds. They took the candle, and went up. The candle lurched up against
the wall when they got into the room, and went out, and they had to
undress and grope into bed in the dark. This they did; but, instead
of getting into separate beds, as they thought they were doing, they
both climbed into the same one without knowing it\mdash{}one getting
in with his head at the top, and the other crawling in from the opposite
side of the compass, and lying with his feet on the pillow.

There was silence for a moment, and then George's father said:

{}``Joe!''

{}``What's the matter, Tom?''\ replied Joe's voice from the other
end of the bed.

{}``Why, there's a man in my bed,'' said George's father; {}``here's
his feet on my pillow.''

{}``Well, it's an extraordinary thing, Tom,'' answered the other;
{}``but I'm blest if there isn't a man in my bed, too!''

{}``What are you going to do?''\ asked George's father.

{}``Well, I'm going to chuck him out,'' replied Joe.

{}``So am I,'' said George's father, valiantly.

There was a brief struggle, followed by two heavy bumps on the floor,
and then a rather doleful voice said:

{}``I say, Tom!''

{}``Yes!''

{}``How have you got on?''

{}``Well, to tell you the truth, my man's chucked me out.''

{}``So's mine! I say, I don't think much of this inn, do you?''

{}``What was the name of that inn?''\ said Harris.

{}``The Pig and Whistle,'' said George. {}``Why?''

{}``Ah, no, then it isn't the same,'' replied Harris.

{}``What do you mean?'' queried George.

{}``Why it's so curious,'' murmured Harris, {}``but precisely that
very same thing happened to \textit{my} father once at a country inn.
I've often heard him tell the tale. I thought it might have been the
same inn.''

\bigskip{}
We turned in at ten that night, and I thought I should sleep well,
being tired; but I didn't. As a rule, I undress and put my head on
the pillow, and then somebody bangs at the door, and says it is half-past
eight: but, to-night, everything seemed against me; the novelty of
it all, the hardness of the boat, the cramped position (I was lying
with my feet under one seat, and my head on another), the sound of
the lapping water round the boat, and the wind among the branches,
kept me restless and disturbed.

I did get to sleep for a few hours, and then some part of the boat
which seemed to have grown up in the night\mdash{}for it certainly
was not there when we started, and it had disappeared by the morning\mdash{}kept
digging into my spine. I slept through it for a while, dreaming that
I had swallowed a sovereign, and that they were cutting a hole in
my back with a gimlet, so as to try and get it out. I thought it very
unkind of them, and I told them I would owe them the money, and they
should have it at the end of the month. But they would not hear of
that, and said it would be much better if they had it then, because
otherwise the interest would accumulate so. I got quite cross with
them after a bit, and told them what I thought of them, and then they
gave the gimlet such an excruciating wrench that I woke up.

The boat seemed stuffy, and my head ached; so I thought I would step
out into the cool night-air. I slipped on what clothes I could find
about\mdash{}some of my own, and some of George's and Harris's\mdash{}and
crept under the canvas on to the bank.

It was a glorious night. The moon had sunk, and left the quiet earth
alone with the stars. It seemed as if, in the silence and the hush,
while we her children slept, they were talking with her, their sister\mdash{}conversing
of mighty mysteries in voices too vast and deep for childish human
ears to catch the sound.

They awe us, these strange stars, so cold, so clear. We are as children
whose small feet have strayed into some dim-lit temple of the god
they have been taught to worship but know not; and, standing where
the echoing dome spans the long vista of the shadowy light, glance
up, half hoping, half afraid to see some awful vision hovering there.

And yet it seems so full of comfort and of strength, the night. In
its great presence, our small sorrows creep away, ashamed. The day
has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full
of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and
wrong to us. Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays
her hand upon our fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained
faces up to hers, and smiles; and, though she does not speak, we know
what she would say, and lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom,
and the pain is gone.

Sometimes, our pain is very deep and real, and we stand before her
very silent, because there is no language for our pain, only a moan.
Night's heart is full of pity for us: she cannot ease our aching;
she takes our hand in hers, and the little world grows very small
and very far away beneath us, and, borne on her dark wings, we pass
for a moment into a mightier Presence than her own, and in the wondrous
light of that great Presence, all human life lies like a book before
us, and we know that Pain and Sorrow are but the angels of God.

Only those who have worn the crown of suffering can look upon that
wondrous light; and they, when they return, may not speak of it, or
tell the mystery they know.

Once upon a time, through a strange country, there rode some goodly
knights, and their path lay by a deep wood, where tangled briars grew
very thick and strong, and tore the flesh of them that lost their
way therein. And the leaves of the trees that grew in the wood were
very dark and thick, so that no ray of light came through the branches
to lighten the gloom and sadness.

And, as they passed by that dark wood, one knight of those that rode,
missing his comrades, wandered far away, and returned to them no more;
and they, sorely grieving, rode on without him, mourning him as one
dead.

Now, when they reached the fair castle towards which they had been
journeying, they stayed there many days, and made merry; and one night,
as they sat in cheerful ease around the logs that burned in the great
hall, and drank a loving measure, there came the comrade they had
lost, and greeted them. His clothes were ragged, like a beggar's,
and many sad wounds were on his sweet flesh, but upon his face there
shone a great radiance of deep joy.

And they questioned him, asking him what had befallen him: and he
told them how in the dark wood he had lost his way, and had wandered
many days and nights, till, torn and bleeding, he had lain him down
to die.

Then, when he was nigh unto death, lo!\ through the savage gloom
there came to him a stately maiden, and took him by the hand and led
him on through devious paths, unknown to any man, until upon the darkness
of the wood there dawned a light such as the light of day was unto
but as a little lamp unto the sun; and, in that wondrous light, our
way-worn knight saw as in a dream a vision, and so glorious, so fair
the vision seemed, that of his bleeding wounds he thought no more,
but stood as one entranced, whose joy is deep as is the sea, whereof
no man can tell the depth.

And the vision faded, and the knight, kneeling upon the ground, thanked
the good saint who into that sad wood had strayed his steps, so he
had seen the vision that lay there hid.

And the name of the dark forest was Sorrow; but of the vision that
the good knight saw therein we may not speak nor tell.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER XI.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER XI}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER XI}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{How George, once upon a time, got up early
in the morning.\mdash{} George,}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{Harris}}}\textmd{\noun{,}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{montmorency}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{do}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{not}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{like}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{look}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{cold}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{water}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Heroism and}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{determination}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{on}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{part}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}}
\textmd{\noun{J.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{George}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{his}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{shirt}}}\textmd{\noun{:}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Story}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{with}}}
\textmd{\noun{a}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{Moral}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Harris}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{as}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{cook}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Historical}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{retrospect}}}\textmd{\noun{,}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{specially}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{inserted}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{for the}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{use}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Schools}}}\textmd{\noun{.}}}

I \textit{\emph{woke}} at six the next morning; and found George awake
too. We both turned round, and tried to go to sleep again, but we
could not. Had there been any particular reason why we should not
have gone to sleep again, but have got up and dressed then and there,
we should have dropped off while we were looking at our watches, and
have slept till ten. As there was no earthly necessity for our getting
up under another two hours at the very least, and our getting up at
that time was an utter absurdity, it was only in keeping with the
natural cussedness of things in general that we should both feel that
lying down for five minutes more would be death to us.

George said that the same kind of thing, only worse, had happened
to him some eighteen months ago, when he was lodging by himself in
the house of a certain Mrs.\ Gippings. He said his watch went wrong
one evening, and stopped at a quarter-past eight. He did not know
this at the time because, for some reason or other, he forgot to wind
it up when he went to bed (an unusual occurrence with him), and hung
it up over his pillow without ever looking at the thing.

It was in the winter when this happened, very near the shortest day,
and a week of fog into the bargain, so the fact that it was still
very dark when George woke in the morning was no guide to him as to
the time. He reached up, and hauled down his watch. It was a quarter-past
eight.

{}``Angels and ministers of grace defend us!'' exclaimed George;
{}``and here have I got to be in the City by nine. Why didn't somebody
call me? Oh, this is a shame!'' And he flung the watch down, and
sprang out of bed, and had a cold bath, and washed himself, and dressed
himself, and shaved himself in cold water because there was not time
to wait for the hot, and then rushed and had another look at the watch.

Whether the shaking it had received in being thrown down on the bed
had started it, or how it was, George could not say, but certain it
was that from a quarter-past eight it had begun to go, and now pointed
to twenty minutes to nine.

George snatched it up, and rushed downstairs. In the sitting-room,
all was dark and silent: there was no fire, no breakfast. George said
it was a wicked shame of Mrs.\ G., and he made up his mind to tell
her what he thought of her when he came home in the evening. Then
he dashed on his great-coat and hat, and, seizing his umbrella, made
for the front door. The door was not even unbolted. George anathematized
Mrs.\ G.\ for a lazy old woman, and thought it was very strange
that people could not get up at a decent, respectable time, unlocked
and unbolted the door, and ran out.

He ran hard for a quarter of a mile, and at the end of that distance
it began to be borne in upon him as a strange and curious thing that
there were so few people about, and that there were no shops open.
It was certainly a very dark and foggy morning, but still it seemed
an unusual course to stop all business on that account. \textit{He}
had to go to business: why should other people stop in bed merely
because it was dark and foggy!

At length he reached Holborn. Not a shutter was down!\ not a bus
was about! There were three men in sight, one of whom was a policeman;
a market-cart full of cabbages, and a dilapidated looking cab. George
pulled out his watch and looked at it: it was five minutes to nine!
He stood still and counted his pulse. He stooped down and felt his
legs. Then, with his watch still in his hand, he went up to the policeman,
and asked him if he knew what the time was.

{}``What's the time?''\ said the man, eyeing George up and down
with evident suspicion; {}``why, if you listen you will hear it strike.''

George listened, and a neighbouring clock immediately obliged.

{}``But it's only gone three!''\ said George in an injured tone,
when it had finished.

{}``Well, and how many did you want it to go?''\ replied the constable.

{}``Why, nine,'' said George, showing his watch.

{}``Do you know where you live?''\ said the guardian of public
order, severely.

George thought, and gave the address.

{}``Oh!\ that's where it is, is it?''\ replied the man; {}``well,
you take my advice and go there quietly, and take that watch of yours
with you; and don't let's have any more of it.''

And George went home again, musing as he walked along, and let himself
in.

At first, when he got in, he determined to undress and go to bed again;
but when he thought of the redressing and re-washing, and the having
of another bath, he determined he would not, but would sit up and
go to sleep in the easy-chair.

But he could not get to sleep: he never felt more wakeful in his life;
so he lit the lamp and got out the chess-board, and played himself
a game of chess. But even that did not enliven him: it seemed slow
somehow; so he gave chess up and tried to read. He did not seem able
to take any sort of interest in reading either, so he put on his coat
again and went out for a walk.

It was horribly lonesome and dismal, and all the policemen he met
regarded him with undisguised suspicion, and turned their lanterns
on him and followed him about, and this had such an effect upon him
at last that he began to feel as if he really had done something,
and he got to slinking down the by-streets and hiding in dark doorways
when he heard the regulation flip-flop approaching.

Of course, this conduct made the force only more distrustful of him
than ever, and they would come and rout him out and ask him what he
was doing there; and when he answered, {}``Nothing,'' he had merely
come out for a stroll (it was then four o'clock in the morning), they
looked as though they did not believe him, and two plain-clothes constables
came home with him to see if he really did live where he had said
he did. They saw him go in with his key, and then they took up a position
opposite and watched the house.

He thought he would light the fire when he got inside, and make himself
some breakfast, just to pass away the time; but he did not seem able
to handle anything from a scuttleful of coals to a teaspoon without
dropping it or falling over it, and making such a noise that he was
in mortal fear that it would wake Mrs.\ G.\ up, and that she would
think it was burglars and open the window and call {}``Police!''\ and
then these two detectives would rush in and handcuff him, and march
him off to the police-court.

He was in a morbidly nervous state by this time, and he pictured the
trial, and his trying to explain the circumstances to the jury, and
nobody believing him, and his being sentenced to twenty years' penal
servitude, and his mother dying of a broken heart. So he gave up trying
to get breakfast, and wrapped himself up in his overcoat and sat in
the easy-chair till Mrs.\ G came down at half-past seven.

He said he had never got up too early since that morning: it had been
such a warning to him.

We had been sitting huddled up in our rugs while George had been telling
me this true story, and on his finishing it I set to work to wake
up Harris with a scull. The third prod did it: and he turned over
on the other side, and said he would be down in a minute, and that
he would have his lace-up boots. We soon let him know where he was,
however, by the aid of the hitcher, and he sat up suddenly, sending
\textit{\emph{Montmorency}}, who had been sleeping the sleep of the
just right on the middle of his chest, sprawling across the boat.

Then we pulled up the canvas, and all four of us poked our heads out
over the off-side, and looked down at the water and shivered. The
idea, overnight, had been that we should get up early in the morning,
fling off our rugs and shawls, and, throwing back the canvas, spring
into the river with a joyous shout, and revel in a long delicious
swim. Somehow, now the morning had come, the notion seemed less tempting.
The water looked damp and chilly: the wind felt cold.

{}``Well, who's going to be first in?'' said Harris at last.

There was no rush for precedence. George settled the matter so far
as he was concerned by retiring into the boat and pulling on his socks.
\textit{\emph{Montmorency}} \emph{}\textit{\emph{gave}} \emph{}\textit{\emph{vent}}
to an involuntary howl, as if merely thinking of the thing had given
him the horrors; and Harris said it would be so difficult to get into
the boat again, and went back and sorted out his trousers.

I did not altogether like to give in, though I did not relish the
plunge. There might be snags about, or weeds, I thought. I meant to
compromise matters by going down to the edge and just throwing the
water over myself; so I took a towel and crept out on the bank and
wormed my way along on to the branch of a tree that dipped down into
the water.

It was bitterly cold. The wind cut like a knife. I thought I would
not throw the water over myself after all. I would go back into the
boat and dress; and I turned to do so; and, as I turned, the silly
branch gave way, and I and the towel went in together with a tremendous
splash, and I was out mid-stream with a gallon of Thames water inside
me before I knew what had happened.

{}``By Jove! old J.'s gone in,'' I heard Harris say, as I came blowing
to the surface. {}``I didn't think he'd have the pluck to do it.
Did you?''

{}``Is it all right?'' sung out George.

{}``Lovely,'' I spluttered back. {}``You are duffers not to come
in. I wouldn't have missed this for worlds. Why won't you try it?
It only wants a little determination.''

But I could not persuade them.

Rather an amusing thing happened while dressing that morning. I was
very cold when I got back into the boat, and, in my hurry to get my
shirt on, I accidentally jerked it into the water. It made me awfully
wild, especially as George burst out laughing. I could not see anything
to laugh at, and I told George so, and he only laughed the more. I
never saw a man laugh so much. I quite lost my temper with him at
last, and I pointed out to him what a drivelling maniac of an imbecile
idiot he was; but he only roared the louder. And then, just as I was
landing the shirt, I noticed that it was not my shirt at all, but
George's, which I had mistaken for mine; whereupon the humour of the
thing struck me for the first time, and I began to laugh. And the
more I looked from George's wet shirt to George, roaring with laughter,
the more I was amused, and I laughed so much that I had to let the
shirt fall back into the water again.

{}``Ar'n't you\mdash{}you\mdash{}going to get it out?'' said George,
between his shrieks.

I could not answer him at all for a while, I was laughing so, but,
at last, between my peals I managed to jerk out:

{}``It isn't my shirt\mdash{}it's \textit{yours}!''

I never saw a man's face change from lively to severe so suddenly
in all my life before.

{}``What!'' he yelled, springing up. {}``You silly cuckoo! Why
can't you be more careful what you're doing? Why the deuce don't you
go and dress on the bank? You're not fit to be in a boat, you're not.
Gimme the hitcher.''

I tried to make him see the fun of the thing, but he could not. George
is very dense at seeing a joke sometimes.

Harris proposed that we should have scrambled eggs for breakfast.
He said he would cook them. It seemed, from his account, that he was
very good at doing scrambled eggs. He often did them at picnics and
when out on yachts. He was quite famous for them. People who had once
tasted his scrambled eggs, so we gathered from his conversation, never
cared for any other food afterwards, but pined away and died when
they could not get them.

It made our mouths water to hear him talk about the things, and we
handed him out the stove and the frying-pan and all the eggs that
had not smashed and gone over everything in the hamper, and begged
him to begin.

He had some trouble in breaking the eggs\mdash{}or rather not so
much trouble in breaking them exactly as in getting them into the
frying-pan when broken, and keeping them off his trousers, and preventing
them from running up his sleeve; but he fixed some half-a-dozen into
the pan at last, and then squatted down by the side of the stove and
chivied them about with a fork.

It seemed harassing work, so far as George and I could judge. Whenever
he went near the pan he burned himself, and then he would drop everything
and dance round the stove, flicking his fingers about and cursing
the things. Indeed, every time George and I looked round at him he
was sure to be performing this feat. We thought at first that it was
a necessary part of the culinary arrangements.

We did not know what scrambled eggs were, and we fancied that it must
be some Red Indian or Sandwich Islands sort of dish that required
dances and incantations for its proper cooking. \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}
went and put his nose over it once, and the fat spluttered up and
scalded him, and then he began dancing and cursing. Altogether it
was one of the most interesting and exciting operations I have ever
witnessed. George and I were both quite sorry when it was over.

The result was not altogether the success that Harris had anticipated.
There seemed so little to show for the business. Six eggs had gone
into the frying-pan, and all that came out was a teaspoonful of burnt
and unappetizing looking mess.

Harris said it was the fault of the frying-pan, and thought it would
have gone better if we had had a fish-kettle and a gas-stove; and
we decided not to attempt the dish again until we had those aids to
housekeeping by us.

The sun had got more powerful by the time we had finished breakfast,
and the wind had dropped, and it was as lovely a morning as one could
desire. Little was in sight to remind us of the nineteenth century;
and, as we looked out upon the river in the morning sunlight, we could
almost fancy that the centuries between us and that ever-to-be-famous
June morning of 1215 had been drawn aside, and that we, English yeomen's
sons in homespun cloth, with dirk at belt, were waiting there to witness
the writing of that stupendous page of history, the meaning whereof
was to be translated to the common people some four hundred and odd
years later by one Oliver Cromwell, who had deeply studied it.

It is a fine summer morning\mdash{}sunny, soft, and still. But through
the air there runs a thrill of coming stir. King John has slept at
Duncroft Hall, and all the day before the little town of Staines has
echoed to the clang of armed men, and the clatter of great horses
over its rough stones, and the shouts of captains, and the grim oaths
and surly jests of bearded bowmen, billmen, pikemen, and strange-speaking
foreign spearmen.

Gay-cloaked companies of knights and squires have ridden in, all travel-stained
and dusty. And all the evening long the timid townsmen's doors have
had to be quick opened to let in rough groups of soldiers, for whom
there must be found both board and lodging, and the best of both,
or woe betide the house and all within; for the sword is judge and
jury, plaintiff and executioner, in these tempestuous times, and pays
for what it takes by sparing those from whom it takes it, if it pleases
it to do so.

Round the camp-fire in the market-place gather still more of the Barons'
troops, and eat and drink deep, and bellow forth roystering drinking
songs, and gamble and quarrel as the evening grows and deepens into
night. The firelight sheds quaint shadows on their piled-up arms and
on their uncouth forms. The children of the town steal round to watch
them, wondering; and brawny country wenches, laughing, draw near to
bandy ale-house jest and jibe with the swaggering troopers, so unlike
the village swains, who, now despised, stand apart behind, with vacant
grins upon their broad, peering faces. And out from the fields around,
glitter the faint lights of more distant camps, as here some great
lord's followers lie mustered, and there false John's French mercenaries
hover like crouching wolves without the town.

And so, with sentinel in each dark street, and twinkling watch-fires
on each height around, the night has worn away, and over this fair
valley of old Thame has broken the morning of the great day that is
to close so big with the fate of ages yet unborn.

Ever since grey dawn, in the lower of the two islands, just above
where we are standing, there has been great clamour, and the sound
of many workmen. The great pavilion brought there yester eve is being
raised, and carpenters are busy nailing tiers of seats, while 'prentices
from London town are there with many-coloured stuffs and silks and
cloth of gold and silver.

And now, lo!\ down upon the road that winds along the river's bank
from Staines there come towards us, laughing and talking together
in deep guttural bass, a half-a-score of stalwart halbert-men\mdash{}Barons'
men, these\mdash{}and halt at a hundred yards or so above us, on
the other bank, and lean upon their arms, and wait.

And so, from hour to hour, march up along the road ever fresh groups
and bands of armed men, their \textit{casques} and breastplates flashing
back the long low lines of morning sunlight, until, as far as eye
can reach, the way seems thick with glittering steel and prancing
steeds. And shouting horsemen are galloping from group to group, and
little banners are fluttering lazily in the warm breeze, and every
now and then there is a deeper stir as the ranks make way on either
side, and some great Baron on his war-horse, with his guard of squires
around him, passes along to take his station at the head of his serfs
and vassals.

And up the slope of Cooper's Hill, just opposite, are gathered the
wondering rustics and curious townsfolk, who have run from Staines,
and none are quite sure what the bustle is about, but each one has
a different version of the great event that they have come to see;
and some say that much good to all the people will come from this
day's work; but the old men shake their heads, for they have heard
such tales before.

And all the river down to Staines is dotted with small craft and boats
and tiny coracles\mdash{}which last are growing out of favour now,
and are used only by the poorer folk. Over the rapids, where in after
years trim Bell Weir lock will stand, they have been forced or dragged
by their sturdy rowers, and now are crowding up as near as they dare
come to the great covered barges, which lie in readiness to bear King
John to where the fateful Charter waits his signing.

It is noon, and we and all the people have been waiting patient for
many an hour, and the rumour has run round that slippery John has
again escaped from the Barons' grasp, and has stolen away from Duncroft
Hall with his mercenaries at his heels, and will soon be doing other
work than signing charters for his people's liberty.

Not so! This time the grip upon him has been one of iron, and he has
slid and wriggled in vain. Far down the road a little cloud of dust
has risen, and draws nearer and grows larger, and the pattering of
many hoofs grows louder, and in and out between the scattered groups
of drawn-up men, there pushes on its way a brilliant cavalcade of
gay-dressed lords and knights. And front and rear, and either flank,
there ride the yeomen of the Barons, and in the midst King John.

He rides to where the barges lie in readiness, and the great Barons
step forth from their ranks to meet him. He greets them with a smile
and laugh, and pleasant honeyed words, as though it were some feast
in his honour to which he had been invited. But as he rises to dismount,
he casts one hurried glance from his own French mercenaries drawn
up in the rear to the grim ranks of the Barons' men that hem him in.

Is it too late? One fierce blow at the unsuspecting horseman at his
side, one cry to his French troops, one desperate charge upon the
unready lines before him, and these rebellious Barons might rue the
day they dared to thwart his plans! A bolder hand might have turned
the game even at that point. Had it been a Richard there! the cup
of liberty might have been dashed from England's lips, and the taste
of freedom held back for a hundred years.

But the heart of King John sinks before the stern faces of the English
fighting men, and the arm of King John drops back on to his rein,
and he dismounts and takes his seat in the foremost barge. And the
Barons follow in, with each mailed hand upon the sword-hilt, and the
word is given to let go.

Slowly the heavy, bright-decked barges leave the shore of Runningmede.
Slowly against the swift current they work their ponderous way, till,
with a low grumble, they grate against the bank of the little island
that from this day will bear the name of Magna Charta Island. And
King John has stepped upon the shore, and we wait in breathless silence
till a great shout cleaves the air, and the great cornerstone in England's
temple of liberty has, now we know, been firmly laid.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER XII.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER XII}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER XII}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Henry VIII. And Anne Boleyn.\mdash{} Disadvantages
of living in same house with}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{pair}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{lovers}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{trying}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{time}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{for}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{English}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Nation}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{night}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Search}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{for}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{picturesque}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Homeless}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{houseless}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Harris}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{prepares}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{to}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{die}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{An}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{angel}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{comes}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{along}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Effect}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{sudden}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{joy}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{on}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Harris}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{little}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{supper}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Lunch}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{High}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{price}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{for}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{mustard}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{fearful}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{battle}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Maidenhead}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Sailing}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{Three}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Fishers}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{We}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{are}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{cursed}}}\textmd{\noun{.}}}

I \textit{\emph{was}} sitting on the bank, conjuring up this scene
to myself, when George remarked that when I was quite rested, perhaps
I would not mind helping to wash up; and, thus recalled from the days
of the glorious past to the prosaic present, with all its misery and
sin, I slid down into the boat and cleaned out the frying-pan with
a stick of wood and a tuft of grass, polishing it up finally with
George's wet shirt.

We went over to Magna Charta Island, and had a look at the stone which
stands in the cottage there and on which the great Charter is said
to have been signed; though, as to whether it really was signed there,
or, as some say, on the other bank at {}``Runningmede,'' I decline
to commit myself. As far as my own personal opinion goes, however,
I am inclined to give weight to the popular island theory. Certainly,
had I been one of the Barons, at the time, I should have strongly
urged upon my comrades the advisability of our getting such a slippery
customer as King John on to the island, where there was less chance
of surprises and tricks.

There are the ruins of an old priory in the grounds of Ankerwyke House,
which is close to Picnic Point, and it was round about the grounds
of this old priory that Henry VIII.\ is said to have waited for and
met Anne Boleyn. He also used to meet her at Hever Castle in Kent,
and also somewhere near St.\ Albans. It must have been difficult
for the people of England in those days to have found a spot where
these thoughtless young folk were \textit{not} spooning.

Have you ever been in a house where there are a couple courting? It
is most trying. You think you will go and sit in the drawing-room,
and you march off there. As you open the door, you hear a noise as
if somebody had suddenly recollected something, and, when you get
in, Emily is over by the window, full of interest in the opposite
side of the road, and your friend, John Edward, is at the other end
of the room with his whole soul held in thrall by photographs of other
people's relatives.

{}``Oh!''\ you say, pausing at the door, {}``I didn't know anybody
was here.''

{}``Oh!\ didn't you?'' says Emily, coldly, in a tone which implies
that she does not believe you.

You hang about for a bit, then you say:

{}``It's very dark. Why don't you light the gas?''

John Edward says, {}``Oh!''\ he hadn't noticed it; and Emily says
that papa does not like the gas lit in the afternoon.

You tell them one or two items of news, and give them your views and
opinions on the Irish question; but this does not appear to interest
them. All they remark on any subject is, {}``Oh!'' {}``Is it?''
{}``Did he?'' {}``Yes,'' and {}``You don't say so!'' And, after
ten minutes of such style of conversation, you edge up to the door,
and slip out, and are surprised to find that the door immediately
closes behind you, and shuts itself, without your having touched it.

Half an hour later, you think you will try a pipe in the conservatory.
The only chair in the place is occupied by Emily; and John Edward,
if the language of clothes can be relied upon, has evidently been
sitting on the floor. They do not speak, but they give you a look
that says all that can be said in a civilised community; and you back
out promptly and shut the door behind you.

You are afraid to poke your nose into any room in the house now; so,
after walking up and down the stairs for a while, you go and sit in
your own bedroom. This becomes uninteresting, however, after a time,
and so you put on your hat and stroll out into the garden. You walk
down the path, and as you pass the summer-house you glance in, and
there are those two young idiots, huddled up into one corner of it;
and they see you, and are evidently under the idea that, for some
wicked purpose of your own, you are following them about.

{}``Why don't they have a special room for this sort of thing, and
make people keep to it?'' you mutter; and you rush back to the hall
and get your umbrella and go out.

It must have been much like this when that foolish boy Henry VIII.\ was
courting his little Anne. People in Buckinghamshire would have come
upon them unexpectedly when they were mooning round Windsor and Wraysbury,
and have exclaimed, {}``Oh!\ you here!''\ and Henry would have
blushed and said, {}``Yes; he'd just come over to see a man;'' and
Anne would have said, {}``Oh, I'm so glad to see you! Isn't it funny?
I've just met Mr.\ Henry VIII.\  in the lane, and he's going the
same way I am.''

Then those people would have gone away and said to themselves: {}``Oh!\ we'd
better get out of here while this billing and cooing is on. We'll
go down to Kent.''

And they would go to Kent, and the first thing they would see in Kent,
when they got there, would be Henry and Anne fooling round Hever Castle.

{}``Oh, drat this!''\ they would have said. {}``Here, let's go
away. I can't stand any more of it. Let's go to St.\ Albans\mdash{}nice
quiet place, St.\  Albans.''

And when they reached St.\ Albans, there would be that wretched couple,
kissing under the Abbey walls. Then these folks would go and be pirates
until the marriage was over.

From Picnic Point to Old Windsor Lock is a delightful bit of the river.
A shady road, dotted here and there with dainty little cottages, runs
by the bank up to the {}``Bells of Ouseley,'' a picturesque inn,
as most up-river inns are, and a place where a very good glass of
ale may be drunk\mdash{}so Harris says; and on a matter of this kind
you can take Harris's word. Old Windsor is a famous spot in its way.
Edward the Confessor had a palace here, and here the great Earl Godwin
was proved guilty by the justice of that age of having encompassed
the death of the King's brother. Earl Godwin broke a piece of bread
and held it in his hand.

{}``If I am guilty,'' said the Earl, {}``may this bread choke me
when I eat it!''

Then he put the bread into his mouth and swallowed it, and it choked
him, and he died.

After you pass Old Windsor, the river is somewhat uninteresting, and
does not become itself again until you are nearing Boveney. George
and I towed up past the Home Park, which stretches along the right
bank from Albert to Victoria Bridge; and as we were passing Datchet,
George asked me if I remembered our first trip up the river, and when
we landed at Datchet at ten o'clock at night, and wanted to go to
bed.

I answered that I did remember it. It will be some time before I forget
it.

It was the Saturday before the August Bank Holiday. We were tired
and hungry, we same three, and when we got to Datchet we took out
the hamper, the two bags, and the rugs and coats, and such like things,
and started off to look for diggings. We passed a very pretty little
hotel, with \textit{clematis} and creeper over the porch; but there
was no honeysuckle about it, and, for some reason or other, I had
got my mind fixed on honeysuckle, and I said:

{}``Oh, don't let's go in there! Let's go on a bit further, and see
if there isn't one with honeysuckle over it.''

So we went on till we came to another hotel. That was a very nice
hotel, too, and it had honey-suckle on it, round at the side; but
Harris did not like the look of a man who was leaning against the
front door. He said he didn't look a nice man at all, and he wore
ugly boots: so we went on further. We went a goodish way without coming
across any more hotels, and then we met a man, and asked him to direct
us to a few.

He said:

{}``Why, you are coming away from them. You must turn right round
and go back, and then you will come to the Stag.''

We said:

{}``Oh, we had been there, and didn't like it\mdash{}no honeysuckle
over it.''

{}``Well, then,'' he said, {}``there's the Manor House, just opposite.
Have you tried that?''

Harris replied that we did not want to go there\mdash{}didn't like
the looks of a man who was stopping there\mdash{}Harris did not like
the colour of his hair, didn't like his boots, either.

{}``Well, I don't know what you'll do, I'm sure,'' said our informant;
{}``because they are the only two inns in the place.''

{}``No other inns!'' exclaimed Harris.

{}``None,'' replied the man.

{}``What on earth are we to do?'' cried Harris.

Then George spoke up. He said Harris and I could get an hotel built
for us, if we liked, and have some people made to put in. For his
part, he was going back to the Stag.

The greatest minds never realise their ideals in any matter; and Harris
and I sighed over the hollowness of all earthly desires, and followed
George.

We took our traps into the Stag, and laid them down in the hall.

The landlord came up and said:

{}``Good evening, gentlemen.''

{}``Oh, good evening,'' said George; {}``we want three beds, please.''

{}``Very sorry, sir,'' said the landlord; {}``but I'm afraid we
can't manage it.''

{}``Oh, well, never mind,'' said George, {}``two will do. Two of
us can sleep in one bed, can't we?'' he continued, turning to Harris
and me.

Harris said, {}``Oh, yes;'' he thought George and I could sleep
in one bed very easily.

{}``Very sorry, sir,'' again repeated the landlord: {}``but we
really haven't got a bed vacant in the whole house. In fact, we are
putting two, and even three gentlemen in one bed, as it is.''

This staggered us for a bit.

But Harris, who is an old traveller, rose to the occasion, and, laughing
cheerily, said:

{}``Oh, well, we can't help it. We must rough it. You must give us
a shake-down in the billiard-room.''

{}``Very sorry, sir. Three gentlemen sleeping on the billiard-table
already, and two in the coffee-room. Can't possibly take you in to-night.''

We picked up our things, and went over to the Manor House. It was
a pretty little place. I said I thought I should like it better than
the other house; and Harris said, {}``Oh, yes,'' it would be all
right, and we needn't look at the man with the red hair; besides,
the poor fellow couldn't help having red hair.

Harris spoke quite kindly and sensibly about it.

The people at the Manor House did not wait to hear us talk. The landlady
met us on the doorstep with the greeting that we were the fourteenth
party she had turned away within the last hour and a half. As for
our meek suggestions of stables, billiard-room, or coal-cellars, she
laughed them all to scorn: all these nooks had been snatched up long
ago.

Did she know of any place in the whole village where we could get
shelter for the night?

{}``Well, if we didn't mind roughing it\mdash{}she did not recommend
it, mind\mdash{}but there was a little beershop half a mile down
the Eton road\mdash{}''

We waited to hear no more; we caught up the hamper and the bags, and
the coats and rugs, and parcels, and ran. The distance seemed more
like a mile than half a mile, but we reached the place at last, and
rushed, panting, into the bar.

The people at the beershop were rude. They merely laughed at us. There
were only three beds in the whole house, and they had seven single
gentlemen and two married couples sleeping there already. A kind-hearted
bargeman, however, who happened to be in the tap-room, thought we
might try the grocer's, next door to the Stag, and we went back.

The grocer's was full. An old woman we met in the shop then kindly
took us along with her for a quarter of a mile, to a lady friend of
hers, who occasionally let rooms to gentlemen.

This old woman walked very slowly, and we were twenty minutes getting
to her lady friend's. She enlivened the journey by describing to us,
as we trailed along, the various pains she had in her back.

Her lady friend's rooms were let. From there we were recommended to
No.\  27. No.\ 27 was full, and sent us to No.\ 32, and 32 was
full.

Then we went back into the high road, and Harris sat down on the hamper
and said he would go no further. He said it seemed a quiet spot, and
he would like to die there. He requested George and me to kiss his
mother for him, and to tell all his relations that he forgave them
and died happy.

At that moment an angel came by in the disguise of a small boy (and
I cannot think of any more effective disguise an angel could have
assumed), with a can of beer in one hand, and in the other something
at the end of a string, which he let down on to every flat stone he
came across, and then pulled up again, this producing a peculiarly
unattractive sound, suggestive of suffering.

We asked this heavenly messenger (as we discovered him afterwards
to be) if he knew of any lonely house, whose occupants were few and
feeble (old ladies or paralysed gentlemen preferred), who could be
easily frightened into giving up their beds for the night to three
desperate men; or, if not this, could he recommend us to an empty
pigstye, or a disused limekiln, or anything of that sort. He did not
know of any such place\mdash{}at least, not one handy; but he said
that, if we liked to come with him, his mother had a room to spare,
and could put us up for the night.

We fell upon his neck there in the moonlight and blessed him, and
it would have made a very beautiful picture if the boy himself had
not been so over-powered by our emotion as to be unable to sustain
himself under it, and sunk to the ground, letting us all down on top
of him. Harris was so overcome with joy that he fainted, and had to
seize the boy's beer-can and half empty it before he could recover
consciousness, and then he started off at a run, and left George and
me to bring on the luggage.

It was a little four-roomed cottage where the boy lived, and his mother\mdash{}good
soul!\mdash{}gave us hot bacon for supper, and we ate it all\mdash{}five
pounds\mdash{}and a jam tart afterwards, and two pots of tea, and
then we went to bed. There were two beds in the room; one was a 2ft.\ 6in.\ truckle
bed, and George and I slept in that, and kept in by tying ourselves
together with a sheet; and the other was the little boy's bed, and
Harris had that all to himself, and we found him, in the morning,
with two feet of bare leg sticking out at the bottom, and George and
I used it to hang the towels on while we bathed.

We were not so uppish about what sort of hotel we would have, next
time we went to Datchet.

To return to our present trip: nothing exciting happened, and we tugged
steadily on to a little below Monkey Island, where we drew up and
lunched. We tackled the cold beef for lunch, and then we found that
we had forgotten to bring any mustard. I don't think I ever in my
life, before or since, felt I wanted mustard as badly as I felt I
wanted it then. I don't care for mustard as a rule, and it is very
seldom that I take it at all, but I would have given worlds for it
then.

I don't know how many worlds there may be in the universe, but anyone
who had brought me a spoonful of mustard at that precise moment could
have had them all. I grow reckless like that when I want a thing and
can't get it.

Harris said he would have given worlds for mustard too. It would have
been a good thing for anybody who had come up to that spot with a
can of mustard, then: he would have been set up in worlds for the
rest of his life.

But there! I daresay both Harris and I would have tried to back out
of the bargain after we had got the mustard. One makes these extravagant
offers in moments of excitement, but, of course, when one comes to
think of it, one sees how absurdly out of proportion they are with
the value of the required article. I heard a man, going up a mountain
in Switzerland, once say he would give worlds for a glass of beer,
and, when he came to a little shanty where they kept it, he kicked
up a most fearful row because they charged him five francs for a bottle
of Bass. He said it was a scandalous imposition, and he wrote to the
\textit{Times} about it.

It cast a gloom over the boat, there being no mustard. We ate our
beef in silence. Existence seemed hollow and uninteresting. We thought
of the happy days of childhood, and sighed. We brightened up a bit,
however, over the apple-tart, and, when George drew out a tin of pine-apple
from the bottom of the hamper, and rolled it into the middle of the
boat, we felt that life was worth living after all.

We are very fond of pine-apple, all three of us. We looked at the
picture on the tin; we thought of the juice. We smiled at one another,
and Harris got a spoon ready.

Then we looked for the knife to open the tin with. We turned out everything
in the hamper. We turned out the bags. We pulled up the boards at
the bottom of the boat. We took everything out on to the bank and
shook it. There was no tin-opener to be found.

Then Harris tried to open the tin with a pocket-knife, and broke the
knife and cut himself badly; and George tried a pair of scissors,
and the scissors flew up, and nearly put his eye out. While they were
dressing their wounds, I tried to make a hole in the thing with the
spiky end of the hitcher, and the hitcher slipped and jerked me out
between the boat and the bank into two feet of muddy water, and the
tin rolled over, uninjured, and broke a teacup.

Then we all got mad. We took that tin out on the bank, and Harris
went up into a field and got a big sharp stone, and I went back into
the boat and brought out the mast, and George held the tin and Harris
held the sharp end of his stone against the top of it, and I took
the mast and poised it high up in the air, and gathered up all my
strength and brought it down.

It was George's straw hat that saved his life that day. He keeps that
hat now (what is left of it), and, of a winter's evening, when the
pipes are lit and the boys are telling stretchers about the dangers
they have passed through, George brings it down and shows it round,
and the stirring tale is told anew, with fresh exaggerations every
time.

Harris got off with merely a flesh wound.

After that, I took the tin off myself, and hammered at it with the
mast till I was worn out and sick at heart, whereupon Harris took
it in hand.

We beat it out flat; we beat it back square; we battered it into every
form known to geometry\mdash{}but we could not make a hole in it.
Then George went at it, and knocked it into a shape, so strange, so
weird, so unearthly in its wild hideousness, that he got frightened
and threw away the mast. Then we all three sat round it on the grass
and looked at it.

There was one great dent across the top that had the appearance of
a mocking grin, and it drove us furious, so that Harris rushed at
the thing, and caught it up, and flung it far into the middle of the
river, and as it sank we hurled our curses at it, and we got into
the boat and rowed away from the spot, and never paused till we reached
Maidenhead.

Maidenhead itself is too snobby to be pleasant. It is the haunt of
the river swell and his overdressed female companion. It is the town
of showy hotels, patronised chiefly by dudes and ballet girls. It
is the witch's kitchen from which go forth those demons of the river\mdash{}steam-launches.
The \textit{London} \textit{Journal} duke always has his {}``little
place'' at Maidenhead; and the heroine of the three-volume novel
always dines there when she goes out on the spree with somebody else's
husband.

We went through Maidenhead quickly, and then eased up, and took leisurely
that grand reach beyond Boulter's and Cookham locks. Clieveden Woods
still wore their dainty dress of spring, and rose up, from the water's
edge, in one long harmony of blended shades of fairy green. In its
unbroken loveliness this is, perhaps, the sweetest stretch of all
the river, and lingeringly we slowly drew our little boat away from
its deep peace.

We pulled up in the backwater, just below Cookham, and had tea; and,
when we were through the lock, it was evening. A stiffish breeze had
sprung up\mdash{}in our favour, for a wonder; for, as a rule on the
river, the wind is always dead against you whatever way you go. It
is against you in the morning, when you start for a day's trip, and
you pull a long distance, thinking how easy it will be to come back
with the sail. Then, after tea, the wind veers round, and you have
to pull hard in its teeth all the way home.

When you forget to take the sail at all, then the wind is consistently
in your favour both ways. But there!\ this world is only a probation,
and man was born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.

This evening, however, they had evidently made a mistake, and had
put the wind round at our back instead of in our face. We kept very
quiet about it, and got the sail up quickly before they found it out,
and then we spread ourselves about the boat in thoughtful attitudes,
and the sail bellied out, and strained, and grumbled at the mast,
and the boat flew.

I steered.

There is no more thrilling sensation I know of than sailing. It comes
as near to flying as man has got to yet\mdash{}except in dreams.
The wings of the rushing wind seem to be bearing you onward, you know
not where. You are no longer the slow, plodding, puny thing of clay,
creeping tortuously upon the ground; you are a part of Nature! Your
heart is throbbing against hers! Her glorious arms are round you,
raising you up against her heart! Your spirit is at one with hers;
your limbs grow light! The voices of the air are singing to you. The
earth seems far away and little; and the clouds, so close above your
head, are brothers, and you stretch your arms to them.

We had the river to ourselves, except that, far in the distance, we
could see a fishing-punt, moored in mid-stream, on which three fishermen
sat; and we skimmed over the water, and passed the wooded banks, and
no one spoke.

I was steering.

As we drew nearer, we could see that the three men fishing seemed
old and solemn-looking men. They sat on three chairs in the punt,
and watched intently their lines. And the red sunset threw a mystic
light upon the waters, and tinged with fire the towering woods, and
made a golden glory of the piled-up clouds. It was an hour of deep
enchantment, of ecstatic hope and longing. The little sail stood out
against the purple sky, the gloaming lay around us, wrapping the world
in rainbow shadows; and, behind us, crept the night.

We seemed like knights of some old legend, sailing across some mystic
lake into the unknown realm of twilight, unto the great land of the
sunset.

We did not go into the realm of twilight; we went slap into that punt,
where those three old men were fishing. We did not know what had happened
at first, because the sail shut out the view, but from the nature
of the language that rose up upon the evening air, we gathered that
we had come into the neighbourhood of human beings, and that they
were vexed and discontented.

Harris let the sail down, and then we saw what had happened. We had
knocked those three old gentlemen off their chairs into a general
heap at the bottom of the boat, and they were now slowly and painfully
sorting themselves out from each other, and picking fish off themselves;
and as they worked, they cursed us\mdash{}not with a common cursory
curse, but with long, carefully-thought-out, comprehensive curses,
that embraced the whole of our career, and went away into the distant
future, and included all our relations, and covered everything connected
with us\mdash{}good, substantial curses.

Harris told them they ought to be grateful for a little excitement,
sitting there fishing all day, and he also said that he was shocked
and grieved to hear men their age give way to temper so.

But it did not do any good.

George said he would steer, after that. He said a mind like mine ought
not to be expected to give itself away in steering boats\mdash{}better
let a mere commonplace human being see after that boat, before we
jolly well all got drowned; and he took the lines, and brought us
up to Marlow.

And at Marlow we left the boat by the bridge, and went and put up
for the night at the {}``Crown.''


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER XIII.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER XIII}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER XIII}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Marlow.\mdash{} Bisham abbey.\mdash{}
The Medmenham monks.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{Montmorency}}}
\textmd{\noun{thinks he}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{will}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{murder}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{an}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{old}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{tom}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{cat}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{But}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{eventually}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{decides}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{that}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{he}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{will}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{let}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{it
live}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{Shameful}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{conduct}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}}
\textmd{\noun{a}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{fox}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{terrier}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{at}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Civil}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Service}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{stores}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Our}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{departure}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{from}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Marlow}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{An}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{imposing}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{procession}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{The}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{steam}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{launch}}}\textmd{\noun{,}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{useful}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{receipts}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{for}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{annoying}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{hindering}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{it}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{We}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{decline}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{to}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{drink}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the river}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{peaceful}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{dog}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Strange}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{disappearance}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Harris}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}} \textmd{\noun{a}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{pie}}}\textmd{\noun{.}}}

\textit{\emph{Marlow}} is one of the pleasantest river centres I know
of. It is a bustling, lively little town; not very picturesque on
the whole, it is true, but there are many quaint nooks and corners
to be found in it, nevertheless\mdash{}standing arches in the shattered
bridge of Time, over which our fancy travels back to the days when
Marlow Manor owned Saxon \textit{\emph{Algar}} for its lord, ere conquering
William seized it to give to Queen Matilda, ere it passed to the Earls
of Warwick or to worldly-wise Lord Paget, the councillor of four successive
sovereigns.

There is lovely country round about it, too, if, after boating, you
are fond of a walk, while the river itself is at its best here. Down
to Cookham, past the Quarry Woods and the meadows, is a lovely reach.
Dear old Quarry Woods! with your narrow, climbing paths, and little
winding glades, how scented to this hour you seem with memories of
sunny summer days! How haunted are your shadowy vistas with the ghosts
of laughing faces! how from your whispering leaves there softly fall
the voices of long ago!

From Marlow up to Sonning is even fairer yet. Grand old Bisham Abbey,
whose stone walls have rung to the shouts of the Knights Templars,
and which, at one time, was the home of Anne of Cleves and at another
of Queen Elizabeth, is passed on the right bank just half a mile above
Marlow Bridge. Bisham Abbey is rich in melodramatic properties. It
contains a tapestry bed-chamber, and a secret room hid high up in
the thick walls. The ghost of the Lady Holy, who beat her little boy
to death, still walks there at night, trying to wash its ghostly hands
clean in a ghostly basin.

Warwick, the king-maker, rests there, careless now about such trivial
things as earthly kings and earthly kingdoms; and Salisbury, who did
good service at Poitiers. Just before you come to the abbey, and right
on the river's bank, is Bisham Church, and, perhaps, if any tombs
are worth inspecting, they are the tombs and monuments in Bisham Church.
It was while floating in his boat under the Bisham beeches that Shelley,
who was then living at Marlow (you can see his house now, in West
street), composed \textit{The} \textit{Revolt} \textit{of} \textit{Islam}.

By Hurley Weir, a little higher up, I have often thought that I could
stay a month without having sufficient time to drink in all the beauty
of the scene. The village of Hurley, five minutes' walk from the lock,
is as old a little spot as there is on the river, dating, as it does,
to quote the quaint phraseology of those dim days, {}``from the times
of King Sebert and King Offa.'' Just past the weir (going up) is
Danes' Field, where the invading Danes once encamped, during their
march to Gloucestershire; and a little further still, nestling by
a sweet corner of the stream, is what is left of Medmenham Abbey.

The famous Medmenham monks, or {}``Hell Fire Club,'' as they were
commonly called, and of whom the notorious Wilkes was a member, were
a fraternity whose motto was {}``Do as you please,'' and that invitation
still stands over the ruined doorway of the abbey. Many years before
this bogus abbey, with its congregation of irreverent jesters, was
founded, there stood upon this same spot a monastery of a sterner
kind, whose monks were of a somewhat different type to the revellers
that were to follow them, five hundred years afterwards.

The Cistercian monks, whose abbey stood there in the thirteenth century,
wore no clothes but rough tunics and cowls, and ate no flesh, nor
fish, nor eggs. They lay upon straw, and they rose at midnight to
mass. They spent the day in labour, reading, and prayer; and over
all their lives there fell a silence as of death, for no one spoke.

A grim fraternity, passing grim lives in that sweet spot, that God
had made so bright! Strange that Nature's voices all around them\mdash{}the
soft singing of the waters, the whisperings of the river grass, the
music of the rushing wind\mdash{}should not have taught them a truer
meaning of life than this. They listened there, through the long days,
in silence, waiting for a voice from heaven; and all day long and
through the solemn night it spoke to them in myriad tones, and they
heard it not.

From Medmenham to sweet Hambledon Lock the river is full of peaceful
beauty, but, after it passes Greenlands, the rather uninteresting
looking river residence of my newsagent\mdash{}a quiet unassuming
old gentleman, who may often be met with about these regions, during
the summer months, sculling himself along in easy vigorous style,
or chatting genially to some old lock-keeper, as he passes through\mdash{}until
well the other side of Henley, it is somewhat bare and dull.

We got up tolerably early on the Monday morning at Marlow, and went
for a bathe before breakfast; and, coming back, \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}
made an awful ass of himself. The only subject on which \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}
and I have any serious difference of opinion is cats. I like cats;
\textit{\emph{Montmorency}} does not.

When I meet a cat, I say, {}``Poor Pussy!''\ and stop down and
tickle the side of its head; and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid,
cast-iron manner, arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my
trousers; and all is gentleness and peace. When \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}
meets a cat, the whole street knows about it; and there is enough
bad language wasted in ten seconds to last an ordinarily respectable
man all his life, with care.

I do not blame the dog (contenting myself, as a rule, with merely
clouting his head or throwing stones at him), because I take it that
it is his nature. Fox-terriers are born with about four times as much
original sin in them as other dogs are, and it will take years and
years of patient effort on the part of us Christians to bring about
any appreciable reformation in the rowdiness of the fox-terrier nature.

I remember being in the lobby of the Haymarket Stores one day, and
all round about me were dogs, waiting for the return of their owners,
who were shopping inside. There were a mastiff, and one or two collies,
and a St.\ Bernard, a few retrievers and Newfoundlands, a boar-hound,
a French poodle, with plenty of hair round its head, but mangy about
the middle; a bull-dog, a few Lowther Arcade sort of animals, about
the size of rats, and a couple of Yorkshire tykes.

There they sat, patient, good, and thoughtful. A solemn peacefulness
seemed to reign in that lobby. An air of calmness and resignation\mdash{}of
gentle sadness pervaded the room.

Then a sweet young lady entered, leading a meek-looking little fox-terrier,
and left him, chained up there, between the bull-dog and the poodle.
He sat and looked about him for a minute. Then he cast up his eyes
to the ceiling, and seemed, judging from his expression, to be thinking
of his mother. Then he yawned. Then he looked round at the other dogs,
all silent, grave, and dignified.

He looked at the bull-dog, sleeping dreamlessly on his right. He looked
at the poodle, erect and haughty, on his left. Then, without a word
of warning, without the shadow of a provocation, he bit that poodle's
near fore-leg, and a yelp of agony rang through the quiet shades of
that lobby.

The result of his first experiment seemed highly satisfactory to him,
and he determined to go on and make things lively all round. He sprang
over the poodle and vigorously attacked a collie, and the collie woke
up, and immediately commenced a fierce and noisy contest with the
poodle. Then Foxey came back to his own place, and caught the bull-dog
by the ear, and tried to throw him away; and the bull-dog, a curiously
impartial animal, went for everything he could reach, including the
hall-porter, which gave that dear little terrier the opportunity to
enjoy an uninterrupted fight of his own with an equally willing Yorkshire
tyke.

Anyone who knows canine nature need hardly be told that, by this time,
all the other dogs in the place were fighting as if their hearths
and homes depended on the fray. The big dogs fought each other indiscriminately;
and the little dogs fought among themselves, and filled up their spare
time by biting the legs of the big dogs.

The whole lobby was a perfect pandemonium, and the din was terrific.
A crowd assembled outside in the Haymarket, and asked if it was a
vestry meeting; or, if not, who was being murdered, and why? Men came
with poles and ropes, and tried to separate the dogs, and the police
were sent for.

And in the midst of the riot that sweet young lady returned, and snatched
up that sweet little dog of hers (he had laid the tyke up for a month,
and had on the expression, now, of a new-born lamb) into her arms,
and kissed him, and asked him if he was killed, and what those great
nasty brutes of dogs had been doing to him; and he nestled up against
her, and gazed up into her face with a look that seemed to say: {}``Oh,
I'm so glad you've come to take me away from this disgraceful scene!''

She said that the people at the Stores had no right to allow great
savage things like those other dogs to be put with respectable people's
dogs, and that she had a great mind to summon somebody.

Such is the nature of fox-terriers; and, therefore, I do not \textit{blame}
\textit{\emph{Montmorency}} for his tendency to row with cats; but
he wished he had not given way to it that morning.

We were, as I have said, returning from a dip, and half-way up the
High Street a cat darted out from one of the houses in front of us,
and began to trot across the road. \textit{\emph{Montmorency}} \emph{}\textit{\emph{gave}}
a cry of joy\mdash{}the cry of a stern warrior who sees his enemy
given over to his hands\mdash{}the sort of cry Cromwell might have
uttered when the Scots came down the hill\mdash{}and flew after his
prey.

His victim was a large black Tom. I never saw a larger cat, nor a
more disreputable-looking cat. It had lost half its tail, one of its
ears, and a fairly appreciable proportion of its nose. It was a long,
sinewy-looking animal. It had a calm, contented air about it.

\textit{\emph{Montmorency}} went for that poor cat at the rate of
twenty miles an hour; but the cat did not hurry up\mdash{}did not
seem to have grasped the idea that its life was in danger. It trotted
quietly on until its would-be assassin was within a yard of it, and
then it turned round and sat down in the middle of the road, and looked
at \textit{\emph{Montmorency}} with a gentle, inquiring expression,
that said:

{}``Yes! You want me?''

\textit{\emph{Montmorency}} does not lack pluck; but there was something
about the look of that cat that might have chilled the heart of the
boldest dog. He stopped abruptly, and looked back at Tom.

Neither spoke; but the conversation that one could imagine was clearly
as follows:-

\textit{\emph{\noun{The}}} \emph{\noun{}}\textit{\emph{\noun{Cat}}}:
{}``Can I do anything for you?''

\textit{\emph{\noun{Montmorency}}}: {}``No\mdash{}no, thanks.''

\textit{\emph{\noun{The}}} \emph{\noun{}}\textit{\emph{\noun{Cat}}}:
{}``Don't you mind speaking, if you really want anything, you know.''

\textit{\emph{\noun{Montmorency}}} (\textit{backing} \textit{down}
\textit{the} \textit{high} \textit{street}): {}``Oh, no \mdash{}
not at all \mdash{} certainly \mdash{} don't you trouble. I \mdash{}
I am afraid I've made a mistake. I thought I knew you. Sorry I disturbed
you.''

\textit{\emph{\noun{The}}} \emph{\noun{}}\textit{\emph{\noun{Cat}}}:
{}``Not at all\mdash{}quite a pleasure. Sure you don't want anything,
now?''

\textit{\emph{\noun{Montmorency}}} (\textit{still} \textit{backing}):
{}``Not at all, thanks\mdash{}not at all\mdash{}very kind of you.
Good morning.''

\textit{\emph{\noun{The}}} \emph{\noun{}}\textit{\emph{\noun{Cat}}}:
{}``Good-morning.''

Then the cat rose, and continued his trot; and \textit{\emph{Montmorency}},
fitting what he calls his tail carefully into its groove, came back
to us, and took up an unimportant position in the rear.

To this day, if you say the word {}``Cats!'' to \textit{\emph{Montmorency}},
he will visibly shrink and look up piteously at you, as if to say:

{}``Please don't.''

We did our marketing after breakfast, and revictualled the boat for
three days. George said we ought to take vegetables\mdash{}that it
was unhealthy not to eat vegetables. He said they were easy enough
to cook, and that he would see to that; so we got ten pounds of potatoes,
a bushel of peas, and a few cabbages. We got a beefsteak pie, a couple
of gooseberry tarts, and a leg of mutton from the hotel; and fruit,
and cakes, and bread and butter, and jam, and bacon and eggs, and
other things we foraged round about the town for.

Our departure from Marlow I regard as one of our greatest successes.
It was dignified and impressive, without being ostentatious. We had
insisted at all the shops we had been to that the things should be
sent with us then and there. None of your {}``Yes, sir, I will send
them off at once: the boy will be down there before you are, sir!''
and then fooling about on the landing-stage, and going back to the
shop twice to have a row about them, for us. We waited while the basket
was packed, and took the boy with us.

We went to a good many shops, adopting this principle at each one;
and the consequence was that, by the time we had finished, we had
as fine a collection of boys with baskets following us around as heart
could desire; and our final march down the middle of the High Street,
to the river, must have been as imposing a spectacle as Marlow had
seen for many a long day.

The order of the procession was as follows:-

\begin{enumerate}
\item \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}, carrying a stick.
\item Two disreputable-looking curs, friends of Montmorency's.
\item George, carrying coats and rugs, and smoking a short pipe.
\item Harris, trying to walk with easy grace, while carrying a bulged-out
Gladstone bag in one hand and a bottle of lime-juice in the other.
\item Greengrocer's boy and baker's boy, with baskets.
\item Boots from the hotel, carrying hamper.
\item Confectioner's boy, with basket.
\item Grocer's boy, with basket.
\item Long-haired dog.
\item Cheesemonger's boy, with basket.
\item Odd man carrying a bag.
\item Bosom companion of odd man, with his hands in his pockets, smoking
a short clay.
\item Fruiterer's boy, with basket.
\item Myself, carrying three hats and a pair of boots, and trying to look
as if I didn't know it.
\item Six small boys, and four stray dogs.
\end{enumerate}
When we got down to the landing-stage, the boatman said:

{}``Let me see, sir; was yours a steam-launch or a house-boat?''

On our informing him it was a double-sculling skiff, he seemed surprised.

We had a good deal of trouble with steam launches that morning. It
was just before the Henley week, and they were going up in large numbers;
some by themselves, some towing houseboats. I do hate steam launches:
I suppose every rowing man does. I never see a steam launch but I
feel I should like to lure it to a lonely part of the river, and there,
in the silence and the solitude, strangle it.

There is a blatant bumptiousness about a steam launch that has the
knack of rousing every evil instinct in my nature, and I yearn for
the good old days, when you could go about and tell people what you
thought of them with a hatchet and a bow and arrows. The expression
on the face of the man who, with his hands in his pockets, stands
by the stern, smoking a cigar, is sufficient to excuse a breach of
the peace by itself; and the lordly whistle for you to get out of
the way would, I am confident, ensure a verdict of {}``justifiable
homicide'' from any jury of river men.

They used to \textit{have} to whistle for us to get out of their way.
If I may do so, without appearing boastful, I think I can honestly
say that our one small boat, during that week, caused more annoyance
and delay and aggravation to the steam launches that we came across
than all the other craft on the river put together.

{}``Steam launch, coming!'' one of us would cry out, on sighting
the enemy in the distance; and, in an instant, everything was got
ready to receive her. I would take the lines, and Harris and George
would sit down beside me, all of us with our backs to the launch,
and the boat would drift out quietly into mid-stream.

On would come the launch, whistling, and on we would go, drifting.
At about a hundred yards off, she would start whistling like mad,
and the people would come and lean over the side, and roar at us;
but we never heard them! Harris would be telling us an anecdote about
his mother, and George and I would not have missed a word of it for
worlds.

Then that launch would give one final shriek of a whistle that would
nearly burst the boiler, and she would reverse her engines, and blow
off steam, and swing round and get aground; everyone on board of it
would rush to the bow and yell at us, and the people on the bank would
stand and shout to us, and all the other passing boats would stop
and join in, till the whole river for miles up and down was in a state
of frantic commotion. And then Harris would break off in the most
interesting part of his narrative, and look up with mild surprise,
and say to George:

{}``Why, George, bless me, if here isn't a steam launch!''

And George would answer:

{}``Well, do you know, I \textit{thought} I heard something!''

Upon which we would get nervous and confused, and not know how to
get the boat out of the way, and the people in the launch would crowd
round and instruct us:

{}``Pull your right\mdash{}you, you idiot! back with your left.
No, not \textit{you}\mdash{}the other one\mdash{}leave the lines
alone, can't you\mdash{}now, both together. \textit{Not} \textit{that}
way. Oh, you\mdash{}!''

Then they would lower a boat and come to our assistance; and, after
quarter of an hour's effort, would get us clean out of their way,
so that they could go on; and we would thank them so much, and ask
them to give us a tow. But they never would.

Another good way we discovered of irritating the aristocratic type
of steam launch, was to mistake them for a beanfeast, and ask them
if they were Messrs.\ Cubit's lot or the Bermondsey Good Templars,
and could they lend us a saucepan.

Old ladies, not accustomed to the river, are always intensely nervous
of steam launches. I remember going up once from Staines to Windsor\mdash{}a
stretch of water peculiarly rich in these mechanical monstrosities\mdash{}with
a party containing three ladies of this description. It was very exciting.
At the first glimpse of every steam launch that came in view, they
insisted on landing and sitting down on the bank until it was out
of sight again. They said they were very sorry, but that they owed
it to their families not to be fool-hardy.

We found ourselves short of water at Hambledon Lock; so we took our
jar and went up to the lock-keeper's house to beg for some.

George was our spokesman. He put on a winning smile, and said:

{}``Oh, please could you spare us a little water?''

{}``Certainly,'' replied the old gentleman; {}``take as much as
you want, and leave the rest.''

{}``Thank you so much,'' murmured George, looking about him. {}``Where\mdash{}where
do you keep it?''

{}``It's always in the same place my boy,'' was the stolid reply:
{}``just behind you.''

{}``I don't see it,'' said George, turning round.

{}``Why, bless us, where's your eyes?'' was the man's comment, as
he twisted George round and pointed up and down the stream. {}``There's
enough of it to see, ain't there?''

{}``Oh!''\ exclaimed George, grasping the idea; {}``but we can't
drink the river, you know!''

{}``No; but you can drink \textit{some} of it,'' replied the old
fellow. {}``It's what I've drunk for the last fifteen years.''

George told him that his appearance, after the course, did not seem
a sufficiently good advertisement for the brand; and that he would
prefer it out of a pump.

We got some from a cottage a little higher up. I daresay \textit{that}
was only river water, if we had known. But we did not know, so it
was all right. What the eye does not see, the stomach does not get
upset over.

We tried river water once, later on in the season, but it was not
a success. We were coming down stream, and had pulled up to have tea
in a backwater near Windsor. Our jar was empty, and it was a case
of going without our tea or taking water from the river. Harris was
for chancing it. He said it must be all right if we boiled the water.
He said that the various germs of poison present in the water would
be killed by the boiling. So we filled our kettle with Thames backwater,
and boiled it; and very careful we were to see that it did boil.

We had made the tea, and were just settling down comfortably to drink
it, when George, with his cup half-way to his lips, paused and exclaimed:

{}``What's that?''

{}``What's what?''\ asked Harris and I.

{}``Why that!''\ said George, looking westward.

Harris and I followed his gaze, and saw, coming down towards us on
the sluggish current, a dog. It was one of the quietest and peacefullest
dogs I have ever seen. I never met a dog who seemed more contented\mdash{}more
easy in its mind. It was floating dreamily on its back, with its four
legs stuck up straight into the air. It was what I should call a full-bodied
dog, with a well-developed chest. On he came, serene, dignified, and
calm, until he was abreast of our boat, and there, among the rushes,
he eased up, and settled down cosily for the evening.

George said he didn't want any tea, and emptied his cup into the water.
Harris did not feel thirsty, either, and followed suit. I had drunk
half mine, but I wished I had not.

I asked George if he thought I was likely to have typhoid.

He said: {}``Oh, no;'' he thought I had a very good chance indeed
of escaping it. Anyhow, I should know in about a fortnight, whether
I had or had not.

\bigskip{}
We went up the backwater to Wargrave. It is a short cut, leading out
of the right-hand bank about half a mile above Marsh Lock, and is
well worth taking, being a pretty, shady little piece of stream, besides
saving nearly half a mile of distance.

Of course, its entrance is studded with posts and chains, and surrounded
with notice boards, menacing all kinds of torture, imprisonment, and
death to everyone who dares set scull upon its waters\mdash{}I wonder
some of these riparian boors don't claim the air of the river and
threaten everyone with forty shillings fine who breathes it\mdash{}but
the posts and chains a little skill will easily avoid; and as for
the boards, you might, if you have five minutes to spare, and there
is nobody about, take one or two of them down and throw them into
the river.

Half-way up the backwater, we got out and lunched; and it was during
this lunch that George and I received rather a trying shock.

Harris received a shock, too; but I do not think Harris's shock could
have been anything like so bad as the shock that George and I had
over the business.

You see, it was in this way: we were sitting in a meadow, about ten
yards from the water's edge, and we had just settled down comfortably
to feed. Harris had the beefsteak pie between his knees, and was carving
it, and George and I were waiting with our plates ready.

{}``Have you got a spoon there?'' says Harris; {}``I want a spoon
to help the gravy with.''

The hamper was close behind us, and George and I both turned round
to reach one out. We were not five seconds getting it. When we looked
round again, Harris and the pie were gone!

It was a wide, open field. There was not a tree or a bit of hedge
for hundreds of yards. He could not have tumbled into the river, because
we were on the water side of him, and he would have had to climb over
us to do it.

George and I gazed all about. Then we gazed at each other.

{}``Has he been snatched up to heaven?'' I queried.

{}``They'd hardly have taken the pie too,'' said George.

There seemed weight in this objection, and we discarded the heavenly
theory.

{}``I suppose the truth of the matter is,'' suggested George, descending
to the commonplace and practicable, {}``that there has been an earthquake.''

And then he added, with a touch of sadness in his voice: {}``I wish
he hadn't been carving that pie.''

With a sigh, we turned our eyes once more towards the spot where Harris
and the pie had last been seen on earth; and there, as our blood froze
in our veins and our hair stood up on end, we saw Harris's head\mdash{}and
nothing but his head\mdash{}sticking bolt upright among the tall
grass, the face very red, and bearing upon it an expression of great
indignation!

George was the first to recover.

{}``Speak!'' he cried, {}``and tell us whether you are alive or
dead\mdash{}and where is the rest of you?''

{}``Oh, don't be a stupid ass!'' said Harris's head. {}``I believe
you did it on purpose.''

{}``Did what?'' exclaimed George and I.

{}``Why, put me to sit here\mdash{}darn silly trick! Here, catch
hold of the pie.''

And out of the middle of the earth, as it seemed to us, rose the pie\mdash{}very
much mixed up and damaged; and, after it, scrambled Harris\mdash{}tumbled,
grubby, and wet.

He had been sitting, without knowing it, on the very verge of a small
gully, the long grass hiding it from view; and in leaning a little
back he had shot over, pie and all.

He said he had never felt so surprised in all his life, as when he
first felt himself going, without being able to conjecture in the
slightest what had happened. He thought at first that the end of the
world had come.

Harris believes to this day that George and I planned it all beforehand.
Thus does unjust suspicion follow even the most blameless for, as
the poet says, {}``Who shall escape calumny?''

Who, indeed!


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER XIV.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER XIV}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER XIV}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Wargrave.\mdash{} Waxworks.\mdash{} Sonning.\mdash{}
Our stew.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{Montmorency}}} \textmd{\noun{is
sar\-c\-a\-s\-tic.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{Fight}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{between}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{montmorency}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{tea}}}\textmd{\noun{-}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{kettle}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{George's}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{banjo}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{studies}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Meet}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{with}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{discouragement}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Difficulties}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{in}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{way}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{musical}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{amateur}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Learning}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{to}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{play}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{bagpipes}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Harris}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{feels}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{sad}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{after}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{supper}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{George}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}}
\textmd{\noun{I}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{go}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{for}}}
\textmd{\noun{a}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{walk}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Return}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{hungry}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{wet}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{There}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{is}}}
\textmd{\noun{a}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{strangeness}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{about}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Harris}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Harris}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{swans}}}\textmd{\noun{,
a}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{remarkable}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{story}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Harris}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{has}}}
\textmd{\noun{A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{troubled}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{night}}}\textmd{\noun{.}}}

\textit{\emph{We}} caught a breeze, after lunch, which took us gently
up past Wargrave and Shiplake. Mellowed in the drowsy sunlight of
a summer's afternoon, Wargrave, nestling where the river bends, makes
a sweet old picture as you pass it, and one that lingers long upon
the retina of memory.

The {}``George and Dragon'' at Wargrave boasts a sign, painted on
the one side by Leslie, R.A., and on the other by Hodgson of that
ilk. Leslie has depicted the fight; Hodgson has imagined the scene,
{}``After the Fight''\mdash{}George, the work done, enjoying his
pint of beer.

Day, the author of \textit{Sandford} \textit{and} \textit{Merton},
lived and\mdash{}more credit to the place still\mdash{}was killed
at Wargrave. In the church is a memorial to Mrs.\ Sarah Hill, who
bequeathed 1 pound annually, to be divided at Easter, between two
boys and two girls who {}``have never been undutiful to their parents;
who have never been known to swear or to tell untruths, to steal,
or to break windows.'' Fancy giving up all that for five shillings
a year! It is not worth it.

It is rumoured in the town that once, many years ago, a boy appeared
who really never had done these things\mdash{}or at all events, which
was all that was required or could be expected, had never been known
to do them\mdash{}and thus won the crown of glory. He was exhibited
for three weeks afterwards in the Town Hall, under a glass case.

What has become of the money since no one knows. They say it is always
handed over to the nearest wax-works show.

Shiplake is a pretty village, but it cannot be seen from the river,
being upon the hill. Tennyson was married in Shiplake Church.

The river up to Sonning winds in and out through many islands, and
is very placid, hushed, and lonely. Few folk, except at twilight,
a pair or two of rustic lovers, walk along its banks.\  'Arry and
Lord Fitznoodle have been left behind at Henley, and dismal, dirty
Reading is not yet reached. It is a part of the river in which to
dream of bygone days, and vanished forms and faces, and things that
might have been, but are not, confound them.

We got out at Sonning, and went for a walk round the village. It is
the most fairy-like little nook on the whole river. It is more like
a stage village than one built of bricks and mortar. Every house is
smothered in roses, and now, in early June, they were bursting forth
in clouds of dainty splendour. If you stop at Sonning, put up at the
{}``Bull,'' behind the church. It is a veritable picture of an old
country inn, with green, square courtyard in front, where, on seats
beneath the trees, the old men group of an evening to drink their
ale and gossip over village politics; with low, quaint rooms and latticed
windows, and awkward stairs and winding passages.

We roamed about sweet Sonning for an hour or so, and then, it being
too late to push on past Reading, we decided to go back to one of
the Shiplake islands, and put up there for the night. It was still
early when we got settled, and George said that, as we had plenty
of time, it would be a splendid opportunity to try a good, slap-up
supper. He said he would show us what could be done up the river in
the way of cooking, and suggested that, with the vegetables and the
remains of the cold beef and general odds and ends, we should make
an Irish stew.

It seemed a fascinating idea. George gathered wood and made a fire,
and Harris and I started to peel the potatoes. I should never have
thought that peeling potatoes was such an undertaking. The job turned
out to be the biggest thing of its kind that I had ever been in. We
began cheerfully, one might almost say skittishly, but our light-heartedness
was gone by the time the first potato was finished. The more we peeled,
the more peel there seemed to be left on; by the time we had got all
the peel off and all the eyes out, there was no potato left\mdash{}at
least none worth speaking of. George came and had a look at it\mdash{}it
was about the size of a pea-nut. He said:

{}``Oh, that won't do! You're wasting them. You must scrape them.''

So we scraped them, and that was harder work than peeling. They are
such an extraordinary shape, potatoes\mdash{}all bumps and warts
and hollows. We worked steadily for five-and-twenty minutes, and did
four potatoes. Then we struck. We said we should require the rest
of the evening for scraping ourselves.

I never saw such a thing as potato-scraping for making a fellow in
a mess. It seemed difficult to believe that the potato-scrapings in
which Harris and I stood, half smothered, could have come off four
potatoes. It shows you what can be done with economy and care.

George said it was absurd to have only four potatoes in an Irish stew,
so we washed half-a-dozen or so more, and put them in without peeling.
We also put in a cabbage and about half a peck of peas. George stirred
it all up, and then he said that there seemed to be a lot of room
to spare, so we overhauled both the hampers, and picked out all the
odds and ends and the remnants, and added them to the stew. There
were half a pork pie and a bit of cold boiled bacon left, and we put
them in. Then George found half a tin of potted salmon, and he emptied
that into the pot.

He said that was the advantage of Irish stew: you got rid of such
a lot of things. I fished out a couple of eggs that had got cracked,
and put those in. George said they would thicken the gravy.

I forget the other ingredients, but I know nothing was wasted; and
I remember that, towards the end, \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}, who
had evinced great interest in the proceedings throughout, strolled
away with an earnest and thoughtful air, reappearing, a few minutes
afterwards, with a dead water-rat in his mouth, which he evidently
wished to present as his contribution to the dinner; whether in a
sarcastic spirit, or with a genuine desire to assist, I cannot say.

We had a discussion as to whether the rat should go in or not. Harris
said that he thought it would be all right, mixed up with the other
things, and that every little helped; but George stood up for precedent.
He said he had never heard of water-rats in Irish stew, and he would
rather be on the safe side, and not try experiments.

Harris said:

{}``If you never try a new thing, how can you tell what it's like?
It's men such as you that hamper the world's progress. Think of the
man who first tried German sausage!''

It was a great success, that Irish stew. I don't think I ever enjoyed
a meal more. There was something so fresh and piquant about it. One's
palate gets so tired of the old hackneyed things: here was a dish
with a new flavour, with a taste like nothing else on earth.

And it was nourishing, too. As George said, there was good stuff in
it. The peas and potatoes might have been a bit softer, but we all
had good teeth, so that did not matter much: and as for the gravy,
it was a poem\mdash{}a little too rich, perhaps, for a weak stomach,
but nutritious.

We finished up with tea and cherry tart. \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}
had a fight with the kettle during tea-time, and came off a poor second.

Throughout the trip, he had manifested great curiosity concerning
the kettle. He would sit and watch it, as it boiled, with a puzzled
expression, and would try and rouse it every now and then by growling
at it. When it began to splutter and steam, he regarded it as a challenge,
and would want to fight it, only, at that precise moment, some one
would always dash up and bear off his prey before he could get at
it.

To-day he determined he would be beforehand. At the first sound the
kettle made, he rose, growling, and advanced towards it in a threatening
attitude. It was only a little kettle, but it was full of pluck, and
it up and spit at him.

{}``Ah!\ would ye!''\ growled \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}, showing
his teeth; {}``I'll teach ye to cheek a hard-working, respectable
dog; ye miserable, long-nosed, dirty-looking scoundrel, ye. Come on!''

And he rushed at that poor little kettle, and seized it by the spout.

Then, across the evening stillness, broke a blood-curdling yelp, and
\textit{\emph{Montmorency}} left the boat, and did a constitutional
three times round the island at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour,
stopping every now and then to bury his nose in a bit of cool mud.

From that day \textit{\emph{Montmorency}} regarded the kettle with
a mixture of awe, suspicion, and hate. Whenever he saw it he would
growl and back at a rapid rate, with his tail shut down, and the moment
it was put upon the stove he would promptly climb out of the boat,
and sit on the bank, till the whole tea business was over.

George got out his banjo after supper, and wanted to play it, but
Harris objected: he said he had got a headache, and did not feel strong
enough to stand it. George thought the music might do him good\mdash{}said
music often soothed the nerves and took away a headache; and he twanged
two or three notes, just to show Harris what it was like.

Harris said he would rather have the headache.

George has never learned to play the banjo to this day. He has had
too much all-round discouragement to meet. He tried on two or three
evenings, while we were up the river, to get a little practice, but
it was never a success. Harris's language used to be enough to unnerve
any man; added to which, \textit{\emph{Montmorency}} would sit and
howl steadily, right through the performance. It was not giving the
man a fair chance.

{}``What's he want to howl like that for when I'm playing?''\ George
would exclaim indignantly, while taking aim at him with a boot.

{}``What do you want to play like that for when he is howling?''\ Harris
would retort, catching the boot. {}``You let him alone. He can't
help howling. He's got a musical ear, and your playing \textit{makes}
him howl.''

So George determined to postpone study of the banjo until he reached
home. But he did not get much opportunity even there. Mrs.\ P.\ used
to come up and say she was very sorry\mdash{}for herself, she liked
to hear him\mdash{}but the lady upstairs was in a very delicate state,
and the doctor was afraid it might injure the child.

Then George tried taking it out with him late at night, and practising
round the square. But the inhabitants complained to the police about
it, and a watch was set for him one night, and he was captured. The
evidence against him was very clear, and he was bound over to keep
the peace for six months.

He seemed to lose heart in the business after that. He did make one
or two feeble efforts to take up the work again when the six months
had elapsed, but there was always the same coldness\mdash{}the same
want of sympathy on the part of the world to fight against; and, after
awhile, he despaired altogether, and advertised the instrument for
sale at a great sacrifice\mdash{}{}``owner having no further use
for same''\mdash{}and took to learning card tricks instead.

It must be disheartening work learning a musical instrument. You would
think that Society, for its own sake, would do all it could to assist
a man to acquire the art of playing a musical instrument. But it doesn't!

I knew a young fellow once, who was studying to play the bagpipes,
and you would be surprised at the amount of opposition he had to contend
with. Why, not even from the members of his own family did he receive
what you could call active encouragement. His father was dead against
the business from the beginning, and spoke quite unfeelingly on the
subject.

My friend used to get up early in the morning to practise, but he
had to give that plan up, because of his sister. She was somewhat
religiously inclined, and she said it seemed such an awful thing to
begin the day like that.

So he sat up at night instead, and played after the family had gone
to bed, but that did not do, as it got the house such a bad name.
People, going home late, would stop outside to listen, and then put
it about all over the town, the next morning, that a fearful murder
had been committed at Mr.\ Jefferson's the night before; and would
describe how they had heard the victim's shrieks and the brutal oaths
and curses of the murderer, followed by the prayer for mercy, and
the last dying gurgle of the corpse.

So they let him practise in the day-time, in the back-kitchen with
all the doors shut; but his more successful passages could generally
be heard in the sitting-room, in spite of these precautions, and would
affect his mother almost to tears.

She said it put her in mind of her poor father (he had been swallowed
by a shark, poor man, while bathing off the coast of New Guinea\mdash{}where
the connection came in, she could not explain).

Then they knocked up a little place for him at the bottom of the garden,
about quarter of a mile from the house, and made him take the machine
down there when he wanted to work it; and sometimes a visitor would
come to the house who knew nothing of the matter, and they would forget
to tell him all about it, and caution him, and he would go out for
a stroll round the garden and suddenly get within earshot of those
bagpipes, without being prepared for it, or knowing what it was. If
he were a man of strong mind, it only gave him fits; but a person
of mere average intellect it usually sent mad.

There is, it must be confessed, something very sad about the early
efforts of an amateur in bagpipes. I have felt that myself when listening
to my young friend. They appear to be a trying instrument to perform
upon. You have to get enough breath for the whole tune before you
start\mdash{}at least, so I gathered from watching Jefferson.

He would begin magnificently with a wild, full, come-to-the-battle
sort of a note, that quite roused you. But he would get more and more
piano as he went on, and the last verse generally collapsed in the
middle with a splutter and a hiss.

You want to be in good health to play the bagpipes.

Young Jefferson only learnt to play one tune on those bagpipes; but
I never heard any complaints about the insufficiency of his repertoire\mdash{}none
whatever. This tune was {}``The Campbells are Coming, Hooray\mdash{}Hooray!''
so he said, though his father always held that it was {}``The Blue
Bells of Scotland.'' Nobody seemed quite sure what it was exactly,
but they all agreed that it sounded Scotch.

Strangers were allowed three guesses, and most of them guessed a different
tune each time.

\bigskip{}
Harris was disagreeable after supper,\mdash{}I think it must have
been the stew that had upset him: he is not used to high living,\mdash{}so
George and I left him in the boat, and settled to go for a mouch round
Henley. He said he should have a glass of whisky and a pipe, and fix
things up for the night. We were to shout when we returned, and he
would row over from the island and fetch us.

{}``Don't go to sleep, old man,'' we said as we started.

{}``Not much fear of that while this stew's on,'' he grunted, as
he pulled back to the island.

Henley was getting ready for the regatta, and was full of bustle.
We met a goodish number of men we knew about the town, and in their
pleasant company the time slipped by somewhat quickly; so that it
was nearly eleven o'clock before we set off on our four-mile walk
home\mdash{}as we had learned to call our little craft by this time.

It was a dismal night, coldish, with a thin rain falling; and as we
trudged through the dark, silent fields, talking low to each other,
and wondering if we were going right or not, we thought of the cosy
boat, with the bright light streaming through the tight-drawn canvas;
of Harris and \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}, and the whisky, and wished
that we were there.

We conjured up the picture of ourselves inside, tired and a little
hungry; of the gloomy river and the shapeless trees; and, like a giant
glow-worm underneath them, our dear old boat, so snug and warm and
cheerful. We could see ourselves at supper there, pecking away at
cold meat, and passing each other chunks of bread; we could hear the
cheery clatter of our knives, the laughing voices, filling all the
space, and overflowing through the opening out into the night. And
we hurried on to realise the vision.

We struck the tow-path at length, and that made us happy; because
prior to this we had not been sure whether we were walking towards
the river or away from it, and when you are tired and want to go to
bed uncertainties like that worry you. We passed Skiplake as the clock
was striking the quarter to twelve; and then George said, thoughtfully:

{}``You don't happen to remember which of the islands it was, do
you?''

{}``No,'' I replied, beginning to grow thoughtful too, {}``I don't.
How many are there?''

{}``Only four,'' answered George. {}``It will be all right, if
he's awake.''

{}``And if not?'' I queried; but we dismissed that train of thought.

We shouted when we came opposite the first island, but there was no
response; so we went to the second, and tried there, and obtained
the same result.

{}``Oh! I remember now,'' said George; {}``it was the third one.''

And we ran on hopefully to the third one, and hallooed.

No answer!

The case was becoming serious.\ it was now past midnight. The hotels
at Skiplake and Henley would be crammed; and we could not go round,
knocking up cottagers and householders in the middle of the night,
to know if they let apartments! George suggested walking back to Henley
and assaulting a policeman, and so getting a night's lodging in the
station-house. But then there was the thought, {}``Suppose he only
hits us back and refuses to lock us up!''

We could not pass the whole night fighting policemen. Besides, we
did not want to overdo the thing and get six months.

We despairingly tried what seemed in the darkness to be the fourth
island, but met with no better success. The rain was coming down fast
now, and evidently meant to last. We were wet to the skin, and cold
and miserable. We began to wonder whether there were only four islands
or more, or whether we were near the islands at all, or whether we
were anywhere within a mile of where we ought to be, or in the wrong
part of the river altogether; everything looked so strange and different
in the darkness. We began to understand the sufferings of the Babes
in the Wood.

Just when we had given up all hope\mdash{}yes, I know that is always
the time that things do happen in novels and tales; but I can't help
it. I resolved, when I began to write this book, that I would be strictly
truthful in all things; and so I will be, even if I have to employ
hackneyed phrases for the purpose.

It \textit{was} just when we had given up all hope, and I must therefore
say so. Just when we had given up all hope, then, I suddenly caught
sight, a little way below us, of a strange, weird sort of glimmer
flickering among the trees on the opposite bank. For an instant I
thought of ghosts: it was such a shadowy, mysterious light. The next
moment it flashed across me that it was our boat, and I sent up such
a yell across the water that made the night seem to shake in its bed.

We waited breathless for a minute, and then\mdash{}oh!\ divinest
music of the darkness!\mdash{}we heard the answering bark of \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}.
We shouted back loud enough to wake the Seven Sleepers\mdash{}I never
could understand myself why it should take more noise to wake seven
sleepers than one\mdash{}and, after what seemed an hour, but what
was really, I suppose, about five minutes, we saw the lighted boat
creeping slowly over the blackness, and heard Harris's sleepy voice
asking where we were.

There was an unaccountable strangeness about Harris. It was something
more than mere ordinary tiredness. He pulled the boat against a part
of the bank from which it was quite impossible for us to get into
it, and immediately went to sleep. It took us an immense amount of
screaming and roaring to wake him up again and put some sense into
him; but we succeeded at last, and got safely on board.

Harris had a sad expression on him, so we noticed, when we got into
the boat. He gave you the idea of a man who had been through trouble.
We asked him if anything had happened, and he said\mdash{}

{}``Swans!''

It seemed we had moored close to a swan's nest, and, soon after George
and I had gone, the female swan came back, and kicked up a row about
it. Harris had chivied her off, and she had gone away, and fetched
up her old man. Harris said he had had quite a fight with these two
swans; but courage and skill had prevailed in the end, and he had
defeated them.

Half-an-hour afterwards they returned with eighteen other swans! It
must have been a fearful battle, so far as we could understand Harris's
account of it. The swans had tried to drag him and \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}
out of the boat and drown them; and he had defended himself like a
hero for four hours, and had killed the lot, and they had all paddled
away to die.

{}``How many swans did you say there were?'' asked George.

{}``Thirty-two,'' replied Harris, sleepily.

{}``You said eighteen just now,'' said George.

{}``No, I didn't,'' grunted Harris; {}``I said twelve. Think I
can't count?''

What were the real facts about these swans we never found out. We
questioned Harris on the subject in the morning, and he said, {}``What
swans?'' and seemed to think that George and I had been dreaming.

Oh, how delightful it was to be safe in the boat, after our trials
and fears! We ate a hearty supper, George and I, and we should have
had some toddy after it, if we could have found the whisky, but we
could not. We examined Harris as to what he had done with it; but
he did not seem to know what we meant by {}``whisky,'' or what we
were talking about at all. \textit{\emph{Montmorency}} looked as if
he knew something, but said nothing.

I slept well that night, and should have slept better if it had not
been for Harris. I have a vague recollection of having been woke up
at least a dozen times during the night by Harris wandering about
the boat with the lantern, looking for his clothes. He seemed to be
worrying about his clothes all night.

Twice he routed up George and myself to see if we were lying on his
trousers. George got quite wild the second time.

{}``What the thunder do you want your trousers for, in the middle
of the night?'' he asked indignantly. {}``Why don't you lie down,
and go to sleep?''

I found him in trouble, the next time I awoke, because he could not
find his socks; and my last hazy remembrance is of being rolled over
on my side, and of hearing Harris muttering something about its being
an extraordinary thing where his umbrella could have got to.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER XV.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER XV}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER XV}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Household duties.\mdash{} Love of work.\mdash{}
The old river hand, what he does and}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{what}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{he}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{tells}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{you}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{he}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{has}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{done}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Scepticism}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{new}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{generation}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Early}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{boating}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{recollections}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
Rafting.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{George}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{does}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{thing}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{in}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{style}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{The}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{old}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{boatman}}}\textmd{\noun{,}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{his}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{method}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{So}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{calm}}}\textmd{\noun{,}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{so}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{full}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{peace}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{The}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{beginner}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Punting}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{} A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{sad}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{accident}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Pleasures}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Friendship}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Sailing}}}\textmd{\noun{,}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{my}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{first}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{experience}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Possible}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{reason}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{why}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{we}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{were}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{not}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{drowned}}}\textmd{\noun{.}}}

\textit{\emph{We}} woke late the next morning, and, at Harris's earnest
desire, partook of a plain breakfast, with {}``non dainties.'' Then
we cleaned up, and put everything straight (a continual labour, which
was beginning to afford me a pretty clear insight into a question
that had often posed me\mdash{}namely, how a woman with the work
of only one house on her hands manages to pass away her time), and,
at about ten, set out on what we had determined should be a good day's
journey.

We agreed that we would pull this morning, as a change from towing;
and Harris thought the best arrangement would be that George and I
should scull, and he steer. I did not chime in with this idea at all;
I said I thought Harris would have been showing a more proper spirit
if he had suggested that he and George should work, and let me rest
a bit. It seemed to me that I was doing more than my fair share of
the work on this trip, and I was beginning to feel strongly on the
subject.

It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should
do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it
fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep
it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.

You cannot give me too much work; to accumulate work has almost become
a passion with me: my study is so full of it now, that there is hardly
an inch of room for any more. I shall have to throw out a wing soon.

And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of the work that I have
by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there
isn't a finger-mark on it. I take a great pride in my work; I take
it down now and then and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better
state of preservation than I do.

But, though I crave for work, I still like to be fair. I do not ask
for more than my proper share.

But I get it without asking for it\mdash{}at least, so it appears
to me\mdash{}and this worries me.

George says he does not think I need trouble myself on the subject.
He thinks it is only my over-scrupulous nature that makes me fear
I am having more than my due; and that, as a matter of fact, I don't
have half as much as I ought. But I expect he only says this to comfort
me.

In a boat, I have always noticed that it is the fixed idea of each
member of the crew that he is doing everything. Harris's notion was,
that it was he alone who had been working, and that both George and
I had been imposing upon him. George, on the other hand, ridiculed
the idea of Harris's having done anything more than eat and sleep,
and had a cast-iron opinion that it was he\mdash{}George himself\mdash{}who
had done all the labour worth speaking of.

He said he had never been out with such a couple of lazily skulks
as Harris and I.

That amused Harris.

{}``Fancy old George talking about work!'' he laughed; {}``why,
about half-an-hour of it would kill him. Have you ever seen George
work?'' he added, turning to me.

I agreed with Harris that I never had\mdash{}most certainly not since
we had started on this trip.

{}``Well, I don't see how \textit{you} can know much about it, one
way or the other,'' George retorted on Harris; {}``for I'm blest
if you haven't been asleep half the time. Have you ever seen Harris
fully awake, except at meal-time?'' asked George, addressing me.

Truth compelled me to support George. Harris had been very little
good in the boat, so far as helping was concerned, from the beginning.

{}``Well, hang it all, I've done more than old J., anyhow,'' rejoined
Harris.

{}``Well, you couldn't very well have done less,'' added George.

{}``I suppose J.\ thinks he is the passenger,'' continued Harris.

And that was their gratitude to me for having brought them and their
wretched old boat all the way up from Kingston, and for having superintended
and managed everything for them, and taken care of them, and slaved
for them. It is the way of the world.

We settled the present difficulty by arranging that Harris and George
should scull up past Reading, and that I should tow the boat on from
there. Pulling a heavy boat against a strong stream has few attractions
for me now. There was a time, long ago, when I used to clamour for
the hard work: now I like to give the youngsters a chance.

I notice that most of the old river hands are similarly retiring,
whenever there is any stiff pulling to be done. You can always tell
the old river hand by the way in which he stretches himself out upon
the cushions at the bottom of the boat, and encourages the rowers
by telling them anecdotes about the marvellous feats he performed
last season.

{}``Call what you're doing hard work!''\ he drawls, between his
contented whiffs, addressing the two perspiring novices, who have
been grinding away steadily up stream for the last hour and a half;
{}``why, Jim Biffles and Jack and I, last season, pulled up from
Marlow to Goring in one afternoon\mdash{}never stopped once. Do you
remember that, Jack?''

Jack, who has made himself a bed up in the prow of all the rugs and
coats he can collect, and who has been lying there asleep for the
last two hours, partially wakes up on being thus appealed to, and
recollects all about the matter, and also remembers that there was
an unusually strong stream against them all the way\mdash{}likewise
a stiff wind.

{}``About thirty-four miles, I suppose, it must have been,'' adds
the first speaker, reaching down another cushion to put under his
head.

{}``No\mdash{}no; don't exaggerate, Tom,'' murmurs Jack, reprovingly;
{}``thirty-three at the outside.''

And Jack and Tom, quite exhausted by this conversational effort, drop
off to sleep once more. And the two simple-minded youngsters at the
sculls feel quite proud of being allowed to row such wonderful oarsmen
as Jack and Tom, and strain away harder than ever.

When I was a young man, I used to listen to these tales from my elders,
and take them in, and swallow them, and digest every word of them,
and then come up for more; but the new generation do not seem to have
the simple faith of the old times. We\mdash{}George, Harris, and
myself\mdash{}took a {}``raw'un'' up with us once last season,
and we plied him with the customary stretchers about the wonderful
things we had done all the way up.

We gave him all the regular ones\mdash{}the time-honoured lies that
have done duty up the river with every boating-man for years past\mdash{}and
added seven entirely original ones that we had invented for ourselves,
including a really quite likely story, founded, to a certain extent,
on an all but true episode, which had actually happened in a modified
degree some years ago to friends of ours\mdash{}a story that a mere
child could have believed without injuring itself, much.

And that young man mocked at them all, and wanted us to repeat the
feats then and there, and to bet us ten to one that we didn't.

We got to chatting about our rowing experiences this morning, and
to recounting stories of our first efforts in the art of oarsmanship.
My own earliest boating recollection is of five of us contributing
threepence each and taking out a curiously constructed craft on the
Regent's Park lake, drying ourselves subsequently, in the park-keeper's
lodge.

After that, having acquired a taste for the water, I did a good deal
of rafting in various suburban brickfields\mdash{}an exercise providing
more interest and excitement than might be imagined, especially when
you are in the middle of the pond and the proprietor of the materials
of which the raft is constructed suddenly appears on the bank, with
a big stick in his hand.

Your first sensation on seeing this gentleman is that, somehow or
other, you don't feel equal to company and conversation, and that,
if you could do so without appearing rude, you would rather avoid
meeting him; and your object is, therefore, to get off on the opposite
side of the pond to which he is, and to go home quietly and quickly,
pretending not to see him. He, on the contrary is yearning to take
you by the hand, and talk to you.

It appears that he knows your father, and is intimately acquainted
with yourself, but this does not draw you towards him. He says he'll
teach you to take his boards and make a raft of them; but, seeing
that you know how to do this pretty well already, the offer, though
doubtless kindly meant, seems a superfluous one on his part, and you
are reluctant to put him to any trouble by accepting it.

His anxiety to meet you, however, is proof against all your coolness,
and the energetic manner in which he dodges up and down the pond so
as to be on the spot to greet you when you land is really quite flattering.

If he be of a stout and short-winded build, you can easily avoid his
advances; but, when he is of the youthful and long-legged type, a
meeting is inevitable. The interview is, however, extremely brief,
most of the conversation being on his part, your remarks being mostly
of an exclamatory and mono-syllabic order, and as soon as you can
tear yourself away you do so.

I devoted some three months to rafting, and, being then as proficient
as there was any need to be at that branch of the art, I determined
to go in for rowing proper, and joined one of the Lea boating clubs.

Being out in a boat on the river Lea, especially on Saturday afternoons,
soon makes you smart at handling a craft, and spry at escaping being
run down by roughs or swamped by barges; and it also affords plenty
of opportunity for acquiring the most prompt and graceful method of
lying down flat at the bottom of the boat so as to avoid being chucked
out into the river by passing tow-lines.

But it does not give you style. It was not till I came to the Thames
that I got style. My style of rowing is very much admired now. People
say it is so quaint.

George never went near the water until he was sixteen. Then he and
eight other gentlemen of about the same age went down in a body to
Kew one Saturday, with the idea of hiring a boat there, and pulling
to Richmond and back; one of their number, a shock-headed youth, named
Joskins, who had once or twice taken out a boat on the Serpentine,
told them it was jolly fun, boating!

The tide was running out pretty rapidly when they reached the landing-stage,
and there was a stiff breeze blowing across the river, but this did
not trouble them at all, and they proceeded to select their boat.

There was an eight-oared racing outrigger drawn up on the stage; that
was the one that took their fancy. They said they'd have that one,
please. The boatman was away, and only his boy was in charge. The
boy tried to damp their ardour for the outrigger, and showed them
two or three very comfortable-looking boats of the family-party build,
but those would not do at all; the outrigger was the boat they thought
they would look best in.

So the boy launched it, and they took off their coats and prepared
to take their seats. The boy suggested that George, who, even in those
days, was always the heavy man of any party, should be number four.
George said he should be happy to be number four, and promptly stepped
into bow's place, and sat down with his back to the stern. They got
him into his proper position at last, and then the others followed.

A particularly nervous boy was appointed cox, and the steering principle
explained to him by Joskins. Joskins himself took stroke. He told
the others that it was simple enough; all they had to do was to follow
him.

They said they were ready, and the boy on the landing stage took a
boat-hook and shoved him off.

What then followed George is unable to describe in detail. He has
a confused recollection of having, immediately on starting, received
a violent blow in the small of the back from the butt-end of number
five's scull, at the same time that his own seat seemed to disappear
from under him by magic, and leave him sitting on the boards. He also
noticed, as a curious circumstance, that number two was at the same
instant lying on his back at the bottom of the boat, with his legs
in the air, apparently in a fit.

They passed under Kew Bridge, broadside, at the rate of eight miles
an hour. Joskins being the only one who was rowing. George, on recovering
his seat, tried to help him, but, on dipping his oar into the water,
it immediately, to his intense surprise, disappeared under the boat,
and nearly took him with it.

And then {}``cox'' threw both rudder lines over-board, and burst
into tears.

How they got back George never knew, but it took them just forty minutes.
A dense crowd watched the entertainment from Kew Bridge with much
interest, and everybody shouted out to them different directions.
Three times they managed to get the boat back through the arch, and
three times they were carried under it again, and every time {}``cox''
looked up and saw the bridge above him he broke out into renewed sobs.

George said he little thought that afternoon that he should ever come
to really like boating.

Harris is more accustomed to sea rowing than to river work, and says
that, as an exercise, he prefers it. I don't. I remember taking a
small boat out at Eastbourne last summer: I used to do a good deal
of sea rowing years ago, and I thought I should be all right; but
I found I had forgotten the art entirely. When one scull was deep
down underneath the water, the other would be flourishing wildly about
in the air. To get a grip of the water with both at the same time
I had to stand up. The parade was crowded with nobility and gentry,
and I had to pull past them in this ridiculous fashion. I landed half-way
down the beach, and secured the services of an old boatman to take
me back.

I like to watch an old boatman rowing, especially one who has been
hired by the hour. There is something so beautifully calm and restful
about his method. It is so free from that fretful haste, that vehement
striving, that is every day becoming more and more the bane of nineteenth-century
life. He is not for ever straining himself to pass all the other boats.
If another boat overtakes him and passes him it does not annoy him;
as a matter of fact, they all do overtake him and pass him\mdash{}all
those that are going his way. This would trouble and irritate some
people; the sublime equanimity of the hired boatman under the ordeal
affords us a beautiful lesson against ambition and uppishness.

Plain practical rowing of the get-the-boat-along order is not a very
difficult art to acquire, but it takes a good deal of practice before
a man feels comfortable, when rowing past girls. It is the {}``time''
that worries a youngster. {}``It's jolly funny,'' he says, as for
the twentieth time within five minutes he disentangles his sculls
from yours; {}``I can get on all right when I'm by myself!''

To see two novices try to keep time with one another is very amusing.
Bow finds it impossible to keep pace with stroke, because stroke rows
in such an extraordinary fashion. Stroke is intensely indignant at
this, and explains that what he has been endeavouring to do for the
last ten minutes is to adapt his method to bow's limited capacity.
Bow, in turn, then becomes insulted, and requests stroke not to trouble
his head about him (bow), but to devote his mind to setting a sensible
stroke.

{}``Or, shall I take stroke?'' he adds, with the evident idea that
that would at once put the whole matter right.

They splash along for another hundred yards with still moderate success,
and then the whole secret of their trouble bursts upon stroke like
a flash of inspiration.

{}``I tell you what it is: you've got my sculls,'' he cries, turning
to bow; {}``pass yours over.''

{}``Well, do you know, I've been wondering how it was I couldn't
get on with these,'' answers bow, quite brightening up, and most
willingly assisting in the exchange. {}``\textit{Now} we shall be
all right.''

But they are not\mdash{}not even then. Stroke has to stretch his
arms nearly out of their sockets to reach his sculls now; while bow's
pair, at each recovery, hit him a violent blow in the chest. So they
change back again, and come to the conclusion that the man has given
them the wrong set altogether; and over their mutual abuse of this
man they become quite friendly and sympathetic.

George said he had often longed to take to punting for a change. Punting
is not as easy as it looks. As in rowing, you soon learn how to get
along and handle the craft, but it takes long practice before you
can do this with dignity and without getting the water all up your
sleeve.

One young man I knew had a very sad accident happen to him the first
time he went punting. He had been getting on so well that he had grown
quite cheeky over the business, and was walking up and down the punt,
working his pole with a careless grace that was quite fascinating
to watch. Up he would march to the head of the punt, plant his pole,
and then run along right to the other end, just like an old punter.
Oh!\ it was grand.

And it would all have gone on being grand if he had not unfortunately,
while looking round to enjoy the scenery, taken just one step more
than there was any necessity for, and walked off the punt altogether.
The pole was firmly fixed in the mud, and he was left clinging to
it while the punt drifted away. It was an undignified position for
him. A rude boy on the bank immediately yelled out to a lagging chum
to {}``hurry up and see real monkey on a stick.''

I could not go to his assistance, because, as ill-luck would have
it, we had not taken the proper precaution to bring out a spare pole
with us. I could only sit and look at him. His expression as the pole
slowly sank with him I shall never forget; there was so much thought
in it.

I watched him gently let down into the water, and saw him scramble
out, sad and wet. I could not help laughing, he looked such a ridiculous
figure. I continued to chuckle to myself about it for some time, and
then it was suddenly forced in upon me that really I had got very
little to laugh at when I came to think of it. Here was I, alone in
a punt, without a pole, drifting helplessly down mid-stream\mdash{}possibly
towards a weir.

I began to feel very indignant with my friend for having stepped overboard
and gone off in that way. He might, at all events, have left me the
pole.

I drifted on for about a quarter of a mile, and then I came in sight
of a fishing-punt moored in mid-stream, in which sat two old fishermen.
They saw me bearing down upon them, and they called out to me to keep
out of their way.

{}``I can't,'' I shouted back.

{}``But you don't try,'' they answered.

I explained the matter to them when I got nearer, and they caught
me and lent me a pole. The weir was just fifty yards below. I am glad
they happened to be there.

The first time I went punting was in company with three other fellows;
they were going to show me how to do it. We could not all start together,
so I said I would go down first and get out the punt, and then I could
potter about and practice a bit until they came.

I could not get a punt out that afternoon, they were all engaged;
so I had nothing else to do but to sit down on the bank, watching
the river, and waiting for my friends.

I had not been sitting there long before my attention became attracted
to a man in a punt who, I noticed with some surprise, wore a jacket
and cap exactly like mine. He was evidently a novice at punting, and
his performance was most interesting. You never knew what was going
to happen when he put the pole in; he evidently did not know himself.
Sometimes he shot up stream and sometimes he shot down stream, and
at other times he simply spun round and came up the other side of
the pole. And with every result he seemed equally surprised and annoyed.

The people about the river began to get quite absorbed in him after
a while, and to make bets with one another as to what would be the
outcome of his next push.

In the course of time my friends arrived on the opposite bank, and
they stopped and watched him too. His back was towards them, and they
only saw his jacket and cap. From this they immediately jumped to
the conclusion that it was I, their beloved companion, who was making
an exhibition of himself, and their delight knew no bounds. They commenced
to chaff him unmercifully.

I did not grasp their mistake at first, and I thought, {}``How rude
of them to go on like that, with a perfect stranger, too!'' But before
I could call out and reprove them, the explanation of the matter occurred
to me, and I withdrew behind a tree.

Oh, how they enjoyed themselves, ridiculing that young man! For five
good minutes they stood there, shouting ribaldry at him, deriding
him, mocking him, jeering at him. They peppered him with stale jokes,
they even made a few new ones and threw at him. They hurled at him
all the private family jokes belonging to our set, and which must
have been perfectly unintelligible to him. And then, unable to stand
their brutal jibes any longer, he turned round on them, and they saw
his face!

I was glad to notice that they had sufficient decency left in them
to look very foolish. They explained to him that they had thought
he was some one they knew. They said they hoped he would not deem
them capable of so insulting any one except a personal friend of their
own.

Of course their having mistaken him for a friend excused it. I remember
Harris telling me once of a bathing experience he had at Boulogne.
He was swimming about there near the beach, when he felt himself suddenly
seized by the neck from behind, and forcibly plunged under water.
He struggled violently, but whoever had got hold of him seemed to
be a perfect Hercules in strength, and all his efforts to escape were
unavailing. He had given up kicking, and was trying to turn his thoughts
upon solemn things, when his captor released him.

He regained his feet, and looked round for his would-be murderer.
The assassin was standing close by him, laughing heartily, but the
moment he caught sight of Harris's face, as it emerged from the water,
he started back and seemed quite concerned.

{}``I really beg your pardon,'' he stammered confusedly, {}``but
I took you for a friend of mine!''

Harris thought it was lucky for him the man had not mistaken him for
a relation, or he would probably have been drowned outright.

Sailing is a thing that wants knowledge and practice too\mdash{}though,
as a boy, I did not think so. I had an idea it came natural to a body,
like rounders and touch. I knew another boy who held this view likewise,
and so, one windy day, we thought we would try the sport. We were
stopping down at Yarmouth, and we decided we would go for a trip up
the Yare. We hired a sailing boat at the yard by the bridge, and started
off. {}``It's rather a rough day,'' said the man to us, as we put
off: {}``better take in a reef and luff sharp when you get round
the bend.''

We said we would make a point of it, and left him with a cheery {}``Good-morning,''
wondering to ourselves how you {}``luffed,'' and where we were to
get a {}``reef'' from, and what we were to do with it when we had
got it.

We rowed until we were out of sight of the town, and then, with a
wide stretch of water in front of us, and the wind blowing a perfect
hurricane across it, we felt that the time had come to commence operations.

Hector\mdash{}I think that was his name\mdash{}went on pulling while
I unrolled the sail. It seemed a complicated job, but I accomplished
it at length, and then came the question, which was the top end?

By a sort of natural instinct, we, of course, eventually decided that
the bottom was the top, and set to work to fix it upside-down. But
it was a long time before we could get it up, either that way or any
other way. The impression on the mind of the sail seemed to be that
we were playing at funerals, and that I was the corpse and itself
was the winding-sheet.

When it found that this was not the idea, it hit me over the head
with the boom, and refused to do anything.

{}``Wet it,'' said Hector; {}``drop it over and get it wet.''

He said people in ships always wetted the sails before they put them
up. So I wetted it; but that only made matters worse than they were
before. A dry sail clinging to your legs and wrapping itself round
your head is not pleasant, but, when the sail is sopping wet, it becomes
quite vexing.

We did get the thing up at last, the two of us together. We fixed
it, not exactly upside down\mdash{}more sideways like\mdash{}and
we tied it up to the mast with the painter, which we cut off for the
purpose.

That the boat did not upset I simply state as a fact. Why it did not
upset I am unable to offer any reason. I have often thought about
the matter since, but I have never succeeded in arriving at any satisfactory
explanation of the phenomenon.

Possibly the result may have been brought about by the natural obstinacy
of all things in this world. The boat may possibly have come to the
conclusion, judging from a cursory view of our behaviour, that we
had come out for a morning's suicide, and had thereupon determined
to disappoint us. That is the only suggestion I can offer.

By clinging like grim death to the gunwale, we just managed to keep
inside the boat, but it was exhausting work. Hector said that pirates
and other seafaring people generally lashed the rudder to something
or other, and hauled in the main top-jib, during severe squalls, and
thought we ought to try to do something of the kind; but I was for
letting her have her head to the wind.

As my advice was by far the easiest to follow, we ended by adopting
it, and contrived to embrace the gunwale and give her her head.

The boat travelled up stream for about a mile at a pace I have never
sailed at since, and don't want to again. Then, at a bend, she heeled
over till half her sail was under water. Then she righted herself
by a miracle and flew for a long low bank of soft mud.

That mud-bank saved us. The boat ploughed its way into the middle
of it and then stuck. Finding that we were once more able to move
according to our ideas, instead of being pitched and thrown about
like peas in a bladder, we crept forward, and cut down the sail.

We had had enough sailing. We did not want to overdo the thing and
get a surfeit of it. We had had a sail\mdash{}a good all-round exciting,
interesting sail\mdash{}and now we thought we would have a row, just
for a change like.

We took the sculls and tried to push the boat off the mud, and, in
doing so, we broke one of the sculls. After that we proceeded with
great caution, but they were a wretched old pair, and the second one
cracked almost easier than the first, and left us helpless.

The mud stretched out for about a hundred yards in front of us, and
behind us was the water. The only thing to be done was to sit and
wait until someone came by.

It was not the sort of day to attract people out on the river, and
it was three hours before a soul came in sight. It was an old fisherman
who, with immense difficulty, at last rescued us, and we were towed
back in an ignominious fashion to the boat-yard.

What between tipping the man who had brought us home, and paying for
the broken sculls, and for having been out four hours and a half,
it cost us a pretty considerable number of weeks' pocket-money, that
sail. But we learned experience, and they say that is always cheap
at any price.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER XVI.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER XVI}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER XVI}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Reading.\mdash{} We are towed by steam
launch.\mdash{} Irritating behaviour of small}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{boats}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{How}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{they}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{get}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{in}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{way}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{steam}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{launches}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{George}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Harris again}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Shirk}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{their}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{work}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Rather}}} \textmd{\noun{A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{hackneyed}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{story}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Streatley}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and
Goring}}}\textmd{\noun{.}}}

\textit{\emph{We}} came in sight of Reading about eleven. The river
is dirty and dismal here. One does not linger in the neighbourhood
of Reading. The town itself is a famous old place, dating from the
dim days of King Ethelred, when the Danes anchored their warships
in the Kennet, and started from Reading to ravage all the land of
Wessex; and here Ethelred and his brother Alfred fought and defeated
them, Ethelred doing the praying and Alfred the fighting.

In later years, Reading seems to have been regarded as a handy place
to run down to, when matters were becoming unpleasant in London. Parliament
generally rushed off to Reading whenever there was a plague on at
Westminster; and, in 1625, the Law followed suit, and all the courts
were held at Reading. It must have been worth while having a mere
ordinary plague now and then in London to get rid of both the lawyers
and the Parliament.

During the Parliamentary struggle, Reading was besieged by the Earl
of Essex, and, a quarter of a century later, the Prince of Orange
routed King James's troops there.

Henry I.\ lies buried at Reading, in the Benedictine abbey founded
by him there, the ruins of which may still be seen; and, in this same
abbey, great John of Gaunt was married to the Lady Blanche.

At Reading lock we came up with a steam launch, belonging to some
friends of mine, and they towed us up to within about a mile of Streatley.
It is very delightful being towed up by a launch. I prefer it myself
to rowing. The run would have been more delightful still, if it had
not been for a lot of wretched small boats that were continually getting
in the way of our launch, and, to avoid running down which, we had
to be continually easing and stopping. It is really most annoying,
the manner in which these rowing boats get in the way of one's launch
up the river; something ought to done to stop it.

And they are so confoundedly impertinent, too, over it. You can whistle
till you nearly burst your boiler before they will trouble themselves
to hurry. I would have one or two of them run down now and then, if
I had my way, just to teach them all a lesson.

The river becomes very lovely from a little above Reading. The railway
rather spoils it near Tilehurst, but from Mapledurham up to Streatley
it is glorious. A little above Mapledurham lock you pass Hardwick
House, where Charles I.\ played bowls. The neighbourhood of Pangbourne,
where the quaint little Swan Inn stands, must be as familiar to the
\emph{habitues} of the Art Exhibitions as it is to its own inhabitants.

My friends' launch cast us loose just below the grotto, and then Harris
wanted to make out that it was my turn to pull. This seemed to me
most unreasonable. It had been arranged in the morning that I should
bring the boat up to three miles above Reading. Well, here we were,
ten miles above Reading! Surely it was now their turn again.

I could not get either George or Harris to see the matter in its proper
light, however; so, to save argument, I took the sculls. I had not
been pulling for more than a minute or so, when George noticed something
black floating on the water, and we drew up to it. George leant over,
as we neared it, and laid hold of it. And then he drew back with a
cry, and a blanched face.

It was the dead body of a woman. It lay very lightly on the water,
and the face was sweet and calm. It was not a beautiful face; it was
too prematurely aged-looking, too thin and drawn, to be that; but
it was a gentle, lovable face, in spite of its stamp of pinch and
poverty, and upon it was that look of restful peace that comes to
the faces of the sick sometimes when at last the pain has left them.

Fortunately for us\mdash{}we having no desire to be kept hanging
about coroners' courts\mdash{}some men on the bank had seen the body
too, and now took charge of it from us.

We found out the woman's story afterwards. Of course it was the old,
old vulgar tragedy. She had loved and been deceived\mdash{}or had
deceived herself. Anyhow, she had sinned\mdash{}some of us do now
and then\mdash{}and her family and friends, naturally shocked and
indignant, had closed their doors against her.

Left to fight the world alone, with the millstone of her shame around
her neck, she had sunk ever lower and lower. For a while she had kept
both herself and the child on the twelve shillings a week that twelve
hours' drudgery a day procured her, paying six shillings out of it
for the child, and keeping her own body and soul together on the remainder.

Six shillings a week does not keep body and soul together very unitedly.
They want to get away from each other when there is only such a very
slight bond as that between them; and one day, I suppose, the pain
and the dull monotony of it all had stood before her eyes plainer
than usual, and the mocking spectre had frightened her. She had made
one last appeal to friends, but, against the chill wall of their respectability,
the voice of the erring outcast fell unheeded; and then she had gone
to see her child\mdash{}had held it in her arms and kissed it, in
a weary, dull sort of way, and without betraying any particular emotion
of any kind, and had left it, after putting into its hand a penny
box of chocolate she had bought it, and afterwards, with her last
few shillings, had taken a ticket and come down to Goring.

It seemed that the bitterest thoughts of her life must have centred
about the wooded reaches and the bright green meadows around Goring;
but women strangely hug the knife that stabs them, and, perhaps, amidst
the gall, there may have mingled also sunny memories of sweetest hours,
spent upon those shadowed deeps over which the great trees bend their
branches down so low.

She had wandered about the woods by the river's brink all day, and
then, when evening fell and the grey twilight spread its dusky robe
upon the waters, she stretched her arms out to the silent river that
had known her sorrow and her joy. And the old river had taken her
into its gentle arms, and had laid her weary head upon its bosom,
and had hushed away the pain.

Thus had she sinned in all things\mdash{}sinned in living and in
dying. God help her!\ and all other sinners, if any more there be.

Goring on the left bank and Streatley on the right are both or either
charming places to stay at for a few days. The reaches down to Pangbourne
woo one for a sunny sail or for a moonlight row, and the country round
about is full of beauty. We had intended to push on to Wallingford
that day, but the sweet smiling face of the river here lured us to
linger for a while; and so we left our boat at the bridge, and went
up into Streatley, and lunched at the {}``Bull,'' much to Montmorency's
satisfaction.

They say that the hills on each ride of the stream here once joined
and formed a barrier across what is now the Thames, and that then
the river ended there above Goring in one vast lake. I am not in a
position either to contradict or affirm this statement. I simply offer
it.

It is an ancient place, Streatley, dating back, like most river-side
towns and villages, to British and Saxon times. Goring is not nearly
so pretty a little spot to stop at as Streatley, if you have your
choice; but it is passing fair enough in its way, and is nearer the
railway in case you want to slip off without paying your hotel bill.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER XVII.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER XVII}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER XVII}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Washing day.\mdash{} Fish and fishers.\mdash{}
On the art of angling.\mdash{} A conscientious fly-fisher.\mdash{}
A fishy story.}}}

\textit{\emph{We}} stayed two days at Streatley, and got our clothes
washed. We had tried washing them ourselves, in the river, under George's
superintendence, and it had been a failure. Indeed, it had been more
than a failure, because we were worse off after we had washed our
clothes than we were before. Before we had washed them, they had been
very, very dirty, it is true; but they were just wearable. \textit{After}
we had washed them\mdash{}well, the river between Reading and Henley
was much cleaner, after we had washed our clothes in it, than it was
before. All the dirt contained in the river between Reading and Henley,
we collected, during that wash, and worked it into our clothes.

The washerwoman at Streatley said she felt she owed it to herself
to charge us just three times the usual prices for that wash. She
said it had not been like washing, it had been more in the nature
of excavating.

We paid the bill without a murmur.

The neighbourhood of Streatley and Goring is a great fishing centre.
There is some excellent fishing to be had here. The river abounds
in pike, roach, dace, gudgeon, and eels, just here; and you can sit
and fish for them all day.

Some people do. They never catch them. I never knew anybody catch
anything, up the Thames, except minnows and dead cats, but that has
nothing to do, of course, with fishing! The local fisherman's guide
doesn't say a word about catching anything. All it says is the place
is {}``a good station for fishing;'' and, from what I have seen
of the district, I am quite prepared to bear out this statement.

There is no spot in the world where you can get more fishing, or where
you can fish for a longer period. Some fishermen come here and fish
for a day, and others stop and fish for a month. You can hang on and
fish for a year, if you want to: it will be all the same.

The \textit{Angler's} \textit{Guide} \textit{to} \textit{the} \textit{Thames}
says that {}``jack and perch are also to be had about here,'' but
there the \textit{Angler's} \textit{Guide} is wrong. Jack and perch
may \textit{be} about there. Indeed, I know for a fact that they are.
You can \textit{see} them there in shoals, when you are out for a
walk along the banks: they come and stand half out of the water with
their mouths open for biscuits. And, if you go for a bathe, they crowd
round, and get in your way, and irritate you. But they are not to
be {}``had'' by a bit of worm on the end of a hook, nor anything
like it\mdash{}not they!

I am not a good fisherman myself. I devoted a considerable amount
of attention to the subject at one time, and was getting on, as I
thought, fairly well; but the old hands told me that I should never
be any real good at it, and advised me to give it up. They said that
I was an extremely neat thrower, and that I seemed to have plenty
of gumption for the thing, and quite enough constitutional laziness.
But they were sure I should never make anything of a fisherman. I
had not got sufficient imagination.

They said that as a poet, or a shilling shocker, or a reporter, or
anything of that kind, I might be satisfactory, but that, to gain
any position as a Thames angler, would require more play of fancy,
more power of invention than I appeared to possess.

Some people are under the impression that all that is required to
make a good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without
blushing; but this is a mistake. Mere bald fabrication is useless;
the veriest tyro can manage that. It is in the circumstantial detail,
the embellishing touches of probability, the general air of scrupulous\mdash{}almost
of pedantic\mdash{}veracity, that the experienced angler is seen.

Anybody can come in and say, {}``Oh, I caught fifteen dozen perch
yesterday evening;'' or {}``Last Monday I landed a gudgeon, weighing
eighteen pounds, and measuring three feet from the tip to the tail.''

There is no art, no skill, required for that sort of thing. It shows
pluck, but that is all.

No; your accomplished angler would scorn to tell a lie, that way.
His method is a study in itself.

He comes in quietly with his hat on, appropriates the most comfortable
chair, lights his pipe, and commences to puff in silence. He lets
the youngsters brag away for a while, and then, during a momentary
lull, he removes the pipe from his mouth, and remarks, as he knocks
the ashes out against the bars:

{}``Well, I had a haul on Tuesday evening that it's not much good
my telling anybody about.''

{}``Oh!\ why's that?'' they ask.

{}``Because I don't expect anybody would believe me if I did,''
replies the old fellow calmly, and without even a tinge of bitterness
in his tone, as he refills his pipe, and requests the landlord to
bring him three of Scotch, cold.

There is a pause after this, nobody feeling sufficiently sure of himself
to contradict the old gentleman. So he has to go on by himself without
any encouragement.

{}``No,'' he continues thoughtfully; {}``I shouldn't believe it
myself if anybody told it to me, but it's a fact, for all that. I
had been sitting there all the afternoon and had caught literally
nothing\mdash{}except a few dozen dace and a score of jack; and I
was just about giving it up as a bad job when I suddenly felt a rather
smart pull at the line. I thought it was another little one, and I
went to jerk it up. Hang me, if I could move the rod! It took me half-an-hour\mdash{}half-an-hour,
sir!\mdash{}to land that fish; and every moment I thought the line
was going to snap! I reached him at last, and what do you think it
was? A sturgeon!\ a forty pound sturgeon!\ taken on a line, sir!
Yes, you may well look surprised\mdash{}I'll have another three of
Scotch, landlord, please.''

And then he goes on to tell of the astonishment of everybody who saw
it; and what his wife said, when he got home, and of what Joe Buggles
thought about it.

I asked the landlord of an inn up the river once, if it did not injure
him, sometimes, listening to the tales that the fishermen about there
told him; and he said:

{}``Oh, no; not now, sir. It did used to knock me over a bit at first,
but, lor' love you!\ me and the missus we listens to 'em all day
now. It's what you're used to, you know. It's what you're used to.''

I knew a young man once, he was a most conscientious fellow, and,
when he took to fly-fishing, he determined never to exaggerate his
hauls by more than twenty-five per cent.

{}``When I have caught forty fish,'' said he, {}``then I will tell
people that I have caught fifty, and so on. But I will not lie any
more than that, because it is sinful to lie.''

But the twenty-five per cent.\ plan did not work well at all. He
never was able to use it. The greatest number of fish he ever caught
in one day was three, and you can't add twenty-five per cent.\ to
three\mdash{}at least, not in fish.

So he increased his percentage to thirty-three-and-a-third; but that,
again, was awkward, when he had only caught one or two; so, to simplify
matters, he made up his mind to just double the quantity.

He stuck to this arrangement for a couple of months, and then he grew
dissatisfied with it. Nobody believed him when he told them that he
only doubled, and he, therefore, gained no credit that way whatever,
while his moderation put him at a disadvantage among the other anglers.
When he had really caught three small fish, and said he had caught
six, it used to make him quite jealous to hear a man, whom he knew
for a fact had only caught one, going about telling people he had
landed two dozen.

So, eventually, he made one final arrangement with himself, which
he has religiously held to ever since, and that was to count each
fish that he caught as ten, and to assume ten to begin with. For example,
if he did not catch any fish at all, then he said he had caught ten
fish\mdash{}you could never catch less than ten fish by his system;
that was the foundation of it. Then, if by any chance he really did
catch one fish, he called it twenty, while two fish would count thirty,
three forty, and so on.

It is a simple and easily worked plan, and there has been some talk
lately of its being made use of by the angling fraternity in general.
Indeed, the Committee of the Thames Angler's Association did recommend
its adoption about two years ago, but some of the older members opposed
it. They said they would consider the idea if the number were doubled,
and each fish counted as twenty.

If ever you have an evening to spare, up the river, I should advise
you to drop into one of the little village inns, and take a seat in
the tap-room. You will be nearly sure to meet one or two old rod-men,
sipping their toddy there, and they will tell you enough fishy stories,
in half an hour, to give you indigestion for a month.

George and I\mdash{}I don't know what had become of Harris; he had
gone out and had a shave, early in the afternoon, and had then come
back and spent full forty minutes in pipeclaying his shoes, we had
not seen him since\mdash{}George and I, therefore, and the dog, left
to ourselves, went for a walk to Wallingford on the second evening,
and, coming home, we called in at a little river-side inn, for a rest,
and other things.

We went into the parlour and sat down. There was an old fellow there,
smoking a long clay pipe, and we naturally began chatting.

He told us that it had been a fine day to-day, and we told him that
it had been a fine day yesterday, and then we all told each other
that we thought it would be a fine day to-morrow; and George said
the crops seemed to be coming up nicely.

After that it came out, somehow or other, that we were strangers in
the neighbourhood, and that we were going away the next morning.

Then a pause ensued in the conversation, during which our eyes wandered
round the room. They finally rested upon a dusty old glass-case, fixed
very high up above the chimney-piece, and containing a trout. It rather
fascinated me, that trout; it was such a monstrous fish. In fact,
at first glance, I thought it was a cod.

{}``Ah!'' said the old gentleman, following the direction of my
gaze, {}``fine fellow that, ain't he?''

{}``Quite uncommon,'' I murmured; and George asked the old man how
much he thought it weighed.

{}``Eighteen pounds six ounces,'' said our friend, rising and taking
down his coat. {}``Yes,'' he continued, {}``it wur sixteen year
ago, come the third o' next month, that I landed him. I caught him
just below the bridge with a minnow. They told me he wur in the river,
and I said I'd have him, and so I did. You don't see many fish that
size about here now, I'm thinking. Good-night, gentlemen, good-night.''

And out he went, and left us alone.

We could not take our eyes off the fish after that. It really was
a remarkably fine fish. We were still looking at it, when the local
carrier, who had just stopped at the inn, came to the door of the
room with a pot of beer in his hand, and he also looked at the fish.

{}``Good-sized trout, that,'' said George, turning round to him.

{}``Ah!\ you may well say that, sir,'' replied the man; and then,
after a pull at his beer, he added, {}``Maybe you wasn't here, sir,
when that fish was caught?''

{}``No,'' we told him. We were strangers in the neighbourhood.

{}``Ah!''\ said the carrier, {}``then, of course, how should you?
It was nearly five years ago that I caught that trout.''

{}``Oh!\ was it you who caught it, then?'' said I.

{}``Yes, sir,'' replied the genial old fellow. {}``I caught him
just below the lock\mdash{}leastways, what was the lock then\mdash{}one
Friday afternoon; and the remarkable thing about it is that I caught
him with a fly. I'd gone out pike fishing, bless you, never thinking
of a trout, and when I saw that whopper on the end of my line, blest
if it didn't quite take me aback. Well, you see, he weighed twenty-six
pound. Good-night, gentlemen, good-night.''

Five minutes afterwards, a third man came in, and described how he
had caught it early one morning, with bleak; and then he left, and
a stolid, solemn-looking, middle-aged individual came in, and sat
down over by the window.

None of us spoke for a while; but, at length, George turned to the
new comer, and said:

{}``I beg your pardon, I hope you will forgive the liberty that we\mdash{}perfect
strangers in the neighbourhood\mdash{}are taking, but my friend here
and myself would be so much obliged if you would tell us how you caught
that trout up there.''

{}``Why, who told you I caught that trout!'' was the surprised query.

We said that nobody had told us so, but somehow or other we felt instinctively
that it was he who had done it.

{}``Well, it's a most remarkable thing\mdash{}most remarkable,''
answered the stolid stranger, laughing; {}``because, as a matter
of fact, you are quite right. I did catch it. But fancy your guessing
it like that. Dear me, it's really a most remarkable thing.''

And then he went on, and told us how it had taken him half an hour
to land it, and how it had broken his rod. He said he had weighed
it carefully when he reached home, and it had turned the scale at
thirty-four pounds.

He went in his turn, and when he was gone, the landlord came in to
us. We told him the various histories we had heard about his trout,
and he was immensely amused, and we all laughed very heartily.

{}``Fancy Jim Bates and Joe Muggles and Mr.\ Jones and old Billy
Maunders all telling you that they had caught it. Ha!\ ha!\ ha!
Well, that is good,'' said the honest old fellow, laughing heartily.
{}``Yes, they are the sort to give it \textit{me}, to put up in \textit{my}
parlour, if \textit{they} had caught it, they are! Ha!\ ha!\ ha!''

And then he told us the real history of the fish. It seemed that he
had caught it himself, years ago, when he was quite a lad; not by
any art or skill, but by that unaccountable luck that appears to always
wait upon a boy when he plays the wag from school, and goes out fishing
on a sunny afternoon, with a bit of string tied on to the end of a
tree.

He said that bringing home that trout had saved him from a whacking,
and that even his school-master had said it was worth the rule-of-three
and practice put together.

He was called out of the room at this point, and George and I again
turned our gaze upon the fish.

It really was a most astonishing trout. The more we looked at it,
the more we marvelled at it.

It excited George so much that he climbed up on the back of a chair
to get a better view of it.

And then the chair slipped, and George clutched wildly at the trout-case
to save himself, and down it came with a crash, George and the chair
on top of it.

{}``You haven't injured the fish, have you?'' I cried in alarm,
rushing up.

{}``I hope not,'' said George, rising cautiously and looking about.

But he had. That trout lay shattered into a thousand fragments\mdash{}I
say a thousand, but they may have only been nine hundred. I did not
count them.

We thought it strange and unaccountable that a stuffed trout should
break up into little pieces like that.

And so it would have been strange and unaccountable, if it had been
a stuffed trout, but it was not.

That trout was plaster-of-Paris.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER XVIII.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER XVIII}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER XVIII}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Locks.\mdash{} George and I are photo\-graphed.\mdash{}
Wal\-ling\-ford.\mdash{} Dor\-ch\-e\-s\-ter.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{Abingdon}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{family}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{man}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{good}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{spot}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{for}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{drowning}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{difficult}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{bit}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{water}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Demoralizing}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{effect}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{river}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{air}}}\textmd{\noun{.}}}

\textit{\emph{We}} left Streatley early the next morning, and pulled
up to Culham, and slept under the canvas, in the backwater there.

The river is not extraordinarily interesting between Streatley and
Wallingford. From Cleve you get a stretch of six and a half miles
without a lock. I believe this is the longest uninterrupted stretch
anywhere above Teddington, and the Oxford Club make use of it for
their trial eights.

But however satisfactory this absence of locks may be to rowing-men,
it is to be regretted by the mere pleasure-seeker.

For myself, I am fond of locks. They pleasantly break the monotony
of the pull. I like sitting in the boat and slowly rising out of the
cool depths up into new reaches and fresh views; or sinking down,
as it were, out of the world, and then waiting, while the gloomy gates
creak, and the narrow strip of day-light between them widens till
the fair smiling river lies full before you, and you push your little
boat out from its brief prison on to the welcoming waters once again.

They are picturesque little spots, these locks. The stout old lock-keeper,
or his cheerful-looking wife, or bright-eyed daughter, are pleasant
folk to have a passing chat with.%
\footnote{Or rather \textit{were}. The Conservancy of late seems to have constituted
itself into a society for the employment of idiots. A good many of
the new lock-keepers, especially in the more crowded portions of the
river, are excitable, nervous old men, quite unfitted for their post.%
} You meet other boats there, and river gossip is exchanged. The Thames
would not be the fairyland it is without its flower-decked locks.

Talking of locks reminds me of an accident George and I very nearly
had one summer's morning at Hampton Court.

It was a glorious day, and the lock was crowded; and, as is a common
practice up the river, a speculative photographer was taking a picture
of us all as we lay upon the rising waters.

I did not catch what was going on at first, and was, therefore, extremely
surprised at noticing George hurriedly smooth out his trousers, ruffle
up his hair, and stick his cap on in a rakish manner at the back of
his head, and then, assuming an expression of mingled affability and
sadness, sit down in a graceful attitude, and try to hide his feet.

My first idea was that he had suddenly caught sight of some girl he
knew, and I looked about to see who it was. Everybody in the lock
seemed to have been suddenly struck wooden. They were all standing
or sitting about in the most quaint and curious attitudes I have ever
seen off a Japanese fan. All the girls were smiling. Oh, they did
look so sweet! And all the fellows were frowning, and looking stern
and noble.

And then, at last, the truth flashed across me, and I wondered if
I should be in time. Ours was the first boat, and it would be unkind
of me to spoil the man's picture, I thought.

So I faced round quickly, and took up a position in the prow, where
I leant with careless grace upon the hitcher, in an attitude suggestive
of agility and strength. I arranged my hair with a curl over the forehead,
and threw an air of tender wistfulness into my expression, mingled
with a touch of cynicism, which I am told suits me.

As we stood, waiting for the eventful moment, I heard someone behind
call out:

{}``Hi! look at your nose.''

I could not turn round to see what was the matter, and whose nose
it was that was to be looked at. I stole a side-glance at George's
nose! It was all right\mdash{}at all events, there was nothing wrong
with it that could be altered. I squinted down at my own, and that
seemed all that could be expected also.

{}``Look at your nose, you stupid ass!'' came the same voice again,
louder.

And then another voice cried:

{}``Push your nose out, can't you, you\mdash{}you two with the dog!''

Neither George nor I dared to turn round. The man's hand was on the
cap, and the picture might be taken any moment. Was it us they were
calling to? What was the matter with our noses? Why were they to be
pushed out!

But now the whole lock started yelling, and a stentorian voice from
the back shouted:

{}``Look at your boat, sir; you in the red and black caps. It's your
two corpses that will get taken in that photo, if you ain't quick.''

We looked then, and saw that the nose of our boat had got fixed under
the woodwork of the lock, while the in-coming water was rising all
around it, and tilting it up. In another moment we should be over.
Quick as thought, we each seized an oar, and a vigorous blow against
the side of the lock with the butt-ends released the boat, and sent
us sprawling on our backs.

We did not come out well in that photograph, George and I.\  Of course,
as was to be expected, our luck ordained it, that the man should set
his wretched machine in motion at the precise moment that we were
both lying on our backs with a wild expression of {}``Where am I?
and what is it?'' on our faces, and our four feet waving madly in
the air.

Our feet were undoubtedly the leading article in that photograph.
Indeed, very little else was to be seen. They filled up the foreground
entirely. Behind them, you caught glimpses of the other boats, and
bits of the surrounding scenery; but everything and everybody else
in the lock looked so utterly insignificant and paltry compared with
our feet, that all the other people felt quite ashamed of themselves,
and refused to subscribe to the picture.

The owner of one steam launch, who had bespoke six copies, rescinded
the order on seeing the negative. He said he would take them if anybody
could show him his launch, but nobody could. It was somewhere behind
George's right foot.

There was a good deal of unpleasantness over the business. The photographer
thought we ought to take a dozen copies each, seeing that the photo
was about nine-tenths us, but we declined. We said we had no objection
to being photo'd full-length, but we preferred being taken the right
way up.

\bigskip{}
Wallingford, six miles above Streatley, is a very ancient town, and
has been an active centre for the making of English history. It was
a rude, mud-built town in the time of the Britons, who squatted there,
until the Roman legions evicted them; and replaced their clay-baked
walls by mighty fortifications, the trace of which Time has not yet
succeeded in sweeping away, so well those old-world masons knew how
to build.

But Time, though he halted at Roman walls, soon crumbled Romans to
dust; and on the ground, in later years, fought savage Saxons and
huge Danes, until the Normans came.

It was a walled and fortified town up to the time of the Parliamentary
War, when it suffered a long and bitter siege from Fairfax. It fell
at last, and then the walls were razed.

From Wallingford up to Dorchester the neighbourhood of the river grows
more hilly, varied, and picturesque. Dorchester stands half a mile
from the river. It can be reached by paddling up the Thame, if you
have a small boat; but the best way is to leave the river at Day's
Lock, and take a walk across the fields. Dorchester is a delightfully
peaceful old place, nestling in stillness and silence and drowsiness.

Dorchester, like Wallingford, was a city in ancient British times;
it was then called \textit{Caer} \emph{Doren}, {}``the city on the
water.'' In more recent times the Romans formed a great camp here,
the fortifications surrounding which now seem like low, even hills.
In Saxon days it was the capital of Wessex. It is very old, and it
was very strong and great once. Now it sits aside from the stirring
world, and nods and dreams.

Round Clifton Hampden, itself a wonderfully pretty village, old-fashioned,
peaceful, and dainty with flowers, the river scenery is rich and beautiful.
If you stay the night on land at Clifton, you cannot do better than
put up at the {}``Barley Mow.'' It is, without exception, I should
say, the quaintest, most old-world inn up the river. It stands on
the right of the bridge, quite away from the village. Its low-pitched
gables and thatched roof and latticed windows give it quite a story-book
appearance, while inside it is even still more once-upon-a-timeyfied.

It would not be a good place for the heroine of a modern novel to
stay at. The heroine of a modern novel is always {}``divinely tall,''
and she is ever {}``drawing herself up to her full height.'' At
the {}``Barley Mow'' she would bump her head against the ceiling
each time she did this.

It would also be a bad house for a drunken man to put up at. There
are too many surprises in the way of unexpected steps down into this
room and up into that; and as for getting upstairs to his bedroom,
or ever finding his bed when he got up, either operation would be
an utter impossibility to him.

We were up early the next morning, as we wanted to be in Oxford by
the afternoon. It is surprising how early one can get up, when camping
out. One does not yearn for {}``just another five minutes'' nearly
so much, lying wrapped up in a rug on the boards of a boat, with a
Gladstone bag for a pillow, as one does in a featherbed. We had finished
breakfast, and were through Clifton Lock by half-past eight.

From Clifton to Culham the river banks are flat, monotonous, and uninteresting,
but, after you get through Culhalm Lock\mdash{}the coldest and deepest
lock on the river\mdash{}the landscape improves.

At Abingdon, the river passes by the streets. Abingdon is a typical
country town of the smaller order\mdash{}quiet, eminently respectable,
clean, and desperately dull. It prides itself on being old, but whether
it can compare in this respect with Wallingford and Dorchester seems
doubtful. A famous abbey stood here once, and within what is left
of its sanctified walls they brew bitter ale nowadays.

In St.\ Nicholas Church, at Abingdon, there is a monument to John
Blackwall and his wife Jane, who both, after leading a happy married
life, died on the very same day, August 21, 1625; and in St.\ Helen's
Church, it is recorded that W.\ Lee, who died in 1637, {}``had in
his lifetime issue from his loins two hundred lacking but three.''
If you work this out you will find that Mr.\ W.\ Lee's family numbered
one hundred and ninety-seven. Mr.\ W.\ Lee\mdash{}five times Mayor
of Abingdon\mdash{}was, no doubt, a benefactor to his generation,
but I hope there are not many of his kind about in this overcrowded
nineteenth century.

From Abingdon to Nuneham Courteney is a lovely stretch. Nuneham Park
is well worth a visit. It can be viewed on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The house contains a fine collection of pictures and curiosities,
and the grounds are very beautiful.

The pool under Sandford lasher, just behind the lock, is a very good
place to drown yourself in. The undercurrent is terribly strong, and
if you once get down into it you are all right. An obelisk marks the
spot where two men have already been drowned, while bathing there;
and the steps of the obelisk are generally used as a diving-board
by young men now who wish to see if the place really \textit{is} dangerous.

Iffley Lock and Mill, a mile before you reach Oxford, is a favourite
subject with the river-loving brethren of the brush. The real article,
however, is rather disappointing, after the pictures. Few things,
I have noticed, come quite up to the pictures of them, in this world.

We passed through Iffley Lock at about half-past twelve, and then,
having tidied up the boat and made all ready for landing, we set to
work on our last mile.

Between Iffley and Oxford is the most difficult bit of the river I
know. You want to be born on that bit of water, to understand it.
I have been over it a fairish number of times, but I have never been
able to get the hang of it. The man who could row a straight course
from Oxford to Iffley ought to be able to live comfortably, under
one roof, with his wife, his mother-in-law, his elder sister, and
the old servant who was in the family when he was a baby.

First the current drives you on to the right bank, and then on to
the left, then it takes you out into the middle, turns you round three
times, and carries you up stream again, and always ends by trying
to smash you up against a college barge.

Of course, as a consequence of this, we got in the way of a good many
other boats, during the mile, and they in ours, and, of course, as
a consequence of that, a good deal of bad language occurred.

I don't know why it should be, but everybody is always so exceptionally
irritable on the river. Little mishaps, that you would hardly notice
on dry land, drive you nearly frantic with rage, when they occur on
the water. When Harris or George makes an ass of himself on dry land,
I smile indulgently; when they behave in a chuckle-head way on the
river, I use the most blood-curdling language to them. When another
boat gets in my way, I feel I want to take an oar and kill all the
people in it.

The mildest tempered people, when on land, become violent and blood-thirsty
when in a boat. I did a little boating once with a young lady. She
was naturally of the sweetest and gentlest disposition imaginable,
but on the river it was quite awful to hear her.

{}``Oh, drat the man!''\ she would exclaim, when some unfortunate
sculler would get in her way; {}``why don't he look where he's going?''

And, {}``Oh, bother the silly old thing!''\ she would say indignantly,
when the sail would not go up properly. And she would catch hold of
it, and shake it quite brutally.

Yet, as I have said, when on shore she was kind-hearted and amiable
enough.

The air of the river has a demoralising effect upon one's temper,
and this it is, I suppose, which causes even barge men to be sometimes
rude to one another, and to use language which, no doubt, in their
calmer moments they regret.


\chapter*{\raggedright CHAPTER XIX.}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{CHAPTER XIX}

\markboth{THREE MEN IN A BOAT}{CHAPTER XIX}


\subsubsection*{\noindent \textmd{\noun{Oxford.\mdash{} Montmorency's idea of
heaven.\mdash{} The hired up-river boat, its}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{beauties}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{advantages}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{The}}} \textmd{\noun{{}``}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Pride}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{of}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{Thames}}}\textmd{\noun{.''
\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{The}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{weather
changes}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{The}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{river}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{under}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{different}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{aspects}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Not}}} \textmd{\noun{a}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{cheerful}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{evening}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Yearnings}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{for}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{unattainable}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{The}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{cheery}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{chat}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{goes}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{round}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{George performs}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{upon}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{the}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{banjo}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}
A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{mournful}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{melody}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Another}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{wet}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{day}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{}}}
\textmd{\textit{\noun{Flight}}}\textmd{\noun{.\mdash{} A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{little}}}
\textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{supper}}} \textmd{\noun{}}\textmd{\textit{\noun{and}}}
\textmd{\noun{A}} \textmd{\textit{\noun{toast}}}\textmd{\noun{.}}}

\textit{\emph{We}} spent two very pleasant days at Oxford. There are
plenty of dogs in the town of Oxford. \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}
had eleven fights on the first day, and fourteen on the second, and
evidently thought he had got to heaven.

Among folk too constitutionally weak, or too constitutionally lazy,
whichever it may be, to relish up-stream work, it is a common practice
to get a boat at Oxford, and row down. For the energetic, however,
the up-stream journey is certainly to be preferred. It does not seem
good to be always going with the current. There is more satisfaction
in squaring one's back, and fighting against it, and winning one's
way forward in spite of it\mdash{}at least, so I feel, when Harris
and George are sculling and I am steering.

To those who do contemplate making Oxford their starting-place, I
would say, take your own boat\mdash{}unless, of course, you can take
someone else's without any possible danger of being found out. The
boats that, as a rule, are let for hire on the Thames above Marlow,
are very good boats. They are fairly water-tight; and so long as they
are handled with care, they rarely come to pieces, or sink. There
are places in them to sit down on, and they are complete with all
the necessary arrangements\mdash{}or nearly all\mdash{}to enable
you to row them and steer them.

But they are not ornamental. The boat you hire up the river above
Marlow is not the sort of boat in which you can flash about and give
yourself airs. The hired up-river boat very soon puts a stop to any
nonsense of that sort on the part of its occupants. That is its chief\mdash{}one
may say, its only recommendation.

The man in the hired up-river boat is modest and retiring. He likes
to keep on the shady side, underneath the trees, and to do most of
his travelling early in the morning or late at night, when there are
not many people about on the river to look at him.

When the man in the hired up-river boat sees anyone he knows, he gets
out on to the bank, and hides behind a tree.

I was one of a party who hired an up-river boat one summer, for a
few days' trip. We had none of us ever seen the hired up-river boat
before; and we did not know what it was when we did see it.

We had written for a boat\mdash{}a double sculling skiff; and when
we went down with our bags to the yard, and gave our names, the man
said:

{}``Oh, yes; you're the party that wrote for a double sculling skiff.
It's all right. Jim, fetch round \textit{The Pride} \textit{of} \textit{the}
\textit{Thames}.''

The boy went, and re-appeared five minutes afterwards, struggling
with an antediluvian chunk of wood, that looked as though it had been
recently dug out of somewhere, and dug out carelessly, so as to have
been unnecessarily damaged in the process.

My own idea, on first catching sight of the object, was that it was
a Roman relic of some sort,\mdash{}relic of \textit{what} I do not
know, possibly of a coffin.

The neighbourhood of the upper Thames is rich in Roman relics, and
my surmise seemed to me a very probable one; but our serious young
man, who is a bit of a geologist, pooh-poohed my Roman relic theory,
and said it was clear to the meanest intellect (in which category
he seemed to be grieved that he could not conscientiously include
mine) that the thing the boy had found was the fossil of a whale;
and he pointed out to us various evidences proving that it must have
belonged to the preglacial period.

To settle the dispute, we appealed to the boy. We told him not to
be afraid, but to speak the plain truth: Was it the fossil of a pre-Adamite
whale, or was it an early Roman coffin?

The boy said it was \textit{The} \textit{Pride} \textit{of} \textit{the}
\textit{Thames}.

We thought this a very humorous answer on the part of the boy at first,
and somebody gave him twopence as a reward for his ready wit; but
when he persisted in keeping up the joke, as we thought, too long,
we got vexed with him.

{}``Come, come, my lad!''\ said our captain sharply, {}``don't
let us have any nonsense. You take your mother's washing-tub home
again, and bring us a boat.''

The boat-builder himself came up then, and assured us, on his word,
as a practical man, that the thing really was a boat\mdash{}was,
in fact, \textit{the} boat, the {}``double sculling skiff'' selected
to take us on our trip down the river.

We grumbled a good deal. We thought he might, at least, have had it
whitewashed or tarred\mdash{}had \textit{something} done to it to
distinguish it from a bit of a wreck; but he could not see any fault
in it.

He even seemed offended at our remarks. He said he had picked us out
the best boat in all his stock, and he thought we might have been
more grateful.

He said it, \textit{The Pride} \textit{of} \textit{the} \textit{Thames},
had been in use, just as it now stood (or rather as it now hung together),
for the last forty years, to his knowledge, and nobody had complained
of it before, and he did not see why we should be the first to begin.

We argued no more.

We fastened the so-called boat together with some pieces of string,
got a bit of wall-paper and pasted over the shabbier places, said
our prayers, and stepped on board.

They charged us thirty-five shillings for the loan of the remnant
for six days; and we could have bought the thing out-and-out for four-and-sixpence
at any sale of drift-wood round the coast.

The weather changed on the third day,\mdash{}Oh! I am talking about
our present trip now,\mdash{}and we started from Oxford upon our
homeward journey in the midst of a steady drizzle.

The river\mdash{}with the sunlight flashing from its dancing wavelets,
gilding gold the grey-green beech-trunks, glinting through the dark,
cool wood paths, chasing shadows o'er the shallows, flinging diamonds
from the mill-wheels, throwing kisses to the lilies, wantoning with
the weirs' white waters, silvering moss-grown walls and bridges, brightening
every tiny townlet, making sweet each lane and meadow, lying tangled
in the rushes, peeping, laughing, from each inlet, gleaming gay on
many a far sail, making soft the air with glory\mdash{}is a golden
fairy stream.

But the river\mdash{}chill and weary, with the ceaseless rain-drops
falling on its brown and sluggish waters, with a sound as of a woman,
weeping low in some dark chamber; while the woods, all dark and silent,
shrouded in their mists of vapour, stand like ghosts upon the margin;
silent ghosts with eyes reproachful, like the ghosts of evil actions,
like the ghosts of friends neglected\mdash{}is a spirit-haunted water
through the land of vain regrets.

Sunlight is the life-blood of Nature. Mother Earth looks at us with
such dull, soulless eyes, when the sunlight has died away from out
of her. It makes us sad to be with her then; she does not seem to
know us or to care for us. She is as a widow who has lost the husband
she loved, and her children touch her hand, and look up into her eyes,
but gain no smile from her.

We rowed on all that day through the rain, and very melancholy work
it was. We pretended, at first, that we enjoyed it. We said it was
a change, and that we liked to see the river under all its different
aspects. We said we could not expect to have it all sunshine, nor
should we wish it. We told each other that Nature was beautiful, even
in her tears.

Indeed, Harris and I were quite enthusiastic about the business, for
the first few hours. And we sang a song about a gipsy's life, and
how delightful a gipsy's existence was!\mdash{}free to storm and
sunshine, and to every wind that blew!\mdash{}and how he enjoyed
the rain, and what a lot of good it did him; and how he laughed at
people who didn't like it.

George took the fun more soberly, and stuck to the umbrella.

We hoisted the cover before we had lunch, and kept it up all the afternoon,
just leaving a little space in the bow, from which one of us could
paddle and keep a look-out. In this way we made nine miles, and pulled
up for the night a little below Day's Lock.

I cannot honestly say that we had a merry evening. The rain poured
down with quiet persistency. Everything in the boat was damp and clammy.
Supper was not a success. Cold veal pie, when you don't feel hungry,
is apt to cloy. I felt I wanted whitebait and a cutlet; Harris babbled
of soles and white-sauce, and passed the remains of his pie to \textit{\emph{Montmorency}},
who declined it, and, apparently insulted by the offer, went and sat
over at the other end of the boat by himself.

George requested that we would not talk about these things, at all
events until he had finished his cold boiled beef without mustard.

We played penny nap after supper. We played for about an hour and
a half, by the end of which time George had won fourpence\mdash{}George
always is lucky at cards\mdash{}and Harris and I had lost exactly
twopence each.

We thought we would give up gambling then. As Harris said, it breeds
an unhealthy excitement when carried too far. George offered to go
on and give us our revenge; but Harris and I decided not to battle
any further against Fate.

After that, we mixed ourselves some toddy, and sat round and talked.
George told us about a man he had known, who had come up the river
two years ago and who had slept out in a damp boat on just such another
night as that was, and it had given him rheumatic fever, and nothing
was able to save him, and he had died in great agony ten days afterwards.
George said he was quite a young man, and was engaged to be married.
He said it was one of the saddest things he had ever known.

And that put Harris in mind of a friend of his, who had been in the
Volunteers, and who had slept out under canvas one wet night down
at Aldershot, {}``on just such another night as this,'' said Harris;
and he had woke up in the morning a cripple for life. Harris said
he would introduce us both to the man when we got back to town; it
would make our hearts bleed to see him.

This naturally led to some pleasant chat about sciatica, fevers, chills,
lung diseases, and bronchitis; and Harris said how very awkward it
would be if one of us were taken seriously ill in the night, seeing
how far away we were from a doctor.

There seemed to be a desire for something frolicksome to follow upon
this conversation, and in a weak moment I suggested that George should
get out his banjo, and see if he could not give us a comic song.

I will say for George that he did not want any pressing. There was
no nonsense about having left his music at home, or anything of that
sort. He at once fished out his instrument, and commenced to play
{}``Two Lovely Black Eyes.''

I had always regarded {}``Two Lovely Black Eyes'' as rather a commonplace
tune until that evening. The rich vein of sadness that George extracted
from it quite surprised me.

The desire that grew upon Harris and myself, as the mournful strains
progressed, was to fall upon each other's necks and weep; but by great
effort we kept back the rising tears, and listened to the wild yearnful
melody in silence.

When the chorus came we even made a desperate effort to be merry.
We re-filled our glasses and joined in; Harris, in a voice trembling
with emotion, leading, and George and I following a few words behind:

\begin{flushleft} \begin{verse} \small

``Two lovely black eyes; \\*

Oh!\ what a surprise! \\*

Only for telling a man he was wrong, \\*

Two---''

\end{verse} \end{flushleft}

There we broke down. The unutterable pathos of George's accompaniment
to that {}``two'' we were, in our then state of depression, unable
to bear. Harris sobbed like a little child, and the dog howled till
I thought his heart or his jaw must surely break.

George wanted to go on with another verse. He thought that when he
had got a little more into the tune, and could throw more {}``abandon,''
as it were, into the rendering, it might not seem so sad. The feeling
of the majority, however, was opposed to the experiment.

There being nothing else to do, we went to bed\mdash{}that is, we
undressed ourselves, and tossed about at the bottom of the boat for
some three or four hours. After which, we managed to get some fitful
slumber until five a.m., when we all got up and had breakfast.

The second day was exactly like the first. The rain continued to pour
down, and we sat, wrapped up in our mackintoshes, underneath the canvas,
and drifted slowly down.

One of us\mdash{}I forget which one now, but I rather think it was
myself\mdash{}made a few feeble attempts during the course of the
morning to work up the old gipsy foolishness about being children
of Nature and enjoying the wet; but it did not go down well at all.
That\mdash{}\begin{flushleft} \begin{verse} \small

``I care not for the rain, not I!''

\end{verse} \end{flushleft} was so painfully evident, as expressing the sentiments of each of
us, that to sing it seemed unnecessary.

On one point we were all agreed, and that was that, come what might,
we would go through with this job to the bitter end. We had come out
for a fortnight's enjoyment on the river, and a fortnight's enjoyment
on the river we meant to have. If it killed us!\ well, that would
be a sad thing for our friends and relations, but it could not be
helped. We felt that to give in to the weather in a climate such as
ours would be a most disastrous precedent.

{}``It's only two days more,'' said Harris, {}``and we are young
and strong. We may get over it all right, after all.''

At about four o'clock we began to discuss our arrangements for the
evening. We were a little past Goring then, and we decided to paddle
on to Pangbourne, and put up there for the night.

{}``Another jolly evening!''\ murmured George.

We sat and mused on the prospect. We should be in at Pangbourne by
five. We should finish dinner at, say, half-past six. After that we
could walk about the village in the pouring rain until bed-time; or
we could sit in a dimly-lit bar-parlour and read the almanac.

{}``Why, the Alhambra would be almost more lively,'' said Harris,
venturing his head outside the cover for a moment and taking a survey
of the sky.

{}``With a little supper at the \mbox{------}%
\footnote{A capital little out-of-the-way restaurant, in the neighbourhood of
\mbox{------}, where you can get one of the best-cooked and cheapest
little French dinners or suppers that I know of, with an excellent
bottle of Beaune, for three-and-six; and which I am not going to be
idiot enough to advertise.%
} to follow,'' I added, half unconsciously.

{}``Yes it's almost a pity we've made up our minds to stick to this
boat,'' answered Harris; and then there was silence for a while.

{}``If we \textit{hadn't} made up our minds to contract our certain
deaths in this bally old coffin,'' observed George, casting a glance
of intense malevolence over the boat, {}``it might be worth while
to mention that there's a train leaves Pangbourne, I know, soon after
five, which would just land us in town in comfortable time to get
a chop, and then go on to the place you mentioned afterwards.''

Nobody spoke. We looked at one another, and each one seemed to see
his own mean and guilty thoughts reflected in the faces of the others.
In silence, we dragged out and overhauled the Gladstone. We looked
up the river and down the river; not a soul was in sight!

Twenty minutes later, three figures, followed by a shamed-looking
dog, might have been seen creeping stealthily from the boat-house
at the {}``Swan'' towards the railway station, dressed in the following
neither neat nor gaudy costume:

Black leather shoes, dirty; suit of boating flannels, very dirty;
brown felt hat, much battered; mackintosh, very wet; umbrella.

We had deceived the boatman at Pangbourne. We had not had the face
to tell him that we were running away from the rain. We had left the
boat, and all it contained, in his charge, with instructions that
it was to be ready for us at nine the next morning. If, we said\mdash{}\textit{if}
anything unforeseen should happen, preventing our return, we would
write to him.

We reached Paddington at seven, and drove direct to the restaurant
I have before described, where we partook of a light meal, left \textit{\emph{Montmorency}},
together with suggestions for a supper to be ready at half-past ten,
and then continued our way to Leicester Square.

We attracted a good deal of attention at the Alhambra. On our presenting
ourselves at the paybox we were gruffly directed to go round to Castle
Street, and were informed that we were half-an-hour behind our time.

We convinced the man, with some difficulty, that we were \textit{not}
{}``the world-renowned contortionists from the Himalaya Mountains,''
and he took our money and let us pass.

Inside we were a still greater success. Our fine bronzed countenances
and picturesque clothes were followed round the place with admiring
gaze. We were the cynosure of every eye.

It was a proud moment for us all.

We adjourned soon after the first ballet, and wended our way back
to the restaurant, where supper was already awaiting us.

I must confess to enjoying that supper. For about ten days we seemed
to have been living, more or less, on nothing but cold meat, cake,
and bread and jam. It had been a simple, a nutritious diet; but there
had been nothing exciting about it, and the odour of Burgundy, and
the smell of French sauces, and the sight of clean napkins and long
loaves, knocked as a very welcome visitor at the door of our inner
man.

We pegged and quaffed away in silence for a while, until the time
came when, instead of sitting bolt upright, and grasping the knife
and fork firmly, we leant back in our chairs and worked slowly and
carelessly\mdash{}when we stretched out our legs beneath the table,
let our napkins fall, unheeded, to the floor, and found time to more
critically examine the smoky ceiling than we had hitherto been able
to do\mdash{}when we rested our glasses at arm's-length upon the
table, and felt good, and thoughtful, and forgiving.

Then Harris, who was sitting next the window, drew aside the curtain
and looked out upon the street.

It glistened darkly in the wet, the dim lamps flickered with each
gust, the rain splashed steadily into the puddles and trickled down
the water-spouts into the running gutters. A few soaked wayfarers
hurried past, crouching beneath their dripping umbrellas, the women
holding up their skirts.

{}``Well,'' said Harris, reaching his hand out for his glass, {}``we
have had a pleasant trip, and my hearty thanks for it to old Father
Thames\mdash{}but I think we did well to chuck it when we did. Here's
to Three Men well out of a Boat!''

And \textit{\emph{Montmorency}}\emph{,} \textit{\emph{standing}} on
his hind legs, before the window, peering out into the night, gave
a short bark of decided concurrence with the toast.
\end{document}
