THREE MEN IN A BOAT
PART 9
CHAPTER X.
Our first night.—Under canvas.—An appeal for help.—Contrariness of
tea-kettles, how to overcome.—Supper.—How to feel virtuous.—Wanted! a
comfortably-appointed, well-drained desert island, neighbourhood of South
Pacific Ocean preferred.—Funny thing that happened to George’s father.—a
restless night.
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—“Picnic Point,” it is called—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—the birthright of every
Englishman,—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 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—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, Montmorency 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—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—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—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—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—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—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—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 my
father once at a country inn. I’ve often heard him tell the tale. I
thought it might have been the same inn.”
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—for it certainly was not there when we started, and it
had disappeared by the morning—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—some of my own,
and some of George’s and Harris’s—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—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.
To be continued
