Three Men 8

THREE MEN IN A BOAT

PART 8

 

CHAPTER IX

George is introduced to work.—Heathenish instincts of tow-lines.—Ungrateful conduct of a double-sculling skiff.—Towers and towed.—A use discovered for lovers.—Strange disappearance of an elderly lady.—Much haste, less speed.—Being towed by girls: exciting sensation.—The missing lock or the haunted river.—Music.—Saved!

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—not even George’s conscience—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—conscientious, respectable tow-lines—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 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—Dick! can’t you hear?” not quite so affably this time.

Then: “Hi!  Confound you, you dunder-headed idiots!  Hi! stop!  Oh you—!”

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 where is auntie?”

“Did they ever recover the old lady?” asked Harris.

George replied he did not know.

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—and plenty do—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—go on—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—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—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.

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—cousin on my mother’s side—and we were pulling down to Goring.  It was rather late, and we were anxious to get in—at least 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—Wallingford—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—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—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 Faust, and got home in time for supper, after all.

To be continued

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Three Men 7

THREE MEN IN A BOAT

PART 7

 

CHAPTER VIII

Blackmailing.—The proper course to pursue.—Selfish boorishness of river-side landowner.—“Notice” boards.—Unchristianlike feelings of Harris.—How Harris sings a comic song.—A high-class party.—Shameful conduct of two abandoned young men.—Some useless information.—George buys a banjo.

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—the bread and jam—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 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 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 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 comic song, you know;” and he says it in a tone that implies that his singing of that, however, is a thing that you ought to hear once, and then die.

“Oh, that 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—well, I will just give you an idea of Harris’s comic singing, and then you can judge of it for yourself.

Harris (standing up in front of piano and addressing the expectant 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 Pinafore—no, I don’t mean Pinafore—I mean—you know what I mean—the other thing, you know.  You must all join in the chorus, you know.”

[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 of “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.]

Harris (with kindly encouragement): “It’s all right.  You’re doing it very well, indeed—go on.”

Nervous Pianist: “I’m afraid there’s a mistake somewhere.  What are you singing?”

Harris (promptly): “Why the Judge’s song out of Trial by Jury.  Don’t you know it?”

Some Friend of Harris’s (from the back of the room): “No, you’re not, you chuckle-head, you’re singing the Admiral’s song from Pinafore.”

[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.]

Harris:

“‘When I was young and called to the Bar.’”

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

The New Pianist (cheerily): “Now then, old man, you start off, and I’ll follow.  We won’t bother about any prelude.”

Harris (upon whom the explanation of matters has slowly dawned—laughing): “By Jove!  I beg your pardon.  Of course—I’ve been mixing up the two songs.  It was Jenkins confused me, you know.  Now then.

[Singing; his voice appearing to come from the cellar, and suggesting the first low warnings of an approaching earthquake.

“‘When I was young I served a term
As office-boy to an attorney’s firm.’

(Aside to pianist): “It is too low, old man; we’ll have that over again, if you don’t mind.”

[Sings first two lines over again, in a high falsetto this time.  Great surprise on the part of the audience.  Nervous old lady near the fire begins to cry, and has to be led out.]

Harris (continuing):

“‘I swept the windows and I swept the door,
And I—’

No—no, I cleaned the windows of the big front door.  And I polished up the floor—no, dash it—I beg your pardon—funny thing, I can’t think of that line.  And I—and I—Oh, well, we’ll get on to the chorus, and chance it (sings):

“‘And I diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-de,
Till now I am the ruler of the Queen’s navee.’

Now then, chorus—it is the last two lines repeated, you know.

General Chorus:

“And he diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-dee’d,
Till now he is the ruler of the Queen’s navee.”

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—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 morceaux from the old German masters.  We discussed philosophy and ethics.  We flirted with graceful dignity.  We were even humorous—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—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—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—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—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—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.

Cæsar, of course, had a little place at Walton—a camp, or an entrenchment, or something of that sort.  Cæsar 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”—the first bend above Walton Bridge—was fought a battle between Cæsar and Cassivelaunus.  Cassivelaunus had prepared the river for Cæsar, by planting it full of stakes (and had, no doubt, put up a notice-board).  But Cæsar crossed in spite of this.  You couldn’t choke Cæsar 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.

Montmorency 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—“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!”

To be continued

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Three Men 6

THREE MEN IN A BOAT

PART 6

 

CHAPTER VII.

The river in its Sunday garb.—Dress on the river.—A chance for the men.—Absence of taste in Harris.—George’s blazer.—A day with the fashion-plate young lady.—Mrs. Thomas’s tomb.—The man who loves not graves and coffins and skulls.—Harris mad.—His views on George and Banks and lemonade.—He performs tricks.

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—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—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—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—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—no, impossible! there was such a simple, child-like expression about him!

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—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.  You wouldn’t if I did.”

“Well then,” he said, “you want to see the tombs—graves—folks been buried, you know—coffins!”

“You are an untruther,” I replied, getting roused; “I do not want to see tombs—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—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.

To be continued

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