Three men in a boat (to say nothing of the dog)
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.
[Picture: People in rowing boat]
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.
[Picture: Watching and waiting] 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