J48th 
 
 1903 
 
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OF .THE 
 
 UNIVCRS ITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 823 
 J 48 th 
 1903 
 
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\JLsV\X& 
 
 
 O/ ’ 
 
 'T/i. & .? y ’£> . 
 
 -7 
 
 
 /To 3 
 
'■ I 
 
Jerome K. Jerome 
 
Ubree flften in a JGoat 
 
 ®e 
 
 J. ft. Jerome 
 
 Chicago 
 
 /ID. a. ©onobue & Co. 
 
 407*420 Dearborn St. 
 
J V 
 
 Has 
 
 THREE MEN IN A BOAT 
 
 (TO SAY NOTHING OP THE DOG) 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 There were four of us—George, and William 
 Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. 
 We were sitting in my room, smoking and talking 
 about how bad we were—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 suck 
 extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at 
 times, that he hardly knew what he was doing; 
 and then George said that he had fits of giddiness 
 too, and hardly knew what 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 cut of 
 order. I had them all. 
 
6 
 
 Shvce #Xjeu itt a 
 
 
 It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never 
 read a patent medicine advertisement without be¬ 
 ing 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 sen¬ 
 sations that I have ever felt. 
 
 I remember going to the British Museum one 
 day to read up the treatment for some slight ail¬ 
 ment of which I had a touch—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—some fearful, de¬ 
 vastating scourge, I know—and, before I had 
 glanced half down the list of “premonitory symp¬ 
 toms, v it was borne in upon me that I had fairly 
 got it. 
 
 I sat for a while, frozen with horror; and then 
 in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over 
 the pages. I came to typhoid fever—read the 
 symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, 
 must have had it for months without knowing it 
 —wondered what else I had got; turned up St. 
 Vitus’s Dance—found, as I had expected, that I 
 had that too—began to get interested in my case, 
 and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so 
 
g&ro in a |£krat. 
 
 1 
 
 started alphabetically—read up ague, and learned 
 that I was sickening for it, aijd that the acute 
 stage would commence in about another fort¬ 
 night. 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 
 T had, with severe complications; and diphtheria 
 I seemed to have been born with. I plodded con¬ 
 scientiously 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 res¬ 
 ervation? After a while, however, less grasping 
 feelings prevailed. I reflected that I had every 
 other known malady in the pharmacology, and 
 grew less selfish, and determined to do without 
 housemaid’s knee. Gout, in its most malignant 
 stage, it woufd 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 inter¬ 
 esting 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 hospi- 
 
8 
 
 £Tx\*cc U&etx itx a goat. 
 
 tals,’ 7 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. 1 
 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 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 noth- 
 
gfcvxe gfcm in a goal. 
 
 9 
 
 mg, 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, com¬ 
 monplace 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 fin¬ 
 ished. But I will tell you what is 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 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—a cowardly 
 thing to do, I call it—and immediately afterward 
 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 chem- 
 
10 
 
 gkxiu gtm in a gjtesxt 
 
 ist’s, and handed it in. The mum res4 it, and 
 then handed it back. 
 
 He said he didn’t keep it. 
 
 I said: 
 
 “You are a chemist?” 
 
 “I am a chemist. If I was a co-operative stare 
 and family hotel combined, I might be able t* 
 oblige you. Being only a chemist haaspors me,*' 
 
 I read the prescription. It ran: 
 
 “i lb. beefsteak, with 
 i pt bitter beer 
 
 every 6 hours. 
 
 i ten-mile walk every morning. 
 
 I bed at 11 sharp every night 
 
 And don’t stuff up your head with things you 
 don’t understand.” 
 
 I followed the directions, with the happy result 
 —speaking for myself—that my life was pre¬ 
 served and is still going on. 
 
 In the present instance, going back to the liver- 
 pill circular, I had the symptoms, beyond all mis¬ 
 take, the chief among them being “a general dis¬ 
 inclination 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 
 
gto&e H&etx in a goat. 
 
 11 
 
 layer. Medical science was in a far less advanced 
 state than now, and they used to put it down 
 laziness. 
 
 “Why, you skulking little devil, you, 7 ’ they 
 would say, “get up and do something for your 
 living, can’t you?”—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—for the time being. I have known one 
 dump on the head have more effect upon my 
 fiver, 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—those simple, old- 
 fashioned remedies are sometimes more effica¬ 
 cious 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 W’illiam 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 
 aight 
 
12 
 
 ghvee 2*%ctt in a gloat. 
 
 George fancies he is ill; but there's never any¬ 
 thing 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; be¬ 
 cause I know, after the first half-hour or so, I 
 seemed to take no interest whatever in my food—• 
 an unusual thing for me—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 mat¬ 
 ter with us, we none of us could be sure of, but 
 the unanimous opinion was that it—whatever 
 it was—had been brought bn 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 
 
'gftKM *XXm in a goat. 
 
 18 
 
 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 maddening crowd, and dream away 
 a sunny week among its drowsy lanes—some half- 
 forgotten nook, hidden away by the fairies, out 
 of reach of the noisy world—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 
 could’t get a 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, but, for a week, it is wicked. 
 
 You start on Monday with the idea implanted 
 in your bosom that you are going to enjoy your¬ 
 self. You wave an airy adieu to the bovs on 
 shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about 
 the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Fran¬ 
 cis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled 
 
14 
 
 gTxtteje pCett in a Jlcrat. 
 
 into one. On Tuesday you wish you hadn’t come. 
 On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday you wi3-fe 
 you were dead. On Saturday you are able to swal¬ 
 low a little beef tea and to sit up on deck and an¬ 
 swer 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 Liver - 
 fx>ol, 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. 
 
 “Seaside!” 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 somer¬ 
 saults on dry land.” 
 
 i 
 
gtuw gK-jcn in a 
 
 15 
 
 He himself—my brother-in-law—came back by 
 tram. He said the Northwestern Railway was 
 healthy enough for him. 
 
 Another fellow I knew went for a week’s voy¬ 
 age 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 con¬ 
 sisted of four courses. Dinner at six—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 broiled 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 broiled beef for weeks, and at other times it 
 seemed that he must have been living on straw¬ 
 berries and cream for years. 
 
 Neither the beef nor the strawberries and cream 
 
16 
 
 Qlxxzz gtXm irx <x gxral. 
 
 seemed happy, either—seemed discontented like. 
 
 At six they came and told him dinner was 
 ready. The announcement aroused no enthusi¬ 
 asm 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 odor of onions and hot ham, mingled, 
 with fried fish and greens, greeted him at the bot¬ 
 tom 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 
 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 toward 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. 
 
$ live* men in a ^crat. 
 
 17 
 
 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 
 -—said he thought people must do it on purpose, 
 from affectation—said he had often wished to be, 
 but had never been able. 
 
 Then he told us anecdotes of how lie 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 
 
 X 
 
 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 seasick 
 —on land. At sea you come across plenty of peo¬ 
 ple 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 seasick. 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 1 saw on the 
 
18 
 
 H&jetx in a ||oai 
 
 Yarmouth boat one day I could account fov the 
 seeming enigma easily enough. It was just off 
 Southend Pier, I recollect, and he was leaning 
 ©ul through one of the port-holes in a very dan¬ 
 gerous position. I went up to him to try and save 
 him. 
 
 ‘'Hi! come further in,” I said, shaking him by 
 *he 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 afterward I met him in the ccffee- 
 oom of a Bath hotel, talking about his voyages, 
 ,Uid explaining, with enthusiasm, how he loved 
 ihe sea. 
 
 “Good sailor!” he replkd in answer to a mild 
 young man’s envious query; “well, I did feel a 
 little queer 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 
 ^ne day, and wanted to be thrown overboard?” 
 
 “Southend Pier?” he replied, with a puzzled ex¬ 
 pression. 
 
 “Yes; going down to Yarmouth, last Friday 
 fhree weeks.” 
 
 “Oh, ah—yes,” he answered, brightening up; “I 
 remember now. I did have a headache that after¬ 
 noon. It was the pickles, you know ? . They were 
 
Q\xxi cje IJtXcrt in a gkrat. 
 
 19 
 
 the most disgraceful pickles I ever tasted in a 
 respectable boat. Did you have any?” 
 
 For myself, I have discovered an excellent pre¬ 
 ventive against sea-sickness, in balancing myself. 
 You stand in the center 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 backward. This is all 
 very well for an hour or two, but you can’t bal¬ 
 ance yourself for a week. 
 
 George said: 
 
 “Let’s go up the river.” 
 
 He said we should have fresh air, exercise and 
 juiet; 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 under¬ 
 stand how George was going to sleep any more 
 than he did now, seeing that there were only twen¬ 
 ty-four hours in each day, summer and winter 
 alik^, but thought that if he did sleep any more 
 
20 
 
 Thvcc 2Uen in a J^oai. 
 
 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 ad lib., and is cheap at the price if you 
 haven’t had any dinner). It seems to suit every¬ 
 body, however, which is greatly to its credit. 
 
 It suits 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 sug¬ 
 gestion was Montmorency. He never did care 
 for the river, did 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. 
 
gfttjce gtoet* iw a goat. 
 
 21 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 We pulled out the maps and discussed plans. 
 
 We arranged to start on the following Satur¬ 
 day 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 afternoon (George goes to sleep 
 at a bank from ten to four each day, except Sat¬ 
 urdays, when they wake him up and put him out¬ 
 side 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 moor-hen’s plain¬ 
 tive cry and the harsh croa.* of the corn-crake 
 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 gray 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, through the 
 sighing rushes; and Night, upon her somber 
 
22 
 
 $tixxx plert in a ^xrat. 
 
 throne, folds her black wings above the darken¬ 
 ing 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 sup¬ 
 per 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—will sing so many thousand 
 years to come, before its voice grows harsh and 
 old—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 sing¬ 
 ing, ever whispering, out to meet its king, the 
 sea—till our voices die away in silence and the 
 pipes go out—till we, commonplace, every-day 
 young men enough, feel strangely full of 
 thoughts, half sad, half sweet, and do not care or 
 want to speak—till we laugh, and, rising, knock 
 
glnrcjc fptjeu in a ^oat 
 
 23 
 
 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—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—sweet as she was in those 
 bygone days when, a new-made mother, she 
 nursed us, her children, upon her own deep l reast 
 —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 thou¬ 
 sand years ago. 
 
 Harris said: 
 
 “How about when it rained?” 
 
 You can never rouse Harris. * There is no 
 poetry about Harris—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 Iris 
 chop. 
 
 If you were to stand at night by the sea-shore 
 with Harris and say: 
 
24 
 
 glxxxc i*%ctx in a 38 out. 
 
 “Hark! do you not hear? Is it but the mer¬ 
 maids 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 whiskey yon. ever tasted—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 thrt 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, hov'ever, 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. 
 
25 
 
 £ht*jce -fXXcn in a l&crai. 
 
 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 stead¬ 
 ily 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 you up to?” he retorts; “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; “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 around in the same direction to come 
 and explain his views to you. And you follow 
 each other round and round, swearing at one an¬ 
 other, until the tent tumbles down in a heap and 
 leaves you looking at each other across its ruins. 
 
m £hvci Udm in a gSoat. 
 
 when you both indignantly exclaim, in the same 
 breath: 
 
 “There you are! what did I tell you?” 
 
 Meanwhile the third man, who has been bail¬ 
 ing 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 com¬ 
 bined 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—the elephant still sleeping peacefully on 
 
glwes D^tjcrt in a JjSjo&t. 
 
 27 
 
 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 cai 
 hear his faint cries coming from underneath you* 
 bed. Determining, at all events, to sell your lit? 
 dearly, you struggle frantically, hitting out r:gh; 
 and left with arms and legs, and yelling lustil/ 
 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, wait¬ 
 ing 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, recognizing 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 
 
28 
 
 %)xxtz ptcu in a gkcrat. 
 
 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 
 —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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 Mont¬ 
 morency 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-1-would - like - to - do - something- 
 to-make-it-better-and-nobler expression about 
 Montmorency that has been known to bring the 
 
glxv&c ptcu in a gjcrat. 29 
 
 tears into the eyes of pious old ladies and gen- 
 tlemen. 
 
 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 chick¬ 
 ens that he had killed, and had dragged him, 
 growling and kicking, by the scruff of his neck, 
 out of a hundred and fourteen gtreet fights, and 
 had had a dead cat brought round for my in¬ 
 spection 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 my¬ 
 self, 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 
 
ghxzz UStjetx in a gxrat. 
 
 40 
 
 slums to fight other disreputable dogs is Mont" 
 morency’s idea of “life;” and so, as I before ob¬ 
 served, 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 presenti¬ 
 ment that a little whisky, warm, with a slice of 
 lemon, would do my complaint good, the debate 
 was, by common assent, adjourned to the follow¬ 
 ing night; and the assembly put on its hats and 
 went out. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 So, on the following evening, we again assem¬ 
 bled 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, 
 
$Jxxtc |Hjcu in a goat. 
 
 31 
 
 George, and somebody give me a bit of pencil, 
 and then I’ll make out a list.” 
 
 That’s Harris all over—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 v.'hen 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 me. Don’t you, any of 
 you, worry yourselves about that. 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 
 lie lend him his spirit-level?’ And don’t you go, 
 
32 
 
 gtacje gXjcn in a gjcrai. 
 
 Maria, because I shall want somebddy to hold me 
 the light; and when the girl comes back she must 
 go out again for a bit of picture-cord; and Tom 
 —where’s Tom?—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 hand¬ 
 kerchief because it was in the pocket of the coat 
 he had taken off, and he didn’t 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—upon my word I didn’t. Six of 
 you!—and you can’t find a coat that I put down 
 
 not,five minutes ago! Well, of all the -” 
 
 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 my¬ 
 self 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 
 
gtiLctx in a ^xrat. 
 
 33 
 
 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, and 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 a chair beside 
 him and see if we could find it, and we would 
 each discover it in a different place, and he would 
 
34 
 
 gfttfjeje pUn in a Bjcrat. 
 
 call us all fools, one after another, and tell us to 
 ■vet down. And he would take the rule and re- 
 aeasure and find that he wanted half thirty-one 
 md three-eighths inches from the corner and 
 vvould 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 an¬ 
 other. And in the general row the original num¬ 
 ber 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 lean¬ 
 ing over the chair at an angle of forty-five de¬ 
 grees and was trying to reach a point three inches 
 beyond what was possible for him to reach, tl e 
 string would slip, and down he would slide on to 
 the piano, a really fine musical effect being pro¬ 
 duced 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, 
 somebody’s toes. 
 
QYixzz Htjctt itt » Uxrai. 
 
 85 
 
 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 
 v/as being done. 
 
 “Oh! vou women, you make such a fuss over 
 everything,” Uncle Podger would reply, pick¬ 
 ing himself up. “Why, I 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 mid’ 
 night, the picture would be up—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—except 
 Uncle Podger. 
 
 “There you are,” he would say, stepping heav¬ 
 ily off the chair onto the charwoman’s corns and 
 surveying the mess he had made with evident 
 pride. “Why, some people would have a man 
 in to do a little thing like that!” 
 
 Harris will be just that sort of man when he 
 
gtoe* Ipxw in a goat. 
 
 56 
 
 grows up, I know, and I told him so. I said 
 I could not permit him to take so much labor 
 upon himself. I said: 
 
 '‘No; 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 suffi¬ 
 ciently 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 the wrong track alto¬ 
 gether. 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 wis¬ 
 dom, 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 swamp¬ 
 ing 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 
 
glutee IJXjcu in a i^jcrat. 
 
 37 
 
 •ervants and a host of swell friends that do not 
 r are twopence for them, and that they do not care 
 three ha’pence for; wi.h expensive entertainments 
 ihat nobody enjoys, with formalities and fashions, 
 with pretence and ostentation, and with—oh, 
 heaviest, maddest lumber of all!—the dread of 
 what will my neighbor 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—all lumber! Throw it over¬ 
 board. It makes the boat so heavy to pull, you 
 nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so cumber¬ 
 some and dangerous to manage, you never know 
 a moment’s freedom from anxiety and care, never 
 gain a moment’s rest for dreamy laziness—no 
 time to watch the windy shadows skimming 
 lightly o’er the shallows, or the glittering sun¬ 
 beams 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 
 somber-waving rushes, or the sedges, or the 
 orchids, or the blue forget-me-nots. 
 
 Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat 
 of life be light, packed with only what you need 
 —a homely home and simple pleasures, one or 
 
m 
 
 QXixzz m$Lm in a goat 
 
 two friends, worth the name, some one to love 
 and some one 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 mat¬ 
 ter so much if it does upset; good, plain mer¬ 
 chandise will stand water. You will have time 
 to think as well as to work. Time to drink in 
 life’s sunshine—-time to listen to the Aeolian 
 music that the wind of God draws from the 
 human heartstrings around us—time to—— 
 
 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 mar. 
 
Six vex pCjetx in a goat. 39 
 
 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 tooth-brush (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. 1 notice that people al¬ 
 ways 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—when thinking over 
 the matter in London—that I’ll get up early every 
 morning and go and have a dip before break¬ 
 fast, and I religiously pack up a pair of drawers 
 and a bath towel. I alwajs 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 ofT. 
 
40 
 
 gftK&e |JXj en in a goat. 
 
 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 fran- 
 ticallv 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 I was 
 a boy, I mean). Just when I have given up all 
 hope, a wave retires and leaves me sprawling like 
 a starfish 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. 
 
 In the present instance we all talked as if we 
 were going to have a long swim every morning. 
 
jcjc f$&jett in a goat. 
 
 41 
 
 Geoige 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 pro¬ 
 test 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 hundred-weight of provisions, and 
 he got to see it in my light and withdrew his 
 opposition to Harris’s bath. 
 
 Agreed, finally that w r e should take 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 our¬ 
 selves 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 h’mself, 
 but he knew some fellows who had, and it was 
 easy enough;” and Harris and I were weak 
 enough to fancy that he knew what he was talk¬ 
 ing about and that three respectable young men, 
 
glx^jce U&jen in a gjaat. 
 
 *3 
 
 without position or influence, and with no exfc 
 lienee 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 im¬ 
 postor, who could evidently have known nothing 
 whatever about the matter. If you had seen these 
 clothes after—but, as the shilling shockers say, 
 we anticipate. 
 
 George impressed upon us to take a change of 
 underthings and plenty of socks, in case we got 
 upset and wanted a change; also plenty of hand¬ 
 kerchiefs, 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 IV. 
 
 Then we discussed the food question. 
 
 George said: 
 
 “Begin with breakfast.” (George is so practi¬ 
 cal.) “Now. for breakfast we shall want a frying- 
 pan”—(Hariis said it was indigestible, but we 
 merely urged hrm to be an ass, and George 
 
ghxtz U&etx in a goat. 
 
 42 
 
 went on)—“a tea-pot and a kettle, and a methy¬ 
 lated 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 paraffine 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 every¬ 
 thing in it on its way, and it oozed over the river 
 and saturated the scenery and spoilt the atmos¬ 
 phere. Sometimes a westerly oily wind blew, 
 and at other times an easterly oily wind, and 
 sometimes 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 paraffine oil. 
 
 And the oil oozed up and ruined the sunset, 
 and as for the moonbeams, they positively reeked 
 of 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 churchyard and it seemed as if the 
 people had been buried in oil;* The High Street 
 
44 
 
 Jgfrvjeje fptm in a goat. 
 
 stunk of oil; we wondered how people could live 
 in it. And we walked miles upon miles out Bir¬ 
 mingham 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)—- 
 an awful oath never to take paraffine oil with us 
 in a boat again—except, of course, in case of 
 sickness. 
 
 Therefore, in the present instance w T e confined 
 ourselves to methylated spirit. Even that is bad 
 enough. You get methylated pie and methy¬ 
 lated cake. But methylated spirit is more whole¬ 
 some when taken into the system in large quan¬ 
 tities than paraffine 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—but no 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 flavor to everything else there. 
 Y ou can’t tell whether you are eating apple-pie or 
 German sausage, or- strawberries and cream. It 
 
45 
 
 &axcz gXcu in a goat. 
 
 ail seems cheese. There is too much odor 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 Liv¬ 
 erpool 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, dur¬ 
 ing 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 swift¬ 
 est 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 
 ter*or, he dashed off at three miles an hour. The 
 wind still blew in his direction, and before we 
 
46 
 
 Jgfxvjeje fpfctt in a gjaat. 
 
 reached the end of the street he was laying him 
 self 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 hand¬ 
 kerchief 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 wa? 
 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 not¬ 
 withstanding, 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 to 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 disgrace¬ 
 ful that a respectable married woman should be 
 harried about in this way and gathered up a 
 
gtxxxe fjgtjew in a goat. 
 
 4? 
 
 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 a dead 
 baby, and the other three passengers tried to get 
 out of the door at the same time and hurt them¬ 
 selves. 
 
 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. 
 
 “Pll 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 my¬ 
 self, though the train was crowded. As we drew 
 
48 
 
 Stojcje Wien in a gxrat. 
 
 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 drop off and squeeze into other car¬ 
 riages, 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: y 
 
 “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 m( 
 She said: 
 
 “What did Tom say about those cheeses?” 
 
^Iivjcjc ptm in a goat. 
 
 49 
 
 f replied that he had directed they were to be 
 kc;pt in a moist place, and that nobody was to 
 touch them. 
 
 She said: 
 
 “Nobody’s likely to touch them. Had he smelt 
 them?” v 
 
 I thought he had, and added that he seemed 
 greatly attached to them. 
 
 “You think he would be upset,” she queried, 
 “if I give 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.” 
 
 “Madame,” 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 honor of 
 residing is a widow, and, for all I know, possib!y 
 an orphan, too. She has a strong, 1 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, re- 
 
gard as a ‘put upon’; and it shall never be saio 
 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 odor of melons. 
 It was argued from this that little injury could re¬ 
 sult 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 fear¬ 
 ful fuss. 
 
Jgtocjc %$Uu in a gjcrat 
 
 51 
 
 He said it was a plot to deprive him of his liv¬ 
 ing 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 reputa¬ 
 tion. Visitors said they had never noticed be¬ 
 fore 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 sha’n’t want any tea,” said George (Har¬ 
 ris’s face fell at this); “but we’ll have a good, 
 round, square, slap-up meal at seven—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 won¬ 
 derful sticky concoction of Harris’s, which you 
 mixed with water and called lemonade, plenty 
 of tea, and a bottle of whiskey, 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 whiskey. 
 
 We didn’t take beer or wine. They are a mis¬ 
 take tip the river. They make you feel sleepy and 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY 
 
heavy. A glass in the evening when you are do¬ 
 ing 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 againsl 
 the window, piled everything in a heap in 
 middle of the floor, and sat round and looked at 
 it. I said I’d pack. 
 
 I rather pride myself on my packing. Pack' 
 ing is one of those many things that I feel I know 
 more about than any other person living. (It sur¬ 
 prises me myself, sometimes, how many of these 
 subjects there are.) I impressed the fact upon 
 George and Harris, and told them they had bet¬ 
 ter leave the whole matter entirely to me. The\' 
 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 
 
gltvce JXXjett xix a gloat. 
 
 53 
 
 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 -!” “Here, 
 
 let me do it.” “There you are, simple enough!”— 
 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 what to do. 
 It is my energetic nature. I can’t help it 
 
 However, I did not say anything, but started 
 
u 
 
 gXjctt in a 
 
 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 strap¬ 
 ped, of course. And George laughed—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 
 Pm traveling, 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 
 haw used it, and have to unpack again to get it, 
 affld 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 
 
gixvje.c pUu itx a gloat. 
 
 55 
 
 how, and, of course, I could not find it. I rum¬ 
 maged the things up into much the same state 
 that they must have been in 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 bv one, and held everything up and 
 shook it. Then I found it inside a boot. I re¬ 
 packed 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 tip 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. 
 
 Tiiey 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, etc., and 
 felt that the thing would soon become exciting. 
 
Qftxzz fjgtjctx itx a ^xrat. 
 
 f)6 
 
 It did. They started with breaking a cup. That 
 was the first thing they did. They did that just 
 to show you what they could do, and to get you 
 
 haterested. 
 
 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 nerv¬ 
 ous and excited, and they stepped on things, and 
 put things behind them, and then couldn’t find 
 them when the}' 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-two-pence 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 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 locking for it all over 
 the room. 
 
Qhxzz pX m in a gcrat. 
 
 57 
 
 “111 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 look¬ 
 ing for it; and then they met again in the center, 
 and stared at one another. 
 
 “Most extraordinary thing I ever heard of,” 
 said George. 
 
 “So mysterious!” said Harris. 
 
 Then George got around at the back of Harris 
 and saw it. 
 
 “Why, here it is all the time,” he exclaimed in¬ 
 dignantly. 
 
 “Where?” cried Harris, spinning round. 
 
 “Stand still, can’t you!” roared George, flying 
 after him. 
 
 And they got it off, and packed ff in the tea¬ 
 pot. 
 
 Montmorency was in it all, of course. Mont¬ 
 morency’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 
 
58 
 
 gjtae* in n gxral 
 
 and object; and, when he has succeeded m ao 
 coniplishing this, his conceit becomes quite un¬ 
 bearable. 
 
 He came and sat down on things, just when 
 they were wanted to be packed; and he labored 
 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 tea¬ 
 spoons, and he pretended that the lemons were 
 rats, and got into the hamper and killed three of 
 them before Harris could land hfm with the fry¬ 
 ing-pan. 
 
 Harris said I encouraged him. I didiTt en¬ 
 courage him. A dog like that don’t want any en¬ 
 couragement 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 re- 
 Section 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 upstahs. 
 
 We tossed for beds, and Harris had to sleep 
 with me. Me said: 
 
 va-V' prefer the inside or the outside, JJ” 
 
gbaxe in n l&crak 5i> 
 
 I said I generally preferred to sleep inside a 
 bed. 
 
 Harris said it was old 
 
 George said: 
 
 “What time shall I wake you fellows^ 
 
 Harris said: 
 
 “Seven-” 
 
 I said: 
 
 “No—six,” because I wanted to write some let¬ 
 ters. 
 
 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 tum¬ 
 ble into it on getting out in the morning, and 
 went to bed ourselves. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 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. 
 
60 
 
 'jgUxzz gXm in a gtoxt. 
 
 “Nine o’clock,” she replied, through t4ie key¬ 
 hole. “I thought you was a-oversleepmg your¬ 
 selves.” 
 
 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.” 
 
 “Urn,” 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 ex¬ 
 istence. There he lay—the man who had wanted 
 to know what time he should wake us—on his 
 back, with his mouth wide open, and b : .s 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 so shocking to 
 see the precious hours of a man’s life—the price¬ 
 less moments that will never come back to him 
 again—being wasted in mere brutish sleep. 
 
glxvjes pun in a goat. 
 
 61 
 
 There was George, throwing away in hideous 
 sloth the inestimable gift of time; his valuable 
 life, every second of which he would have to ac¬ 
 count for hereafter, passing away from him, un¬ 
 used. He might have been up stuffing himself 
 with eggs and bacon, irritating the dog, or flirt¬ 
 ing with the slavey, instead of sprawling there, 
 sunk in soul-clogging oblivion. 
 
 It was a terrible thought Harris and I ap¬ 
 peared to be struck by it at the same instant. We 
 determined to save him, and, in this noble re¬ 
 solve, 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 Har¬ 
 ris. “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 down-stairs, and fish 
 
62 
 
 35 tax c T&Lzn in a l&cKsfc. 
 
 them out of the bag. And when we had done 
 that George wanted the shaving tackle. We toki 
 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 any one like him. 
 
 He said: 
 
 “Don’t be absurd. How can I go into the dty 
 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 down-stairs to breakfast Montmor¬ 
 ency 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 beei 
 
 Harris said: 
 
 “The great thing is to make a good breakfast,” 
 and he started with a coup*e 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 is 
 weather that may be), “occasional local thunder 
 storms, east wind, with general depression over 
 
Store pt m in a ^loat. 
 
 9$ 
 
 the Midland Counties (London and Channel). 
 Bar. falling.” 
 
 I do think that, of all the silly, irritating tom- 
 foolishness by which we are plagued, this “wea¬ 
 ther forecast” fraud is about the most aggravat¬ 
 ing. It “forecasts” precisely what happened yes¬ 
 terday or the day before, and precisely the oppo¬ 
 site of what is going to happen to-day. 
 
 I remember a holiday of mine being complete¬ 
 ly ruined one late autumn by our paying atten¬ 
 tion to the weather report of the local newspaper. 
 “Heavy showers, with thunder-storms, 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. 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 aranged our specimens 
 of seaweed and cockle shells. By twelve o’clock, 
 with the sun pouring into the room, the heat be¬ 
 came quite oppressive, and we wondered when 
 
64 
 
 gfeueje in n 
 
 those heavy showers and occasional thunder* 
 storms were going to begin. 
 
 “Ah! they’ll come in the afternoon, you’ll find,” 
 we said to each other. “Oh, 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. We don’t mean to get wet—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 shel¬ 
 ter, and that they would thus get more drenched 
 than ever. But not a drop ever fell, and it fin¬ 
 ished 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 bit¬ 
 terly 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 alto 
 
Qhvzz gbXcu in a goat. 
 
 65 
 
 gether. 1 never can understand it. The barom¬ 
 eter is useless; it is as misleading as the news¬ 
 paper 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 parsing 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 fa:ter than 
 ever. On Wednesday I went and hit it again, 
 and the pointer went round toward “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 simoons, and 
 such things, but the peg prevented it, and it had 
 to be content with pointing to the mere common¬ 
 place “very dry.” 
 
16 
 
 gfercs 2$tjcw in u gjcmSL 
 
 Meanwhile the rain came down in a steady 
 .v/rrent, and the lower part of the town was under 
 water, owing to the river having overflowed. 
 
 Boots said it was evident tha^ we were going 
 to have a prolonged spell of grand weather some 
 time, and read out a poem which was printed 
 ever the top of the oracle, about 
 
 ‘TfOng foretold, long last; 
 
 Short notice, soon past/* 
 
 The fine weather never came that summer. I 
 expect that machine must have been referring to 
 the following spring. 
 
 Then there are those new styles of barometers, 
 the long straight ones. I never can make head or 
 tail of those. There is one side for ro A. M. 
 yesterday, and one side for io A. M. today; 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 
 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 hav- 
 
STxxtjcjc pbeu in a goat. 
 
 67 
 
 tng 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 bow these old 
 fellows can tell!” 
 
 And we feel an affection for that man which 
 is not at all lessened by the circumstances of its 
 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 re¬ 
 vengeful thoughts. 
 
 “Going to clear up, d’ye think?" we shout cheer¬ 
 ily, 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 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. 
 
Qlvcw Pm in a goat. 
 
 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 handbag, and the two hampers, and a 
 large roll of rugs, and some four or five over¬ 
 coats and mackintoshes, and a few umbrellas, 
 and then there was a melon by itself in a bag, be¬ 
 cause 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 inter¬ 
 ested in the show, apparently, and stopped. 
 
 Biggs’s boy was the first to come round. Biggs 
 
gtajejc fpijett in a gxrat. 
 
 OT- 
 
 is our greengrocer, and his chief talent lies in 
 securing the services of the most abandoned and 
 unprincipled errand-boys that civilization has as 
 yet produced. If anything more than usually vil¬ 
 lainous in the boy-line crops up in our neighbor¬ 
 hood, we know that it is Biggs’s latest. I was told 
 that, at the time of the Great Coram Street mur¬ 
 der, 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 sub¬ 
 jected by No. 19, when he called there for orders 
 the morning after the crime (assisted by No. 2 i t 
 who happened to be on the step at the time), to 
 prove a complete alibi, it would have gone hard 
 with him. I didn’t know Biggs’s boy at that time s 
 but, from what I have seen of them since, I should 
 not have, attached much importance to that 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 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 g 
 as a rule, touchy. He came to a dead stop, a 
 yard from our step, and leaning up against the 
 
70 
 
 <£hvee iXTett in a IJmxt, 
 
 rahiwgs, 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 su¬ 
 perintendent 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 
 you,” retorted “The Blue Post,” “if you was a-go¬ 
 ing to cross the Atlantic in a small boat.” 
 
 “They ain’t a-going to cross the Atlantic,” 
 struck in Bigg’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 por¬ 
 tion of the crowd) held that it was a wedding, * 
 and pointed out Harris as the bridegroom; while 
 the elder and more thoughtful among the popu- 
 
gtocje IpUtt in a goat. 
 
 71 
 
 lace 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 shoot¬ 
 ing 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 an¬ 
 other porter, with whom he discussed the ques¬ 
 tion, had heard a rumor 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 trafhc 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 tha*- they rather thought that train was the 
 
Slxvce gAcu in a goat. 
 
 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 
 0:05 for Kingston, he said he was pretty con¬ 
 fident he was the 9:32 for Virginia Water, or the 
 10 A. M. express for the Isle of Wight, or some¬ 
 where in that direction, and we should all know 
 when we got there. We slipped half-a-crown in¬ 
 to his hand, and begged him to be the 11105 for 
 Kingston. 
 
 “Nobody will ever know, on this line,” we said, 
 W what you are, or when you’re going. You know 
 the way, you slip off quietly and go to Kings¬ 
 ton.” 
 
 “Well, I don’t know, gents,” replied the noble 
 fellow, “but I suppose 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, afterward, that the train we had 
 
3JTxvjeje gXcix iw a gcrat. 
 
 n 
 
 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. 
 
 Oiu 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 ii 
 we stepped. 
 
 “Are you all right, sir?" said the man. 
 
 “Right it is,” we answered; and with Harris aft 
 the sculls and I at the tiller-lines, and Montmor¬ 
 ency, unhappy and deeply suspicious, in the prow f 
 out we shot on to the watets which, for a fort¬ 
 night, were to be our home. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 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 
 *i?er with its drifting barges, the wooded tow» 
 
$fr*xe PCjcw in a ^xrat. 
 
 74 
 
 path, the trim-kept villas on the other side, Har¬ 
 ris, in a red and orange blazer, grunting away at 
 the sculls, the distant glimpses of the gray oid 
 palace of the Tudors, all made a sunny picture, 
 so bright but calm, so full of life, and yet so peace¬ 
 ful, that, early in the day though it was, I felt my¬ 
 self being dreamily lulled off into a musing fit. 
 i I mused on Kingston, or “Kyningestun,” as it 
 was once called in the days when Saxon “kinges” 
 were crowned there. Great Caesar crossed the 
 river there, and the Roman legions camped upon 
 its sloping uplands. Caesar, 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 lie had pa¬ 
 tronized: “Plarris 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, t886.'‘ 
 
ghxzt |$Xm iix a ^oat. 
 
 75 
 
 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 boister¬ 
 ous 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 in¬ 
 sults at the sweet-faced Queen, apd drag poor 
 Edwy back to the loud clamor 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 
 
76 
 
 QTxxzz |Pj etc in a Ipjcrat. 
 
 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 swag¬ 
 gered 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 vel¬ 
 vets, and fair faces. The large and spacious 
 houses, with their oriel, latticed windows, their 
 huge fire-places, and their gabled roofs, breathe 
 of the days of hose and doublet, of pearl-embroid¬ 
 ered 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 marketplace, 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 
 
gfrcje* putt in a g^at. 77 
 
 his hand in his pocket and paid for it then and 
 there. 
 
 The shopman (he knows my friend) was natur¬ 
 ally a little staggered at first; but, quickly recov¬ 
 ering 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-paneled, 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 Caesar! 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. - 
 
78 
 
 lyteu in a ^jcrat. 
 
 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 
 house-holder, 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 draw¬ 
 ing-room paneled 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 per¬ 
 son 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 giris that 
 have lovers never want them. They say they 
 
£hvee ptcn in a gjoat. 
 
 79 
 
 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 them¬ 
 selves 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 Sanford 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 irreg¬ 
 ular 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 
 honor 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 Sanford 
 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- 
 
80 
 
 gtojeje ptm in a gjoat 
 
 days, and have hay-fever at Christmas. After a 
 <dx 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 
 sun-stroke. 
 
 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 neighborhood was 
 singularly free from it. There was only one re¬ 
 puted 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 
 
Jglx^eje gfltm in a goat. 
 
 81 
 
 sick, and they made us fat, and gave us an ap¬ 
 petite. 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 manoeuver 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 orna¬ 
 ments that the mother of the eighteenth century 
 
glxsce f$t.eu in a gxrat. 
 
 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 w r il- 
 low-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the 
 chimney-pieces of the great in the years 2000 and 
 odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and 
 the beautiful gold flower inside (species un¬ 
 known), 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 are blue. Its nose is a delicate red, with 
 black spots. Its head is painfully erect, and its 
 expression is amiability carried to the verge of 
 imbecility. I do not admire it myself. Consid¬ 
 ered as a work of art, I may say it irritates me. 
 Thoughtless friends jeer at it, and even my land¬ 
 lady 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 cab¬ 
 inet. And people will pass it round and admire 
 
£x<k* m in a gloat. 
 
 88 
 
 ft. They v^ill be struck by the wonderful depth of 
 the color 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 
 low we did it, and say how clever we were. We 
 hall be referred to lovingly as “those grand old 
 artists that flourished in the nineteenth centurv, 
 find produced those china dogs.” 
 
 The “sampler” that the eldest daughter did at 
 ichool will be spoken of as “tapestry of the Vic- 
 orian era,” and be almost priceless. The bitte¬ 
 rn d-white mugs of the present day roadside inn 
 will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and 
 itold for their weight in gold, and rich people will 
 use them for claret cups; and travelers from Japan 
 will buy up all the “Presents from Ramsgate,” 
 and “Souvenirs of Margate,” that may have es¬ 
 caped destruction, and take them back to Jedo 
 as ancient English curios. 
 
 A i this point Harris threw away the sculls, got 
 
84 
 
 ghvce gUn in a goat. 
 
 up and left his seat, and sat on his back, and stuck 
 his legs in the air. 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—” 
 
 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 
 
gfoueje mm iix a iffxrat. 
 
 85 
 
 wall; what a charming picture it would make, 
 with the lichen creeping here, and the moss grow¬ 
 ing 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 
 paneled walls, and the echo of distant feet rang 
 through the cold stone corridors, and now drew 
 nearer, and now died away, and all was deathlike 
 silence, save the beating of one’s own heart. 
 
 We are creatures of the sun, we men and wo¬ 
 men. We love light and life. That is why we 
 crowd into the towns and cities, and the country 
 grows mare and more deserted every year. In 
 the sunlight—in the daytime, when Nature is 
 alive and busy all round us, we like the open hill- 
 
86 
 
 Qftxt je ptm in a gout. 
 
 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 lone¬ 
 some, 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. 
 
 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—hardly worth the twopence charged 
 for admission. Harris said he thought that map 
 must have been got up as a practical joke, be¬ 
 cause 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 turn- 
 
gfttteje iit a |&oat. 
 
 87 
 
 ing to the right. We’ll just walk round for ten 
 minut’s, and then go and get some lunch.” 
 
 The/ 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 get¬ 
 ting either in )V out, or of ever seeing their home 
 and friends again, plucked up courage at the 
 sight of Harris and his party, and joined the pro¬ 
 cession, blessing him. Harris said he should 
 judge there must have been twenty people fol¬ 
 lowing 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 sup¬ 
 posed it was a very big maze. 
 
 “Oh, one of the largest in Europe,” said Har¬ 
 ris. 
 
 “Yes, it must be,” replied the cousin, “because 
 we’ve walked a good two miles already.” 
 
88 
 
 gtocjc g&jctx in u gSuat. 
 
 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 had never 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 re¬ 
 gard to the advisability of going back to the en¬ 
 trance there was complete unanimity, and so they 
 turned and trailed after Harris again, in the op¬ 
 posite direction. About ten minutes more passed, 
 and then they found themselves in the center. 
 
 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. 
 
^hvtt men in a goat. 
 
 89 
 
 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 hack in the 
 center 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 in¬ 
 furiated 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 grasp¬ 
 ing anything, and so the man told them to stop 
 where they were, and he would come to them. 
 They huddled together, and waited; and lie- 
 climbed down and came in. 
 
 He was a young keeper, as luck would have it* 
 
VO 
 
 ghvtjc gtXen in a 23 oat. 
 
 and new to the business; and when he got in, he 
 couldn’t find them, and he wandered about, try¬ 
 ing to get to them, and then 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 woul 
 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 VII. 
 
 It was while passing through Moulsey Lock 
 that Harris told me about hL maze experience. 
 It took us some time topass 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, be¬ 
 fore, 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 
 
glivcc ffcXeu in a goat. 
 
 91 
 
 you could not see any water at all, but only a bril 
 liant tangle of bright blazers, and gay caps, and 
 saucy hats, and many-colored 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 rain ¬ 
 bow 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 colored dresses of the women, 
 the excited dogs, the moving boats, the wdiite 
 sails, the pleasant landscape, and the sparkling 
 w^ater, it is one of the gayest sights I know of near 
 this dull old London town. 
 
 The river affords a good opportunity for dress. 
 
92 
 
 gtojcc IPUt* in a goat. 
 
 For once in a way, we men are able to show out 
 taste in colors, 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 Pve 
 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 colors 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 Thurs¬ 
 day evening. We asked him what color he called 
 it. and he said he didn’t know. He didn’t think 
 
93 
 
 'ghxzz DXcix itx a ^jcrat* 
 
 there was a name for the color. 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 hHf 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 a 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 
 
94 
 
 Qhxzc pten in a ^Voat. 
 
 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, not¬ 
 withstanding all this, and try as I would, I could 
 
JgTxvcc pXcu in a goat. 
 
 05 
 
 aot 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 in¬ 
 voluntary 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 sensi¬ 
 tiveness in him as there might be in a Newfound¬ 
 land 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, rollick¬ 
 ing, 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 a pint of water over one of those 
 dresses, he would give a pleasant little laugh, and 
 say: 
 
96 
 
 $1m* gcXjcw in a |&crat 
 
 “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 to 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 handker¬ 
 chiefs on the ground and sat on those, bolt up¬ 
 right. Somebody, in walking about with a plate 
 of beefsteak pie, tripped over a root, and sent the 
 pie flying. None of it went over them, fortunate¬ 
 ly, but the accident suggested a fresh danger to 
 them, and agitated them; 4 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 
 
fpUn in a goat. 
 
 97 
 
 fun! You lie down on your—I mean you lean 
 over the bank, you know, and sloush the things 
 about in the water.” 
 
 The eldest 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’ 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 den}r 
 myself. I tpke no interest in creeoing round dim 
 
08 
 
 glxvjcje in a goat. 
 
 and chilly churches behind wheezy old men, and 
 reading epithets. 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 imperturba¬ 
 bility I am able to assume before exciting inscrip¬ 
 tions, 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 leaned 
 against‘the low stone wall that guarded a little vil¬ 
 lage church, and I smoked, and drank in deep, 
 calm gladness from the sweet, restful scene—the 
 gray old church with its clustering ivy and its 
 quaint carved wooden porch, the white lane wind¬ 
 ing 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, poet¬ 
 ical, 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 1 forgave all my friends and 
 relations for their wickedness and cussedness, 
 
Qlxxcc fputx In a goat. 
 
 99 
 
 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 peace¬ 
 ful 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 toward me carry¬ 
 ing 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 1 get 
 over the wall and slay you.” 
 
 He seemed surprised. 
 
 “Don't you want to see the tombs?” he said- 
 
100 
 
 gftvjcje pUn in a gjoal. 
 
 “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 tomb¬ 
 stone nonsense of yours. Go away, and get some¬ 
 body 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 hu¬ 
 man 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 grand¬ 
 father’s vault at Bow is capable of accommodating 
 
glmje got m in a l»joal. 
 
 101 
 
 eight visitors, while my great-aunt Susan has a 
 brick grave in Finchley Churchyard, with a head¬ 
 stone 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 folks’. 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 one to be probably part of 
 the remains of a 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: 
 
 “Fve got a couple of skulls down in the c rypt,’’ 
 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 yoi rself. Come 
 and see the skulls!” 
 
 Then I turned and fled, and as I *ped J heard 
 him calling to me: 
 
102 
 
 pUtx in a goat. 
 
 “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’ grave 
 made him crazy. He said he had looked forward 
 to seeing Mrs. Thomas’ grave from the first mo¬ 
 ment that the trip was proposed—said he wouldn’t 
 have joined if it hadn’t been for the idea of seeing 
 Mrs. Thomas’ 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 bio wed t What good was he 
 f.t the bank?” 
 
 “I never see him doing any work there,” con¬ 
 tinued Harris, “whenever I go in. He sits behind 
 a bit of glass all day, trying to look as if he were 
 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 
 
glxvjec g&jcn in <t ^oat. 
 
 108 
 
 check, 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 lurking 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 
 every one 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 be pumps himself 
 out, and is quiet afterward. 
 
 I reminded him that there was concentrated 
 lemonade in the hamper, and a gHilorr jar of water 
 in the nose of the boat, and that the two only 
 wanted mixing to make a coo 1 and refreshing 
 beverage. 
 
 Then he flew off about lemonade, and “such 
 like Sunday-school slops,” as he termed them, 
 ginger beer, raspberry syrup, etc., etc. He said 
 they ail produced dyspepsia, and ruined body and 
 soul alike, and were the cause of half the crime 
 in England. 
 
104 
 
 ghrce fftXjctt in a ^oat. 
 
 He said he must drink something, however, 
 and climbed upon the seat, and leaned 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 VIII. 
 
 » 
 
 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 with 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 
 
glivjce @Ij m in a goat. 
 
 m 
 
 as yet to enable us to arrive at a definite conclu¬ 
 sion 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 de¬ 
 clined 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 4 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 quTe an income, during the summer, by 
 
106 
 
 ghvee pXxn in a gcrai. 
 
 slouching about the banks and blackmailing 
 weak-minded noodles in this way. They repre¬ 
 sent 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 any¬ 
 thing 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 these 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 
 
gtoje* fpbm in a £Soat. 
 
 107 
 
 he had not only felt he wanted to kill the man 
 who caused the board to be put up, but that he 
 would 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 in¬ 
 stincts of justice to degenerate into mere vindic¬ 
 tiveness. It was a long while before I could get 
 Harris to take a more Christian view of the sub¬ 
 ject, 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’ fixed 
 ideas that he can sing a comic song; the fixed 
 idea, on the contrary, among those of Harris’ 
 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, 
 ho replies: “Well, I can only sing a comic song, 
 
 you know;* and he says it in a tone that implies 
 
1U8 
 
 r £hxzz ptjcn in n §ont. 
 
 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 the 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. 
 
glxvce gtXcit in a gloat. 
 
 106 
 
 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, afterward, suddenly recollect it, 
 when he lias got to an entirely different part of 
 the song, and break off, without a word of warn- * 
 ing, 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 ad¬ 
 dressing 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—1 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 ar¬ 
 rives 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 
 
110 
 
 xvzz JJXcn in a gnat, 
 
 Harris with accompaniment to Judge’s song out of 
 “Trial by Jury,” finds that doesn’t answer, and tries 
 to recollect what Le is doing, and where he is, feels 
 his mind giving way, and stops short. 
 
 Harris (with kindly encouragement): “It's ah 
 right. You’re doing 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’ (from the back of the 
 room): “No you’re not, you chucklehead, you’re 
 singing the Admiral’s song from Pinafore.” 
 
 [Long argument between Harris and Harris’ friend as 
 to what Harris is really singing. Friend finally sug¬ 
 gests 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, there¬ 
 upon, starts prelude to the Admiral’s song, and Har¬ 
 ris, seizing what he considers to be a favorable open¬ 
 ing in the music, begins: 
 
 Harris: 
 
 “ ‘When I was young and called to the Bar.’ ” 
 
 [General roar of laughter, taken by Harris as a com¬ 
 pliment. Pianist, thinking of his wife and family, 
 gives up the unequal contest and retires; hte place 
 being taken by a stronger-nerved man. 
 
Qftxtz ptm in a ISoat 
 
 .il 
 
 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 ap¬ 
 proaching 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 audi¬ 
 ence. Nervous old lady near the fire begins to cry, 
 and has to be led out. 
 
 Harris (continuing): 
 
 “ *1 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— 
 
m 
 
 glitjeje pCjen in a gjjcrat. 
 
 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 ruler of the Queen’s navee.’ ” 
 
 Now, then, chorus—it’s 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 gen¬ 
 eral, 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 
 
ghvce pXcn in a ^out. 
 
 113 
 
 young fellows, students, just returned from Ger¬ 
 many, commonplace young men, who seemed 
 restless and uncomfortable, as if they found the 
 proceedings slow r . The truth was, we were too 
 clever for them. Our brilliant but polished con¬ 
 versation, and our high-class tastes, were oeyond 
 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 re¬ 
 member. 
 
 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 
 
114 
 
 glxvjcje m itx a ^jcrat. 
 
 * 
 
 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 Slos¬ 
 senn 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 fun¬ 
 nier. 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 irre¬ 
 sistibly amusing. 
 
 We said we yearned to hear it, that we wanted 
 a'good laugh; and they went down-stairs, 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 
 
Jghvce iVUu in a 115 
 
 that it was the German ethod, and prepared to 
 enjoy it. 
 
 I don’t understand Gr nan myself. I learned 
 it at school, but forgot e, -ry word of it two years 
 after I had left, and have felt much better ever 
 sirme. Still, I did not want the people there to 
 guess my ignorance; so I hit upon what I 
 tho ught 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 
 humor that had escaped the others. I considered 
 *his particularly artful on my part. 
 
 I noticed, as the song progressed, that a good 
 many other people seemed to have their eye fixed 
 cn the two young men, as well as myself. T hesc 
 o'her 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 sur¬ 
 prise, 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 
 
116 
 
 Qhxcz fjpua in vc 
 
 half the humor. The slightest hint on his part 
 that he knew how funny he was would have com¬ 
 pletely mined 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 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 con¬ 
 centrated ferocity that, but for our being fore¬ 
 warned as to the German method of comic sing¬ 
 ing, 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 humor. And we asked the 
 professor why he didn’t translate the song into 
 English, so that the common people could under¬ 
 stand it, and hear what a real comic song was like. 
 
e ptetx it* a gxntt. 
 
 117 
 
 Then Herr Slossenn Boschen got up, and went 
 on awful. He swore at us in German (which 1 
 should judge to be a singularly effective language 
 for that purpose), and.he danced, and shook hk 
 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 Hie 
 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 some¬ 
 thing 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 ia® 
 guage. 
 
 It was a very trying situation for us—very try¬ 
 ing. 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 unosten¬ 
 tatious 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 fess. 
 
118 
 
 gtoje* IlXcrx in a gxrat. 
 
 We never said good-night even to one another. 
 We came down-stairs one at a time, walking 
 softly, and keeping the shady side. We asked 
 the servant for our hats and coats in whispers, 
 and slipped out, and got round the corner quick¬ 
 ly, 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 
 
Qftvzz |WLm in a gxrai. 
 
 119 
 
 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 be¬ 
 tween 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. 
 
 Caesar, of course, had a little place at Walton 
 —a camp, or an entrenchment, or something oi 
 that sort. Caesar was a regular up-river man 
 Also Queen Elizabeth, she was there, too. Yor 
 can never get away from that woman, go when 
 you will. Cromwell and Bradshaw (not the guide 
 
120 
 
 gjtote 2$tjetx in a gout. 
 
 man, but the King Charles’ 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 
 oe„ Above the bridge the river winds tremen¬ 
 dously. 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 h 
 from some one or the other, I forget whom no\V> 
 and lived in it. There is a grotto in the park, 
 which one 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 tomb¬ 
 stone over each, and an epitaph inscribed thereon. 
 
Wi&n in a gcrat. 
 
 121 
 
 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 
 Caesar and Cassivelaunus. Cassivelaunus had 
 prepared the river for Caesar, by planting it full 
 of stakes (and had, no doubt, put up a notice- 
 board). But Caesar crossed it in spite of this. 
 You couldn’t choke Caesar 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 move¬ 
 ment, 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 Basingstroke Canal all enter the Thames 
 
122 
 
 ^fxrce vfcXw in a goat. 
 
 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 insp?:hcn showing that George was 
 inside it. 
 
 Montmorency *et 'up a furious barking, I 
 shrieked, Harris 'oared; 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 h r d rather a curious oilskin-covered 
 parcel in hi ' hand. It was round and flat at one 
 end, with a long straight handle sticking out of it. 
 
 “What’s ;hat?” said Harris—“a frying-pan?” 
 
 “No,” srid 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 b/'ijo.” 
 
 “I nver knew you played the banjo!” cried 
 Harris and I, in one breath. 
 
 “N' t exactly,” replied George: “but it’s very 
 easy, they tell me; and I’ve got the instruction 
 bocd *” 
 
glxvjejc gJXjctx in a gcuxl. 
 
 128 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 We made George work, now we had got him. 
 He did not want to work, of course; that goes 
 without savin 0 ’. He had iiad a hard time in the 
 
 • i_. 
 
 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 
 tor 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 task, 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 unac¬ 
 countable 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 
 afterward when you pick it up, it is one ghastly, 
 soul-revolting tangle. 
 
 I do not wish to be insulting, but I firmly be¬ 
 lieve that if you took an average tow-line, and 
 
124 
 
 Qtvczz gPtjetx in a gxrax. 
 
 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 it¬ 
 self 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 honorable exceptions; I do 
 not say there are not. There may be tow-lines 
 that are a credit to their profession—conscien¬ 
 tious, 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 
 
gtXeix in & Stoat. 
 
 125 
 
 held it away from him, and had begun to unravel 
 it as if he were taking the swaddling clothes oil a 
 new-bcrn infant; and, before he had unwourd a 
 dozen yards, the thing was more like a badly 
 made doormat 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 tiling, 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 en¬ 
 tangled, you would!” 
 
 And then they feel so angry with one another 
 that they would like to hang each other with the 
 
126 
 
 •gfottcje tn in a ISxrat. 
 
 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 ge' hold of the same bit of line, and pull 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 knowl¬ 
 edge. It was up by Boveney, one rather wind) 
 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 ' 
 an 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 rephed in an 
 indignant tone. “We just got out to disentangle 
 the tow-line, and when we looked round, it was 
 gone!” 
 
ghvzz I^Cjcu in it gcr&t. 
 
 127 
 
 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 these 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 dis¬ 
 cussion, 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 over¬ 
 board, 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 cheer¬ 
 ily. “Pve dropped my hat overboard.” 
 
 Then: “Hi! Tom—Dick! can’t vou hear!” 
 not quite so affably this time. 
 
 Then: “Hi! Confound you, you dunderheadcd 
 idiots! Hi! stop! Oh, you-P 
 
128 
 
 gferjejc JfcXjetx in a ghrai. 
 
 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 in¬ 
 stance. 
 
 He and three other men, so he said, were scuff¬ 
 ing a very heavily laden boat up from Maiden¬ 
 head one evening, and a little above Cookham 
 lock they noticed a fellow and a girl walking along 
 the tow-path, both deep in an apparently interest¬ 
 ing and absorbing conversation. They were car¬ 
 rying a boat-hook between them, and attached 
 to the boat-hook was a tow-line, which trailed be¬ 
 hind them, its end in the water. No boat was near, 
 
glxvjce g&cu itx a gjcratf. 
 
 129 
 
 *io 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 
 
130 
 
 gto zz I^Cjctx in a gxrat. 
 
 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 the tower and the towed was 
 witnessed by George and myself once up neai 
 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 appear¬ 
 ance. 
 
 “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 
 
gtoe* pun in a Jloat. 
 
 131 
 
 hamper, and three oars immediately left the boat 
 on the larboard side, and reclined on the bank, 
 and one and a half moments afterward 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 real¬ 
 ized 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. In¬ 
 deed, I only wish that all the young fools who 
 have their boats towed in this fashion—and plenty 
 do—could meet with similar misfortunes. Be¬ 
 sides 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 im¬ 
 possible 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 
 
132 
 
 gtajeje iJXcu xix x gjorat. 
 
 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. If 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 midstream and 
 turns round, before you know what has happened, 
 or can get hold of a scull. Then they stand u k \ 
 and are surprised. 
 
 “Oh, look!” they say; “lie’s gone right out into 
 the middle.” 
 
 They pull on pretty steadily for a bit, and then 
 it all at once occurs to one of them that she will 
 
^Iivcjc plctx in a J&oat. 
 
 133 
 
 pin up her frock, and they ease up for the pur¬ 
 pose, 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 shou* back. 
 
 “Don’t stop!” you roar. 
 
 “Don’t what?” 
 
 “Don’t stop—go on—go on!” 
 
 “Go back, 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 hap¬ 
 pened?” 
 
 “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.” 
 
134 
 
 ^Ixvce IJXetf in a goat. 
 
 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 oft 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 1 in the boat while 
 girls are towing it 
 
 George got the line right after awhile, 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 Runnymede, three and a half miles farther, 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 
 
135 
 
 Shvcc WLzn in a goat. 
 
 miles. Yon do not chat and laugh. Every h “If 
 mile you cover seems like two. You can hard./ 
 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 Cleve. 
 
 “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 
 
136 
 
 Jghvcc H&etx in a gxrat. 
 
 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, arid took a view. The 
 river stretched out straight before us in the twi¬ 
 light for about a mile; not a ghost of a lock was to 
 be seen. 
 
 “You don’t think we have lost our wav, 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 would 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 .made light of the 
 whole affair. I said that the fact evidently was 
 
gftvce fg&m in a goat. 
 
 137 
 
 'hat I was not rowing as fast as I fancied I was, 
 but that we would 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 recol¬ 
 lected the lock myself. I had been through: it 
 twice. Where were we? What had happened to 
 us? I began to think that it must all be 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 won¬ 
 dered 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 inter¬ 
 esting. 
 
 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 the rocks, and lure 
 people into whirlpools and things; and I washed 
 I had been a better man, and knew more hymns; 
 
138 
 
 gJTive.c |XXeu in a 
 
 and in the middle of these reflections I heard the 
 blessed strains of “He’s got ’em bad,” 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 any¬ 
 thing 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 bad,” 
 jerked spasmodically, and with involuntary vari¬ 
 ations, 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 along¬ 
 side 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.) ± 
 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 ex¬ 
 plained that I had been looking for it for the past 
 two hours. 
 
gfrvec in a goat, u* 
 
 “Wallingford lock!” they answered. “Yor’ 
 love yon, sir, that’s been done away with for over 
 a year. There ain’t no Wallingford lock now, sir. 
 You’re close to Cleve 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 pleased to see them. 
 And we sang the soldier’s chorus out of “Faust” 
 and got home in time for supper after all. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Harris and I began to think that Bell Wier 
 lock must have been done away with after the 
 iame manner. George had towed us up to 
 *'taines, and we had taken the boat from there, 
 
140 
 
 glxvjejc f&jett in <i g^oat. 
 
 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 didn’t 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 fas¬ 
 tened the boat. 
 
 Then we thought we were going to have sup¬ 
 per (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 da: k, and 
 while we could see what we were doing. Then, 
 he said all our work would be done, and wo could 
 sit down to eat with an easy mind. 
 
 Tha fc canvas wanted more putting up than I 
 
gttfce* fj&cu in a goat 1±] 
 
 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 
 •magine this to be dangerous work; 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 these 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 min¬ 
 utes, 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 
 endeavoring to persuade it to do its duty, the 
 
142 
 
 in <* 3Goat 
 
 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 pro¬ 
 cess or other he succeeded, after ten minutes of 
 superhuman effort, in getting himself completely 
 rolled up in it. lie 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 afterward), 
 knocked over George; and then George, swear¬ 
 ing at Harris, began to struggle too, and got him¬ 
 self 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. 
 
3 luxe pUtx in a gloat. 
 
 143 
 
 We could see the canvas being violently jerked 
 and tossed about, pretty considerably; but we sup¬ 
 posed this was part of the method and did not in¬ 
 terfere. 
 
 We also heard much smothered language com¬ 
 ing from underneath it, and we guessed that they 
 were finding the job rather troublesome, and con¬ 
 cluded 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 labor, after that, 
 before it was properly up, and then we cleared 
 the decks, and got our 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 no¬ 
 tice of it, but set to work to get the other things 
 out. 
 
 hat is the only way to get a kettle to boil up 
 
gftvjeje pCjett in n Uxrarit. 
 
 XU 
 
 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 
 spluttering 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 lemon¬ 
 ade 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 hhn 
 and put his right one there instead. 
 
 F»ve minutes afterward, George said, “Ah!” 
 
ghvce JXXcn In a ^oat. 
 
 146 
 
 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 h. I did not 
 even swear. 
 
 How good one feels when one is full—how sat¬ 
 isfied 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 in¬ 
 tellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, 
 we cannot think, unless our stomachs will so. It 
 dictates to us our emotions, our passions. x\fter 
 eggs and bacon, it says, “Work!” After beef¬ 
 steak and porter it says, “Sleep!” After a cup of 
 tea (two spoonfuls 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 
 
146 
 
 ghvcjc pCjcn in a gScrat. 
 
 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, 
 of 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 
 l 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 right¬ 
 eousness, my friends; watch vigilantly your stom¬ 
 ach, and diet it with care and judgment. Then 
 virtue and contentment will come anc reign with¬ 
 in 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 an¬ 
 other, and we beamed upon the dog, too. We 
 loved each other, we loved everybody. Harris, 
 in moving about, trod on George’s corn. Had 
 
gtoeje f$&£tx itx a gjcral 
 
 147 
 
 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 
 Georg'e 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 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 temp¬ 
 tation, 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 possib 1- 
 ity of our going away, we four, to some handy.- 
 
148 Sfcvce QXcn in a gloat. 
 
 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 hap¬ 
 pened to his father once. He said his father was 
 traveling 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 
 
SIxx‘cc |Wen iix a goat. 
 
 149 
 
 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,” an¬ 
 swered 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 dole¬ 
 ful 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. 
 
150 
 
 i’hvcc Wim in a ga at. 
 
 “The Pig and Whistle,” said George. "Why# 
 “Ah, no, then it isn’t the same,” replied Harris 
 “What do yon mean?” queried George. 
 
 “Why, it’s so curious,” mummured 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 cut¬ 
 ting a hole in my back with a gimlet, so as to try 
 
gtxtteje f$Uix itx a 
 
 151 
 
 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 other¬ 
 wise 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 cam as on to the 
 bank. 
 
 It was a glorious night. The moon had sunk, 
 and left the quiet earth along 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 
 
152 
 
 glxxtec gtXxn in a goat. 
 
 vista of the shadowy light, glance up, half hop¬ 
 ing, 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-strained 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 be¬ 
 neath 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 suffer¬ 
 ing can look upon that wondrous light; and they, 
 
ghrec iVUn in a goat. 153 
 
 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 toward 
 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 meas¬ 
 ure, 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 radi¬ 
 ance 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 
 
154 
 
 $1xvjCjc en in a gaat. 
 
 many days and nights, till, torn and bleeding he 
 had lain 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 XI. 
 
 I woke at six the next morning; and found 
 George awake too. We both turned round, and 
 'ried to go to sleep again, but we could not Had 
 
ghwec plow in a goat. 
 
 155 
 
 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 ne¬ 
 cessity 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 un¬ 
 usual 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 after 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!” ex- 
 
156 
 
 gtojeje |pt m in a gtoat. 
 
 claimed George, “and here have I got to be in 
 the city by nine. Why didn’t somebody call me7 
 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, aid 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 flow 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 greatcoat and hat, and seizing his um¬ 
 brella, 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 
 
^Txvcjc f*T.cit in a goat. 
 
 157 
 
 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 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 police¬ 
 man ; a market-cart full of cabbages and a dilapi¬ 
 dated 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, eying George 
 up and down with evident suspicion; “why, if you 
 listen you will hear it strike.” 
 
 George listened, and a neighboring clock im¬ 
 mediately 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? v 
 replied the constable. 
 
 “Why, nine,” said George, showing his watch. 
 
158 
 
 Jgferjeje 2$Un in a gjcrat. 
 
 “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 un¬ 
 dress and go to bed again; but when he thought 
 of the re-dressing and re-washing, and the hav¬ 
 ing 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 ue 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 undis¬ 
 guised 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 
 
glxvce gXen irx a gxrat. 
 
 159 
 
 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, iust 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 failing 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 
 
160 
 
 glxvjcjc gXjcn in a gjoai. 
 
 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 break¬ 
 fast, 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 Montmorency, 
 who had been sleeping the sieep 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 
 
m 
 
 HJlxv.ec QXcxi xu a gjcrat, 
 
 long, delicious swim. Somehow, now the morn¬ 
 ing 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. 
 Montmorency gave vent to an involuntary howl, 
 as if merely thinking of the thing had given him 
 the horrors; and Harris said it would be so diffi¬ 
 cult 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 com¬ 
 promise 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 mv 
 way along on to the branch of a tree and dipped 
 down into the water. 
 
 It was bitterly cold. The wind cut like a knife, 
 I thought I would not throw the water over my¬ 
 self 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 
 
162 gfxueje pcm in a ^jcrat. 
 
 out mid-stream with a gallon of Thames water in¬ 
 side me before I knew what had happened. 
 
 “By Jove! old J.’s gone in,” 1 heard Harris 
 say, as I come 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 
 fittle determination.” 
 
 But I could not persuade them. 
 
 X 
 
 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, 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; where¬ 
 upon the humor of the thing struck me for the 
 first time, and I began to laugh. And the more 
 I looked George’s wet shirt to George, roar- 
 
Qhxzz gXcu in a IStfat. 
 
 163 
 
 ing 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. 
 
 “Arn’t you—you going to get it out?” said 
 George between his shrieks. 
 
 I could not answer him at all for awhile, I 
 was laughing so, but, at last, between my peals 
 I managed to jerk out: 
 
 “It isn’t my shirt—its 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 die fun of the thing, but 
 he could not. Georgs 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 
 
164 
 
 £hvce gtXcu in a |8jo&t. 
 
 afterward, 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—■ 
 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 sleeves, 
 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 every¬ 
 thing 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. 
 
glivjcje in a ^Sicrat. 
 
 165 
 
 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 tea¬ 
 spoonful of burnt ard 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 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 centuryj 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 stu¬ 
 pendous page of h ; story, the meaning whereof 
 
106 
 
 Puree Wien in a goat. 
 
 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—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, bill- 
 men, 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 Baron’s troops, and eat and drink 
 deep, and bellow forth roystering drinking songs, 
 and gamble and quarrel as the evening grows and 
 
ghvcc |&jcu in a ^oat. 
 
 167 
 
 deepens into night. The firelight sheds quaint 
 shadows on their piled-up arms and on their un¬ 
 couth 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 mer¬ 
 cenaries 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 Thames has broken the morning of the 
 great day that is to close so big with the fate of 
 ages yet unborn. 
 
 Ever since gray dawn, in the lower of the 
 two islands, just above where we are standing, 
 there has been great clamor, 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-coWed 
 stuffs and silks and cloth of gold and silver. 
 
168 
 
 gtoe# fputx in a 
 
 And now, lo! down upon the road that winds 
 along the river’s bank from Staines there come 
 toward us, laughing and talking together in deep 
 guttural bass, a half a score of stalwart halbert- 
 men—Baron’s men, these—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 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 shout¬ 
 ing 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 
 
3.-five c pCcti in a gcrat. 169 
 
 work! Blit 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—which 
 last are growing out of favor 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 fate¬ 
 ful Charter waits his signing. 
 
 It is noon, and we and all the people have been 
 waiting patient for many an hour, and the rumor 
 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 pat¬ 
 tering 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 
 
170 
 
 S&cn in a Igxrai. 
 
 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 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 honor 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 unsus¬ 
 pecting horseman at his side, one cry to his 
 French troops, one desperate charge upon the un¬ 
 ready 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 Eng¬ 
 land’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. 
 
S&xtjcjc fptjew in a goat. 
 
 171 
 
 Slowly the heavy, bright-decked barges leave 
 the shore of Runnymede. Slowly against the 
 swift current they work their ponderous way, till, 
 with a low grumble, they grate against the bank 
 of the little island tiiat from this day will bear 
 the name of Magna Charta Island. And King 
 jehn has stepped upon the shore, and we wait in 
 breathless silence till a great shout cleaves the air, 
 and the great corner-stone in England's temple 
 of liberty has, now we know, been firmly laid. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 I 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 pres¬ 
 ent, 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 
 final!/ with George’s wet shirt 
 
 We went over to Magna Charta Island, and 
 had a look at the stone which stands in the cot¬ 
 tage there and on which the great Charter is 
 said to have been signed; though, as to whether 
 
172 
 
 ^ftvjcc pjcti in a g&jcrai 
 
 it really was signed there, or, as some say, on the 
 other bank at “Runnymede,” I decline to com¬ 
 mit 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 thought¬ 
 less young- folk were not spooning. 
 
 Have you ever been in a house wnere there 
 are a couple courting? It is most trying. You 
 think you will go and sit in the draw : ng-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 
 
fpun in a 
 
 173 
 
 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 con¬ 
 versation, you edge up to the door, and slip out, 
 and are surprised to find that the door imme¬ 
 diately 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 
 
174 
 
 gtxvjcje 2Vlcn in a goat. 
 
 speak, but they give you a look that says all that 
 can be said in a civilized 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 tney 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 Wravsbury, 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! 
 
ghvjte UXjctt in a ^xsrat. 
 
 175 
 
 Pve 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. Well 
 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—nice quiet place, St. Albans.” 
 
 And when they reached St. /Ubans, there would 
 be that wretched couple, kissing under the 
 Abbey walls. Then these folks w r ould 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 pic¬ 
 turesque inn, as most up-river inns are, and a 
 place where a very good glass of ale may be 
 drunk—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 Con¬ 
 fessor had a palace here, and here the great Earl 
 Godwin was proved guilty by the justice of that 
 
176 
 
 ■I'hxcjc gXctt in a gnat. 
 
 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 some¬ 
 what 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 of! to look for 
 diggings. We passed a very pretty little hotel, 
 with clematis and creeper over the porch; but 
 there was no honeysuckle about it, and I said: 
 
 “Oh, don’t let’s go in there! Let’s go on a bit 
 
3^!xvex iJXnt in a goat. 
 
 177 
 
 further, and see if there isn’t one with honey¬ 
 suckle 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—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—didn’t like the looks of a man who was 
 stopping there—Harris did not like the color 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. 
 
178 
 
 Jgfejcs |&ctt in a gxrat. 
 
 “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 realize 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 Pm 
 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. 
 
gfeueje in a goat. 
 
 179 
 
 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, dnd 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 four¬ 
 teenth 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—she did 
 
180 
 
 ghxzt gXm in a gtoat. 
 
 not recommend it, mind—but there was a little 
 beer shop half a mile down the Eton-road —” 
 
 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 beer shop were rude. They 
 merely laughed at us. There were only three 
 beds in the whole house, and they had seven sin¬ 
 gle gentlemen and two married couples sleeping 
 there already. A kind-hearted bargeman, how¬ 
 ever, 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 highroad, and 
 
3Jhvcc ptcu in a goat. 
 
 181 
 
 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 dis¬ 
 guise of a small boy (and I cannot think of any 
 more effective disguise an angel could have as¬ 
 sumed), with a can of beer in one hand, and in 
 the other something at the end of a string, wh'ch 
 he let down on to every flat stone he came across, 
 and then pulled up again, this producing a pecu¬ 
 liarly unattractive sound, suggestive of suffering. 
 
 We asked this heavenly messenger (as we dis¬ 
 covered him afterward to be) if he knew of any 
 lonely house, whose occupants were few and fee¬ 
 ble (old ladies or paralyzed 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 pig-sty, or a disused limekiln, or anything 
 of that sort. He did not know of any such place 
 —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 
 
182 
 
 glxttce f&jctx in a goat. 
 
 beautiful picture if the boy himself had not been 
 so overpowered 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. Har¬ 
 ris 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—good soul!—gave us 
 hot bacon for supper, and we ate it all—five 
 pounds—and a jam tart afterward, 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 I 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 morn¬ 
 ing, 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; we tugged steadily on to a little below 
 Monkey Island, where we drew 7 up and lunched. 
 We tackled the cold beef for lunch, and then we 
 
Slrn'c 2 $Xjcu in a idcmt. 
 
 183 
 
 found that we had forgotten to bring any mus¬ 
 tard. 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, 
 and I would have given worlds for it then. 
 
 I don’t know how many worlds there may be in 
 the universe, but any one 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 dare say both Harris and I would 
 have tried to back out of the bargain after we 
 had got the mustard. One makes these extrav¬ 
 agant 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 
 
ghvce 3*%cix in a gloat. 
 
 said it was a scandalous imposition, and he wrote 
 to the 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 p : ne-app!e 
 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. 
 He looked at the picture on the tin; we thought 
 of the juice. We smiled at one another, and Har¬ 
 ris 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 every¬ 
 thing 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 
 
HJIivec gOCcn in a goat. 
 
 185 
 
 out between the boat and the bank into two feet 
 of muddy water, and the tin rolled over, unin¬ 
 jured, and broke a teacup. 
 
 Then we all got mad. We took that tin out oa 
 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 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 stretch'ers about the 
 dangers they have passed through, George brings 
 it down and shows it around, 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 ham¬ 
 mered 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—- 
 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, 
 diat he got frightened and threw away the mast. 
 
186 
 
 gtoejc in a ISJjcrat. 
 
 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 over¬ 
 dressed female companion. It is the town of 
 showy hotels, patronized chiefly by dudes and 
 ballet girls. It is the witch’s kitchen from which 
 go forth those demons of the river—steam- 
 launches. The London 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 a 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 wort 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, per- 
 
$hvcc UXcu itt a gxrat. 
 
 187 
 
 haps, 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—in our favor, for a won¬ 
 der; 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 favor both ways. 
 But there! this world is only a probation, and 
 man was born to trouble as the sparks fly up¬ 
 ward. 
 
 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 qu'ck’y 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. 
 
188 
 
 glntec Wim in a Jlcrat, 
 
 There is no more thrilling sensation I know of 
 than sailing. It comes as near to flying as man 
 has got to yet—except in dreams. The wings of 
 the rushing wind seemed to be bearing you on¬ 
 ward, you know not where. You are no longer 
 the low, 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 w r ooded banks, and no one spoke. 
 
 I w 7 as 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 goMen 
 glory of the piled-up clouds. It was an hour of 
 
ftlcu in a Jloat. 
 
 189 
 
 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 sun¬ 
 set. 
 
 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 neighborhood of human 
 beings and that they were vexed and discon¬ 
 tented. 
 
 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—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 dis- 
 
190 
 
 glmjc JJXcix in a SJoai. 
 
 tinct future, and included all our relations, and 
 covered everything connected with us—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 of their age give way to tempe r 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—better ^et 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 bndge, 
 and went and put up for the night at the “Cro vn. ,J 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Marlow is one of the pleasantest river centers 
 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—standing arches in the 
 shattered bridge of Time, over which our fancy 
 travels back to the days when Marlow Manor 
 
gtXetx in a gSirat. 
 
 191 
 
 owned Saxon 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 laugh¬ 
 ing 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 melo¬ 
 dramatic 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 
 
192 
 
 HJhvcc gX-jcu in a goax. 
 
 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 Poictiers. 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 monu¬ 
 ments in Bisham Church. It was while floating 
 in his boat under the Bisham beeches that Shel¬ 
 ley, who was then living at Marlow (you can see 
 his house now, in West Street), composed The 
 Revolt of Islam. 
 
 By Hurley Weir, a little higher up, I have often 
 thought I could stay a month without having suf¬ 
 ficient 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 Med men ham Abbey. 
 
 The famous Medmenham monks, or “Hell Fire 
 
$&££# fjjfcjett in a gcrat- 
 
 193 
 
 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 be¬ 
 fore 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 revelers that were to follow them, five 
 hundred years afterward. 
 
 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 labor, 
 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—the soft 
 singing of the waters, the whisperings of the river 
 grass, the music of the rushing wind—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 spo 1 ^ 
 to them in myriad tones, and they heard it not 
 
194 
 
 jc gtjcu lit a gjoat. 
 
 From Medmenham to sweet Hambledon Lock 
 the river is full of peaceful beauty, but, after it 
 passes Greenlands, the rather uninteresting look¬ 
 ing residence of my news agent—a quiet, unas¬ 
 suming 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—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 bath before 
 breakfast; and, coming back, Montmorency 
 made an awful ass of himself. The only subject 
 on which Montmorency and I have any serious 
 difference of opinion is cats. I like cats; Mont¬ 
 morency does not. 
 
 When I meet a cat, I say, “Poor Pussy!” and 
 stoop down and tickle the side of its head; and 
 the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron man¬ 
 ner, arches its back, and wipes its nose up against 
 my trousers; and all is gentleness and peace. 
 When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole 
 street knows about it; and there is enough bad 
 language wasted in ten seconds to last an ordi¬ 
 narily 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 
 
gfoejeje ptcn in a goat. 
 
 195 
 
 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 Havmar- 
 ket 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 re¬ 
 trievers 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 tyke's. 
 
 There they sat, patient, good, and thoughtful. 
 A solemn peacefulness seemed to reign in that 
 lobby. An air of calmness and resignation—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 celling, 
 and seemed, judging from his expression, to be 
 thinking of his mother. Then lie yawned. Then 
 
190 
 
 Qhxcz 3*lcn in a goat. 
 
 lie 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 
 tiie bull-dog by the ear, and tried to throw him 
 away; and the bull-dog, a curiously impartial ani¬ 
 mal, went for everything he could reach, includ¬ 
 ing the hall-porter, which gave that dear little ter¬ 
 rier the opportunity to enjoy an uninterrupted 
 fight of his own with an equally willing York¬ 
 shire tyke. 
 
 Any one who knows canine nature need hardly 
 be told that, by this time, all the other dogs in 
 file place were fighting as if their hearths and 
 homes depended on the fray. The big dogs 
 fought each other indiscriminately; and the little 
 
gJfxvjeje in a gjcrat. 
 
 m 
 
 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 out- 
 side in the Haymarket, and asked if it was a 
 vestry meeting; or, if not, who was being mur¬ 
 dered, 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-bora 
 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, Pm 
 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, there¬ 
 fore, I do not blame Montmorency for his ten*- 
 dency to row with cats; but he wished he had 
 *iot given way to it that morning. 
 
198 
 
 gftvcc plctx in a goat. 
 
 We were, as I have said, returning frotn a dip, 
 and half-way up the High Street a cat darted out 
 from one of the houses in front of him, and began 
 to trot across the road. Montmorency gave a 
 cry of joy—the cry of a stern warrior who sees 
 his enemy given over to his hands—the sort of 
 cry Cromwell might have uttered when the Scots 
 came down the hill—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. 
 
 Montmorency went for that poor cat at the 
 rate of twenty miles an hour; but the cat did 
 not hurry up—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 turned round and sat down 
 in the middle of the road, and looked at Mont¬ 
 morency with a gentle, inquiring expression that 
 said: 
 
 “Yes! You want me?” 
 
 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, 
 
JTxvcjc pt m in a Herat. 
 
 199 
 
 Neither spoke; but the conversation that one 
 . iould imagine was clearly as follows: 
 
 The Cat: "‘Can I do anything for you?” 
 
 Montmorency: “No—no, thanks/’ 
 
 The Cat: "‘Don't you mind speaking, if you 
 really want anything, you know.” 
 
 Montmorency (backing down the High Street): 
 “Oh,—no—not at all—certainly—don’t you trou¬ 
 ble/ I—I am afraid I’ve made a mistake. I 
 thought I knew you. Sorry I disturbed you.” 
 
 The Cat: “Not at all—quite a pleasure. Sure 
 you don’t want anything, now?” 
 
 Montmorency (still backing): “Not at all, 
 thanks—not at all—very kind of you. Good¬ 
 morning.” 
 
 The Cat: "‘Good-morning.” 
 
 Then the cat rose and continued his trot; and 
 Montmorency, fitting what he calls his tail care¬ 
 fully 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 
 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 re¬ 
 victualled the boat for three days. George said 
 we ought to take vegetables—that it was un¬ 
 healthy 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, 
 aiust have been as imposing a spectacle as Mar¬ 
 low had seen for many a long day. 
 
 The order of the procession was as follows: 
 
QUxjm |$Xcn in a goat. 
 
 Montmorency, carrying a stick. 
 
 Two disreputable-looking curs, friends of 
 Montmorency’s. 
 
 (Worge, carrying coats and rugs, and smoking a. 
 
 short pipe. 
 
 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. 
 Greengrocer’s boy and baker’s boy, with baskets. 
 Boots from the hotel, carrying a hamper. 
 Confectioner’s boy, with basket. 
 
 Grocer’s boy, with basket. 
 Long-haired dog. 
 
 Cheesemonger’s boy, with basket. 
 
 Odd man, carrying a bag. 
 
 Bosom companion of odd man, with his hands in 
 his pockets, smoking a short clay. 
 Fruiterer’s boy, with basket. 
 
 Myself, carrying three hats and a pair of boots, 
 and trying to look as if I didn’t know it. 
 
 Six small boys, and four stray dogs. 
 
 When we got down to the landing-stage, the 
 ooatman 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. 
 
202 
 
 gtoee l^tjeix in a fjjSo&t. 
 
 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 
 house-boats. I do hate steam launches: I sup¬ 
 pose 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 peo¬ 
 ple 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, insure a verdict of ‘‘justi¬ 
 fiable homicide” from any jury of river men. 
 
 They used to 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 annoy¬ 
 ance and delay and aggravation to the steam 
 launches that we came across than all the otne r 
 craft on the river put together. 
 
gftttee fpen in a goat. 
 
 203 
 
 '‘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 midstream. 
 
 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 around and get aground; every 
 one 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 com¬ 
 motion. And then Harris would break off in the 
 most interesting part of his narrative, and look up 
 with mild surprise, and say to George: 
 
$04 ghxti c in a goat. 
 
 “Why, George, bless me, if here isn’t a steam 
 launch!” 
 
 And George would answer: 
 
 “Well, do you know, I thought I heard some¬ 
 thing!” 
 
 Upon which we would get nervous and con¬ 
 fused, 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—you, you idiot! back with 
 your left. No, not you, the other one—leave the 
 lines alone, can’t you—now, both together. NOT 
 that way. Oh, you-!” 
 
 Then they would lower a boat and come to 
 our assistance; and, after a 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 mis¬ 
 take them for a bean-feast, 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 Wind¬ 
 sor—a stretch of water peculiarly rich in these 
 
mechanical monstrosities—with a party contain¬ 
 ing three ladies of this description. It was very 
 exciting. At the first glimpse of every steam 
 launch that came in view, they insisted on land¬ 
 ing 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 foolhardy. 
 
 We found ourselves short of water at Hamble- 
 don 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 win¬ 
 ning 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—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 knowF 
 
206 
 
 gftvce |WLtn in a '^oat. 
 
 “No; but you can drink 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 adver¬ 
 tisement for the brand; and that he would prefer 
 it out of a pump. 
 
 We got some from a cottage a little higher up. 
 I dare say 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 sea¬ 
 son, 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 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 boil¬ 
 ing. So we filled our kettle with Thames back¬ 
 water, 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 halt-way to his lips, paused and ex¬ 
 claimed: 
 
ghvec fgt m in a IBoat. 
 
 20f 
 
 “What’s that?” 
 
 “What’s what?” asked Harris and I. 
 
 “Why, that!’’ said George, looking westward. 
 
 Harris and I followed his gaze, and saw, com 
 mg down toward us on the sluggish current, i 
 dog. It was one of the quietest and peacefules\ 
 dogs I have ever seen. I never met a dog who 
 seemed more contented—more easy in its mind. 
 It was floating dreamily on its back, with its foui 
 legs stuck up straight into the air. It was what 
 I should call a full-bodied dog, with a well-devel¬ 
 oped 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 emp¬ 
 tied 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. 
 
 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 
 
gte* pUix in a ^uoat. 
 
 m 
 
 worth taking, being a pretty shady little piece of 
 stream, besides saving nearly half a mile of dis¬ 
 tance. 
 
 Of course, its entrance is studded with posts 
 and chains, and surrounded with notice boards, 
 menacing all kinds of torture, imprisonment, and 
 death to every one who dares set scull upon its 
 waters—I wonder some of these riparian boors 
 don’t claim the air of the river and threaten 
 every one with forty shillings fine who breathes 
 it-—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 wait¬ 
 ing with our plates ready. 
 
glxtxc DXcn xu a |SSxrat. 20$ 
 
 “Have you got a spoon there?” says Harris. 
 “I want a spo®n to help the gravy with.” 
 
 The hamper was close behind us, and George 
 and I both turned round to reach ore out. We 
 were not five seconds getting it. Wren we looked 
 round again, Harris and the pie. were gone! 
 
 It was a wide open field. Tbf( i was not a tree 
 or a bit of hedge for hundmhj of yards. He 
 could not have tumbled into the river, because 
 we were on the water side of Vim, and he would 
 have had to climb over us to do it. 
 
 George and I gazed all abo'v V Then we gazed 
 at each other. 
 
 “Has he been snatched up to heaven?” I quer¬ 
 ied. 
 
 “They’d hardly have take the pie, too,” said 
 George. 
 
 There seemed weight in t' is objection, and we 
 discarded the heavenly thee ? y. 
 
 “I suppose the truth of the natter is,” suggested 
 George, descending to thf commonplace and 
 practicable, “that there has I £en an earthquake.” 
 
 And then he added, with r. touch of sadness in 
 his voice: “I wish he hadi \ been carving that 
 pie.” 
 
 With a sigh, we turned < ir eyes once more 
 toward the spot w r here Harris Mid the pie had last 
 been seen on earth; and there as our blood froze 
 
210 
 
 glvvjcc |£%m in a 
 
 in our veins and our hair stood up on end, we 
 saw Harris’s head—and nothing but his head- 
 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—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—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—very much mixed up 
 and damaged; and, after it, scrambled Harris—• 
 tumbled, grubby, and wet. 
 
 He had been sitting, without knowing it, oil 
 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 
 
e f&m in a goat. 
 
 211 
 
 planned it all beforehand. Thus does unjust sus¬ 
 picion follow even the most blameless; for, as 
 the poet says, “Who shall escape calumny?” 
 Who indeed! 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 We caught a breeze, after lunch, which took us 
 gently up past Wargrave and Shiplake. Mel¬ 
 lowed in the drowsy sunlight of a summer’s after¬ 
 noon, 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 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”—George, the work done, 
 enjoying his pint of beer. 
 
 Day, the author of Sanford and Merton, lived 
 and—more credit to the place still—was killed at 
 Wargrave. In the church is a memorial to Mrs. 
 Sarah Hill, who bequeathed £i 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 
 
212 
 
 e fJ&jeix in a gljcrat. 
 
 giving up all that for five shillings a year! It is 
 not worth it. 
 
 It is rumored in the town that once, many 
 years ago, a boy appeared who really never had 
 done these things—or at all events, which was all 
 that was required or could be expected, had 
 never been known to do them—and thus won the 
 crown of glory. He was exhibited for three 
 weeks afterward 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. Tenny¬ 
 son 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 Flenley, 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 
 
Jpweje fjdjew in a gjoat 
 
 213 
 
 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 
 splendor. If you stop at Sonning, put up at the 
 “Bull,” behind the church. It is a veritable pic¬ 
 ture 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 sup¬ 
 per. 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 re¬ 
 mains 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. 
 
214 
 
 $h*jee ptm in a |3oat. 
 
 The job turned out to be the biggest thing of its 
 kind that I had ever been in. We began cheer¬ 
 fully, one might almost say skittisnly, 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—at least none worth 
 speaking of. George came and had a look at it 
 —it was about the size of a peanut. 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—all bumps and warts and hol¬ 
 lows. We worked steadily for five-and-twenty 
 minutes, and did four potatoes. Then we struck. 
 We said we should require the rest of the even¬ 
 ing for scraping ourselves. 
 
 I never saw such a thing as potato-scraping 
 for making a fellow in a mess. It seemed diffi¬ 
 cult 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 peel- 
 
glmje fptra in u goat. 
 
 21o 
 
 mg. We also put ii; 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 rem¬ 
 nants, and added them to the stew. There were 
 half a pork pie and 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 we 
 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, to¬ 
 ward the end, Montmorency, who had evinced 
 great interest in the proceedings throughout, 
 strolled away with an earnest and thoughtful air, 
 reappearing, a few minutes afterward, 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 can’t 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 
 
2i6 Sfrtteje in a gjOHt. 
 
 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 experi¬ 
 ments. 
 
 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 cf 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 flavor, 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 pota¬ 
 toes 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—a little too rich, 
 perhaps, for a weak stomach, but nutritious 
 
 We finished up with tea and cherry tart 
 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 expres- 
 
5£hvcc |>Xcu in a gjcrat. 
 
 21 ? 
 
 sion, and would try and rouse it every now and 
 then by growling at it. When it began to splut¬ 
 ter and steam, he regarded it as a challenge, and 
 would want to fight it, only, at that precise mo¬ 
 ment, 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, growl¬ 
 ing, and advanced toward it in a threatening atti¬ 
 tude. It was only a little kettle, but it was full of 
 pluck, and it up and spit at him. 
 
 “Ah! would ye!” growled Montmorency, show¬ 
 ing his teeth; “I’ll teach ye to cheek a hardwork¬ 
 ing, 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 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 Montmorency regarded the ket¬ 
 tle 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 
 
218 
 
 gfetteje f&m iix a JBoai. 
 
 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—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 head¬ 
 ache. 
 
 George has never learned to play the banjo 
 to this day. He has had too much all-round dis¬ 
 couragement 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, 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 
 
glxxzz gXjett iu a Ipjorat. 
 
 219 
 
 howling. He’s got a musical ear, and your play¬ 
 ing 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—for her¬ 
 self, she liked to hear him—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 
 •—the same want of sympathy on the part of the 
 world to fight against; and, after a while, he 
 despaired altogether, and advertised the instru¬ 
 ment for sale at a great sacrifice—‘'owner having 
 no further use for same”—and took to learning 
 card tricks instead. 
 
 It must be disheartening work learning a mus¬ 
 ical instrument. You would think that Society, 
 
220 
 
 gtoeje ptjen in a gnat. 
 
 i 
 
 for its own sake, would do all it could to assist 
 a man to acquire the art of playing a musical in¬ 
 strument. But it doesn’t! 
 
 I knew a young fellow once, who was study¬ 
 ing to play the bagpipes, and you would be sur¬ 
 prised at the amount of opposition he had to 
 contend with. Why, not even from the mem¬ 
 bers 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 unfeeling on the subject. 
 
 My friend used to get up early in the morning 
 to practice, but he had to give that plan up, be¬ 
 cause 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 com¬ 
 mitted 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 practice in the daytime, in the 
 
gtweje |$tm in a gtoat. 
 
 221 
 
 back-kitchen, with all the doors shut; but his 
 more successful passages could generally be 
 heard in the sitting-room, in spite of these pre¬ 
 cautions, 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— 
 where the connection came in, she could not ex¬ 
 plain). 
 
 Then they knocked im a little place for him 
 at the bottom of the garden, about quarter of a 
 mile from the house, and made him take the ma¬ 
 chine 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 gar¬ 
 den and suddenly get within ear-shot of those 
 bagpipes, without being prepared for it, or know¬ 
 ing what it was. If he were a man of strong mind, 
 it only gave him fits; but a person of mere aver¬ 
 age intellect it usually sent mad. 
 
 There is, it must be confessed, something very 
 sad about the early efforts of an amateur in bag¬ 
 pipes. I have felt that myself when listening to 
 my young friend. They appear to be a trying in¬ 
 strument to perform upon. You have to get 
 
gfxueje ||Xj etx iw a gjcrat. 
 
 22 „ 
 
 enough breath for the whole tune before you 
 start—at least, so I gathered from watching Jeff¬ 
 erson. 
 
 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 sputter and a hiss. 
 
 You want to be in good health to play the bag¬ 
 pipes. 
 
 Young Jefferson only learnt to play one tune 
 on those bagpipes; but I never heard any com¬ 
 plaints about the insufficiency of his repertoire— 
 none whatever. This tune was “The Campbells 
 are Coming, Hooray—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. 
 
 Harris was disagreeable after supper,—I think 
 it must have been the stew that had upset him: 
 he is not used to high living—so George and I 
 left him in the boat, and settled to go to a mouch 
 round Henley. He said he should have a glass of 
 whisky and a pipe, and fix things up for the 
 
Qftvzc gXcu in a goat. 
 
 223 
 
 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 pleas¬ 
 ant company the time slipped by somewhat 
 quickly; so that it was nearly eleven o’clock be¬ 
 fore we set off on our four-mile walk home—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 won¬ 
 dering if we were going right or not, we thought 
 of the cosy boat, with the bright light stream¬ 
 ing through the tight-drawn canvas; of Harris 
 and Montmorency, and the whisky, and wished 
 we were there. 
 
 We conjured up the picture of ourselves in¬ 
 side, 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; 
 
224 
 
 Jgltoje pc m in a gjcrat. 
 
 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 realize 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 toward the 
 river or away from it, and when you are tired 
 and want to go to bed uncertainties like that 
 worry you. We passed Shiplake 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. 
 
'ghxzz BXctt in a gnat. 
 
 225 
 
 No answer! 
 
 The case was becoming serious. It was now 
 past midnight. The hotels at Shiplake and Hen¬ 
 ley 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 get¬ 
 ting 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 dark¬ 
 ness to be the fourth island, but met with no bet¬ 
 ter 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 un¬ 
 derstand the suffering of the Babes in the Wood, 
 
 Just when we had given up all hope—yes, I 
 know that is always the time that things do hap- 
 
226 
 
 gfo^eje gjXm in a gSjcrat. 
 
 pen 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 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 hashed across me that it was our boat, and 1 
 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 
 —oh! divinest music of the darkness—we heard 
 the answering bark of Montmorency. We 
 shouted back loud enough to wake the Seven 
 Sleepers—I never could understand myself why 
 it should take more noise to wake seven s’eepers 
 than one—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 ask¬ 
 ing where we were. 
 
 There was an .unaccountable strangeness about 
 Harris. It was something more than mere ordi- 
 
gfttteje fjj&etx in a gjcrat. 
 
 227 
 
 nary 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 scream- 
 • ing 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 if anything had happened, and he 
 said— 
 
 “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 afterward they returned with 
 eighteen other swans! It must have been a fear¬ 
 ful battle, so far as we could understand Harris’s 
 account of it. The swans had tried to drag him 
 and 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 
 
228 
 
 gluxc gXjcn in a gjoat. 
 
 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 sup¬ 
 per, 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. 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 a lantern, looking 
 for his clothes. He seemed to be worrying about 
 his clothes all night. 
 
Qlnczz gXm in a goat. 
 
 22Q' 
 
 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, in¬ 
 dignantly. “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 mv 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 XV. 
 
 We woke late the next morning, and, a' 
 Harris’s earnest desire, partook of a plain break’ 
 fast, with “non dainties” Then we cleaned up, 
 and put everything straight (a continual labot, 
 which was beginning to afford me a pretty clear 
 insight into a question that had often posed me— 
 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. 
 
230 
 
 gte&e UXm in a 
 
 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 ac¬ 
 cumulate work has almost bee ome 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 
 
'ghxzz ptm in a gxrat* 
 
 231 
 
 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 
 he fair. I do not ask for more than my proper 
 share. 
 
 But I get it without asking for it—at least, so 
 it appears to me—and this worries me. 
 
 George says he does not think I need trouble 
 myself on the subject. He thinks it is only my 
 overscrupulous 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—George himself—who had done all the labor 
 worth speaking of. 
 
 He said he had never been out with such a 
 couple of lazy skulks as Harris and I. 
 
 That amused Harris. 
 
 “Fancy old George talking about work!’" he 
 laughed; “why, about half an hour of it would 
 
282 
 
 glxtxe gfUu in a gjoat. 
 
 kill him. Have you ever seen George work?* 
 he added, turning to me. 
 
 I agreed with Harris that I never had—most 
 certainly not since we had started on this trip. 
 
 “Well, I don’t see how 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. Har¬ 
 ris had been very little good in the boat, so far 
 as helping was concerned, from the beginning, 
 
 “Well, hang it, I’ve done more than old J., any¬ 
 how,” rejoined Harris. 
 
 “Well, you couldn’t very well have done less,” 
 added George. 
 
 “I suppose J. thinks he is the passenger,” con¬ 
 tinued 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 super¬ 
 intended 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 
 
gfttteje I^Xett in a goat. 
 
 233 
 
 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 clamor 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 him¬ 
 self out upon the cushions at the bottom of the 
 boat, and encourages the rowers by telling them 
 anecdotes about the marvelous feats he per¬ 
 formed 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 after¬ 
 noon—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 
 
234 gtojejc pirn in a ifhrat. 
 
 stream against them all the way—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—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 genera¬ 
 tion do not seem to have the simple faith of the 
 old times. We—George, Harris, and myself— 
 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—the time 
 honored lies that have done duty up the river 
 with every boating man for years past—and 
 added seven entirely original ones that we had in¬ 
 vented for ourselves, including a really quite 
 likely story, founded, to a certain extent, on an all 
 
glxfje* ptm itx a goat. 
 
 235 
 
 but true episode, which had actually happened 
 in a modified degree some years ago to friends of 
 ours—a story that a mere child could have be¬ 
 lieved 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 experi¬ 
 ences 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 water, 
 I did a good deal of rafting in various suburban 
 brickfields—an exercise providing more interest 
 and excitement than might be imagined, espe¬ 
 cially when you are in the middle of the pond 
 and the proprietor of the materials of which the 
 craft 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, 
 
*>36 
 
 QJxvzz ^izn in a gjcral 
 
 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 toward 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 enegetic man¬ 
 ner 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 
 monosyllabic order, and as soon as you can tear 
 yourself away you do so. 
 
 I devoted some three months to rafting, and, 
 
gftvjeje pUtx itx ix goat. 
 
 231 
 
 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 
 sav 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 
 
238 
 
 gftfcje m&jetx in a IS oat. 
 
 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 
 ardor 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 
 
Q\ixzz g&m in a gjcrat. 239 
 
 the landing stage took a boat-hook and shoved 
 him off. 
 
 What then followed George is unable to de¬ 
 scribe 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 un¬ 
 der him by magic, and leave him sitting on the 
 boards. He also noticed, as a curious circum¬ 
 stance, 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 recover¬ 
 ing his seat, tried to help him, but, on dipping 
 his oar into the water, it immediately, to his in¬ 
 tense 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 their boat back through the arch. 
 
£4® 
 
 ghvce BXcu it% a goat. 
 
 and three times they were carried under it again, 
 ^nd 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, espec¬ 
 ially 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 becom¬ 
 ing more and more the bane of Nineteenth Cen¬ 
 tury life. He is not forever straining himself to 
 
QftviM fj&ett in a idoiit. 241 
 
 pass all the other boats. If another boat over¬ 
 takes him and passes him it does not annoy him; 
 as a matter of fact, they all do overtake him and 
 pass him—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 disentagles his sculls from 
 yours: “I can get on all right when Pm by my' 
 self!” 
 
 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 row's in 
 such an extraordinary fashion. Stroke is in¬ 
 tensely indignant at this, and explains that what 
 ^he has been endeavoring to do for the last ten 
 minutes is to adapt his method to bow’s limited 
 capacity. Bow r , 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. 
 
242 
 
 glxvjcjc iptm in a goat. 
 
 “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 mo.derate 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 assist¬ 
 ing in the exchange. “Now we shall be all 
 right.” 
 
 But they are not—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 con¬ 
 clusion that the man has given them the wrong 
 set altogether; and over their mutual abuse of 
 this man they become quite friendly and sym¬ 
 pathetic. 
 
 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 
 
gt xxzz fptjcu lit a ^xrat. 
 
 243 
 
 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 acci¬ 
 dent happen to him the first time he went punt¬ 
 ing. 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 im¬ 
 mediately yelled oqt to a lagging chum to “hurry 
 up and see a 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 ex¬ 
 pression as the pole slowly sank with him I shall 
 never forget; there was so much thought in it. 
 
2\t 
 
 gtxvjeje gtXcn itx a goat. 
 
 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 help¬ 
 lessly down mid-stream—possibly toward 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 the com¬ 
 pany 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 
 
$tmje l$Utt in a gnat. 
 
 245 
 
 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 go¬ 
 ing to happen when he put the pole in; he evi¬ 
 dently did not know himself. Sometime 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 an¬ 
 noyed. 
 
 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 out¬ 
 come 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 toward them, and they 
 only saw his jacket and cap. From this they 
 immediately jumped to the conclusion that it 
 
246 
 
 gtaee fputt jtw a ISaa*. 
 
 
 was I, their beloved companion, who was making 
 an exhibition of himself, and their delight knew 
 no bounds. They commenced to chaff him un* 
 mercifully. 
 
 I c 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 pep¬ 
 pered him with stale jokes, they even made a few 
 new 01: *s and threw at him. They hurled at 
 him all the private family jokes belonging to our 
 set, and which must have been perfectly unin¬ 
 telligible 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 
 
glxvec glen itx a gcnxt. 
 
 24? 
 
 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 Dy 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 un¬ 
 availing. He had given up kicking, and was try¬ 
 ing 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, con¬ 
 fusedly, “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—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 
 
248 
 
 2&m in a gout. 
 
 stopping down at Yarmouth, and we decided we 
 would go for a trip up the Yare. We hired a 
 sailing boat at the yard bv 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 oi 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 us, and the wind blowing a perfect hurri¬ 
 cane across it, we felt that the time had come to 
 commpt^; operations. 
 
 Hector—I think that was his name—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 
 
glxvjcje pUu itx a goat. 
 
 249 
 
 ptaving 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 around 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 
 —more sideways like—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 mat¬ 
 ter since, but I have never succeeded in arriv¬ 
 ing at any satisfactory explanation of the phe¬ 
 nomenon. 
 
 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 
 
250 
 
 gtirsje pltn in a Ipjcrat, 
 
 of our behavior, that we had come out for u 
 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 rud¬ 
 der 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 em¬ 
 brace the gunwale and give her her head. 
 
 The boat traveled up stream for about a mile 
 at a pace I have never sailed at since, ana 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 tiirown about like peas in a bladder, we crept 
 forward and cut down the sail. 
 
 We had enough sailing. We did not want to 
 
gfttteje in a ggjorai. 
 
 overdo the thing and get a surfeit of it. We had 
 had a sail—a good, all round, exciting, interest¬ 
 ing sail—and now we thought we would have a 
 row, just for a change like. 
 
 We took the sculls and tried to push the boat 
 the mud, and, in doing so, we broke one of the 
 sculls. After that we proceeded with great cau¬ 
 tion, but they were a wretched old pair and the 
 second one cracked almost easier than the first, 
 *nd 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 some one 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 fash¬ 
 ion to the boat-yard. 
 
 What between tipping the man who had 
 brought us home, and paying for the broken 
 sculls, and fcr having been out four hours and a 
 half, it cost us a pretty considerable number of 
 weeks’ pocket-money, that sail. But w*e learned 
 experience, and they say that is always cheap at 
 any price. 
 
Stress pim in a goal* 
 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 We came in sight of Reading about eleven. 
 The river is dirty and dismal here. One does not 
 lingei in the neighborhood 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 Al¬ 
 fred fought and defeated them, Ethelred doing 
 the praying and Alfred the fighting. 
 
 In later years, Reading seems to have been re¬ 
 garded as a handy place to run down to, when 
 matters were becoming unpleasant in London. 
 Parliament generally rushed off to Reading when¬ 
 ever 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. * 
 
IQixxzz iptett itx a goat. 
 
 253 
 
 Henry I. lies buried at Reading, in the Bene¬ 
 dictine 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 Streat- 
 ley. 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 row¬ 
 ing boats get in the way of one’s launch up the 
 river; something ought to be 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 them¬ 
 selves 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 Streat- 
 ley it is glorious. A little above Mapledurham 
 
254 
 
 gtoejc BXcu a 28 oat. 
 
 lock, you pass Hardwick House, where Charles 
 I. played bowls. The neighborhood of Pang- 
 bourne, where the quaint little Swan Inn stands, 
 must be as familiar to the 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 pre¬ 
 maturely 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 
 
Jgfttteje gXcn in a gloat 
 
 255 
 
 faces of the sick sometimes when at last the pain 
 has left them. 
 
 Fortunately for us—we having no desire to be 
 kept hanging about coroner’s courts—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 afterward. Of 
 course it was the old, old vulgar tragedy. She 
 had loved and been deceived—or had deceived 
 herself. Anyhow, she had sinned—some of us 
 do now and then—and her family and friends, 
 naturally shocked and indignant, had closed their 
 doors against her. 
 
 Left to fight the world alone, with the mill¬ 
 stone 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 shill¬ 
 ings 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 tch 
 gether 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 
 
256 
 
 HJIxrjcjc |$Ut% in a |§joat. 
 
 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—had held it 
 in her arms and kissed it, in a weary, dull sort of 
 way, and without betraying any particular emo¬ 
 tion of any kind, and had left it, after putting into 
 its hand a penny box of chocolate she had bought 
 it, and afterward, 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 centered 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 gray 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—sinned in 
 
IJIivcc fjpUn itx a 3|jtrat. 
 
 257 
 
 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 Pang- 
 bourne woo one for a sunny sail or for a moon¬ 
 light row, and the country round about is full 
 of beauty. We had intended to push on to Wall¬ 
 ingford 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 side 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. 
 
258 
 
 Jgfatteje pCm in a gxrat. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 We stayed two days at Streatley, and got our 
 clothes washed. We had tried washing them 
 ourselves, in the river, under George’s superin¬ 
 tendence, and it had been a failure. Indeed it 
 had been more than a failure, because we were 
 worse oft 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. After we had washed them— 
 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 neighborhood of Streatley and Goring is 
 a great fishing center. There is some excellent 
 fishing to be had here. The river abounds in 
 
glxvjcje I^Xcu in a goat. 
 
 259 
 
 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 Angler’s Guide to the Thames says that 
 “jack and perch are also to be had about here,” 
 but there the Angler’s Guide is wrong. Jack and 
 perch may be about there. Indeed, I know for 
 a fact that they are. You can 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. Arnd, if 
 you go for a bathe, they crowd round, and get 
 in your way, and irritate you But they are not 
 
260 
 
 %Jxxzz ©%j eu in a goat. 
 
 to be “had” by a bit of worm on the end of a hook, 
 nor anything like it—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 ex¬ 
 tremely 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 fisher¬ 
 man. 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 scrupu¬ 
 lous—almost of pedantic—veracity, that the ex¬ 
 perienced angler is seen. 
 
ghxzz ptm itx a gxrat. 
 
 261 
 
 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, appro¬ 
 priates 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 be¬ 
 lieve me if I did,” replies the old fellow calmly, 
 and without even a tinge of bitterness in his tone, 
 as here he fills his pipe, and requests the landlord 
 to bring him three of Scotch, cold. 
 
 There is a pause after this, nobody feeling suf¬ 
 ficiently sure of himself to contradict the old 
 
262 
 
 glxrcc gtXctx xn a |T.oat. 
 
 gentleman. So he has to go on by himself with¬ 
 out 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 
 —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—half an hour, 
 sir! 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—I’ll have an¬ 
 other three of Scotch, landlord, please.” 
 
 And then he goes on to tell of the astonish¬ 
 ment of everybody who saw it; and what his wife 
 said, when he got home, and of what Joe Buggies 
 thought of it. 
 
 I asked the landlord of an inn up the river 
 once, if it did not injure him, sometimes, listen¬ 
 ing 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 
 
ghvcz gXcn in a |6cat. 
 
 263 
 
 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 con¬ 
 scientious fellow, and, when he took to fly-fish¬ 
 ing, 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, be¬ 
 cause 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—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 
 
264 
 
 $Ixx*cjc flm xtx a gxrat. 
 
 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 tell¬ 
 ing 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—you 
 could never catch less than ten fish by his sys¬ 
 tem; 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. In¬ 
 deed, the Committee of the Thames Anglers’ As¬ 
 sociation did recommend its adoption about two 
 years ago, but some of the older members op¬ 
 posed 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 
 
Q\xxzz in a |?oat. 
 
 265 
 
 rodmen, 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—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—George and I, there¬ 
 fore, 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 parlor 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 yes¬ 
 terday, 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 neighborhood, and that 
 we were going away .the next morning. 
 
 Then a pause ensued in the conversation, dur¬ 
 ing 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 
 
266 
 
 glW&e fpt .m in n gmtt. 
 
 . containing a trout. It rather fascinated me, tha} 
 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, Mien 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 
 lie 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: 
 
|Wctx in a gjcrat, 267 
 
 m 
 
 ‘‘Maybe you wasn’t here, sir, when that fish was 
 caught?” 
 
 ‘‘No,” we told him. We were strangers in the 
 neighborhood. 
 
 “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 L 
 
 “Yes, sir,” replied the genial old fellow. “I 
 caught him just below the lock—leastways, what 
 was the lock then—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 afterward, 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—perfect strangers in the 
 neighborhood—are taking, but my friend and 
 
268 
 
 Qhxzz |>%m xw a gxrai. 
 
 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 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—most re¬ 
 markable,’’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 tcM 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 care¬ 
 fully when he reached home, and it had turned 
 die scale at thirty-four pounds. 
 
 Pie 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 laugli- 
 ed 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 me, 
 
glxvejc fH&jetx in a goat* 
 
 269 
 
 to put up in my parlor, if 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 the end 
 of a tree. 
 
 He said that bringing heme that trout had 
 saved him from a whacking, and that even his 
 schoolmaster 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 marveled at 
 it. It excited Georgv 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 clutch¬ 
 ed 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. 
 
270 
 
 $IXVJCC fjfcjetx in a gloat. 
 
 “I hope not,” said George, rising cautiously 
 and looking about. 
 
 But he had. That trout lay shattered into a 
 thousand fragments—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 unac¬ 
 countable, if it had been a stuffed trout, but it 
 was not. 
 
 That trout was plaster of Paris. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 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 be¬ 
 tween Streatley and Wallingford. From Cleve 
 you get a stretch of six and a half miles without 
 lock. I believe this is the longest uninterrupted 
 stretch anywhere above Teddington, and the Ox¬ 
 ford Club make use of it for their trial eights. 
 
 But however satisfactory this absence of locks 
 
f$tjetx itx a gxrut. 
 
 271 
 
 may be to rowing-men, it is to be regretted by 
 the mere pleasure-seeker. 
 
 For myself, I am fond of locks. They pleas¬ 
 antly break the monotony of the pull. I like sit¬ 
 ting 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 daylight between them widens 
 tilL the fair smiling river lies full before you, and 
 you push your little boat out of 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.* 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 crowd- 
 
 *Or rather were. The Conservancy of late seems 
 to have constituted itself into a society for the em¬ 
 ployment 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. 
 
272 
 
 Qixxzz ptm in a gjcrat. 
 
 ed; 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 man¬ 
 ner 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. Oufs 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 posi¬ 
 tion 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 
 
3JItvcc gXcu in a goat. 
 
 273 
 
 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 some one 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—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—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.” 
 
274 
 
 ghvcc fputx in a goat. 
 
 We looked then, and saw that the nose of our 
 boat had got fixed under the woodwork of the lock 
 while the incoming water was rising all round 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 mo¬ 
 ment 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 en¬ 
 tirely. 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 com¬ 
 pared with our feet, that all the other people felt 
 quite ashamed of themselves, and refused to sub¬ 
 scribe to the picture. 
 
 The owner of one steam launch, who had be¬ 
 spoke six copies, rescinded the order on seeing 
 
JlTtvec fJXjeix in a goat, ,„.d 
 
 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 de¬ 
 clined. We said we had no objection to being 
 photo’d full length, but we preferred being taken 
 the right way up. 
 
 Wallingford, six miles above Streatley, is a very 
 ancient town, and has been an active center 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. 
 
276 
 
 ghvcc 2*%eu in a goat. 
 
 From Wallingford up to Dorchester the neigh¬ 
 borhood 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 
 Thames, 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 delight¬ 
 fully peaceful old place, nestling in stillness and 
 silence and drowsiness. 
 
 Dorchester, like Wallingford, was a city in an¬ 
 cient British times; it was then called Caer 
 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 beauti¬ 
 ful. If you stay the night on land at Clifton, you 
 cannot do better than put up at the “Barley Alow.” 
 It is, without exception, I should say, the quaint¬ 
 est, 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 
 
glxtteje fpbetx in a gjcrat 
 
 277 
 
 appearance, while inside it is even still more 
 onee-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 w r ay 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 impos- 
 sibilitv to him. 
 
 V V 
 
 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 camp¬ 
 ing 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 feather bed. 
 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 Culham Lock—the coldest and 
 
278 glmjc fptjetx xtx a guat* 
 
 deepest lock on the river—the landscape im¬ 
 proves. 
 
 At Abingdon, the river passes by the streets. 
 Abingdon is a typical country town of the smaller 
 order—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 Jack 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. Heleifis 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—five times Mayor of Abingdon— 
 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 Thurs¬ 
 days. Th«. house contains a fine collection of pic- 
 
g force gXrrt in a geaL 279 
 
 tures 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 is dangerous. 
 
 Iffley Lock and mill, a mile before you reach 
 Oxford, is a favorite 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 pic¬ 
 tures 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 
 
280 
 
 gfaw fptjetx in a gxrat. 
 
 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, then on to the left, then it takes you into the 
 middle, turns you around three times, and car¬ 
 ries 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 con¬ 
 sequence 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 in¬ 
 dulgently; when they behave in a chucklehead 
 way on the river, I use most bloodcurdling lan¬ 
 guage 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 bloodthirsty when in a boat. 
 I did a little boating once with a young lady. 
 She was naturally of the sweetest and gentlest 
 
gtaixc fjftjeix in a goat. 
 
 281 
 
 disposition imaginable, but on the river it was 
 quite awful to hear hen 
 
 “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 demoralizing effect 
 upon one’s temper, and this it is, I suppose, which 
 causes even bargemen to be sometimes rude to 
 one another, and to use language which, no 
 doubt, in their calmer moments they regret. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 We spent two very pleasant days at Oxford. 
 There are plenty of dogs in the town of Oxford. 
 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 rel- 
 
282 
 
 gfttcjc |%im in a goat. 
 
 ish np-stream work, it is a common practice to get 
 a boat at Oxford and row down. For the ener¬ 
 getic, 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—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—unless, of course, you can take some one 
 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 nec¬ 
 essary arrangements—or nearly all—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—one may 
 say, its only recommendation. 
 
gTxiejcc f&jctt in a goat. 
 
 283 
 
 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 
 traveling 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 
 any one 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 be¬ 
 fore ; and we did not know what it was when we 
 did see it. 
 
 We had written for a boat—a double-sculling 
 skiff; and when we went down with our bags to 
 the yard, and gave names, the man said: 
 
 “Oh, yes; you’re the party that wrote for a 
 double-sculling skiff. It’s all right. Jim, fetch 
 round The Pride of the Thames.” 
 
 The boy went, and reappeared five minutes 
 afterward, struggling with an antediluvian chunk 
 of wood, that looked as though it had been re¬ 
 cently dug out of somewhere, and dug out care¬ 
 lessly, 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 
 
284 QIxxjm |*%m xix a gxsat. 
 
 sort,—relic of what I do not know, possibly of a 
 coffin. 
 
 The neighborhood 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 Ro¬ 
 man 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 pre-glacial 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 The Pride of the 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 sharp¬ 
 ly, “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 
 
gftccc pc.cn in a |3oat. 
 
 285 
 
 assured us, on his word, as a practical man, that 
 the thing really was a boat—was, in fact, 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 
 ■—had 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, The Pride of the 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 be¬ 
 fore, 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 driftwood round the coast. 
 
286 
 
 glxtjcjc |aptjcw in a goat. 
 
 The weather changed on the third day,—oh! I 
 am talking about our present trip now,—and we 
 started from Oxford upon our homeward jour¬ 
 ney in the midst of a steady drizzle. 
 
 The river—with the sunlight flashing from its 
 dancing wavelets, gilding gold and gray-green 
 beech trunks, glinting through the dark, cool 
 wood paths, chasing shadows o’er the shallows, 
 dinging diamonds from the mill-wheels, throwing 
 kisses to the lilies, wantoning with the weir’s 
 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—is a golden fairy stream. 
 
 But the river—chill and weary, with the cease¬ 
 less raindrops 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 vapor, stand 
 like ghosts upon the margin; silent ghosts with 
 eyes reproachful, like the ghosts of evil actions, 
 like the ghosts of friends neglected—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. 
 
Jgtaeje fjfcjea in a gorai. 
 
 287 
 
 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, that we liked to see the river under all 
 its different aspects. We said we could not ex¬ 
 pect 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 gypsy’s life, and how 
 delightful a gypsy’s existence was!—free to storm 
 and sunshine, and to every wind that blew!—■ 
 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 lookout. In this way we made 
 
288 
 
 Jgte&e pXew in a 
 
 nine miles, and pulled up for the night a little be¬ 
 low Day’s Lock. 
 
 * 
 
 I cannot honestly say that we had a merry 
 evening. The rain poured down with quiet per¬ 
 sistency. 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 white bait and a cutlet; Harris 
 babbled of soles and white-sauce, and passed the 
 remains of his pie to 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, till 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—George 
 always is lucky at cards—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 de¬ 
 cided not to battle any further against Fate. 
 
 After that, we mixed ourselves some toddy, 
 and sat round and talked. George told us about 
 *. man he had known who had come up the river 
 cwn years ago, and who had slept out in a damp 
 
Qftxcc gsXjetx in a goat. 
 
 289 
 
 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 died in great agony 
 ten 'days afterward. 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 he 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 bron¬ 
 chitis; 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 frol¬ 
 icsome 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 
 
290 
 
 gjtojcjc pUu in a 32 oat. 
 
 left his music at home, or anything of that sort, 
 He at once fished out his instrument, and com¬ 
 menced 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 made a desperate 
 effort to be merry. We refilled our glasses and 
 joined in; Harris, in a voice trembling with emo¬ 
 tion, leading, and George and I following a few 
 words behind: 
 
 “Two lovely black eyes; 
 
 Oh! what a surprise! 
 
 Only for telling a man he was wrong, 
 
 Two—” 
 
 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. 
 
Qftxzz fptjet* in a gxrat. 
 
 291 
 
 George wanted to go on with another verse. 
 He thought 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, 
 —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, wrap¬ 
 ped up in our mackintoshes, underneath the can¬ 
 vas, and drifted slowly down. 
 
 One of us—I forget which one now, but I 
 rather think it was myself—made a few feeble at- 
 
 V 
 
 tempts during the course of the morning to work 
 up the old gypsy foolishness about being children 
 of Nature and enjoying the wet; but it did not go 
 down well at all. That— 
 
 “I care not for the rain, not I!” 
 
 was so painfully evident, as expressing the senti¬ 
 ments of each of us, that to sing it seCTfted un¬ 
 necessary. 
 
 On one point we were all agreed, and that was 
 
292 
 
 'ghxzz g&jett in a 
 
 that, come wliat 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 fort* 
 night’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 dis¬ 
 astrous 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-parlor 
 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. 
 
298 
 
 put* in a gxrat 
 
 ‘With a little supper at the ——* 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 hadn’t made up our minds to contract 
 our certain deaths in this bally old coffin,” ob¬ 
 served George, casting a glance of intense 
 malevolence over the boat, “it might be worth 
 while to mention that there’s a tram leaves Pang- 
 bourne, 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 
 afterward.” 
 
 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 oth¬ 
 ers. In silence, we dragged out and overhauled 
 the Gladstone. We looked up the river and 
 <iown 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 
 
 *A capital little out-of-the-way restaurant, in the 
 
 neighborhood of -, where you can get one of the 
 
 best-cooked and cheapest little French dinners or sup¬ 
 pers that I know of, with an excellent bottle of Beaune*, 
 for three-and-six; and which I am not going to b# 
 idiot enough to advertise. 
 
flm in a JBoixi. 
 
 “Swan’’ toward the railway station, dressed in ths 
 following neither neat nor gaudy costume: 
 
 Black leather shoes, dirty; suit of boating flan¬ 
 nels, 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 
 ii structions that it was to be ready for us at nine 
 the next morning. If, we said—if anything un- 
 f yreseen should happen, preventing our return, 
 \ 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 Mont¬ 
 morency, 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 
 pay-box 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 not “the world-renowned contor¬ 
 tionists from the Himalaya Mountains,” and he 
 took our money and let us pass. 
 
QUxzz |%izn in a |Scrat. 
 
 295 
 
 Inside we were still a greater success. Our 
 line, bronzed countenances and picturesque 
 clothes were followed round the place with admir¬ 
 ing 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 odor of Burgundy, and the smell of 
 French sauces, and the sight of clean napkins, 
 and long loaves, knocked as a very welcome vis¬ 
 itor 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—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—when we rested our 
 glasses at arm’s-length upon the table, and felt 
 good, and thoughtful, and forgiving. 
 
296 
 
 ghxzz Ufcjet* in a gxrat. 
 
 Then Harris, who was sitting next the win¬ 
 dow, 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 stead¬ 
 ily inVD the puddle and trickled down the water¬ 
 spout 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—but 
 I think we did, well to chuck it when we did. 
 Here’s to Three Men well out of a Boat!” 
 
 And Montmorency, standing on his hind legs 
 before the window, peering out into the night, 
 gave a short bark of decided concurrence with 
 the toast 
 
 THE END.