Chapter XI

I woke at six the next morning; and found George awake too. We tried to go to sleep again, but we could not.

George said that the same kind of thing, only worse, had happened to him some eighteen months ago, when he was lodging in the house of 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 he forgot to wind it up when he went to bed, and hung it up over his pillow.

It was in the winter when this happened, very near the shortest day, and a week of fog, so it was still very dark when George woke in the morning. He got up, and took his watch. It was a quarter-past eight.

“Oh!” exclaimed George; “I have got to be in the City by nine. Why didn’t somebody call me? Oh, this is a shame!”

And he flung the watch down, and sprang out of bed, and had a cold bath, and washed himself, and dressed himself, and shaved himself in cold water because there was not time to wait for the hot, and then rushed and had another look at the watch.

Nobody knows why but the watch had begun to go, and now pointed to twenty minutes to nine. George rushed downstairs. In the sitting-room, all was dark and silent: there was no fire, no breakfast. Then he dashed on his great-coat and hat, and, seizing his umbrella, ran to the front door.

The door was shut. George called Mrs. Gippings a lazy old woman, and ran out.

He ran hard for a quarter of a mile, and at the end of that distance it seemed to him strange and curious: there were so few people about, and that there were no shops open. It was a very dark and foggy morning, but something went wrong.

At last he reached Holborn. Not a bus was about! There were three men in sight, one of whom was a policeman; a market-cart full of cabbages, and a cab. George pulled out his watch and looked at it: it was five minutes to nine!

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, looking at George with evident suspicion; “just listen and you will hear.”

George listened, and a neighbouring clock immediately told him the time.

“But it’s only three!” said George in an injured tone, when it had finished.

“Well, and how many did you want it to go?” replied the constable.

“Why, nine,” said George, showing his watch.

“Do you know where you live?” said the guardian of public order, severely.

George thought, and gave the address.

“Oh!” replied the man; “well, you take my advice and go there quietly, and take that watch of yours with you; and never consult it any more.”

And George went home again.

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

But he could not sleep: so he lit the lamp and got out the chess-board, and played himself chess. But the time flew very slowly; so he tried to read. No luck again. So he put on his coat again and went out for a walk.

It was horribly lonesome and dismal, and all the policemen regarded him with suspicion, and turned their lanterns on him, and he began to hide from them.

Of course, this conduct made the police only more distrustful of him than ever, and they found him out and asked him what he was doing there; and when he answered, “Nothing,” they looked as though they did not believe him, and two constables came home with him to see if he really did live where he had said he did.

He wanted to light the fire at home, and make himself some breakfast; but everything was falling on the floor, and making such a noise that he feared that it would wake Mrs. Gippings up, and that she would think it was burglars and open the window and call “Police!” and then these two detectives would take him away.

So he wrapped himself up in his overcoat and sat in the chair till Mrs. Gippings came down at half-past seven.

He said he had never got up too early since that morning.

On his finishing the story I began to wake up Harris with a scull. He turned over on the other side, and said he would be down in a minute. We soon let him know where he was, however, by the aid of the hitcher, and he sat up suddenly, sending Montmorency across the boat.

Then we pulled up the canvas, and looked down at the water and shivered. The water looked damp and chilly: the wind felt cold.

“Well, who’s going to be first in?” said Harris at last.

Nobody stepped forward. George retired into the boat and pulled on his socks. Montmorency howled, as if the idea of swimming had given him the horrors; and Harris said it would be so difficult to get into the boat again, and went back.

I decided just to throw some water over myself; so I took a towel and crept out on the bank and crawled to the branch of a tree that dipped down into the water.

It was bitterly cold. The wind cut like a knife. I thought I would not throw the water over myself after all. I would go back into the boat and dress; and I turned to do so; and, as I turned, the silly branch broke, and I and the towel went in together with a tremendous splash.

“My God! old J.’s gone in,” said Harris.

“Is it all right?” cried out George.

“Lovely,” I spluttered back. “You are fools not to come in. Why won’t you try it? It only wants a little determination.”

But I could not persuade them.

Rather an amusing thing happened while dressing that morning. I was very cold when I got back into the boat, and, in my hurry to get my shirt on, I accidentally jerked it into the water. It made me awfully wild. But just as I was landing the shirt, I noticed that it was not my shirt at all, but George’s.

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

We brought him out the stove and the frying-pan and all the eggs that had not smashed, 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 sleeve.

It seemed harassing work. Whenever he went near the pan he burned himself, and then he would drop everything and dance round the stove. We thought at first that it was a necessary part of the culinary arrangements.

We did not know what scrambled eggs were, and we thought that it must be some Red Indian sort of dish that required dances and incantations. Montmorency went and put his nose over the pan, and he burned it as well. So he began dancing and cursing. Altogether it was one of the most interesting and exciting shows I have ever witnessed. George and I were both very sorry when it was over.

Chapter XII

I was sitting on the bank, when George said, perhaps I would not mind helping to wash the dishes. I slid down into the boat and cleaned out the frying-pan with a stick of wood and a tuft of grass, polishing it up finally with George’s wet shirt.

There are the ruins of an old monastery in the grounds of Ankerwyke House. They say that Henry VIII met Anne Boleyn there.

Have you ever been in a house where there is a couple? It is hard. You think you will go and sit in the drawing-room, and you go there. As you open the door, you hear a noise as if somebody had suddenly recollected something, and, when you get in, Emily is over by the window, full of interest in the opposite side of the road, and your friend, John Edward, is at the other end of the room studying the 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 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 the latest news, and give them your views and opinions on the Irish question; but all they remark on any subject is, “Oh!” “Is it?” “Did he?” “Yes,” and “You don’t say so!” And, after ten minutes of such style of conversation, you go to the door, and slip out, and are surprised to find that the door immediately closes behind you, and shuts itself.

Half an hour later, you think you will light a pipe. The only chair is occupied by Emily; and John Edward has evidently been sitting on the floor. They do not speak, but they give you a look that says all that can be said in a civilised community; and you go 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, you put on your hat and go out into the garden. You walk down the path, and there are those two young idiots. And they see you, and are evidently under the idea that you are following them.

“Why don’t they have a special room for this sort of thing?” you mutter; and you rush back to the hall and get your umbrella and go out.

The same thing, I think, was when the foolish boy Henry VIII was courting his little Anne. People were meeting them all the time, 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, a picturesque inn. Old Windsor is a famous spot in its way. Here the great Earl Godwin was proved guilty. Earl Godwin broke a piece of bread and held it in his hand.

“If I am guilty,” said the Earl, “may this bread choke me when I eat it!”

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

After you pass Old Windsor, the river is somewhat uninteresting. George and I towed up past the Home Park; 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 began to look for an inn. We passed a very pretty little hotel, with clematis and creeper over the porch; but there was no honeysuckle about it, and, for some reason or other, I had got my mind fixed on honeysuckle, and I said:

“Oh, let’s go on a bit further, and see if there isn’t one with honeysuckle over it.”

So we went on till we came to another hotel. That was a very nice hotel, too, and it had honeysuckle on it, round at the side; but Harris did not like the 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 long way without seeing any more hotels, and then we met a man, and asked him to show us them.

He said, “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 man who was stopping there – Harris did not like the colour of his hair, didn’t like his boots, either.

“Well, I don’t know what you’ll do, I’m sure,” said our informant; “because they are the only two inns in the place.”

“No other inns!” exclaimed Harris.

“None,” replied the man.

“What should we do?” cried Harris.

Then George said he was going back to the Stag.

Harris and I sighed, and followed George.

We took our luggage into the Stag, and laid it down in the hall.

The landlord came up and said:

“Good evening, gentlemen.”

“Oh, good evening,” said George; “we want three beds, please.”

“Very sorry, sir,” said the landlord; “but I’m afraid we can’t manage it.”

“Oh, well, never mind,” said George, “two will do. Two of us can sleep in one bed, can’t we?” he continued, turning to Harris and me.

Harris said, “Oh, yes”; he thought George and I could sleep in one bed very easily.

“Very sorry, sir,” again repeated the landlord, “but we really haven’t got a bed vacant in the whole house.”

But Harris, who is an old traveller, said:

“Oh, well. We can sleep in the billiard-room.” “Very sorry, sir. Three gentlemen sleeping on the billiard-table already, and two in the coffee-room.”

We picked up our things, and went over to the Manor House. It was a pretty little place. I said I liked 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.

The landlady met us on the doorstep with the greeting that we were the fourteenth company she had turned away within the last hour and a half.

Did she know of any place in the whole village where we could get shelter for the night?

“Well, if we didn’t mind – she did not recommend it, mind – but there was a little beershop half a mile down the Eton road – ”

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.

The people at the beershop were rude. They merely laughed at us. There were only three beds in the whole house, and they had seven single gentlemen and two married couples sleeping there already. A kind-hearted man, however, 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.

Her lady friend’s rooms were let. From there we were recommended to No. 27. No. 27 was full, and sent us to No. 32, and 32 was full.

Then we went back into the high road, and Harris sat down on the hamper and said he would go no further. He said he would like to die there. He requested George and me to kiss his mother for him, and to tell all his relations that he forgave them and died happy.

At that moment an angel came by in the disguise of a small boy, with a can of beer in one hand, and in the other something at the end of a string, which he let down on to every flat stone he came across, and then pulled up again, this producing a peculiarly unattractive sound, suggestive of suffering.

We asked this heavenly messenger if he knew of any lonely house, where three desperate men could find their beds for the night; or, if not this, could he recommend us to an empty pigsty, 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.

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 afterwards, and two pots of tea, and then we went to bed. There were two beds in the room; one was a 2ft. 6in. truckle bed, and George and I slept in that; and the other was the little boy’s bed, and Harris had that all to himself.

To return to our present trip: nothing exciting happened, and we tugged steadily on to a little below Monkey Island, where we drew up and lunched. We had the cold beef for lunch, and then we found that we had forgotten to bring any mustard. I don’t care for mustard as a rule, and it is very seldom that I take it at all, but I would have everything for it then.

Harris said he would have given everything for mustard too.

There was no mustard. We ate our beef in silence. Existence seemed hollow and uninteresting. We thought of the happy days of childhood, and sighed. But when George drew out a tin of pineapple from the bottom of the hamper, and rolled it into the middle of the boat, we felt that life was worth living after all.

We are very fond of pine-apple, all three of us. We looked at the picture on the tin; we thought of the juice. We smiled at one another.

Then we looked for the knife to open the tin with. We turned out everything in the hamper.

We turned out the bags. We pulled up the boards at the bottom of the boat. We took everything out on to the bank and shook it. There was no tin-opener.

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. I tried to make a hole in the tin with the hitcher, and the hitcher slipped and jerked me out between the boat and the bank into two feet of muddy water, and the tin broke a teacup.

Then we all got mad. We took that tin out on the bank, and Harris 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 lifted it high, 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.

After that, I took the tin, and hammered at it with the mast till I was completely tired. Then Harris took it in hand.

Alas, we could not make a hole in it. Then George went at it, and knocked it into a shape, so strange, so weird, so wild, that he got frightened and threw away the mast. Then we all three sat round it on the grass and looked at it.

Harris caught the damned tin, and flung it far into the middle of the river. We got into the boat and rowed away, and never paused till we reached Maidenhead.

Maidenhead is the town of rich hotels. We went through Maidenhead quickly, and then we had tea, it was evening.

I steered.

There is no more thrilling sensation than sailing. The wings of the rushing wind seem to be bearing you onward, you know not where. You are a part of Nature! Her glorious arms are round you, raising you up against her heart! Your spirit is at one with hers! 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 skimmed over the water, and passed the wooded banks, and no one spoke.

I was steering.

As we drew nearer, we could see that the three men fishing seemed old and solemn-looking men. They sat on three chairs in the punt, and watched intently their lines. And the red sunset threw a mystic light upon the waters. It was an hour of deep enchantment, of ecstatic hope and longing.

We seemed like knights of an old legend, sailing across a mystic lake into the unknown realm of twilight, unto the great land of the sunset.

But 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, but we understood that the men were vexed and discontented.

Harris let the sail down, and then we saw what had happened. We had knocked those three old gentlemen off their chairs into a general heap at the bottom of the boat, and they were picking fish off themselves. As they worked, they cursed us – not with a common cursory curse, but with long, careful, comprehensive curses, that 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.

But it did not do any good.

George said he would steer, after that. He took the lines, and brought us up to Marlow.

And at Marlow we left the boat by the bridge, and went to the Crown.