Three Men in a Boat

by Jerome K. Jerome

  CHAPTER XV.

  Household duties.--Love of work.--The old river hand, what he does andwhat he tells you he has done.--Scepticism of the new generation.--Earlyboating recollections.--Rafting.--George does the thing in style.--Theold boatman, his method.--So calm, so full of peace.--Thebeginner.--Punting.--A sad accident.--Pleasures of friendship.--Sailing,my first experience.--Possible reason why we were not drowned.

  [Picture: Woman at housework] We woke late the next morning, and, atHarris's earnest desire, partook of a plain breakfast, with "nondainties." Then we cleaned up, and put everything straight (a continuallabour, which was beginning to afford me a pretty clear insight into aquestion that had often posed me--namely, how a woman with the work ofonly one house on her hands manages to pass away her time), and, at aboutten, set out on what we had determined should be a good day's journey.

  We agreed that we would pull this morning, as a change from towing; andHarris thought the best arrangement would be that George and I shouldscull, and he steer. I did not chime in with this idea at all; I said Ithought Harris would have been showing a more proper spirit if he hadsuggested that he and George should work, and let me rest a bit. Itseemed to me that I was doing more than my fair share of the work on thistrip, 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. Itis not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinatesme. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: theidea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.

  You cannot give me too much work; to accumulate work has almost become apassion with me: my study is so full of it now, that there is hardly aninch 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 byme now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn't afinger-mark on it. I take a great pride in my work; I take it down nowand then and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better state ofpreservation than I do.

  But, though I crave for work, I still like to be fair. I do not ask formore than my proper share.

  But I get it without asking for it--at least, so it appears to me--andthis worries me.

  George says he does not think I need trouble myself on the subject. Hethinks it is only my over-scrupulous nature that makes me fear I amhaving more than my due; and that, as a matter of fact, I don't have halfas 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 memberof the crew that he is doing everything. Harris's notion was, that itwas he alone who had been working, and that both George and I had beenimposing upon him. George, on the other hand, ridiculed the idea ofHarris's having done anything more than eat and sleep, and had acast-iron opinion that it was he--George himself--who had done all thelabour worth speaking of.

  He said he had never been out with such a couple of lazily skulks asHarris and I.

  That amused Harris.

  "Fancy old George talking about work!" he laughed; "why, abouthalf-an-hour of it would kill him. Have you ever seen George work?" headded, turning to me.

  I agreed with Harris that I never had--most certainly not since we hadstarted on this trip.

  "Well, I don't see how _you_ can know much about it, one way or theother," George retorted on Harris; "for I'm blest if you haven't beenasleep half the time. Have you ever seen Harris fully awake, except atmeal-time?" asked George, addressing me.

  Truth compelled me to support George. Harris had been very little goodin the boat, so far as helping was concerned, from the beginning.

  "Well, hang it all, I've done more than old J., anyhow," rejoined Harris.

  "Well, you couldn't very well have done less," added George.

  "I suppose J. thinks he is the passenger," continued Harris.

  And that was their gratitude to me for having brought them and theirwretched old boat all the way up from Kingston, and for havingsuperintended 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 Georgeshould scull up past Reading, and that I should tow the boat on fromthere. Pulling a heavy boat against a strong stream has few attractionsfor me now. There was a time, long ago, when I used to clamour for thehard 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 theold river hand by the way in which he stretches himself out upon thecushions at the bottom of the boat, and encourages the rowers by tellingthem anecdotes about the marvellous feats he performed last season.

  "Call what you're doing hard work!" he drawls, between his contentedwhiffs, addressing the two perspiring novices, who have been grindingaway steadily up stream for the last hour and a half; "why, Jim Bifflesand Jack and I, last season, pulled up from Marlow to Goring in oneafternoon--never stopped once. Do you remember that, Jack?"

  Jack, who has made himself a bed up in the prow of all the rugs and coatshe can collect, and who has been lying there asleep for the last twohours, partially wakes up on being thus appealed to, and recollects allabout the matter, and also remembers that there was an unusually strongstream against them all the way--likewise a stiff wind.

  "About thirty-four miles, I suppose, it must have been," adds the firstspeaker, reaching down another cushion to put under his head.

  "No--no; don't exaggerate, Tom," murmurs Jack, reprovingly; "thirty-threeat the outside."

  And Jack and Tom, quite exhausted by this conversational effort, drop offto sleep once more. And the two simple-minded youngsters at the scullsfeel quite proud of being allowed to row such wonderful oarsmen as Jackand 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, andthen come up for more; but the new generation do not seem to have thesimple 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 thecustomary stretchers about the wonderful things we had done all the wayup.

  We gave him all the regular ones--the time-honoured lies that have doneduty up the river with every boating-man for years past--and added sevenentirely original ones that we had invented for ourselves, including areally quite likely story, founded, to a certain extent, on an all buttrue episode, which had actually happened in a modified degree some yearsago to friends of ours--a story that a mere child could have believedwithout injuring itself, much.

  And that young man mocked at them all, and wanted us to repeat the featsthen and there, and to bet us ten to one that we didn't.

  We got to chatting about our rowing experiences this morning, and torecounting stories of our first efforts in the art of oarsmanship. Myown earliest boating recollection is of five of us contributingthreepence each and taking out a curiously constructed craft on theRegent's Park lake, drying ourselves subsequently, in the park-keeper'slodge.

  After that, having acquired a taste for the water, I did a good deal ofrafting in various suburban brickfields--an exercise providing moreinterest and excitement than might be imagined, especially when you arein the middle of the pond and the proprietor of the materials of whichthe raft is constructed suddenly appears on the bank, with a big stick inhis 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 coulddo so without appearing rude, you would rather avoid meeting him; andyour object is, therefore, to get off on the opposite side of the pond towhich he is, and to go home quietly and quickly, pretending not to seehim. He, on the contrary is yearning to take you by the hand, and talkto you.

  It appears that he knows your father, and is intimately acquainted withyourself, but this does not draw yo
u towards him. He says he'll teachyou to take his boards and make a raft of them; but, seeing that you knowhow to do this pretty well already, the offer, though doubtless kindlymeant, seems a superfluous one on his part, and you are reluctant to puthim to any trouble by accepting it.

  His anxiety to meet you, however, is proof against all your coolness, andthe energetic manner in which he dodges up and down the pond so as to beon 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 hisadvances; but, when he is of the youthful and long-legged type, a meetingis inevitable. The interview is, however, extremely brief, most of theconversation being on his part, your remarks being mostly of anexclamatory and mono-syllabic order, and as soon as you can tear yourselfaway you do so.

  I devoted some three months to rafting, and, being then as proficient asthere was any need to be at that branch of the art, I determined to go infor 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 rundown by roughs or swamped by barges; and it also affords plenty ofopportunity for acquiring the most prompt and graceful method of lyingdown flat at the bottom of the boat so as to avoid being chucked out intothe river by passing tow-lines.

  But it does not give you style. It was not till I came to the Thamesthat I got style. My style of rowing is very much admired now. Peoplesay it is so quaint.

  George never went near the water until he was sixteen. Then he and eightother gentlemen of about the same age went down in a body to Kew oneSaturday, with the idea of hiring a boat there, and pulling to Richmondand back; one of their number, a shock-headed youth, named Joskins, whohad once or twice taken out a boat on the Serpentine, told them it wasjolly fun, boating!

  The tide was running out pretty rapidly when they reached thelanding-stage, and there was a stiff breeze blowing across the river, butthis did not trouble them at all, and they proceeded to select theirboat.

  There was an eight-oared racing outrigger drawn up on the stage; that wasthe 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 todamp their ardour for the outrigger, and showed them two or three verycomfortable-looking boats of the family-party build, but those would notdo at all; the outrigger was the boat they thought they would look bestin.

  So the boy launched it, and they took off their coats and prepared totake their seats. The boy suggested that George, who, even in thosedays, was always the heavy man of any party, should be number four.George said he should be happy to be number four, and promptly steppedinto bow's place, and sat down with his back to the stern. They got himinto his proper position at last, and then the others followed.

  A particularly nervous boy was appointed cox, and the steering principleexplained to him by Joskins. Joskins himself took stroke. He told theothers that it was simple enough; all they had to do was to follow him.

  They said they were ready, and the boy on the landing stage took aboat-hook and shoved him off.

  What then followed George is unable to describe in detail. He has aconfused recollection of having, immediately on starting, received aviolent blow in the small of the back from the butt-end of number five'sscull, at the same time that his own seat seemed to disappear from underhim by magic, and leave him sitting on the boards. He also noticed, as acurious circumstance, that number two was at the same instant lying onhis back at the bottom of the boat, with his legs in the air, apparentlyin a fit.

  They passed under Kew Bridge, broadside, at the rate of eight miles anhour. Joskins being the only one who was rowing. George, on recoveringhis seat, tried to help him, but, on dipping his oar into the water, itimmediately, to his intense surprise, disappeared under the boat, andnearly 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 muchinterest, and everybody shouted out to them different directions. Threetimes they managed to get the boat back through the arch, and three timesthey were carried under it again, and every time "cox" looked up and sawthe bridge above him he broke out into renewed sobs.

  George said he little thought that afternoon that he should ever come toreally like boating.

  Harris is more accustomed to sea rowing than to river work, and saysthat, as an exercise, he prefers it. I don't. I remember taking a smallboat out at Eastbourne last summer: I used to do a good deal of searowing years ago, and I thought I should be all right; but I found I hadforgotten the art entirely. When one scull was deep down underneath thewater, the other would be flourishing wildly about in the air. To get agrip of the water with both at the same time I had to stand up. Theparade was crowded with nobility and gentry, and I had to pull past themin this ridiculous fashion. I landed half-way down the beach, andsecured the services of an old boatman to take me back.

  I like to watch an old boatman rowing, especially one who has been hiredby the hour. There is something so beautifully calm and restful abouthis method. It is so free from that fretful haste, that vehementstriving, that is every day becoming more and more the bane ofnineteenth-century life. He is not for ever straining himself to passall the other boats. If another boat overtakes him and passes him itdoes not annoy him; as a matter of fact, they all do overtake him andpass him--all those that are going his way. This would trouble andirritate some people; the sublime equanimity of the hired boatman underthe ordeal affords us a beautiful lesson against ambition and uppishness.

  Plain practical rowing of the get-the-boat-along order is not a verydifficult art to acquire, but it takes a good deal of practice before aman feels comfortable, when rowing past girls. It is the "time" thatworries a youngster. "It's jolly funny," he says, as for the twentiethtime within five minutes he disentangles his sculls from yours; "I canget on all right when I'm by myself!"

  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 rows insuch an extraordinary fashion. Stroke is intensely indignant at this,and explains that what he has been endeavouring to do for the last tenminutes is to adapt his method to bow's limited capacity. Bow, in turn,then becomes insulted, and requests stroke not to trouble his head abouthim (bow), but to devote his mind to setting a sensible stroke.

  [Picture: Two novices in a boat]

  "Or, shall _I_ take stroke?" he adds, with the evident idea that thatwould at once put the whole matter right.

  They splash along for another hundred yards with still moderate success,and then the whole secret of their trouble bursts upon stroke like aflash 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 withthese," answers bow, quite brightening up, and most willingly assistingin the exchange. "_Now_ we shall be all right."

  But they are not--not even then. Stroke has to stretch his arms nearlyout of their sockets to reach his sculls now; while bow's pair, at eachrecovery, hit him a violent blow in the chest. So they change backagain, and come to the conclusion that the man has given them the wrongset altogether; and over their mutual abuse of this man they become quitefriendly and sympathetic.

  George said he had often longed to take to punting for a change. Puntingis not as easy as it looks. As in rowing, you soon learn how to getalong and handle the craft, but it takes long practice before you can dothis with dignity and without getting the water all up your sleeve.

  One young man I knew had a very sad accident happen to him the first timehe went punting. He had been getting on so well that he had grown quitecheeky over the business, and was walking up and down the punt, worki
nghis pole with a careless grace that was quite fascinating to watch. Uphe would march to the head of the punt, plant his pole, and then runalong right to the other end, just like an old punter. Oh! it was grand.

  [Picture: Man and pole] And it would all have gone on being grand if hehad not unfortunately, while looking round to enjoy the scenery, takenjust one step more than there was any necessity for, and walked off thepunt altogether. The pole was firmly fixed in the mud, and he was leftclinging to it while the punt drifted away. It was an undignifiedposition for him. A rude boy on the bank immediately yelled out to alagging 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, wehad not taken the proper precaution to bring out a spare pole with us. Icould only sit and look at him. His expression as the pole slowly sankwith him I shall never forget; there was so much thought in it.

  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 ridiculousfigure. I continued to chuckle to myself about it for some time, andthen it was suddenly forced in upon me that really I had got very littleto laugh at when I came to think of it. Here was I, alone in a punt,without a pole, drifting helplessly down mid-stream--possibly towards aweir.

  I began to feel very indignant with my friend for having steppedoverboard and gone off in that way. He might, at all events, have leftme the pole.

  I drifted on for about a quarter of a mile, and then I came in sight of afishing-punt moored in mid-stream, in which sat two old fishermen. Theysaw me bearing down upon them, and they called out to me to keep out oftheir 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 andlent me a pole. The weir was just fifty yards below. I am glad theyhappened to be there.

  The first time I went punting was in company with three other fellows;they were going to show me how to do it. We could not all starttogether, so I said I would go down first and get out the punt, and thenI could potter about and practice a bit until they came.

  I could not get a punt out that afternoon, they were all engaged; so Ihad 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 toa man in a punt who, I noticed with some surprise, wore a jacket and capexactly like mine. He was evidently a novice at punting, and hisperformance was most interesting. You never knew what was going tohappen when he put the pole in; he evidently did not know himself.Sometimes he shot up stream and sometimes he shot down stream, and atother times he simply spun round and came up the other side of the pole.And with every result he seemed equally surprised and annoyed.

  The people about the river began to get quite absorbed in him after awhile, and to make bets with one another as to what would be the outcomeof his next push.

  In the course of time my friends arrived on the opposite bank, and theystopped and watched him too. His back was towards them, and they onlysaw his jacket and cap. From this they immediately jumped to theconclusion that it was I, their beloved companion, who was making anexhibition of himself, and their delight knew no bounds. They commencedto chaff him unmercifully.

  I did not grasp their mistake at first, and I thought, "How rude of themto go on like that, with a perfect stranger, too!" But before I couldcall 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 fivegood minutes they stood there, shouting ribaldry at him, deriding him,mocking him, jeering at him. They peppered him with stale jokes, theyeven made a few new ones and threw at him. They hurled at him all theprivate family jokes belonging to our set, and which must have beenperfectly unintelligible to him. And then, unable to stand their brutaljibes 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 tolook very foolish. They explained to him that they had thought he wassome one they knew. They said they hoped he would not deem them capableof so insulting any one except a personal friend of their own.

  [Picture: Bathing] Of course their having mistaken him for a friendexcused it. I remember Harris telling me once of a bathing experience hehad at Boulogne. He was swimming about there near the beach, when hefelt himself suddenly seized by the neck from behind, and forciblyplunged under water. He struggled violently, but whoever had got hold ofhim seemed to be a perfect Hercules in strength, and all his efforts toescape were unavailing. He had given up kicking, and was trying to turnhis thoughts upon solemn things, when his captor released him.

  He regained his feet, and looked round for his would-be murderer. Theassassin was standing close by him, laughing heartily, but the moment hecaught sight of Harris's face, as it emerged from the water, he startedback and seemed quite concerned.

  "I really beg your pardon," he stammered confusedly, "but I took you fora friend of mine!"

  Harris thought it was lucky for him the man had not mistaken him for arelation, or he would probably have been drowned outright.

  Sailing is a thing that wants knowledge and practice too--though, as aboy, I did not think so. I had an idea it came natural to a body, likerounders and touch. I knew another boy who held this view likewise, andso, one windy day, we thought we would try the sport. We were stoppingdown at Yarmouth, and we decided we would go for a trip up the Yare. Wehired a sailing boat at the yard by the bridge, and started off.

  "It's rather a rough day," said the man to us, as we put off: "bettertake in a reef and luff sharp when you get round the bend."

  We said we would make a point of it, and left him with a cheery"Good-morning," wondering to ourselves how you "luffed," and where wewere to get a "reef" from, and what we were to do with it when we had gotit.

  We rowed until we were out of sight of the town, and then, with a widestretch of water in front of us, and the wind blowing a perfect hurricaneacross it, we felt that the time had come to commence operations.

  Hector--I think that was his name--went on pulling while I unrolled thesail. It seemed a complicated job, but I accomplished it at length, andthen came the question, which was the top end?

  By a sort of natural instinct, we, of course, eventually decided that thebottom was the top, and set to work to fix it upside-down. But it was along 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 playingat 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 withthe 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 round your head isnot 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 themast 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 notupset I am unable to offer any reason. I have often thought about thematter since, but I have never succeeded in arriving at any satisfactoryexplanation of the phenomenon.

  Possibly the result may have been brought about by the natural obstinacyof all things in this world. The boat may possibly have come to theconclusion, judging from a cursory view of our behaviour, that we hadcome out for a morning's suicide, and had thereupon determined todisappoint us. That is the only suggestion I can offer.

  By clinging like grim death to the gunwale, we just managed to keepinside the boat, but it was exhaust
ing work. Hector said that piratesand other seafaring people generally lashed the rudder to something orother, and hauled in the main top-jib, during severe squalls, and thoughtwe ought to try to do something of the kind; but I was for letting herhave her head to the wind.

  As my advice was by far the easiest to follow, we ended by adopting it,and contrived to embrace the gunwale and give her her head.

  The boat travelled up stream for about a mile at a pace I have neversailed at since, and don't want to again. Then, at a bend, she heeledover till half her sail was under water. Then she righted herself by amiracle and flew for a long low bank of soft mud.

  That mud-bank saved us. The boat ploughed its way into the middle of itand then stuck. Finding that we were once more able to move according toour ideas, instead of being pitched and thrown about like peas in abladder, we crept forward, and cut down the sail.

  We had had enough sailing. We did not want to overdo the thing and get asurfeit of it. We had had a sail--a good all-round exciting, interestingsail--and now we thought we would have a row, just for a change like.

  We took the sculls and tried to push the boat off the mud, and, in doingso, we broke one of the sculls. After that we proceeded with greatcaution, but they were a wretched old pair, and the second one crackedalmost easier than the first, and left us helpless.

  The mud stretched out for about a hundred yards in front of us, andbehind us was the water. The only thing to be done was to sit and waituntil someone came by.

  It was not the sort of day to attract people out on the river, and it wasthree 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 anignominious fashion to the boat-yard.

  What between tipping the man who had brought us home, and paying for thebroken sculls, and for having been out four hours and a half, it cost usa pretty considerable number of weeks' pocket-money, that sail. But welearned experience, and they say that is always cheap at any price.