CHAPTER XVIII.
Locks.--George and I arephotographed.--Wallingford.--Dorchester.--Abingdon.--A family man.--Agood spot for drowning.--A difficult bit of water.--Demoralizing effectof river air.
We left Streatley early the next morning, and pulled up to Culham, andslept under the canvas, in the backwater there.
The river is not extraordinarily interesting between Streatley andWallingford. From Cleve you get a stretch of six and a half mileswithout a lock. I believe this is the longest uninterrupted stretchanywhere above Teddington, and the Oxford Club make use of it for theirtrial eights.
But however satisfactory this absence of locks may be to rowing-men, itis to be regretted by the mere pleasure-seeker.
For myself, I am fond of locks. They pleasantly break the monotony ofthe pull. I like sitting in the boat and slowly rising out of the cooldepths 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 thenarrow strip of day-light between them widens till the fair smiling riverlies full before you, and you push your little boat out from its briefprison on to the welcoming waters once again.
They are picturesque little spots, these locks. The stout oldlock-keeper, or his cheerful-looking wife, or bright-eyed daughter, arepleasant folk to have a passing chat with. {287} You meet other boatsthere, and river gossip is exchanged. The Thames would not be thefairyland it is without its flower-decked locks.
Talking of locks reminds me of an accident George and I very nearly hadone summer's morning at Hampton Court.
It was a glorious day, and the lock was crowded; and, as is a commonpractice up the river, a speculative photographer was taking a picture ofus all as we lay upon the rising waters.
I did not catch what was going on at first, and was, therefore, extremelysurprised at noticing George hurriedly smooth out his trousers, ruffle uphis hair, and stick his cap on in a rakish manner at the back of hishead, 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 tohave been suddenly struck wooden. They were all standing or sittingabout in the most quaint and curious attitudes I have ever seen off aJapanese 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 Ishould be in time. Ours was the first boat, and it would be unkind of meto spoil the man's picture, I thought.
So I faced round quickly, and took up a position in the prow, where Ileant with careless grace upon the hitcher, in an attitude suggestive ofagility and strength. I arranged my hair with a curl over the forehead,and threw an air of tender wistfulness into my expression, mingled with atouch of cynicism, which I am told suits me.
As we stood, waiting for the eventful moment, I heard someone behind callout:
"Hi! look at your nose."
I could not turn round to see what was the matter, and whose nose it wasthat was to be looked at. I stole a side-glance at George's nose! Itwas all right--at all events, there was nothing wrong with it that couldbe altered. I squinted down at my own, and that seemed all that could beexpected 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 callingto? 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 theback shouted:
"Look at your boat, sir; you in the red and black caps. It's your twocorpses that will get taken in that photo, if you ain't quick."
We looked then, and saw that the nose of our boat had got fixed under thewoodwork of the lock, while the in-coming water was rising all around it,and tilting it up. In another moment we should be over. Quick asthought, we each seized an oar, and a vigorous blow against the side ofthe lock with the butt-ends released the boat, and sent us sprawling onour backs.
[Picture: The photograph] 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 precisemoment 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 wavingmadly 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 foregroundentirely. Behind them, you caught glimpses of the other boats, and bitsof the surrounding scenery; but everything and everybody else in the locklooked so utterly insignificant and paltry compared with our feet, thatall the other people felt quite ashamed of themselves, and refused tosubscribe to the picture.
The owner of one steam launch, who had bespoke six copies, rescinded theorder on seeing the negative. He said he would take them if anybodycould show him his launch, but nobody could. It was somewhere behindGeorge's right foot.
There was a good deal of unpleasantness over the business. Thephotographer thought we ought to take a dozen copies each, seeing thatthe photo was about nine-tenths us, but we declined. We said we had noobjection to being photo'd full-length, but we preferred being taken theright way up.
Wallingford, six miles above Streatley, is a very ancient town, and hasbeen an active centre for the making of English history. It was a rude,mud-built town in the time of the Britons, who squatted there, until theRoman legions evicted them; and replaced their clay-baked walls by mightyfortifications, the trace of which Time has not yet succeeded in sweepingaway, 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 ParliamentaryWar, when it suffered a long and bitter siege from Fairfax. It fell atlast, and then the walls were razed.
From Wallingford up to Dorchester the neighbourhood of the river growsmore hilly, varied, and picturesque. Dorchester stands half a mile fromthe river. It can be reached by paddling up the Thame, if you have asmall boat; but the best way is to leave the river at Day's Lock, andtake a walk across the fields. Dorchester is a delightfully peaceful oldplace, nestling in stillness and silence and drowsiness.
Dorchester, like Wallingford, was a city in ancient British times; it wasthen called Caer Doren, "the city on the water." In more recent timesthe Romans formed a great camp here, the fortifications surrounding whichnow seem like low, even hills. In Saxon days it was the capital ofWessex. It is very old, and it was very strong and great once. Now itsits 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 isrich and beautiful. If you stay the night on land at Clifton, you cannotdo better than put up at the "Barley Mow." It is, without exception, Ishould say, the quaintest, most old-world inn up the river. It stands onthe right of the bridge, quite away from the village. Its low-pitchedgables and thatched roof and latticed windows give it quite a story-bookappearance, while inside it is even still more once-upon-a-timeyfied.
It would not be a good place for the heroine of a modern novel to stayat. The heroine of a modern novel is always "divinely tall," and she isever "drawing herself up to her full height." At the "Barley Mow" shewould 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 aretoo many surprises in the way of unexpected steps down into this room andup
into that; and as for getting upstairs to his bedroom, or ever findinghis bed when he got up, either operation would be an utter impossibilityto him.
We were up early the next morning, as we wanted to be in Oxford by theafternoon. It is surprising how early one _can_ get up, when campingout. 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 bagfor a pillow, as one does in a featherbed. We had finished breakfast,and were through Clifton Lock by half-past eight.
From Clifton to Culham the river banks are flat, monotonous, anduninteresting, but, after you get through Culhalm Lock--the coldest anddeepest lock on the river--the landscape improves.
At Abingdon, the river passes by the streets. Abingdon is a typicalcountry town of the smaller order--quiet, eminently respectable, clean,and desperately dull. It prides itself on being old, but whether it cancompare in this respect with Wallingford and Dorchester seems doubtful.A famous abbey stood here once, and within what is left of its sanctifiedwalls they brew bitter ale nowadays.
In St. Nicholas Church, at Abingdon, there is a monument to JohnBlackwall and his wife Jane, who both, after leading a happy marriedlife, died on the very same day, August 21, 1625; and in St. Helen'sChurch, it is recorded that W. Lee, who died in 1637, "had in hislifetime issue from his loins two hundred lacking but three." If youwork this out you will find that Mr. W. Lee's family numbered one hundredand ninety-seven. Mr. W. Lee--five times Mayor of Abingdon--was, nodoubt, a benefactor to his generation, but I hope there are not many ofhis kind about in this overcrowded nineteenth century.
From Abingdon to Nuneham Courteney is a lovely stretch. Nuneham Park iswell worth a visit. It can be viewed on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Thehouse contains a fine collection of pictures and curiosities, and thegrounds are very beautiful.
The pool under Sandford lasher, just behind the lock, is a very goodplace to drown yourself in. The undercurrent is terribly strong, and ifyou once get down into it you are all right. An obelisk marks the spotwhere two men have already been drowned, while bathing there; and thesteps of the obelisk are generally used as a diving-board by young mennow who wish to see if the place really _is_ dangerous.
[Picture: River scene]
Iffley Lock and Mill, a mile before you reach Oxford, is a favouritesubject with the river-loving brethren of the brush. The real article,however, is rather disappointing, after the pictures. Few things, I havenoticed, come quite up to the pictures of them, in this world.
We passed through Iffley Lock at about half-past twelve, and then, havingtidied up the boat and made all ready for landing, we set to work on ourlast 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 beenover it a fairish number of times, but I have never been able to get thehang of it. The man who could row a straight course from Oxford toIffley ought to be able to live comfortably, under one roof, with hiswife, his mother-in-law, his elder sister, and the old servant who was inthe family when he was a baby.
First the current drives you on to the right bank, and then on to theleft, then it takes you out into the middle, turns you round three times,and carries you up stream again, and always ends by trying to smash youup against a college barge.
Of course, as a consequence of this, we got in the way of a good manyother boats, during the mile, and they in ours, and, of course, as aconsequence of that, a good deal of bad language occurred.
I don't know why it should be, but everybody is always so exceptionallyirritable on the river. Little mishaps, that you would hardly notice ondry land, drive you nearly frantic with rage, when they occur on thewater. When Harris or George makes an ass of himself on dry land, Ismile indulgently; when they behave in a chuckle-head way on the river, Iuse the most blood-curdling language to them. When another boat gets inmy 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 andblood-thirsty when in a boat. I did a little boating once with a younglady. She was naturally of the sweetest and gentlest dispositionimaginable, but on the river it was quite awful to hear her.
"Oh, drat the man!" she would exclaim, when some unfortunate scullerwould get in her way; "why don't he look where he's going?"
And, "Oh, bother the silly old thing!" she would say indignantly, whenthe sail would not go up properly. And she would catch hold of it, andshake it quite brutally.
Yet, as I have said, when on shore she was kind-hearted and amiableenough.
[Picture: Man at the lock] [Picture: Man at the lock] The air of theriver has a demoralising effect upon one's temper, and this it is, Isuppose, which causes even barge men to be sometimes rude to one another,and to use language which, no doubt, in their calmer moments they regret.
CHAPTER XIX.
Oxford.--Montmorency's idea of Heaven.--The hired up-river boat, itsbeauties and advantages.--The "Pride of the Thames."--The weatherchanges.--The river under different aspects.--Not a cheerfulevening.--Yearnings for the unattainable.--The cheery chat goesround.--George performs upon the banjo.--A mournful melody.--Another wetday.--Flight.--A little supper and a toast.
[Picture: Dog running] We spent two very pleasant days at Oxford. Thereare plenty of dogs in the town of Oxford. Montmorency had eleven fightson the first day, and fourteen on the second, and evidently thought hehad got to heaven.
[Picture: Dogs fighting] Among folk too constitutionally weak, or tooconstitutionally lazy, whichever it may be, to relish up-stream work, itis a common practice to get a boat at Oxford, and row down. For theenergetic, however, the up-stream journey is certainly to be preferred.It does not seem good to be always going with the current. There is moresatisfaction in squaring one's back, and fighting against it, and winningone's way forward in spite of it--at least, so I feel, when Harris andGeorge are sculling and I am steering.
[Picture: Dog running] To those who do contemplate making Oxford theirstarting-place, I would say, take your own boat--unless, of course, youcan take someone 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 theyare handled with care, they rarely come to pieces, or sink. There areplaces in them to sit down on, and they are complete with all thenecessary arrangements--or nearly all--to enable you to row them andsteer them.
But they are not ornamental. The boat you hire up the river above Marlowis not the sort of boat in which you can flash about and give yourselfairs. The hired up-river boat very soon puts a stop to any nonsense ofthat sort on the part of its occupants. That is its chief--one may say,its only recommendation.
[Picture: Dog] 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 mostof his travelling early in the morning or late at night, when there arenot many people about on the river to look at him.
When the man in the hired up-river boat sees anyone he knows, he gets outon to the bank, and hides behind a tree.
I was one of a party who hired an up-river boat one summer, for a fewdays' trip. We had none of us ever seen the hired up-river boat before;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 downwith our bags to the yard, and gave our names, the man said:
[Picture: The Pride of the Thames] "Oh, yes; you're the party that wrotefor a double sculling skiff. It's all right. Jim, fetch round _ThePride of the Thames_."
The boy went, and re-appeared five minutes afterwards, struggling with anantediluvian chunk of wood, that looked as though it had been recentlydug out of somewhere, and dug out carelessly, so as to have beenunnecessarily damaged in the process.
My own idea, on first catching sight of the object, was that it was aRoman relic of some sort,--relic of _what_
I do not know, possibly of acoffin.
The neighbourhood of the upper Thames is rich in Roman relics, and mysurmise seemed to me a very probable one; but our serious young man, whois a bit of a geologist, pooh-poohed my Roman relic theory, and said itwas clear to the meanest intellect (in which category he seemed to begrieved that he could not conscientiously include mine) that the thingthe boy had found was the fossil of a whale; and he pointed out to usvarious evidences proving that it must have belonged to the preglacialperiod.
To settle the dispute, we appealed to the boy. We told him not to beafraid, but to speak the plain truth: Was it the fossil of a pre-Adamitewhale, 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 hepersisted in keeping up the joke, as we thought, too long, we got vexedwith him.
"Come, come, my lad!" said our captain sharply, "don't let us have anynonsense. You take your mother's washing-tub home again, and bring us aboat."
The boat-builder himself came up then, and assured us, on his word, as apractical man, that the thing really was a boat--was, in fact, _the_boat, the "double sculling skiff" selected to take us on our trip downthe river.
We grumbled a good deal. We thought he might, at least, have had itwhitewashed or tarred--had _something_ done to it to distinguish it froma 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 thebest boat in all his stock, and he thought we might have been moregrateful.
He said it, _The Pride of the Thames_, had been in use, just as it nowstood (or rather as it now hung together), for the last forty years, to_his_ knowledge, and nobody had complained of it before, and he did notsee 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 abit 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 sixdays; and we could have bought the thing out-and-out forfour-and-sixpence at any sale of drift-wood round the coast.
The weather changed on the third day,--Oh! I am talking about our presenttrip now,--and we started from Oxford upon our homeward journey in themidst of a steady drizzle.
The river--with the sunlight flashing from its dancing wavelets, gildinggold the grey-green beech-trunks, glinting through the dark, cool woodpaths, chasing shadows o'er the shallows, flinging diamonds from themill-wheels, throwing kisses to the lilies, wantoning with the weirs'white waters, silvering moss-grown walls and bridges, brightening everytiny townlet, making sweet each lane and meadow, lying tangled in therushes, peeping, laughing, from each inlet, gleaming gay on many a farsail, making soft the air with glory--is a golden fairy stream.
But the river--chill and weary, with the ceaseless rain-drops falling onits brown and sluggish waters, with a sound as of a woman, weeping low insome dark chamber; while the woods, all dark and silent, shrouded intheir mists of vapour, stand like ghosts upon the margin; silent ghostswith eyes reproachful, like the ghosts of evil actions, like the ghostsof friends neglected--is a spirit-haunted water through the land of vainregrets.
Sunlight is the life-blood of Nature. Mother Earth looks at us with suchdull, soulless eyes, when the sunlight has died away from out of her. Itmakes us sad to be with her then; she does not seem to know us or to carefor us. She is as a widow who has lost the husband she loved, and herchildren touch her hand, and look up into her eyes, but gain no smilefrom her.
We rowed on all that day through the rain, and very melancholy work itwas. We pretended, at first, that we enjoyed it. We said it was achange, and that we liked to see the river under all its differentaspects. We said we could not expect to have it all sunshine, nor shouldwe wish it. We told each other that Nature was beautiful, even in hertears.
[Picture: The boat in the rain]
Indeed, Harris and I were quite enthusiastic about the business, for thefirst few hours. And we sang a song about a gipsy's life, and howdelightful a gipsy's existence was!--free to storm and sunshine, and toevery wind that blew!--and how he enjoyed the rain, and what a lot ofgood 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 theafternoon, just leaving a little space in the bow, from which one of uscould paddle and keep a look-out. In this way we made nine miles, andpulled up for the night a little below Day's Lock.
I cannot honestly say that we had a merry evening. The rain poured downwith quiet persistency. Everything in the boat was damp and clammy.Supper was not a success. Cold veal pie, when you don't feel hungry, isapt to cloy. I felt I wanted whitebait and a cutlet; Harris babbled ofsoles and white-sauce, and passed the remains of his pie to Montmorency,who declined it, and, apparently insulted by the offer, went and sat overat the other end of the boat by himself.
George requested that we would not talk about these things, at all eventsuntil he had finished his cold boiled beef without mustard.
We played penny nap after supper. We played for about an hour and ahalf, by the end of which time George had won fourpence--George always islucky at cards--and Harris and I had lost exactly twopence each.
We thought we would give up gambling then. As Harris said, it breeds anunhealthy excitement when carried too far. George offered to go on andgive us our revenge; but Harris and I decided not to battle any furtheragainst Fate.
After that, we mixed ourselves some toddy, and sat round and talked.George told us about a man he had known, who had come up the river twoyears ago and who had slept out in a damp boat on just such another nightas that was, and it had given him rheumatic fever, and nothing was ableto save him, and he had died in great agony ten days afterwards. Georgesaid he was quite a young man, and was engaged to be married. He said itwas one of the saddest things he had ever known.
And that put Harris in mind of a friend of his, who had been in theVolunteers, and who had slept out under canvas one wet night down atAldershot, "on just such another night as this," said Harris; and he hadwoke up in the morning a cripple for life. Harris said he wouldintroduce us both to the man when we got back to town; it would make ourhearts bleed to see him.
This naturally led to some pleasant chat about sciatica, fevers, chills,lung diseases, and bronchitis; and Harris said how very awkward it wouldbe if one of us were taken seriously ill in the night, seeing how faraway we were from a doctor.
There seemed to be a desire for something frolicksome to follow upon thisconversation, and in a weak moment I suggested that George should get outhis 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 nononsense about having left his music at home, or anything of that sort.He at once fished out his instrument, and commenced to play "Two LovelyBlack Eyes."
I had always regarded "Two Lovely Black Eyes" as rather a commonplacetune until that evening. The rich vein of sadness that George extractedfrom it quite surprised me.
The desire that grew upon Harris and myself, as the mournful strainsprogressed, was to fall upon each other's necks and weep; but by greateffort we kept back the rising tears, and listened to the wild yearnfulmelody in silence.
When the chorus came we even made a desperate effort to be merry. Were-filled our glasses and joined in; Harris, in a voice trembling withemotion, 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 tothat "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 hisheart or his jaw must surely break.
George wanted to go on with another verse. He thought that when he hadgot a little more into the tune, and could throw more "abandon," as itwere, into the rendering, it might not seem so sad. The feeling of themajority, however, was opposed to the experiment.
There being nothing else to do, we went to bed--that is, we undressedourselves, and tossed about at the bottom of the boat for some three orfour hours. After which, we managed to get some fitful slumber untilfive a.m., when we all got up and had breakfast.
The second day was exactly like the first. The rain continued to pourdown, and we sat, wrapped up in our mackintoshes, underneath the canvas,and drifted slowly down.
One of us--I forget which one now, but I rather think it was myself--madea few feeble attempts during the course of the morning to work up the oldgipsy 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 sentiments of each of us,that to sing it seemed unnecessary.
On one point we were all agreed, and that was that, come what might, wewould go through with this job to the bitter end. We had come out for afortnight's enjoyment on the river, and a fortnight's enjoyment on theriver we meant to have. If it killed us! well, that would be a sad thingfor our friends and relations, but it could not be helped. We felt thatto give in to the weather in a climate such as ours would be a mostdisastrous precedent.
"It's only two days more," said Harris, "and we are young and strong. Wemay get over it all right, after all."
At about four o'clock we began to discuss our arrangements for theevening. We were a little past Goring then, and we decided to paddle onto 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 walkabout the village in the pouring rain until bed-time; or we could sit ina dimly-lit bar-parlour and read the almanac.
[Picture: Lady in skirt] "Why, the Alhambra would be almost more lively,"said Harris, venturing his head outside the cover for a moment and takinga survey of the sky.
"With a little supper at the --- {311} to follow," I added, halfunconsciously.
"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 thisbally old coffin," observed George, casting a glance of intensemalevolence over the boat, "it might be worth while to mention thatthere's a train leaves Pangbourne, I know, soon after five, which wouldjust land us in town in comfortable time to get a chop, and then go on tothe place you mentioned afterwards."
Nobody spoke. We looked at one another, and each one seemed to see hisown mean and guilty thoughts reflected in the faces of the others. Insilence, we dragged out and overhauled the Gladstone. We looked up theriver and down 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"Swan" towards the railway station, dressed in the following neither neatnor gaudy costume:
Black leather shoes, dirty; suit of boating flannels, very dirty; brownfelt hat, much battered; mackintosh, very wet; umbrella.
We had deceived the boatman at Pangbourne. We had not had the face totell him that we were running away from the rain. We had left the boat,and all it contained, in his charge, with instructions that it was to beready for us at nine the next morning. If, we said--_if_ anythingunforeseen should happen, preventing our return, we would write to him.
We reached Paddington at seven, and drove direct to the restaurant I havebefore described, where we partook of a light meal, left Montmorency,together with suggestions for a supper to be ready at half-past ten, andthen continued our way to Leicester Square.
We attracted a good deal of attention at the Alhambra. On our presentingourselves at the paybox we were gruffly directed to go round to CastleStreet, and were informed that we were half-an-hour behind our time.
We convinced the man, with some difficulty, that we were _not_ "theworld-renowned contortionists from the Himalaya Mountains," and he tookour money and let us pass.
Inside we were a still greater success. Our fine bronzed countenancesand picturesque clothes were followed round the place with admiring 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 therestaurant, where supper was already awaiting us.
I must confess to enjoying that supper. For about ten days we seemed tohave been living, more or less, on nothing but cold meat, cake, and breadand jam. It had been a simple, a nutritious diet; but there had beennothing exciting about it, and the odour of Burgundy, and the smell ofFrench sauces, and the sight of clean napkins and long loaves, knocked asa very welcome visitor at the door of our inner man.
We pegged and quaffed away in silence for a while, until the time camewhen, instead of sitting bolt upright, and grasping the knife and forkfirmly, we leant back in our chairs and worked slowly andcarelessly--when we stretched out our legs beneath the table, let ournapkins fall, unheeded, to the floor, and found time to more criticallyexamine the smoky ceiling than we had hitherto been able to do--when werested our glasses at arm's-length upon the table, and felt good, andthoughtful, and forgiving.
Then Harris, who was sitting next the window, drew aside the curtain andlooked out upon the street.
It glistened darkly in the wet, the dim lamps flickered with each gust,the rain splashed steadily into the puddles and trickled down thewater-spouts into the running gutters. A few soaked wayfarers hurriedpast, crouching beneath their dripping umbrellas, the women holding uptheir skirts.
"Well," said Harris, reaching his hand out for his glass, "we have had apleasant trip, and my hearty thanks for it to old Father Thames--but Ithink we did well to chuck it when we did. Here's to Three Men well outof a Boat!"
And Montmorency, standing on his hind legs, before the window, peeringout into the night, gave a short bark of decided concurrence with thetoast.
[Picture: Neptune drinking a toast]
Footnotes.
{287} Or rather _were_. The Conservancy of late seems to haveconstituted itself into a society for the employment of idiots. A goodmany of the new lock-keepers, especially in the more crowded portions ofthe river, are excitable, nervous old men, quite unfitted for their post.
{311} A capital little out-of-the-way restaurant, in the neighbourhoodof ---, where you can get one of the best-cooked and cheapest littleFrench dinners or suppers that I know of, with an excellent bottle ofBeaune, for three-and-six; and which I am not going to be idiot enough toadvertise.
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