CHAPTER
XIV.
WARGRAVE. - WAXWORKS. - SONNING. - OUR
STEW. - MONTMORENCY IS SARCASTIC.
- FIGHT BETWEEN MONTMORENCY AND THE
TEA-KETTLE. - GEORGE'S BANJO STUDIES.
- MEET WITH DISCOURAGEMENT. -
DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF THE MUSICAL
AMATEUR. - LEARNING TO PLAY THE
BAGPIPES. - HARRIS FEELS SAD AFTER
SUPPER. - GEORGE AND I GO FOR A WALK.
- RETURN HUNGRY AND WET. - THERE IS
A STRANGENESS ABOUT HARRIS. - HARRIS
AND THE SWANS, A REMARKABLE STORY. -
HARRIS HAS A TROUBLED NIGHT.
WE caught a breeze, after lunch, which
took us gently up past Wargrave
and Shiplake. Mellowed in the drowsy
sunlight of a summer's afternoon,
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 the 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 SANDFORD 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 1 pound
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
giving up all that for five shillings
a year! It is not worth it.
It is rumoured 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 afterwards
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. Tennyson 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 Henley, 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 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 splendour. If you stop at Sonning,
put up at the "Bull," behind
the church. It is a veritable picture 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 supper. 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 remains 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. The job turned out to be
the biggest thing of its kind that I had
ever been in. We began
cheerfully, one might almost say
skittishly, 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 pea-nut. 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 hollows. We
worked steadily for five-and-twenty
minutes, and did four potatoes. Then
we struck. We said we should require the
rest of the evening for
scraping ourselves.
I never saw such a thing as
potato-scraping for making a fellow in a
mess. It seemed difficult 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 peeling. We
also put in 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 remnants, and added them to the
stew. There were half a pork pie
and a 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 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, towards the end,
Montmorency, who had evinced great
interest in the proceedings throughout,
strolled away with an earnest and
thoughtful air, reappearing, a few
minutes afterwards, 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 cannot 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
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
experiments.
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 of 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 flavour, 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 potatoes 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
expression, and would try and rouse it
every now and then by growling at
it. When it began to splutter and steam,
he regarded it as a challenge,
and would want to fight it, only, at that
precise moment, 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, growling, and
advanced towards it in a threatening
attitude. It was only a little kettle,
but it was full of pluck, and it
up and spit at him.
"Ah! would ye!" growled
Montmorency, showing his teeth; "I'll teach ye to
cheek a hard-working, 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
kettle 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 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
headache.
George has never learned to play the
banjo to this day. He has had too
much all-round discouragement 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 howling.
He's got a musical ear, and your playing
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
herself, 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 awhile, he
despaired altogether, and advertised the
instrument 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
musical instrument. You would
think that Society, for its own sake,
would do all it could to assist a
man to acquire the art of playing a
musical instrument. But it doesn't!
I knew a young fellow once, who was
studying to play the bagpipes, and
you would be surprised at the amount of
opposition he had to contend
with. Why, not even from the members 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 unfeelingly on the
subject.
My friend used to get up early in the
morning to practise, but he had to
give that plan up, because 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 committed
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 practise in the day-time,
in the back-kitchen with all
the doors shut; but his more successful
passages could generally be heard
in the sitting-room, in spite of these
precautions, 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
explain).
Then they knocked up a little place for
him at the bottom of the garden,
about quarter of a mile from the house,
and made him take the machine
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 garden and suddenly get within
earshot of those bagpipes,
without being prepared for it, or knowing
what it was. If he were a man
of strong mind, it only gave him fits;
but a person of mere average
intellect it usually sent mad.
There is, it must be confessed, something
very sad about the early
efforts of an amateur in bagpipes. I have
felt that myself when
listening to my young friend. They appear
to be a trying instrument to
perform upon. You have to get enough
breath for the whole tune before
you start - at least, so I gathered from
watching Jefferson.
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 splutter and a hiss.
You want to be in good health to play the
bagpipes.
Young Jefferson only learnt to play one
tune on those bagpipes; but I
never heard any complaints 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
for a mouch round Henley. He
said he should have a glass of whisky and
a pipe, and fix things up for
the 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 pleasant
company the time slipped by somewhat
quickly; so that it was nearly
eleven o'clock before 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
wondering if we were going right or not,
we thought of the cosy boat,
with the bright light streaming through
the tight-drawn canvas; of Harris
and Montmorency, and the whisky, and
wished that we were there.
We conjured up the picture of ourselves
inside, 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; 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
realise 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 towards the river or
away from it, and when you are tired and
want to go to bed uncertainties
like that worry you. We passed Skiplake
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.
No answer!
The case was becoming serious. it was now
past midnight. The hotels at
Skiplake and Henley 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 getting 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
darkness to be the fourth
island, but met with no better 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 understand the
sufferings 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 happen 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 flashed across
me that it was our boat, and I 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 sleepers 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 asking where
we were.
There was an unaccountable strangeness
about Harris. It was something
more than mere ordinary 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 screaming 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 him 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 afterwards they returned
with eighteen other swans! It must
have been a fearful 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 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 supper, 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
the lantern, looking for his clothes. He
seemed to be worrying about his
clothes all night.
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 indignantly.
"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 my 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.
