CHAPTER
XV.
HOUSEHOLD DUTIES. - LOVE OF WORK. - THE
OLD RIVER HAND, WHAT HE DOES AND
WHAT HE TELLS YOU HE HAS DONE. -
SCEPTICISM OF THE NEW GENERATION. -
EARLY BOATING RECOLLECTIONS. - RAFTING. -
GEORGE DOES THE THING IN STYLE.
- THE OLD BOATMAN, HIS METHOD. - SO CALM,
SO FULL OF PEACE. - THE
BEGINNER. - PUNTING. - A SAD ACCIDENT. -
PLEASURES OF FRIENDSHIP. -
SAILING, MY FIRST EXPERIENCE. - POSSIBLE
REASON WHY WE WERE NOT DROWNED.
WE woke late the next morning, and, at
Harris's earnest desire, partook
of a plain breakfast, with "non
dainties." Then we cleaned up, and put
everything straight (a continual labour,
which was beginning to afford me
a pretty clear insight into a question
that had often posed me - namely,
how a woman with the work of only one
house on her hands manages to pass
away her time), and, at about ten, set
out on what we had determined
should be a good day's journey.
We agreed that we would pull this
morning, as a change from towing; and
Harris thought the best arrangement would
be that George and I should
scull, and he steer. I did not chime in
with this idea at all; I said I
thought Harris would have been showing a
more proper spirit if he had
suggested that he and George should work,
and let me rest a bit. It
seemed to me that I was doing more than
my fair share of the work on this
trip, and I was beginning to feel
strongly on the subject.
It always does seem to me that I am doing
more work than I should do. It
is not that I object to the work, mind
you; I like work: it fascinates
me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I
love to keep it by me: the
idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks
my heart.
You cannot give me too much work; to
accumulate work has almost become a
passion with me: my study is so full of
it now, that there is hardly an
inch of room for any more. I shall have
to throw out a wing soon.
And I am careful of my work, too. Why,
some of the work that I have by
me now has been in my possession for
years and years, and there isn't a
finger-mark on it. I take a great pride
in my work; I take it down now
and then and dust it. No man keeps his
work in a better state of
preservation than I do.
But, though I crave for work, I still
like to be fair. I do not ask for
more than my proper share.
But I get it without asking for it - at
least, so it appears to me - and
this worries me.
George says he does not think I need
trouble myself on the subject. He
thinks it is only my over-scrupulous
nature that makes me fear I am
having more than my due; and that, as a
matter of fact, I don't have half
as much as I ought. But I expect he only
says this to comfort me.
In a boat, I have always noticed that it
is the fixed idea of each member
of the crew that he is doing everything.
Harris's notion was, that it
was he alone who had been working, and
that both George and I had been
imposing upon him. George, on the other
hand, ridiculed the idea of
Harris's having done anything more than
eat and sleep, and had a cast-
iron opinion that it was he - George
himself - who had done all the
labour worth speaking of.
He said he had never been out with such a
couple of lazily skulks as
Harris and I.
That amused Harris.
"Fancy old George talking about
work!" he laughed; "why, about half-an-
hour of it would kill him. Have you ever
seen George work?" he added,
turning to me.
I agreed with Harris that I never had -
most certainly not since we had
started on this trip.
"Well, I don't see how YOU can know
much about it, one way or the other,"
George retorted on Harris; "for I'm
blest if you haven't been asleep half
the time. Have you ever seen Harris fully
awake, except at meal-time?"
asked George, addressing me.
Truth compelled me to support George.
Harris had been very little good
in 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 their
wretched old boat all the way up from
Kingston, and for having
superintended and managed everything for
them, and taken care of them,
and slaved for them. It is the way of the
world.
We settled the present difficulty by
arranging that Harris and George
should scull up past Reading, and that I
should tow the boat on from
there. Pulling a heavy boat against a
strong stream has few attractions
for me now. There was a time, long ago,
when I used to clamour for the
hard work: now I like to give the
youngsters a chance.
I notice that most of the old river hands
are similarly retiring,
whenever there is any stiff pulling to be
done. You can always tell the
old river hand by the way in which he
stretches himself out upon the
cushions at the bottom of the boat, and
encourages the rowers by telling
them anecdotes about the marvellous feats
he performed last season.
"Call what you're doing hard
work!" he drawls, between his contented
whiffs, addressing the two perspiring
novices, who have been grinding
away steadily up stream for the last hour
and a half; "why, Jim Biffles
and Jack and I, last season, pulled up
from Marlow to Goring in one
afternoon - never stopped once. Do you
remember that, Jack?"
Jack, who has made himself a bed up in
the prow of all the rugs and coats
he can collect, and who has been lying
there asleep for the last two
hours, partially wakes up on being thus
appealed to, and recollects all
about the matter, and also remembers that
there was an unusually strong
stream against them all the way -
likewise a stiff wind.
"About thirty-four miles, I suppose,
it must have been," adds the first
speaker, reaching down another cushion to
put under his head.
" No - no; don't exaggerate,
Tom," murmurs Jack, reprovingly; "thirty-
three at the outside."
And Jack and Tom, quite exhausted by this
conversational effort, drop off
to sleep once more. And the two
simple-minded youngsters at the sculls
feel quite proud of being allowed to row
such wonderful oarsmen as Jack
and Tom, and strain away harder than
ever.
When I was a young man, I used to listen
to these tales from my elders,
and take them in, and swallow them, and
digest every word of them, and
then come up for more; but the new
generation do not seem to have the
simple faith of the old times. We -
George, Harris, and myself - took a
"raw'un" up with us once last
season, and we plied him with the customary
stretchers about the wonderful things we
had done all the way up.
We gave him all the regular ones - the
time-honoured lies that have done
duty up the river with every boating-man
for years past - and added seven
entirely original ones that we had
invented for ourselves, including a
really quite likely story, founded, to a
certain extent, on an all but
true episode, which had actually happened
in a modified degree some years
ago to friends of ours - a story that a
mere child could have believed
without injuring itself, much.
And that young man mocked at them all,
and wanted us to repeat the feats
then and there, and to bet us ten to one
that we didn't.
We got to chatting about our rowing
experiences this morning, and to
recounting stories of our first efforts
in the art of oarsmanship. My
own earliest boating recollection is of
five of us contributing
threepence each and taking out a
curiously constructed craft on the
Regent's Park lake, drying ourselves
subsequently, in the park-keeper's
lodge.
After that, having acquired a taste for
the water, I did a good deal of
rafting in various suburban brickfields -
an exercise providing more
interest and excitement than might be
imagined, especially when you are
in the middle of the pond and the
proprietor of the materials of which
the raft is constructed suddenly appears
on the bank, with a big stick in
his hand.
Your first sensation on seeing this
gentleman is that, somehow or other,
you don't feel equal to company and
conversation, and that, if you could
do so without appearing rude, you would
rather avoid meeting him; and
your object is, therefore, to get off on
the opposite side of the pond to
which he is, and to go home quietly and
quickly, pretending not to see
him. He, on the contrary is yearning to
take you by the hand, and talk
to you.
It appears that he knows your father, and
is intimately acquainted with
yourself, but this does not draw you
towards him. He says he'll teach
you to take his boards and make a raft of
them; but, seeing that you know
how to do this pretty well already, the
offer, though doubtless kindly
meant, seems a superfluous one on his
part, and you are reluctant to put
him to any trouble by accepting it.
His anxiety to meet you, however, is
proof against all your coolness, and
the energetic manner in which he dodges
up and down the pond so as to be
on the spot to greet you when you land is
really quite flattering.
If he be of a stout and short-winded
build, you can easily avoid his
advances; but, when he is of the youthful
and long-legged type, a meeting
is inevitable. The interview is, however,
extremely brief, most of the
conversation being on his part, your
remarks being mostly of an
exclamatory and mono-syllabic order, and
as soon as you can tear yourself
away you do so.
I devoted some three months to rafting,
and, being then as proficient as
there was any need to be at that branch
of the art, I determined to go in
for rowing proper, and joined one of the
Lea boating clubs.
Being out in a boat on the river Lea,
especially on Saturday afternoons,
soon makes you smart at handling a craft,
and spry at escaping being run
down by roughs or swamped by barges; and
it also affords plenty of
opportunity for acquiring the most prompt
and graceful method of lying
down flat at the bottom of the boat so as
to avoid being chucked out into
the river by passing tow-lines.
But it does not give you style. It was
not till I came to the Thames
that I got style. My style of rowing is
very much admired now. People
say it is so quaint.
George never went near the water until he
was sixteen. Then he and eight
other gentlemen of about the same age
went down in a body to Kew one
Saturday, with the idea of hiring a boat
there, and pulling to Richmond
and back; one of their number, a
shock-headed youth, named Joskins, who
had once or twice taken out a boat on the
Serpentine, told them it was
jolly fun, boating!
The tide was running out pretty rapidly
when they reached the landing-
stage, and there was a stiff breeze
blowing across the river, but this
did not trouble them at all, and they
proceeded to select their boat.
There was an eight-oared racing outrigger
drawn up on the stage; that was
the one that took their fancy. They said
they'd have that one, please.
The boatman was away, and only his boy
was in charge. The boy tried to
damp their ardour for the outrigger, and
showed them two or three very
comfortable-looking boats of the
family-party build, but those would not
do at all; the outrigger was the boat
they thought they would look best
in.
So the boy launched it, and they took off
their coats and prepared to
take their seats. The boy suggested that
George, who, even in those
days, was always the heavy man of any
party, should be number four.
George said he should be happy to be
number four, and promptly stepped
into bow's place, and sat down with his
back to the stern. They got him
into his proper position at last, and
then the others followed.
A particularly nervous boy was appointed
cox, and the steering principle
explained to him by Joskins. Joskins
himself took stroke. He told the
others that it was simple enough; all
they had to do was to follow him.
They said they were ready, and the boy on
the landing stage took a boat-
hook and shoved him off.
What then followed George is unable to
describe in detail. He has a
confused recollection of having,
immediately on starting, received a
violent blow in the small of the back
from the butt-end of number five's
scull, at the same time that his own seat
seemed to disappear from under
him by magic, and leave him sitting on
the boards. He also noticed, as a
curious circumstance, that number two was
at the same instant lying on
his back at the bottom of the boat, with
his legs in the air, apparently
in a fit.
They passed under Kew Bridge, broadside,
at the rate of eight miles an
hour. Joskins being the only one who was
rowing. George, on recovering
his seat, tried to help him, but, on
dipping his oar into the water, it
immediately, to his intense surprise,
disappeared under the boat, and
nearly took him with it.
And then "cox" threw both
rudder lines over-board, and burst into tears.
How they got back George never knew, but
it took them just forty minutes.
A dense crowd watched the entertainment
from Kew Bridge with much
interest, and everybody shouted out to
them different directions. Three
times they managed to get the boat back
through the arch, and three times
they were carried under it again, and
every time "cox" looked up and saw
the bridge above him he broke out into
renewed sobs.
George said he little thought that
afternoon that he should ever come to
really like boating.
Harris is more accustomed to sea rowing
than to river work, and says
that, as an exercise, he prefers it. I
don't. I remember taking a small
boat out at Eastbourne last summer: I
used to do a good deal of sea
rowing years ago, and I thought I should
be all right; but I found I had
forgotten the art entirely. When one
scull was deep down underneath the
water, the other would be flourishing
wildly about in the air. To get a
grip of the water with both at the same
time I had to stand up. The
parade was crowded with nobility and
gentry, and I had to pull past them
in this ridiculous fashion. I landed
half-way down the beach, and
secured the services of an old boatman to
take me back.
I like to watch an old boatman rowing,
especially one who has been hired
by the hour. There is something so
beautifully calm and restful about
his method. It is so free from that
fretful haste, that vehement
striving, that is every day becoming more
and more the bane of
nineteenth-century life. He is not for
ever straining himself to pass
all the other boats. If another boat
overtakes him and passes him it
does not annoy him; as a matter of fact,
they all do overtake him and
pass him - all those that are going his
way. This would trouble and
irritate some people; the sublime
equanimity of the hired boatman under
the ordeal affords us a beautiful lesson
against ambition and uppishness.
Plain practical rowing of the
get-the-boat-along order is not a very
difficult art to acquire, but it takes a
good deal of practice before a
man feels comfortable, when rowing past
girls. It is the "time" that
worries a youngster. "It's jolly
funny," he says, as for the twentieth
time within five minutes he disentangles
his sculls from yours; "I can
get 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 in
such an extraordinary fashion. Stroke is
intensely indignant at this,
and explains that what he has been
endeavouring to do for the last ten
minutes is to adapt his method to bow's
limited capacity. Bow, in turn,
then becomes insulted, and requests
stroke not to trouble his head about
him (bow), but to devote his mind to
setting a sensible stroke.
"Or, shall I take stroke?" he
adds, with the evident idea that that would
at once put the whole matter right.
They splash along for another hundred
yards with still moderate success,
and then the whole secret of their
trouble bursts upon stroke like a
flash of inspiration.
"I tell you what it is: you've got
my sculls," he cries, turning to bow;
"pass yours over."
"Well, do you know, I've been
wondering how it was I couldn't get on with
these," answers bow, quite
brightening up, and most willingly assisting
in the exchange. "NOW we shall be
all right."
But they are not - not even then. Stroke
has to stretch his arms nearly
out of their sockets to reach his sculls
now; while bow's pair, at each
recovery, hit him a violent blow in the
chest. So they change back
again, and come to the conclusion that
the man has given them the wrong
set altogether; and over their mutual
abuse of this man they become quite
friendly and sympathetic.
George said he had often longed to take
to punting for a change. Punting
is not as easy as it looks. As in rowing,
you soon learn how to get
along and handle the craft, but it takes
long practice before you can do
this with dignity and without getting the
water all up your sleeve.
One young man I knew had a very sad
accident happen to him the first time
he went punting. He had been getting on
so well that he had grown quite
cheeky over the business, and was walking
up and down the punt, working
his pole with a careless grace that was
quite fascinating to watch. Up
he would march to the head of the punt,
plant his pole, and then run
along right to the other end, just like
an old punter. Oh! it was grand.
And it would all have gone on being grand
if he had not unfortunately,
while looking round to enjoy the scenery,
taken just one step more than
there was any necessity for, and walked
off the punt altogether. The
pole was firmly fixed in the mud, and he
was left clinging to it while
the punt drifted away. It was an
undignified position for him. A rude
boy on the bank immediately yelled out to
a lagging chum to "hurry up and
see real monkey on a stick."
I could not go to his assistance,
because, as ill-luck would have it, we
had not taken the proper precaution to
bring out a spare pole with us. I
could only sit and look at him. His
expression as the pole slowly sank
with 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 ridiculous
figure. I continued to chuckle to myself
about it for some time, and
then it was suddenly forced in upon me
that really I had got very little
to laugh at when I came to think of it.
Here was I, alone in a punt,
without a pole, drifting helplessly down
mid-stream - possibly towards a
weir.
I began to feel very indignant with my
friend for having stepped
overboard and gone off in that way. He
might, at all events, have left
me the pole.
I drifted on for about a quarter of a
mile, and then I came in sight of a
fishing-punt moored in mid-stream, in
which sat two old fishermen. They
saw me bearing down upon them, and they
called out to me to keep out of
their way.
"I can't," I shouted back.
"But you don't try," they
answered.
I explained the matter to them when I got
nearer, and they caught me and
lent me a pole. The weir was just fifty
yards below. I am glad they
happened to be there.
The first time I went punting was in
company with three other fellows;
they were going to show me how to do it.
We could not all start
together, so I said I would go down first
and get out the punt, and then
I could potter about and practice a bit
until they came.
I could not get a punt out that
afternoon, they were all engaged; so I
had nothing else to do but to sit down on
the bank, watching the river,
and waiting for my friends.
I had not been sitting there long before
my attention became attracted to
a man in a punt who, I noticed with some
surprise, wore a jacket and cap
exactly like mine. He was evidently a
novice at punting, and his
performance was most interesting. You
never knew what was going to
happen when he put the pole in; he
evidently did not know himself.
Sometimes he shot up stream and sometimes
he shot down stream, and at
other times he simply spun round and came
up the other side of the pole.
And with every result he seemed equally
surprised and annoyed.
The people about the river began to get
quite absorbed in him after a
while, and to make bets with one another
as to what would be the outcome
of his next push.
In the course of time my friends arrived
on the opposite bank, and they
stopped and watched him too. His back was
towards them, and they only
saw his jacket and cap. From this they
immediately jumped to the
conclusion that it was I, their beloved
companion, who was making an
exhibition of himself, and their delight
knew no bounds. They commenced
to chaff him unmercifully.
I did not grasp their mistake at first,
and I thought, "How rude of them
to go on like that, with a perfect
stranger, too!" But before I could
call out and reprove them, the
explanation of the matter occurred to me,
and I withdrew behind a tree.
Oh, how they enjoyed themselves,
ridiculing that young man! For five
good minutes they stood there, shouting
ribaldry at him, deriding him,
mocking him, jeering at him. They
peppered him with stale jokes, they
even made a few new ones and threw at
him. They hurled at him all the
private family jokes belonging to our
set, and which must have been
perfectly unintelligible to him. And
then, unable to stand their brutal
jibes any longer, he turned round on
them, and they saw his face!
I was glad to notice that they had
sufficient decency left in them to
look very foolish. They explained to him
that they had thought he was
some one they knew. They said they hoped
he would not deem them capable
of so insulting any one except a personal
friend of their own.
Of course their having mistaken him for a
friend excused it. I remember
Harris telling me once of a bathing
experience he had at Boulogne. He
was swimming about there near the beach,
when he felt himself suddenly
seized by the neck from behind, and
forcibly plunged under water. He
struggled violently, but whoever had got
hold of him seemed to be a
perfect Hercules in strength, and all his
efforts to escape were
unavailing. He had given up kicking, and
was trying to turn his thoughts
upon solemn things, when his captor
released him.
He regained his feet, and looked round
for his would-be murderer. The
assassin was standing close by him,
laughing heartily, but the moment he
caught sight of Harris's face, as it
emerged from the water, he started
back and seemed quite concerned.
"I really beg your pardon," he
stammered confusedly, "but I took you for
a friend of mine!"
Harris thought it was lucky for him the
man had not mistaken him for a
relation, or he would probably have been
drowned outright.
Sailing is a thing that wants knowledge
and practice too - though, as a
boy, I did not think so. I had an idea it
came natural to a body, like
rounders and touch. I knew another boy
who held this view likewise, and
so, one windy day, we thought we would
try the sport. We were stopping
down at Yarmouth, and we decided we would
go for a trip up the Yare. We
hired 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: "better take 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 we were to
get a "reef" from, and what we
were to do with it when we had got it.
We rowed until we were out of sight of
the town, and then, with a wide
stretch of water in front of us, and the
wind blowing a perfect hurricane
across it, we felt that the time had come
to commence operations.
Hector - I think that was his name - went
on pulling while I unrolled the
sail. It seemed a complicated job, but I
accomplished it at length, and
then came the question, which was the top
end?
By a sort of natural instinct, we, of
course, eventually decided that the
bottom was the top, and set to work to
fix it upside-down. But it was a
long time before we could get it up,
either that way or any other way.
The impression on the mind of the sail
seemed to be that we were playing
at funerals, and that I was the corpse
and itself was the winding-sheet.
When it found that this was not the idea,
it hit me over the head with
the boom, and refused to do anything.
"Wet it," said Hector;
"drop it over and get it wet."
He said people in ships always wetted the
sails before they put them up.
So I wetted it; but that only made
matters worse than they were before.
A dry sail clinging to your legs and
wrapping itself round your head is
not pleasant, but, when the sail is
sopping wet, it becomes quite vexing.
We did get the thing up at last, the two
of us together. We fixed it,
not exactly upside down - more sideways
like - and we tied it up to the
mast with the painter, which we cut off
for the purpose.
That the boat did not upset I simply
state as a fact. Why it did not
upset I am unable to offer any reason. I
have often thought about the
matter since, but I have never succeeded
in arriving at any satisfactory
explanation of the phenomenon.
Possibly the result may have been brought
about by the natural obstinacy
of all things in this world. The boat may
possibly have come to the
conclusion, judging from a cursory view
of our behaviour, that we had
come out for a morning's suicide, and had
thereupon determined to
disappoint us. That is the only
suggestion I can offer.
By clinging like grim death to the
gunwale, we just managed to keep
inside the boat, but it was exhausting
work. Hector said that pirates
and other seafaring people generally
lashed the rudder to something or
other, and hauled in the main top-jib,
during severe squalls, and thought
we ought to try to do something of the
kind; but I was for letting her
have her head to the wind.
As my advice was by far the easiest to
follow, we ended by adopting it,
and contrived to embrace the gunwale and
give her her head.
The boat travelled up stream for about a
mile at a pace I have never
sailed at since, and don't want to again.
Then, at a bend, she heeled
over till half her sail was under water.
Then she righted herself by a
miracle and flew for a long low bank of
soft mud.
That mud-bank saved us. The boat ploughed
its way into the middle of it
and then stuck. Finding that we were once
more able to move according to
our ideas, instead of being pitched and
thrown about like peas in a
bladder, we crept forward, and cut down
the sail.
We had had enough sailing. We did not
want to overdo the thing and get a
surfeit of it. We had had a sail - a good
all-round exciting,
interesting sail - and now we thought we
would have a row, just for a
change like.
We took the sculls and tried to push the
boat off the mud, and, in doing
so, we broke one of the sculls. After
that we proceeded with great
caution, but they were a wretched old
pair, and the second one cracked
almost easier than the first, and left us
helpless.
The mud stretched out for about a hundred
yards in front of us, and
behind us was the water. The only thing
to be done was to sit and wait
until someone came by.
It was not the sort of day to attract
people out on the river, and it was
three hours before a soul came in sight.
It was an old fisherman who,
with immense difficulty, at last rescued
us, and we were towed back in an
ignominious fashion to the boat-yard.
What between tipping the man who had
brought us home, and paying for the
broken sculls, and for having been out
four hours and a half, it cost us
a pretty considerable number of weeks'
pocket-money, that sail. But we
learned experience, and they say that is
always cheap at any price.
