CHAPTER
XVI.
READING. - WE ARE TOWED BY STEAM
LAUNCH. - IRRITATING BEHAVIOUR OF SMALL
BOATS. - HOW THEY GET IN THE WAY OF
STEAM LAUNCHES. - GEORGE AND HARRIS
AGAIN SHIRK THEIR WORK. - RATHER A
HACKNEYED STORY. - STREATLEY AND
GORING.
WE came in sight of Reading about eleven.
The river is dirty and dismal
here. One does not linger in the
neighbourhood of Reading. The town
itself is a famous old place, dating from
the dim days of King Ethelred,
when the Danes anchored their warships in
the Kennet, and started from
Reading to ravage all the land of Wessex;
and here Ethelred and his
brother Alfred fought and defeated them,
Ethelred doing the praying and
Alfred the fighting.
In later years, Reading seems to have
been regarded as a handy place to
run down to, when matters were becoming
unpleasant in London. Parliament
generally rushed off to Reading whenever
there was a plague on at
Westminster; and, in 1625, the Law
followed suit, and all the courts were
held at Reading. It must have been worth
while having a mere ordinary
plague now and then in London to get rid
of both the lawyers and the
Parliament.
During the Parliamentary struggle,
Reading was besieged by the Earl of
Essex, and, a quarter of a century later,
the Prince of Orange routed
King James's troops there.
Henry I. lies buried at Reading, in the
Benedictine abbey founded by him
there, the ruins of which may still be
seen; and, in this same abbey,
great John of Gaunt was married to the
Lady Blanche.
At Reading lock we came up with a steam
launch, belonging to some friends
of mine, and they towed us up to within
about a mile of Streatley. It is
very delightful being towed up by a
launch. I prefer it myself to
rowing. The run would have been more
delightful still, if it had not
been for a lot of wretched small boats
that were continually getting in
the way of our launch, and, to avoid
running down which, we had to be
continually easing and stopping. It is
really most annoying, the manner
in which these rowing boats get in the
way of one's launch up the river;
something ought to done to stop it.
And they are so confoundedly impertinent,
too, over it. You can whistle
till you nearly burst your boiler before
they will trouble themselves to
hurry. I would have one or two of them
run down now and then, if I had
my way, just to teach them all a lesson.
The river becomes very lovely from a
little above Reading. The railway
rather spoils it near Tilehurst, but from
Mapledurham up to Streatley it
is glorious. A little above Mapledurham
lock you pass Hardwick House,
where Charles I. played bowls. The
neighbourhood of Pangbourne, where
the quaint little Swan Inn stands, must
be as familiar to the HABITUES of
the Art Exhibitions as it is to its own
inhabitants.
My friends' launch cast us loose just
below the grotto, and then Harris
wanted to make out that it was my turn to
pull. This seemed to me most
unreasonable. It had been arranged in the
morning that I should bring
the boat up to three miles above Reading.
Well, here we were, ten miles
above Reading! Surely it was now their
turn again.
I could not get either George or Harris
to see the matter in its proper
light, however; so, to save argument, I
took the sculls. I had not been
pulling for more than a minute or so,
when George noticed something black
floating on the water, and we drew up to
it. George leant over, as we
neared it, and laid hold of it. And then
he drew back with a cry, and a
blanched face.
It was the dead body of a woman. It lay
very lightly on the water, and
the face was sweet and calm. It was not a
beautiful face; it was too
prematurely aged-looking, too thin and
drawn, to be that; but it was a
gentle, lovable face, in spite of its
stamp of pinch and poverty, and
upon it was that look of restful peace
that comes to the faces of the
sick sometimes when at last the pain has
left them.
Fortunately for us - we having no desire
to be kept hanging about
coroners' courts - some men on the bank
had seen the body too, and now
took charge of it from us.
We found out the woman's story
afterwards. Of course it was the old, old
vulgar tragedy. She had loved and been
deceived - or had deceived
herself. Anyhow, she had sinned - some of
us do now and then - and her
family and friends, naturally shocked and
indignant, had closed their
doors against her.
Left to fight the world alone, with the
millstone of her shame around her
neck, she had sunk ever lower and lower.
For a while she had kept both
herself and the child on the twelve
shillings a week that twelve hours'
drudgery a day procured her, paying six
shillings out of it for the
child, and keeping her own body and soul
together on the remainder.
Six shillings a week does not keep body
and soul together very unitedly.
They want to get away from each other
when there is only such a very
slight bond as that between them; and one
day, I suppose, the pain and
the dull monotony of it all had stood
before her eyes plainer than usual,
and the mocking spectre had frightened
her. She had made one last appeal
to friends, but, against the chill wall
of their respectability, the
voice of the erring outcast fell
unheeded; and then she had gone to see
her child - had held it in her arms and
kissed it, in a weary, dull sort
of way, and without betraying any
particular emotion of any kind, and had
left it, after putting into its hand a
penny box of chocolate she had
bought it, and afterwards, with her last
few shillings, had taken a
ticket and come down to Goring.
It seemed that the bitterest thoughts of
her life must have centred about
the wooded reaches and the bright green
meadows around Goring; but women
strangely hug the knife that stabs them,
and, perhaps, amidst the gall,
there may have mingled also sunny
memories of sweetest hours, spent upon
those shadowed deeps over which the great
trees bend their branches down
so low.
She had wandered about the woods by the
river's brink all day, and then,
when evening fell and the grey twilight
spread its dusky robe upon the
waters, she stretched her arms out to the
silent river that had known her
sorrow and her joy. And the old river had
taken her into its gentle
arms, and had laid her weary head upon
its bosom, and had hushed away the
pain.
Thus had she sinned in all things -
sinned in living and in dying. God
help her! and all other sinners, if any
more there be.
Goring on the left bank and Streatley on
the right are both or either
charming places to stay at for a few
days. The reaches down to
Pangbourne woo one for a sunny sail or
for a moonlight row, and the
country round about is full of beauty. We
had intended to push on to
Wallingford that day, but the sweet
smiling face of the river here lured
us to linger for a while; and so we left
our boat at the bridge, and went
up into Streatley, and lunched at the
"Bull," much to Montmorency's
satisfaction.
They say that the hills on each ride of
the stream here once joined and
formed a barrier across what is now the
Thames, and that then the river
ended there above Goring in one vast
lake. I am not in a position either
to contradict or affirm this statement. I
simply offer it.
It is an ancient place, Streatley, dating
back, like most river-side
towns and villages, to British and Saxon
times. Goring is not nearly so
pretty a little spot to stop at as
Streatley, if you have your choice;
but it is passing fair enough in its way,
and is nearer the railway in
case you want to slip off without paying
your hotel bill.
