CHAPTER
II.
PLANS DISCUSSED. - PLEASURES OF
"CAMPING-OUT," ON FINE NIGHTS. - DITTO,
WET NIGHTS. - COMPROMISE DECIDED ON. -
MONTMORENCY, FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF.
- FEARS LEST HE IS TOO GOOD FOR THIS
WORLD, FEARS SUBSEQUENTLY DISMISSED
AS GROUNDLESS. - MEETING ADJOURNS.
WE pulled out the maps, and discussed
plans.
We arranged to start on the following
Saturday from Kingston. Harris and
I would go down in the morning, and take
the boat up to Chertsey, and
George, who would not be able to get away
from the City till the
afternoon (George goes to sleep at a bank
from ten to four each day,
except Saturdays, when they wake him up
and put him outside at two),
would meet us there.
Should we "camp out" or sleep
at inns?
George and I were for camping out. We
said it would be so wild and free,
so patriarchal like.
Slowly the golden memory of the dead sun
fades from the hearts of the
cold, sad clouds. Silent, like sorrowing
children, the birds have ceased
their song, and only the moorhen's
plaintive cry and the harsh croak of
the corncrake stirs the awed hush around
the couch of waters, where the
dying day breathes out her last.
From the dim woods on either bank,
Night's ghostly army, the grey
shadows, creep out with noiseless tread
to chase away the lingering rear-
guard of the light, and pass, with
noiseless, unseen feet, above the
waving river-grass, and through the
sighing rushes; and Night, upon her
sombre throne, folds her black wings
above the darkening world, and, from
her phantom palace, lit by the pale
stars, reigns in stillness.
Then we run our little boat into some
quiet nook, and the tent is
pitched, and the frugal supper cooked and
eaten. Then the big pipes are
filled and lighted, and the pleasant chat
goes round in musical
undertone; while, in the pauses of our
talk, the river, playing round the
boat, prattles strange old tales and
secrets, sings low the old child's
song that it has sung so many thousand
years - will sing so many thousand
years to come, before its voice grows
harsh and old - a song that we, who
have learnt to love its changing face,
who have so often nestled on its
yielding bosom, think, somehow, we
understand, though we could not tell
you in mere words the story that we
listen to.
And we sit there, by its margin, while
the moon, who loves it too, stoops
down to kiss it with a sister's kiss, and
throws her silver arms around
it clingingly; and we watch it as it
flows, ever singing, ever
whispering, out to meet its king, the sea
- till our voices die away in
silence, and the pipes go out - till we,
common-place, everyday young men
enough, feel strangely full of thoughts,
half sad, half sweet, and do not
care or want to speak - till we laugh,
and, rising, knock the ashes from
our burnt-out pipes, and say
"Good-night," and, lulled by the lapping
water and the rustling trees, we fall
asleep beneath the great, still
stars, and dream that the world is young
again - young and sweet as she
used to be ere the centuries of fret and
care had furrowed her fair face,
ere her children's sins and follies had
made old her loving heart - sweet
as she was in those bygone days when, a
new-made mother, she nursed us,
her children, upon her own deep breast -
ere the wiles of painted
civilization had lured us away from her
fond arms, and the poisoned
sneers of artificiality had made us
ashamed of the simple life we led
with her, and the simple, stately home
where mankind was born so many
thousands years ago.
Harris said:
"How about when it rained?"
You can never rouse Harris. There is no
poetry about Harris - no wild
yearning for the unattainable. Harris
never "weeps, he knows not why."
If Harris's eyes fill with tears, you can
bet it is because Harris has
been eating raw onions, or has put too
much Worcester over his chop.
If you were to stand at night by the
sea-shore with Harris, and say:
"Hark! do you not hear? Is it but
the mermaids singing deep below the
waving waters; or sad spirits, chanting
dirges for white corpses, held by
seaweed?" Harris would take you by
the arm, and say:
"I know what it is, old man; you've
got a chill. Now, you come along
with me. I know a place round the corner
here, where you can get a drop
of the finest Scotch whisky you ever
tasted - put you right in less than
no time."
Harris always does know a place round the
corner where you can get
something brilliant in the drinking line.
I believe that if you met
Harris up in Paradise (supposing such a
thing likely), he would
immediately greet you with:
"So glad you've come, old fellow;
I've found a nice place round the
corner here, where you can get some
really first-class nectar."
In the present instance, however, as
regarded the camping out, his
practical view of the matter came as a
very timely hint. Camping out in
rainy weather is not pleasant.
It is evening. You are wet through, and
there is a good two inches of
water in the boat, and all the things are
damp. You find a place on the
banks that is not quite so puddly as
other places you have seen, and you
land and lug out the tent, and two of you
proceed to fix it.
It is soaked and heavy, and it flops
about, and tumbles down on you, and
clings round your head and makes you mad.
The rain is pouring steadily
down all the time. It is difficult enough
to fix a tent in dry weather:
in wet, the task becomes herculean.
Instead of helping you, it seems to
you that the other man is simply playing
the fool. Just as you get your
side beautifully fixed, he gives it a
hoist from his end, and spoils it
all.
"Here! what are you up to?" you
call out.
"What are YOU up to?" he
retorts; "leggo, can't you?"
"Don't pull it; you've got it all
wrong, you stupid ass!" you shout.
"No, I haven't," he yells back;
"let go your side!"
"I tell you you've got it all
wrong!" you roar, wishing that you could
get at him; and you give your ropes a lug
that pulls all his pegs out.
"Ah, the bally idiot!" you hear
him mutter to himself; and then comes a
savage haul, and away goes your side. You
lay down the mallet and start
to go round and tell him what you think
about the whole business, and, at
the same time, he starts round in the
same direction to come and explain
his views to you. And you follow each
other round and round, swearing at
one another, until the tent tumbles down
in a heap, and leaves you
looking at each other across its ruins,
when you both indignantly
exclaim, in the same breath:
"There you are! what did I tell
you?"
Meanwhile the third man, who has been
baling out the boat, and who has
spilled the water down his sleeve, and
has been cursing away to himself
steadily for the last ten minutes, wants
to know what the thundering
blazes you're playing at, and why the
blarmed tent isn't up yet.
At last, somehow or other, it does get
up, and you land the things. It
is hopeless attempting to make a wood
fire, so you light the methylated
spirit stove, and crowd round that.
Rainwater is the chief article of diet at
supper. The bread is two-
thirds rainwater, the beefsteak-pie is
exceedingly rich in it, and the
jam, and the butter, and the salt, and
the coffee have all combined with
it to make soup.
After supper, you find your tobacco is
damp, and you cannot smoke.
Luckily you have a bottle of the stuff
that cheers and inebriates, if
taken in proper quantity, and this
restores to you sufficient interest in
life to induce you to go to bed.
There you dream that an elephant has
suddenly sat down on your chest, and
that the volcano has exploded and thrown
you down to the bottom of the
sea - the elephant still sleeping
peacefully on your bosom. You wake up
and grasp the idea that something
terrible really has happened. Your
first impression is that the end of the
world has come; and then you
think that this cannot be, and that it is
thieves and murderers, or else
fire, and this opinion you express in the
usual method. No help comes,
however, and all you know is that
thousands of people are kicking you,
and you are being smothered.
Somebody else seems in trouble, too. You
can hear his faint cries coming
from underneath your bed. Determining, at
all events, to sell your life
dearly, you struggle frantically, hitting
out right and left with arms
and legs, and yelling lustily the while,
and at last something gives way,
and you find your head in the fresh air.
Two feet off, you dimly observe
a half-dressed ruffian, waiting to kill
you, and you are preparing for a
life-and-death struggle with him, when it
begins to dawn upon you that
it's Jim.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" he says,
recognising you at the same moment.
"Yes," you answer, rubbing your
eyes; "what's happened?"
"Bally tent's blown down, I
think," he says.
"Where's Bill?"
Then you both raise up your voices and
shout for "Bill!" and the ground
beneath you heaves and rocks, and the
muffled voice that you heard before
replies from out the ruin:
"Get off my head, can't you?"
And Bill struggles out, a muddy, trampled
wreck, and in an unnecessarily
aggressive mood - he being under the
evident belief that the whole thing
has been done on purpose.
In the morning you are all three
speechless, owing to having caught
severe colds in the night; you also feel
very quarrelsome, and you swear
at each other in hoarse whispers during
the whole of breakfast time.
We therefore decided that we would sleep
out on fine nights; and hotel
it, and inn it, and pub. it, like
respectable folks, when it was wet, or
when we felt inclined for a change.
Montmorency hailed this compromise with
much approval. He does not revel
in romantic solitude. Give him something
noisy; and if a trifle low, so
much the jollier. To look at Montmorency
you would imagine that he was
an angel sent upon the earth, for some
reason withheld from mankind, in
the shape of a small fox-terrier. There
is a sort of Oh-what-a-wicked-
world-this-is-and-how-I-wish-I-could-do-something-to-make-it-better-and-
nobler expression about Montmorency that
has been known to bring the
tears into the eyes of pious old ladies
and gentlemen.
When first he came to live at my expense,
I never thought I should be
able to get him to stop long. I used to
sit down and look at him, as he
sat on the rug and looked up at me, and
think: "Oh, that dog will never
live. He will be snatched up to the
bright skies in a chariot, that is
what will happen to him."
But, when I had paid for about a dozen
chickens that he had killed; and
had dragged him, growling and kicking, by
the scruff of his neck, out of
a hundred and fourteen street fights; and
had had a dead cat brought
round for my inspection by an irate
female, who called me a murderer; and
had been summoned by the man next door
but one for having a ferocious dog
at large, that had kept him pinned up in
his own tool-shed, afraid to
venture his nose outside the door for
over two hours on a cold night; and
had learned that the gardener, unknown to
myself, had won thirty
shillings by backing him to kill rats
against time, then I began to think
that maybe they'd let him remain on earth
for a bit longer, after all.
To hang about a stable, and collect a
gang of the most disreputable dogs
to be found in the town, and lead them
out to march round the slums to
fight other disreputable dogs, is
Montmorency's idea of "life;" and so,
as I before observed, he gave to the
suggestion of inns, and pubs., and
hotels his most emphatic approbation.
Having thus settled the sleeping
arrangements to the satisfaction of all
four of us, the only thing left to
discuss was what we should take with
us; and this we had begun to argue, when
Harris said he'd had enough
oratory for one night, and proposed that
we should go out and have a
smile, saying that he had found a place,
round by the square, where you
could really get a drop of Irish worth
drinking.
George said he felt thirsty (I never knew
George when he didn't); and, as
I had a presentiment that a little
whisky, warm, with a slice of lemon,
would do my complaint good, the debate
was, by common assent, adjourned
to the following night; and the assembly
put on its hats and went out.
