It quite made one's
flesh creep; but we murmured to one another that it was the German
method, and prepared to enjoy it.
I don't understand German myself. I learned it at school, but forgot
every word of it two years after I had left, and have felt much better
ever since. Still, I did not want the people there to guess my
ignorance; so I hit upon what I thought to be rather a good idea. I kept
my eye on the two young students, and followed them. When they tittered,
I tittered; when they roared, I roared; and I also threw in a little
snigger all by myself now and then, as if I had seen a bit of humour that
had escaped the others. I considered this particularly artful on my
part.
I noticed, as the song progressed, that a good many other people seemed
to have their eye fixed on the two young men, as well as myself. These
other people also tittered when the young men tittered, and roared when
the young men roared; and, as the two young men tittered and roared and
exploded with laughter pretty continuously all through the song, it went
exceedingly well.
And yet that German Professor did not seem happy. At first, when we
began to laugh, the expression of his face was one of intense surprise,
as if laughter were the very last thing he had expected to be greeted
with. We thought this very funny: we said his earnest manner was half
the humour. The slightest hint on his part that he knew how funny he was
would have completely ruined it all. As we continued to laugh, his
surprise gave way to an air of annoyance and indignation, and he scowled
fiercely round upon us all (except upon the two young men who, being
behind him, he could not see). That sent us into convulsions. We told
each other that it would be the death of us, this thing. The words
alone, we said, were enough to send us into fits, but added to his mock
seriousness - oh, it was too much!
In the last verse, he surpassed himself. He glowered round upon us with
a look of such concentrated ferocity that, but for our being forewarned
as to the German method of comic singing, we should have been nervous;
and he threw such a wailing note of agony into the weird music that, if
we had not known it was a funny song, we might have wept.
He finished amid a perfect shriek of laughter. We said it was the
funniest thing we had ever heard in all our lives. We said how strange
it was that, in the face of things like these, there should be a popular
notion that the Germans hadn't any sense of humour. And we asked the
Professor why he didn't translate the song into English, so that the
common people could understand it, and hear what a real comic song was
like.
Then Herr Slossenn Boschen got up, and went on awful. He swore at us in
German (which I should judge to be a singularly effective language for
that purpose), and he danced, and shook his fists, and called us all the
English he knew. He said he had never been so insulted in all his life.
It appeared that the song was not a comic song at all. It was about a
young girl who lived in the Hartz Mountains, and who had given up her
life to save her lover's soul; and he died, and met her spirit in the
air; and then, in the last verse, he jilted her spirit, and went on with
another spirit - I'm not quite sure of the details, but it was something
very sad, I know. Herr Boschen said he had sung it once before the
German Emperor, and he (the German Emperor) had sobbed like a little
child. He (Herr Boschen) said it was generally acknowledged to be one of
the most tragic and pathetic songs in the German language.
It was a trying situation for us - very trying. There seemed to be no
answer. We looked around for the two young men who had done this thing,
but they had left the house in an unostentatious manner immediately after
the end of the song.
That was the end of that party. I never saw a party break up so quietly,
and with so little fuss. We never said good-night even to one another.
We came downstairs one at a time, walking softly, and keeping the shady
side. We asked the servant for our hats and coats in whispers, and
opened the door for ourselves, and slipped out, and got round the corner
quickly, avoiding each other as much as possible.
I have never taken much interest in German songs since then.
We reached Sunbury Lock at half-past three. The river is sweetly pretty
just there before you come to the gates, and the backwater is charming;
but don't attempt to row up it.
I tried to do so once. I was sculling, and asked the fellows who were
steering if they thought it could be done, and they said, oh, yes, they
thought so, if I pulled hard. We were just under the little foot-bridge
that crosses it between the two weirs, when they said this, and I bent
down over the sculls, and set myself up, and pulled.
I pulled splendidly. I got well into a steady rhythmical swing. I put
my arms, and my legs, and my back into it. I set myself a good, quick,
dashing stroke, and worked in really grand style. My two friends said it
was a pleasure to watch me. At the end of five minutes, I thought we
ought to be pretty near the weir, and I looked up. We were under the
bridge, in exactly the same spot that we were when I began, and there
were those two idiots, injuring themselves by violent laughing. I had
been grinding away like mad to keep that boat stuck still under that
bridge. I let other people pull up backwaters against strong streams
now.
We sculled up to Walton, a rather large place for a riverside town. As
with all riverside places, only the tiniest corner of it comes down to
the water, so that from the boat you might fancy it was a village of some
half-dozen houses, all told. Windsor and Abingdon are the only towns
between London and Oxford that you can really see anything of from the
stream. All the others hide round corners, and merely peep at the river
down one street: my thanks to them for being so considerate, and leaving
the river-banks to woods and fields and water-works.
Even Reading, though it does its best to spoil and sully and make hideous
as much of the river as it can reach, is good-natured enough to keep its
ugly face a good deal out of sight.
Caesar, of course, had a little place at Walton - a camp, or an
entrenchment, or something of that sort. Caesar was a regular up-river
man. Also Queen Elizabeth, she was there, too. You can never get away
from that woman, go where you will. Cromwell and Bradshaw (not the guide
man, but the King Charles's head man) likewise sojourned here. They must
have been quite a pleasant little party, altogether.
There is an iron "scold's bridle" in Walton Church. They used these
things in ancient days for curbing women's tongues. They have given up
the attempt now. I suppose iron was getting scarce, and nothing else
would be strong enough.
There are also tombs of note in the church, and I was afraid I should
never get Harris past them; but he didn't seem to think of them, and we
went on. Above the bridge the river winds tremendously. This makes it
look picturesque; but it irritates you from a towing or sculling point of
view, and causes argument between the man who is pulling and the man who
is steering.
You pass Oatlands Park on the right bank here. It is a famous old place.
Henry VIII. stole it from some one or the other, I forget whom now, and
lived in it. There is a grotto in the park which you can see for a fee,
and which is supposed to be very wonderful; but I cannot see much in it
myself. The late Duchess of York, who lived at Oatlands, was very fond
of dogs, and kept an immense number. She had a special graveyard made,
in which to bury them when they died, and there they lie, about fifty of
them, with a tombstone over each, and an epitaph inscribed thereon.
Well, I dare say they deserve it quite as much as the average Christian
does.
At "Corway Stakes" - the first bend above Walton Bridge - was fought a
battle between Caesar and Cassivelaunus. Cassivelaunus had prepared the
river for Caesar, by planting it full of stakes (and had, no doubt, put
up a notice-board). But Caesar crossed in spite of this. You couldn't
choke Caesar off that river. He is the sort of man we want round the
backwaters now.
Halliford and Shepperton are both pretty little spots where they touch
the river; but there is nothing remarkable about either of them. There
is a tomb in Shepperton churchyard, however, with a poem on it, and I was
nervous lest Harris should want to get out and fool round it. I saw him
fix a longing eye on the landing-stage as we drew near it, so I managed,
by an adroit movement, to jerk his cap into the water, and in the
excitement of recovering that, and his indignation at my clumsiness, he
forgot all about his beloved graves.
At Weybridge, the Wey (a pretty little stream, navigable for small boats
up to Guildford, and one which I have always been making up my mind to
explore, and never have), the Bourne, and the Basingstoke Canal all enter
the Thames together. The lock is just opposite the town, and the first
thing that we saw, when we came in view of it, was George's blazer on one
of the lock gates, closer inspection showing that George was inside it.
Montmorency set up a furious barking, I shrieked, Harris roared; George
waved his hat, and yelled back. The lock-keeper rushed out with a drag,
under the impression that somebody had fallen into the lock, and appeared
annoyed at finding that no one had.
George had rather a curious oilskin-covered parcel in his hand. It was
round and flat at one end, with a long straight handle sticking out of
it.
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