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.
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.
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