<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
<p class="gutsumm">The river in its Sunday garb.—Dress on
the river.—A chance for the men.—Absence of taste in
Harris.—George’s blazer.—A day with the
fashion-plate young lady.—Mrs. Thomas’s
tomb.—The man who loves not graves and coffins and
skulls.—Harris mad.—His views on George and Banks and
lemonade.—He performs tricks.</p>
<p>It was while passing through Moulsey Lock that Harris told me
about his maze experience. It took us some time to pass
through, as we were the only boat, and it is a big lock. I
don’t think I ever remember to have seen Moulsey Lock,
before, with only one boat in it. It is, I suppose,
Boulter’s not even excepted, the busiest lock on the
river.</p>
<p>I have stood and watched it, sometimes, when you could not see
any water at all, but only a brilliant tangle of bright blazers,
and gay caps, and saucy hats, and many-coloured parasols, and
silken rugs, and cloaks, and streaming ribbons, and dainty
whites; when looking down into the lock from the quay, you might
fancy it was a huge box into which flowers of every hue and shade
had been thrown pell-mell, and lay piled up in a rainbow heap,
that covered every corner.</p>
<p>On a fine Sunday it presents this appearance nearly all day
long, while, up the stream, and down the stream, lie, waiting
their turn, outside the gates, long lines of still more boats;
and boats are drawing near and passing away, so that the sunny
river, from the Palace up to Hampton Church, is dotted and decked
with yellow, and blue, and orange, and white, and red, and
pink. All the inhabitants of Hampton and Moulsey dress
themselves up in boating costume, and come and mouch round the
lock with their dogs, and flirt, and smoke, and watch the boats;
and, altogether, what with the caps and jackets of the men, the
pretty coloured dresses of the women, the excited dogs, the
moving boats, the white sails, the pleasant landscape, and the
sparkling water, it is one of the gayest sights I know of near
this dull old London town.</p>
<p>The river affords a good opportunity for dress. For once
in a way, we men are able to show <i>our</i> taste in colours,
and I think we come out very natty, if you ask me. I always
like a little red in my things—red and black. You
know my hair is a sort of golden brown, rather a pretty shade
I’ve been told, and a dark red matches it beautifully; and
then I always think a light-blue necktie goes so well with it,
and a pair of those Russian-leather shoes and a red silk
handkerchief round the waist—a handkerchief looks so much
better than a belt.</p>
<p>Harris always keeps to shades or mixtures of orange or yellow,
but I don’t think he is at all wise in this. His
complexion is too dark for yellows. Yellows don’t
suit him: there can be no question about it. I want him to
take to blue as a background, with white or cream for relief;
but, there! the less taste a person has in dress, the more
obstinate he always seems to be. It is a great pity,
because he will never be a success as it is, while there are one
or two colours in which he might not really look so bad, with his
hat on.</p>
<p>George has bought some new things for this trip, and I’m
rather vexed about them. The blazer is loud. I should
not like George to know that I thought so, but there really is no
other word for it. He brought it home and showed it to us
on Thursday evening. We asked him what colour he called it,
and he said he didn’t know. He didn’t think
there was a name for the colour. The man had told him it
was an Oriental design. George put it on, and asked us what
we thought of it. Harris said that, as an object to hang
over a flower-bed in early spring to frighten the birds away, he
should respect it; but that, considered as an article of dress
for any human being, except a Margate nigger, it made him
ill. George got quite huffy; but, as Harris said, if he
didn’t want his opinion, why did he ask for it?</p>
<p>What troubles Harris and myself, with regard to it, is that we
are afraid it will attract attention to the boat.</p>
<p><SPAN href="images/p98b.jpg">
<ANTIMG class='floatleft' alt= "Young lady" title= "Young lady" src="images/p98s.jpg" /></SPAN>Girls, also, don’t look half bad in a boat, if prettily
dressed. Nothing is more fetching, to my thinking, than a
tasteful boating costume. But a “boating
costume,” it would be as well if all ladies would
understand, ought to be a costume that can be worn in a boat, and
not merely under a glass-case. It utterly spoils an
excursion if you have folk in the boat who are thinking all the
time a good deal more of their dress than of the trip. It
was my misfortune once to go for a water picnic with two ladies
of this kind. We did have a lively time!</p>
<p>They were both beautifully got up—all lace and silky
stuff, and flowers, and ribbons, and dainty shoes, and light
gloves. But they were dressed for a photographic studio,
not for a river picnic. They were the “boating
costumes” of a French fashion-plate. It was
ridiculous, fooling about in them anywhere near real earth, air,
and water.</p>
<p>The first thing was that they thought the boat was not
clean. We dusted all the seats for them, and then assured
them that it was, but they didn’t believe us. One of
them rubbed the cushion with the forefinger of her glove, and
showed the result to the other, and they both sighed, and sat
down, with the air of early Christian martyrs trying to make
themselves comfortable up against the stake. You are liable
to occasionally splash a little when sculling, and it appeared
that a drop of water ruined those costumes. The mark never
came out, and a stain was left on the dress for ever.</p>
<p>I was stroke. I did my best. I feathered some two
feet high, and I paused at the end of each stroke to let the
blades drip before returning them, and I picked out a smooth bit
of water to drop them into again each time. (Bow said,
after a while, that he did not feel himself a sufficiently
accomplished oarsman to pull with me, but that he would sit
still, if I would allow him, and study my stroke. He said
it interested him.) But, notwithstanding all this, and try
as I would, I could not help an occasional flicker of water from
going over those dresses.</p>
<p>The girls did not complain, but they huddled up close
together, and set their lips firm, and every time a drop touched
them, they visibly shrank and shuddered. It was a noble
sight to see them suffering thus in silence, but it unnerved me
altogether. I am too sensitive. I got wild and fitful
in my rowing, and splashed more and more, the harder I tried not
to.</p>
<p>I gave it up at last; I said I’d row bow. Bow
thought the arrangement would be better too, and we changed
places. The ladies gave an involuntary sigh of relief when
they saw me go, and quite brightened up for a moment. Poor
girls! they had better have put up with me. The man they
had got now was a jolly, light-hearted, thick-headed sort of a
chap, with about as much sensitiveness in him as there might be
in a Newfoundland puppy. You might look daggers at him for
an hour and he would not notice it, and it would not trouble him
if he did. He set a good, rollicking, dashing stroke that
sent the spray playing all over the boat like a fountain, and
made the whole crowd sit up straight in no time. When he
spread more than pint of water over one of those dresses, he
would give a pleasant little laugh, and say:</p>
<p>“I beg your pardon, I’m sure;” and offer
them his handkerchief to wipe it off with.</p>
<p>“Oh, it’s of no consequence,” the poor girls
would murmur in reply, and covertly draw rugs and coats over
themselves, and try and protect themselves with their lace
parasols.</p>
<p>At lunch they had a very bad time of it. People wanted
them to sit on the grass, and the grass was dusty; and the
tree-trunks, against which they were invited to lean, did not
appear to have been brushed for weeks; so they spread their
handkerchiefs on the ground and sat on those, bolt upright.
Somebody, in walking about with a plate of beef-steak pie,
tripped up over a root, and sent the pie flying. None of it
went over them, fortunately, but the accident suggested a fresh
danger to them, and agitated them; and, whenever anybody moved
about, after that, with anything in his hand that could fall and
make a mess, they watched that person with growing anxiety until
he sat down again.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<SPAN href="images/p101.jpg">
<ANTIMG alt= "Washing up" title= "Washing up" src="images/p101.jpg" /></SPAN></p>
<p>“Now then, you girls,” said our friend Bow to
them, cheerily, after it was all over, “come along,
you’ve got to wash up!”</p>
<p>They didn’t understand him at first. When they
grasped the idea, they said they feared they did not know how to
wash up.</p>
<p>“Oh, I’ll soon show you,” he cried;
“it’s rare fun! You lie down on your—I
mean you lean over the bank, you know, and sloush the things
about in the water.”</p>
<p>The elder sister said that she was afraid that they
hadn’t got on dresses suited to the work.</p>
<p>“Oh, they’ll be all right,” said he
light-heartedly; “tuck ’em up.”</p>
<p>And he made them do it, too. He told them that that sort
of thing was half the fun of a picnic. They said it was
very interesting.</p>
<p>Now I come to think it over, was that young man as
dense-headed as we thought? or was he—no, impossible! there
was such a simple, child-like expression about him!</p>
<p>Harris wanted to get out at Hampton Church, to go and see Mrs.
Thomas’s tomb.</p>
<p>“Who is Mrs. Thomas?” I asked.</p>
<p>“How should I know?” replied Harris.
“She’s a lady that’s got a funny tomb, and I
want to see it.”</p>
<p>I objected. I don’t know whether it is that I am
built wrong, but I never did seem to hanker after tombstones
myself. I know that the proper thing to do, when you get to
a village or town, is to rush off to the churchyard, and enjoy
the graves; but it is a recreation that I always deny
myself. I take no interest in creeping round dim and chilly
churches behind wheezy old men, and reading epitaphs. Not
even the sight of a bit of cracked brass let into a stone affords
me what I call real happiness.</p>
<p>I shock respectable sextons by the imperturbability I am able
to assume before exciting inscriptions, and by my lack of
enthusiasm for the local family history, while my ill-concealed
anxiety to get outside wounds their feelings.</p>
<p>One golden morning of a sunny day, I leant against the low
stone wall that guarded a little village church, and I smoked,
and drank in deep, calm gladness from the sweet, restful
scene—the grey old church with its clustering ivy and its
quaint carved wooden porch, the white lane winding down the hill
between tall rows of elms, the thatched-roof cottages peeping
above their trim-kept hedges, the silver river in the hollow, the
wooded hills beyond!</p>
<p>It was a lovely landscape. It was idyllic, poetical, and
it inspired me. I felt good and noble. I felt I
didn’t want to be sinful and wicked any more. I would
come and live here, and never do any more wrong, and lead a
blameless, beautiful life, and have silver hair when I got old,
and all that sort of thing.</p>
<p>In that moment I forgave all my friends and relations for
their wickedness and cussedness, and I blessed them. They
did not know that I blessed them. They went their abandoned
way all unconscious of what I, far away in that peaceful village,
was doing for them; but I did it, and I wished that I could let
them know that I had done it, because I wanted to make them
happy. I was going on thinking away all these grand, tender
thoughts, when my reverie was broken in upon by a shrill piping
voice crying out:</p>
<p>“All right, sur, I’m a-coming, I’m
a-coming. It’s all right, sur; don’t you be in
a hurry.”</p>
<p>I looked up, and saw an old bald-headed man hobbling across
the churchyard towards me, carrying a huge bunch of keys in his
hand that shook and jingled at every step.</p>
<p>I motioned him away with silent dignity, but he still
advanced, screeching out the while:</p>
<p>“I’m a-coming, sur, I’m a-coming.
I’m a little lame. I ain’t as spry as I used to
be. This way, sur.”</p>
<p>“Go away, you miserable old man,” I said.</p>
<p>“I’ve come as soon as I could, sur,” he
replied. “My missis never see you till just this
minute. You follow me, sur.”</p>
<p>“Go away,” I repeated; “leave me before I
get over the wall, and slay you.”</p>
<p>He seemed surprised.</p>
<p>“Don’t you want to see the tombs?” he
said.</p>
<p>“No,” I answered, “I don’t. I
want to stop here, leaning up against this gritty old wall.
Go away, and don’t disturb me. I am chock full of
beautiful and noble thoughts, and I want to stop like it, because
it feels nice and good. Don’t you come fooling about,
making me mad, chivying away all my better feelings with this
silly tombstone nonsense of yours. Go away, and get
somebody to bury you cheap, and I’ll pay half the
expense.”</p>
<p>He was bewildered for a moment. He rubbed his eyes, and
looked hard at me. I seemed human enough on the outside: he
couldn’t make it out.</p>
<p>He said:</p>
<p>“Yuise a stranger in these parts? You don’t
live here?”</p>
<p><SPAN href="images/p105.jpg">
<ANTIMG class='floatright' alt= "Graves" title= "Graves" src="images/p105.jpg" /></SPAN>“No,” I said, “I don’t.
<i>You</i> wouldn’t if <i>I</i> did.”</p>
<p>“Well then,” he said, “you want to see the
tombs—graves—folks been buried, you
know—coffins!”</p>
<p>“You are an untruther,” I replied, getting roused;
“I do not want to see tombs—not your tombs. Why
should I? We have graves of our own, our family has.
Why my uncle Podger has a tomb in Kensal Green Cemetery, that is
the pride of all that country-side; and my grandfather’s
vault at Bow is capable of accommodating eight visitors, while my
great-aunt Susan has a brick grave in Finchley Churchyard, with a
headstone with a coffee-pot sort of thing in bas-relief upon it,
and a six-inch best white stone coping all the way round, that
cost pounds. When I want graves, it is to those places that
I go and revel. I do not want other folk’s.
When you yourself are buried, I will come and see yours.
That is all I can do for you.”</p>
<p>He burst into tears. He said that one of the tombs had a
bit of stone upon the top of it that had been said by some to be
probably part of the remains of the figure of a man, and that
another had some words, carved upon it, that nobody had ever been
able to decipher.</p>
<p>I still remained obdurate, and, in broken-hearted tones, he
said:</p>
<p>“Well, won’t you come and see the memorial
window?”</p>
<p>I would not even see that, so he fired his last shot. He
drew near, and whispered hoarsely:</p>
<p>“I’ve got a couple of skulls down in the
crypt,” he said; “come and see those. Oh, do
come and see the skulls! You are a young man out for a
holiday, and you want to enjoy yourself. Come and see the
skulls!”</p>
<p>Then I turned and fled, and as I sped I heard him calling to
me:</p>
<p>“Oh, come and see the skulls; come back and see the
skulls!”</p>
<p>Harris, however, revels in tombs, and graves, and epitaphs,
and monumental inscriptions, and the thought of not seeing Mrs.
Thomas’s grave made him crazy. He said he had looked
forward to seeing Mrs. Thomas’s grave from the first moment
that the trip was proposed—said he wouldn’t have
joined if it hadn’t been for the idea of seeing Mrs.
Thomas’s tomb.</p>
<p>I reminded him of George, and how we had to get the boat up to
Shepperton by five o’clock to meet him, and then he went
for George. Why was George to fool about all day, and leave
us to lug this lumbering old top-heavy barge up and down the
river by ourselves to meet him? Why couldn’t George
come and do some work? Why couldn’t he have got the
day off, and come down with us? Bank be blowed! What
good was he at the bank?</p>
<p>“I never see him doing any work there,” continued
Harris, “whenever I go in. He sits behind a bit of
glass all day, trying to look as if he was doing something.
What’s the good of a man behind a bit of glass? I
have to work for my living. Why can’t he work.
What use is he there, and what’s the good of their
banks? They take your money, and then, when you draw a
cheque, they send it back smeared all over with ‘No
effects,’ ‘Refer to drawer.’ What’s
the good of that? That’s the sort of trick they
served me twice last week. I’m not going to stand it
much longer. I shall withdraw my account. If he was
here, we could go and see that tomb. I don’t believe
he’s at the bank at all. He’s larking about
somewhere, that’s what he’s doing, leaving us to do
all the work. I’m going to get out, and have a
drink.”</p>
<p>I pointed out to him that we were miles away from a pub.; and
then he went on about the river, and what was the good of the
river, and was everyone who came on the river to die of
thirst?</p>
<p>It is always best to let Harris have his head when he gets
like this. Then he pumps himself out, and is quiet
afterwards.</p>
<p>I reminded him that there was concentrated lemonade in the
hamper, and a gallon-jar of water in the nose of the boat, and
that the two only wanted mixing to make a cool and refreshing
beverage.</p>
<p>Then he flew off about lemonade, and “such-like
Sunday-school slops,” as he termed them, ginger-beer,
raspberry syrup, &c., &c. He said they all produced
dyspepsia, and ruined body and soul alike, and were the cause of
half the crime in England.</p>
<p>He said he must drink something, however, and climbed upon the
seat, and leant over to get the bottle. It was right at the
bottom of the hamper, and seemed difficult to find, and he had to
lean over further and further, and, in trying to steer at the
same time, from a topsy-turvy point of view, he pulled the wrong
line, and sent the boat into the bank, and the shock upset him,
and he dived down right into the hamper, and stood there on his
head, holding on to the sides of the boat like grim death, his
legs sticking up into the air. He dared not move for fear
of going over, and had to stay there till I could get hold of his
legs, and haul him back, and that made him madder than ever.</p>
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