Three Men in a Boat — BG

CHAPTER 2

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 rns.

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 harshand 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 – erethe 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 pullsall 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 impres­sionis 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 observedº, 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, rnedº to the fol­low­ing night; and the assem­bly put on its hats and went out.