CHAPTER XII.
Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn.--Disadvantages of living in same house withpair of lovers.--A trying time for the English nation.--A night searchfor the picturesque.--Homeless and houseless.--Harris prepares todie.--An angel comes along.--Effect of sudden joy on Harris.--A littlesupper.--Lunch.--High price for mustard.--A fearfulbattle.--Maidenhead.--Sailing.--Three fishers.--We are cursed.
I was sitting on the bank, conjuring up this scene to myself, when Georgeremarked that when I was quite rested, perhaps I would not mind helpingto wash up; and, thus recalled from the days of the glorious past to theprosaic present, with all its misery and sin, I slid down into the boatand cleaned out the frying-pan with a stick of wood and a tuft of grass,polishing it up finally with George's wet shirt.
We went over to Magna Charta Island, and had a look at the stone whichstands in the cottage there and on which the great Charter is said tohave been signed; though, as to whether it really was signed there, or,as some say, on the other bank at "Runningmede," I decline to commitmyself. As far as my own personal opinion goes, however, I am inclinedto give weight to the popular island theory. Certainly, had I been oneof the Barons, at the time, I should have strongly urged upon my comradesthe advisability of our getting such a slippery customer as King John onto the island, where there was less chance of surprises and tricks.
There are the ruins of an old priory in the grounds of Ankerwyke House,which is close to Picnic Point, and it was round about the grounds ofthis old priory that Henry VIII. is said to have waited for and met AnneBoleyn. He also used to meet her at Hever Castle in Kent, and alsosomewhere near St. Albans. It must have been difficult for the people ofEngland in those days to have found a spot where these thoughtless youngfolk were _not_ spooning.
Have you ever been in a house where there are a couple courting? It ismost trying. You think you will go and sit in the drawing-room, and youmarch off there. As you open the door, you hear a noise as if somebodyhad suddenly recollected something, and, when you get in, Emily is overby the window, full of interest in the opposite side of the road, andyour friend, John Edward, is at the other end of the room with his wholesoul held in thrall by photographs of other people's relatives.
"Oh!" you say, pausing at the door, "I didn't know anybody was here."
"Oh! didn't you?" says Emily, coldly, in a tone which implies that shedoes not believe you.
You hang about for a bit, then you say:
"It's very dark. Why don't you light the gas?"
John Edward says, "Oh!" he hadn't noticed it; and Emily says that papadoes not like the gas lit in the afternoon.
You tell them one or two items of news, and give them your views andopinions on the Irish question; but this does not appear to interestthem. All they remark on any subject is, "Oh!" "Is it?" "Did he?""Yes," and "You don't say so!" And, after ten minutes of such style ofconversation, you edge up to the door, and slip out, and are surprised tofind that the door immediately closes behind you, and shuts itself,without your having touched it.
Half an hour later, you think you will try a pipe in the conservatory.The only chair in the place is occupied by Emily; and John Edward, if thelanguage of clothes can be relied upon, has evidently been sitting on thefloor. They do not speak, but they give you a look that says all thatcan be said in a civilised community; and you back out promptly and shutthe door behind you.
You are afraid to poke your nose into any room in the house now; so,after walking up and down the stairs for a while, you go and sit in yourown bedroom. This becomes uninteresting, however, after a time, and soyou put on your hat and stroll out into the garden. You walk down thepath, and as you pass the summer-house you glance in, and there are thosetwo young idiots, huddled up into one corner of it; and they see you, andare evidently under the idea that, for some wicked purpose of your own,you are following them about.
"Why don't they have a special room for this sort of thing, and makepeople keep to it?" you mutter; and you rush back to the hall and getyour umbrella and go out.
It must have been much like this when that foolish boy Henry VIII. wascourting his little Anne. People in Buckinghamshire would have come uponthem unexpectedly when they were mooning round Windsor and Wraysbury, andhave exclaimed, "Oh! you here!" and Henry would have blushed and said,"Yes; he'd just come over to see a man;" and Anne would have said, "Oh,I'm so glad to see you! Isn't it funny? I've just met Mr. Henry VIII.in the lane, and he's going the same way I am."
Then those people would have gone away and said to themselves: "Oh! we'dbetter get out of here while this billing and cooing is on. We'll godown to Kent."
And they would go to Kent, and the first thing they would see in Kent,when they got there, would be Henry and Anne fooling round Hever Castle.
"Oh, drat this!" they would have said. "Here, let's go away. I can'tstand any more of it. Let's go to St. Albans--nice quiet place, St.Albans."
[Picture: River scene]
And when they reached St. Albans, there would be that wretched couple,kissing under the Abbey walls. Then these folks would go and be piratesuntil the marriage was over.
From Picnic Point to Old Windsor Lock is a delightful bit of the river.A shady road, dotted here and there with dainty little cottages, runs bythe bank up to the "Bells of Ouseley," a picturesque inn, as mostup-river inns are, and a place where a very good glass of ale may bedrunk--so Harris says; and on a matter of this kind you can take Harris'sword. Old Windsor is a famous spot in its way. Edward the Confessor hada palace here, and here the great Earl Godwin was proved guilty by thejustice of that age of having encompassed the death of the King'sbrother. Earl Godwin broke a piece of bread and held it in his hand.
"If I am guilty," said the Earl, "may this bread choke me when I eat it!"
Then he put the bread into his mouth and swallowed it, and it choked him,and he died.
After you pass Old Windsor, the river is somewhat uninteresting, and doesnot become itself again until you are nearing Boveney. George and Itowed up past the Home Park, which stretches along the right bank fromAlbert to Victoria Bridge; and as we were passing Datchet, George askedme if I remembered our first trip up the river, and when we landed atDatchet at ten o'clock at night, and wanted to go to bed.
I answered that I did remember it. It will be some time before I forgetit.
It was the Saturday before the August Bank Holiday. We were tired andhungry, we same three, and when we got to Datchet we took out the hamper,the two bags, and the rugs and coats, and such like things, and startedoff to look for diggings. We passed a very pretty little hotel, withclematis and creeper over the porch; but there was no honeysuckle aboutit, and, for some reason or other, I had got my mind fixed onhoneysuckle, and I said:
"Oh, don't let's go in there! Let's go on a bit further, and see ifthere isn't one with honeysuckle over it."
So we went on till we came to another hotel. That was a very nice hotel,too, and it had honey-suckle on it, round at the side; but Harris did notlike the look of a man who was leaning against the front door. He saidhe didn't look a nice man at all, and he wore ugly boots: so we went onfurther. We went a goodish way without coming across any more hotels,and then we met a man, and asked him to direct us to a few.
He said:
"Why, you are coming away from them. You must turn right round and goback, and then you will come to the Stag."
We said:
"Oh, we had been there, and didn't like it--no honeysuckle over it."
"Well, then," he said, "there's the Manor House, just opposite. Have youtried that?"
Harris replied that we did not want to go there--didn't like the looks ofa man who was stopping there--Harris did not like the colour of his hair,didn't like his boots, either.
"Well, I don't know what you'll do, I'm sure," said our informant;"because they are the only two inns in the place."
"No other inns!" exclaimed Harris.
"None," repli
ed the man.
"What on earth are we to do?" cried Harris.
Then George spoke up. He said Harris and I could get an hotel built forus, if we liked, and have some people made to put in. For his part, hewas going back to the Stag.
The greatest minds never realise their ideals in any matter; and Harrisand I sighed over the hollowness of all earthly desires, and followedGeorge.
We took our traps into the Stag, and laid them down in the hall.
The landlord came up and said:
"Good evening, gentlemen."
"Oh, good evening," said George; "we want three beds, please."
"Very sorry, sir," said the landlord; "but I'm afraid we can't manageit."
"Oh, well, never mind," said George, "two will do. Two of us can sleepin one bed, can't we?" he continued, turning to Harris and me.
Harris said, "Oh, yes;" he thought George and I could sleep in one bedvery easily.
"Very sorry, sir," again repeated the landlord: "but we really haven'tgot a bed vacant in the whole house. In fact, we are putting two, andeven three gentlemen in one bed, as it is."
This staggered us for a bit.
But Harris, who is an old traveller, rose to the occasion, and, laughingcheerily, said:
"Oh, well, we can't help it. We must rough it. You must give us ashake-down in the billiard-room."
"Very sorry, sir. Three gentlemen sleeping on the billiard-tablealready, and two in the coffee-room. Can't possibly take you into-night."
We picked up our things, and went over to the Manor House. It was apretty little place. I said I thought I should like it better than theother house; and Harris said, "Oh, yes," it would be all right, and weneedn't look at the man with the red hair; besides, the poor fellowcouldn't help having red hair.
Harris spoke quite kindly and sensibly about it.
The people at the Manor House did not wait to hear us talk. The landladymet us on the doorstep with the greeting that we were the fourteenthparty she had turned away within the last hour and a half. As for ourmeek suggestions of stables, billiard-room, or coal-cellars, she laughedthem all to scorn: all these nooks had been snatched up long ago.
Did she know of any place in the whole village where we could get shelterfor the night?
"Well, if we didn't mind roughing it--she did not recommend it, mind--butthere was a little beershop half a mile down the Eton road--"
We waited to hear no more; we caught up the hamper and the bags, and thecoats and rugs, and parcels, and ran. The distance seemed more like amile than half a mile, but we reached the place at last, and rushed,panting, into the bar.
The people at the beershop were rude. They merely laughed at us. Therewere only three beds in the whole house, and they had seven singlegentlemen and two married couples sleeping there already. A kind-heartedbargeman, however, who happened to be in the tap-room, thought we mighttry the grocer's, next door to the Stag, and we went back.
The grocer's was full. An old woman we met in the shop then kindly tookus along with her for a quarter of a mile, to a lady friend of hers, whooccasionally let rooms to gentlemen.
This old woman walked very slowly, and we were twenty minutes getting toher lady friend's. She enlivened the journey by describing to us, as wetrailed along, the various pains she had in her back.
Her lady friend's rooms were let. From there we were recommended to No.27. No. 27 was full, and sent us to No. 32, and 32 was full.
Then we went back into the high road, and Harris sat down on the hamperand said he would go no further. He said it seemed a quiet spot, and hewould like to die there. He requested George and me to kiss his motherfor him, and to tell all his relations that he forgave them and diedhappy.
At that moment an angel came by in the disguise of a small boy (and Icannot think of any more effective disguise an angel could have assumed),with a can of beer in one hand, and in the other something at the end ofa string, which he let down on to every flat stone he came across, andthen pulled up again, this producing a peculiarly unattractive sound,suggestive of suffering.
We asked this heavenly messenger (as we discovered him afterwards to be)if he knew of any lonely house, whose occupants were few and feeble (oldladies or paralysed gentlemen preferred), who could be easily frightenedinto giving up their beds for the night to three desperate men; or, ifnot this, could he recommend us to an empty pigstye, or a disusedlimekiln, or anything of that sort. He did not know of any suchplace--at least, not one handy; but he said that, if we liked to comewith him, his mother had a room to spare, and could put us up for thenight.
We fell upon his neck there in the moonlight and blessed him, and itwould have made a very beautiful picture if the boy himself had not beenso over-powered by our emotion as to be unable to sustain himself underit, and sunk to the ground, letting us all down on top of him. Harriswas so overcome with joy that he fainted, and had to seize the boy'sbeer-can and half empty it before he could recover consciousness, andthen he started off at a run, and left George and me to bring on theluggage.
It was a little four-roomed cottage where the boy lived, and hismother--good soul!--gave us hot bacon for supper, and we ate it all--fivepounds--and a jam tart afterwards, and two pots of tea, and then we wentto bed. There were two beds in the room; one was a 2ft. 6in. trucklebed, and George and I slept in that, and kept in by tying ourselvestogether with a sheet; and the other was the little boy's bed, and Harrishad that all to himself, and we found him, in the morning, with two feetof bare leg sticking out at the bottom, and George and I used it to hangthe towels on while we bathed.
We were not so uppish about what sort of hotel we would have, next timewe went to Datchet.
To return to our present trip: nothing exciting happened, and we tuggedsteadily on to a little below Monkey Island, where we drew up andlunched. We tackled the cold beef for lunch, and then we found that wehad forgotten to bring any mustard. I don't think I ever in my life,before or since, felt I wanted mustard as badly as I felt I wanted itthen. I don't care for mustard as a rule, and it is very seldom that Itake it at all, but I would have given worlds for it then.
I don't know how many worlds there may be in the universe, but anyone whohad brought me a spoonful of mustard at that precise moment could havehad them all. I grow reckless like that when I want a thing and can'tget it.
Harris said he would have given worlds for mustard too. It would havebeen a good thing for anybody who had come up to that spot with a can ofmustard, then: he would have been set up in worlds for the rest of hislife.
But there! I daresay both Harris and I would have tried to back out ofthe bargain after we had got the mustard. One makes these extravagantoffers in moments of excitement, but, of course, when one comes to thinkof it, one sees how absurdly out of proportion they are with the value ofthe required article. I heard a man, going up a mountain in Switzerland,once say he would give worlds for a glass of beer, and, when he came to alittle shanty where they kept it, he kicked up a most fearful row becausethey charged him five francs for a bottle of Bass. He said it was ascandalous imposition, and he wrote to the _Times_ about it.
It cast a gloom over the boat, there being no mustard. We ate our beefin silence. Existence seemed hollow and uninteresting. We thought ofthe happy days of childhood, and sighed. We brightened up a bit,however, over the apple-tart, and, when George drew out a tin ofpine-apple from the bottom of the hamper, and rolled it into the middleof the boat, we felt that life was worth living after all.
We are very fond of pine-apple, all three of us. We looked at thepicture on the tin; we thought of the juice. We smiled at one another,and Harris got a spoon ready.
Then we looked for the knife to open the tin with. We turned outeverything in the hamper. We turned out the bags. We pulled up theboards at the bottom of the boat. We took everything out on to the bankand shook it. There was no tin-opener to be found.
Then Harris tried to open the tin with a pocket-knife, and broke theknif
e and cut himself badly; and George tried a pair of scissors, and thescissors flew up, and nearly put his eye out. While they were dressingtheir wounds, I tried to make a hole in the thing with the spiky end ofthe hitcher, and the hitcher slipped and jerked me out between the boatand the bank into two feet of muddy water, and the tin rolled over,uninjured, and broke a teacup.
Then we all got mad. We took that tin out on the bank, and Harris wentup into a field and got a big sharp stone, and I went back into the boatand brought out the mast, and George held the tin and Harris held thesharp end of his stone against the top of it, and I took the mast andpoised it high up in the air, and gathered up all my strength and broughtit down.
It was George's straw hat that saved his life that day. He keeps thathat now (what is left of it), and, of a winter's evening, when the pipesare lit and the boys are telling stretchers about the dangers they havepassed through, George brings it down and shows it round, and thestirring tale is told anew, with fresh exaggerations every time.
Harris got off with merely a flesh wound.
After that, I took the tin off myself, and hammered at it with the masttill I was worn out and sick at heart, whereupon Harris took it in hand.
[Picture: Flattened tin] We beat it out flat; we beat it back square; webattered it into every form known to geometry--but we could not make ahole in it. Then George went at it, and knocked it into a shape, sostrange, so weird, so unearthly in its wild hideousness, that he gotfrightened and threw away the mast. Then we all three sat round it onthe grass and looked at it.
There was one great dent across the top that had the appearance of amocking grin, and it drove us furious, so that Harris rushed at thething, and caught it up, and flung it far into the middle of the river,and as it sank we hurled our curses at it, and we got into the boat androwed away from the spot, and never paused till we reached Maidenhead.
Maidenhead itself is too snobby to be pleasant. It is the haunt of theriver swell and his overdressed female companion. It is the town ofshowy hotels, patronised chiefly by dudes and ballet girls. It is thewitch's kitchen from which go forth those demons of theriver--steam-launches. The _London Journal_ duke always has his "littleplace" at Maidenhead; and the heroine of the three-volume novel alwaysdines there when she goes out on the spree with somebody else's husband.
[Picture: River scene]
We went through Maidenhead quickly, and then eased up, and took leisurelythat grand reach beyond Boulter's and Cookham locks. Clieveden Woodsstill wore their dainty dress of spring, and rose up, from the water'sedge, in one long harmony of blended shades of fairy green. In itsunbroken loveliness this is, perhaps, the sweetest stretch of all theriver, and lingeringly we slowly drew our little boat away from its deeppeace.
We pulled up in the backwater, just below Cookham, and had tea; and, whenwe were through the lock, it was evening. A stiffish breeze had sprungup--in our favour, for a wonder; for, as a rule on the river, the wind isalways dead against you whatever way you go. It is against you in themorning, when you start for a day's trip, and you pull a long distance,thinking how easy it will be to come back with the sail. Then, aftertea, the wind veers round, and you have to pull hard in its teeth all theway home.
When you forget to take the sail at all, then the wind is consistently inyour favour both ways. But there! this world is only a probation, andman was born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.
This evening, however, they had evidently made a mistake, and had put thewind round at our back instead of in our face. We kept very quiet aboutit, and got the sail up quickly before they found it out, and then wespread ourselves about the boat in thoughtful attitudes, and the sailbellied out, and strained, and grumbled at the mast, and the boat flew.
I steered.
There is no more thrilling sensation I know of than sailing. It comes asnear to flying as man has got to yet--except in dreams. The wings of therushing wind seem to be bearing you onward, you know not where. You areno longer the slow, plodding, puny thing of clay, creeping tortuouslyupon the ground; you are a part of Nature! Your heart is throbbingagainst hers! Her glorious arms are round you, raising you up againsther heart! Your spirit is at one with hers; your limbs grow light! Thevoices of the air are singing to you. The earth seems far away andlittle; and the clouds, so close above your head, are brothers, and youstretch your arms to them.
We had the river to ourselves, except that, far in the distance, we couldsee a fishing-punt, moored in mid-stream, on which three fishermen sat;and we skimmed over the water, and passed the wooded banks, and no onespoke.
I was steering.
As we drew nearer, we could see that the three men fishing seemed old andsolemn-looking men. They sat on three chairs in the punt, and watchedintently their lines. And the red sunset threw a mystic light upon thewaters, and tinged with fire the towering woods, and made a golden gloryof the piled-up clouds. It was an hour of deep enchantment, of ecstatichope and longing. The little sail stood out against the purple sky, thegloaming lay around us, wrapping the world in rainbow shadows; and,behind us, crept the night.
We seemed like knights of some old legend, sailing across some mysticlake into the unknown realm of twilight, unto the great land of thesunset.
We did not go into the realm of twilight; we went slap into that punt,where those three old men were fishing. We did not know what hadhappened at first, because the sail shut out the view, but from thenature of the language that rose up upon the evening air, we gatheredthat we had come into the neighbourhood of human beings, and that theywere vexed and discontented.
Harris let the sail down, and then we saw what had happened. We hadknocked those three old gentlemen off their chairs into a general heap atthe bottom of the boat, and they were now slowly and painfully sortingthemselves out from each other, and picking fish off themselves; and asthey worked, they cursed us--not with a common cursory curse, but withlong, carefully-thought-out, comprehensive curses, that embraced thewhole of our career, and went away into the distant future, and includedall our relations, and covered everything connected with us--good,substantial curses.
Harris told them they ought to be grateful for a little excitement,sitting there fishing all day, and he also said that he was shocked andgrieved to hear men their age give way to temper so.
But it did not do any good.
George said he would steer, after that. He said a mind like mine oughtnot to be expected to give itself away in steering boats--better let amere commonplace human being see after that boat, before we jolly wellall got drowned; and he took the lines, and brought us up to Marlow.
And at Marlow we left the boat by the bridge, and went and put up for thenight at the "Crown."
[Picture: The boat]