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:
"All right, sur, I'm a-coming, I'm a-coming. It's all right, sur; don't
you be in a hurry."
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.
I motioned him away with silent dignity, but he still advanced,
screeching out the while:
"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."
"Go away, you miserable old man," I said.
"I've come as soon as I could, sur," he replied. "My missis never see
you till just this minute. You follow me, sur."
"Go away," I repeated; "leave me before I get over the wall, and slay
you."
He seemed surprised.
"Don't you want to see the tombs?" he said.
"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."
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.
He said:
"Yuise a stranger in these parts? You don't live here?"
"No," I said, "I don't. YOU wouldn't if I did."
"Well then," he said, "you want to see the tombs - graves - folks been
buried, you know - coffins!"
"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."
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.
I still remained obdurate, and, in broken-hearted tones, he said:
"Well, won't you come and see the memorial window?"
I would not even see that, so he fired his last shot. He drew near, and
whispered hoarsely:
"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!"
Then I turned and fled, and as I sped I heard him calling to me:
"Oh, come and see the skulls; come back and see the skulls!"
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.
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?
"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."
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?
It is always best to let Harris have his head when he gets like this.
Then he pumps himself out, and is quiet afterwards.
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER VIII.
BLACKMAILING. - THE PROPER COURSE TO PURSUE. - SELFISH BOORISHNESS OF
RIVER-SIDE LANDOWNER. - "NOTICE" BOARDS. - UNCHRISTIANLIKE FEELINGS OF
HARRIS. - HOW HARRIS SINGS A COMIC SONG. - A HIGH-CLASS PARTY. - SHAMEFUL
CONDUCT OF TWO ABANDONED YOUNG MEN. - SOME USELESS INFORMATION. - GEORGE
BUYS A BANJO.
WE stopped under the willows by Kempton Park, and lunched. It is a
pretty little spot there: a pleasant grass plateau, running along by the
water's edge, and overhung by willows. We had just commenced the third
course - the bread and jam - when a gentleman in shirt-sleeves and a
short pipe came along, and wanted to know if we knew that we were
trespassing. We said we hadn't given the matter sufficient consideration
as yet to enable us to arrive at a definite conclusion on that point, but
that, if he assured us on his word as a gentleman that we WERE
trespassing, we would, without further hesitation, believe it.
He gave us the required assurance, and we thanked him, but he still hung
about, and seemed to be dissatisfied, so we asked him if there was
anything further that we could do for him; and Harris, who is of a chummy
disposition, offered him a bit of bread and jam.
I fancy he must have belonged to some society sworn to abstain from bread
and jam; for he declined it quite gruffly, as if he were vexed at being
tempted with it, and he added that it was his duty to turn us off.
Harris said that if it was a duty it ought to be done, and asked the man
what was his idea with regard to the best means for accomplishing it.
Harris is what you would call a well-made man of about number one size,
and looks hard and bony, and the man measured him up and down, and said
he would go and consult his master, and then come back and chuck us both
into the river.
Of course, we never saw him any more, and, of course, all he really
wanted was a shilling. There are a certain number of riverside roughs
who make quite an income, during the summer, by slouching about the banks
and blackmailing weak-minded noodles in this way. They represent
themselves as sent by the proprietor. The proper course to pursue is to
offer your name and address, and leave the owner, if he really has
anything to do with the matter, to summon you, and prove what damage you
have done to his land by sitting down on a bit of it. But the majority
of people are so intensely lazy and timid, that they prefer to encourage
the imposition by giving in to it rather than put an end to it by the
exertion of a little firmness.
Where it is really the owners that are to blame, they ought to be shown
up. The selfishness of the riparian proprietor grows with every year.
If these men had their way they would close the river Thames altogether.
They actually do this along the minor tributary streams and in the
backwaters. They drive posts into the bed of the stream, and draw chains
across from bank to bank, and nail huge notice-boards on every tree. The
sight of those notice-boards rouses every evil instinct in my nature. I
feel I want to tear each one down, and hammer it over the head of the man
who put it up, until I have killed him, and then I would bury him, and
put the board up over the grave as a tombstone.
I mentioned these feelings of mine to Harris, and he said he had them
worse than that. He said he not only felt he wanted to kill the man who
caused the board to be put up, but that he should like to slaughter the
whole of his family and all his friends and relations, and then burn down
his house. This seemed to me to be going too far, and I said so to
Harris; but he answered:
"Not a bit of it. Serve `em all jolly well right, and I'd go and sing
comic songs on the ruins."
I was vexed to hear Harris go on in this blood-thirsty strain. We never
ought to allow our instincts of justice to degenerate into mere
vindictiveness. It was a long while before I could get Harris to take a
more Christian view of the subject, but I succeeded at last, and he
promised me that he would spare the friends and relations at all events,
and would not sing comic songs on the ruins.
You have never heard Harris sing a comic song, or you would understand
the service I had rendered to mankind. It is one of Harris's fixed ideas
that he CAN sing a comic song; the fixed idea, on the contrary, among
those of Harris's friends who have heard him try, is that he CAN'T and
never will be able to, and that he ought not to be allowed to try.
When Harris is at a party, and is asked to sing, he replies: "Well, I can
only sing a COMIC song, you know;" and he says it in a tone that implies
that his singing of THAT, however, is a thing that you ought to hear
once, and then die.
"Oh, that IS nice," says the hostess. "Do sing one, Mr. Harris;" and
Harris gets up, and makes for the piano, with the beaming cheeriness of a
generous-minded man who is just about to give somebody something.
"Now, silence, please, everybody" says the hostess, turning round; "Mr.
Harris is going to sing a comic song!"
"Oh, how jolly!" they murmur; and they hurry in from the conservatory,
and come up from the stairs, and go and fetch each other from all over
the house, and crowd into the drawing-room, and sit round, all smirking
in anticipation.
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