- THERE IS
A STRANGENESS ABOUT HARRIS. - HARRIS AND THE SWANS, A REMARKABLE STORY. -
HARRIS HAS A TROUBLED NIGHT.
WE caught a breeze, after lunch, which took us gently up past Wargrave
and Shiplake. Mellowed in the drowsy sunlight of a summer's afternoon,
Wargrave, nestling where the river bends, makes a sweet old picture as
you pass it, and one that lingers long upon the retina of memory.
The "George and Dragon" at Wargrave boasts a sign, painted on the one
side by Leslie, R.A., and on the other by Hodgson of that ilk. Leslie
has depicted the fight; Hodgson has imagined the scene, "After the Fight"
- George, the work done, enjoying his pint of beer.
Day, the author of SANDFORD AND MERTON, lived and - more credit to the
place still - was killed at Wargrave. In the church is a memorial to
Mrs. Sarah Hill, who bequeathed 1 pound annually, to be divided at
Easter, between two boys and two girls who "have never been undutiful to
their parents; who have never been known to swear or to tell untruths, to
steal, or to break windows." Fancy giving up all that for five shillings
a year! It is not worth it.
It is rumoured in the town that once, many years ago, a boy appeared who
really never had done these things - or at all events, which was all that
was required or could be expected, had never been known to do them - and
thus won the crown of glory. He was exhibited for three weeks afterwards
in the Town Hall, under a glass case.
What has become of the money since no one knows. They say it is always
handed over to the nearest wax-works show.
Shiplake is a pretty village, but it cannot be seen from the river, being
upon the hill. Tennyson was married in Shiplake Church.
The river up to Sonning winds in and out through many islands, and is
very placid, hushed, and lonely. Few folk, except at twilight, a pair or
two of rustic lovers, walk along its banks. `Arry and Lord Fitznoodle
have been left behind at Henley, and dismal, dirty Reading is not yet
reached. It is a part of the river in which to dream of bygone days, and
vanished forms and faces, and things that might have been, but are not,
confound them.
We got out at Sonning, and went for a walk round the village. It is the
most fairy-like little nook on the whole river. It is more like a stage
village than one built of bricks and mortar. Every house is smothered in
roses, and now, in early June, they were bursting forth in clouds of
dainty splendour. If you stop at Sonning, put up at the "Bull," behind
the church. It is a veritable picture of an old country inn, with green,
square courtyard in front, where, on seats beneath the trees, the old men
group of an evening to drink their ale and gossip over village politics;
with low, quaint rooms and latticed windows, and awkward stairs and
winding passages.
We roamed about sweet Sonning for an hour or so, and then, it being too
late to push on past Reading, we decided to go back to one of the
Shiplake islands, and put up there for the night. It was still early
when we got settled, and George said that, as we had plenty of time, it
would be a splendid opportunity to try a good, slap-up supper. He said
he would show us what could be done up the river in the way of cooking,
and suggested that, with the vegetables and the remains of the cold beef
and general odds and ends, we should make an Irish stew.
It seemed a fascinating idea. George gathered wood and made a fire, and
Harris and I started to peel the potatoes. I should never have thought
that peeling potatoes was such an undertaking. The job turned out to be
the biggest thing of its kind that I had ever been in. We began
cheerfully, one might almost say skittishly, but our light-heartedness
was gone by the time the first potato was finished. The more we peeled,
the more peel there seemed to be left on; by the time we had got all the
peel off and all the eyes out, there was no potato left - at least none
worth speaking of. George came and had a look at it - it was about the
size of a pea-nut. He said:
"Oh, that won't do! You're wasting them. You must scrape them."
So we scraped them, and that was harder work than peeling. They are such
an extraordinary shape, potatoes - all bumps and warts and hollows. We
worked steadily for five-and-twenty minutes, and did four potatoes. Then
we struck. We said we should require the rest of the evening for
scraping ourselves.
I never saw such a thing as potato-scraping for making a fellow in a
mess. It seemed difficult to believe that the potato-scrapings in which
Harris and I stood, half smothered, could have come off four potatoes.
It shows you what can be done with economy and care.
George said it was absurd to have only four potatoes in an Irish stew, so
we washed half-a-dozen or so more, and put them in without peeling. We
also put in a cabbage and about half a peck of peas. George stirred it
all up, and then he said that there seemed to be a lot of room to spare,
so we overhauled both the hampers, and picked out all the odds and ends
and the remnants, and added them to the stew. There were half a pork pie
and a bit of cold boiled bacon left, and we put them in. Then George
found half a tin of potted salmon, and he emptied that into the pot.
He said that was the advantage of Irish stew: you got rid of such a lot
of things. I fished out a couple of eggs that had got cracked, and put
those in. George said they would thicken the gravy.
I forget the other ingredients, but I know nothing was wasted; and I
remember that, towards the end, Montmorency, who had evinced great
interest in the proceedings throughout, strolled away with an earnest and
thoughtful air, reappearing, a few minutes afterwards, with a dead water-
rat in his mouth, which he evidently wished to present as his
contribution to the dinner; whether in a sarcastic spirit, or with a
genuine desire to assist, I cannot say.
We had a discussion as to whether the rat should go in or not. Harris
said that he thought it would be all right, mixed up with the other
things, and that every little helped; but George stood up for precedent.
He said he had never heard of water-rats in Irish stew, and he would
rather be on the safe side, and not try experiments.
Harris said:
"If you never try a new thing, how can you tell what it's like? It's men
such as you that hamper the world's progress. Think of the man who first
tried German sausage!"
It was a great success, that Irish stew. I don't think I ever enjoyed a
meal more. There was something so fresh and piquant about it. One's
palate gets so tired of the old hackneyed things: here was a dish with a
new flavour, with a taste like nothing else on earth.
And it was nourishing, too. As George said, there was good stuff in it.
The peas and potatoes might have been a bit softer, but we all had good
teeth, so that did not matter much: and as for the gravy, it was a poem -
a little too rich, perhaps, for a weak stomach, but nutritious.
We finished up with tea and cherry tart. Montmorency had a fight with
the kettle during tea-time, and came off a poor second.
Throughout the trip, he had manifested great curiosity concerning the
kettle. He would sit and watch it, as it boiled, with a puzzled
expression, and would try and rouse it every now and then by growling at
it. When it began to splutter and steam, he regarded it as a challenge,
and would want to fight it, only, at that precise moment, some one would
always dash up and bear off his prey before he could get at it.
To-day he determined he would be beforehand. At the first sound the
kettle made, he rose, growling, and advanced towards it in a threatening
attitude. It was only a little kettle, but it was full of pluck, and it
up and spit at him.
"Ah! would ye!" growled Montmorency, showing his teeth; "I'll teach ye to
cheek a hard-working, respectable dog; ye miserable, long-nosed, dirty-
looking scoundrel, ye. Come on!"
And he rushed at that poor little kettle, and seized it by the spout.
Then, across the evening stillness, broke a blood-curdling yelp, and
Montmorency left the boat, and did a constitutional three times round the
island at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour, stopping every now and
then to bury his nose in a bit of cool mud.
From that day Montmorency regarded the kettle with a mixture of awe,
suspicion, and hate. Whenever he saw it he would growl and back at a
rapid rate, with his tail shut down, and the moment it was put upon the
stove he would promptly climb out of the boat, and sit on the bank, till
the whole tea business was over.
George got out his banjo after supper, and wanted to play it, but Harris
objected: he said he had got a headache, and did not feel strong enough
to stand it. George thought the music might do him good - said music
often soothed the nerves and took away a headache; and he twanged two or
three notes, just to show Harris what it was like.
Harris said he would rather have the headache.
George has never learned to play the banjo to this day. He has had too
much all-round discouragement to meet. He tried on two or three
evenings, while we were up the river, to get a little practice, but it
was never a success. Harris's language used to be enough to unnerve any
man; added to which, Montmorency would sit and howl steadily, right
through the performance. It was not giving the man a fair chance.
"What's he want to howl like that for when I'm playing?" George would
exclaim indignantly, while taking aim at him with a boot.
"What do you want to play like that for when he is howling?" Harris would
retort, catching the boot. "You let him alone. He can't help howling.
He's got a musical ear, and your playing MAKES him howl."
So George determined to postpone study of the banjo until he reached
home. But he did not get much opportunity even there. Mrs. P. used to
come up and say she was very sorry - for herself, she liked to hear him -
but the lady upstairs was in a very delicate state, and the doctor was
afraid it might injure the child.
Then George tried taking it out with him late at night, and practising
round the square. But the inhabitants complained to the police about it,
and a watch was set for him one night, and he was captured. The evidence
against him was very clear, and he was bound over to keep the peace for
six months.
He seemed to lose heart in the business after that. He did make one or
two feeble efforts to take up the work again when the six months had
elapsed, but there was always the same coldness - the same want of
sympathy on the part of the world to fight against; and, after awhile, he
despaired altogether, and advertised the instrument for sale at a great
sacrifice - "owner having no further use for same" - and took to learning
card tricks instead.
It must be disheartening work learning a musical instrument. You would
think that Society, for its own sake, would do all it could to assist a
man to acquire the art of playing a musical instrument. But it doesn't!
I knew a young fellow once, who was studying to play the bagpipes, and
you would be surprised at the amount of opposition he had to contend
with. Why, not even from the members of his own family did he receive
what you could call active encouragement. His father was dead against
the business from the beginning, and spoke quite unfeelingly on the
subject.
My friend used to get up early in the morning to practise, but he had to
give that plan up, because of his sister.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
A STRANGENESS ABOUT HARRIS. - HARRIS AND THE SWANS, A REMARKABLE STORY. -
HARRIS HAS A TROUBLED NIGHT.
WE caught a breeze, after lunch, which took us gently up past Wargrave
and Shiplake. Mellowed in the drowsy sunlight of a summer's afternoon,
Wargrave, nestling where the river bends, makes a sweet old picture as
you pass it, and one that lingers long upon the retina of memory.
The "George and Dragon" at Wargrave boasts a sign, painted on the one
side by Leslie, R.A., and on the other by Hodgson of that ilk. Leslie
has depicted the fight; Hodgson has imagined the scene, "After the Fight"
- George, the work done, enjoying his pint of beer.
Day, the author of SANDFORD AND MERTON, lived and - more credit to the
place still - was killed at Wargrave. In the church is a memorial to
Mrs. Sarah Hill, who bequeathed 1 pound annually, to be divided at
Easter, between two boys and two girls who "have never been undutiful to
their parents; who have never been known to swear or to tell untruths, to
steal, or to break windows." Fancy giving up all that for five shillings
a year! It is not worth it.
It is rumoured in the town that once, many years ago, a boy appeared who
really never had done these things - or at all events, which was all that
was required or could be expected, had never been known to do them - and
thus won the crown of glory. He was exhibited for three weeks afterwards
in the Town Hall, under a glass case.
What has become of the money since no one knows. They say it is always
handed over to the nearest wax-works show.
Shiplake is a pretty village, but it cannot be seen from the river, being
upon the hill. Tennyson was married in Shiplake Church.
The river up to Sonning winds in and out through many islands, and is
very placid, hushed, and lonely. Few folk, except at twilight, a pair or
two of rustic lovers, walk along its banks. `Arry and Lord Fitznoodle
have been left behind at Henley, and dismal, dirty Reading is not yet
reached. It is a part of the river in which to dream of bygone days, and
vanished forms and faces, and things that might have been, but are not,
confound them.
We got out at Sonning, and went for a walk round the village. It is the
most fairy-like little nook on the whole river. It is more like a stage
village than one built of bricks and mortar. Every house is smothered in
roses, and now, in early June, they were bursting forth in clouds of
dainty splendour. If you stop at Sonning, put up at the "Bull," behind
the church. It is a veritable picture of an old country inn, with green,
square courtyard in front, where, on seats beneath the trees, the old men
group of an evening to drink their ale and gossip over village politics;
with low, quaint rooms and latticed windows, and awkward stairs and
winding passages.
We roamed about sweet Sonning for an hour or so, and then, it being too
late to push on past Reading, we decided to go back to one of the
Shiplake islands, and put up there for the night. It was still early
when we got settled, and George said that, as we had plenty of time, it
would be a splendid opportunity to try a good, slap-up supper. He said
he would show us what could be done up the river in the way of cooking,
and suggested that, with the vegetables and the remains of the cold beef
and general odds and ends, we should make an Irish stew.
It seemed a fascinating idea. George gathered wood and made a fire, and
Harris and I started to peel the potatoes. I should never have thought
that peeling potatoes was such an undertaking. The job turned out to be
the biggest thing of its kind that I had ever been in. We began
cheerfully, one might almost say skittishly, but our light-heartedness
was gone by the time the first potato was finished. The more we peeled,
the more peel there seemed to be left on; by the time we had got all the
peel off and all the eyes out, there was no potato left - at least none
worth speaking of. George came and had a look at it - it was about the
size of a pea-nut. He said:
"Oh, that won't do! You're wasting them. You must scrape them."
So we scraped them, and that was harder work than peeling. They are such
an extraordinary shape, potatoes - all bumps and warts and hollows. We
worked steadily for five-and-twenty minutes, and did four potatoes. Then
we struck. We said we should require the rest of the evening for
scraping ourselves.
I never saw such a thing as potato-scraping for making a fellow in a
mess. It seemed difficult to believe that the potato-scrapings in which
Harris and I stood, half smothered, could have come off four potatoes.
It shows you what can be done with economy and care.
George said it was absurd to have only four potatoes in an Irish stew, so
we washed half-a-dozen or so more, and put them in without peeling. We
also put in a cabbage and about half a peck of peas. George stirred it
all up, and then he said that there seemed to be a lot of room to spare,
so we overhauled both the hampers, and picked out all the odds and ends
and the remnants, and added them to the stew. There were half a pork pie
and a bit of cold boiled bacon left, and we put them in. Then George
found half a tin of potted salmon, and he emptied that into the pot.
He said that was the advantage of Irish stew: you got rid of such a lot
of things. I fished out a couple of eggs that had got cracked, and put
those in. George said they would thicken the gravy.
I forget the other ingredients, but I know nothing was wasted; and I
remember that, towards the end, Montmorency, who had evinced great
interest in the proceedings throughout, strolled away with an earnest and
thoughtful air, reappearing, a few minutes afterwards, with a dead water-
rat in his mouth, which he evidently wished to present as his
contribution to the dinner; whether in a sarcastic spirit, or with a
genuine desire to assist, I cannot say.
We had a discussion as to whether the rat should go in or not. Harris
said that he thought it would be all right, mixed up with the other
things, and that every little helped; but George stood up for precedent.
He said he had never heard of water-rats in Irish stew, and he would
rather be on the safe side, and not try experiments.
Harris said:
"If you never try a new thing, how can you tell what it's like? It's men
such as you that hamper the world's progress. Think of the man who first
tried German sausage!"
It was a great success, that Irish stew. I don't think I ever enjoyed a
meal more. There was something so fresh and piquant about it. One's
palate gets so tired of the old hackneyed things: here was a dish with a
new flavour, with a taste like nothing else on earth.
And it was nourishing, too. As George said, there was good stuff in it.
The peas and potatoes might have been a bit softer, but we all had good
teeth, so that did not matter much: and as for the gravy, it was a poem -
a little too rich, perhaps, for a weak stomach, but nutritious.
We finished up with tea and cherry tart. Montmorency had a fight with
the kettle during tea-time, and came off a poor second.
Throughout the trip, he had manifested great curiosity concerning the
kettle. He would sit and watch it, as it boiled, with a puzzled
expression, and would try and rouse it every now and then by growling at
it. When it began to splutter and steam, he regarded it as a challenge,
and would want to fight it, only, at that precise moment, some one would
always dash up and bear off his prey before he could get at it.
To-day he determined he would be beforehand. At the first sound the
kettle made, he rose, growling, and advanced towards it in a threatening
attitude. It was only a little kettle, but it was full of pluck, and it
up and spit at him.
"Ah! would ye!" growled Montmorency, showing his teeth; "I'll teach ye to
cheek a hard-working, respectable dog; ye miserable, long-nosed, dirty-
looking scoundrel, ye. Come on!"
And he rushed at that poor little kettle, and seized it by the spout.
Then, across the evening stillness, broke a blood-curdling yelp, and
Montmorency left the boat, and did a constitutional three times round the
island at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour, stopping every now and
then to bury his nose in a bit of cool mud.
From that day Montmorency regarded the kettle with a mixture of awe,
suspicion, and hate. Whenever he saw it he would growl and back at a
rapid rate, with his tail shut down, and the moment it was put upon the
stove he would promptly climb out of the boat, and sit on the bank, till
the whole tea business was over.
George got out his banjo after supper, and wanted to play it, but Harris
objected: he said he had got a headache, and did not feel strong enough
to stand it. George thought the music might do him good - said music
often soothed the nerves and took away a headache; and he twanged two or
three notes, just to show Harris what it was like.
Harris said he would rather have the headache.
George has never learned to play the banjo to this day. He has had too
much all-round discouragement to meet. He tried on two or three
evenings, while we were up the river, to get a little practice, but it
was never a success. Harris's language used to be enough to unnerve any
man; added to which, Montmorency would sit and howl steadily, right
through the performance. It was not giving the man a fair chance.
"What's he want to howl like that for when I'm playing?" George would
exclaim indignantly, while taking aim at him with a boot.
"What do you want to play like that for when he is howling?" Harris would
retort, catching the boot. "You let him alone. He can't help howling.
He's got a musical ear, and your playing MAKES him howl."
So George determined to postpone study of the banjo until he reached
home. But he did not get much opportunity even there. Mrs. P. used to
come up and say she was very sorry - for herself, she liked to hear him -
but the lady upstairs was in a very delicate state, and the doctor was
afraid it might injure the child.
Then George tried taking it out with him late at night, and practising
round the square. But the inhabitants complained to the police about it,
and a watch was set for him one night, and he was captured. The evidence
against him was very clear, and he was bound over to keep the peace for
six months.
He seemed to lose heart in the business after that. He did make one or
two feeble efforts to take up the work again when the six months had
elapsed, but there was always the same coldness - the same want of
sympathy on the part of the world to fight against; and, after awhile, he
despaired altogether, and advertised the instrument for sale at a great
sacrifice - "owner having no further use for same" - and took to learning
card tricks instead.
It must be disheartening work learning a musical instrument. You would
think that Society, for its own sake, would do all it could to assist a
man to acquire the art of playing a musical instrument. But it doesn't!
I knew a young fellow once, who was studying to play the bagpipes, and
you would be surprised at the amount of opposition he had to contend
with. Why, not even from the members of his own family did he receive
what you could call active encouragement. His father was dead against
the business from the beginning, and spoke quite unfeelingly on the
subject.
My friend used to get up early in the morning to practise, but he had to
give that plan up, because of his sister.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32