Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome [79]
There was an unaccountable strangeness about Harris. It was something more than mere ordinary tiredness. He pulled the boat against a part of the bank from which it was quite impossible for us to get into it, and immediately went to sleep.
It took us an immense amount of screaming and roaring to wake him up again, and put some sense into him; but we succeeded at last, and got safely on board.
Harris had a sad expression on him, so we noticed, when we got into the boat. He gave you the idea of a man who had been through trouble. We asked him if anything had happened, and he said —
‘Swans!’
It seemed we had moored close to a swan’s nest, and soon after George and I had gone, the female swan came back and kicked up a row about it. Harris had chivvied her off, and she had gone away, and fetched up her old man. Harris said he had had quite a fight with these two swans; but courage and skill had prevailed in the end, and he had defeated them.
Half an hour afterwards they returned with eighteen other swans! It must have been a fearful battle, so far as we could understand Harris’s account of it. The swans had tried to drag him and Montmorency out of the boat and drown them; and he had defended himself like a hero for four hours, and had killed the lot, and they had all paddled away to die.
‘How many swans did you say there were?’ asked George.
‘Thirty-two,’ replied Harris, sleepily.
‘You said eighteen just now,’ said George.
‘No, I didn’t,’ grunted Harris; ‘I said twelve. Think I can’t count?’
What were the real facts about these swans we never found out. We questioned Harris on the subject in the morning, and he said, ‘What swans?’ and seemed to think that George and I had been dreaming.
Oh, how delightful it was to be safe in the boat, after our trials and fears! We ate a hearty supper, George and I, and we should have had some toddy after it, if we could have found the whisky, but we could not. We examined Harris as to what he had done with it; but he did not seem to know what we meant by ‘whisky’, or what we were talking about at all. Montmorency looked as if he knew something, but said nothing.
I slept well that night, and should have slept better if it had not been for Harris. I have a vague recollection of having been woken up at least a dozen times during the night by Harris wandering about the boat with the lantern, looking for his clothes. He seemed to be worrying about his clothes all night.
Twice he routed up George and myself to see if we were lying on his trousers. George got quite wild the second time.
‘What the thunder do you want your trousers for, in the middle of the night?’ he asked indignantly. ‘Why don’t you lie down, and go to sleep?’
I found him in trouble the next time I awoke because he could not find his socks; and my last hazy remembrance is of being rolled over on my side, and of hearing Harris muttering something about its being an extraordinary thing where his umbrella could have got to.
Chapter 15
Household duties – Love of work – The old river hand, what he does and what he tells you he has done – Scepticism of the new generation – Early boating recollections – Rafting – George does the thing in style – The old boatman, his method – So calm, so full of peace – The beginner – Punting – A sad accident – Pleasures of friendship – Sailing, my first experience – Possible reason why we were not drowned.
We woke late the next morning, and, at Harris’s earnest desire, partook of a plain breakfast, with ‘non dainties’. Then we cleaned up, and put everything straight (a continual labour, which was beginning to afford me a pretty clear insight into a question that had often posed me – namely, how a woman with the work of only one house on her hands, manages to pass away her time), and, at about ten, set out on what we had determined should be a good day’s journey.
We agreed that we would pull this morning, as a change from towing; and Harris thought the best arrangement