"What's that?"
"What's what?" asked Harris and I.
"Why that!" said George, looking westward.
Harris and I followed his gaze, and saw, coming down towards us on the
sluggish current, a dog. It was one of the quietest and peacefullest
dogs I have ever seen. I never met a dog who seemed more contented -
more easy in its mind. It was floating dreamily on its back, with its
four legs stuck up straight into the air. It was what I should call a
full-bodied dog, with a well-developed chest. On he came, serene,
dignified, and calm, until he was abreast of our boat, and there, among
the rushes, he eased up, and settled down cosily for the evening.
George said he didn't want any tea, and emptied his cup into the water.
Harris did not feel thirsty, either, and followed suit. I had drunk half
mine, but I wished I had not.
I asked George if he thought I was likely to have typhoid.
He said: "Oh, no;" he thought I had a very good chance indeed of escaping
it. Anyhow, I should know in about a fortnight, whether I had or had
not.
We went up the backwater to Wargrave. It is a short cut, leading out of
the right-hand bank about half a mile above Marsh Lock, and is well worth
taking, being a pretty, shady little piece of stream, besides saving
nearly half a mile of distance.
Of course, its entrance is studded with posts and chains, and surrounded
with notice boards, menacing all kinds of torture, imprisonment, and
death to everyone who dares set scull upon its waters - I wonder some of
these riparian boors don't claim the air of the river and threaten
everyone with forty shillings fine who breathes it - but the posts and
chains a little skill will easily avoid; and as for the boards, you
might, if you have five minutes to spare, and there is nobody about, take
one or two of them down and throw them into the river.
Half-way up the backwater, we got out and lunched; and it was during this
lunch that George and I received rather a trying shock.
Harris received a shock, too; but I do not think Harris's shock could
have been anything like so bad as the shock that George and I had over
the business.
You see, it was in this way: we were sitting in a meadow, about ten yards
from the water's edge, and we had just settled down comfortably to feed.
Harris had the beefsteak pie between his knees, and was carving it, and
George and I were waiting with our plates ready.
"Have you got a spoon there?" says Harris; "I want a spoon to help the
gravy with."
The hamper was close behind us, and George and I both turned round to
reach one out. We were not five seconds getting it. When we looked
round again, Harris and the pie were gone!
It was a wide, open field. There was not a tree or a bit of hedge for
hundreds of yards. He could not have tumbled into the river, because we
were on the water side of him, and he would have had to climb over us to
do it.
George and I gazed all about. Then we gazed at each other.
"Has he been snatched up to heaven?" I queried.
"They'd hardly have taken the pie too," said George.
There seemed weight in this objection, and we discarded the heavenly
theory.
"I suppose the truth of the matter is," suggested George, descending to
the commonplace and practicable, "that there has been an earthquake."
And then he added, with a touch of sadness in his voice: "I wish he
hadn't been carving that pie."
With a sigh, we turned our eyes once more towards the spot where Harris
and the pie had last been seen on earth; and there, as our blood froze in
our veins and our hair stood up on end, we saw Harris's head - and
nothing but his head - sticking bolt upright among the tall grass, the
face very red, and bearing upon it an expression of great indignation!
George was the first to recover.
"Speak!" he cried, "and tell us whether you are alive or dead - and where
is the rest of you?"
"Oh, don't be a stupid ass!" said Harris's head. "I believe you did it
on purpose."
"Did what?" exclaimed George and I.
" Why, put me to sit here - darn silly trick! Here, catch hold of the
pie."
And out of the middle of the earth, as it seemed to us, rose the pie -
very much mixed up and damaged; and, after it, scrambled Harris -
tumbled, grubby, and wet.
He had been sitting, without knowing it, on the very verge of a small
gully, the long grass hiding it from view; and in leaning a little back
he had shot over, pie and all.
He said he had never felt so surprised in all his life, as when he first
felt himself going, without being able to conjecture in the slightest
what had happened. He thought at first that the end of the world had
come.
Harris believes to this day that George and I planned it all beforehand.
Thus does unjust suspicion follow even the most blameless for, as the
poet says, "Who shall escape calumny?"
Who, indeed!
CHAPTER XIV.
WARGRAVE. - WAXWORKS. - SONNING. - OUR STEW. - MONTMORENCY IS SARCASTIC.
- FIGHT BETWEEN MONTMORENCY AND THE TEA-KETTLE. - GEORGE'S BANJO STUDIES.
- MEET WITH DISCOURAGEMENT. - DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF THE MUSICAL
AMATEUR. - LEARNING TO PLAY THE BAGPIPES. - HARRIS FEELS SAD AFTER
SUPPER. - GEORGE AND I GO FOR A WALK.
