Strange that Nature's voices all around them - the soft
singing of the waters, the whisperings of the river grass, the music of
the rushing wind - should not have taught them a truer meaning of life
than this. They listened there, through the long days, in silence,
waiting for a voice from heaven; and all day long and through the solemn
night it spoke to them in myriad tones, and they heard it not.
From Medmenham to sweet Hambledon Lock the river is full of peaceful
beauty, but, after it passes Greenlands, the rather uninteresting looking
river residence of my newsagent - a quiet unassuming old gentleman, who
may often be met with about these regions, during the summer months,
sculling himself along in easy vigorous style, or chatting genially to
some old lock-keeper, as he passes through - until well the other side of
Henley, it is somewhat bare and dull.
We got up tolerably early on the Monday morning at Marlow, and went for a
bathe before breakfast; and, coming back, Montmorency made an awful ass
of himself. The only subject on which Montmorency and I have any serious
difference of opinion is cats. I like cats; Montmorency does not.
When I meet a cat, I say, "Poor Pussy!" and stop down and tickle the side
of its head; and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron manner,
arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my trousers; and all is
gentleness and peace. When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street
knows about it; and there is enough bad language wasted in ten seconds to
last an ordinarily respectable man all his life, with care.
I do not blame the dog (contenting myself, as a rule, with merely
clouting his head or throwing stones at him), because I take it that it
is his nature. Fox-terriers are born with about four times as much
original sin in them as other dogs are, and it will take years and years
of patient effort on the part of us Christians to bring about any
appreciable reformation in the rowdiness of the fox-terrier nature.
I remember being in the lobby of the Haymarket Stores one day, and all
round about me were dogs, waiting for the return of their owners, who
were shopping inside. There were a mastiff, and one or two collies, and
a St. Bernard, a few retrievers and Newfoundlands, a boar-hound, a French
poodle, with plenty of hair round its head, but mangy about the middle; a
bull-dog, a few Lowther Arcade sort of animals, about the size of rats,
and a couple of Yorkshire tykes.
There they sat, patient, good, and thoughtful. A solemn peacefulness
seemed to reign in that lobby.
