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. - RETURN HUNGRY AND WET. - 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.
