Three Men in a Boat - Chapter 10

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Chapter ten of Three Men in a Boat to Say
Nothing of the Dog. This LibriVox recording is in the
public domain. Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing
of the Dog by Jerome K. Jerome, Chapter ten, Our
first Night under Canvas, an appeal for help contrarianess of

(00:23):
Tea Kettels, How to overcome supper, how to feel virtuous?
Wanted a comfortably appointed, well drained desert island neighborhood of
South Pacific Ocean. Preferred funny thing that happened to George's father.
A restless night, Harris and I began to think that

(00:47):
Bill we r Locke must have been done away with
after the same manner. George had towed us up to Staines,
and we had taken the boat from there, and it
seemed that we were dragging fifty tons after us and
were walking forty men. It was half past seven when
we were through, and we all got in and sculled
up close to the left bank, looking out for a

(01:08):
spot to haul up in. We had originally intended to
go on to Magna Carta Island, a sweetly pretty part
of the river where it winds through a soft green valley,
and to camp in one of the many picturesque inlets
to be found around that tiny shore. But somehow we
did not feel that we yearned for the picturesque nearly

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so much now as we had earlier in the day.
A bit of water between a coal barge and a
gasworks would have quite satisfied us. For that night, we
did not want scenery. We wanted to have our supper
and go to bed. However, we did pull up to
the point picnic point it is called, and dropped into
a very pleasant nook under a great elm tree, to

(01:52):
the spreading roots of which we fastened the boat. Then
we thought we were going to have supper we had
dispensed with so as to save time, But George said no,
that we had better get the canvas up first before
it got quite dark, and while we could see what
we were doing. Then he said all our work would
be done and we could sit down to eat with

(02:13):
an easy mind. That canvas wanted more putting up than
I think any of us had bargained for. It looked
so simple in the abstract. You took five iron arches
like gigantic croquet hoops, and fitted them up over the boat,
and then stretched the canvas over them and fastened it down.
It would take quite ten minutes. We thought that was

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an underestimate. We took up the hoops and began to
drop them into the sockets placed for them. You would
not imagine this to be dangerous work. But looking back now,
the wonder to me is that any of us are
alive to tell the tale. They were not hoops, they
were demons. First, they would not fit into their sockets

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at all, and we had to upon them and kick
them and hammer at them with the boat hook. And
when they were in it turned out that they were
the wrong hoops for those particular sockets, and they had
to come out again. But they would not come out
until two of us had gone and struggled with them
for five minutes, when they would jump up suddenly and

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try and throw us into the water and drown us.
They had hinges in the middle, and when we were
not looking, they nipped us with these hinges in delicate
parts of the body. And while we were wrestling with
one side of the hoop and endeavoring to persuade it
to do its duty, the other side would come behind
us in a cowardly manner and hit us over the

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head we got them fixed at last, and then all
that was to be done was to arrange the covering
over them. George unrolled it and fastened to one end
over the nose of the boat. Harris stood in the
middle to take it from George and roll it on
to me, and I kept by the stern to receive it. It
was a long time coming down to me. George did

(04:04):
his part all right, but it was new work to Harris,
and he bungled it. How he managed it I do
not know. He could not explain himself, but by some
mysterious process or other, he succeeded, after ten minutes of
superhuman effort, in getting himself completely rolled up in it.
He was so firmly wrapped round and tucked in and

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folded over that he could not get out. He of
course made frantic struggles for freedom, the birthright of every Englishman,
and in doing so I learned this afterwards knocked over George,
and then George, swearing at Harris, began to struggle too,
and got himself entangled and rolled up. I knew nothing

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about all this at the time. I did not understand
the business at all myself. I had been told to
stand where I was and wait till the canvas came
to me, and Montmorency and I stood there and waited,
both as good as gold. We could see the canvabis
being violently jerked and tossed about pretty considerably, but we
supposed this was part of the method and did not interfere.

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We also heard much smothered language coming from underneath it,
and we guessed that they were finding the job rather troublesome,
and concluded that we would wait until things had got
a little simpler before we joined in. We waited some time,
but matters seemed to get only more and more involved,
until at last George's head came wriggling out over the
side of the boat and spoke up. It said, give

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us a hand here, can't you, you cucko, standing there
like a stuffed mummy, when you see we are both
being suffocated, you dummy. I never could withstand an appeal
for help, so I went and undid them, not before
it was time either, for Harris was nearly black in
the face. It took us half an hour's hardly after

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that before it was properly up, and then we cleared
the decks and got out supper. We put the kettle
on to boil up in the nose of the boat,
and went down to the stern and pretended to take
no notice of it, but set to work to get
the other things out. That is the only way to
get a kettle to boil up the river. If it
sees that you were waiting for it and are anxious,

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it will never even sing. You have to go away
and begin your meal, as if you were not going
to have any tea at all. You must not even
look round at it. Then you will soon hear it's
sputtering away mad to be made into tea. It is
a good plan too, if you were in a great
hurry to talk very loudly to each other about how

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you don't need any tea and are not going to
have any. You get near the kettle so that it
can overhear you, and then you shout out, I don't
want any tea, do you, George, to which George shouts
back no, No, I don't like tea. We'll have lemonade
instead tea. He's so indigestible, upon which the kettle boils

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over and puts the stove out. We adopted this harmless
bit of trickery and The result was that by the
time everything else was ready, that tea was waiting. Then
we lit the lantern and squatted down to supper. We
wanted that supper. For five and thirty minutes, not a
sound was heard throughout the length and breadth of that boat,

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save the clank of cutlery and crockery and the steady
grinding of four sets of molers. At the end of
five and thirty minutes, Harris said, hah, and took his
left leg out from under him and put his right
one there instead. Five minutes afterwards, George said ah two

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and threw his plate out on the bank. And three
minutes later than that Montmorency gave the first sign of
contentment he had exhibited since we had started, and rolled
over on his side and spread his legs out. And
that I said ah, and bent my head back and
bumped it against one of the hoops. But I did

(08:08):
not mind it. I did not even swear. How good
one feels when one is full, how satisfied with ourselves
and with the world. People who have tried it tell
me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented,
But a full stomach does the business quite as well
and is cheaper and more easily obtained. One feels so

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forgiving and generous after a substantial and well digested meal,
so noble minded, so kindly hearted. It is very strange,
this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We
cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach will sow.
It dictates to us, our emotions are passions. After eggs

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and bacon, it says work. After beefsteak and porter, it
says sleep after a cup of tea two spoonsful for
each cup, and don't let it stand more than three minutes,
it says to the brain. Now rise and show your strength.
Be eloquent and deep and tender. See with a clear

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eye into nature and into life. Spread your white wings
of quivering thought, and soar a godlike spirit over the
whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars,
to the gates of eternity. After hot muffins, it says,
be dull and soulless, like a beast of the field,

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a brainless animal with listless eye, unlit by any ray
of fancy or of hope or fear, or love or life.
And after brandy taken in sufficient quantity. It says, now, come, full,
grin and tumble, that your fellow men may laugh, drivel

(10:00):
in folly, and sputter in senseless sounds, and show what
a helpless ninny is. Poor man whose wit and will
are drowned like kittens side by side in half an
inch of alcohol, We are but the veriest sorriiest slaves
of our stomach. Reach not after morality and righteousness, my friends,

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watch vigilantly your stomach and diet it with care and judgment.
Then virtue and contentment will come and reign within your heart,
unsought by any effort of your own, and you will
be a good citizen, a loving husband, and a tender father,
a noble, pious man. Before our supper, Harris and George

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and I were quarrelsome and snappy and ill tempered. After
our supper, we sat and beamed on one another, and
we beamed upon the dog too. We loved each other,
we loved everybody. Harris and moving about, trod on George's corn.
Had this happened before supper, George would have expressed wishes
and desires concerning Harris's fate in this world and the next,

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that would have made a thoughtful man shudder as it was,
he said, steady, old man, where are we? And Harris,
instead of merely observing in his most unpleasant tones, that
a fellow could hardly help treading on some bit of
George's foot if he had to move about it all
within ten yards of where George was sitting, suggesting that

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George never ought to come into an ordinary sized boat
with feed that length, and advising him to hang them
over the side, as he would have done before supper.
Now said, oh, I'm sorry, old chap. I hope I
haven't hurt you. And George said not at all, that
it was his fault, and Harris said, no, it was his.

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It was quite pretty to hear them. We lit our
pie and sat looking out on the quiet night and talked.
George said, why could not we be always like this,
away from the world with its sin and temptation, leading sober,
peaceful lives and doing good. I said, it was the
sort of thing I had often longed for myself. And

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we discussed the possibility of our going away before to
some handy, well fitted desert island and living there in
the woods. Harris said that the danger about desert islands,
as far as he had heard was that they were
so damp. But George said, no, not have properly drained.
And then we got onto drains. And that put George

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in mind of a very funny thing that happened to
his father once. He said, his father was traveling with
another fellow through Wales, and one night they stopped a
little inn where there were some other fellows, and they
joined the other fellows and spent the evening with them.
They had a very jolly evening and sat up late,

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and by the time they came to go to bed,
they this was when George's father was a very young man,
were slightly jolly too. They George's father and George's father's friend,
were to sleep in the same room, but in different beds.
They took the candle and went up. The candle lurched
up against the wall when they got into the room

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and went out, and they had to undress and grope
into bed in the dark. This they did, but instead
of getting into separate beds as they thought they were doing,
they both climbed into the same one without knowing it,
one getting in with his head at the top and
the other crawling in from the opposite side of the
compass and lying with his feet on the pillow. There

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was silence for a moment, and then George's father said, Joe,
what's the matter? Tom, replied Joe's voice from the other
end of the bed. Why there's a man in my bed,
said George's father. Here's his feet on my pillow. Well,

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it's an extraordinary thing, Tom answered the other But I'm
blessed if there wasn't a man in my bed too.
What are you gonna do, asked George's father. Well, I'm
going to chuck him out, replied Joe, so am I,
said George's father valiantly. There was a brief struggle, followed

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by two heavy bumps on the floor, and then a
rather doleful voice said, I say, Tom, yes, how have
you got on? Well? To tell you the truth? My
man's chucked me out, so's mine. I say, I don't

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think much of this in do you? Where was the
name of that inn? Said Harris, that pig and whistle?
Said George. Why, oh no, then it isn't the same,
replied Harris. What do you mean, query George. Why it's

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so curious, murmured Harris. But precisely that very same thing
happened to my father once out of country end. I've
often heard him tell the tale. I thought it might
have been the same inn. We turned in at ten
that night, and I thought I should sleep well, being tired,
but I didn't. As a rule. I undress and put

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my head on the pillow, and then somebody bangs at
the door and says, it is half past eight. But
tonight everything seemed against me. The novelty of it all,
the hardness of the boat, the cramped position I was lying,
with my feet under one seat and my head on another.
The sound of the lapping water round the boat, and

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the wind among the branches kept me restless and disturbed.
I did get to sleep for a few hours, and
then some part of the boat, which seemed to have
grown up in the night, for it certainly was not
there when we started, and it had disappeared by the morning,
kept digging into my spine. I slept through it for

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a while, dreaming that I had swallowed a sovereign, and
that they were cutting a hole in my back with
a gimblet so as to try and get it out.
I thought it very unkind of them, and I told
them I would owe them the money and they should
have it at the end of the month. But they
would not hear of that, and said it would be
much better if they had it then, because otherwise the

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interests would accumulate. So I got quite cross with them
after a bit and told them what I thought of them.
And then they gave the gimblet such an excruciating wrench
that I woke up. The boat seemed stuffy and my
head ached, so I thought I would step out into
the cool night air. I slipped on what clothes I

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could find about, some of my own and some of
George's and Harris's, and crept under the canvas on to
the bank. It was a glorious night. The moon had
sunk and left the quiet earth alone with the stars.
It seemed as if in the silence and the hush
while we her children slept, they were talking with her,

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their sister, conversing of mighty mysteries in voices too vast
and deep for childish human ears to catch. The sound
they awe us these strange stars, so cold, so clear.
We are as children whose small feet have strayed into
some dim lit temple of the God they have been

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taught to worship but know not, And standing where the
echoing dome spans the long vista of the shadowy light,
glance up, half hoping, half afraid to see some awful
vision hovering there. And yet it's it seems so full
of comfort and of strength. The night, in its great presence,

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our small sorrows creep away, ashamed. The day has been
so full of fret and care, and our hearts have
been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and
the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us.
Then night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her
hand upon our fevered head and turns our little, tear

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stained faces up to hers and smiles. And though she
does not speak, we know what she would say, and
lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom, and the
pain is gone. Sometimes our pain is very deep and real,
and we stand before her, very silent, because there is
no language for our pain. Only a moan. Knight's heart

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is full of pity for us. She cannot ease our aching.
She takes our hand in hers, and the little world
grows very small and very far away beneath us, and
borne on her dark wings, we passed for a moment
into a mightier presence than her own. And in the
wondrous light of that great presence, all human life lies

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like a book before us. And we know that pain
and sorrow are but the angels of God. Only those
who have worn the crown of suffering can look upon
that wondrous light, And they, when they return, may not
speak of it or tell the mystery they know. Once
upon a time, through a strange country, there rode some

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goodly nights, and their path lay by a deep wood,
where tangled briars grew very thick and strong, and tore
the flesh of them that lost their way therein. And
the leaves of the trees that grew in the wood
were very dark and thick, so that no ray of
light came through the branches to lighten the gloom in sadness.

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And as they passed by that dark wood, one night
of those that rode, missing his comrades, wandered far away
and returned to them no more, And they, sorely, grieving,
rode on without him, mourning him as one dead. Now,
when they reached the fair castle towards which they had
been journeying, they stayed there many days and made merry.

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And one night, as they sat in cheerful ease around
the logs that burned in the great hall, and drank
a loving measure, there came the comrade they had lost,
and greeted them. His clothes were ragged like a beggar's,
and many sad wounds were on his sweet flesh, But
upon his face there shone a great radiance of deep joy.

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And they questioned him, asking him what had befallen him,
And he told them how in the dark wood he
had lost his way, and had wandered many days and
nights till torn and bleeding, he had laid him down
to die. Then, when he was nigh unto death, lo
through the savage gloom, there came to him a stately maiden,

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and took him by the hand, and led him on
through devious paths unknown to any man, until upon the
darkness of the wood there donned a light such as
the light of day was unto, but as a little
lamp unto the sun. And in that wondrous light our
wayworn knight saw as in a dream of vision, and

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so glorious, so fair, The vision seemed that of his
bleeding wounds. He thought no more, but stood as one entranced,
whose joy as deep as is the sea, whereof no
man can tell the depth. And the vision faded, and
the knight, kneeling upon the ground, thanked the good Saint,
who into that sad wood had strayed his steps. So

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he had seen the vision that lay their head. And
the name of the dark forest was sorrow. But of
the vision that the good Knight saw therein we may
not speak nor tell. End of Chapter two