"Stroke, you're late," said Thomas, butting me violently in the back
with his oar.
"My dear Thomas, when you have been in the Admiralty a little longer
you will know that 'bow' is not the gentleman who sets the time.
What do you suppose would happen at Queen's Hall if the second
bird-call said to the conductor, 'Henry, you're late'?"
"The whole gallery would go out and get its hair cut," said Archie.
"I'm not used to the Morse system of rowing, that's the trouble,"
explained Thomas. "Long-short, short-short-long, short-long. You're
spelling out the most awful things, if you only knew."
"Be careful how you insult me, Thomas. A little more and I shall
tell them what happened to you on the ornamental waters in Regent's
Park that rough day."
"Really?" asked Simpson with interest.
"Yes; I fancy he had been rather overdoing it at Swedish drill that
morning."
We gave her ten in silence, and then by mutual consent rested on our
oars.
"There's a long way yet," said Myra. "Dahlia and I will row if
you're tired."
"This is an insult, Thomas. Shall we sit down under it?"
"Yes," said Thomas, getting up; "only in another part of the boat."
We gave up our seats to the ladies (even in a boat one should be
polite) and from a position in the stern waited with turned-up
coat-collars for the water to come on board.
"We might have sailed up a little higher," remarked Simpson. "It's
all right, I'm not a bit wet, thanks."
"It's too shallow, except at high tide," said Myra. "The Armadillo
would have gone aground and lost all her--her shell. Do armadilloes
have shells, or what?"
"Feathers."
"Well, we're a pretty good bank-holiday crowd for the dinghy," said
Archie. "Simpson, if we upset, save the milk and the sandwiches; my
wife can swim."
The woods were now beginning to come down to the river on both
sides, but on the right a grassy slope broke them at the water's
edge for some fifty yards. Thither we rowed, and after a little
complicated manoeuvring landed suddenly, Simpson, who was standing in
the bows with the boat-hook, being easily the first to reach the
shore. He got up quickly, however, apologized, and helped the ladies
and the hampers out. Thereafter he was busy for some time, making
the dinghy fast with a knot peculiarly his own.
"The first thing to do is to build a palisade to keep the savages
off," said Archie, and he stuck the boat-hook into the ground.
"After which you are requested to light fires to frighten the wild
beasts. The woodbines are very wild at this time of the year."
"We shall have to light a fire anyhow for the tea, so that will be
very useful," said the thoughtful Dahlia.
"I myself," I said, "will swim out to the wreck for the musket and
the bag of nails."
"As you're going," said Myra, unpacking, "you might get the sugar as
well. We've forgotten it."
"Now you've spoilt my whole holiday. It was bad enough with the cake
last week, but this is far, far worse. I shall go into the wood and
eat berries."
"It's all right, here it is. Now you're happy again. I wish, if you
aren't too busy, you'd go into the wood and collect sticks for the
fire."
"I am unusually busy," I said, "and there is a long queue of clients
waiting for me in the ante-room. An extremely long queue--almost a
half-butt in fact."
I wandered into the wood alone. Archie and Dahlia had gone
arm-in-arm up the hill to look at a view, Simpson was helping Myra
with the hampers, and Thomas, the latest arrival from town, was
lying on his back, telling them what he alleged to be a good story
now going round London. Myra told it to me afterwards, and we agreed
that as a boy it had gone round the world several times first. Yet I
heard her laugh unaffectedly--what angels women are!
Ten minutes later I returned with my spoil, and laid it before them.
"A piece of brown bread from the bread-fruit tree, a piece of
indiarubber from the mango tree, a chutney from the banana grove,
and an omelet from the turtle run, I missed the chutney with my
first barrel, and brought it down rather luckily with the ricochet."
"But how funny; they all look just like sticks of wood."
"That is Nature's plan of protective colouring. In the same way
apricots have often escaped with their lives by sitting in the cream
and pretending to be poached eggs."
"The same instinct of self-preservation," added Archie, "has led
many a pill called Beauchamp to pronounce its name Cholmondeley."
Simpson begged to be allowed to show us how to light a fire, and we
hadn't the heart to refuse him. It was, he said, the way they lit
fires on the veldt (and other places where they wanted fires), and
it went out the first time because the wind must have changed round
after he had begun to lay the wood. He got the draught in the right
place the next time, and for a moment we thought we should have to
take to the boats; but the captain averted a panic, and the fire was
got under. Then the kettle was put on, and of all the boiled water I
have ever tasted this was the best.
"You know," said Archie, "in Simpson the nation has lost a wonderful
scoutmaster."
"Oh, Samuel," cried Myra, "tell us how you tracked the mules that
afternoon, and knew they were wounded because of the blood."
"Tell us about that time when you bribed the regimental anchovy of
Troop B to betray the secret password to you."
"I ignore you because you're jealous. May I have some more tea, Miss
Mannering?"
"Call me Myra, Scoutmaster Simpson of The Spectator troop, and you
shall."
"I blush for my unblushing sex," said Dahlia.
"I blush for my family," said Archie. "That a young girl of gentle
birth, nurtured in a peaceful English home, brought up in an
atmosphere of old-world courtesy, should so far forget herself as
to attempt to wheedle a promising young scoutmaster, who can light a
fire, practically speaking, backwards--this, I repeat, is too
much."
It was Thomas who changed the subject so abruptly.
"I suppose the tide comes as far as this?" he said.
"It does, captain."
"Then that would account for the boat having gone."
"That and Simpson's special knot," I said, keeping calm for the sake
of the women and children.
Archie jumped up with a shout. The boat was about twenty yards from
the shore, going very slowly upstream.
"It's very bad to bathe just after a heavy meal," I reminded him.
"I'm not sure that I'm going to, but I'm quite sure that one of us
will have to."
"Walk up the river with it," said Myra, "while Dahlia and I pack,
and the one who's first digested goes in."
We walked up. I felt that in my own case the process of assimilation
would be a lengthy one.