How George, once upon a time, got up early in the morning.—George,
Harris, and Montmorency do not like the look of the cold water.—Heroism
and determination on the part of J.—George and his shirt: story with a
moral.—Harris as cook.—Historical retrospect, specially inserted for
the use of schools.
I woke at six the next morning; and found George awake too. We both
turned round, and tried to go to sleep again, but we could not. Had
there been any particular reason why we should not have gone to sleep
again, but have got up and dressed then and there, we should have
dropped off while we were looking at our watches, and have slept till
ten. As there was no earthly necessity for our getting up under another
two hours at the very least, and our getting up at that time was an
utter absurdity, it was only in keeping with the natural cussedness of
things in general that we should both feel that lying down for five
minutes more would be death to us.
George said that the same kind of thing, only worse, had happened to
him some eighteen months ago, when he was lodging by himself in the
house of a certain Mrs. Gippings. He said his watch went wrong one
evening, and stopped at a quarter-past eight. He did not know this at
the time because, for some reason or other, he forgot to wind it up
when he went to bed (an unusual occurrence with him), and hung it up
over his pillow without ever looking at the thing.
It was in the winter when this happened, very near the shortest day,
and a week of fog into the bargain, so the fact that it was still very
dark when George woke in the morning was no guide to him as to the
time. He reached up, and hauled down his watch. It was a quarter-past
eight.
“Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” exclaimed George; “and here
have I got to be in the City by nine. Why didn’t somebody call me?
Oh, this is a shame!” And he flung the watch down, and sprang out of
bed, and had a cold bath, and washed himself, and dressed himself, and
shaved himself in cold water because there was not time to wait for the
hot, and then rushed and had another look at the watch.
Whether the shaking it had received in being thrown down on the bed had
started it, or how it was, George could not say, but certain it was
that from a quarter-past eight it had begun to go, and now pointed to
twenty minutes to nine.
George snatched it up, and rushed downstairs. In the sitting-room, all
was dark and silent: there was no fire, no breakfast. George said it
was a wicked shame of Mrs. G., and he made up his mind to tell her what
he thought of her when he came home in the evening. Then he dashed on
his great-coat and hat, and, seizing his umbrella, made for the front
door. The door was not even unbolted. George anathematized Mrs. G. for
a lazy old woman, and thought it was very strange that people could not
get up at a decent, respectable time, unlocked and unbolted the door,
and ran out.
He ran hard for a quarter of a mile, and at the end of that distance
it began to be borne in upon him as a strange and curious thing that
there were so few people about, and that there were no shops open. It
was certainly a very dark and foggy morning, but still it seemed an
unusual course to stop all business on that account. _He_ had to go to
business: why should other people stop in bed merely because it was
dark and foggy!
At length he reached Holborn. Not a shutter was down! not a bus was
about! There were three men in sight, one of whom was a policeman; a
market-cart full of cabbages, and a dilapidated looking cab. George
pulled out his watch and looked at it: it was five minutes to nine! He
stood still and counted his pulse. He stooped down and felt his legs.
Then, with his watch still in his hand, he went up to the policeman,
and asked him if he knew what the time was.
[Picture: George and the policeman] “What’s the time?” said the man,
eyeing George up and down with evident suspicion; “why, if you listen
you will hear it strike.”
George listened, and a neighbouring clock immediately obliged.
“But it’s only gone three!” said George in an injured tone, when it had
finished.
“Well, and how many did you want it to go?” replied the constable.
“Why, nine,” said George, showing his watch.
“Do you know where you live?” said the guardian of public order,
severely.
George thought, and gave the address.
“Oh! that’s where it is, is it?” replied the man; “well, you take my
advice and go there quietly, and take that watch of yours with you; and
don’t let’s have any more of it.”
And George went home again, musing as he walked along, and let himself
in.
At first, when he got in, he determined to undress and go to bed again;
but when he thought of the redressing and re-washing, and the having of
another bath, he determined he would not, but would sit up and go to
sleep in the easy-chair.
But he could not get to sleep: he never felt more wakeful in his life;
so he lit the lamp and got out the chess-board, and played himself
a game of chess. But even that did not enliven him: it seemed slow
somehow; so he gave chess up and tried to read. He did not seem able
to take any sort of interest in reading either, so he put on his coat
again and went out for a walk.
It was horribly lonesome and dismal, and all the policemen he met
regarded him with undisguised suspicion, and turned their lanterns on
him and followed him about, and this had such an effect upon him at
last that he began to feel as if he really had done something, and he
got to slinking down the by-streets and hiding in dark doorways when he
heard the regulation flip-flop approaching.
Of course, this conduct made the force only more distrustful of him
than ever, and they would come and rout him out and ask him what he was
doing there; and when he answered, “Nothing,” he had merely come out
for a stroll (it was then four o’clock in the morning), they looked
as though they did not believe him, and two plain-clothes constables
came home with him to see if he really did live where he had said he
did. They saw him go in with his key, and then they took up a position
opposite and watched the house.
He thought he would light the fire when he got inside, and make himself
some breakfast, just to pass away the time; but he did not seem able
to handle anything from a scuttleful of coals to a teaspoon without
dropping it or falling over it, and making such a noise that he was in
mortal fear that it would wake Mrs. G. up, and that she would think it
was burglars and open the window and call “Police!” and then these two
detectives would rush in and handcuff him, and march him off to the
police-court.
He was in a morbidly nervous state by this time, and he pictured the
trial, and his trying to explain the circumstances to the jury, and
nobody believing him, and his being sentenced to twenty years’ penal
servitude, and his mother dying of a broken heart. So he gave up trying
to get breakfast, and wrapped himself up in his overcoat and sat in the
easy-chair till Mrs. G came down at half-past seven.
He said he had never got up too early since that morning: it had been
such a warning to him.
We had been sitting huddled up in our rugs while George had been
telling me this true story, and on his finishing it I set to work to
wake up Harris with a scull. The third prod did it: and he turned over
on the other side, and said he would be down in a minute, and that
he would have his lace-up boots. We soon let him know where he was,
however, by the aid of the hitcher, and he sat up suddenly, sending
Montmorency, who had been sleeping the sleep of the just right on the
middle of his chest, sprawling across the boat.
Then we pulled up the canvas, and all four of us poked our heads out
over the off-side, and looked down at the water and shivered. The idea,
overnight, had been that we should get up early in the morning, fling
off our rugs and shawls, and, throwing back the canvas, spring into the
river with a joyous shout, and revel in a long delicious swim. Somehow,
now the morning had come, the notion seemed less tempting. The water
looked damp and chilly: the wind felt cold.
“Well, who’s going to be first in?” said Harris at last.
There was no rush for precedence. George settled the matter so far as
he was concerned by retiring into the boat and pulling on his socks.
Montmorency gave vent to an involuntary howl, as if merely thinking of
the thing had given him the horrors; and Harris said it would be so
difficult to get into the boat again, and went back and sorted out his
trousers.
I did not altogether like to give in, though I did not relish the
plunge. There might be snags about, or weeds, I thought. I meant to
compromise matters by going down to the edge and just throwing the
water over myself; so I took a towel and crept out on the bank and
wormed my way along on to the branch of a tree that dipped down into
the water.
[Picture: In the Thames] It was bitterly cold. The wind cut like a
knife. I thought I would not throw the water over myself after all. I
would go back into the boat and dress; and I turned to do so; and, as I
turned, the silly branch gave way, and I and the towel went in together
with a tremendous splash, and I was out mid-stream with a gallon of
Thames water inside me before I knew what had happened.
“By Jove! old J.’s gone in,” I heard Harris say, as I came blowing to
the surface. “I didn’t think he’d have the pluck to do it. Did you?”
“Is it all right?” sung out George.
“Lovely,” I spluttered back. “You are duffers not to come in. I
wouldn’t have missed this for worlds. Why won’t you try it? It only
wants a little determination.”
But I could not persuade them.
Rather an amusing thing happened while dressing that morning. I was
very cold when I got back into the boat, and, in my hurry to get my
shirt on, I accidentally jerked it into the water. It made me awfully
wild, especially as George burst out laughing. I could not see anything
to laugh at, and I told George so, and he only laughed the more. I
never saw a man laugh so much. I quite lost my temper with him at last,
and I pointed out to him what a drivelling maniac of an imbecile idiot
he was; but he only roared the louder. And then, just as I was landing
the shirt, I noticed that it was not my shirt at all, but George’s,
which I had mistaken for mine; whereupon the humour of the thing struck
me for the first time, and I began to laugh. And the more I looked from
George’s wet shirt to George, roaring with laughter, the more I was
amused, and I laughed so much that I had to let the shirt fall back
into the water again.
“Ar’n’t you—you—going to get it out?” said George, between his shrieks.
I could not answer him at all for a while, I was laughing so, but, at
last, between my peals I managed to jerk out:
“It isn’t my shirt—it’s _yours_!”
I never saw a man’s face change from lively to severe so suddenly in
all my life before.
“What!” he yelled, springing up. “You silly cuckoo! Why can’t you be
more careful what you’re doing? Why the deuce don’t you go and dress
on the bank? You’re not fit to be in a boat, you’re not. Gimme the
hitcher.”
I tried to make him see the fun of the thing, but he could not. George
is very dense at seeing a joke sometimes.
Harris proposed that we should have scrambled eggs for breakfast. He
said he would cook them. It seemed, from his account, that he was very
good at doing scrambled eggs. He often did them at picnics and when out
on yachts. He was quite famous for them. People who had once tasted his
scrambled eggs, so we gathered from his conversation, never cared for
any other food afterwards, but pined away and died when they could not
get them.
It made our mouths water to hear him talk about the things, and we
handed him out the stove and the frying-pan and all the eggs that had
not smashed and gone over everything in the hamper, and begged him to
begin.
He had some trouble in breaking the eggs—or rather not so much trouble
in breaking them exactly as in getting them into the frying-pan when
broken, and keeping them off his trousers, and preventing them from
running up his sleeve; but he fixed some half-a-dozen into the pan at
last, and then squatted down by the side of the stove and chivied them
about with a fork.
It seemed harassing work, so far as George and I could judge. Whenever
he went near the pan he burned himself, and then he would drop
everything and dance round the stove, flicking his fingers about and
cursing the things. Indeed, every time George and I looked round at him
he was sure to be performing this feat. We thought at first that it was
a necessary part of the culinary arrangements.
We did not know what scrambled eggs were, and we fancied that it must
be some Red Indian or Sandwich Islands sort of dish that required
dances and incantations for its proper cooking. Montmorency went and
put his nose over it once, and the fat spluttered up and scalded him,
and then _he_ began dancing and cursing. Altogether it was one of the
most interesting and exciting operations I have ever witnessed. George
and I were both quite sorry when it was over.
The result was not altogether the success that Harris had anticipated.
There seemed so little to show for the business. Six eggs had gone into
the frying-pan, and all that came out was a teaspoonful of burnt and
unappetizing looking mess.
Harris said it was the fault of the frying-pan, and thought it would
have gone better if we had had a fish-kettle and a gas-stove; and
we decided not to attempt the dish again until we had those aids to
housekeeping by us.
The sun had got more powerful by the time we had finished breakfast,
and the wind had dropped, and it was as lovely a morning as one could
desire. Little was in sight to remind us of the nineteenth century;
and, as we looked out upon the river in the morning sunlight, we could
almost fancy that the centuries between us and that ever-to-be-famous
June morning of 1215 had been drawn aside, and that we, English
yeomen’s sons in homespun cloth, with dirk at belt, were waiting there
to witness the writing of that stupendous page of history, the meaning
whereof was to be translated to the common people some four hundred and
odd years later by one Oliver Cromwell, who had deeply studied it.
It is a fine summer morning—sunny, soft, and still. But through the air
there runs a thrill of coming stir. King John has slept at Duncroft
Hall, and all the day before the little town of Staines has echoed to
the clang of armed men, and the clatter of great horses over its rough
stones, and the shouts of captains, and the grim oaths and surly jests
of bearded bowmen, billmen, pikemen, and strange-speaking foreign
spearmen.
Gay-cloaked companies of knights and squires have ridden in, all
travel-stained and dusty. And all the evening long the timid townsmen’s
doors have had to be quick opened to let in rough groups of soldiers,
for whom there must be found both board and lodging, and the best of
both, or woe betide the house and all within; for the sword is judge
and jury, plaintiff and executioner, in these tempestuous times, and
pays for what it takes by sparing those from whom it takes it, if it
pleases it to do so.
Round the camp-fire in the market-place gather still more of the
Barons’ troops, and eat and drink deep, and bellow forth roystering
drinking songs, and gamble and quarrel as the evening grows and deepens
into night. The firelight sheds quaint shadows on their piled-up arms
and on their uncouth forms. The children of the town steal round to
watch them, wondering; and brawny country wenches, laughing, draw near
to bandy ale-house jest and jibe with the swaggering troopers, so
unlike the village swains, who, now despised, stand apart behind, with
vacant grins upon their broad, peering faces. And out from the fields
around, glitter the faint lights of more distant camps, as here some
great lord’s followers lie mustered, and there false John’s French
mercenaries hover like crouching wolves without the town.
And so, with sentinel in each dark street, and twinkling watch-fires on
each height around, the night has worn away, and over this fair valley
of old Thame has broken the morning of the great day that is to close
so big with the fate of ages yet unborn.
Ever since grey dawn, in the lower of the two islands, just above where
we are standing, there has been great clamour, and the sound of many
workmen. The great pavilion brought there yester eve is being raised,
and carpenters are busy nailing tiers of seats, while ’prentices from
London town are there with many-coloured stuffs and silks and cloth of
gold and silver.
And now, lo! down upon the road that winds along the river’s bank from
Staines there come towards us, laughing and talking together in deep
guttural bass, a half-a-score of stalwart halbert-men—Barons’ men,
these—and halt at a hundred yards or so above us, on the other bank,
and lean upon their arms, and wait.
And so, from hour to hour, march up along the road ever fresh groups
and bands of armed men, their casques and breastplates flashing back
the long low lines of morning sunlight, until, as far as eye can reach,
the way seems thick with glittering steel and prancing steeds. And
shouting horsemen are galloping from group to group, and little banners
are fluttering lazily in the warm breeze, and every now and then there
is a deeper stir as the ranks make way on either side, and some great
Baron on his war-horse, with his guard of squires around him, passes
along to take his station at the head of his serfs and vassals.
And up the slope of Cooper’s Hill, just opposite, are gathered the
wondering rustics and curious townsfolk, who have run from Staines,
and none are quite sure what the bustle is about, but each one has a
different version of the great event that they have come to see; and
some say that much good to all the people will come from this day’s
work; but the old men shake their heads, for they have heard such tales
before.
And all the river down to Staines is dotted with small craft and boats
and tiny coracles—which last are growing out of favour now, and are
used only by the poorer folk. Over the rapids, where in after years
trim Bell Weir lock will stand, they have been forced or dragged by
their sturdy rowers, and now are crowding up as near as they dare come
to the great covered barges, which lie in readiness to bear King John
to where the fateful Charter waits his signing.
It is noon, and we and all the people have been waiting patient for
many an hour, and the rumour has run round that slippery John has again
escaped from the Barons’ grasp, and has stolen away from Duncroft Hall
with his mercenaries at his heels, and will soon be doing other work
than signing charters for his people’s liberty.
Not so! This time the grip upon him has been one of iron, and he has
slid and wriggled in vain. Far down the road a little cloud of dust
has risen, and draws nearer and grows larger, and the pattering of
many hoofs grows louder, and in and out between the scattered groups
of drawn-up men, there pushes on its way a brilliant cavalcade of
gay-dressed lords and knights. And front and rear, and either flank,
there ride the yeomen of the Barons, and in the midst King John.
He rides to where the barges lie in readiness, and the great Barons
step forth from their ranks to meet him. He greets them with a smile
and laugh, and pleasant honeyed words, as though it were some feast in
his honour to which he had been invited. But as he rises to dismount,
he casts one hurried glance from his own French mercenaries drawn up in
the rear to the grim ranks of the Barons’ men that hem him in.
Is it too late? One fierce blow at the unsuspecting horseman at his
side, one cry to his French troops, one desperate charge upon the
unready lines before him, and these rebellious Barons might rue the
day they dared to thwart his plans! A bolder hand might have turned
the game even at that point. Had it been a Richard there! the cup of
liberty might have been dashed from England’s lips, and the taste of
freedom held back for a hundred years.
But the heart of King John sinks before the stern faces of the English
fighting men, and the arm of King John drops back on to his rein, and
he dismounts and takes his seat in the foremost barge. And the Barons
follow in, with each mailed hand upon the sword-hilt, and the word is
given to let go.
Slowly the heavy, bright-decked barges leave the shore of Runningmede.
Slowly against the swift current they work their ponderous way, till,
with a low grumble, they grate against the bank of the little island
that from this day will bear the name of Magna Charta Island. And King
John has stepped upon the shore, and we wait in breathless silence till
a great shout cleaves the air, and the great cornerstone in England’s
temple of liberty has, now we know, been firmly laid.