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Three Men in a Boat-Part7_Jerome K.Jerome(1859-1927)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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rather thought he was. Anyhow, if he wasn't the 11.5 for Kingston, he



said he was pretty confident he was the 9.32 for Virginia Water, or the

10 a.m. express for the Isle of Wight, or somewhere in that direction,



and we should all know when we got there. We slipped half-a-crown into

his hand, and begged him to be the 11.5 for Kingston.



"Nobody will ever know, on this line," we said, "what you are, or where

you're going. You know the way, you slip off quietly and go to



Kingston."

"Well, I don't know, gents," replied the noble fellow, "but I suppose



SOME train's got to go to Kingston; and I'll do it. Gimme the half-

crown."



Thus we got to Kingston by the London and South-Western Railway.

We learnt, afterwards, that the train we had come by was really the



Exeter mail, and that they had spent hours at Waterloo, looking for it,

and nobody knew what had become of it.



Our boat was waiting for us at Kingston just below bridge, and to it we

wended our way, and round it we stored our luggage, and into it we



stepped.

"Are you all right, sir?" said the man.



"Right it is," we answered; and with Harris at the sculls and I at the

tiller-lines, and Montmorency, unhappy and deeply suspicious, in the



prow, out we shot on to the waters which, for a fortnight, were to be our

home.



CHAPTER VI.

KINGSTON. - INSTRUCTIVE REMARKS ON EARLY ENGLISH HISTORY. - INSTRUCTIVE



OBSERVATIONS ON CARVED OAK AND LIFE IN GENERAL. - SAD CASE OF STIVVINGS,

JUNIOR. - MUSINGS ON ANTIQUITY. - I FORGET THAT I AM STEERING. -



INTERESTING RESULT. - HAMPTON COURT MAZE. - HARRIS AS A GUIDE.

IT was a glorious morning, late spring or early summer, as you care to



take it, when the dainty sheen of grass and leaf is blushing to a deeper

green; and the year seems like a fair young maid, trembling with strange,



wakening pulses on the brink of womanhood.

The quaint back streets of Kingston, where they came down to the water's



edge, looked quite picturesque in the flashing sunlight, the glinting

river with its drifting barges, the wooded towpath, the trim-kept villas



on the other side, Harris, in a red and orange blazer, grunting away at

the sculls, the distant glimpses of the grey old palace of the Tudors,



all made a sunny picture, so bright but calm, so full of life, and yet so

peaceful, that, early in the day though it was, I felt myself being



dreamily lulled off into a musing fit.

I mused on Kingston, or "Kyningestun," as it was once called in the days



when Saxon "kinges" were crowned there. Great Caesar crossed the river

there, and the Roman legions camped upon its sloping uplands. Caesar,



like, in later years, Elizabeth, seems to have stopped everywhere: only

he was more respectable than good Queen Bess; he didn't put up at the



public-houses.

She was nuts on public-houses, was England's Virgin Queen. There's



scarcely a pub. of any attractions within ten miles of London that she

does not seem to have looked in at, or stopped at, or slept at, some time



or other. I wonder now, supposing Harris, say, turned over a new leaf,

and became a great and good man, and got to be Prime Minister, and died,



if they would put up signs over the public-houses that he had patronised:

"Harris had a glass of bitter in this house;" "Harris had two of Scotch



cold here in the summer of `88;" "Harris was chucked from here in

December, 1886."



No, there would be too many of them! It would be the houses that he had

never entered that would become famous. "Only house in South London that



Harris never had a drink in!" The people would flock to it to see what

could have been the matter with it.



How poor weak-minded King Edwy must have hated Kyningestun! The

coronation feast had been too much for him. Maybe boar's head stuffed



with sugar-plums did not agree with him (it wouldn't with me, I know),

and he had had enough of sack and mead; so he slipped from the noisy



revel to steal a quiet moonlight hour with his beloved Elgiva.

Perhaps, from the casement, standing hand-in-hand, they were watching the



calm moonlight on the river, while from the distant halls the boisterous

revelry floated in broken bursts of faint-heard din and tumult.



Then brutal Odo and St. Dunstan force their rude way into the quiet room,

and hurl coarse insults at the sweet-faced Queen, and drag poor Edwy back



to the loud clamour of the drunken brawl.

Years later, to the crash of battle-music, Saxon kings and Saxon revelry



were buried side by side, and Kingston's greatness passed away for a

time, to rise once more when Hampton Court became the palace of the



Tudors and the Stuarts, and the royal barges strained at their moorings

on the river's bank, and bright-cloaked gallants swaggered down the






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