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Three Men in a Boat-Part12_Jerome K.Jerome(1859-1927)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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I do not wish to be insulting, but I firmly believe that if you took an

average tow-line, and stretched it out straight across the middle of a



field, and then turned your back on it for thirty seconds, that, when you

looked round again, you would find that it had got itself altogether in a



heap in the middle of the field, and had twisted itself up, and tied

itself into knots, and lost its two ends, and become all loops; and it



would take you a good half-hour, sitting down there on the grass and

swearing all the while, to disentangle it again.



That is my opinion of tow-lines in general. Of course, there may be

honourable exceptions; I do not say that there are not. There may be



tow-lines that are a credit to their profession - conscientious,

respectable tow-lines - tow-lines that do not imagine they are crochet-



work, and try to knit themselves up into antimacassars the instant they

are left to themselves. I say there MAY be such tow-lines; I sincerely



hope there are. But I have not met with them.

This tow-line I had taken in myself just before we had got to the lock.



I would not let Harris touch it, because he is careless. I had looped it

round slowly and cautiously, and tied it up in the middle, and folded it



in two, and laid it down gently at the bottom of the boat. Harris had

lifted it up scientifically, and had put it into George's hand. George



had taken it firmly, and held it away from him, and had begun to unravel

it as if he were taking the swaddling clothes off a new-born infant; and,



before he had unwound a dozen yards, the thing was more like a badly-made

door-mat than anything else.



It is always the same, and the same sort of thing always goes on in

connection with it. The man on the bank, who is trying to disentangle



it, thinks all the fault lies with the man who rolled it up; and when a

man up the river thinks a thing, he says it.



"What have you been trying to do with it, make a fishing-net of it?

You've made a nice mess you have; why couldn't you wind it up properly,



you silly dummy?" he grunts from time to time as he struggles wildly with

it, and lays it out flat on the tow-path, and runs round and round it,



trying to find the end.

On the other hand, the man who wound it up thinks the whole cause of the



muddle rests with the man who is trying to unwind it.

"It was all right when you took it!" he exclaims indignantly" target="_blank" title="ad.愤慨地，义愤地">indignantly. "Why don't



you think what you are doing? You go about things in such a slap-dash

style. You'd get a scaffolding pole entangled you would!"



And they feel so angry with one another that they would like to hang each

other with the thing.



Ten minutes go by, and the first man gives a yell and goes mad, and

dances on the rope, and tries to pull it straight by seizing hold of the



first piece that comes to his hand and hauling at it. Of course, this

only gets it into a tighter tangle than ever. Then the second man climbs



out of the boat and comes to help him, and they get in each other's way,

and hinder one another. They both get hold of the same bit of line, and



pull at it in opposite directions, and wonder where it is caught. In the

end, they do get it clear, and then turn round and find that the boat has



drifted off, and is making straight for the weir.

This really happened once to my own knowledge. It was up by Boveney, one



rather windy morning. We were pulling down stream, and, as we came round

the bend, we noticed a couple of men on the bank. They were looking at



each other with as bewildered and helplesslymiserable expression as I

have ever witnessed on any human countenance before or since, and they



held a long tow-line between them. It was clear that something had

happened, so we eased up and asked them what was the matter.



"Why, our boat's gone off!" they replied in an indignant tone. "We just

got out to disentangle the tow-line, and when we looked round, it was



gone!"

And they seemed hurt at what they evidently regarded as a mean and



ungrateful act on the part of the boat.

We found the truant for them half a mile further down, held by some



rushes, and we brought it back to them. I bet they did not give that

boat another chance for a week.



I shall never forget the picture of those two men walking up and down the

bank with a tow-line, looking for their boat.



One sees a good many funny incidents up the river in connection with

towing. One of the most common is the sight of a couple of towers,



walking briskly along, deep in an animateddiscussion, while the man in

the boat, a hundred yards behind them, is vainly shrieking to them to



stop, and making frantic signs of distress with a scull. Something has

gone wrong; the rudder has come off, or the boat-hook has slipped



overboard, or his hat has dropped into the water and is floating rapidly




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