CHAPTER XVI.


READING. - WE ARE TOWED BY STEAM LAUNCH. - IRRITATING BEHAVIOUR OF SMALL
BOATS. - HOW THEY GET IN THE WAY OF STEAM LAUNCHES. - GEORGE AND HARRIS
AGAIN SHIRK THEIR WORK. - RATHER A HACKNEYED STORY. - STREATLEY AND
GORING.

WE came in sight of Reading about eleven. The river is dirty and dismal
here. One does not linger in the neighbourhood of Reading. The town
itself is a famous old place, dating from the dim days of King Ethelred,
when the Danes anchored their warships in the Kennet, and started from
Reading to ravage all the land of Wessex; and here Ethelred and his
brother Alfred fought and defeated them, Ethelred doing the praying and
Alfred the fighting.

In later years, Reading seems to have been regarded as a handy place to
run down to, when matters were becoming unpleasant in London. Parliament
generally rushed off to Reading whenever there was a plague on at
Westminster; and, in 1625, the Law followed suit, and all the courts were
held at Reading. It must have been worth while having a mere ordinary
plague now and then in London to get rid of both the lawyers and the
Parliament.

During the Parliamentary struggle, Reading was besieged by the Earl of
Essex, and, a quarter of a century later, the Prince of Orange routed
King James's troops there.

Henry I. lies buried at Reading, in the Benedictine abbey founded by him
there, the ruins of which may still be seen; and, in this same abbey,
great John of Gaunt was married to the Lady Blanche.

At Reading lock we came up with a steam launch, belonging to some friends
of mine, and they towed us up to within about a mile of Streatley. It is
very delightful being towed up by a launch. I prefer it myself to
rowing. The run would have been more delightful still, if it had not
been for a lot of wretched small boats that were continually getting in
the way of our launch, and, to avoid running down which, we had to be
continually easing and stopping. It is really most annoying, the manner
in which these rowing boats get in the way of one's launch up the river;
something ought to done to stop it.

And they are so confoundedly impertinent, too, over it. You can whistle
till you nearly burst your boiler before they will trouble themselves to
hurry. I would have one or two of them run down now and then, if I had
my way, just to teach them all a lesson.

The river becomes very lovely from a little above Reading. The railway
rather spoils it near Tilehurst, but from Mapledurham up to Streatley it
is glorious. A little above Mapledurham lock you pass Hardwick House,
where Charles I. played bowls. The neighbourhood of Pangbourne, where
the quaint little Swan Inn stands, must be as familiar to the HABITUES of
the Art Exhibitions as it is to its own inhabitants.

My friends' launch cast us loose just below the grotto, and then Harris
wanted to make out that it was my turn to pull. This seemed to me most
unreasonable. It had been arranged in the morning that I should bring
the boat up to three miles above Reading. Well, here we were, ten miles
above Reading! Surely it was now their turn again.

I could not get either George or Harris to see the matter in its proper
light, however; so, to save argument, I took the sculls. I had not been
pulling for more than a minute or so, when George noticed something black
floating on the water, and we drew up to it. George leant over, as we
neared it, and laid hold of it. And then he drew back with a cry, and a
blanched face.

It was the dead body of a woman. It lay very lightly on the water, and
the face was sweet and calm. It was not a beautiful face; it was too
prematurely aged-looking, too thin and drawn, to be that; but it was a
gentle, lovable face, in spite of its stamp of pinch and poverty, and
upon it was that look of restful peace that comes to the faces of the
sick sometimes when at last the pain has left them.

Fortunately for us - we having no desire to be kept hanging about
coroners' courts - some men on the bank had seen the body too, and now
took charge of it from us.

We found out the woman's story afterwards. Of course it was the old, old
vulgar tragedy. She had loved and been deceived - or had deceived
herself. Anyhow, she had sinned - some of us do now and then - and her
family and friends, naturally shocked and indignant, had closed their
doors against her.

Left to fight the world alone, with the millstone of her shame around her
neck, she had sunk ever lower and lower. For a while she had kept both
herself and the child on the twelve shillings a week that twelve hours'
drudgery a day procured her, paying six shillings out of it for the
child, and keeping her own body and soul together on the remainder.

Six shillings a week does not keep body and soul together very unitedly.
They want to get away from each other when there is only such a very
slight bond as that between them; and one day, I suppose, the pain and
the dull monotony of it all had stood before her eyes plainer than usual,
and the mocking spectre had frightened her. She had made one last appeal
to friends, but, against the chill wall of their respectability, the
voice of the erring outcast fell unheeded; and then she had gone to see
her child - had held it in her arms and kissed it, in a weary, dull sort
of way, and without betraying any particular emotion of any kind, and had
left it, after putting into its hand a penny box of chocolate she had
bought it, and afterwards, with her last few shillings, had taken a
ticket and come down to Goring.

It seemed that the bitterest thoughts of her life must have centred about
the wooded reaches and the bright green meadows around Goring; but women
strangely hug the knife that stabs them, and, perhaps, amidst the gall,
there may have mingled also sunny memories of sweetest hours, spent upon
those shadowed deeps over which the great trees bend their branches down
so low.

She had wandered about the woods by the river's brink all day, and then,
when evening fell and the grey twilight spread its dusky robe upon the
waters, she stretched her arms out to the silent river that had known her
sorrow and her joy. And the old river had taken her into its gentle
arms, and had laid her weary head upon its bosom, and had hushed away the
pain.

Thus had she sinned in all things - sinned in living and in dying. God
help her! and all other sinners, if any more there be.

Goring on the left bank and Streatley on the right are both or either
charming places to stay at for a few days. The reaches down to
Pangbourne woo one for a sunny sail or for a moonlight row, and the
country round about is full of beauty. We had intended to push on to
Wallingford that day, but the sweet smiling face of the river here lured
us to linger for a while; and so we left our boat at the bridge, and went
up into Streatley, and lunched at the "Bull," much to Montmorency's
satisfaction.

They say that the hills on each ride of the stream here once joined and
formed a barrier across what is now the Thames, and that then the river
ended there above Goring in one vast lake. I am not in a position either
to contradict or affirm this statement. I simply offer it.

It is an ancient place, Streatley, dating back, like most river-side
towns and villages, to British and Saxon times. Goring is not nearly so
pretty a little spot to stop at as Streatley, if you have your choice;
but it is passing fair enough in its way, and is nearer the railway in
case you want to slip off without paying your hotel bill.