Chapter I

The man was a little sawed-off, red-headed Irishman, with twinkling, gimlet eyes, two up-curved lips always in a broad smile, and a pair of thin, caliper-shaped legs.

His name was as brief as his stature.

"Fin, your honor, by the grace of God. F-i-n, Fin. There was a 'Mac' in front of it once, and an 'n' to the tail of it in the old times, so me mother says, but some of me ancisters--bad cess to 'em!--wiped 'em out. Plain Fin, if you plase, sor."

The punt was the ordinary Thames boat: a long, narrow, flat-bottomed, shallow craft with tapering ends decked over to serve as seats, the whole propelled by a pole the size of a tight-rope dancer's and about as difficult to handle.

Chartering the punt had been easy. All I had had to do was to stroll down the path bordering the river, run my eye over a group of boats lying side by side like a school of trout with their noses up-stream, pick out the widest, flattest, and least upsettable craft in the fleet, decorate it with a pair of Turkey-red cushions from a pile in the boathouse, and a short mattress, also Turkey-red--a good thing at luncheon-hour for a tired back is a mattress--slip the key of the padlock of the mooring-chain in my pocket and stroll back again.

The hiring of the man for days after my arrival at Sonning-on-Thames, was more difficult, well-nigh impossible, except at a price per diem which no staid old painter--they are all an impecunious lot--could afford. There were boys, of course, for the asking; sunburnt, freckle-faced, tousle-headed, barefooted little devils who, when my back was turned, would do handsprings over my cushions, landing on the mattress, or break the pole the first day out, leaving me high and dry on some island out of calling distance; but full-grown, sober-minded, steady men, who could pole all day or sit beside me patiently while I worked, hand me the right brush or tube of color, or palette, or open a bottle of soda without spilling half of it--that kind of man was scarce.

Landlord Hull, of the White Hart Inn--what an ideal Boniface is this same Hull, and what an ideal inn--promised a boatman to pole the punt and look after my traps when the Henley regatta was over; and the owner of my own craft, and of fifty other punts besides, went so far as to say that he expected a man as soon as Lord Somebody-or-Other left for the Continent, when His Lordship's waterman would be free, adding, meaningly:

"Just at present, zur, when we do be 'avin' sich a mob lot from Lunnon, 'specially at week's-end, zur, we ain't got men enough to do our own polin'. It's the war, zur, as has took 'em off. Maybe for a few day, zur, ye might take a 'and yerself if ye didn't mind."

I waved the hand referred to--the forefinger part of it--in a deprecating manner. I couldn't pole the lightest and most tractable punt ten yards in a straight line to save my own or anybody else's life. Then again, if I should impair the precision of my five fingers by any such violent exercise, my brush would wabble as nervously over my canvas as a recording needle across a steam-gauge. Poling a rudderless, keelless skiff up a crooked stream by means of a fifteen-foot balancing pole is an art only to be classed with that of rowing a gondola. Gondoliers and punters, like poets, are born, not made. My own Luigi comes of a race of gondoliers dating back two hundred years, and punters must spring from just such ancestors. No, if I had to do the poling myself, I should rather get out and walk.

Fin solved the problem--not from any special training (rowing in regattas and the like), but rather from that universal adaptability of the Irishman which fits him for filling any situation in life, from a seat on a dirt-cart to a chair in an aldermanic chamber.

"I am a paper-hanger by trade, sor," he began, "but I was brought up on the river and can put a punt wid the best. Try me, sor, at four bob a day; I'm out of a job."

I looked him over, from his illuminated head down to his parenthetical legs, caught the merry twinkle in his eyes, and a sigh of relief escaped me. Here was not only a seafaring man, accustomed to battling with the elements, skilled in the handling of poles, and acquainted with swift and ofttimes dangerous currents, but a brother brush, a man conversant with design and pigments; an artist, keenly sensitive to straight lines, harmony of tints, and delicate manipulation of surfaces.

I handed him the key at once. Thenceforward I was simply a passenger depending on his strong right arm for guidance, and at luncheon-hour upon his alert and nimble, though slightly incurved, legs for sustenance, the inn being often a mile away from my subject.

And the inns!--or rather my own particular inn--the White Hart at Sonning.

There are others, of course--the Red Lion at Henley; the old Warboys hostelry at Cookham; the Angler at Marlowe; the French Horn across the black water and within rifle-shot of the White Hart--a most pretentious place, designed for millionnaires and spendthrifts, where even chops and tomato-sauce, English pickles, chowchow and the like, ales in the wood and other like commodities and comforts, are dispensed at prices that compel all impecunious, staid painters like myself to content themselves with a sandwich and a pint of bitter--and a hundred other inns along the river, good, bad, and indifferent. But yet with all their charms I am still loyal to my own White Hart.

Mine is an inn that sets back from the river with a rose-garden in front the like of which you never saw nor smelt of: millions of roses in a never-ending bloom. An inn with low ceilings, a cubby-hole of a bar next the side entrance on the village street; two barmaids--three on holidays; old furniture; a big fireplace in the hall; red-shaded lamps at night; plenty of easy-chairs and cushions. An inn all dimity and cretonne and brass bedsteads upstairs and unlimited tubs--one fastened to the wall painted white, and about eight feet long, to fit the largest pattern of Englishman. Out under the portico facing the rose-garden and the river stand tables for two or four, with snow-white cloths made gay with field-flowers, and the whole shaded by big, movable Japanese umbrellas, regular circus-tent umbrellas, their staffs stuck in the ground wherever they are needed. Along the sides of this garden on the gravel-walk loll go-to-sleep straw chairs, with little wicker tables within reach of your hand for B.& S., or tea and toast, or a pint in a mug, and down at the water's edge seafaring men like Fin and me find a boathouse with half a score of punts, skiffs, and rowboats, together with a steam-launch with fires banked ready for instant service.

And the people in and about this White Hart inn!

There are a bride and groom, of course. No well-regulated Thames inn can exist a week without a bride and groom. He is a handsome, well-knit, brown-skinned young fellow, who wears white flannel trousers, chalked shoes, a shrimp-colored flannel jacket and a shrimp-colored cap (Leander's colors) during the day, and a faultlessly cut dress-suit at night.

She has a collection of hats, some as big as small tea-tables; fluffy gowns for mornings; short frocks for boating; and a gold belt, two shoulder-straps, and a bunch of roses for dinner. They have three dogs between them--one four inches long--well, perhaps six, to be exact--another a bull terrier, and a third a St. Bernard as big as a Spanish burro. They have also a maid, a valet, and a dog-cart, besides no end of blankets, whips, rugs, canes, umbrellas, golf-sticks, and tennis-bats. They have stolen up here, no doubt, to get away from their friends, and they are having the happiest hours of their lives.

"Them two, sor," volunteers Fin, as we pass them lying under the willows near my morning subject, "is as chuck-full of happiness as a hive's full of bees. They was out in their boat yisterday, sor, in all that pour, and it rolled off 'em same as a duck sheds water, and they laughin' so ye'd think they'd split. What's dresses to them, sor, and her father? Why, sor, he could buy and sell half Sonnin'. He's jist home from Africa that chap is--or he was the week he was married--wid more lead inside him than would sink a corpse. You kin see for yerself that he's made for fightin'. Look at the eye on him!"

Then there is the solitary Englishman, who breakfasts by himself, and has the morning paper laid beside his plate the moment the post-cart arrives. Fin and I find him half the time on a bench in a cool place on the path to the Lock, his nose in his book, his tightly furled umbrella by his side. No dogs nor punts nor spins up the river for him. He is taking his holiday and doesn't want to be meddled with or spoken to.

There are, too, the customary maiden sisters--the unattended and forlorn--up for a week; and the young fellow down from London, all flannels and fishing-rods--three or four of them in fact, who sit round in front of the little sliding wicket facing the row of bottles and pump-handles--divining-rods for the beer below, these pump-handles--chaffing the barmaids and getting as good as they send; and always, at night, one or more of the country gentry in for their papers, and who can be found in the cosey hall discussing the crops, the coming regatta, the chance of Leander's winning the race, or the latest reports of yesterday's cricket-match.

Now and then the village doctor or miller--quite an important man is the miller--you would think so if you could see the mill--drops in, draws up a chair, and ventures an opinion on the price of wheat in the States or the coal strike or some kindred topic, the coming country fair, or perhaps the sermon of the previous Sunday.

"I hope you 'eard our Vicar, sir--No? Sorry you didn't, sir. I tell yer 'e's a nailer."

And so much for the company at the White Hart Inn.