Three Men in a Boat Page #4

- Tack.

Watch that tree.

Luff, luff!

Where's the wind?

And so we went on to Marlow

and put up near the church.

(BARKING)

- Monty!

- Monty!

- Monty!

- Monty!

Marlow is one of the pleasantest

river centres I know of,

with many quaint nooks and corners.

William the Conqueror seized it

to give to Queen Matilda,

ere it passed to the Earls of Warwick.

Percy Bysshe Shelley lived a year

in Marlow in 1817,

and here wrote The Revolt of Islam,

with its touching dedication

to his wife.

- Monty!

- Monty!

"So my summer task is ended, Mary

"And I return to thee,

my own heart's home

"The toil which stole thee

so many an hour is ended

"And the fruit is at thy feet. "

(EXCLAIMING)

(MONTY CONTINUES BARKING)

Sorry.

There are lovely walks round Marlow.

Hard by is grand old Bisham Abbey.

There is a secret room

high up in the thick walls.

And a ghost.

That of Lady Hoby,

who beat her little boy to death

for not doing his homework properly.

And in Bisham Church, she kneels piously

among her other children

who did do their homework properly.

Except for one,

who did not live to walk to school.

This is the best.

I mean, this is the finest tomb.

In many years of viewing memorials,

in my entire experience

of collecting tombs...

Can we go out now?

We spent the morning revittling.

Our departure from Marlow I regard as

one of our greater successes.

It was dignified and impressive

without being ostentatious.

By the time we had finished,

we had as fine a collection

of boys with baskets

as the heart could desire.

And our embarkation must have been

as imposing a spectacle

as Marlow had seen for many a long day.

There, there's the bread.

Just put the bread just alongside the...

Harris, where do you want these?

Drinks here. Drinks up the front there.

We'll put the drinks in first,

then we can put things on top of them,

I think.

Where are the pies?

Let me see, sir.

Was yours the steam launch

or the houseboat?

No, it was the double sculling skiff.

Steam launch indeed!

I hate steam launches.

I suppose every rowing man does.

I never see a steam launch

but I want to lure it

to some lonely part of the river

and there strangle it.

(BELL TOLLING)

"No longer were the woods

to frame a bower

"With interlaced branches mix and meet

"Or where with sound

like many voices sweet

"Waterfalls leap

among wild islands green

"Which framed for my lone boat

a low retreat

"Of moss-grown trees and weeds,

shall I be seen

"But beside thee,

where my heart has ever been. "

(HORN BLOWING)

Steam launch coming.

- Get out of the way.

- Get out of the way!

Move on. Oi! Mind out, you fellows.

- Get out of the way!

- Get out of the way, you chaps!

I thought we might

have a drink at Hurley.

- Oh, good. I'll show you Danes' Field.

- Is that a pub?

- No, it's a field.

- Oh.

Invading Danes camped there.

Not recently.

You know,

I keep thinking I can hear voices.

Then I thought

we could have a drink at Shiplake.

Lovely church at Shiplake.

You know who got married there? Guess.

- Julius Caesar?

- Queen Elizabeth.

Lord Tennyson.

Bless my soul, George,

if it isn't a steamboat.

- You know, I thought I heard something.

- Any chance of a tow?

(ALL LAUGHING)

Medmenham Abbey once sheltered

the notorious Hell-Fire Club.

It stands on the site of a Cistercian

monastery of the 13th century.

The monks wore rough tunics,

ate no fish, meat or eggs,

rose at midnight for mass,

and passed the day in total silence.

A mode of life which might,

if not overdone,

be a benefit to some of us,

especially Harris,

who not only eats fish, meat and eggs

at every opportunity,

but often talks at the same time.

Why isn't the kettle on, George?

- Could you spare us a little water?

- Certainly.

Thank you so much.

- Where? I mean, where do you keep it?

- It's always in the same place.

I... I don't see it.

Has it gone, then?

It's still there.

We can't drink the river, you know,

it's dangerous.

I'm sorry to hear that.

I've been drinking it meself

for the last 15 years.

It's all right if you boil the water.

- Are you sure?

- Oh, yes.

The germs are killed by the boiling.

The little crawly things

called bacillis.

Bacillis?

Yes. Can't stand the boiling.

Drives them wild.

Man said he'd drunk it for 15 years.

- How did he look?

- Not well. But he didn't boil it.

I need this.

- What's that?

- What's what?

Floating in the river.

JEROME:
A dead sheep.

I don't want any tea.

No, nor me.

Just a habit, really.

Not really thirsty.

I've already had some.

Do you think I'll get typhoid?

Well, you'll know in a week or two.

I should look up the symptoms

when you get back to London.

Oh, no, I daren't do that.

That would be fatal.

I remember once

looking at a medical dictionary

to read up the treatment for hay fever.

HARRIS:
Not now, old chap.

And I began to study diseases generally.

I'd turned to some devastating scourge

or other,

and before I had glanced half down

the list of premonitory symptoms,

it was borne in upon me that...

I've got it.

In despair, I turned over the pages,

came upon cholera, and discovered...

Cholera!

...that I'd got that, too.

I must have had it for months

without knowing.

Beginning to get interested in my case,

I decided to go at it systematically.

I started at ague,

which I was relieved to find

I had only in a modified form

and might live for years.

Bursitis, gout, impetigo and mumps

I had evidently had since boyhood.

And by the time

I had plodded through to xymosis,

the only malady I could conclude

I had not got

was housemaid's knee.

(RINGING BELL)

Well, old chap,

what's the matter with you?

I will not take up your time by

telling you what is the matter with me.

Life is brief.

So I will tell you

what is not the matter with me.

I do not have housemaid's knee.

Everything else, however, I have.

And I told him

how I came to discover it all.

Then he opened me and looked down me,

and hit me on the chest

when I wasn't expecting it.

And butted me with the side of his head.

And then sat down

and wrote out a prescription.

I took it to the chemist.

I don't keep it.

- You are a chemist?

- I am a chemist.

If I were a co-operative stores

and a family hotel combined,

I might be able to oblige you.

Being only a chemist

puts me at a disadvantage.

Well, what... What does it say?

One pound of beefsteak

with a pint of bitter every six hours,

one 10-mile walk every morning,

one bed at 11 every night,

and don't fill your head up

with things you don't understand.

- I was telling George.

- I always like hearing that one.

Have you ever done an Irish stew?

Well, not exactly, you know.

But it's very easy.

You just put in anything you want.

It's a grand way of using up

all the odds and ends.

A bit of bacon, vegetables, eggs.

Tinned salmon.

In fact, anything that comes to hand.

(STEW BUBBLING)

Something seemed to disagree

with Harris that evening.

Perhaps it was being on an island

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