The river is sweetly pretty
just there before you come to the gates, and the backwater is charming;
but don't attempt to row up it.
I tried to do so once. I was sculling, and asked the fellows who were
steering if they thought it could be done, and they said, oh, yes, they
thought so, if I pulled hard. We were just under the little foot-bridge
that crosses it between the two weirs, when they said this, and I bent
down over the sculls, and set myself up, and pulled.
I pulled splendidly. I got well into a steady rhythmical swing. I put
my arms, and my legs, and my back into it. I set myself a good, quick,
dashing stroke, and worked in really grand style. My two friends said it
was a pleasure to watch me. At the end of five minutes, I thought we
ought to be pretty near the weir, and I looked up. We were under the
bridge, in exactly the same spot that we were when I began, and there
were those two idiots, injuring themselves by violent laughing. I had
been grinding away like mad to keep that boat stuck still under that
bridge. I let other people pull up backwaters against strong streams
now.
We sculled up to Walton, a rather large place for a riverside town. As
with all riverside places, only the tiniest corner of it comes down to
the water, so that from the boat you might fancy it was a village of some
half-dozen houses, all told.
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