"St. Jude's is not much patronised. The service is long and low, and the church half empty."
"So much the better."
Then he changed the subject, and as the moon rose and made the river look romantic, grandpapa tried to invent a bit of poetry about Phyllis, and failed.
"Oh, Phyllis mine, come let us twine our arms about each other's necks," he began. Then he turned to me and said--
"Put that flask away, Martha; you think I can't see you, but I can. 'Our arms about each other's necks.' Then, let me see, what rhymes with 'necks'?"
"Cheques," I answered, humouring him.
"Ah, that would come in if this was an ordinary, modern sort of love match, but it isn't. I want something pastoral or idyllic. Let me see, where 'd I got to? 'Come, Phyllis mine, and let us twine our arms about each other's necks.' Wrecks, decks, specks, flecks, pecks. Necks is 'off.' Let's try 'each other's waists.' Waste, raced, paste, taste, graced, laced, haste----"
Then he ran into the bank and abandoned verse, and fell back upon lurid prose, which he applied to me and my management of the rudder lines.
"What d' you think you're doing, you muddle-headed old mummy? Sit straight and look at the river, not at the moon. I'll make you sign the pledge to-morrow, blessed if I don't! You'll have more water with your whisky than you want in a moment. Oh, Lord! never again--never. Pull the right string--the right. Holy mouse! On Sunday evening too!"
Finally I gave up the lines, being really far from well, and he unshipped the rudder and made me sit in the bottom of the boat. I don't know what possessed me, but I felt quite happy in spite of my passing dizziness, and when a boat went by us, with a young man in it playing on a banjo and singing, I sang too. It was the first time I had done so for forty years.