One morning Percivale took a holiday in order to give me one, and we went to spend it at Richmond. It was the anniversary of our marriage; and as we wanted to enjoy it thoroughly, and, precious as children are, every pleasure is not enhanced by their company, we left ours at home,—Ethel and her brother Roger (named after Percivale's father), who was now nearly a year old, and wanted a good deal of attention. It was a lovely day, with just a sufficient number of passing clouds to glorify—that is, to do justice to—the sunshine, and a gentle breeze, which itself seemed to be taking a holiday, for it blew only just when you wanted it, and then only enough to make you think of that wind which, blowing where it lists, always blows where it is wanted. We took the train to Hammersmith; for my husband, having consulted the tide-table, and found that the river would be propitious, wished to row me from there to Richmond. How gay the river-side looked, with its fine broad landing stage, and the numberless boats ready to push off on the swift water, which kept growing and growing on the shingly shore! Percivale, however, would hire his boat at a certain builder's shed, that I might see it. That shed alone would have been worth coming to see—such a picture of loveliest gloom—as if it had been the cave where the twilight abode its time! You could not tell whether to call it light or shade,—that diffused presence of a soft elusive brown; but is what we call shade any thing but subdued light? All about, above, and below, lay the graceful creatures of the water, moveless and dead here on the shore, but there—launched into their own elemental world, and blown upon by the living wind—endowed at once with life and motion and quick response.
Not having been used to boats, I felt nervous as we got into the long, sharp-nosed, hollow fish which Percivale made them shoot out on the rising tide; but the slight fear vanished almost the moment we were afloat, when, ignorant as I was of the art of rowing, I could not help seeing how perfectly Percivale was at home in it. The oars in his hands were like knitting-needles in mine, so deftly, so swimmingly, so variously, did he wield them. Only once my fear returned, when he stood up in the swaying thing—a mere length without breadth—to pull off his coat and waistcoat; but he stood steady, sat down gently, took his oars quietly, and the same instant we were shooting so fast through the rising tide that it seemed as if we were pulling the water up to Richmond.
"Wouldn't you like to steer?" said my husband. "It would amuse you."
"I should like to learn," I said,—"not that I want to be amused; I am too happy to care for amusement."
"Take those two cords behind you, then, one in each hand, sitting between them. That will do. Now, if you want me to go to your right, pull your right-hand cord; if you want me to go to your left, pull your left-hand one."
I made an experiment or two, and found the predicted consequences follow: I ran him aground, first on one bank, then on the other. But when I did so a third time,—
"Come! come!" he said: "this won't do, Mrs. Percivale. You're not trying your best. There is such a thing as gradation in steering as well as in painting, or music, or any thing else that is worth doing."
"I pull the right line, don't I?" I said; for I was now in a mood to tease him.
"Yes—to a wrong result," he answered. "You must feel your rudder, as you would the mouth of your horse with the bit, and not do any thing violent, except in urgent necessity."
I answered by turning the head of the boat right towards the nearer bank.