The "Flower of Gloster,"

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CHAPTER

I The Discoverer

II The "Flower of Gloster"

II The "flower Of Gloster"

THESE things are easily said. It is the devil and all to accomplish them. Everyone I knew I asked, " Where can I get a barge? " It was a foolish question to make, and one to which, as often as not, I received the foolish reply, " What for? "

What in the name of Heaven could one want a barge for, unless it were in which to travel on those waters where all barges may be found? Out of its element, doubtless, it is the ugliest thing the hand of man ever created; but sinking low in the still waters of those silent canals, its blunt, good-natured nose thrusting the long ripples to either side, travelling from one old town to another with its happy-golucky two and three miles an hour, it is the most wonderful vehicle in the world.

There came a time when I grew sick of that answer. Then I went down to the Regent's Park Basin, where all those barges going east, west, and north, collect and discharge their cargo.

"Hire a barge?" said they. "Where do you want to go? "

"Anywhere," I replied. "You don't think I'm looking for an express method of conveyance."

They gazed from one to the other with amusement that was more or less respectful. The world is full of fools, of course, and none so great a fool is there as he who would think to find time for play with that which is another man's labour. They did not say as much as this. They thought it in their several ways, every single one of them. I doubt if I should have shown as much respect to the man who came and asked me where he could get pens, ink, and paper, for that he was going to spend his holidays a-writing.

But the bargee, notwithstanding all that reputation he has earned, has the innate sense of politeness which only the breeding of nature can give to a man. More than half his days, gliding peacefully through those winding stretches of water, with the great breadth of a glorious country on either side of him, he is in closest touch with the best that nature has to give. Often without education, without even the knowledge of how to read or write, he lives a life of complete and untouched simplicity. He is a law almost to himself.

Now they would have you believe, the apostles of civilisation, that man is a social creature, thriving, developing, progressing through the medium of the community. That elusive word — gentleman — which no one understands and few can emulate, has been coined by a class calling itself Society. Society has bred the gentleman, just as the Irish have bred the race-horse, the only difference being that the Irishman knows a race-horse when he sees it.

But just as the race-horse is not the only animal of that species in existence, so the gentleman is not the only man. What is more, he is not the only gentleman. The fact of the matter is, Society has lost its cunning in breeding the race. They have outbred the stock which made them famous. Nature can breed far finer gentlemen now than ever Society puts forth into the field. For it is not luxury which is the food for the species, but that work and that labour bringing the sweat honestly to the brow. And the bargee, for all his rough-and-readiness, is one of the many gentlemen of Nature I have met

When, failing to discover at the Regent's Park Basin where I might hire a barge, I betook myself to headquarters and made inquiries at the offices of one of the canal navigations, I was told that I probably did not realise the class of men with whom I should have to mix.

" They're not gentlemen, you know," said the officer with a smile. " And if you take out a barge yourself, you'll probably come a great deal in contact with them."

" Now what," said I, " do you mean by a gentleman? "

I think his smile was compassionate. For the moment he believed I was as ignorant of the matter as himself. Whereupon he shrugged his shoulders as one who would say: " My dear sir — a gentleman? To a gentleman the term explains itself."

But it was his shrug of the shoulders that I answered. What is more, I took the opportunity of translating it as I chose.

" You see," said I, " how unhappy a word that is. A shrug of the shoulders won't dispose of it. Nevertheless, in your opinion it comes to this — the bargee is not a gentleman. But if neither you nor I know what a gentleman is — for I swear to God that I don't, — why should it concern you that I hire a barge, or me that I must mix with bargees in the hiring of it? "

Now the offices of the canal navigation are dusty rooms. The dust hangs heavily on all the maps that surround the walls. Were it the office of a mortuary or the room of the little man who kept the records in the Morgue, there would be more business done there in an idle day. As it is, so far as I could see, the only company the officer keeps are his papers. To be suddenly confronted, then, by a strange individual, who immediately plunges into some abstruse controversy as to the meaning of the word gentleman, was a little more than he could bear. I think io THE "FLOWER OF GLOSTER"

some of the dust of the office must long have got into his brain, for the more I said, the more confused he grew. Had I brought a feather brush with me, and ruthlessly swept the dust from every shelf and cranny in the place, I could scarce have upset him more.

When, then, I saw him growing red in the face, I changed the subject.

" In any case, 1 ' said I, " it concerns me more to know if I can hire a barge."

" You can hire twenty,' 1 he replied. " But I prefer you did it than I. Do you intend to sleep on board? 11

I confessed it had been my intention.

" Then you won^ want an old manure barge?"

" I might feel a prejudice against that," said I.

He fell to looking over some papers. Presently he raised his head.

" There^ a barge at Oxford," he informed me. " She used to be on the Thames and Severn Canal — carried stone — wood sometimes. She's just been done up at Braunston and brought along there. If you went down there at once and saw the owner, he might hire her to you for a couple of months, and make a bit out of it himself."

"What's her name?" said I.

" The Flower of Gloster."

Now when he said that, then I knew she was mine. The Flower of Gloster! The name alone would have disinfected her of all the disagreeable odours in the world.

Ill

THE "FLOWER OF GLOSTER"

continued

IN matters of this kind, a fine sounding name has much to do with the success of the venture. Alice Louise may have been at heart a noble creature, meaning all that was admirable in a wife to the man who named his barge after her. But to you who know nothing of Alice Louise and all her sterling qualities, there is not that sweetness in the name which will destroy a cargo of gas-water of all its unpleasant odours.

If the clothes he wears, and the title he has won, have anything to do with your respect of a man, then look to the painting and the naming of your barge. And if she have half so fine a name as the Flower of Gloster, take her at once as I did. A coat of paint is, any day, an easier matter than a christening.

For Fate orders these things much to her own liking. All the ships that ever made history for England were nobly called. The Bellerophon! There was a boastful name, well chosen to carry into banishment the greatest maker of history the world has ever seen. Fate looked to it, too, that he was greatly named as well. What but great things could come

V to pass on the Victory? Where better could they happen than at Trafalgar?

With such a name as Nelson, battles at sea were made to be won; though, indeed, I knew a bank clerk of that surname who never so much as won the approbation of his manager. True, they had not christened him Horatio, and doubtless that made much of the difference.

" But all this," said I, as the officer regarded my sudden decision with amazement, " all this is

THE " FLOWER OF GLOSTER "

a matter of sentiment and comes nowhere in our reckoning."

" 'Twould be more to the point," replied he, " if you inquire the cost of the hiring."

" At any price," said I, " the Flower of Gloster would be cheap."

Whereupon he settled back in his chair, together with the dust that I had raised upon my entrance, and, thanking him, as any man should be thanked for coming so far out of his groove as to speak to me, I left him and set off for Oxford.