Under One Flag Part 26

"And what is even stranger, he tells me that you love him."

"That thing is less strange even than the other. I have loved him--oh, for years. Really, since the hour I was born. I believe that I was predestined to love him when I still was in the womb of time. I certainly have loved him for eighteen years, dear mother."

"For eighteen years? How odd! Well, Mr Ferguson, you will make her happy--always happy--won't you? And, Inez, you will be a good wife to--to Ronald? And so may every happiness be yours, you foolish pair!"

And before they suspected her intention, Lady Griswold had departed deftly.

ON THE RIVER

AN IDYLL OF A BEANFEAST

I THE PLEASURES OF THE PEOPLE

Yes, I went on the river. I thought it would give me a chance to blow off steam--and it did.

I ran down to Richmond, and I got a craft from Messum, and I turned her nose up stream, and I started to scull for Molesey, but I never got there.

It was a lovely day. There was a cloudless sky. A twittering breeze, springing into being when least expected and most desired, plashed against one's cheeks with cooling kisses, It was a day when the glamour of the waters, the magic of the stream, the poetry of the river, should have been at its best. And it was. There had been an extensive beanfeast.

And the beanfeasters had been beanfeasting.

I afterwards became acquainted with the name of the firm which had beanfeasted. It was one which stands high in the commercial aristocracy of this country. Its products are known, and respected, and bought, and eaten, and liked! the wide world over. It is understood to treat its employees well. Undoubtedly that day it had treated them well--uncommonly well--or somebody had. If there was any male person who could have been adequately described as perfectly sober, I did not see him, while there were as many as several who would have been most inadequately described as quite another kind of thing.

It was between four and five when I got afloat, an hour at which, I have since been informed, the average beanfeast begins to be beanfeasty, a point to be borne in mind. There were about five thousand beanfeasters--the statistics are pure guess-work--of whom four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine were on the river. If there were any who had been on it before they hid themselves away in nooks and crannies, and dissembled, for I am willing to a.s.sert, and even bet sixpence, that if any of those I saw had handled a scull on a previous occasion, it was in the days of their innocence, and that since then they had become hazy as to which end of it ought to be put in the water.

When I was clear of the bank I started to take my jacket off.

Immediately I was the object of remarks which, by a slight effort of the imagination, might almost have been described as personal.

"He's undressing! I say, Jim, 'ere's a bloke undressing! Now, you girls, turn yer 'eads away!"

"Excuse me, sir, but do you 'appen to 'ave observed as there's lydies present?"

"If you're a-goin' to bythe don't you do it. Git be'ind a tree. It ain't to be allard. Where's them coppers?"

"Can't yer let the gentleman alone? 'E's a-goin' to wash 'isself! Ain't no one got a kyke of soap to lend 'im?"

"Gar on! 'E's Beckwith's brother, that's who 'e is. 'E's goin' to give a little entertainment. Now then, 'and the 'at round, you'll 'ave to mike it thirteenpence before 'e's goin' to begin!"

These remarks were made in tones which were distinctly something more than audible. It was gratifying to find that the advent of an inoffensive and sober stranger could be an occasion of so much public interest. If the mere removing of my coat caused such comment, what would happen if I turned up my s.h.i.+rt sleeves? I am bound to admit that the large majority of the other oarsmen kept their coats on, either in the interests of decency or something else, and their hats too--which if the same were not "billy-c.o.c.ks" then they were "toppers." The sight of an amateur sculler with a black coat b.u.t.toned tightly across his chest, and a billy-c.o.c.k hat set on his brow at an angle of seventy-five degrees, digging the handle of his scull into the back of his friend in front of him in his efforts to keep out of time, always pleases.

Steering I found a trifle difficult. There were boats to the left and boats to the right of me, boats in the front and boats at the back of me, and as few of them seemed to have any real notion as to which direction they were going, the question became involved. I had not got properly under way before I found this out.

"Now, then, where are yer goin' to?"

This question was put to me by a gentleman in a check suit and a top hat, who was tugging at a pair of sculls as if he was having an argument with them, two male friends being fore and three females aft.

Two of the ladies had, in a playful manner, each hold of a rudder string, and as one jerked against the other the movements of the boat were of the teetotum order.

I replied to the inquiry with the courtesy which I felt that the occasion required.

"Where am I going to? Shortly, sir, I expect to go into the river, when you have finally decided to send me there."

This courtesy of mine the gentleman in the check coat and the top hat mistook for humour.

"Funny, ain't yer?"

"I shall be when they fish me out. Not a doubt of it."

"I shouldn't be surprised but what you fancies yourself."

"Should you not be surprised? Indeed. Think of that now!"

This remark of mine seemed to rouse the gentleman's ire. I do not know why. He became personal.

"I've seen better blokes nor you sold down our street two for three ha'pence, with a plate o' whelks thrown in--long-faced lardy!"

"Go a'ead, Bill, never mind 'im!"

"'Is mother don't know 'e's out!"

This from his two friends in the bow. Bill went "a'ead." He thrust his sculls into the stream, or meant to, and pulled with all his might, and caught a crab, and went backwards on to the twain in the prow. It was a marvel the craft did not go over. The ladies screamed, the gentlemen struggled, but there is a providence which attends on fools, and the last I saw of them, Bill, having another row with the sculls, was starting in pursuit of his top hat, which floated on the s.h.i.+ning waters.

This sort of thing was doing me good. Ordinarily I should have resented Richmond emulating Hampstead Heath on a Bank Holiday; but, things being as they were, the position gave my nervous system just that fillip it required. I felt that if I could only have a row royal with some half-dozen of those beanfeasters--a good old-fas.h.i.+oned s.h.i.+ndy--they would enjoy themselves and I should, and I should go back to dream dreams with a sound mind in a sound body, even though the latter was ornamented by a bruise or two.

I had that trifling argument, dear me, yes. Shades of my sires! what displays of oarsmans.h.i.+p I saw that afternoon.

"I say, matey, give us 'old of that there oar!"

The request came from an individual who formed one of a crew of four, with the usual eight or ten pa.s.sengers, and who was looking with a certain amount of longing at a scull which was drifting on the stream towards me.

"How did you happen to lose it?" I inquired, as I drew it towards me.

"It was my friend as done it; 'e 'it it out of my 'and."

This was an allusion to the rower in front of him, which the rower resented.

"'Ow do yer make that out? Didn't you clout me in the middle of the back with it, and ain't you been clouting me with it all the way along, and didn't I say to you, ''Enery, if you keeps on a-doing that something'll 'appen'?"

The gentleman who had been deprived of his scull dissented.

"If you knocks your back against my oar what's that got to do with me?"

"Why, you crackpot, don't you know better than that? If you was to 'old your oar as you ought to, I shouldn't come agin it, should I?"

"It's easy talking!"