Out of the boat-house opposite, came the long shell borne by the Crimson
eight. As they put it in the water another shout went up, and a volley
of cheers, for at that moment the Yale crew shot round the point from
Gale's Ferry, with a beautiful snap and dash, and "let her run" in front
of the train. They were not kept waiting long for the Cambridge men got
quickly into their boat and came swinging across, showing but one
crimson back until they turned. There was perfect precision and splendid
power in their sweep. There were five men in the boat who had never
pulled an oar in the four-mile race, but they were all good ones. Four
had rowed on their class crews; the fifth, though a Freshman, had taken
hold wonderfully, had a magnificent physique, and had come up with a
good reputation from St. Paul's. And there was Dane Austin, L.S., at
stroke, the hero of four 'Varsity races, and behind him at 7, old Billy
Bender, the iron captain who, with all luck against him, had made a
winning crew before, and certainly must have done so this year with such
material. These two could surely "hit up" the stroke indefinitely, and
in the middle of the boat towered Charlie Rivers, looking as if he could
do all his own share and that of the three men behind him, if need might
be.
Now both crews backed up to the starting boats, and off came the
jerseys. They were right opposite the car. "Attention!" "Ready!" Rivers
leaned forward and buried his blade alongside of Yale for his last
chance. He had never won. Holworthy, bent almost double, gripping his
chin in his hand, watched that statue. He could see no expression
whatever in the sunburned profile and the motionless eye fixed on the
neck before it. He wondered,--"Row!" He saw the oar bend so that his
heart stopped for a moment in the fear that the spruce would break. A
mingled roar that sounded like "YAYAVARD!" then silence so that he could
hear the clear, cool tones of Varnum, the coxswain. He saw the mighty
shoulders heave back, and swing forward again in one motion, the arms
rigid as steel pistons. Again, with not a movement of the arms. "Row!" A
third time, and this time the great muscle leaped up and the arm was
bent until the oar butt touched the chest, then shot out again like a
flash, "Row! That's good; steady, now hold it." The roar burst out
again, and this time it sounded clear enough. HAR--AR--VARD! Holworthy
took his eyes from his chum and looked at the whole picture. The little
red coxswain was even with No. 3 in the Yale boat! It had been a perfect
racing start; those three tremendous lightning strokes had shot the
Harvard eight nearly half a length ahead of their rivals. There was no
question as to which were the stronger men, but strength is the least
thing of all that wins a boat-race. After this first leap the Yale crew
hung right where it was, and would not fall clear of the Crimson oars.
At the mile flag Harvard had not increased her lead perceptibly.
"That's all right; they'll spurt in a minute," shouted Randolph. So they
did and gained a little, at least so it seemed to the Crimson wearers.
The shells were far out in the stream now, and how slowly those two
centipedes were crawling! The two eights, that had dashed away from the
starting-point (which is close to the bank), now seem to swing back and
forth with aggravating deliberation.
"There! There! now Yale's coming up!" "Not much, sir, look at that!"
Since the start that was the best struggle so far,--just before the
Navy-yard, and there was no question that this time Harvard had gained.
At the end of two miles she had a good length.
Again the Yale men spurt; gaining? no, but holding,--yes
gaining,--there! Of course the train has gone behind the island just at
the most exciting point. Everybody leans back and tries to take a long
breath. For a minute nothing is heard but the chug, chug, chug of the
train. Hark! the front cars are out, listen! But that spontaneous
indefinite yell may come from the lungs of either, or both sides. "Yale!
_Yale!_ YALE!" the two crews are even! Bow and bow to the two and a half
mile flag, and the stroke is high now. But high as it is Dane Austin is
sending it higher, for Bender behind him knows the vital importance of
leading at the three-mile flag, and has probably grunted "hit her up."
Slowly the Harvard shell pokes ahead, a yard, two, a quarter of a
length, "Harvard! Harvard! Harvard!" The Crimson coxswain shows in the
middle of the Yale crew. "Can they hold it?" "Yale is spurting like fury
too." "No, the red coxswain is dropping back." "They are even again."
"No, by Jove! Yale is ahead!" "YA-A-L-E!" Two miles and three quarters
and Yale is ahead for the first time. Another desperate spurt and the
Harvard bow comes up even again, but holds there less than a minute, and
another beautiful effort of the Yale crew sends their boat farther ahead
than before. The Cambridge men are not rowing as they were; they are
ragged; can they be weakening? There is a break somewhere; seems to be
in the middle. The Blue coxswain is going ahead fast now. Yes, there is
a decided break right in the middle of the Harvard crew. "Hullo! no
wonder! somebody is gone!" "What?" "No! Oh, d---- it all, no, not No.
4?" "Man alive, you don't know who No. 4 is." "Can't be!" "Yes, but it
is though." "Rivers, by----Charlie Rivers!"
It was. Swaying irregularly, he was throwing himself back and forward
all out of time.
"He is a passenger!" exclaimed a Yale man in the car. "It has been a
fine race, but it will be a procession now. Those big men are no use in
a boat."
"Hold on, my friend, look at that! If he _is_ a passenger he is working
his passage pretty hard still."
He did seem to gather himself for a moment, probably in response to a
yell from the coxswain, and for a second the glimpse of open water
between the boats was shut out by a Harvard spurt. It was no use. Yale
drew away again faster than ever. Rivers was growing worse and worse.
His head was loosening, but not falling yet; it was _snapping_ back at
the end of each stroke, a fault that showed he was still pulling hard,
though all out of form and time.
Hollis Holworthy had not moved from his first position since the
beginning of the race. He had taken no part in, and paid no attention to
the exclamations, shouts, and cheers around him. He had grown paler,
that was all. Only now he muttered to himself, "He is too old an oar to
pull himself out in the first two miles."
Jack Rattleton sat beside him. "He is doing it deliberately, Hol," he
said softly, with a quivering lip.
"I don't believe it, Jack. You do him injustice. He has more grit and
patience than that, and if he had not, he would not sacrifice the rest
of the crew and the Crimson to his own madness. No, I can't make it out,
but I don't believe that."
At the three and a quarter mile flag the New Haven men had a fast
increasing stretch of clear water behind them and were going easily. How
prettily they did row! A winning crew with a safe lead always does.
And now began that most pathetic spectacle, the finish of a beaten
eight-oared crew. Yet there was not one of their friends looking on who
would not have given anything to have been pulling with them then. Where
was that faultless form, that clock-like time, that glorious sweep, that
at the start had raised an exultant shout from every breast that bore
the Crimson? Much of the mighty strength was still there, but pitifully
divided against itself, and therefore fast waning. The new men were,
every one of them, "rowing out of the boat," that is to say, swinging in
a circular motion around the ends of their oars, in their desperate
efforts to pull their hardest. The temptation to do this is generally
irresistible to a green man when behind. It seems to him as if he can
pull harder in this way, and indeed it looks so to the unknowing
observer. Time and form are thrown overboard in the wild struggle to row
his heart out. Only the two old veterans at 7 and 8 were still swinging
over the keel, not a hair's breadth to starboard or port, coming forward
steadily and back with a simultaneous heave; their backs straight, their
chins in, two parallel unbroken lines from hip to crown; their oars
taking the water cleanly and together, pulled clear through, and
flashing back at once with a perfect feather. So evenly and smoothly did
they row that, to the untaught eye on the distant train, they might have
seemed to be shirking; but to those on the yacht decks along the course,
the spread nostrils, clenched jaws, and swollen veins told a very
different story. An old Yale stroke, when his hat came down on deck
again after the Yale crew had passed, let it lie where it fell as he
gazed at the struggling tail-enders, and exclaimed, "Look at those two
men in the stern. By gracious, isn't that grand!" And Rivers, the third
of the old guard, Rivers, who had been relied upon to brace the waist of
the boat, who had before rowed that terrible fourth mile in a losing
race and rowed it well; how was he finishing? Not an ounce of strength
in his blade. He was still throwing his body to and fro with the others
or nearly so, his head falling forward and back as he did so, and his
oar moved; but that was all. He was now being carried over the line by
the crew he had ruined. He alone was doing nothing; the others, though
ragged, were still pulling desperately, using up the very last of their
failing strength.
Through the buzzing in their ears they can faintly hear the guns, the
whistles, and the roar of the crowd. Not for them, not for them. What
difference does that make? They may win, or at any rate they can lose
like men. They may win, they may win. "Let her run."
Over the water from all sides come the cheers and shouts of "Yale, Yale,
Yale." Leave them, reader, if you so choose, they are beaten men; go and
rejoice with the victors who have rowed a splendid race and well deserve
your congratulations. I always take a certain morbid interest myself in
the nine heartbroken men who are quietly carried away in their launch as
soon as possible after a race.
All over and lost in twenty minutes, the work and self-denial of seven
months! The big Freshman has dropped his head on his knees and is
sobbing like a baby; of course it must be all his fault. Bill Bender is
still grimly gripping his oar and looking straight before him; that back
is bent now, but the jaw is still set, the eyes flashing, and through
his teeth he registers a vow to come back to the Law School and get at
'em again. Varnum, the coxswain, is as pale as the rest; he has rowed
every stroke of that race without the savage comfort of the physical
torture; he has seen what the others could not--the Blue coxswain going
farther and farther ahead, and he powerless to help his straining men.
They all hold on to something or clasp their knees tightly--to faint or
fall over would be a grand-stand play.
Nevertheless that was what Charles Rivers did. He swayed for a moment,
grasped blindly at the side of the shell, and fell back unconscious in
the lap of the man behind him. And then, for the first time, No. 3 saw
that the bottom of the boat was red with blood. _Rivers had broken his
sliding-seat before the two mile flag was reached, and had rowed the
last half of the race sliding back and forth on the sharp steel tracks
that cut into him at every stroke._[2]
[Footnote 2: There is no fiction about this. It was done by a Harvard
oarsman.]
Before the observation-train had fairly stopped Holworthy leaped from it
and dashed for the river bank followed by Rattleton. As they passed one
of the cars they both recognized a girl with a blue flag. Holworthy said
something that Jack did not hear; the former did not notice that the
girl's face was deadly pale and the blue flag motionless in her hand,
but the latter did.
"There is no use in our following them," said Burleigh. "They won't be
allowed to talk to the crew even if they get out to the float." Therein
he was quite right; before the two could get a boat to go out to the
Harvard float at the finish, they saw the men helped out of the shell
and onto the University launch. They saw Rivers carried aboard. Then the
launch steamed quickly up the river, towing the empty shell.
"Hullo, there is my uncle's boat," exclaimed Rattleton, pointing to a
big schooner. "I am going aboard her. You go back to New London and get
a trap, and I'll meet you at the ferry."
Holworthy ran back towards the town. On the way he met the others, who
stopped him to hear what was up.
"I don't know," he replied. "He is completely gone. I am going up to the
quarters. You fellows mustn't come. They won't allow a crowd there."
"Where is Jack?"
"Gone aboard his uncle's yacht. Rather think he has gone to ask for an
invitation for Charlie. Hope so."
"Isn't there anything we can do?"
"Not a thing. Don't try to see him, please; you probably won't have a
chance to, anyway."
"You won't dine with us then?"
"Can't possibly."
"Well then, good-bye, old man. We'll all come back together next year
and see them win."
"Good-bye. Write to a fellow once in a while and let me know how you are
all getting on in the world."
"Good-bye." "Good-bye." "Good luck to you." "Thank heaven we have all
been at Harvard anyway." This last for the benefit of a knot of radiant
men who pushed by, with violets in their button-holes, and who looked
back and laughed good-naturedly.
So "the gang" separated, and so separate constantly, after this battle,
not knowing when they will ever meet again, men who have lived together
four years and have become the closest friends that live.
Half an hour later Holworthy and Rattleton in a buggy were on their way
to Red Top. All sorts of rumors had already spread about No. 4 in the
Harvard boat, and they were really relieved to find, on arriving at the
quarters, that Rivers was nowhere near death's door, not even
permanently injured. But the great, stalwart, glorious man was weak and
limp as an invalid girl. As soon as possible they got him away from the
gloomy group at the quarters, and took him aboard the cruiser of
Rattleton's uncle for perfect rest and sparkling blue water.
There they kept him prisoner for two weeks, though before he had fairly
got back his strength, he began chafing to get to work. When at last
they let him go, he buckled down to his desk, as he had to his oar, and
kept at it until, at the end of the summer, a short vacation was forced
on him.
* * * * *
The following cablegram, received by "Herr Holz Holvordy," at St.
Moritz, explains itself:
NEWPORT, Sept. 5.
She is mine. Hurrah. Be my best man.
RIVERS.
At the wedding every one remarked what a handsome couple they were, and
how well suited to each other. Holworthy of course was best man. The
ushers were Messrs. Bender, Burleigh, Gray, Hudson, Randolph, and
Stoughton. Jack Rattleton happened to be abroad at the time.
THE END.
THE NEWEST FICTION.
DR. IZARD.
By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN, author of "The Leavenworth Case," "The Doctor,
His Wife, and the Clock," etc., etc. With frontispiece.
MASTER WILBERFORCE.
The Study of a boy. By "RITA," author of "A Gender in Satin," etc.
SENTIMENTAL STUDIES and a Set of Village Tales.
By HUBERT CRACKANTHORPE, author of "Wreckage."
CAUSE AND EFFECT.
By ELLINOR MEIRION. Uniform with "A Literary Courtship."
GOD FORSAKEN.
A novel by FREDERIC BRETON, author of "A Heroine in Homespun," etc.
CHERRYFIELD HALL.
An episode in the career of an adventuress. By FREDERIC HENRY BALFOUR
(ROSS GEORGE DERING), author of "Dr. Mirabel's Theory," "Giraldi," etc.,
etc.
THE HONOUR OF THE FLAG.
By W. CLARK RUSSELL, author of "The Wreck of the Grosvenor," etc. No. 4
in the Autonym Library.
THE HEART OF LIFE.
By W. H. MALLOCK, author of "A Romance of the Nineteenth Century," etc.,
etc.
ELIZABETH'S PRETENDERS.
By HAMILTON AIDE, author of "Poet and Peer," etc.
WATER TRAMPS or the Cruise of "The Sea Bird."
By GEORGE HERBERT BARTLETT. Uniform with "A Literary Courtship."
Frontispiece.
YALE YARNS.
By JOHN SEYMOUR WOOD. Uniform with "Harvard Stories." Illustrated.
AN ISLAND PRINCESS.
A Story of Six Weeks and Afterwards. By Theodore Gift, author of "Pretty
Miss Bellew Dishonored," etc.
BY ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
THE LEAVENWORTH CASE. A Lawyer's Story.
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.
THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES. A Story of New York Life.
CYNTHIA WAKEHAM'S MONEY. With Frontispiece.
X. Y. Z.; A Detective Story.
HAND AND RING.
A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE.
THE MILL MYSTERY.
THE OLD STONE HOUSE, AND OTHER STORIES.
7 to 12. A Detective Story.
MARKED "PERSONAL."
MISS HURD; An Enigma.
THE DOCTOR, HIS WIFE, AND THE CLOCK.
DR. IZARD. With Frontispiece.
THE DEFENCE OF THE BRIDE, AND OTHER POEMS.
RISIFI'S DAUGHTER. A DRAMA.
End of Project Gutenberg's Harvard Stories, by Waldron Kintzing Post