Produced by James Rusk
HARD CASH
By Charles Reade
[Transcriber's Note: Italics are indicated by underscores.
The pound sign is indicated by L. No attempt has been made
to transcribe Greek text or sheet music. Accent marks in
foreign words are ignored. Two chapters named Chapter XLI.]
PREFACE
“HARD CASH,” like “The Cloister and the Hearth,” is a matter-of-fact
Romance--that is, a fiction built on truths; and these truths have
been gathered by long, severe, systematic labour, from a multitude
of volumes, pamphlets, journals, reports, blue-books, manuscript
narratives, letters, and living people, whom I have sought out,
examined, and cross-examined, to get at the truth on each main topic I
have striven to handle.
The madhouse scenes have been picked out by certain disinterested
gentlemen, who keep private asylums, and periodicals to puff them;
and have been met with bold denials of public facts, and with timid
personalities, and a little easy cant about Sensation* Novelists; but
in reality those passages have been written on the same system as the
nautical, legal, and other scenes: the best evidence has been ransacked;
and a large portion of this evidence I shall be happy to show at my
house to any brother writer who is disinterested, and really cares
enough for truth and humanity to walk or ride a mile in pursuit of them.
CHARLES READE.
6 BOLTON ROW, MAYFAIR,
December 5, 1868.
* This slang term is not quite accurate as applied to me.
Without sensation there can be no interest: but my plan is
to mix a little character and a little philosophy with the
sensational element.
HARD CASH
PROLOGUE
IN a snowy villa, with a sloping lawn, just outside the great commercial
seaport, Barkington, there lived a few years ago a happy family. A
lady, middle-aged, but still charming; two young friends of hers; and a
periodical visitor.
The lady was Mrs. Dodd; her occasional visitor was her husband; her
friends were her son Edward, aged twenty, and her daughter Julia,
nineteen, the fruit of a misalliance.
Mrs. Dodd was originally Miss Fountain, a young lady well born,
high bred, and a denizen of the fashionable world. Under a strange
concurrence of circumstances she coolly married the captain of an East
Indiaman. The deed done, and with her eyes open, for she was not,
to say, in love with him, she took a judicious line--and kept it: no
hankering after Mayfair, no talking about “Lord this” and “Lady that,”
to commercial gentlewomen; no amphibiousness. She accepted her place
in society, reserving the right to embellish it with the graces she had
gathered in a higher sphere. In her home, and in her person, she
was little less elegant than a countess; yet nothing more than a
merchant-captain's wife; and she reared that commander's children in a
suburban villa, with the manners which adorn a palace. When they happen
to be there. She had a bugbear; Slang. Could not endure the smart
technicalities current; their multitude did not overpower her distaste;
she called them “jargon”--“slang” was too coarse a word for her to apply
to slang: she excluded many a good “racy idiom” along with the real
offenders; and monosyllables in general ran some risk of' having to show
their passports. If this was pedantry, it went no further; she was open,
free, and youthful with her young pupils; and had the art to put herself
on their level: often, when they were quite young, she would feign
infantine ignorance, in order to hunt trite truth in couples with them,
and detect, by joint experiment, that rainbows cannot, or else will
not, be walked into, nor Jack-o'-lantern be gathered like a cowslip; and
that, dissect we the vocal dog--whose hair is so like a lamb's--never so
skilfully, no fragment of palpable bark, no sediment of tangible squeak,
remains inside him to bless the inquisitive little operator, &c., &c.
When they advanced from these elementary branches to Languages, History,
Tapestry, and “What Not,” she managed still to keep by their side
learning with them, not just hearing them lessons down from the top of
a high tower of maternity. She never checked their curiosity, but made
herself share it; never gave them, as so many parents do, a white-lying
answer; wooed their affections with subtle though innocent art, thawed
their reserve, obtained their love, and retained their respect. Briefly,
a female Chesterfield; her husband's lover after marriage, though not
before; and the mild monitress the elder sister, the favourite companion
and bosom friend of both her children.
They were remarkably dissimilar; and perhaps I may be allowed to preface
the narrative of their adventures by a delineation; as in country
churches an individual pipes the keynote, and the tune comes raging
after.
Edward, then, had a great calm eye, that was always looking folk full
in the face, mildly; his countenance comely and manly, but no more; too
square for Apollo; but sufficed for John Bull. His figure it was that
charmed the curious observer of male beauty. He was five feet ten;
had square shoulders, a deep chest, masculine flank, small foot, high
instep. To crown all this, a head, overflowed by ripples of dark brown
hair, sat with heroic grace upon his solid white throat, like some
glossy falcon new lighted on a Parian column.
This young gentleman had decided qualities, positive and negative. He
could walk up to a five-barred gate and clear it, alighting on the other
side like a fallen feather; could row all day, and then dance all night;
could fling a cricket ball a hundred and six yards; had a lathe and
a tool-box, and would make you in a trice a chair, a table, a doll,
a nutcracker, or any other moveable, useful, or the very reverse. And
could not learn his lessons, to save his life.
His sister Julia was not so easy to describe. Her figure was tall,
lithe, and serpentine; her hair the colour of a horse-chestnut fresh
from its pod; her ears tiny and shell-like, her eyelashes long and
silky; her mouth small when grave, large when smiling; her eyes pure
hazel by day, and tinged with a little violet by night. But in jotting
down these details, true as they are, I seem to myself to be painting
fire, with a little snow and saffron mixed on a marble pallet. There is
a beauty too spiritual to be chained in a string of items; and Julia's
fair features were but the china vessel that brimmed over with the
higher loveliness of her soul. Her essential charm was, what shall I
say? Transparence.
“You would have said her very body thought.”
Modesty, Intelligence, and, above all, Enthusiasm, shone through her,
and out of her, and made her an airy, fiery, household joy. Briefly, an
incarnate sunbeam.
This one could learn her lessons with unreasonable rapidity, and until
Edward went to Eton, would insist upon learning his into the bargain,
partly with the fond notion of coaxing him on, as the company of a swift
horse incites a slow one; partly because she was determined to share his
every trouble, if she could not remove it. A little choleric, and indeed
downright prone to that more generous indignation which fires at the
wrongs of others. When heated with emotion, or sentiment, she lowered
her voice, instead of raising it like the rest of us. She called her
mother “Lady Placid,” and her brother “Sir Imperturbable.” And so much
for outlines.
Mrs. Dodd laid aside her personal ambition with her maiden name; but she
looked high for her children. Perhaps she was all the more ambitious for
them, that they had no rival aspirant in Mrs. Dodd. She educated Julia
herself from first to last: but with true feminine distrust of her power
to mould a lordling of creation, she sent Edward to Eton, at nine. This
was slackening her tortoise; for at Eton is no female master, to coax
dry knowledge into a slow head. However, he made good progress in two
branches--aquatics and cricket.
After Eton came the choice of a profession. His mother recognised but
four; and these her discreet ambition speedily sifted down to two. For
military heroes are shot now and then, however pacific the century; and
naval ones drowned. She would never expose her Edward to this class
of accidents. Glory by all means; glory by the pail; but safe glory,
please; or she would none of it. Remained the church and the bar: and,
within these reasonable limits, she left her dear boy free as air;
and not even hurried--there was plenty of time to choose: he must pass
through the university to either. This last essential had been settled
about a twelvemonth, and the very day for his going to Oxford was at
hand, when one morning Mr. Edward formally cleared his throat: it was
an unusual act, and drew the ladies' eyes upon him. He followed the
solemnity up by delivering calmly and ponderously a connected discourse,
which astonished them by its length and purport. “Mamma, dear, let us
look the thing in the face.” (This was his favourite expression, as
well as habit.) “I have been thinking it quietly over for the last six
months. Why send me to the university? I shall be out of place there.
It will cost you a lot of money, and no good. Now, you take a fool's
advice; don't you waste your money and papa's, sending a dull fellow
like me to Oxford. I did bad enough at _Eton._ Make me an engineer, or
something. If you were not so fond of me, and I of you, I'd say send me
to Canada, with a pickaxe; you know I have got no headpiece.”
Mrs. Dodd had sat aghast, casting Edward deprecating looks at the close
of each ponderous sentence, but too polite to interrupt a soul, even a
son talking nonsense. She now assured him she could afford very well to
send him to Oxford, and begged leave to remind him that he was too good
and too sensible to run up bills there, like the young men who did
not really love their parents. “Then, as for learning, why, we must be
reasonable in our turn. Do the best you can, love. We know you have no
great turn for the classics; we do not expect you to take high honours
like young Mr. Hardie; besides, that might make your head ache: he
has sad headaches, his sister told Julia. But, my dear, an university
education is indispensable Do but see how the signs of it follow a
gentleman through life, to say nothing of the valuable acquaintances and
lasting friendships he makes there: even those few distinguished persons
who have risen in the would without it, have openly regretted the want,
and have sent their children: and _that_ says volumes to me.”
“Why, Edward, it is the hall-mark of a gentleman,” said Julia eagerly.
Mrs. Dodd caught a flash of her daughter: “And my silver shall never be
without it,” said she warmly. She added presently, in her usual placid
tone, “I beg your pardon, my dears, I ought to have said my gold.” With
this she kissed Edward tenderly on the brow, and drew an embrace and a
little grunt of resignation from him. “Take the dear boy and show him
our purchases, love!” said Mrs. Dodd, with a little gentle accent of
half reproach, scarce perceptible to a male ear.
“Oh, yes,” and Julia rose and tripped to the door. There she stood
a moment, half turned, with arching neck, colouring with innocent
pleasure. “Come, darling. Oh, you good-for-nothing thing.”
The pair found a little room hard by, paved with china, crockery, glass,
baths, kettles, &c.
“There, sir. Look them in the face; and us, if you can.”
“Well, you know, I had no idea you had been and bought a cart-load of
things for Oxford.” His eye brightened; he whipped out a two-foot rule,
and began to calculate the cubic contents. “I'll turn to and make the
cases, Ju.”
The ladies had their way; the cases were made and despatched; and one
morning the Bus came for Edward, and stopped at the gate of Albion
Villa. At this sight mother and daughter both turned their heads quickly
away by one independent impulse, and set a bad example. Apparently
neither of them had calculated on this paltry little detail; they were
game for theoretical departures; to impalpable universities: and “an
air-drawn Bus, a Bus of the mind,” would not have dejected for a moment
their lofty Spartan souls on glory bent; safe glory. But here was a Bus
of wood, and Edward going bodily away inside it. The victim kissed them,
threw up his portmanteau and bag, and departed serene as Italian skies;
the victors watched the pitiless Bus quite out of sight; then went up
to his bedroom, all disordered by packing, and, on the very face of it,
vacant; and sat down on his little bed intertwining and weeping.
Edward was received at Exeter College, as young gentlemen are received
at college; and nowhere else, I hope, for the credit of Christendom.
They showed him a hole in the roof, and called it an “Attic;” grim
pleasantry! being a puncture in the modern Athens. They inserted him;
told him what hour at the top of the morning he must be in chapel;
and left him to find out his other ills. His cases were welcomed like
Christians, by the whole staircase. These undergraduates abused one
another's crockery as their own: the joint stock of breakables had just
dwindled very low, and Mrs. Dodd's bountiful contribution was a godsend.
The new comer soon found that his views of a learned university had been
narrow. Out of place in it? why, he could not have taken his wares to a
better market; the modern Athens, like the ancient, cultivates muscle
as well as mind. The captain of the university eleven saw a cricket-ball
thrown all across the ground; he instantly sent a professional bowler
to find out who that was; through the same ambassador the thrower was
invited to play on club days; and proving himself an infallible catch
and long-stop, a mighty thrower, a swift runner, and a steady, though
not very brilliant bat, he was, after one or two repulses, actually
adopted into the university eleven. He communicated this ray of glory
by letter to his mother and sister with genuine delight, coldly and
clumsily expressed; they replied with feigned and fluent rapture.
Advancing steadily in that line of academic study towards which his
genius lay, he won a hurdle race, and sent home a little silver hurdle;
and soon after brought a pewter pot, with a Latin inscription recording
the victory at “Fives” of Edward Dodd: but not too arrogantly; for in
the centre of the pot was this device, “The Lord Is My Illumination.”
The Curate of Sandford, who pulled number six in the Exeter boat, left
Sandford for Witney: on this he felt he could no longer do his college
justice by water, and his parish by land, nor escape the charge of
pluralism, preaching at Witney and rowing at Oxford. He fluctuated,
sighed, kept his Witney, and laid down his oar. Then Edward was solemnly
weighed in his jersey and flannel trousers, and proving only eleven
stone eight, whereas he had been ungenerously suspected of twelve
stone,* was elected to the vacant oar by acclamation. He was a picture
in a boat; and, “Oh!!! well pulled, six!!” was a hearty ejaculation
constantly hurled at him from the bank by many men of other colleges,
and even by the more genial among the cads, as the Exeter glided at ease
down the river, or shot up it in a race.
*There was at this time a prejudice against weight, which
has yielded to experience
He was now as much talked of in the university as any man of his
college, except one. Singularly enough that one was his townsman; but
no friend of his; he was much Edward's senior in standing, though not in
age; and this is a barrier the junior must not step over--without direct
encouragement--at Oxford. Moreover, the college was a large one, and
some of “the sets” very exclusive: young Hardie was Doge of a studious
clique; and careful to make it understood that he was a reading man who
boated and cricketed, to avoid the fatigue of lounging; not a boatman or
cricketer who strayed into Aristotle in the intervals of Perspiration.
His public running since he left Harrow was as follows: the prize poem
in his fourth term; the sculls in his sixth; the Ireland scholarship
in his eighth (he pulled second for it the year before); Stroke of the
Exeter in his tenth; and reckoned sure of a first class to consummate
his twofold career.
To this young Apollo, crowned with variegated laurel, Edward looked up
from a distance. The brilliant creature never bestowed a word on him by
land; and by water only such observations as the following: “Time, Six!”
“Well pulled, Six!” “Very well pulled, Six!” Except, by-the-bye, one
race; when he swore at him like a trooper for not being quicker at
starting. The excitement of nearly being bumped by Brasenose in the
first hundred yards was an excuse. However, Hardie apologised as they
were dressing in the barge after the race; but the apology was so stiff,
it did not pave the way to an acquaintance.
Young Hardie, rising twenty-one, thought nothing human worthy of
reverence, but Intellect. Invited to dinner, on the same day, with the
Emperor of Russia, and with Voltaire, and with meek St. John, he would
certainly have told the coachman to put him down at Voltaire.
His quick eye detected Edward's character; but was not attracted by it:
says he to one of his adherents, “What a good-natured spoon that Dodd
is; Phoebus, what a name!” Edward, on the other hand, praised this
brilliant in all his letters, and recorded his triumphs and such of his
witty sayings as leaked through his own set, to reinvigorate mankind.
This roused Julia's ire. It smouldered through three letters; but burst
out when there was no letter; but Mrs. Dodd, meaning, Heaven knows, no
harm, happened to say meekly, _a propos_ of Edward, “You know, love,
we cannot all be young Hardies.” “No, and thank Heaven,” said Julia
defiantly. “Yes, mamma,” she continued, in answer to Mrs. Dodd's
eyebrow, which had curved; “your mild glance reads my soul; I detest
that boy.” Mrs. Dodd smiled: “Are you sure you know what the word
'detest' means? And what has young Mr. Hardie done, that you should
bestow so violent a sentiment on him?”
“Mamma, I am Edward's sister,” was the tragic reply; then, kicking off
the buskin pretty nimbly, “There! he beats our boy at everything, and
ours sits quietly down and admires him for it: oh! how can a man let
anybody or anything beat him! I wouldn't; without a desperate struggle.”
She clenched her white teeth and imagined the struggle. To be sure, she
owned she had never seen this Mr. Hardie; but after all it was only Jane
Hardie's brother, as Edward was hers; “And would I sit down and let Jane
beat me at Things? Never! never! never! I couldn't.”
“Your friend to the death, dear; was not that your expression?”
“Oh, that was a slip of the tongue, dear mamma; I was off my guard. I
generally am, by the way. But now I am on it, and propose an amendment.
Now I second it. Now I carry it.”
“And now let me hear it.”
“She is my friend till death--or Eclipse; and that means until she
eclipses me, of course.” But she added softly, and with sudden gravity:
“Ah! Jane Hardie has a fault which will always prevent her from
eclipsing your humble servant in this wicked world.”
“What is that?”
“She is too good. Much.”
“Par exemple?”
“Too religious.”
“Oh, that is another matter.”
“For shame, mamma! I am glad to hear it: for I scorn a life of
frivolity; but then, again, I should not like to give up everything, you
know.” Mrs. Dodd looked a little staggered, too, at so vast a scheme
of capitulation. But “everything” was soon explained to mean balls,
concerts, dinner-parties in general, tea-parties without exposition of
Scripture, races, and operas, cards, charades, and whatever else amuses
society without perceptibly sanctifying it. All these, by Julia's
account, Miss Hardie had renounced, and was now denouncing (with the
young the latter verb treads on the very heels of the former). “And, you
know, she is a district visitor.”
This climax delivered, Julia stopped short, and awaited the result.
Mrs. Dodd heard it all with quiet disapproval and cool incredulity.
She had seen so many young ladies healed of many young enthusiasms by
a wedding ring. But, while she was searching diligently in her mine
of ladylike English--mine with plenty of water in it, begging her
pardon--for expressions to convey inoffensively, and roundabout, her
conviction that Miss Hardie was a little, furious simpleton, the post
came and swept the subject away in a moment.
Two letters; one from Calcutta, one from Oxford.
They came quietly in upon one salver, and were opened and read with
pleasurable interest, but without surprise, or misgiving; and without
the slightest foretaste of their grave amid singular consequences.
Rivers deep and broad start from such little springs.
David's letter was of unusual length for him. The main topics were,
first, the date and manner of his return home. His ship, a very old one,
had been condemned in port: and he was to sail a fine new teak-built
vessel, the _Agra,_ as far as the Cape; where her captain, just
recovered from a severe illness, would come on board, and convey her
and him to England. In future, Dodd was to command one of the Company's
large steamers to Alexandria and back.
“It is rather a come-down for a sailor, to go straight ahead like a
wheelbarrow in all weathers with a steam-pot and a crew of coalheavers.
But then I shall not be parted from my sweetheart such long dreary
spells as I have been thus twenty years, my dear love: so is it for me
to complain?”
The second topic was pecuniary; the transfer of their savings from
India, where interest was higher than at home, but the capital not so
secure.
And the third was ardent and tender expressions of affection for
the wife and children he adored. These effusions of the heart had no
separate place, except in my somewhat arbitrary analysis of the honest
sailor's letter; they were the under current. Mrs. Dodd read part of it
out to Julia; in fact all but the money matter: that concerned the heads
of the family more immediately; and Cash was a topic her daughter did
not understand, nor care about. And when Mrs. Dodd had read it with
glistening eyes, she kissed it tenderly, and read it all over again
to herself, and then put it into her bosom as naively as a milkmaid in
love.
Edward's letter was short enough, and Mrs. Dodd allowed Julia to read
it to her, which she did with panting breath, and glowing cheeks, and a
running fire of comments.
“'Dear Mamma, I hope you and Ju are quite well----'”
“Ju,” murmured Mrs. Dodd plaintively.
“'And that there is good news about papa coming home. As for me, I
have plenty on my hands just now; all this term I have been ['training'
scratched out, and another word put in: C -- R -- oh, I know)
'cramming.'”
“'Cramming,' love?”
“Yes, that is the Oxfordish for studying.”
“'--For smalls.'”
Mrs. Dodd contrived to sigh interrogatively. Julia, who understood her
every accent, reminded her that “smalls” was the new word for “little
go.”
“'--Cramming for smalls; and now I am in two races at Henley, and that
rather puts the snaffie on reading and gooseberry pie' (Goodness me),
'and adds to my chance of being ploughed for smalls.'”
“What does it all mean?” inquired mamma, “'gooseberry pie'? and 'the
snaffle'? and 'ploughed'?”
“Well, the gooseberry pie is really too deep for me: but 'ploughed'
is the new Oxfordish for 'plucked.' O mamma, have you forgotten that?
'Plucked' was vulgar, so now they are 'ploughed.' 'For smalls; but I
hope I shall not be, to vex you and Puss.'”
“Heaven forbid he should be so disgraced! But what has the cat to do
with it?”
“Nothing on earth. Puss? that is me. How dare he? Did I not forbid all
these nicknames and all this Oxfordish, by proclamation, last Long.”
“Last Long?”
“Hem! last protracted vacation.”
“'--Dear mamma, sometimes I cannot help being down in the mouth,'
(why, it is a string of pearls) 'to think you have not got a son like
Hardie.'” At this unfortunate reflection it was Julia's turn to suffer.
She deposited the letter in her lap, and fired up. “Now, have not I
cause to hate, and scorn, and despise le petit Hardie?”
“Julia!”
“I mean to dislike with propriety, and gently to abominate--Mr. Hardie,
junior.”
“'--Dear mamma, do come to Henley on the tenth, you and Ju. The
university eights will not be there, but the head boats of the Oxford
and Cambridge river will; and the Oxford head boat is Exeter, you know;
and I pull Six.'”
“Then I am truly sorry to hear it; my poor boy will overtask his
strength; and how unfair of the other young gentlemen; it seems
ungenerous; unreasonable; my poor child against so many.”
“'--And I am entered for the sculls as well, and if you and “the
Impetuosity”' (Vengeance!) 'were looking on from the bank, I do think I
should be lucky this time. Henley is a long way from Barkington, but it
is a pretty place; all the ladies admire it, and like to see both the
universities out and a stunning race.' Oh, well, there _is_ an epithet.
One would think thunder was going to race lightning, instead of Oxford
Cambridge.”
“'--If you can come, please write, and I will get you nice lodgings; I
will not let you go to a noisy inn. Love to Julia and no end of kisses
to my pretty mamma. --From your affectionate Son,
“'EDWARD DODD.'”
They wrote off a cordial assent, and reached Henley in time to see the
dullest town in Europe; and also to see it turn one of the gayest in
an hour or two; so impetuously came both the universities pouring into
it--in all known vehicles that could go _their_ pace--by land and water.
CHAPTER I
IT was a bright hot day in June. Mrs. Dodd and Julia sat half reclining,
with their parasols up, in an open carriage, by the brink of the Thames
at one of its loveliest bends.
About a furlong up stream a silvery stone bridge, just mellowed by time,
spanned the river with many fair arches. Through these the coming river
peeped sparkling a long way above, then came meandering and shining
down; loitered cool and sombre under the dark vaults, then glistened on
again crookedly to the spot where sat its two fairest visitors that
day; but at that very point flung off its serpentine habits, and shot
straight away in a broad stream of scintillating water a mile long, down
to an island in mid-stream: a little fairy island with old trees, and
a white temple. To curl round this fairy isle the broad current parted,
and both silver streams turned purple in the shade of the grove; then
winded and melted from the sight.
This noble and rare passage of the silvery Thames was the Henley
racecourse. The starting-place was down at the island, and the goal was
up at a point in the river below the bridge, but above the bend
where Mrs. Dodd and Julia sat, unruffled by the racing, and enjoying
luxuriously the glorious stream, the mellow bridge crowded with
carriages--whose fair occupants stretched a broad band of bright colour
above the dark figures clustering on the battlements--and the green
meadows opposite with the motley crowd streaming up and down.
Nor was that sense, which seems especially keen and delicate in women,
left unregaled in the general bounty of the time. The green meadows
on the opposite bank, and the gardens at the back of our fair friends,
flung their sweet fresh odours at their liquid benefactor gliding by;
and the sun himself seemed to burn perfumes, and the air to scatter
them, over the motley merry crowd, that bright, hot, smiling, airy day
in June.
Thus tuned to gentle enjoyment, the fair mother and her lovely daughter
leaned back in a delicious languor proper to their sex, and eyed with
unflagging though demure interest, and furtive curiosity, the wealth of
youth, beauty, stature, agility, gaiety, and good temper, the two great
universities had poured out upon those obscure banks; all dressed in
neat but easy-fitting clothes, cut in the height of' the fashion; or
else in jerseys white or striped, and flannel trousers, and straw hats,
or cloth caps of bright and various hues; betting, strolling, laughing,
chaffing, larking, and whirling stunted bludgeons at Aunt Sally.
But as for the sport itself they were there to see, the center of all
these bright accessories, “The Racing,” my ladies did not understand
it, nor try, nor care a hook-and-eye about it. But this mild dignified
indifference to the main event received a shock at 2 p. m.: for then
the first heat for the cup came on, and Edward was in it. So then Racing
became all in a moment a most interesting pastime--an appendage to
Loving. He left to join his crew. And, soon after, the Exeter glided
down the river before their eyes, with the beloved one rowing quietly
in it: his jersey revealed not only the working power of his arms,
as sunburnt below the elbow as a gipsy's, and as corded above as a
blacksmith's, but also the play of the great muscles across his broad
and deeply indented chest: his oar entered the water smoothly, gripped
it severely, then came out clean, and feathered clear and tunably on the
ringing rowlock: the boat jumped and then glided, at each neat, easy,
powerful stroke. “Oh, how beautiful and strong he is!” cried Julia. “I
had no idea.”
Presently the competitor for this heat came down: the Cambridge boat,
rowed by a fine crew in broad-striped jerseys. “Oh, dear” said Julia,
“they are odious and strong in this boat too. I wish I was in it--with a
gimlet; he _should_ win, poor boy.”
Which corkscrew staircase to Honour being inaccessible, the race had to
be decided by two unfeminine trifles called “Speed” and “Bottom.”
Few things in this vale of tears are more worthy a pen of fire than an
English boat-race is, as seen by the runners; of whom I have often been
one. But this race I am bound to indicate, not describe; I mean, to show
how it appeared to two ladies seated on the Henley side of the Thames,
nearly opposite the winning-post. These fair novices then looked all
down the river, and could just discern two whitish streaks on the water,
one on each side the little fairy isle, and a great black patch on the
Berkshire bank. The threatening streaks were the two racing boats: the
black patch was about a hundred Cambridge and Oxford men, ready to run
and hallo with the boats all the way, or at least till the last puff of
wind should be run plus halloed out of their young bodies. Others less
fleet and enduring, but equally clamorous, stood in knots at various
distances, ripe for a shorter yell and run when the boats should come up
to them. Of the natives and country visitors, those who were not nailed
down by bounteous Fate ebbed and flowed up and down the bank, with
no settled idea but of getting in the way as much as possible, and of
getting knocked into the Thames as little as might be.
There was a long uneasy suspense.
At last a puff of smoke issued from a pistol down at the island; two
oars seemed to splash into the water from each white streak; and the
black patch was moving; so were the threatening streaks. Presently was
heard a faint, continuous, distant murmur, and the streaks began to get
larger, and larger, and larger; and the eight splashing oars looked four
instead of two.
Every head was now turned down the river. Groups hung craning over it
like nodding bulrushes.
Next the runners were swelled by the stragglers they picked up; so were
their voices; and on came the splashing oars and roaring lungs.
Now the colours of the racing jerseys peeped distinct. The oarsmen's
heads and bodies came swinging back like one, and the oars seemed to
lash the water savagely, like a connected row of swords, and the spray
squirted at each vicious stroke. The boats leaped and darted side by
side, and, looking at them in front, Julia could not say which
was ahead. On they came nearer and nearer, with hundreds of voices
vociferating “Go it, Cambridge” “Well pulled, Oxford!” “You
are gaining, hurrah!” “Well pulled Trinity!” “Hurrah!” “Oxford!”
“Cambridge!” “Now is your time, Hardie; pick her up!” “Oh, well pulled,
Six!” “Well pulled, Stroke!” “Up, up! lift her a bit!” “Cambridge!”
“Oxford!” “Hurrah!”
At this Julia turned red and pale by turns. “O mamma!” said she,
clasping her hands and colouring high, “would it be very wrong if I was
to _pray_ for Oxford to win?”
Mrs. Dodd had a monitory finger; it was on her left hand; she raised it;
and that moment, as if she had given a signal, the boats, fore-shortened
no longer, shot out to treble the length they had looked hitherto, and
came broadside past our palpitating fair, the elastic rowers stretched
like greyhounds in a chase, darting forward at each stroke so boldly
they seemed flying out of the boats, and surging back as superbly, an
eightfold human wave: their nostrils all open, the lips of some pale and
glutinous, their white teeth all clenched grimly, their young eyes all
glowing, their supple bodies swelling, the muscles writhing beneath
their jerseys, and the sinews starting on each bare brown arm; their
little shrill coxswains shouting imperiously at the young giants, and
working to and fro with them, like jockeys at a finish; nine souls
and bodies flung whole into each magnificent effort; water foaming and
flying, rowlocks ringing, crowd running, tumbling, and howling like mad;
and Cambridge a boat's nose ahead.
They had scarcely passed our two spectators, when Oxford put on a
furious spurt, and got fully even with the leading boat. There was a
louder roar than ever from the bank. Cambridge spurted desperately in
turn, and stole those few feet back; and so they went fighting every
inch of water. Bang! A cannon on the bank sent its smoke over both
competitors; it dispersed in a moment, and the boats were seen pulling
slowly towards the bridge--Cambridge with four oars, Oxford with six, as
if that gum had winged them both.
The race was over.
But who had won our party could not see, and must wait to learn.
A youth, adorned with a blue and yellow rosette, cried out, in the
hearing of Mrs. Dodd, “I say, they are properly pumped, both crews
are:” then, jumping on to a spoke of her carriage-wheel, with a slight
apology, he announced that two or three were shut up in the Exeter.
The exact meaning of these two verbs passive was not clear to Mrs. Dodd;
but their intensity was. She fluttered, and wanted to go to her boy
and nurse him, and turned two most imploring eyes on Julia, and Julia
straightway kissed her with gentle vehemence, and offered to ruin and
see.
“What, amongst all those young gentlemen, love? I fear that would not
be proper. See, all the ladies remain apart.” So they kept quiet and
miserable, after the manner of females.
Meantime the Cantab's quick eye had not deceived him; in each racing
boat were two young gentlemen leaning collapsed over their oars; and
two more, who were in a cloud, and not at all clear whether they were in
this world still, or in their zeal had pulled into a better. But their
malady was not a rare one in racing boats, and the remedy always at
hand: it combined the rival systems; Thames was sprinkled in their
faces--Homoeopathy: and brandy in a teaspoon trickled down their
throats--Allopathy: youth and spirits soon did the rest; and, the moment
their eyes opened, their mouths opened; and, the moment their mouths
opened, they fell a chaffing.
Mrs. Dodd's anxiety and Julia's were relieved by the appearance of Mr.
Edward, in a tweed shooting-jacket sauntering down to them, hands in
his pockets, and a cigar in his mouth, placidly unconscious of their
solicitude on his account. He was received with a little guttural cry of
delight; the misery they had been in about him was duly concealed from
him by both, and Julia asked him warmly who had won.
“Oh, Cambridge.”
“Cambridge! Why, then you are beaten?”
“Rather.” (Puff.)
“And you can come here with that horrible calm, and cigar, owning
defeat, and puffing tranquillity, with the same mouth. Mamma, we are
beaten. Beaten! actually.”
“Never mind,” said Edward kindly; “you have seen a capital race, the
closest ever known on this river; and one side or other must lose.”
“And if they did not quite win, they very nearly did,” observed Mrs.
Dodd composedly; then, with heartfelt content, “He is not hurt, and that
is the main thing.”
“Well, my Lady Placid, and Mr. Imperturbable, I am glad neither of your
equanimities is disturbed; but defeat is a Bitter Pill to me.”
Julia said this in her earnest voice, and drawing her scarf suddenly
round her, so as almost to make it speak, digested her Bitter Pill in
silence. During which process several Exeter men caught sight of Edward,
and came round him, and an animated discussion took place. They began
with asking him how it had happened, and, as he never spoke in a hurry,
supplied him with the answers. A stretcher had broken in the Exeter? No,
but the Cambridge was a much better built boat, and her bottom cleaner.
The bow oar of the Exeter was ill, and not fit for work. Each of these
solutions was advanced and combated in turn, and then all together. At
last the Babel lulled, and Edward was once more appealed to.
“Well, I will tell you the real truth,” said he, “how it happened.”
(Puff.)
There was a pause of expectation, for the young man's tone was that of
conviction, knowledge, and authority.
“The Cambridge men pulled faster than we did.” (Puff.)
The hearers stared and then laughed.
“Come, old fellows,” said Edward, “never win a boat-race on dry land!
That is such a _plain_ thing to do; gives the other side the laugh as
well as the race. I have heard a stretcher or two told, but I saw
none broken. (Puff.) Their boat is the worst I ever saw; it dips every
stroke. (Puff.) Their strength lies in the crew. It was a good race and
a fair one. Cambridge got a lead and kept it. (Puff.) They beat us
a yard or two at rowing; but hang it all, don't let them beat us at
telling the truth, not by an inch.” (Puff.)
“All right, old fellow!” was now the cry. One observed, however, that
Stroke did not take the matter so coolly as Six; for he had shed a tear
getting out of the boat.
“Shed a fiddlestick!” squeaked a little sceptic.
“No” said another, “he didn't quite shed it; his pride wouldn't let
him.”
“So he decanted it, and put it by for supper, suggested Edward, and
puffed.
“None of your chaff, Six. He had a gulp or two, and swallowed the rest
by main force.”
“Don't you talk: you can swallow anything, it seems.” (Puff.)
“Well, I believe it,” said one of Hardie's own set. “Dodd doesn't know
him as we do. Taff Hardie can't bear to be beat.”
When they were gone, Mrs. Dodd observed, “Dear me! what if the young
gentleman did cry a little, it was very excusable; after such great
exertions it _was_ disappointing, mortifying. I pity him for one, and
wish he had his mother alive and here, to dry them.” *
*Oh where, _and_ oh where, _was_ her Lindley Murray gone?
“Mamma, it is you for reading us,” cried Edward, slapping his thigh.
“Well, then, since you can feel for a fellow, Hardie _was_ a good deal
cut up. You know the university was in a manner beaten, and he took the
blame. He never cried; that was a cracker of those fellows. But he
did give one great sob, that was all, and hung his head on one side a
moment. But then he fought out of it directly, like a man; and there was
an end of it, or ought to have been. Hang chatterboxes!”
“And what did you say to console him, Edward?” inquired Julia warmly.
“What--me? Console my senior, and my Stroke? No, thank you.”
At this thunderbolt of etiquette both ladies kept their countenances
this was _their_ muscular feat that day--and the racing for the sculls
came on: six competitors, two Cambridge, three Oxford, one London.
The three heats furnished but one good race, a sharp contest between a
Cambridge man and Hardie, ending in favour of the latter; the Londoner
walked away from his opponent; Sir Imperturbable's competitor was
impetuous, and ran into him in the first hundred yards; Sir I.
consenting calmly. The umpire, appealed to on the spot, decided that it
was a foul, Mr. Dodd being in his own water. He walked over the course,
and explained the matter to his sister, who delivered her mind thus--
“Oh! if races are to be won by going slower than the other, we may shine
yet: _only,_ I call it Cheating, not Racing.”
He smiled unmoved; she gave her scarf the irony twist, and they all went
to dinner. The business recommenced with a race between a London boat
and the winner' of yesterday's heat, Cambridge. Here the truth of
Edward's remark appeared. The Cambridge boat was too light for the men,
and kept burying her hose; the London craft, under a heavy crew,
floated like a cork. The Londoners soon found out their advantage, and,
overrating it, steered into their opponents water prematurely, in spite
of a warning voice from the bank. Cambridge saw, and cracked on for a
foul; and for about a minute it was anybody's race. But the Londoners
pulled gallantly, and just scraped clear ahead. This peril escaped,
they kept their backs straight and a clear lead to the finish. Cambridge
followed a few feet in their wake, pulling wonderfully fast to the end,
but a trifle out of form, and much distressed.
At this both universities looked blue, their humble aspiration being,
first to beat off all the external world, and then tackle each other for
the prize.
Just before Edward left his friends for “the sculls,” the final heat, a
note was brought to him. He ran his eye over it, and threw it open into
his sister's lap. The ladies read it. Its writer had won a prize poem,
and so now is our time to get a hint for composition:
“DEAR SIR,--Oxford must win something. Suppose we go in for these
sculls. You are a horse that can stay; Silcock is hot for the lead at
starting, I hear; so I mean to work him out of wind; then you can wait
on us, and pick up the race. My head is not well enough to-day to
win, but I am good to pump the Cockney; he is quick, but a little
stale--Yours truly,
“ALFRED HARDIE”
Mrs. Dodd remarked that the language was sadly figurative; but she hoped
Edward might be successful in spite of his correspondent's style.
Julia said she did not dare hope it. “The race is not always to the
slowest and the dearest.” This was in allusion to yesterday's “foul.”
The skiffs started down at the island, and, as they were longer coming
up than the eight oars, she was in a fever for nearly ten minutes. At
last, near the opposite bank, up came the two leading skiffs struggling,
both men visibly exhausted--Silcock ahead, but his rudder overlapped by
Hardie's bow; each in his own water.
“We are third,” sighed Julia, and turned her head away from the river
sorrowfully. But only for a moment, for she felt Mrs. Dodd start and
press her arm; and lo! Edward's skiff was shooting swiftly across
from their side of the river. He was pulling just within himself, in
beautiful form, and with far more elasticity than the other two had got
left. As he passed his mother and sister, his eyes seemed to strike
fire, and he laid out all his powers, and went at the leading skiffs
hand over head. There was a yell of astonishment and delight from both
sides of the Thames. He passed Hardie, who upon that relaxed his speed.
In thirty seconds more he was even with Silcock. Then came a keen
struggle: but the new comer was “the horse that could stay:” he drew
steadily ahead, and the stern of his boat was in a line with Silcock's
person when the gun fired; and a fearful roar from the bridge, the
river, and the banks, announced that the favourite university had picked
up the sculls in the person of Dodd of Exeter.
In due course he brought the little silver sculls, and pinned them on
his mother.
While she and Julia were telling him how proud they were, and how happy
they should be, but for their fears that he would hurt himself, beating
gentlemen ever so much older than himself, came two Exeter men with wild
looks hunting for him.
“Oh, Dodd! Hardie wants you directly.”
“Don't you go, Edward,” whispered Julia; “why should you be at Mr.
Hardie's beck and call? I never heard of such a thing. That youth _will_
make me hate him.”
“Oh, I think I had better just go and see what it is about,” replied
Edward: “I shall be back directly.” And on this understanding he went
off with the men.
Half-an-hour passed; an hour; two hours, and he did not return. Mrs.
Dodd and Julia sat wondering what had become of him, and were looking
all around, and getting uneasy, when at last they did hear something
about him, but indirectly, and from an unexpected quarter. A tall young
man in a jersey and flannel trousers, and a little straw hat, with a
purple rosette, came away from the bustle to the more secluded part
where they sat, and made eagerly for the Thames as if he was a duck, and
going in. But at the brink he flung himself into a sitting posture,
and dipped his white handkerchief into the stream, then tied it
viciously round his brow, doubled himself up with his head in his hands,
and rocked himself like an old woman--minus the patience, of course.
Mrs. Dodd and Julia, sitting but a few paces behind him, interchanged,
a look of intelligence. The young gentleman was a stranger; but they had
recognised a faithful old acquaintance at the bottom of his pantomime.
They discovered, too, that the afflicted one was a personage: for he
had not sat there long when quite a little band of men came after him.
Observing his semi-circularity and general condition, they hesitated a
moment; and then one of them remonstrated eagerly.: “For Heaven's sake
come back to the boat! There is a crowd of all the colleges come round
us; and they all say Oxford is being sold. We had a chance for the
four-oared race, and you are throwing it away.”
“What do I care what they all say?” was the answer, delivered with a
kind of plaintive snarl.
“But we care.”
“Care then! I pity you.” And he turned his back fiercely on them, and
then groaned by way of half apology. Another tried him: “Come, give us a
civil answer, please.”
“People that intrude upon a man's privacy, racked with pain, have
no right to demand civility,” replied the sufferer, more gently, but
sullenly enough.
“Do you call this privacy?”
“It was, a minute ago. Do you think I left the boat, and came here among
the natives, for company? and noise? With my head splitting?”
Here Julia gave Mrs. Dodd a soft pinch, to which Mrs. Dodd replied by a
smile. And so they settled who this petulant young invalid must be.
“'There, it is no use,” observed one, _sotto voce,_ “the bloke really
has awful headaches, like a girl, and then he always shuts up this way.
You will only rile him, and get the rough side of his tongue.”
Here, then, the conference drew towards a close. But a Wadham man, who
was one of the ambassadors, interposed. “Stop a minute,” said he. “Mr.
Hardie, I have not the honour to be acquainted with you, and I am not
here to annoy you, nor to be affronted by you. But the university has a
stake in this race, and the university expostulates through us--through
me, if you like.”
“Who have I the honour?” inquired Hardie, assuming politeness sudden and
vast.
“Badham, of Wadham.”
“Badham o' Wadham? Hear that, ye tuneful nine! Well, Badham o' Wadham,
you are no acquaintance of mine; so you may possibly not be a fool. Let
us assume by way of hypothesis that you are a man of sense, a man of
reason as well as of rhyme. Then follow my logic. Hardie of Exeter is a
good man in a boat when he has not got a headache.
“When he has got a headache, Hardie of Exeter is not worth a straw in a
boat.
“Hardie of Exeter has a headache now.
“Ergo, the university would put the said Hardie into a race, headache
and all, and reduce defeat to a certainty.
“And, ergo, on the same premises, I, not being an egotist, nor an ass,
have taken Hardie of Exeter and his headache out of the boat, as I
should have done any other cripple.
“Secondly, I have put the best man on the river into this cripple's
place.
“Total, I have given the university the benefit of my brains; and
the university, not having brains enough to see what it gains by the
exchange, turns again and rends me, like an animal frequently mentioned
in Scripture; but, _nota bene,_ never once with approbation.”
And the afflicted Rhetorician attempted a diabolical grin, but failed
signally; and groaned instead.
“Is this your answer to the university, sir?”
At this query, delivered in a somewhat threatening tone, the invalid sat
up all in a moment, like a poked lion. “Oh, if Badham o' Wadham thinks
to crush me _auctoritate sua et totius universitatis,_ Badham o'
Wadham may just tell the whole university to go and be d----d, from
the Chancellor down to the junior cook at Skimmery Hall, with my
compliments.”
“Ill-conditioned brute!” muttered Badham of Wadham. “Serve you right if
the university were to chuck you into the Thames.” And with this comment
they left him to his ill temper. One remained; sat quietly down a little
way off, struck a sweetly aromatic lucifer, and blew a noisome cloud;
but the only one which betokens calm.
As for Hardie, he held his aching head over his knees, absorbed in pain,
and quite unconscious that sacred pity was poisoning the air beside him,
and two pair of dovelike eyes resting on him with womanly concern.
Mrs. Dodd and Julia had heard the greatest part of this colloquy. They
had terribly quick ears and nothing better to do with them just then.
Indeed, their interest was excited.
Julia went so far as to put her salts into Mrs. Dodd's hand with a
little earnest look. But Mrs. Dodd did not act upon the hint. She had
learned who the young man was: had his very name been strange to her,
she would have been more at her ease with him. Moreover, his rudeness
to the other men repelled her a little. Above all, he had uttered a
monosyllable and a stinger: a thorn of speech not in her vocabulary,
nor even in society's. Those might be his manners, even when not aching.
Still, it seems, a feather would have turned the scale in his favour,
for she whispered, “I have a great mind; if I could but catch his eye.”
While feminine pity and social reserve were holding the balance so
nicely, and nonsensically, about half a split straw, one of the racing
four-oars went down close under the Berkshire bank. “London!” observed
Hardie's adherent.
“What, are you there, old fellow?” murmured Hardie, in a faint voice.
“Now, that is like a friend, a real friend, to sit by me, and not make a
row. Thank you! thank you!”
Presently the Cambridge four-oar passed: it was speedily followed by the
Oxford; the last came down in mid-stream, and Hardie eyed it keenly as
it passed. “There,” he cried, “was I wrong? There is a swing for you;
there is a stroke. I did not know what a treasure I had got sitting
behind me.”
The ladies looked, and lo! the lauded Stroke of the four-oar was their
Edward.
“Sing out and tell him it is not like the sculls. We must fight for the
lead at starting, and hold it with his eyelids when he has got it.”
The adherent bawled this at Edward, and Edward's reply came ringing back
in a clear, cheerful voice, “We mean to try all we know.”
“What is the odds?” inquired the invalid faintly.
“Even on London; two to one against Cambridge; three to one against us.”
“Take all my tin and lay it on,” sighed the sufferer.
“Fork it out, then. Hallo! eighteen pounds? Fancy having eighteen pounds
at the end of term. I'll get the odds up at the bridge directly. Here's
a lady offering you her smelling-bottle.”
Hardie rose and turned round, and sure enough there were two ladies
seated in their carriage at some distance, one of whom was holding him
out three pretty little things enough, a little smile, a little blush,
and a little cut-glass bottle with a gold cork. The last panegyric on
Edward had turned the scale.
Hardie went slowly up to the side of the carriage, and took off his hat
to them with a half-bewildered air. Now that he was so near, his face
showed very pale; the more so that his neck was a good deal tanned;
his eyelids were rather swollen, and his young eyes troubled and almost
filmy with the pain. The ladies saw, and their gentle bosoms were
touched: they had heard of him as a victorious young Apollo trampling on
all difficulties of mind and body; and they saw him wan, and worn, with
feminine suffering: the contrast made him doubly interesting.
Arrived at the side of the carriage, he almost started at Julia's
beauty. It was sun-like, and so were her two lovely earnest eyes,
beaming soft pity on him with an eloquence he had never seen in human
eyes before; for Julia's were mirrors of herself; they did nothing by
halves.
He looked at her and her mother, and blushed, and stood irresolute,
awaiting their commands. This sudden contrast to his petulance with his
own sex paved the way. “You have a sad headache, sir,” said Mrs. Dodd;
“oblige me by trying my salts.”
He thanked her in a low voice.
“And, mamma,” inquired Julia, “ought he to sit in the sun?”
“Certainly not. You had better sit there, sir, and profit by our shade
and our parasols.”
“Yes, mamma, but you know the real place where he ought to be is Bed.”
“Oh, pray don't say that,” implored the patient.
But Julia continued, with unabated severity, “And that is where he would
go this minute, if I was his mamma.”
“Instead of his junior, and a stranger,” said Mrs. Dodd, somewhat
coldly, dwelling with a very slight monitory emphasis on the “stranger.”
Julia said nothing, but drew in perceptibly, and was dead silent ever
after.
“Oh, madam!” said Hardie eagerly, “I do not dispute her authority, nor
yours. You have a right to send me where you please, after your kindness
in noticing my infernal head, and doing me the honour to speak to me,
and lending me this. But if I go to bed, my head will be my master.
Besides, I shall throw away what little chance I have of making your
acquaintance; and the race just coming off!”
“We will not usurp authority, sir,” said Mrs. Dodd quietly; “but we know
what a severe headache is, and should be glad to see you sit still in
the shade, and excite yourself as little as possible.”
“Yes, madam,” said the youth humbly, and sat down like a lamb. He
glanced now and then at the island, and now and then peered up at the
radiant young mute beside him.
The silence continued till it was broken by--a fish out of water. An
undergraduate in spectacles came mooning along, all out of his element.
It was Mr. Kennet, who used to rise at four every morning to his Plato,
and walk up Shotover Hill every afternoon, wet or dry, to cool his eyes
for his evening work. With what view he deviated to Henley has not yet
been ascertained. He was blind as a bat, and did not care a button about
any earthly boat-race, except the one in the AEneid, even if he could
have seen one. However, nearly all the men of his college went to
Henley, and perhaps some branch, hitherto unexplored, of animal
magnetism drew him after. At any rate, there was his body; and his mind
at Oxford and Athens, and other venerable but irrelevant cities. He
brightened at sight of his doge, and asked him warmly if he had heard
the news.
“No: what? Nothing wrong, I hope?”
“Why, two of our men are ploughed; that is all,” said Kennet, affecting
with withering irony to undervalue his intelligence.
“Confound it, Kennet, how you frightened me! I was afraid there was some
screw loose with the crew.”
At this very instant, the smoke of the pistol was seen to puff out from
the island, and Hardie rose to his feet. “They are off!” cried he to the
ladies, and after first putting his palms together with a hypocritical
look of apology, he laid one hand on an old barge that was drawn up
ashore, and sprang like a mountain goat on to the bow, lighting on the
very gunwale. The position was not tenable an instant, but he extended
one foot very nimbly and boldly, and planted it on the other gunwale;
and there he was in a moment, headache and all, in an attitude as
large and inspired as the boldest gesture antiquity has committed to
marble--he had even the advantage in stature over most of the sculptured
forms of Greece. But a double opera-glass at his eye “spoiled the lot,”
as Mr. Punch says.
I am not to repeat the particulars of a distant race coming nearer and
nearer. The main features are always the same; only this time it was
more exciting to our fair friends, on account of Edward's high stake in
it. And then their grateful though refractory patient, an authority
in their eyes, indeed all but a river-god, stood poised in air, and in
excited whispers interpreted each distant and unintelligible feature
down to them:
“Cambridge was off quickest.”
“But not much.”
“Anybody's race at present, madam.”
“If this lasts long we may win. None of them can stay like us.”
“Come, the favourite is not so very dangerous.”
“Cambridge looks best.”
“I wouldn't change with either, so far.”
“Now, in forty seconds more, I shall be able to pick out the winner.”
Julia went up this ladder of thrills to a high state of excitement; and,
indeed, they were all so tuned to racing pitch, that some metal nerve or
other seemed to jar inside all three, when the piercing, grating voice
of Kennet broke in suddenly with--
“How do you construe [Greek text]?”
The wretch had burrowed in the intellectual ruins of Greece the
moment the pistol went off, and college chat ceased. Hardie raised his
opera-glass, and his first impulse was to brain the judicious
Kennet, gazing up to him for an answer, with spectacles goggling like
supernatural eyes of dead sophists in the sun.
“How do you construe _'Hoc age'_? you incongruous dog. Hold your tongue,
and mind the race.”
“There, I thought so. Where's your three to one, now? The Cockneys
are out of this event, any way. Go on, Universities, and order their
suppers!”
“But which is first, sir?” asked Julia imploringly. “Oh, which is first
of all?”
“Neither. Never mind; it looks well. London is pumped; and if Cambridge
can't lead him before this turn in the river, the race will be ours.
Now, look out! By Jove, we are _ahead!_”
The leading boats came on, Oxford pulling a long, lofty, sturdy stroke,
that seemed as if it never could compete with the quick action of its
competitor. Yet it was undeniably ahead, and gaining at every swing.
Young Hardie writhed on his perch. He screeched at them across the
Thames, “Well pulled, Stroke! Well pulled all! Splendidly pulled, Dodd!
You are walking away from them altogether. Hurrah, Oxford for ever,
hurrah!” The gun went off over the heads of the Oxford crew in advance,
and even Mrs. Dodd and Julia could see the race was theirs.
“We have won at last,” cried Julia, all on fire, “and fairly; only think
of that!”
Hardie turned round, grateful to beauty for siding with his university.
“Yes, and the fools may thank me; or rather my man, Dodd. Dodd for ever!
Hurrah!”
At this climax even Mrs. Dodd took a gentle share in the youthful
enthusiasm that was boiling around her, and her soft eyes sparkled, and
she returned the fervid pressure of her daughter's hand; and both their
faces were flushed with gratified pride and affection.
“Dodd!” broke in “the incongruous dog,” with a voice just like a saw's.
“Dodd? Ah, that's the man who is just ploughed for smalls.”
Ice has its thunderbolts.