Harvard Stories Part 25

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 sh.e.l.l pokes ahead, a yard, two, a quarter of a length, "Harvard! Harvard! Harvard!" The Crimson c.o.xswain shows in the middle of the Yale crew. "Can they hold it?" "Yale is spurting like fury too." "No, the red c.o.xswain 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 c.o.xswain 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 pa.s.senger!" 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 pa.s.senger he is working his pa.s.sage pretty hard still."

He did seem to gather himself for a moment, probably in response to a yell from the c.o.xswain, 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 pa.s.sed, 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 c.o.xswain, 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 c.o.xswain 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 sh.e.l.l, 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.e.l.l and onto the University launch. They saw Rivers carried aboard. Then the launch steamed quickly up the river, towing the empty sh.e.l.l.

"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 b.u.t.ton-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.