Tom Brown at Oxford Part 26

However, back she comes; the starting-rope slackens in Miller's left hand, and the stroke, unshipping his oar, pushes the stern gently out again.

There goes the second gun! one short minute more, and we are off.

Short minute, indeed! you wouldn't say so if you were in the boat, with your heart in your mouth, and trembling all over like a man with the palsy. Those sixty seconds before the starting gun in your first race--why, they are a little life-time.

"By Jove, we are drifting in again," said Miller, in horror. The Captain looked grim, but said nothing; it was too late now for him to be unshipping again. "Here, catch hold of the long boat-hook, and fend her off."

Hardy, to whom this was addressed, seized the boat-hook, and, standing with one foot in the water, pressed the end of the boat-hook against the gunwale, at the full stretch of his arm, and so by main force, kept the stern out. There was just room for stroke oars to dip, and that was all. The starting-rope was as taut as a harp-string; will Miller's left hand hold out?

It is an awful moment. But the c.o.xswain, though almost dragged backwards off his seat, is equal to the occasion. He holds his watch in his right hand with the tiller rope.

"Eight seconds more only. Look out for the flash. Remember, all eyes in the boat."

There it comes, at last--the flash of the starting gun. Long before the sound of the report can roll up the river, the whole pent-up life and energy which has been held in leash, as it were, for the last six minutes, is let loose, and breaks away with a bound and a dash which he who has felt it will remember for his life, but the like of which, will he ever feel again? The starting-ropes drop from the c.o.xswains' hands, the oars flash into the water, and gleam on the feather, the spray flies from them, and the boats leap forward.

The crowds on the bank scatter, and rush along, each keeping as near as it may be to its own boat. Some of the men on the towing path, some on the very edge of, often in, the water--some slightly in advance, as if they could help to drag their boat forward--some behind, where they can see the pulling better--but all at full speed, in wild excitement, and shouting at the top of their voices to those on whom the honor of the college is laid.

"Well pulled, all!" "Pick her up there, five!" "You're gaining, every stroke!" "Time in the bows!" "Bravo, St. Ambrose!"

On they rushed by the side of the boats, jostling one another, stumbling, struggling, and panting along.

For a quarter of a mile along the bank the glorious maddening hurly-burly extends, and rolls up the side of the stream.

For the first ten strokes Tom was in too great fear of making a mistake to feel or hear or see. His whole soul was glued to the back of the man before him, his one thought to keep time, and get his strength into the stroke. But as the crew settled down into the well known long sweep, what we may call consciousness returned; and while every muscle in his body was straining, and his chest heaved, and his heart leapt, every nerve seemed to be gathering new life, and his senses to wake into unwonted acuteness. He caught the scent of the wild thyme in the air, and found room in his brain to wonder how it could have got there, as he had never seen the plant near the river, or smelt it before.

Though his eye never wandered from the back of Diogenes, he seemed to see all things at once. The boat behind, which seemed to be gaining--it was all he could do to prevent himself from quickening on the stroke as he fancied that--the eager face of Miller, with his compressed lips, and eyes fixed so earnestly ahead that Tom could almost feel the glance pa.s.sing over his right shoulder; the flying banks and the shouting crowd; see them with his bodily eyes he could not, but he knew nevertheless that Grey had been upset and nearly rolled down the bank into the water in the first hundred yards, that Jack was bounding and scrambling and barking along by the very edge of the stream; above all, he was just as well aware as if he had been looking at it, of a stalwart form in cap and gown, bounding along, brandishing the long boat-hook, and always keeping just opposite the boat; and amid all the Babel of voices, and the dash and pulse of the stroke, and the laboring of his own breathing, he heard Hardy's voice coming to him again and again, and clear as if there had been no other sound in the air, "Steady, two!

steady! well pulled! steady, steady!" The voice seemed to give him strength and keep him to his work. And what work it was! he had had many a hard pull in the last six weeks, but "never aught like this."

But it can't last for ever; men's muscles are not steel, or their lungs bull's hide, and hearts can't go on pumping a hundred miles an hour without bursting. The St. Ambrose's boat is well away from the boat behind, there is a great gap between the accompanying crowds; and now, as they near the Gut, she hangs for a moment or two in hand, though the roar from the bank grows louder and louder, and Tom is already aware that the St. Ambrose crowd is melting into the one ahead of them.

"We must be close to Exeter!" The thought flashes into him, and it would seem into the rest of the crew at the same moment. For, all at once, the strain seems taken off their arms again; there is no more drag; she springs to the stroke as she did at the start; and Miller's face which had darkened for a few seconds, lightens up again.

Miller's face and att.i.tude are a study. Coiled up into the smallest possible s.p.a.ce, his chin almost resting on his knees, his hands close to his sides, firmly but lightly feeling the rudder, as a good horseman handles the mouth of a free-going hunter,--if a c.o.xswain could make a b.u.mp by his own exertions, surely he will do it. No sudden jerks of the St. Ambrose rudder will you see, watch as you will from the bank; the boat never hangs through fault of his, but easily and gracefully rounds every point. "You're gaining! you're gaining!" he now and then mutters to the Captain, who responds with a wink, keeping his breath for other matters. Isn't he grand, the Captain, as he comes forward like lightening, stroke after stroke, his back flat, his teeth set, his whole frame working from the hips with the regularity of a machine? As the s.p.a.ce still narrows, the eyes of the fiery little c.o.xswain flash with excitement, but he is far too good a judge to hurry the final effort before victory is safe in his grasp.

The two crowds mingle now, and no mistake; and the shouts come all in a heap over the water. "Now, St. Ambrose, six strokes more." "Now, Exeter, you're gaining; pick her up." "Mind the Gut, Exeter." "Bravo, St. Ambrose." The water rushes by, still eddying from the strokes of the boat ahead. Tom fancies now that he can hear their oars, and the working of their rudder, and the voice of their c.o.xswain. In another moment both boats are in the Gut, and a perfect storm of shouts reaches them from the crowd, as it rushes madly off to the left of the footbridge, amidst which "Oh, well steered, well steered, St. Ambrose!" is the prevailing cry.

Then Miller, motionless as a statue till now, lifts his right hand and whirls the ta.s.sel round his head; "Give it her now, boys; six strokes and we are into them." Old Jervis lays down that great broad back, and lashes his oar through the water with the might of a giant, the crew caught him up in another stroke, the tight new boat answers to the spurt, and Tom feels a little shock behind him, and then a grating sound, as Miller shouts "Unship oars, bow and three," and the nose of the St. Ambrose boat glides quietly up the side of the Exeter, till it touches their stroke oar.

"Take care what you're coming to." It is the c.o.xswain of the b.u.mped boat who speaks.

Tom, looking round, finds himself within a foot or two of him; and, being utterly unable to contain his joy, and unwilling to exhibit it before the eyes of a gallant rival, turns away towards the sh.o.r.e, and begins telegraphing to Hardy.

"Now then, what are you at there in the bows? Cast her off quick.

Come, look alive! Push across at once out of the way of the other boats."

"I congratulate you, Jervis," says the Exeter stroke as the St.

Ambrose boat shot past him. "Do it again next race and I sha'n't care."

"We were within three lengths of Brazen-nose when we b.u.mped,"

says the all-observant Miller in a low voice.

"All right," answers the Captain; "Brazen-nose isn't so strong as usual. We sha'n't have much trouble there, but a tough job up above, I take it."

"Brazen-nose was better steered than Exeter."

"They m.u.f.fed it in the Gut, eh?" said the Captain. "I thought so by the shouts."

"Yes, we were pressing them a little down below, and their c.o.xswain kept looking over his shoulder. He was in the Gut before he knew it, and had to pull his left hand hard or they would have fouled the Oxfordshire corner. That stopped their way, and in we went."

"Bravo; and how well we started too."

"Yes, thanks to that Hardy. It was touch and go though; I couldn't have held that rope two seconds more."

"How did our fellows work; she dragged a good deal below the Gut."

Miller looked somewhat serious, but even he cannot be finding fault just now. For the first step is gained, the first victory won; and, as Homer sometimes nods, so Miller relaxes the sternness of his rule. The crew, as soon as they have found their voices again, laugh and talk, and answer the congratulations of their friends, as the boat slips along close to the towing path on the Berks side, "easy all," almost keeping pace nevertheless with the lower boats, which are racing up under the willows on the Oxfordshire side. Jack, after one or two feints, makes a frantic bound into the water, and is hauled dripping into the boat by Drysdale, unchid by Miller, but to the intense disgust of Diogenes, whose pantaloons and principles are alike outraged by the proceeding. He--the Cato of the oar--scorns to relax the strictness of his code even after victory won. Neither word nor look does he cast to the exhulting St. Ambrosians on the bank; a twinkle in his eye and a subdued chuckle or two, alone betray that though an oarsman he is mortal. Already he revolves in his mind the project of an early walk under a few pea-coats, not being quite satisfied (conscientious old boy!) that he tried his stretcher enough in that final spurt, and thinking that there must be an extra pound of flesh on him somewhere or other which did the mischief.

"I say, Brown," said Drysdale, "how do you feel?"

"All right," said Tom; "I never felt jollier in my life."

"By Jove, though, it was an awful grind; didn't you wish yourself well out of it below the Gut?"

"No, nor you either."

"Didn't I? I was awfully baked, my throat is like a limekiln yet.

What did you think about?"

"Well, about keeping time, I think," said Tom, "but I can't remember much."

"I only kept on by thinking how I hated those devils in the Exeter boat, and how done up they must be, and hoping their NO.2 felt like having a fit."

At this moment they came opposite the Cherwell. The leading boat was just pa.s.sing the winning-post, off the university barge, and the band struck up the "Conquering Hero," with a crash. And while a mighty sound of shouts, murmurs, and music went up into the evening sky, Miller shook the tiller-ropes again, the Captain shouted, "Now then, pick her up," and the St. Ambrose boat shot up between the swarming banks at racing pace to her landing-place, the lion of the evening.

Dear readers of the gentler s.e.x! you, I know, will pardon the enthusiasm which stirs our pulses, now in sober middle age, as we call up again the memories of this the most exciting sport of our boy hood (for we were but boys then, after all). You will pardon, though I fear hopelessly unable to understand, the above sketch; your sons and brothers will tell you it could not have been less technical.

For you, male readers, who have never handled an oar,--what shall I say to you? You at least, I hope, in some way--in other contests of one kind or another--have felt as we felt, and have striven as we strove. You _ought_ to understand and sympathize with us in all our boating memories. Oh, how fresh and sweet they are! Above all, that one of the gay little Henley town, the carriage-crowded bridge, the n.o.ble river reach, the giant poplars, which mark the critical point of the course--the roaring column of "undergrads," light blue and dark purple, Cantab and Oxonian, alike and yet how different,--hurling along together, and hiding the towing-path--the clang of Henley church-bells--the cheering, the waving of embroidered handkerchiefs, and glancing of bright eyes, the ill-concealed pride of fathers, open delight and exultation of mothers and sisters--the levee in the town-hall when the race was rowed, the great cup full of champagne (inn champagne, but we were not critical)--the chops, the steaks, the bitter beer--but we run into anti-climax--remember, we were boys then, and bear with us if you cannot sympathize.

And you, old companions, [Greek text] thranitai, benchers, (of the gallant eight-oar), now seldom met, but never-forgotten, lairds, squires, soldiers, merchants, lawyers, grave J.P.'s, graver clergymen, gravest bishops (for of two bishops at least does our brotherhood boast), I turn for a moment, from my task, to reach to you the right hand of fellowship from these pages, and empty the solemn pewter--trophy of hard-won victory--to your health and happiness.

Surely none the worse Christians and citizens are ye for your involuntary failing of muscularity!

CHAPTER XIV

A CHANGE IN THE CREW, AND WHAT CAME OF IT

It was on a Sat.u.r.day that the St. Ambrose boat made the first b.u.mp, described in our last chapter. On the next Sat.u.r.day, the day-week after the first success, at nine o'clock in the evening, our hero was at the door of Hardy's rooms. He just stopped for one moment outside, with his hand on the lock, looking a little puzzled, but withal pleased, and then opened the door and entered. The little estrangement which there had been between them for some weeks, had pa.s.sed away since the races had begun.

Hardy had thrown himself into the spirit of them so thoroughly, that he had not only regained all his hold on Tom, but had warmed up the whole crew in his favour, and had mollified the martinet Miller himself. It was he who had managed the starting-rope in every race, and his voice from the towing path had come to be looked upon as a safe guide for clapping on or rowing steady.

Even Miller, autocrat as he was, had come to listen for it, in confirmation of his own judgment, before calling on the crew for the final effort.