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In pursuit of "a real education" we got into the habit of spending almost every evening in the college library, where except at examination times there was nobody but a few silent "polers." I grew to love this place. It was so huge and shadowy, with only shaded lights here and there. It had such tempting crannies.
I think I'll go out and have a pretzel!" God, what a life, I thought to myself! None of that for me! And so I left the "polers." But now in my restless groping around for realities in life that would thrill me, things that I could write about, I began trying to test things out by talking about them with my friends. What did a fellow want most in life what to do, what to get and to be?
"Ain't got puddin' enough, Thompson," said Mosey, as my companions stopped their teams and went on to survey the place. You shove your team in nex' the polers, an' I'll hook our lot on in front. Thompson did as desired; and the first pull brought the wagon on to solid ground. Meanwhile Dixon and Willoughby had taken their team through, and were hurrying along.
He'd been in the jug all the time! I dressed myself in my own clothes how strange it seemed even to the boots, and then I looked in the glass. I hadn't done that lately. I regularly started back; I didn't know myself; I came into prison a big, stout, brown-haired chap, full of life, and able to jump over a dray and bullocks almost. I did once jump clean over a pair of polers for a lark.
They drove their craft along just as a punt is propelled in England. Each man handled a long stout pole, and, where the water was shallow enough, he set the bottom of his pole in the gravelly bed and urged the boat forward. Where the water was too deep the craft was turned inshore, and the polers thrust the ends of their staves against the bank or against tree trunks lining the water's edge.
The huge drays were each dragged by twelve bullocks, the two polers and leaders being steady old stagers, as were those immediately in front of the polers. Thus they moved forward, resting only on Sunday. The most difficult part of their journey was surmounting the range, when even Mrs Berrington preferred climbing up on foot to remaining in the dray.
The polers ran along the sides of the boat glancing over their shoulders at the end of the day's journey. They would have preferred to spend the night somewhere else than on this lagoon of weird aspect and ghostly reputation.
These profs, I thought confusedly, had about as much to do with life as had that little "hero of God" who had cut such a pitiful figure when he came close to the harbor. And more pitiful still were the "polers," the chaps who were working for high marks. They thought of marks and little else.
And as he shouted to guide the search party he soon saw through the dim light a crowded punt propelled by two polers, and that there was another behind. The next minute the foremost punt was within reach, and Dick stepped from a clump of rushes on board. "Got anything to eat?" cried Dick, obeying his dominant instinct, and his voice sounded wolfish and strange.
They thrived on crust, these fellows, cramming themselves with words and rules, with facts, dates, theorems and figures, in order to become professors themselves and teach the same stuff to other "polers." There was a story of one of them who stayed in his room and crammed all through the big football game of the season, and at night when told we had won remarked blithely, "Oh, that's splendid!
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