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The day after the boat-race lay under a malign spell. It seemed to feel all the weariness of reaction, and to fold all men and women in the embrace of its lassitude and heavy hopelessness. At number 400, Jessie whined pitifully in her basket, and her arched back quivered perpetually as her minute body expanded and contracted in the effort of breathing.
But to leave the schoolhouse just now, when it lay under the reproach caused by the boat-race accident; and worse still, to leave it just when young Wyndham seemed to be drifting from his moorings and yielding with less and less effort to the temptations of bad companions these were troubles compared with which the perils and difficulties of his new task were but light.
"You know the story of my past life, doctor," Maurice answered; "and, I will tell you what is the vision which has taken the place of my dreams. You remember the boat-race?
"Must you always be pulling in a boat-race, or flying over a high jump? If you had a mind, you would want to relax it. You have got muscles instead. Why not relax them?" The shafts of Miss Lundie's bitter wit glided off Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn like water off a duck's back. "Just as you please," he said, with stolid good-humor. "Don't be offended.
He stared round him, as if perplexed and confused, till his eyes resting on Harley, he smiled and said, "So early! Ah, I remember, it is the day for our great boat-race. We shall have the current against us; but you and I together when did we ever lose?" Audley's mind was wandering; it had gone back to the old Eton days.
Raymond happened to be starting for a walk when the horn was blown, and he and Taffy went to meet the post together. There were three or four letters which the Vicar opened; and one for Humility, which he put in his pocket. In the midst of his reading, he looked up, smiled over his spectacles, and said: "Oxford has won the boat-race."
For years it had not sent any first-rate man either to boat-race, or cricket-ground, or senate-house. Lately, however, it had boasted one, quite an Admirable Crichton in his way, who, had his moral equaled his mental qualities, would have carried all before him.
In Berlin they would have said it was a revolution, and the cuirassiers would have been charging, sabre in hand, amidst that infuriate mob. In France they would have brought down artillery, and played on it with twenty-four pounders. In Cambridge nobody heeded the disturbance it was a Town and Gown row. The row arose at a boat-race. High words arose regarding the dispute.
Riddell and Bloomfield walked on together towards Parrett's. "Oh, Bloomfield!" said the captain, nervously, "I just wanted to tell you that I believe I have been all wrong in my guess about the boat-race affair. The boy I suspected, I now fancy, had nothing to do with it." "You are still determined to keep it all to yourself, then?" asked Bloomfield, somewhat coldly.
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." 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.
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