II
On the day before the race Hastings' occupation as a substitute was gone. The shadow of the morrow was over the Quarters, the atmosphere was funereal, and the strapping oarsmen were coddled like infants. He had no part in the excitement, and was free to meet his mother in New York that afternoon. The news he must bear her made him as nervous as if he were facing the tussle of the eights. After farewells with his other comrades he sought the Stroke, who grasped the hand of the sorrowful exile in a crushing grip.
"Keep your nerve, Jack," said he; "it will all come out in the wash. I know there's a girl in it, and if she is the right sort, she will understand."
Hastings flushed at mention of the feminine factor, as he stammered:
"Of course she will understand. She is that kind, all right. But I hope to Heaven I'll never clap eyes on Gales Ferry again. Damn the place! Good-bye. You've been a brick to me, and lots of comfort."
After he had gone, the Stroke looked up from his book for some time, while a tender smile softened his strong mouth. He had found a girl who could understand, and he hoped the same good fortune for his friend.
When the train passed through New Haven, Hastings wore a hang-dog air, fearing recognition. A runaway from New London the day before the race, his college town was the last place on earth in which he wished to be seen. As he neared New York he braced himself for the meeting with his mother, blindly fearing that she would be sorely disappointed in him. But the Mohican had been delayed by heavy weather along the coast and a smothering fog off Sandy Hook, and could not be expected to reach her dock before seven o'clock of the following morning.
Hastings felt as if he were cast away on a desert island. He yearned for his mother now, but she was somewhere out in the fog, and he was alone in New York, alone through the long night before the race, with all its smarting, thrilling memories. Long after midnight, unable to coax drowsiness, his thoughts went homing back to the Quarters as he knew the place in these last hours.
He could hear the call of the robin at daybreak in the tree by his window, the call that had aroused him to face the issues of two races when he was Number Five. He could picture the morning scenes, the hush of lawn and house, the enforced lounging on bed and sofa until the summons to be ready and dressed at the boathouse.
Then he recalled the tense waiting on the float for the call of the whistle of the referee's yacht, how the year before they had sat together in the sunshine and sung the chorus of "Jolly Boating Weather." Since then it had become to him a battle song, a chant profoundly burdened with sentiment and solemnity. He could not hear it without feeling a lump in his breast. Now the shell would be launched, the men seating themselves with unusual care, and the coaches would shake hands from stroke to bow as the eight shoved off to row over to the start.... He wiped the sweat from his face and came back to the stifling room of the hotel in New York, and the sense of cruel isolation.
It was almost daylight when Hastings fell asleep, more tired than he knew, and when he awoke, a glance at his watch told him that he had overslept, and that it was nearly ten o'clock. The reply to a frantic telephone message was that all the passengers of the Mohican had gone ashore shortly after eight o'clock. His mother had gone to New London without him, and the express train into which he dove was due to arrive at the scene of conflict barely in time to connect with the observation train, if all conditions favored. Ten minutes behind time, he was running through the New London station, as the tail of the rearward observation cars was vanishing around a curve of the track yard, with cheering in its wake.
Vainly pursuing on foot, Hastings came to a standstill, stranded and alone, unable even to see the race, about to start five miles up the river. Walking down to the nearest wharf, he could see through the arches of the great railroad bridge the festooned yachts stretching in squadrons beyond, and between them only a little patch of silver lane where the crews would finish.