“O-h-h-h! Victors! Victors!” rang the echoes on the left, where most of the village partisans lined the wagon. “Ossokosees!” “Now, then, Ossokosees! Give ’em your best!” “Good for you! That’s right, don’t let ’em make it!” “Touchtone! O, Touchtone!” “Go it, Dater, that’s the way to give it to ’em!” “One good spurt now, Victors, and you can have it your own way!” “Bravo, Ossokosee!” “Oss-o-ko-see!” And then mingled with all this voicing of favorites, began the patter, at first gentle, but strengthening, of thousands of hands clapping together in the open air, and whips and sticks pounded on wagon-bottoms, and parasols clattered with them. O, it was a great finish; and—sweep—sweep—as the now desperate Victors flew down it was clear that Philip and his friends were not yet nearly overtaken, and that with a hope that gave each arm the power of steel the Ossokosees were bound to win that race if they could hold two minutes longer their advantage.
Gerald let fall his hand. Mr. Marcy, Mr. Lorraine, Mr. Voss, and the others were leaning forward in strong hope; and, as to the friends of the Victors, in courage till the last. The stroke of the Ossokosees was weakening a trifle now, just at the unluckiest climax. In fact, the six had never pulled so fast in their lives as something had enabled them to do to-day. Their flesh and blood and wind were likely to fail at any instant now, in revenge. If Davidson should faint, or McKay come within a tenth of catching the smallest crab, why, then the charm must break and all end in defeat.
Many times since that day Gerald Saxton has said, smiling, “Well, I shall never forget the first time I knew that praying for a thing meant that you wanted it with all your heart and being! I prayed over a boat-race once, when I was a little boy.”
“Now, then, steady with that match!” called Mr. Voss to the men in charge of the salute to greet either winners and signal the race’s end. “They’ve got it! They’ve got it, sure!” cried Mr. Marcy, squeezing Gerald till the little boy wondered if his ribs would stand it.
Ah, now desperate Victors, that was a splendid spurt, but it’s of no use! Two and one half lengths behind instead of three; that is all you get by it, and there are six rowers in that boat ahead of you who will fall over, and overboard, before you shall pass them now. Again? Another spurt? Yes; well done, and you deserve the cheer for it that you scarcely hear in your frantic efforts. But there is a roar drowning it out already, which signals your defeat. At them! At them one last time, Dater, the Consequential! But you know how to pull. It must be the last. For, look! you can see the very scarf-pins in the bosoms of Mr. Voss and Mr. Marcy in the barge; and on it with them, in an agony of delight at your vain prowess, stands Gerald Saxton, the friend of Philip Touchtone—Philip Touchtone, whose strong stroke has helped mightily to tell against you all the way up and back. Ah, you falter a little now; nor can you save yourselves by any more spurting. The green amphitheater rings again and again with cheers and applause, but not for you. You dart two boat-lengths behind those crimson shirts, that even your warmest friends yonder must hurrah over as they shoot by the goal! The cannon booms out their welcome far and wide! You who are the Victors must call yourselves the Defeats, for the race is over and the Ossokosees have won it gloriously!
How the next half hour passed for Philip, Davidson, McKay, Rice, and all that enraptured crew, as they received in the boat-house the friends who could press their way inside to congratulate them—this the reader may imagine. Philip and his friends forgot how exhausted they were in the delight of such praises and hand-shakings. As for Gerald and Mr. Marcy, they were among the first to greet them when they were cool enough to quit their shell for a few moments. Gerald was quite unnerved with rapture.
“O, Philip,” he exclaimed, “I never was so glad over any thing in my life!” And the boy spoke the exact truth.
“You deserve to be carried home on a church-steeple—a blunt one—every one of you!” declared Mr. Marcy, adding to the patron of the Victors, who stood near him, “Mr. York, your young men have lost their laurels forever. Our boys don’t intend to be beaten again.” And, as a matter of fact, they never were; for the Ossokosee Club rowed them another year and utterly routed them, and before the third season the Victors were disbanded and a new organization had grown out of their ruins.