There was a shout of laughter, and Hughie turned round, to find that one of those privileged and all too inveterate attendants upon the modern athlete, a photographer, was (with the assistance of a megaphone) maintaining a reputation for humorous offensiveness, at his expense, on the towpath opposite.
After this the Second Division paddled down to the start, arrayed in colours which would have relegated such competitors as King Solomon and the lilies of the field to that euphemistic but humiliating category indicated by the formula "Highly Commended." Presently they returned, unclothed to an alarming and increasing extent, and rowing forty to the minute. One crew brought off a "gallery" bump right at Ditton Corner, to the joy of the galaxy of beauty and fashion thereon assembled. The bumped crew made the best of an inglorious situation by running into the piles and doubling up the nose of the boat, which suddenly buckled and assumed a sentry-box attitude over the head of the apoplectic gentleman who was rowing bow. The good ship herself incontinently sank, all hands going down with her like an octette of Casabiancas. Whereupon applause for the victors was turned into cries of compassion for the vanquished. However, as all concerned shook themselves clear of the wreck without difficulty and paddled contentedly to the bank, the panic subsided, and the rest of the procession raced past without further incident.
As the last boat, remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, accompanied by a coloured gentleman ringing a dinner-bell and a spectacled don who trotted alongside chanting, "Well rowed, Non-Collegiate Students!" creaked dismally past, Hughie arose and shook himself.
"Our turn now," he said. "So long, everybody!"
"Good luck, Hughie!" said Mrs. Ames. "Your health!"
She waved her cup and then took a sip of tea.
There was a chorus of good wishes from the party, and one or two neighbouring enthusiasts raised a cry of "Benedict's!" which swelled to a roar as Hughie, flushing red, elbowed his way out of the paddock and steered a course for a ferry-boat a hundred yards down the Long Reach. Popular feeling, which likes a peg upon which to hang its predilections, was running high in favour of Hughie and his practically single-handed endeavour to humble the pride of the All Saints men, with their four Blues and five years' Headship.
Still, though many a man's—especially a young man's—heart would have swelled excusably enough at such homage, Hughie cared very little for these things. The notoriety of the sporting paper and the picture-postcard attracted him not at all. He was doggedly determined to take his boat to the Head of the river, not for the glory the achievement would bring him, but for the very simple and sufficient reason that he had made up his mind, four Blues notwithstanding, to leave it there before he went down. A Cambridge man's pride in his College is a very real thing. An Oxford man will tell you that he is an Oxford man. A Cambridge man will say: "I was at such-and-such a College, Cambridge." Which sentiment is the nobler need not be decided here, but the fact remains.
However, there was a fly in the ointment. Amid the expressions of goodwill that emanated from Hughie's own party one voice had been silent. The omission was quite unintentional, for Miss Mildred Freshwater's head had been buried in a hamper in search of spoons at the moment of Hughie's departure. But to poor Hughie, who for all his strength was no more reasonable where his affections were concerned than other and weaker brethren, the circumstance bereft the ovation of the one mitigating feature it might otherwise have possessed for him.
As he strode along the bank to where the ferry-boat was waiting, he heard a pattering of feet behind. A small, hot, and rather grubby hand was thrust into his, and Miss Gaymer remarked:—