CHAPTER V
THE JOY OF BATTLE
Hughie stepped out of the ferry-boat on to the towpath, which was crowded with young men hastening to the places where the boats were moored and young women who would have been much better employed on the opposite bank.
The punctilious Hughie was looking about for a friendly hedge or other protection behind which he might decorously slip off the white flannel trousers which during the afternoon had been veiling the extreme brevity of his rowing-shorts, when he was tapped on the shoulder. He turned and found himself faced by a stout clean-shaven man, with eyes that twinkled cheerfully behind round spectacles. He looked like what he was, a country parson of the best type, burly, humorous, and shrewd, with unmistakable traces of the schoolmaster about him.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, with a rather old-fashioned bow, "but are you Mr. Marrable?"
Hughie admitted the fact.
"Well, I just want to say that I hope you are going Head to-night. You are to row stroke yourself, I hear."