This malign stroke of fortune they had borne and survived. But the personal element was so intermingled with this event that if it did not come off, the future was dark indeed.
They kept their race-glasses fixed on the boats as the men were getting in. How handsome Eric looked, and how proud they were of him! An inch or two over six feet in height, yet not looking it from the perfect symmetry of his figure, effectively displayed by the boating costume, many a girl’s heart went out to him besides those of his adoring sisters, and many a fervent wish, not to say prayer, ascended as the Cambridge boat, wildly cheered, tore out and took her place by Putney Bridge. Then Oxford followed, amidst shouts that shook the air, rowing, for her, a quicker stroke than usual. If she can keep it up, what price Cambridge? The thought was maddening, and the girls’ faces began to look gravely anxious.
On the river’s banks a human hive seems to have settled. Black are the bridges, the lawns, the balconies, and the windows. The crowded steamers must be dangerously o’erladen; and surely the protagonists, in this grand trial of skill, strength, and endurance, will task every sinew, muscle, limb, and heart-valve to win the laurel crown of the year. The English crews fight for their College, their Alma Mater; but the Australians are for their respective Colonies, their native land: to show, as they have done in other [271] ]historic rivalry, that the sons of Greater Britain are on a level in this as in other respects with their relatives from the wondrous isles from which their fathers came. ‘I ride for my county,’ quoth Valentine Maher. In much the same sense as the West of Ireland member of ‘The Blazers’ rode, the colonial champions in the Cambridge boat may each have vowed, as they stretched each manly thew and sinew, to do a man’s best for the good land for which their fathers had toiled and striven and fought in the long-past years; with droughts and fires, blacks, bushrangers, and other foes of the pioneer—resulting, alas! not seldom, in total wreck and financial ruin after the work of a life’s best years.
However, these are not holiday thoughts. The present is sunlit and joyous; let us enjoy it while we may. There is a temporary cessation of the murmurous, confused, unintelligible growl of the crowds. The course is clear. The boats are off—off! The race has begun. So has the true excitement, the desperate struggle of the swarming crowds on the swaying steamers and the towing path.
‘Oh! which is in front?’ cries Vanda. ‘Don’t say it is Oxford, or I can never survive this day.’
‘Don’t be a goose,’ says Reggie magisterially. ‘Watch Hammersmith Bridge. There—I thought as much—Cambridge is ahead.’
‘Hurrah!’ called out Hermione, who up to this point had been discreet and decorous. ‘Oh, I beg pardon! but the strain was too great. Look [272] ]at that girl, with the Oxford colours and a pink parasol—how she is waving it about. They hadn’t parasols, I suppose, in those days, or I’m sure Rowena would have waved hers at Ashby-de-la-Zouche, when Ivanhoe’s lance sent the Templar rolling in the lists. That was an exciting affair, if you like. How I should have liked to have been there!’
‘Hermione,’ said her mother, ‘we shall have to leave you at home next time if you cannot control your feelings; you are doing your country an injustice by your want of retenue.’
‘Look out for Barnes,’ said Reggie, in low, vibrating tones, as of one who had no time for trifling. ‘By Jove! Cambridge has put up a spurt and drawn level. How they’re shouting on the bridge. Cambridge! Cambridge! The light blue for ever! Cambridge wins!’
It is even so. Cambridge leaves rowing, and one—two—three—four seconds pass before Oxford finishes. The great race is over for the year. Eric and his crew are on the wharf before the Ship Inn, at Mortlake. Happy heroes—‘o’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious.’ Victors in a world-famed contest. The news flashed within a few minutes to all the centres of the old world and the new. It is not, ‘What will they say in England?’ although that is of as much or more engrossing interest to the colonist as to the home-born Briton; but also, ‘What will they say in Sydney and Melbourne, Adelaide and Hobart, Brisbane and Perth—ay, in distant Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie?’ In everyone of these aggregations of [273] ]people and commerce, where divers nations are represented and various tongues are spoken, there will be a knot of watchers at the telegraph offices to know if the news of the great race has ‘come through,’ and many a wager will be won and lost as each man of sporting tastes and traditions has backed his fancy, whether with the dark blue or the light. There will be healths drunk in far-off lands to-night, and to-night recollections of the Trumpington ale, of walks along ‘the Backs,’ where the Cam ‘wanders through frequent arches, with groves and gardens of unique beauty,’ will recur to grizzled graduates of Cambridge and Oxford.