You remember how Drake knocked Alfred from the footboard of his bed on the occasion of our night meeting to get up the boat-race. That was a good example of Drake’s reckless rudeness, proceeding merely from his boisterous disposition, but somehow those outbreaks were always directed to Alfred, just as the rough points of Alfred’s disposition were sure to be turned to Drake. That fall had hurt Alfred, and from the date of the commencement of our boat-practice, the war between the two had waxed hotter and hotter. The contest seemed only to amuse Harry Higginson, but Walter—our mentor, my conscientious, tender-hearted brother, who led us all in games as well as in lessons—worried over it, and each day he exhorted the two to govern their tempers, and, with great tact and decision, whenever he saw a storm brewing, managed to throw oil upon the waters. However, his influence did not heal up the difference, and in about a fortnight, a few days before the intended race, there occurred during our afternoon boat-practice a little row between the two antagonists, which proved a final skirmish before the severe but ludicrous battle which crowned the civil war.
We were rowing in Bath Bay as usual, Walter pulling the stroke oar, and Harry Higginson the bow, whilst Drake and Alfred held the intermediate positions, Drake sitting behind Alfred—that is, nearer the bow. I had my place at the tiller.
Alfred Higginson had made a very ridiculous blunder in a French translation that morning. Such a thing was unusual for him, and was such a comical one that it set the others of the class in a roar of laughter. Drake was so extravagantly affected by Alf’s blunder that Mr Clare had to stop his laughter, which was half genuine and half pretence, by ordering him out of the room. Even then we heard him ha-ha-ing outside. Poor Alfred was terribly mortified, and did not recover his composure even when the school-hours were over, and the first greeting he received, on emerging from the house, was from Drake, who immediately mimicked Alfred’s mistake, and performed a variety of antics supposed to proceed from convulsions of mirth. On the way to the boat, Drake continued to tease Alfred. Walter reproved him continually, and even took hold of him once to compel him to stop; but he was in one of his most boisterous moods, and was so very funny that he kept every one but Alfred in shouts of laughter. But Alfred lashed him with the bitterest satire, and, as they say, sometimes “made him laugh on the other side of his mouth,” until by the time we had reached the bay Drake had subsided into silence, and the tight closing of his lips, and quick walk, proved that Alfred’s sharp wit was more fatal than Drake’s broad fun. Both of the boys rowed sullenly, and we all felt that a storm was brewing. In the final round, when we made the course at our best and timed the performance, so as to notice what improvement we were making, Alfred caught a crab with his oar, in consequence of which the head of Drake’s oar hit him sharply in the back. The mortification of a miss stroke is enough to anger a boatman, but coming as it did after the morning’s blunder in class, and made, too, a pain of the flesh by Drake’s blow, it was too much for Alfred’s temper, and as Drake increased the irritation by calling him an “awkward lout,” and then mimicking the blunder of translation with the accompaniment of a shout of laughter, Alfred turned quickly, and hit his opponent a stinging blow in the face.
In a moment the two boys grappled each other, and in a shorter period than it takes my pen to write it, the boat was upset, and we were all in the water. The combatants still clung to one another, and disappeared together. The adage, however, that “discretion is the better part of valour,” enforced by such a deep, cold plunge, bore proof; for the irate youths came to the surface apart, and we all struck out for the rocks, distant about eighty yards. We climbed like half-drowned rats up the shore, where the fight was not resumed. Its very strange continuation was postponed until the Saturday after the boat-race, which must be reserved for another chapter. We, however, read then, in the faces of the discomfited antagonists, as plainly as you read here—
“To be continued.”
Chapter Seven.
Before the Boat-Race—Clump’s Story.
The day before the eighteenth was a Monday. In consideration of beginning a week’s study to have it broken off again on Tuesday, and because of the many preparations there were to make for the great day, Mr Clare gave us the two holidays. We had our swim and boat-practice on Monday morning, and then set to work to make arrangements for the next day, every one taking a part with real zest. First the boat was carefully hauled up on the shore, and turned over on a way of joists we had prepared for her. The bottom was then carefully washed, and, after that, thoroughly rubbed with the sand-paper—about an hour’s work, at which we all had a hand. Having got the sides and keel beautifully smooth in that way, Clump brought a kettle of pure grease, which was placed over a little fire of driftwood, and when the grease had become liquid, Walter, with a large fine paint-brush, anointed the entire boat’s bottom in a most painstaking manner. We boys stood by, entering into the operation, which was supposed to prove wonderfully efficacious in increasing our boat’s speed, with great interest, and Clump bent over the kettle, stirring the oil, and puffing at the short stern of his pipe eagerly.