‘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 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 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.