Part 13

Besides these troubles, Hollis strongly suspected that there was another; he had not been altogether frank with Bender on the subject. One day some one and her mother came on to Boston for a fortnight, and Rivers at the same time became bluer and more restless than ever. He put all his pipes out of sight, and would tramp up and down the room, or sit and look into the fire for an hour at a time. Nevertheless he would go into Boston nearly every day, and get back only just in time for crew practice.

When some one and her mother came out to see Cambridge, a luncheon had to be given in the room. There was the usual borrowing of furniture, ruthless clearing up, and upsetting of all established disorder in the room, all of which Holworthy suffered in silence. He watched his patient narrowly all through lunch; but when they went out to see the lions, he no longer had any doubt about the case. For Rivers took Mamma, leaving Hollis to convoy the younger craft.

Before the two weeks were up, Rivers did a very foolish thing. He came to the conclusion that, in any event, hell would be better than purgatory. That was of course illogical, but a man in purgatory is not logical. Furthermore when he makes up his mind to jump out of that middle place, he shuts his eyes and always hopes, with or without reason, that he will not go the wrong way. If he were in a comfortable state and could reason at his ease, he might not delude himself with unfounded hope. Charlie Rivers thought he had argued coolly with himself. To the prospect of his responsibilities and narrow means, he answered that he had strength, energy, and education, and that his little sister needed more than money. To the cold reflection that he had never been shown the slightest glimpse of anything more than the dictates of natural gentleness and good manners, he replied that perhaps it was not right for a girl to show more until a man told her that he loved her. At any rate he would not trust his untutored perceptions to tell whether she cared anything for him or not; the only way was to ask her and find out. If he was afraid to do so he was a coward and did not deserve her. Then he argued himself into the idea that it was his duty to tell her squarely how he stood, and give her the opportunity to send him away if she so pleased and put a stop to attentions that might be irksome to her. This was all very silly and boyish. If he had known all about such things, as of course do you and I who read and write about them, he would have spent that Sunday, on which there was no rowing, in his room, reading Thackeray, or gone out with Rattleton and Holworthy in the former's dog-cart, as he was asked to do. Instead of either of these safe and normal Sabbath amusements, he hurried away from his untasted lunch at the training-table (making Bender's blood run cold by showing that he was "off his feed"), spent an hour in dressing, and then went in to Boston.

That afternoon as Holworthy and Jack Rattleton were driving through a suburb of Boston, they saw walking ahead of them a big, familiar form, towering beside another form of very different proportions. Rattleton laid the whip over his horse and went by the couple at a pace that precluded any sign of recognition. Holworthy was as much surprised as pleased at this thoughtful act on Rattleton's part; and concluded that he must in some way have guessed that things were serious with Rivers, and no subject for teasing. Nor did Jack say a word about the pair of pedestrians, or hint that he had recognized Rivers, which reticence confirmed Holworthy's conclusion. On this drive Rattleton did not talk a great deal about anything. He had been quite despondent lately and unlike himself, probably on account of the uncertainty of his Commencement, though the dreaded end of Senior year was still a good way off by Jack's ordinary computation. On two evenings within that past week had he been found in his room, "grinding" for that degree, when the examinations were still two months away.

It was dark when they got back to Cambridge, and went up to Holworthy's room to sit until dinner-time. There was a dark mass on the couch, and when they lit the gas they saw Rivers. The young giant was lying on his chest, his great arms over his head and his face in the cushions.

"The old boy is over-trained and tired," whispered Rattleton. "I had better clear out and not waken him," and he left the room.

Had Jack recognized Rivers that afternoon or not? wondered Holworthy. He hoped not. He turned the light out again, not knowing exactly why. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he went up and laid his hand gently on the shoulder of his prostrate room-mate. Let us not turn the gas up again on those two. We will go down-stairs instead with Jack Rattleton.

As he closed the door gently after him Jack gave a little low whistle. Then he went slowly down-stairs and into the Yard, followed by the dog, Blathers. "Come along, pup," he said to his constant companion; "let's go take a walk." He walked a long way and came back to his club table rather late for dinner.

Holworthy was late, too. As they were smoking with their coffee, the other men having gone, Rattleton asked if Rivers was not getting "stale" from his training.

"I think so, decidedly," answered Hollis. "I have spoken to Bender about it, but he is such a conservative old martinet that he won't break any of the canons of training until he is satisfied that a man is going into a rapid decline. I know a cigar once in a while would do Charlie more good than harm, but I can't make the conscientious beggar steal a smoke without permission from his tyrant. He is blue as indigo."

"Is he troubled about money matters?" asked Rattleton, hesitatingly coming now to what he wanted to find out. "Didn't his father leave him rather hard up? Excuse my asking, but I thought we might help him to find something to do, don't you know."

"That is a great deal of the matter with him," answered Holworthy, glad to see the tack on which Jack was steering. "You needn't apologize for asking about it. I wish to thunder we could find him a job. He is worrying all the time about what he is going to do after leaving college."

That night Rattleton wrote a letter to his father, who was president of a big corporation.

From this time on Rivers seemed to brace up in his mental, and consequently in his physical condition. This apparent improvement, however, did not deceive Holworthy, who saw that it was, in a way, unhealthy. Rivers had kept at his rowing and training patiently and doggedly before; but he now threw himself into it heart and soul as a distraction. He dreamed of the coming race night and day. He tried his best to seem cheerful and encourage the other men, and his plucky efforts succeeded very well. Bender was delighted, declared there was nothing like faithful training to keep a man in proper shape, body and mind, unless he was fool enough to fall in love, and concluded that he had suspected Rivers unjustly on that score.

The latter showed every now and then to his chum the intensity, almost fierceness, that lay under this apparently happy enthusiasm. One day he said that he must make a success of at least one thing before leaving college, and if that race were lost he should feel as though he were going to fail in everything he undertook all through life. Then Mentor Holworthy opened on him with all his batteries. He told him that he ought to be ashamed to make such a mere sport the test of his life; he descanted hotly on the subject of the athletic fever, and laughed scornfully at the fancied importance of such intercollegiate contests.

"I suppose," said he, "that Hancock and Adams and Emerson and Longfellow and all the rest of them will sleep more peacefully in their graves if we beat Yale, and if we get thrashed no doubt old Dr. Holmes will be sorry he ever came to Cambridge, and will at once go down to New Haven to take his entrance examination for the Freshman class there. Haven't you grown up yet, that you look on these things as a school boy? These overwrought struggles can do good in just one way, and you seem ready now to throw away even that advantage. Every time a thoroughbred gets licked it does him good. You have seen the men on our different teams get up after a thrashing and go at it as hard as ever the next year; you have yourself gone through a splendid school of defeat and disappointment, yet now you talk about lying down for all your lifetime if you lose a boat-race. It is true you cannot row against Yale again, but there is a bigger victory than that to be won. Have you for the first time lost all your heart after a failure? You of all men should not need to be told that a prize is never lost until won. At any rate lay up in reserve for yourself the consolation of having done your best. Charley, Charley, if you throw up the sponge after one knockdown, you are not the man I have always thought you."

Rivers listened to all this, with head bent. When Hollis stopped he raised his face again and said: "I know what you mean, old man, and you are right. I won't lie down like a cur. I'll pull it through to the finish, anyway. But in the meantime I must do like a man whatever I have taken up."

"Now you are talking like your old self," answered Hollis, "but don't forget that doing your duty like a gentleman is not confined to rowing a boat-race."

After this broadside Rivers went on with his rowing in a better spirit than he had shown during that year. Before long he was immensely cheered up also by the promise of a position with a good salary and chance of advancement, that was to be ready for him right after the boat-race. Jack Rattleton, through his father, had succeeded in getting this for him. His absorbing devotion to his rowing fortunately did not prevent him from getting his degree but he lost a _cum laude_ and had to "take his A.B. straight," as Burleigh said, "without any green leaves or nutmeg in it."

There was another piece of parchment made out for Commencement Day, that was a surprise to every one. It was marked Johannes Rattleton.

II.

Class Day and Commencement were over, and every one was now bound for New London to attend the post-Commencement carnival that, for the undergraduate at least, really winds up the college year. The crew had gone down to their quarters at Gale's Ferry two weeks before; there had been no Class Day for them. The faithful flocked to the Thames' mouth in squads and divisions, and by all sorts of methods, some in big yachts, some in cat-boats, others on coaches, but most by train at special rates, for the undergraduate is usually not rolling in wealth, particularly at the end of June. The fresh graduate who has just paid his Commencement bills is still less apt to do any coaching or yachting except by invitation.

Dick Stoughton however had a small sloop, and he and his friends had decided that the cruise would not "break" them, and at any rate that they would make it whether it broke them or not. It would be cheaper to live aboard, they argued very plausibly, than to get swindled by New London hotel-keepers. They would refrain from betting on the race; then if Yale won they would be no worse off financially, and if the Crimson went to the front they would not spend twice their winnings on the spot, as they would be sure to do if they bet. This was a highly praiseworthy resolution, and of course the most sensible way of looking at the folly of betting. Burleigh said it was easy enough to look at anything sensibly. They would go, then, on Dick's sloop, and they would not bet a cent. They went on the sloop. The party was made up of Stoughton, Hudson, Randolph, Burleigh, and Gray. Holworthy did not go; he had taken a room in New London at the Pequot House, and went there immediately after Class Day, as he wanted to see all he could of Rivers at the quarters. Strange to say, Jack Rattleton also refused all persuasion to join his friends on the cruise. In vain did Ned Burleigh, with tears in his eyes, assure him that it would be the last and most beautiful "toot" of his college course. Jack advanced several good but utterly insufficient and unnatural reasons for "shaking the gang." Ned exhorted him more in sorrow than in anger.

"What has got into you lately?" he asked anxiously. "That sheepskin seems to have ruined you. I actually believe you have reformed, or have caught a premature aim in life, or some such fatal disease. You were a great deal better fellow when you were Lazy Jack and didn't amount to a row of pins; John Rattleton, Esq., A.B., is a bore. You strained yourself badly for those letters, and are run down in consequence. Hang it all, Jack, come along, it will do you good."

But Rattleton did not go along. He hung around Cambridge until the day before the race, and then joined Hollis at the Pequot House. Capt. Stoughton's craft had arrived safely, notwithstanding her crew, and was anchored in the river with the rest of the fleet in front of the hotel, when Rattleton got there.

The night before the boat-race at New London is one that bears recollection better than description. The Pequot House is usually the centre of ceremonies. Crowds of men are down from Cambridge, and there are a few of the advance-guard from New Haven, although most of the Yale men come next morning. Lectures and examinations are behind them, the long vacation is ahead; it is the last spree of the year, the last gathering of the four years for the Seniors,--and full justice is usually done the occasion. Many a grad., too, runs away from his office to the Connecticut town, or comes ashore there from his yacht, to renew his youth on the eve of battle and to shout at the struggle on the morrow.

Of course on that evening the party from Stoughton's boat were ashore, and in the thick of it. Ned Burleigh was master of ceremonies, and organized a band of "cheerful workers." Holworthy, however, kept out of it. He was thinking of eight men up the river, five or six miles away from all this roystering, and of one big man in particular, whose whole soul, like his muscles, was strung up for the next day. He wondered whether Rivers was getting any sleep, and the anxiety about his best friend left him little heart to rollick with the others. He was surprised to find Rattleton in much the same mood, for notwithstanding the recent change in that young gentleman, it seemed hardly possible that Jack could sulk in his tent at such a time as this. The two, with the dog Blathers, walked out together on the piazza.

As they turned a corner of the veranda they saw sitting in the light of a window two feminine figures, one of which Holworthy at once recognized.

"By Jove!" he thought to himself; "has she come down to see that man kill himself, or does she really want to see him win?" Then he growled to Rattleton, "This is a nice place for a girl on this evening, isn't it?"

Rattleton had stopped short. "Look here," he said, "you go warn those Comanches, and keep them in bounds. I am going to talk to her."

"Why, do you know her?" queried Hollis a little surprised.

"Oh, yes,--slightly,--well enough to speak to. You go along."

Holworthy went to the back of the hotel, and Jack towards the two ladies.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Rattleton," said the younger one, as he came up and bowed. "Let me present you to my aunt, Mrs. West."

"Are you staying in the hotel?" asked Jack after the opening salutations. Just at this moment he heard, from the direction of the billiard-room, the silvery voice of Mr. Edward Burleigh, leading the cheerful workers in the strains of a hymn. He was greatly relieved when Mrs. West answered, "No, we are staying in one of the cottages, and came over here only for dinner. Ethel, my dear, I think we had better go back now. You will walk over with us, Mr. Rattleton, will you not?"

"With pleasure," answered Rattleton, truthfully. "Do you mind my dog?" On the contrary, they thought Blathers a lovely dog, and all four went over to a quiet cottage at a little distance from the hotel. The veranda looked out over the beautiful river and was most inviting. It was apparently not so, however, to Mrs. West; for as she went up the steps, she said: "I feel a little chilly, and am going in doors, Ethel. You may stay out here for a little while, if you like." Ethel did like and went over to a pair of chairs. As she passed through the light of an open door, Jack caught sight of a bit of blue ribbon pinned on her dress. He sat down opposite her, and opened the conversation, by remarking, "You are on the other side of the fence, I see."

"Oh, yes," she answered. "Don't you know that I have a cousin on the Yale crew? I am very proud of him."

"Oh, have you?" said Jack, with an inward groan. "I didn't know it. Well, I never was a really clever, polite liar, but I am not such a transparent one as to say that I hope he will win."

A little rippling laugh followed this confession. "No, you had better not strain the truth to that extent. I will forgive you for sticking to your colors and for being so frank about it."

"It is not only because I am a Harvard man that I want to see our crew win," Jack went on with a sort of gulp, "it is also because the most splendid man I ever knew, and one of my best friends, is in the boat. He has been through an awful mill, and deserves to win if ever a man did."

"Indeed?" came the question, perfectly uninterestedly. "And who is that?"

"A man named Rivers. Do you happen to know him?" Rattleton tried to see in the moonlight whether or not there was any more color in her cheek; but he couldn't. Besides, he had enough to do in looking after his own face. He felt cold all over.

"Oh, yes, I know him quite well," she answered, quite carelessly. "Nice fellow."

"He is more than that, he is a hero," declared Jack. "You can hardly form any idea of what that chap has been through this year, and the way he has borne it all is splendid. He has had all sorts of troubles; his governor died; he was blue about his exchequer; and last, and worst of all,"--Jack was glad the moonlight was kind to him also, but looked at his boots, nevertheless,--"I am perfectly certain that he fell in love with some girl and got a facer."

"A what?" exclaimed his listener.

"I beg your pardon--a staggering blow in the face, metaphorical, of course. I have got so in the habit of using slang, that I fear I am not fit to talk to a lady. I beg you will forgive me for bringing such prize-ring language to your ears."

"It is very expressive, at least," she said. "And did Mr. Rivers tell you that he had received a facer?"

"No, no, no," protested Jack, "of course not. I don't _know_ it, I only suspected it from his actions and condition. I don't even know, of course, who the girl is. But whoever she may be, she is making a big mistake. She is throwing away the most magnificent fellow in the world. If she does not amount to anything," he went on slowly, "I am glad she doesn't take him, for Charley ought not to be wasted on her. But if she is the most beautiful, gentle, sweet woman who ever lived, then, by Jove, such a pair ought to be married. And I am sure she must be just that, or else, you know, Rivers would not have fallen in love with her. Don't you think so?"

Rattleton's hair was rigid at his boldness and impertinence, but his hair had nothing to do with his speaking apparatus. His heart was taking charge of that, moving it very slowly and just a little hoarsely.

"Why, what devout hero worship!" said the girl with a smile. "No, I don't think anything of the kind. He might have fallen in love with some one entirely unworthy of him, or, what is more, who did not care for him. No matter how perfect she might be, you would not have her marry if she did not love him, would you?"

"No--o," assented Jack, reluctantly, "but she ought to love him."

"He must, indeed, be all that you paint him, then," she laughed, "but love does not necessarily take to paragons, you know. Why do you admire him so very much?"

"Because I have known him like a brother for four years," answered Jack, earnestly. "Oh, if you knew him as well as I do, you would----you wouldn't think I was exaggerating."

"What made you think him so desperately in love?"

"Oh, I don't know. I think it is unmistakable," was Jack's weak reply.

"Only those can tell who have themselves been in that condition--they say," came the laughing response.

Jack's finger-nails went into his palms. "No, no," he stammered, "no,--I can tell. Oh, you ought to have seen him," he went on, desperately. "The way he went to work at that rowing after it all, showed his sand. If they lose to-morrow, I believe his plucky old heart will break right in two."

"And is his 'sand,' as you call it, restricted to rowing a boat-race?"

"No, I didn't mean to imply that. He will go on working to win that girl in every way he can, I am sure. I only meant that his conduct about his training, in such a hard time, shows what stuff he has in him."

"Do you think, then, that winning a boat-race is the best way to win a wife? Might not Mr. Rivers find some higher field for his qualities? Is it not a little childish to make an athletic contest the aim of a man's life? Do you think the only pluck worth admiring is that which goes with muscle?"

Jack had heard endless discussions on this subject, and was ready for these questions, "No," he said in answer to the last one, "I don't think anything of the kind. Please don't imagine that at Harvard we are nothing but gladiator worshippers. We admire a plucky athlete, it is true, but not because he is strong or successful, only because of his grit and self-denial. Of course we want him to put the Crimson ahead, but we like him none the less if he fails, provided he has done his best and done it like a gentleman. We admire the same qualities just as much when we see them in any other field than that of athletics, but I suppose we don't recognize them so easily. But in that our little world is not so different from the big one. Now I am going to ask you some questions. Has any man during the last seventy years been elected President of these United States for his greatness, unless he was a soldier? Has not the general been preferred time and again to the statesman? Has not the warrior always been dear to the heart of the people, while other men, who have hammered away all their lives with longer-winded pluck and perseverance, must content themselves with secondary honor? The reason of this must be that when a man does his duty on the battle-field, his merit is more patent to the people than in the harder and less showy struggle of civil life. Are we youngsters, then, so very much younger than the old and wise ones who criticise us? Why, you yourself just now said that you were proud of your cousin because he was on the Yale crew."

"Oh, no, I didn't say that," laughed the girl; "I only said that he was on the Yale crew and I was very proud of him. Why, Mr. Rattleton, what a sharp pleader you are! I had no idea that your talents lay in that direction."

"By Jove! neither had I," exclaimed the ingenuous Jack, really wondering and somewhat abashed at his unaccustomed volubility. "I am only trying, you know, to repeat what I have heard other fellows say," he confessed, apologetically. "I suppose I have got it all mixed up and am talking like a fool, but please make allowances for me, because I am one, you know."