CHAPTER XI

‘Suppose Reggie and Eric turned out like that young fellow!’ he told himself. ‘What good would my life do me? Next to marrying one of the daughters of Heth (the real, original millstone round a man’s neck), what hope, satisfaction, or comfort should I have in life? Is all my work, thought, self-denial, and drudgery to go for nothing? Shall I see as my male heirs and successors a couple of well-dressed, good-looking “moneyed loungers,” loafing through life with no more interest in the great drama of existence than the supernumerary at a fashion play? Less useful, indeed, than the disregarded “super,” for he works for his humble wage; and these _nati consumere fruges_ don’t even do that.’

These reflections gave so gloomy a tinge to his view of life that he felt inclined to pronounce the whole scheme of human life a joke—a bad one at that. ‘Why, a man might work his powers of mind and body to the extremity of endurance, to reach a well-defined goal, where happiness sat enthroned, and then—when he got there—his powers of enjoyment might desert him, or malign occurrences dash the cup from his lips, and the apples of the garden of the Hesperides turn to ashes in his mouth! Why then should mortal man seek to raise himself above the beasts that perish? “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.”’ _Vanitas vanitatum_ was the verdict with which he concluded this series of enlivening reflections, when a voice which always had power to charm away the demons of despondency fell on his ears.

‘Well, my dear Arnold, what are you looking so serious about? Have you remembered that we are to meet the Liddesdales at luncheon and go with them to Aintree? We have settled to see the great race run, and perhaps the boys will be able to get away and meet us on the course. The girls are so excited about it that their appetites will suffer. There’s an Australian horse in it, or a New Zealander, or something—at any rate an Antipodean, more properly still an Australasian. So we must all back him for the sake of our national honour. What a splendid thing it will be if he wins!’

‘Afraid he hasn’t much chance, my dear! The jumps are not high enough—or stiff enough—for a horse used to three-railed fences. Didn’t some one describe the Grand National as a flat race with a good many low fences in it? Four miles and a half, a trifle over, they say. It wants a fast horse, a thoroughbred and a good stayer. I’ve always held that we—I speak of the South generally—should win it and the Derby some day. And so we shall, but there’s a difficulty about the age that complicates the latter race. However, that can be got over, I suppose, in time; but I don’t feel in racing trim, somehow.’

‘Oh, nonsense, my dear! you mustn’t get into low spirits now we’ve got everything we ever wished for, and more besides. It looks like the pilot that weathered the storm breaking up after the ship is safe in harbour. Come along and see the girls’ new dresses. They’re in such good taste, and yet “quite excellent” as to fashion and fit.’

The London season! How often had the words fallen on the ears of the Australian family! What a world of meaning it conveyed to the juvenile section! Vast, mysterious, splendid—the acme of enjoyment—the _ne plus ultra_ of fashion. The pinnacle of perfection in all things desirable, with boundless riches as a substratum, solid, unquestioned, supreme among the nations, what power was like England? And here they were, actually living and breathing in her metropolis—the world’s metropolis, as they had often heard it called. After London there was nothing more to see—nothing more to learn. There were orders of nobility on the continent of Europe—Counts and Princes, Barons and Grafs, in profusion—but what were they to the nobility of England, where only the eldest son was heir to the ancestral title? Not cheapened, as abroad, by the law which gave the rank to every child of the house and to every child of _their_ children—thus multiplying titles, which having little or no means upon which to support the dignity, brought contempt upon the order and the race. Day by day as they rode or strolled in the parks they saw magnificent equipages, unsurpassed for beauty and uniformity—such as no other capital could supply—such horses, such carriages!—such equipages generally—as struck them with surprise and admiration. And the number and quality of them! As the sands of the sea—innumerable. They never seemed to come to an end. The private carriages were overpowering enough in all conscience, but by the Four-in-Hand Club—the Coaching Club—on the days of the annual processions, were they wonder-stricken, speechless! Such teams, with such action—in such condition! such coachmen—such footmen—beyond all conception of matching, all imagination of fashion and completeness!

Of course they had not been long in town before they were taken to the theatres and opera houses, where certain performances were in full vogue and acceptation. Here they were entranced by the perfection of the impersonations, the splendour of the staging, the pathos and the majesty of the finest vocal talent of the world, supported by the grandest instrumental harmony. Of this last consummation an Australian compatriot, born and reared to womanhood in a southern metropolis, was a _prima donna assoluta_ during that memorable season.

Heroes too, naval and military, passed in review, in park or street, before these young people. They were evidently desirous to store their minds with the exact presentment of the demigods of the race, ‘in their habit’ as they lived, for retrospective meditation. Kitchener was in the Soudan again, but they had sight and heard speech of Lord Roberts—Roberts of Kandahar!

‘Then we put the lances down, Then the bugles blew, as we rode to Kandahar, Marching two and two,’

quoted Vanda. He was mounted, looking a horseman and a soldier, every inch of him, from plume to spur—carried by a lovely charger, but _not_ on the historical Arab. Much they grieved that Volonel the beauteous, the high-born, the beloved, had passed away to the land of the ‘Great Dead.’

‘Do you believe,’ queried Vanda, ‘that the dear horses we have all known, and loved and mourned, are denied a future life, when so many of our rubbishy fellow-creatures, idle, criminal and despicable in every sense, are to be pardoned and promoted? I hardly can. It seems inconsistent with the scheme of eternal justice.’

‘It is a large question,’ replied Reggie, ‘and besides, my dear Vanda, you are not old enough to argue on debatable points of doctrine. It is hardly edifying at your age.’

Of course there had been a great meeting with ‘the boys,’ by which endearing term the Cambridge students were known in the family. They did not lose much time, it may be believed, before presenting themselves at the Hotel Cecil, in which palace a telegram from Paris notified that the family had taken apartments. They were received with acclamation, and their growth in ‘wisdom and stature’ was favourably remarked upon by Hermione and Vanda. Certainly they were good specimens of the Anglo-Saxon youth of the day, whether reared in Great or Greater Britain. Tall, well proportioned, athletic, well dressed, and showing ‘good form,’ which means so many indefinable qualities and habitudes, it may be imagined with what pride and joy their parents gazed on them, and how, from very joy and thankfulness, their mother’s eyes overflowed as her loving arms embraced her first-born and his brother. Their father’s short but fervent greeting was not effusive, after the manner of Englishmen, but none the less heartfelt and secretly joyful. As such, fully understood by the sons of the house.

Then followed, of course, unlimited talk, with explanations, reminiscences, expectations, descriptions, sketches of functions impending or otherwise, with interjections by the girls—occasionally repressed but indulgently allowed, even when not strictly in order, on account of the exuberant happiness, even transports of the present meeting. None could deny that. They were a pair of youngsters of whom any family might have been proud. Their looks were in their favour certainly. Reginald, the elder, with dark brown hair and eyes, regular features, and a figure which united grace and symmetry in equal proportions, was generally held to be handsome—and supposed to be clever. An ardent and successful student, he had distinguished himself at his college; in the Union he was looked upon as a promising, even brilliant debater. Already he was attracted by the prospect of a legislative career, and while connecting himself for the present with the Liberals, was conscious of a leaning to Conservative principles, and a belief that with age, experience, and ripened judgment he might be found in the ranks of that great party which, while recognising and, in proper time and place, advocating reasonable progress, regarded as above all things the honour, the safety, the durability of the Empire.

The brothers, as happens usually in families, differed in a marked degree from each other, not less in physical than in mental attributes, while both were well up to the standard of strength and activity demanded of well-born, well-educated Englishmen in their college days.

Eric, the younger, less studious than his senior, had taken a leading part in the open-air contests of strength and skill which absorb so large a portion of the leisure of British University men. At cricket, football, ‘the gloves,’ he was—if not _facile princeps_—always among the half-dozen from whom were picked the champions of their respective colleges, in the annual or occasional contests. Each had, of course, staunch backers and enthusiastic supporters, who battled desperately for their inclusion in the team for international or county cricket; or, higher honour still, in the annual boat-race at Putney. Here the younger brother had scored, as he was three in the Cambridge Eight, and with another Australian was prepared to die at his oar, to uphold the men of his country and college. As this classic contest, which was to be decided before Good Friday, was now only a few days distant, and arrangements had been already made, and invitations accepted, for places in a house-boat, it may be imagined what feelings animated the breasts of the entire family as the day of the absorbing fixture drew nigh.

On one never-to-be-forgotten day the girls and their mother were taken by the young men, proud of the privilege of escorting their handsome sisters and the stately mother, over the precincts of Cambridge. The day was fine, for a wonder—a soft sky—a gentle breeze—a day when walking was a pleasure, and the fresh, pure air a delight. ‘There used to be an old stone bridge over the Cam about here,’ said Reggie, ‘beside which the great Benedictine Monastery of the Fern had probably something to do with the foundation of the University.’

‘Where did the students live?’ asked Hermione; ‘in the Monastery?’

‘They were lodged at first in the houses of the townspeople. The long street, hereabouts, begins with Trumpington Road, but it ends in a narrow lane, fronting Sepulchre Church. Here are, you see, the more important Colleges. The students were possibly a more or less unruly lot. At any rate, in 1231, Henry III., we are told, issued warrants “for the Regulation of Cambridge Clerks.” Troublous times ensued, for in Wat Tyler’s time the rabble (I beg their pardon), the labour party of the period, sacked the Colleges, but were attacked and repulsed by the young Bishop of Norwich.’

‘So bishops used to fight in those days?’

‘Yes, under stress of circumstances—there were several instances—Bishop Odo was another priest militant. The rebellion did not last long, fortunately; but Jack Cade only foreshadowed the utterances of some of our latter-day legislators when he swore that his horse should be put to grass in Cheapside.’

‘We should not like George and Pitt Streets to revert to kangaroo grass again,’ said Vanda, who was highly conservative, ‘but worse things have happened when the people got the upper hand.’

‘Let us hope that reasonable counsels will prevail,’ said Mrs. Banneret; ‘in the meanwhile, suppose we explore this beautiful building. What is it called?’

‘This is the famous Fitzwilliam Museum,’ answered Reggie, ‘to which the Earl of that name bequeathed a picture gallery, a valuable library, with 120 volumes of engravings, and a hundred thousand pounds.’

‘A princely gift. Is this the Sculpture Gallery? How superb these marbles are, and what lovely Greek vases!’

‘The building seems worthy of its contents,’ said Hermione. ‘What a glorious façade! The portico and colonnades are worth a day’s study. If we lived near I should spend hours and hours here.’

‘We haven’t half time enough for it to-day,’ said Eric; ‘there are still the Ellison Pictures, the Botanic Gardens, and the Mesmer Collection to see. It will take us till lunch time to look over the Colleges.’

‘Are there many?’ asked Vanda.

‘Ever so many. Here is Trinity to lead off with; the largest collegiate foundation in Europe, learned people say. The Masters’ Court was built at the expense of Doctor Whewell. You can see his cipher, the “W.W.”’

‘“How reverend is the face of this tall pile,”’ quoted Hermione; ‘it quite awes one. The grand architecture—the wondrous antiquity. No one can sneer at these halls of learning.’

‘St. John’s College,’ said Eric ruthlessly, passing on, ‘is the second largest. Has splendid restorations, I beg to observe. We needn’t wait longer than to verify the armorial bearings of the foundress of this and Christ’s College on that massive gateway.’

‘Let me look,’ said Vanda; ‘who was she?’

‘Margaret, Countess of Richmond, and mother of Henry VII. King’s College was endowed and founded by Henry VI. in connection with Eton.’

‘I recollect,’ continued Vanda—‘“her Henry’s holy shade.”’

‘The Chapel,’ said Reggie, ‘is said to be an unequalled example of the Perpendicular order of Gothic architecture, whatever that may be. This fretted roof is not supported by a single pillar. It is vaulted in twelve divisions. Each keystone weighs more than a ton.’

Before the day finished they had a modest lunch, where the famous Trumpington ale was partaken of by the whole party as _de rigueur_ and a part of the performance. They saw the Roman ruins at Grandchester, and mused over Byron’s pool. The visit to Girton College was reserved for another day. At Stourbridge, the girls shuddered at the sight of a disused chapel of an ancient edifice said to have been an hospital for lepers.

‘Lepers here!’ exclaimed Vanda; ‘I didn’t know that there ever were lepers in England.’

‘They were common enough, not only in Britain but throughout the continent of Europe in the Middle Ages,’ explained Reggie; ‘they had to carry bells and give warning as they walked, were forbidden to enter towns and villages, and so on.’

‘How dreadful! What a comfort that we don’t live among such horrors. That was what Nurse Lilburne’s husband was supposed to have been torn away from her and shut up, on that dreadful island, for—only on suspicion too! Where are we now, Eric?’

‘This is Madingley, where the King, as Prince of Wales, lived when he was at Cambridge. Gray’s “Elegy” was written there, it is supposed.’

‘Oh, how delightful! I wonder if they made his Royal Highness learn it by heart, like all of us.

‘The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea, etc.

“Lea” means “meadow” in English, doesn’t it? “River flat” in early Australian, like “mob” for “drove,” “paddock” for “field,” “rise” for “hill,” and so on.

All necessary arrangements had been carefully made long before the great day—the Carnival of the Thames. What hopes and expectations had been careering through the minds of the young people during the preceding period! Visions of a lovely spring day, when the riverside region would be glorified with budding willow, oak and elm, lime and chestnut; where the nightingales at eve would sing a pæan for the victors—Cambridge, of course; for were there not two Australians in their boat—the Banneret boat? a circumstance unique in the University river-history. Then, again, depression, deepening to despair, as the weather prophets and the cloudy skies foretold evil,—a drizzle, if not a downpour. In such case what was to become of the lovely boating suits, the hats, the dresses, the parasols, bewitching, irresistible?—soaked, muddied, limp. The girls dismal and unattractive; the boys—the men—wretched and cross—or worse, reckless and disgusted. The picture was intolerable.

‘I shall drown myself,’ said Vanda—when for the twentieth time the subject was discussed at breakfast—‘I know I shall, if our boat doesn’t win, and be fished up from the oozy Thames by some “waterside character,” or jump overboard in the intoxication of victory. Either way I shall hardly survive the event—I——’

‘Here comes mother!’ interposed Hermione, who, naturally, as became the elder sister, was less impulsive and demonstrative; ‘perhaps she will think it better that you should stay at home, rather than display the _Bride from the Bush_ characteristics before an English audience.’

‘Oh, that hateful novel! Thanks, sister dear! You have hit upon the true corrective. I promise to be “splendidly, icily null,” rather than give myself away to the sneering English of the period. Oh, mother, _do_ you think it will rain? Whatever shall we do?’

‘Who was talking about suicide, just now? I thought I caught a word or two of nonsensical threats, as I was nearing the door. If I thought daughters of mine——’

‘Oh, darling mother, don’t go on! I know what you are going to say,’ entreated the penitent girl; ‘it was only my nonsense. Why, Eric said the other day that two of the men in the Oxford crew had resolved in the case of defeat to study for the Church and go in for slum curacies.’

‘I never doubted that young men as well as young women could talk nonsense,’ conceded Mrs. Arnold, with benevolent candour; ‘but in the meantime suppose we wait a little longer before we go into heroics about the weather, which we cannot alter or defy.’

‘I second the motion,’ said Mr. Banneret, who at that moment entered the room with the _Times_ in his hand. ‘I don’t like to hear the question of the weather discussed flippantly. It is too serious a subject. I have known more than one case where a poor fellow committed suicide because it _didn’t rain_. It meant ruin to him: the loss of twenty years’ work and self-denial. So there was some sort of excuse. But complaints and cheap wit about so grave a subject are out of place. I believe that the day will be fine after all. We shall see.’

‘Then I will promise and vow to be good for a month,’ said Hermione. ‘Vanda will not compare old and new countries in mixed society; Reggie will not wear his superior English manner; and Eric will read steadily for his degree, even if he has to be an Australian squatter.’

‘I suppose I ought to take one for the credit of my native land,’ said Eric, ‘but I am going to be a colonist whatever happens. I’ve no notion of loafing about in England. There are too many of that sort here already. There’s a trying season coming, unless I mistake the signs of the times—industrial warfare as well as the other thing. And I mean to be in the thick of it.’

‘And so will I,’ said Reggie, ‘as soon as I get my double first. I’m going in for Australian politics.’

‘What good will it be to you out there?’ said Eric.

‘That’s my business, but I can’t think that an all-round University training can unfit a man for any career, at home or abroad. There may be a temporary prejudice; but if a man shapes his course sensibly, he is bound to be of more weight, even in a democratic assembly, with such an addition to his intelligence, than without. Look at William Charles Wentworth—Dalley—John Lang, and others. The two first were the darlings of the people (Dalley an Imperial Privy Councillor), and always exercised immense political power. Lang was acknowledged to be a brilliant linguist and successful barrister in India. Sir James Martin, too, though without University training, was a man of such phenomenal and comprehensive intellect, that he was independent of it. He filled the highest political and legal positions with unexampled success. His last act as Chief Justice of New South Wales proved, strange to say, posthumously successful. An important and complicated mining case was heard before the Full Court, composed of Sir James and two Judges, during his last illness. It was given in favour of the complainants by a majority of the Justices, Sir James dissenting. He left his reasons, stated in writing. The defendants appealed to the Privy Council. Some delay occurred. In the meantime Sir James, who had been for some time ailing, died. The decision of the Privy Council came out shortly after. It was in favour of the appellants, thus upholding, even from the grave, the soundness of the dead Judge’s opinion and legal knowledge.’

The day before the great boat-race of the year was doubtful. _The_ day was, however, altogether charming and delicious. The wind of yesterday had died down. The few soft, fleecy clouds that flecked the sky, the fair blue firmament of the last week in March, had almost, of course not wholly, disappeared, as they would have done in Australia. Still it was a delicious day. Even Vanda admitted this, though prone to disparage the old land in comparison with the new. They were all suitably attired and ready to start directly after an early breakfast. The girls’ boating costumes, as each had promised to accept a passage in a club-boat, rowed by an ardent admirer, left nothing to be desired. Such hats, such skirts, such parasols, and, of course, the Cambridge colours! They had had some practice in a four-oar in Sydney Harbour since they had come to live on the shores of that peerless waterway. So they considered themselves judges of the art and science of rowing, and were disposed to be critical and competent spectators. Their patriotic feelings were deeply stirred, for were there not two, really two, colonials in the Cambridge crew—a circumstance almost unparalleled in the annals of University racing. Of course they knew that the Diamond Sculls had been won by Mr. Ronaldson, of Western Victoria, and twenty-five years after by his son, of the South African Mounted Infantry, both Australian born. This they knew, for he was a neighbour of theirs, and they had seen the sculls in the library at ‘The Peak.’ They knew, too, that for years past there had been no ’Varsity boat-race without an Australian in one or other, generally in both, of the contesting boats. Still, ‘You never can tell till the colours are up,’ is a racing adage as well on water as on land. They knew how true, in the great races they had watched at Randwick and Flemington, and their gentle bosoms fluttered each time when the heartshaking thought would intrude that it _might_ be their hard lot to see the shadow of Barnes Bridge fleet over the Oxford boat a few seconds before it crossed that of Cambridge. They had experienced such disappointments in their lives—had seen Tarcoola, a Lower Darling outsider, win the Melbourne Cup, when the family money—not very much, for Mr. Banneret discouraged gambling in all forms, but what Vanda called ‘their hard-earned savings,’ put together in shillings, sixpences, and even threepenny bits—was on Toreador.

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 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 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.

This great and crowning mercy having been vouchsafed to them, by which the Bannerets, young and old, would for evermore hold themselves to be indissolubly linked with the Cambridge victory, the family had leisure to consider what should be their next inroad into sport amid fashionable surroundings. Hermione and Vanda had enjoyed the ecstatic pleasure of being rowed on the broad expanse of Father Thames; had also been congratulated by the men of their brothers’ college on Eric’s noble performance, which (they said) had materially aided in the glorious victory. These Austral maidens had thereupon come to the conclusion that nothing in the world came up to the accessories and environments amid which the nobler sports were transacted in England. They wondered what would be the next open-air entertainment at which they would be likely to assist, and as the weather, for a wonder, was becoming finer every day, _almost_ rivalling the glorious sunshine of their native land, some one threw out a suggestion about the Liverpool Grand National Steeplechase, to come off on the 25th—next week, indeed—at Aintree.