red behind leafless elms and battlemented towers as I
come in from a lonely walk beside the river; above the chimney-tops
hangs a thin veil of drifting smoke, blue in the golden light. The
games in the Common are just coming to an end; a stream of long-coated
spectators sets towards the town, mingled with the parti-coloured,
muddied figures of the players. I have been strolling half the
afternoon along the river bank, watching the boats passing up and down;
hearing the shrill cries of coxes, the measured plash of oars, the
rhythmical rattle of rowlocks, intermingled at intervals with the harsh
grinding of the chain-ferries. Five-and-twenty years ago I was rowing
here myself in one of these boats, and I do not wish to renew the
experience. I cannot conceive why and in what moment of feeble
good-nature or misapplied patriotism I ever consented to lend a hand. I
was not a good oar, and did not become a better one; I had no illusions
about my performance, and any momentary complacency was generally
sternly dispelled by the harsh criticism of the coach on the bank, when
we rested for a moment to receive our meed of praise or blame. But
though I have no sort of wish to repeat the process, to renew the
slavery which I found frankly and consistently intolerable, I find
myself looking on at the cheerful scene with an amusement in which
mingles a shadow of pain, because I feel that I have parted with
something, a certain buoyancy and elasticity of body, and perhaps
spirit, of which I was not conscious at the time, but which I now
realize that I must have possessed. It is with an admiration mingled
with envy that I see these youthful, shapely figures, bare-necked and
bare-kneed, swinging rhythmically past. I watch a brisk crew lift a
boat out of the water by a boat-house; half of them duck underneath to
get hold of the other side, and they march up the grating gravel in a
solemn procession. I see a pair of cheerful young men, released from
tubbing, execute a wild and inconsequent dance upon the water's edge; I
see a solemn conference of deep import between a stroke and a coach. I
see a neat, clean-limbed young man go airily up to a well-earned tea,
without, I hope, a care, or an anxiety in his mind, expecting and
intending to spend an agreeable evening. "Oh, Jones of Trinity, oh,
Smith of Queen's," I think to myself, "tua si bona noris! Make the best
of the good time, my boy, before you go off to the office, or the
fourth-form roo