and Bloomfield's rush up seems to have come to nothing.
About a quarter of a mile from home an ominous silence drops upon the
crowd, and for a few moments Willoughby is too disheartened to cheer.
Then at last there rises a single wild cheer somewhere. What is it?
The positions are still the same, and-- No! _Both_ Wyndham and
Bloomfield are gaining; and as the discovery is made there goes up such
a shout that the rooks in the elms start away from their nests in a
panic.

Never was seen such a gallant spurt in that old meadow. Foot by foot
the two Willoughby boys pull up and lessen the hateful distance which
divides them from the leader. He of course sees his danger, and answers
spurt for spurt. For a few yards he neither gains nor loses, then,
joyful sight, he loses!

"Look at them now!" cries Telson, as they approach--"look at them both.
They're both going to win! Ah, well run, Willoughby--splendidly run;
you're going like mad--keep it up! Huzzah! level. Keep it up!
Wyndham's ahead; so's Bloomfield. Both ahead! Well run both. Keep it
up now. Hurrah!"

Amid such shouts the race ends. Wyndham first, Bloomfield a yard
behind, and the Londoner, dead beat, a yard behind Bloomfield.

What wonder if the old school goes mad as it swarms over the cords and
dashes towards the winner? Telson actually forgets Parson, Cusack
deserts even his own father in the jubilation of the moment, each
striving to get within cheering distance of the heroes of the day as
they are carried shoulder-high round the ground amid the shouts and
applause of the whole multitude.

So ended, in a victory unparalleled in its glorious annals, the May Day
races of 19-- at Willoughby; and there was not a fellow in the school,
whether athlete or not, whose bosom did not glow with pride at the
result. That the school would not disgrace herself everyone had been
perfectly certain, for was not Willoughby one of the crack athletic
schools of the country, boasting of an endless succession of fine
runners, and rowers, and cricketers? But to score thus off a picked
London athlete, beating him in two events, and in one of them doubly
beating him, was a triumph only a very few had dared to anticipate, and
even they were considerably astonished to find their prophecy come true.

Perhaps the person least excited by the entire day's events was the hero
of the day himself. Wyndham, the old captain, as he now was--for this
was his last appearance at th