ven Welch's caught the contagion, and regretted at the
last hour that they had withdrawn from the all-important contest. As to
the other two Houses, there never had been a year when the excitement
ran so high or the rivalry grew so keen. Somehow the entire politics of
Willoughby appeared to be mixed up in the contest, and it seemed as if
the result of this one struggle was to decide everything.

The crews had worked hard up to the last, watched morning and evening by
anxious spectators from the bank. The trials had been carefully noted
and times compared, the variations in style had been eagerly criticised,
the weights of the rowers had become public property, and in short every
detail likely to influence the result was a subject of almost painful
interest to the eager partisans on either side.

And every hour seemed to promise a closer race. Not that Parrett's had
fallen off. On the contrary, they still remained what they had been all
along, the smartest and strongest crew that Willoughby had ever put upon
the river. But the schoolhouse boat had made wonderful strides. It was
long since it had ceased to be the laughingstock of the hostile juniors,
and it was some time since its appearance and work had begun to cause a
shade of uneasiness in the minds of a few of the rival house.
Fairbairn, far from Bloomfield's match in physique or style, had yet
displayed an amount of steady, determined work which had astonished most
fellows, and inspired with confidence not only his partisans on the
bank, but the three oarsmen at his back. By dint of patient, untiring
practice he had worked his crew up to a pitch of training scarcely hoped
for, and every day the schoolhouse boat had gained in style and speed.

Had the race been a fortnight or three weeks later few boys would have
cared to prophesy definitely as to the result. As it was, though
Parrett's was morally bound to win, it was clear the race would be a
fierce one, and hardly fought every foot.

Such was the general opinion in Willoughby that Tuesday evening after
the last practice had come to an end, and when the boats were finally
housed for the night only to reappear next day in racing trim.

Young Wyndham, as he sat in Riddell's study with his books before him,
could as soon have done a stroke of work as fly over the schoolhouse
elms. Indeed, it was such a farce for him even to make the attempt that
he shut up his books and gave up the idea.

"I say, Riddel