! We'll race you in--give
you ten yards and bump you in twenty! Pull away, you fellows! One,
two, three, gun! Off you go! Oh, well rowed, my boat! Now you've got
him! Wire in, now! Smash him up! scrunch him into the bank! Hooroo!
two to one on us! Lay on to it, you fellows; he can't go straight! Six
more strokes and you're into him! One, two, three--ha, ha! he's funking
it!--four, five--now a good one for the last--six! Hooroo! bump to us!
Welch's for ever!"

So saying, the hostile boat came full tilt on to the stern of the
Parrett's tub, and the outraged Parson found himself next moment
sprawling on his back, with the nose of his boat firmly wedged into the
clay bank of the river, while his insulting adversaries sped gaily away
down stream, making the morning hideous with their shouts and laughter.

This little incident, as may be supposed, did not tend to compose the
fluttered spirits of the unhappy Frederick. To say nothing of the
indignity of being deliberately run down and screwed into the bank by a
crew of young "Welchers," the loss of time involved in extricating his
boat from the muddy obstacle which held her by the nose, put all chance
of getting in in time to go round to Chalker's before chapel out of the
question. Indeed, it looked very like a shut-out from chapel too, and
that meant no end of a row.

By a super-human effort he got his boat clear, and sculled down hard
all, reaching the boat-house at seven minutes to eight. He had just
presence of mind enough to shout the message for Chalker to the boat-
boy, with a promise of twopence if he delivered it at once; and then
with a desperate rush he just succeeded in reaching the chapel and
squeezing himself in at the door as the bell ceased ringing.

Chapel was not, under the circumstances, a very edifying service to
Parson that morning. His frame of mind was not devotional, and his
feelings of bottled-up wrath at what was past, and dejected anticipation
of what was to come, left between them no room for interest in or
meaning for the words in which his schoolfellows were joining. The only
satisfaction morning prayers brought to him was that, for ten minutes at
least, no one could harry him; and that at least was something to be
grateful for.

Morning chapel at Willoughby was supposed to be at 7:15, and was at 7:15
all the months of the year except May, June, and July, when, in
consideration of the early-morning rowing and bathing, it was