Never was signal more impatiently waited for than the pistol-shot which was to set the boats in motion that night. Hark! “Gentlemen, are--you--ready?” “No, No!” shouts some umpire, dissatisfied with the position of his own boat at the moment. “Gentlemen, are you ready?” Again “No, no, no!” How provoking! Christchurch and Oriel both beautifully placed, and that provoking Exeter, or Worcester, or some boat that no one but its own crew takes the slightest interest in to-night, right across the river! And it will be getting dusk soon. Once more--and even Wyatt, the starter, is getting impatient--“Are you ready?” Still a cry of “No, no,” from some crew who evidently never will be satisfied. But there goes the pistol. They’re off, by all that’s glorious! “Now Oriel!” “Now Christchurch!” Hurrah! beautifully are both boats pulled--how they lash along the water! Oriel gains evidently! But they have not got into their speed yet, and the light boat has the best of it at starting. “Hurrah, Oriel, its all your own way!” “Now, Christchurch, away with her!” Scarcely is an eye turned on the boats behind; and, indeed, the two first are going fast away from them. They reach the Gut, and at the turn Oriel presses her rival hard. The cheers are deafening; bets are three to one. She must bump her! “Now, Christchurch, go to work in the straight water!” Never did a crew pull so well, and never at such disadvantage. Their boat is a tub compared with the Oriel. See how she buries her bow at every stroke. Hurrah, Christchurch! The old boat for ever! Those last three strokes gained a yard on Oriel! She holds her own still! Away they go, those old steady practised oars, with that long slashing stroke, and the strength and pluck begins to tell. Well pulled, Oriel! Now for it! Not an oar out of time, but as true together as a set of teeth! But it won’t do! Still Christchurch, by sheer dint of muscle, keeps her distance, and the old flag floats triumphant another year.
Nearly hustled to death in the rush up with the racing boats, I panted into the stern sheets of a four-oar lying under the bank, in which I saw Leicester and some others of my acquaintance. “Well, Horace,” said I, “what do you think of Christchurch now?” (I had sufficient Tory principle about me at all times to be a zealous supporter of the “old cause,” even in the matter of boat-racing.) “How are your bets upon the London clipper, eh?” “Lost, by Jove,” said he; “but Oriel ought to have done it to-night; why, they bumped all the other boats easily, and Christchurch was not so much better; but it was the old oars coming up from the country that did it. But what on earth is all that rush about up by the barges? They surely are not going to fight it out after all?”