Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/289

282 “And pray, sir, what description of colour is equity?”

I can’t tell you, reader; it is impossible to describe colour. Can you tell me what red is like, or green, or blue?—You can’t, and I can’t tell you the colour of equity. I state a fact—Mr. Westby coloured everything with equity, and he found that the prescription was quite ineffective.

But there must be no light scorn thrown at Mr. Westby—a man cannot cast off the motive thoughts of life as a garment; they are knit in with the blood like the burning shirt of Hercules. Equity represented in his mind two great ideas—reparation and ambition.

Reparation—there was a long score of youthful idleness to be paid off. A heavy sum of money, ill afforded, had been spent almost uselessly on his education. From six years old to nineteen, the same thing had been said sorrowfully by his father—a good, kind Wiltshire clergyman with a narrow living—“Ah, Charles, if you only had the will you could learn anything.” And his mother had said sadly, yet with hope, “I am sure Charles will apply one day.”

That day of grace was slow in coming, and all but a mother’s love would have grown sceptical. Anything but learning for Charles Westby—an idle, bird-nesting life in his early days—an idle, prankish life at school—a valuable exhibition, which would have lightened the burden of his college expenses, lost for want of application. Yet his good father would have him go to college, the household expenses of the rectory were cheerfully narrowed to support the son of the family, in the hope that repentance and application would be the results of home sacrifice. But the results were boating, not as a healthy recreation, but as an engrossing object, and profitless friends, and debts, their natural sequence.

The day of repentance came at last. It was a great question which was the best oar, Westby, of, or Jones, of. To decide the fact, Jones challenged Westby to a sculling match. Westby accepted the challenge. He ought to have refused. A sadly desponding letter had arrived from the rectory, deprecating his college life: he was touched by his father’s indignant words, and his mother’s gentle but reproachful postscript. Ought he to refuse the challenge? The “inner voice” said he ought, his friends said he ought not. Well, then, for the last time he would go into training, row the race, give up the water for ever, and become a reading man—his father and mother should have no more cause for grief on his account—this he firmly resolved on.

Both men were in splendid condition, doing their work capitally; the betting was even, there was nothing to choose between the two competitors, their friends backed them heavily, and the rowing men generally were deeply interested.

The race day arrived, the still moment of the start. They’re off!—stroke for stroke, both boats as nearly even as possible: after a time Westby takes the lead slightly, but Jones puts on a spurt and goes ahead. Westby, rowing strong and steady, gradually regains the length Jones has made, and the boats are even again. Jones tries another spurt—a tremendous one—and goes a length and-a-half ahead; but Westby regains the distance in less time than before. It is evidently getting all up with Jones; his friends cheer him from the banks, but won’t take the bets of Westby’s party at two to one on their man.

Row on, Charles Westby, strong and steady: it is the last race you will ever row—you don’t know it, but you are pulling for far more than a triumph over Jones and the honour of your college; every moment saved in the time of the race, you will prize beyond gold.

“He’s won! Bravo, Westby! Fifty pounds in my pocket. Hurrah! That’s Fred Temple speaking to him, his great chum—why he’s fainted! They are carrying him ashore. Gad! the pace was killing.”

It was not the pace that knocked up Westby, but the words of Frederick Temple, who bent down the moment the boat touched the shore, and whispered in his ear—his two ears tingling with the sound of triumph—the men who had won money on him hurrying with loud shouts to grasp his hands.

“Charles,” whispered Temple, “they’ve sent to say your father is very ill,—it’s a bad business I fear.”

Then the “inner voice” which had spoken when that last letter arrived from home spoke out again, loudly this time, so loudly that it hushed the noise of victory, and the sculls which he yet held fell away from his hands, and he sank back into the arms of those who had come to greet him, rushing knee-deep into the water in their eagerness and joy.

They got him to with brandy, covered him with boating coats and a great coat,—there was no time to change the jersey and flannel trousers, not a moment to lose, the train would start in a few minutes, and failing that train there would be a delay of many hours.

The messenger from home had luckily fallen in with Temple, who did not accompany his friend to the starting-place. It was too late to stop the race, indeed the race was the quickest mode, as Temple wisely determined, of getting Westby back again.

They were waiting for Westby at the Rectory, very anxiously—the Rector lay in his bed, propped up with pillows, his wife and daughter by his bedside.

The doctor had said there was no hope—why only yesterday it had been all life and health and good spirits. No hope! hard words to realise by those anxious watchers at the bedside, with every happy incident of yesterday vividly fresh in their minds.

The Rector certainly possessed his senses, but they were absorbed in some great thought—for even when his wife or daughter spoke immediately in his ear he gently motioned them away. A neighbouring clergyman, who had been hastily called in, ceased not to talk of religious matters in an earnest strain,—praying and exhorting—his voice was quite loud at times, rising with the subject; and the sorrow of wife and daughter, notwithstanding all their efforts, would break restraint into loud sobs. The Rector heeded none