Max Pemberton

“ I have spoken of the possession which is taken by the boat captain of the freshman. If rowing be a sort of polite slavery in the first year of a man's university career, the subsequent terms do little to relieve the bondage. Once an oarsman, always an oarsman is the maxim. Terms roll by, winters and summers are numbered, but still the "wet-bob" is at his oar. Every day for him is as every other day—varied only by those spells of training which precede the Lent and the May recess. ”

“ Tubbed and well-rubbed down, our man passes from his college to the backs, and there runs for a quarter of an hour, oblivious of the beauties of the scene and mindful only of the indecent partiality of aquatic people for early habits. It will be half-past seven or more when this fellow returns to his room, to put on the modest checks and to go to chapel. All boating men go to morning chapel when they are in training, to the delight of the dean, who lives in the hope that one day they will come and hear him preach. ”

“ We have come to believe nowadays that the gospel of muscle may well be preached from the same pulpit as the gospel of mind. No sport has more distinguished children to adorn the moral than the sport of rowing. Judges who once bawled at First Post or at Ditton, now deliver judgments in modulated and dulcet accents. Counsels hammer upon deed-boxes who once hammered upon the necessity of "keeping it long." The greater honours of the river endure to a man's death. "He rowed in the 'Varsity eight of such a year." ”

“ The career of the boating man begins in his academic infancy. In nine cases out of ten he will be a mere novice, the sport of superior persons and the victim of unnecessary language, when first he goes to Cambridge. As a freshman his boat captain takes immediate possession of him, convincing him that he should never have been born and that suicide is his only career! ”

“ Linked with Hockin's is the name of Rhodes, of Jesus, that great oarsman who, having played all day in a 'Varsity cricket match, came down one ever to be remembered evening in June and stroked his college crew when if was head of the river. Whether men of this calibre—the Hockins, the Rhodes, the Goldies—were greater wonders than some of their successors is a question this generation may not decide. Unquestionably time has added to their prestige, has made of them, as it were, aquatic models which must serve for many generations. ”

“ That an apocalypse should have been preached of late years against the bump supper is very fit and proper. Happily we have broken with the drinking traditions of our forefathers; we measure a man's worth no longer by the number of bottles he can consume. And while in recent years it would be folly to pretend that strong drink is one of the evils of universities, nevertheless the excitement of a bump supper has intoxicated many a man. ”

“ A man needs to be but a little time at Cambridge before many stories of the blues are made known to him. The first figure, still mighty and resplendent, of which he will hear is that of old Tom Hockin, of Jesus. ”

“ From breakfast until one or two o'clock the boating man's time is his own, but he must be a hero if he can devote it to the making of elegiacs or to the niceties of conics. Very possibly, the day being sunny and the town of Cambridge full of "sisters," he will go for a stroll along King's Parade, buying things for which he has no earthly use, or inspecting the tobacconist's store with the greedy eyes of the man who may not smoke. ”

“ And tea is the drink, I may say, weak tea, of which you may consume two cups and not a drop more. Small wonder if a man feels slightly pensive and dolorous after a breakfast such as this; small wonder if his walk be slow and his air dejected. ”

“ His case is the case of hundreds of others. You meet a friend walking the way of life sedately, a doctor, a lawyer, even a parson, and the first thing you remember is a folly which that friend perpetrated at his last bump supper. Scarcely a month ago I came face to face with a manikin in a northern suburb, a manikin I knew fifteen years ago at Cambridge. But how changed from that undergraduate who, in the prime of a lusty youth, had steered our boat so magnificently. ”

“ How different it is if, among colours so brilliant, the faded light blue of a 'Varsity oarsman be detected. Men run then that they may watch the great man's blade or listen to the words of wisdom which fall from his lips. Sometimes these words are words of sarcasm. I heard a well-known blue remark the other day to the seven of a college eight, who had momentarily released his hold of the oar during an easy, "Seven, don't forget your oar ”

“ Dons are but human. No man liked to think that his statue will be painted white when he has been a "long time dead." Nevertheless this outrage alone might not have killed the bump supper in our place had not it been supplemented a year later by a strange and wholly inexplicable attack upon the plates off which the bump supper was eaten. ”

“ But he is a man of large heart, not infrequently a fair scholar, and commonly one who holds his place in the greater battle of the world. Sometimes, of course, the merely animal is very marked in your man of aquatic fame. ”

“ And of course the heart of every rowing man is diseased. Ask your local doctor and he will tell you that it must be so. Possibly, as some of the judges have shown us, you may attain the comfortable age of ninety with an organ so imperfect. That is another story.
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Whatever his subsequent physical weakness, the blue remains the light of his university while he is in residence. It is instructive to stand on the banks of the Cam any day in the May term and to watch the honour which is paid to the worn blue coat or the tattered blue cap. ”

“ Modern men, perhaps, might contend that we have never seen a finer stroke than West, a finer heavy-weight than Mr. Muttlebury, but these, great as is their renown, do nob yet enjoy the patriarchal distinction of the others. ”

“ He walks with a lurch, though his shoulders are square enough; a fox terrier follows obediently at his heels. He is not a man ordinarily of large conversational powers, his salutation being limited to a monosyllabic greeting. ”

“ After this his career is in the president's hands. Blues are born and not made. Heaven sends most of them to Eton, where the "dear little boys," with a weight of thirteen stone apiece, send eights to Henley to beat the "great big men" whose average weight may be eleven stone. I shall never forget an old Irish woman who harangued an eight of my own college which was beaten by Eton in the final of the Ladies' Plate some few years ago. The Eton crew was one of the best ever sent up by Dr. ”