334 WHISPERS FROM FAIRVLAND. [vi1.

 

boys between whom the race lay were as anxious as
to the result as boys ought to be under such circum-
stances. Each had paid attention, for some weeks
past, to his condition of body so far as to eschew
heavy puddings, jam tarts, and such other edibles as
are generally supposed to be prejudicial to wind and
speed. An Eton boy’s ‘training’ is seldom of a very
rigorous character, but in this instance the runners
had not only exercised a wise abstinence from that
species of diet known to Etonians as ‘sock,’ but there
were rumours that several of them had gone so far as
to take an occasional run before breakfast, and it was
mysteriously whispered that wonderful trials of speed
had been secretly made with certain ‘cads’ of sporting
celebrity. However this may have been, upon the
appointed day the whole nine appeared at the scratch,
and a start was satisfactorily accomplished.

The first jump was a ditch of peculiarly uninviting
character; the banks were somewhat rotten, the
width was somewhat great, and the weeds which ap-
peared upon the surface of the water had a muddy
and unpleasant look about them which was anything
but tempting. The depth of water, however, was not
great, and it was a question whether a scramble
through the ditch was not likely to take less out of a
boy than a jump. So thought Oxley and Moore, who
both ran through instead of jumping over, whilst
Ethelston, Penliman, and Sundridge took the jump,
which they, with two other boys, succeeded in
clearing, whilst two were left behind floundering in
the mud. The next leap was overa small hedge and
ditch, which was taken by the whole seven, and then