"Be brave, and honest, and pure

repeated Kennedy; "yes, you must be right, Julian. Look what a glorious sky, and what numberless 'patines of bright gold.'"

Julian looked up, and at that moment a meteor shot across the heaven, plunging as though from the galaxy into the darkness, and after the white and dazzling lustre of the trail had disappeared, seeming to leave behind the glory of it a deeper gloom. It gave too true a type of many a young man's destiny.

Kennedy said nothing, but although it is not the Camford custom to shake hands, he shook Julian's hand that night with one of those warm and loving grasps, which are not soon forgotten. And each walked slowly back to his own room.

CHAPTER THE NINTH.

THE BOAT-RACE.

"And caught once more the distant shout,
The measured pulse of racing oars
Between the willows."

IN MEMORIAM.

THE banks of "the silvery-winding river" were thronged with men; between the hours of two and four the sculls were to be tried for, and some eight hundred of the thousand undergraduates poured out of their colleges by twos and threes to watch the result from the banks on each side.

The first and second guns had been fired, and the scullers in their boats, each some ten yards apart from the other, are anxiously waiting the firing of the third, which is the signal for starting. That strong splendidlooking man, whose arms are bared to the shoulder, and "the muscles all a-ripple on his back," is almost quivering with anxious expectation. The very instant the sound of the gun reaches his ear, those oar-blades will flash like lightning into the water, and "smite the sounding furrows," with marvellous regularity and speed.

He is the favourite, and there are some heavy bets on his success; Bruce and Brogten and Lord Fitzurse will be richer or poorer by some twenty pounds each from the result of this quarter of an hour.

The three are standing together on the towingpath opposite that little inn where the river suddenly makes a wide bend, and where, if the rush of men were not certain to sweep them forward, they might see a very considerable piece of the race. But directly the signal is given, and the boats start, every body will run impetuously at full speed along the banks to keep up with the boats, and cheer on their own men, and it will be necessary for our trio to make the best possible use of their legs, before the living cataract pours down upon them. Indeed, they would not have been on the towing-path at all, but among the rather miscellaneous occupants of the grass plat before the inn on the other side of the river, were it not for their desire to run along with the boats, and inspirit the rowers on whom they have betted.

But what is this? A great odious slow-trailing barge looms into sight, nearly as broad as the river itself, black as the ferrugineous ferryboat of Charon, and slowly dragged down the stream by two stout cart horses, beside which a young bargee is plodding along in stolid independence.

"Hi! hi! you clodhopper there, stop that infernal barge," shouted Bruce at the top of his voice, knowing that if the barge once passed the winning posts, the race would be utterly spoilt.

"St-t-t-top there, you cl-1-lown, w-w-will you," stuttered Fitzurse more incoherent than usual, with indignation.

The young bargee either didn't hear these apostrophes, or didn't choose to attend to them when they were urged in that kind of way; and besides this, as the men were entirely concealed from his view by the curve of the river, he wasn't aware of the coming race, and therefore saw no reason to obey such imperious mandates.

"Confound the grimy idiot; doesn't he hear?" said Bruce, turning red and pale with excitement as he thought of the money he had at stake, and remembered that the skiff on which all his hopes lay was first in order, and would therefore be most likely to suffer by any momentary confusion. "Come, Brogten, let's stop him somehow before it's too late."

"Let's cut the scoundrel's ropes," said Brogten between his teeth; and at once the three darted forward at full speed, at the very instant that the sharp crack of the final signal-gun was heard.

It so happened that Julian and Lillyston had started rather late for the races, and had come up with the barge just as it had first neglected the summons of Bruce and Fitzurse.

"Come, bargee," said Lillyston good-humouredly, "out of the way with the barge as quick as ever you can; there's a boat-race, and you'll spoil the fun."

"Oh, it's a race, be it?" said the man, as he instantly helped Lillyston to back the horses. "If

them young jackanapes had only toald me, 'stead of blusterin' that way—”

His speech was interrupted by Bruce, who, with his friends, had instantly sprang at the ropes, and cut them in half a dozen places, while the great heavy horses, frightened out of their propriety, turned tail and bolted away at a terrifically heavy trot.

"You great lubber," shouted Brogten, who had been the first to use his knife, “why didn't you move when we told you? What business have louts like you to come blundering up the river, and spoil our races ?" And Fitzurse, confident in superior numbers, gave emphasis to the question by knocking off the man's cap.

The bargee was a strongly-built, stupid, healthylooking fellow, of some twenty-three years old, who, from being slow of passion was all the more terrible when aroused. Not finding any vent for his anger in words, he suddenly seized Bruce (who of the three stood nearest him) by the collar of his boating jersey, shook him as he might have done a baby, and almost before he was aware, pitched him into the river. Instantly swinging round, he gave Lord Fitzurse a butt with his elbow, which sent his lordship tottering into the ditch on the other side, and while his wrath was still blazing, received in one eye a blow from Brogten's strong fist, which for an instant made him reel.

But it was only for an instant, and then he repaid Brogten with a cuff which felled him to the ground. Brogton was mad with fury. At that moment the men were running round the corner, at the bend of the