But on the other hand, the morrow was to bring him the crown of toilsome years, was to make his name one to conjure with wherever Baliol was loved or known.  He knew what the varsity cachet would do for his prospects in the world.  And after all, he had his own life to live, had he not?  Would not the selfish, or rather the rigorous, settlement of this problem, be for the best in the end, since his making good would simply be making good for his father and his mother?  But how about his father’s chance for making good on his own account?

A comrade in the cot adjoining heard a groan.

“Eh!  Are you sick, Deacon?  Are you all right?”

“Sure—­dreaming,” came the muffled reply.

There was something unreal to Deacon about the morning.  The sunlight was filled with sinister glow; the voices of the rowing men were strange; the whole environment seemed to have changed.  It was difficult for Jim Deacon to look upon the bronzed faces of the fellows about the breakfast table, upon the coach with his stiff moustache and glittering eyeglasses—­difficult to look upon them and realize that within a few hours his name would be anathema to them, that forever where loyal men of Baliol gather he would be an outcast, a pariah.

That was what he would be—­an outcast.  For he had come to his decision:  Just what he would do he did not know.  He did not know that he would not stroke the Baliol varsity.  Out of all the welter of thought and travail had been resolved one dominant idea.  His father came first:  there was no evading it.  With all the consequences that would follow the execution of his decision he was familiar.  He had come now to know what Baliol meant to him as a place not only of education, but a place to be loved, honoured, revered.  He knew what his future might be.  But—­his father came first.  Arising from the breakfast-table, he spoke to but one man, Junior Doane.

“Doane,” he said, drawing him to one side, “you will row at stroke this afternoon.”

The man stared at him.  “Are you crazy, Deacon?”

“No, not crazy.  I’m not feeling well; that’s all.”

“But look here, Deacon—­you want to see the coach.  You’re off your head or something.  Wait here, just a minute.”  As Doane hurried away in search of Dr. Nicholls, Deacon turned blindly through the yard and so out to the main road leading to a picturesque little river city about nine miles up the stream.

June was at her loveliest in this lovable country with its walled fields, its serene uplands and glowing pastures, its lush river meadows and wayside flowers.  But of all this Deacon marked nothing as with head down he tramped along with swift, dogged stride.  Up the river three or four miles farther on was the little city of which he had so often heard but never seen, the little city of Norton, so like certain English river-cities according to a veteran Oxford oarsman who had visited the Baliol quarters the previous season.  Deacon had an interest in strange places; he had an eye for the picturesque and the colourful.  He would wander about the place, filling his mind with impressions.  He had always wanted to go to Norton; it had seemed like a dream city to him.