They were on their mettle quite as much as their rivals.

Ever since Wyndham had left, the schoolhouse had been sneered at as having no pretensions left to any athletic distinction.

They meant to put themselves right in this particular--if not in victory, at any rate in a gallant attempt.
And so the schoolhouse boat might be seen out early and late, doing honest hard work, and doing it well too.

Strict training was the order of the day, and scarcely a day passed without some one of the crew adding to his usual labours a cross-country run, or a hard grind in the big tub, to better his form.

These extraordinary exertions were a source of amusement to their opponents, who felt their own superiority all the more by witnessing the efforts put forth to cope with it; and even in the schoolhouse there were not a few who regarded all the work as labour thrown away, and as only adding in prospect to the glorification of the enemy.
However, Fairbairn was not the man to be moved by small considerations such as these.