He laughs best who laughs last

“He laughs best who laughs last” is a proverb meaning that the person who appears to lose at first may ultimately prevail. Its force in the novel comes from the contrast between St. John Ruthven’s premature triumph and Jack Ruthven’s controlled persistence: the saying is not detached moral commentary, but a verbal prediction that the race’s first result will not be its final one.

Meaning and Form

The expression is a compact piece of proverbial counsel. “He laughs best” gives laughter the sense of celebrating victory, while “who laughs last” relocates judgment from the present moment to the contest’s conclusion. Its grammar creates a before-and-after structure: an early display of confidence is made provisional, and final success becomes the only result that deserves celebration.

The proverb also works as a warning against mistaking temporary advantage for secure superiority. It does not deny that one competitor may lead; instead, it insists that the meaning of that lead remains unsettled. In this form, the expression carries both practical advice and narrative tension, because its truth can be tested immediately by action.

Use in the Boat Race

The novel gives the proverb its clearest dramatic use during the race toward the Sister Rocks. St. John Ruthven pulls strongly and moves four boat-lengths ahead after half the distance. Treating that lead as decisive, he boasts, “Ha! what did I tell you! I will beat you, and beat you badly, too!” His laughter and prediction embody the proverb’s rejected alternative: he celebrates before the result has been secured.

Jack Ruthven answers with the exact words, “‘He laughs best who laughs last,’” and then turns from verbal exchange to practical concentration. He asks Marion Ruthven to sit a little farther to the left so that the boat will travel more straightly. The reply therefore combines confidence with method. Jack does not claim that he is already winning; he identifies the race as unfinished and immediately improves the conditions under which he must overtake St. John Ruthven.

The physical contest then supplies the proverb’s proof. Jack has kept something in reserve while St. John Ruthven’s pace begins to falter. When Jack increases the strength of his stroke, he first draws close, then overlaps St. John Ruthven’s boat, and finally forges ahead. By the time Jack reaches the first of the Sister Rocks, he is more than two boat-lengths in front. Marion Ruthven’s excited cry, “Hurrah! you are ahead!” confirms that the proverb has moved from prediction to fulfilled reversal.

Narrative Function

The expression establishes a value shift from apparent defeat to visible success. St. John Ruthven’s early lead initially gives him control of the scene and encourages his boast. Jack Ruthven’s proverb suspends that conclusion, creating a gap between what St. John Ruthven thinks the lead means and what the completed race will establish. The subsequent change in position closes that gap through action rather than argument.

The saying also characterizes the difference between the two competitors. St. John Ruthven relies on immediate display and treats present advantage as proof of rank. Jack Ruthven responds with restraint, tactical adjustment, and endurance. His words are brief, but they reveal an outlook that values the completed undertaking over the excitement of an early triumph.

Broader Echoes

The proverb’s structure resonates with the novel’s wider pattern of reversals. Jack Ruthven is told that he is “a nobody” who does not belong to the Ruthven family, yet Marion Ruthven explains that he was adopted as a young child and is legally her brother. Dr. Mackey later declares, “Jack, I am your father!”, producing another apparent answer to Jack’s uncertain identity, while later evidence connects the identity mystery with Colonel Stanton, a shipwreck, and the name Laura.

The same delayed-revelation pattern surrounds the wreck on Hemlock Bluff, the unmarked clothing and lace handkerchief preserved after Jack Ruthven’s rescue, and the worn ring whose inscription cannot be read. A heavy black-painted tin box is eventually recovered from a dirt- and water-filled closet in the wreck, and the stolen box is later found among goods recovered from the outlaws’ camp and delivered to Colonel Stanton. These objects make the proverb’s temporal logic material: what seems lost or inconclusive early in the story may acquire decisive meaning only after pursuit and recovery.

The expression is therefore more than a colorful line in a boat race. It supplies a recurring interpretive principle for a narrative in which boasts, accusations, claimed identities, and apparent defeats are repeatedly tested by later evidence. Its final emphasis falls on completion: the last position, the recovered object, and the disclosed truth carry greater authority than the first impression.