The Willoughby Captains Page 5

  He could hardly help guessing what it was the doctor had to say to him, or why it was he had been asked to tea that evening. And he felt very dejected as he thought about it. Like most of the other Willoughbites, the idea of a new captain having to be appointed had never occurred to him till Wyndham had finally left the school. And when it did occur, and when moreover it began to dawn upon him that he himself was the probable successor, horror filled his mind. He couldn’t do it. He was not cut out for it. He would sooner leave Willoughby altogether. The boys either knew nothing about him, or they laughed at him for his clumsiness, or they suspected him as a coward, or they despised him as a prig. He had wit enough to know what Willoughby thought of him, and that being so, how could he ever be its captain?

  “I would much rather you named some one else,” said he to the doctor at their interview next morning. “I know quite well I couldn’t get on.”

  “You have not tried yet,” said the doctor.

  “But I’ve not the strength, and the boys don’t like me,” pleaded Riddell.

  “You must make them like you, Riddell,” said the doctor.

  “How can I? They will dislike me all the more if I am made captain. I have no influence with them, indeed I have not.”

  “How do you know?” said the doctor again. “Have you tried yet?”

  “I could never do what Wyndham did. He was such a splendid captain.”

  “Why?” asked the doctor.

  “I suppose because he was a splendid athlete, and threw himself into all their pursuits, and — and set a good example himself.”

  “I think you are partly right and partly wrong,” said the doctor. “There are several fine athletes in Willoughby who would make poor captains; and as for throwing oneself into school pursuits and setting a good example, I don’t think either is beyond your reach.”

  Riddell felt very uncomfortable. He began to feel that after all he might be shirking a duty he ought to undertake. But he made one more effort.

  “There are so many others would do it better, sir, whom the boys look up to already,” he said. “Bloomfield, for instance, or—”

  The doctor held up his hand.

  “We will not go into that, Riddell,” he said. “You must not suppose I and others have not considered the good of Willoughby in this matter. It remains for you to consider it also. As you grow older you will constantly find duties confronting you which may be sorely against your inclination, but which as an honest man you will know are not to be shirked. You have a chance of beginning now. I don’t pretend to say you will find it easy or pleasant work, or that you are likely to succeed, at first at any rate, as well as others have done. But unless I am mistaken you will not give in on that account. Of course you will need to exert yourself. You know what boys look for in a captain; it’s not mere muscle, or agility. Get them by all means if you can; but what will be worth far more than these will be sympathy. If they discover you are one with them, and that in your efforts to keep order you have the welfare of the school chiefly at heart, they will come out, depend upon it, and meet you half-way. It’s worth trying, Riddell.”

  Riddell said nothing, but his face was rather more hopeful as he looked up at the doctor.

  “Come,” said the latter, “there’s the bell for chapel. It’s time we went in.”

  Riddell entered chapel that morning in a strangely conflicting frame of mind. The hope was still in his face, but the misgivings were still in his heart, and the whole prospect before him seemed to be a dream.

  As the slight shy boy walked slowly up the floor to his place among the Sixth, the boys on either side eyed him curiously and eagerly, and a half-titter, half-sneer greeted his appearance.

  Some regarded him with a disfavour which amounted to positive dislike, others with disdain and even contempt, and others thought of Wyndham and wondered what Willoughby was coming to. Even among the Sixth many an unfriendly glance was darted at him as he took his seat, and many a whispered foreboding passed from boy to boy. Only a few watched him with looks of sympathy, and of these scarcely one was hopeful.

  Happily for Riddell, he could not see half of all this; and when in a moment the doctor entered and prayers began, he saw none of it. For he was one of a few at Willoughby to whom this early-morning service was something more than a mere routine, and who felt, especially at times like this, that in those beautiful familiar words was to be found the best of all preparations for the day’s duties.

  Telson, as he stood down by the door, with his hands in his pockets, beside his friend Parson, was void of all such reflections. What was chiefly occupying his lordly mind at that moment was the discovery suddenly made, that if Riddell was the new captain, he of course would be captain’s fag. And he was not quite sure whether to be pleased or the reverse at his new dignity.

  “You see,” said he to his ally, in a whisper, “it’s good larks marking the fellows off every morning as they come into chapel, but then, don’t you twig that means I’ve got to be here the moment the bell begins ringing? and that’s no joke.”

  “No, unless you got leave to ring the bell, too,” said Parson. “Then of course they couldn’t troop in till you were there. I’d come down and help with the bell, you know.”

  “Wouldn’t do, I fancy,” said Telson. “Then, of course, it’s swell enough work to have to go about and tell the monitors what they’ve got to do, but I’m not so sure if it’s a good thing to mix altogether with monitors — likely to spoil a chap, eh?”

  “Rather,” said Parson. “Look out, Porter’s looking.”

  Whereupon this brief but edifying dialogue broke off for the present.

  The monitors duly assembled in the doctor’s library after chapel. They all of them knew what was coming, and their general attitude did not seem promising for the new régime. Each one possibly fancied he had the interests of Willoughby at heart, and all but one or two felt convinced that in putting Riddell into the position of captain the doctor was committing a serious mistake. Every one could have given good reasons for thinking so, and would have asserted that they had no personal ill-feeling towards the new captain, but for the sake of the school they were sure he was not the fit person. Whether each one felt equally sure that he himself would have filled the post better is a question it is not necessary to ask here.

  The doctor was brief and to the point.

  “I dare say you know why I have called you together,” he said. “Wyndham — whom every one here liked and respected, and who did a great deal for the school”—(“Hear, hear,” from one or two voices)—“has left, and we shall all miss him. The captain of the school has always for a long time past been the head classical boy. It is not a law of the Medes and Persians that it should be so, and if there seemed any special reason why the rule should be broken through there is nothing to prevent that being done.”

  At this point one or two breathed rather more freely and the attention generally was intensified. After all, this seemed like the preface to a more favourable announcement. But those who thought so found their mistake when the doctor proceeded.

  “In the present case there is no such reason, and Riddell here is fully aware of the duties expected of him, and is prepared to perform them. I look to you to support him, and am confident if all work heartily together no one need be afraid for the continued success of Willoughby.”

  The doctor ended his speech amid the silence of his audience, which was not broken as he turned and left the room. At the same moment, to the relief of no one more than of Riddell, the bell sounded for breakfast and the assembly forthwith broke up.

  Chapter Five

  The New Captain is discussed on Land and Water

  The doctor’s announcement was not long in taking effect. As soon as third school was over that afternoon the monitors assembled in the Sixth Form room to discuss the situation. Fortunately for Riddell’s peace of mind, he was not present; but nearly all the others, whether friendly or otherwise, were there.

  Ga
me, with his usual downrightness, opened the ball.

  “Well, you fellows,” said he, “what are you going to do?”

  “Let’s have a game of leapfrog while the fags aren’t looking,” said Crossfield, a schoolhouse monitor and a wag in a small way.

  “It’s all very well for you to fool about,” said Game, ill-temperedly. “You schoolhouse fellows think, as long as you get well looked after, Willoughby may go to the dogs.”

  “What do you mean?” said Fairbairn. “I don’t think so.”

  “I suppose you’d like to make out that Riddell is made captain because he’s the best man for the place, and not because the doctor always favours the schoolhouse,” snarled Wibberly.

  “He’s made captain because he’s head classic,” replied Fairbairn; “it has nothing to do with his being a schoolhouse fellow.”

  “All very well,” said Tucker, of Welch’s, “but it’s a precious odd thing, all the same, that the captain is always picked out of the schoolhouse.”

  “And it’s a precious odd thing too,” chimed in Crossfield, “that a head classic was never to be got out of Welch’s for love or money!”

  This turned the laugh against the unlucky Tucker, who was notoriously a long way off being head classic.

  “What I say is,” said Game, “we want an all-round man for captain — a fellow like Bloomfield here, who’s well up in the Sixth, and far away the best fellow in the eleven and the boats. Besides, he doesn’t shut himself up like Riddell, and give himself airs. I can’t see why the doctor didn’t name him. The only thing against him seems to be that he’s not a schoolhouse gentleman.”

  “That’s the best thing about him in my opinion,” said Ashley.

  If Game and his friends had determined to do their best to gain friends for the new captain, this constant bringing-up of the rivalry between Parrett’s house and the schoolhouse was the very way to do it. Many of the schoolhouse monitors had felt as sore as anybody about the appointments, but this sort of talk inclined not a few of them to take Riddell’s side.

  “I don’t want any row made on my account,” said Bloomfield. “If Paddy thinks Riddell’s the best man, we have no choice in the matter.”

  “Haven’t we, though!” said Wibberly. “We aren’t going to have a fellow put over our heads against our will — at any rate, not without having a word in the matter.”

  “What can you do?” asked Coates.

  “We can resign, I suppose?” said Tucker.

  “Oh, yes!” said Crossfield. “And suppose Paddy took you at your word, my boy? Sad thing for Welch’s that would be!”

  “I don’t know why you choose to make a beast of yourself whenever I speak,” said Tucker, angrily; “I’ve as much right—”

  “Shut up, Tucker, for goodness’ sake!” said Bloomfield; “don’t begin by quarrelling.”

  “Well, then, what does he want to cheek me for?” demanded Tucker. “He’s a stuck-up schoolhouse prig, that’s what he is!”

  “And if I only had the flow of costermonger’s talk which some people possess—” began Crossfield.

  “Are you going to shut up or not?” demanded Bloomfield.

  “Hullo! you aren’t captain yet, old man!” replied the irrepressible Crossfield; “but if you want to know, I am going to shut up now till I want to speak again.”

  “We might get up a petition to the doctor, anyhow,” suggested Game, returning to the subject; “he’d have to take notice of that.”

  “What will you say in the petition?” asked Porter.

  “Oh! easy enough that. Say we don’t consider Riddell fit to be captain, and we’d sooner have some one else.”

  “Better say we’d sooner have Bloomfield at once,” said Wibberly.

  “No; please don’t mention my name,” said Bloomfield.

  “Wouldn’t the best thing be to send Riddell back with a label, ‘Declined, with thanks,’ pinned on his coat-tail?” suggested Crossfield.

  “Yes; and add, ‘Try again, Paddy,’” said Coates, laughing.

  “And just mention no schoolhouse snobs are wanted,” said Tucker.

  “And suggest, mildly, that a nice, clever, amiable, high-principled Welcher like Tom Tucker would be acceptable,” added Crossfield.

  “Look here,” said Tucker, very red in the face, advancing towards his tormentor, “I’ve stood your impudence long enough, you cad, and I won’t stand any more.”

  “Sit down, then,” replied Crossfield, cheerfully, “plenty of forms.”

  “Look here, you fellows,” said Bloomfield again, “for goodness’ sake shut up. Have it out afterwards if you like, but don’t fight here.”

  “I don’t mind where I have it out,” growled Tucker, “but I’ll teach him to cheek me, see if I don’t.”

  So saying, much to the relief of every one, he turned on his heel and left the room.

  After this the discussion again got round to Riddell, and the question of a petition was revived.

  “It would be quite easy to draw something up that would say what we want to say and not give offence to any one,” said Ashley.

  “But what do you want to say?” asked Fairbairn. “If you want to tell the doctor he’s wrong, and that we are the people to set him right, I don’t see how you can help offending him.”

  “That’s not what we want to say at all,” said Game. “We want to say that the captain of Willoughby has always been a fellow who was good all round, and we think the new captain ought to be of the same sort for the sake of the school.”

  “Hear, hear,” said one or two of Parrett’s house; “what could be better than that?”

  “Well,” said Porter, “I don’t see much difference between saying that and telling the doctor he doesn’t know what he’s about.”

  “Of course you say so — that’s your schoolhouse prejudice,” replied Wibberly.

  “It’s nothing of the sort,” said Fairbairn, warmly; “you know that as well as I do, Wibberly.”

  “I know it is,” retorted Wibberly; “you’d put up with anybody as long as he wasn’t a Parrett fellow.”

  And so the wrangle went on; and at the end of it the company was as near agreeing as they had been at the beginning.

  Finally one or two of the schoolhouse fellows, such as Fairbairn, Coates, and Porter, withdrew, and the Parrett faction, having it then pretty much their own way, drew up the following petition:

  “We the undersigned monitors respectfully hope you will reconsider your decision as to the New Captain. The captain has hitherto always been an ‘all-round man,’ and we think it would be best for the discipline of the school to have a fellow of the same sort now. We wish to say nothing against Riddell except that we do not think he is the best fellow for the position. We hope you will excuse us for stating our opinion.”

  To this extraordinary document all the monitors of Parrett’s and Welch’s houses present put their names, as well as Gilks and one or two others of the schoolhouse, and after deciding not to present it till next day, by which time it was hoped other signatures might be procured, the august assembly broke up.

  The reign of Riddell had not, to say the least of it, opened auspiciously as far as his fellow-monitors were concerned. And outside that body, in Willoughby at large, things did not look much more promising.

  The feeling in Parrett’s house was of course one of unmingled wrath and mutiny. When once the heads of the house were known to have declared so unmistakably against the new captain, it was not much to be wondered at that the rank and file followed their lead in a still more demonstrative manner.

  It happened that Parson and his friends, Telson (who, though a schoolhouse boy, seemed to live most of his life in Parrett’s), King, Wakefield, and Lawkins, had planned a little expedition up the river between third school and “call-over” that afternoon, and the present state of affairs in the school formed a rather lively topic of discussion for these worthies as they pulled the Parrett’s “Noah’s Ark”—by which complimentary title th
e capacious boat devoted to the use of the juniors of the house was known — lazily up on the tide towards Balsham.

  The river was pretty full, as usual at that time of day, and as one form which the wrath of the youthful Parretts took was to insult, and if opportunity arose, to run down the craft of either of the other houses, the discussion on the condition of Willoughby was relieved by more than one lively incident.

  “Think of that chap being captain,” said Parson, standing up on the back seat, with the rudder-lines in his hands so as to command a good view of the stream ahead. “He couldn’t row as well as old Bosher there.”

  As “old Bosher” was at that moment engaged in super-human efforts to keep his balance with one hand, and extricate his oar, which had feathered two feet under the surface of the water, with the other, this illustration was particularly effective and picturesque.

  “Oh, he’s an awful cad,” said Wakefield, who was rowing bow. “He reported me to Wyndham last term for letting off crackers in bed.”

  “What a beastly shame!” was the sympathising chorus.

  “And you know—” added King.

  But as Bosher fell rather violently backward into his lap at this instant, and let his oar go altogether, what King was going to say did not come out.

  After a vast amount of manoeuvring, back-watering, shouting, and reaching to recover the lost oar, the voyage proceeded.

  They had not proceeded far when the racing-boat of their house, manned by Bloomfield, Game, Tipper, and Ashley, and coached from the bank by Mr Parrett himself, spun past them in fine style and at a great rate. As became loyal Parretts, the juniors pulled into the bank to let the four-oar pass, and, not content with this act of homage, they volunteered a round of vehement applause into the bargain.

  “Bravo! Well rowed, our house! Two to one on Parrett’s! Three cheers for Bloomfield! Three cheers for the captain! Hooroo!”