The Willoughby Captains

by Talbot Baines Reed

  He knew in his heart that his only title to the position he assumed was the whim of his schoolfellows. He was a usurper, in fact, and however much he tried to persuade himself he was acting solely for the good of Willoughby, he knew those motives were only half sincere. And in spite of all his efforts, the school was as rowdy as ever. If he did thrash a batch of juniors one day, or stop some disorderly Limpets of their play, it never seemed to make much impression. Whereas the one or two rioters whom Riddell had ventured to tackle had somehow distinctly reformed their habits. How was it?

  Bloomfield, as he thought the thing over, was not quite happy. He had been happier far last term when, under old Wyndham, he had exerted himself loyally for the good of the school. Was he not exerting himself now? Why should he be unhappy? It was not because he felt himself beaten — he scorned the idea — or that he felt unequal to the task before him. That too was preposterous. And yet, he felt, he certainly needed something. If only now he were first classic as well as captain of the clubs, what a pull he would have!

  And as this thought occurred to him, he also recalled Crossfield’s famous speech at the last Parliament and the laughter which had greeted it. Could he translate “Balbus hopped over a wall” without the dictionary? Ah! He thought sometimes he would try, just to prove how slanderous Crossfield’s insinuation had been. The result of all these cogitations was that Bloomfield began to discover he was not quite such an “all-round” man as his friends had told him. And that being so, had not he better qualify himself like an honest man for his post?

  He did not like to confide the idea to his friends for fear of their laughter, but for a week or two at least he actually read rather hard on the sly. The worst of it was, that till the examinations next term there could be nothing to show for it. For the Sixth did not change their places every day as the lower forms did. There was no chance of leaping to the top at a bound by some lucky answer, or even of advancing a single desk. And therefore, however hard he worked this term, he would never rise above eighteenth classic in the eyes of the school, and that was not — well, he would have liked to be a little higher for the sake of Willoughby!

  The outlook was not encouraging. Even Wibberly, the toady, and Silk, the Welcher, were better men than he was at classics.

  Suppose, instead of spending his energy over classics, he were to get up one or two rousing speeches for the Parliament, which should take the shine out of every one else and carry the school by storm? It was not a bad idea. But the chance would not come. No one could get up a fine speech on such a hackneyed subject as “That Rowing is a finer Sport than Cricket,” or that “The Study of Science in Public Schools should be Abolished!” And when he did attempt to prepare an oration on the subject of Compulsory Football, the first friend he showed it to pointed out so many faults in the composition of the first sentence that prudence prompted him to put the effusion in the fire.

  Meanwhile his friends and admirers kept him busy. Their delight seemed to be to seize on all the youngsters they could by any pretext lay hands on and hale them to appear before him. By this means they imagined they were making his authority known and dealing a serious blow at the less obtrusive captain in the schoolhouse.

  Poor Bloomfield had to administer justice right and left for every imaginable offence, and was so watched and prompted by officious admirers that he was constantly losing his head and making himself ridiculous.

  He gave one boy a thrashing for being found with a paper dart in his hand, because Game had reported him; and to another, who had stolen a book, he gave only twenty lines, because he was in the second-eleven. Cusack and Welcher, who was caught climbing the schoolhouse elms one Monday, he sentenced to an hour’s detention; and Pilbury, whom he caught in the same act on Tuesday, he deprived of play for a week — that is, he said he was not to leave his house for a week. But Pilbury turned up the very next day in the “Big,” under the very nose of the Parrett captain, who did not even observe his presence.

  It was this sort of thing which, as the term dragged on, made Bloomfield more and more uncomfortable with his position. It was all very well for Game, and Ashley, and Wibberly to declare that but for him Willoughby would have gone to the dogs — it was all very well of them to make game of and caricature Riddell and his failures. Seeing is believing; and Bloomfield, whose heart was honest, and whose common sense, when left to itself, was not altogether feeble, could not help making the unpleasant discovery that he was not doing very much after all for Willoughby.

  But the boat-race was now coming on. There, at any rate, was a sphere in which he need fear no rival. With Parrett’s boat at the head of the river, and he its stroke, he would at any rate have one claim on the obedience of Willoughby which nobody could gainsay.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Telson and Parson go to an Evening Party

  It was the Saturday before the boat-race, and the excitement of Willoughby was working up every hour. Boys who were generally in the habit of lying in bed till the chapel bell began to ring had been up at six for a week past, to look at the practices on the river. Parliament had adjourned till after the event, and even the doings of the rival captains indoors were forgotten for a while in prospect of the still more exciting contest out of doors.

  Everybody — even the Welchers, who at the last moment had given up any attempt to form a crew, and “scratched”—found it hard to think or talk of any other subject, and beyond the school bounds, in Shellport itself, a rumour of the coming race had got wind and attracted many outsiders to the river banks.

  But it was not the prospect of the coming race which this Saturday afternoon was agitating the mind of Master Henry Brown.

  Brown was a Limpet, belonging to the schoolhouse, who occupied the distinguished position of being the only day-boarder in Willoughby. His parents lived in Shellport, and thus had the benefit of the constant society of their dear Harry; while the school, on the other hand, was deprived of that advantage for a portion of every day in the term.

  It was probably to make up for this deprivation that Mr and Mrs Brown made it a practice of giving an evening party once a term, to which the doctor and his ladies were always invited, and also any two of dear Harry’s friends he liked to name.

  In this way the fond parents not only felt they were doing a polite and neighbourly act to their son’s schoolmaster and schoolfellows, but that they were also the means of bringing together teacher and pupil in an easy unconstrained manner which would hardly be possible within the walls of the school itself.

  It was the prospect of one of these delightful entertainments that was exhilarating Brown this Saturday afternoon.

  And it must be confessed the excitement was due to very opposite emotions in the breast of the day-boarder. The doctor and his ladies were coming! On the last two occasions they had been unfortunately prevented, which had been a great blow to Brown’s “pa and ma” but a relief to Brown himself. And now the prospect of meeting these awful dignitaries face to face in his own house put him in a small panic. But on the other hand, he knew there would be jellies, and savoury pie, and strawberries, and tipsy-cake, at home that night. He had seen them arrive from the confectioner’s that morning, and, Limpet as he was, Brown smiled inwardly as he meditated thereon. This was a second ground for excitement. And a third, equal to either of the other two, was that Parson and Telson were invited and were coming!

  He had tried one or two other fellows first. He had sounded Coates on the subject, but he unfortunately was engaged. He had pressed Wyndham to come, but Wyndham was busy that evening with the library. He had appealed to one or two other schoolhouse Limpets, but all, on hearing that the doctor and Co. were to be present, respectfully declined.

  Finally Brown dropped upon Telson, and condescendingly proposed to him to be present as one of his two friends.

  Telson thought the matter over and fancied it promised well. He liked the sound of the jellies and the tipsy-cake, and just at present he knew of no special reason for “f
unking” the doctor. As for the doctor’s ladies, Telson had never seen them, so they did not weigh particularly with him.

  “Who else is going?” he asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know yet,” said Brown, rather grandly. “I’ve one or two fellows in my mind.”

  “Why don’t you ask young Parson?” suggested Telson, innocently.

  “Parson? he’s not a schoolhouse kid.”

  “I know he’s not, but he and I are very chummy, you know. I wouldn’t mind coming if he went.”

  “I’ll see,” said Brown, mightily, but secretly relieved to know of some one likely to come as his second “friend.”

  “All right,” said Telson. “I’ve not promised, mind, if he can’t come.”

  “Oh, yes, you have!” replied Brown, severely, as he left the room.

  In due time he found Parson and broached the subject to him.

  Parson viewed the matter in very much the same light as Telson had. He liked the “tuck-in” better than the company.

  It never occurred to him it was odd that Brown should come all the way from the schoolhouse to invite him, a Parrett’s junior, to his feast; nor did it occur to him either that the invitation put him under any obligation to his would-be host.

  “I tell you what I’ll do,” said he, in a business-like manner, much as if Brown had asked him to clean out his study for him, “if you ask Telson to come too, I’m game.”

  Brown half doubted whether these two allies had not been consulting together on the subject, so startling was the similarity of their conditions.

  “Oh! Telson’s coming,” he said, in as offhand a way as he could.

  “He is! Then I’m on, old man; rather!” exclaimed the delighted Parson.

  “All right! Six-thirty, mind, and chokers!” said Brown, not a little relieved to have scraped up two friends for the festive occasion. At the appointed time — or rather before the appointed time, for they arrived at twenty minutes past six — our two heroes, arrayed in their Sunday jackets and white ties, presented themselves at the house of their host. They had “put it on” considerably in order to get ahead of the doctor’s party; for they considered that — as Parson expressed it—“it would be a jolly lot less blushy work” to be there before the head master arrived. There was no doubt about their success in this little manoeuvre, for when the servant opened the door the hall was full of rout seats, and a man, uncommonly like the greengrocer, in a dress coat, was busily unpacking plates out of a small hamper.

  Into this scene of confusion Parson and Telson were ushered, and here they were left standing for about five minutes, interested spectators, till the hall was cleared and the domestic had leisure to go and tell Master Harry of their arrival.

  Master Harry was dressing, and sent down word they had better go into the shoe-room till he came down. Which they did, and amused themselves during the interval with trying on Mr Brown’s Wellingtons, and tying together the laces of all Harry’s boots they could discover.

  In due time Harry appeared in grand array. “How jolly early you are!” was his hospitable greeting. “You said six-thirty, didn’t you?” said Telson. “Yes; it’s only just that now. Nobody will be here for a quarter of an hour yet. You had better come in and see ma.”

  The two guests obeyed cheerfully. Ma was in the drawing-room, busily adjusting the sashes of the three juvenile Misses Brown, with her mouth full of pins. So all she could do was to smile pleasantly at her two visitors and nod her head as they each came up and held out their hands to be shaken.

  “Better sit down,” suggested Brown.

  Parson and Telson thereupon retreated to the sofa, on the edge of which they sat for another five or ten minutes, looking about them complacently, and not attempting to break the silence of the scene.

  The silence, however, was soon broken by a loud double knock at the hall door, which was the signal for Mr Brown, senior, to bolt into the room in a guilty way with one cuff not quite buttoned, and stand on the hearthrug with as free-and-easy an air as if he had been waiting there a quarter of an hour at least. Knock followed knock in quick succession, and after the usual amount of fluttering in the hall, the greengrocer flung open the drawing-room door and ushered in Dr and Mrs Patrick, Miss Stringer, and half a dozen other arrivals.

  Our two heroes, sitting side by side, unnoticed on the edge of the sofa, had full opportunity to take stock of the various guests, most of whom were strangers to them.

  As every one appeared to be about the doctor’s age, things promised slowly for Parson and Telson, whose interest in Brown’s party decidedly languished when finally they found themselves swept off their perch and helplessly wedged into a corner by an impenetrable phalanx of skirts.

  But this was nothing compared with a discovery they made at the same time that they had missed their tea! There was a merry rattle of cups and spoons in a room far off, through the half-open door of which they could catch glimpses of persons drinking tea, and of Brown handing round biscuits and cake. The sight of this was too much to be borne. It was at least worth an effort to retrieve their fatal mistake.

  “I say,” said Telson, looking for his friend round the skirts of a stately female, “hadn’t we better go and help Brown, Parson?”

  Luckless youth! The lady in question, hearing the unexpected voice at her side, backed a little and caught sight of the speaker.

  “What, dear?” she said, benevolently, taking his hand and sitting down on the sofa; “and who are you, my little man?”

  “My little man” was fairly trapped; there was no escaping this seizure. Parson got away safely to the tea-room, and the sight of him dodging about among the cakes and cups only added to the misery of the hapless Telson.

  “Who are you, my little dear?” said the lady, who was no other than Miss Stringer herself.

  Telson, fortunately for him, was ignorant of the fact — as ignorant, indeed, as Miss Stringer was of the fact that the little dear she was addressing was a Willoughbite.

  “Telson, ma’am,” said Telson, following Parson with longing eyes.

  “Johnny?” said the lady.

  “No — Augustus,” replied the proud bearer of the name.

  Miss Stringer surveyed him benevolently. He was a nice-looking boy, was Telson — and the lady thought so too.

  “And will you give me a kiss, Augustus dear?” she said, with her most winning smile.

  What could Augustus do? A hundred desperate alternatives darted through his mind. He would bolt into the tea-room; he would shout for help; he would show fight; he would— But while he was making up his mind what he would do, he found himself being kissed on the cheek in the most barefaced manner, before everybody, by this extraordinary female; and, more than that, being actually set down on the sofa beside her! He only hoped Parson or Brown had not seen it.

  Well for Miss Stringer she did not guess the wrath that boiled in the bosom of her small companion!

  “And do you live here, dear?” inquired she, pleased to have this opportunity of studying the juvenile human nature in which she was so much interested.

  “No, I don’t,” said Telson, surlily; then, suddenly recollecting he was in polite though disagreeable company, he added, “ma’am.”

  “And where do you go to school, pray?” inquired the spinster.

  “Oh, Willoughby,” replied Telson, who had gradually given up all hope of tea, and was making up his mind to his fate.

  Miss Stringer gave a little start at this piece of information, and was on the point of betraying her identity, but she forbore. “After all,” thought she, “he might be more constrained if I were to enlighten him on that subject.”

  “So you go to Willoughby,” she said, with interest. “And how do you like it?”

  “Oh, well enough,” said Telson, relenting somewhat towards his companion as she showed no further signs of kissing him. “Nice lot of fellows, you know, on the whole.”

  “Indeed? Let me see, who is the head master?” inquired the lady.
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  “Oh, Paddy — that old boy there by the fire. And that’s Mrs Paddy there with the curls.”

  Miss Stringer appeared to receive another shock at this piece of information, which, however, Telson, flattered by her evident interest in his remarks, did not take to heart.

  “And,” said she, presently, with a slight nervousness in her voice, “I hope you like them?”

  “Oh,” blurted out Telson, “Paddy’s not so bad, but the dame’s an old beast, you know — at least, so fellows say. I say,” added he, “don’t you tell her I said so!”

  Miss Stringer regarded him with a peculiar smile, which the boy at once took to mean a promise. So he rattled on. “And she’s got a sister, or somebody hangs about the place, worse than any of them. Why, when old Wynd—”

  “And,” said Miss Stringer, suddenly—“and which house are you in — in the schoolhouse?”

  “Hullo, then! you know Willoughby?” demanded Telson sharply.

  Miss Stringer looked confused, as well she might, but replied, “Ah! all public schools have a schoolhouse, have they not?”

  “I suppose so,” said Telson. “Yes, I’m a schoolhouse fellow. I’m the captain’s fag, you know — old Riddell.”

  “Mr Riddell is the captain, then?”

  “Rather! Do you know him?”

  Poor Miss Stringer! How sad it is, to be sure, when once we go astray. She, the Griffin of Willoughby, was as much at the mercy of this honest unconscious fag as if he had caught her in the act of picking a pocket. For how could she reveal herself now?

  “I–I think I met him once,” she said.

  “Where? at his home, was it?” asked Telson, who seemed to be urged by a most fiendish curiosity on the subject.

  “No,” faltered the lady; “it was — er — I think it was at Dr Patrick’s.”

  “Very likely,” said Telson. “He was up there to tea, I know, just before he was made captain. But I didn’t know any one else was there except Paddy and his hyenas.”