Who was to be the new captain of Willoughby? This was a question it had
occurred to only a very few to ask until Wyndham had finally quitted the
school. Fellows had grown so used to the old order of things, which had
continued now for two years, that the possibility of their bowing to any
other chief than "Old Wynd" had scarcely crossed their minds. But the
question being once asked, it became very interesting indeed.
The captains of Willoughby had been by long tradition what is known as
"all-round men." There was something in the air of the place that
seemed specially favourable to the development of muscle and classical
proficiency at the same time, and the consequence was that the last
three heads of the school had combined in one person the senior classic
and the captains of the clubs. Wyndham had been the best of these;
indeed he was as much ahead of his fellows in the classical school as he
was in the cricket-field and on the river, which was saying not a
little. His predecessors had both also been head boys in classics; and
although neither of them actually the best men of their time in
athletics, they had been sufficiently near the best to entitle them to
the place of honour, which made the Willoughby captain supreme, not only
in school, but out of it. So that in the memory of the present
"generation"--a school generation being reckoned as five years--the
Willoughby captain had always been cock of the school in every sense in
which such a distinction was possible.
But now all of a sudden the school woke up to the fact that this
delightful state of things was not everlasting. Wyndham had left and
his mantle had fallen from him in two pieces.
The new head classic was Riddell, a comparatively unknown boy in the
school, who had come there a couple of years ago from a private school,
and about whom the most that was known was that he was physically weak
and timid, rarely taking part in any athletic exercises, having very few
chums, interfering very little with anybody else, and reputed "pi."--as
the more irreverent among the Willoughbites were wont to stigmatise any
fellow who made a profession of goodness. Such was the boy on whom,
according to strict rule, the captaincy of Willoughby would devolve, and
it need hardly be said that the discovery spread consternation wherever
it travelled.
Among the seniors the idea was hardly taken seriously.
"The doctor would never be so ridiculous," said Ashley to Coates, as
they talked the matter over in the study of the former. "We might as
well shut up the school."
"The worst of it is, I don't see how he can help it," replied Coates.
"Help it! Of course he can help it if he likes. There's no written law
that head classics are to be captains, if they can't hold a bat or run a
hundred yards, is there?"
"I don't suppose there is. But who else is there?"
"Why, Bloomfield, of course. He's just the fellow for it, and the
fellows all look up to him."
"But Bloomfield's low down in the sixth," said Coates.
"What's that to do with it? Felton was a muff at rowing, but he was
made captain of the boats all the same while he was cock of the school."
At this point another monitor entered.
"Ah, Tipper," said Ashley, "what do you think Coates here is saying? He
says Riddell is to be the new captain."
Tipper burst into a loud laugh.
"That would be a joke! Think of Riddell stroking the school eight at
Henley, eh! or kicking off for us against Rockshire! I suppose Coates
thinks because Riddell's a schoolhouse boy he's bound to be the man.
Never fear. You'll see Parrett's come to the front at last, my boy!"
"Why, are _you_ to be the new captain?" asked Coates, with a slight
sneer.
Tipper was not pleased with this little piece of sarcasm. He was a good
cricketer and a fine runner, but in school everybody knew him to be as
poor a scholar as a fellow could be to be in the sixth at all.
"I dare say even I would be as good as any schoolhouse fellow you could
pick out," said he. "But if you want to know, Bloomfield's the man."
"Just what I was saying," said Ashley. "But Coates says he's not far
enough up in the school."
"All bosh," said Tipper. "What difference does it make if a fellow's
first or twentieth in the school, as long as he's cock of everything
outside! I don't see how the doctor can hesitate a moment between the
two."
This was the conclusion come to at almost all the conclaves which met
together during the day to discuss the burning question. It was the
conclusion moreover to which Bloomfield himself came as he talked the
matter over with a few of his friends after third school.
"You see," said he, "it's not that I care about the thing for its own
sake. It would be a precious grind, I know, to have to be responsible
for everything that goes on, and to have to lick all the kids that want
a hiding. But for all that, I'd sooner do it than let the school run
down."
"What I hope," said some one, "is that even if Paddy doesn't see it
himself, Riddell will, and will have the sense to back out of it. I
fancy he wouldn't be sorry."
"Not he," said Bloomfield. "I heard him say once he pitied Wyndham all
the bother he had, especially when he was wanting to stew for the
exams."
"Has any one seen Riddell lately?" asked Game. "It wouldn't be a bad
thing for some of us to see him, and put it to him, that the school
would go to the dogs to a dead certainty if he was captain."
"Rather a blunt way of putting it," said Porter, laughing. "I'd break
it to him rather more gently than that."
"Well, you know what I mean," replied Game, who was of the downright
order.
"You see," said Bloomfield, who, despite his protestations, was
evidently not displeased at the notion of his possible honours, "I don't
profess to be much of a swell in school; but--I don't know--I fancy I
could keep order rather better than he could. The fellows know me."
"They ought to, if they don't," said Wibberly, who was a toady.
"Fancy Riddell having to lick a junior," said Game. "Why he'd faint at
the very idea."
"Probably take him off to his study and have a prayer-meeting with
Fairbairn and a few more of that lot upon the top of him," said Gilks, a
schoolhouse monitor, and not a nice-looking fellow.
"I guess I'd sooner get a hiding from old Bloomfield than that," laughed
Wibberly.
"I hope," said Game, "snivelling's not going to be the order of the day.
I can't stand it."
"I don't think you've any right to call Riddell a sniveller," said
Porter. "He may be a muff at sports, but I don't fancy he's a sneak.
And I don't see that it's against him, either, if he does go in for
being what he professes to be."
"Hear! hear!--quite a sermon from Porter," cried Wibberly.
"Porter's right," said Bloomfield. "No one says it was against him.
All I say is that I don't expect the fellows will mind him as much as
they would a fellow who--well, who's better known, you know."
"Rather," said Game, "I know it would seem precious rum being a monitor
under him."
"Well," said Bloomfield, "I suppose it will be settled soon. Meanwhile,
Game, what do you say to another grind in the tub? You didn't half work
this morning, you beggar."
Game groaned resignedly, and said "All right;" and hue and cry was
forthwith made for Master Parson's services at the helm.
But Master Parson, as it happened, was not to be found. He was neither
in the school nor in his house, and a search through the grounds failed
to unearth him. He had not been seen since his escape from the
monitorial fangs after morning school. The natural thing, of course, on
not finding him at home in his own quarters, was to look for him in
Telson's. But he was not there, nor, strange to say, was Telson
himself. And, what was still more odd, when search came to be made,
Bosher, another fag of Parrett's house, was missing, and so was Lawkins,
and Pringle, and King, and Wakefield, and one or two others of the same
glorious company. After a fruitless search, the oarsmen had finally to
go down to the river without a fag at all, and impound the boat-boy to
steer for them.
The fact was, Parson's miraculous release from the hands of the law that
morning, and the reason which led to it, had suggested both to himself
and the faithful Telson that the present was rather a rare opportunity
for them in the annals of Willoughby. If there was no captain, there
was no one to give them a licking (for the worst an ordinary monitor
could do was to give an imposition), and that being so, it would surely
be a waste of precious opportunity if they failed to signalise the event
by some little celebration. And, as it happened, there was a little
celebration which badly wanted celebrating, and for which only a chance
like the present could have been considered favourable. In other words,
there was a rather long score which the juniors of Parrett's were
anxious to settle up with the juniors of Welch's. The debt was of long
standing, having begun as far back as the middle of the Lent term, when
the Welchers had played upon some of Parrett's with a hose from behind
their own door, and culminating in the unprovoked outrage upon the
luckless Parson on the river that very morning.
Now if there was one thing more than another the young Parretts prided
themselves in, it was their punctuality in matters of business; and it
had troubled them sorely that circumstances over which they had no
control (in other words, the fear of Wyndham) should have prevented
their settling scores with the Welchers at an earlier date.
Now, however, an opportunity was come, and, like all honest men, they
determined at once to avail themselves of it.
So the reason why Bloomfield and Game could find no fags in Parrett's
house to steer for them was because all the fags of Parrett's house,
aided by Telson of the schoolhouse, were at that moment paying a
business call at Welch's, and having on the whole rather a lively time
of it.
The juniors of Welch's were, take them altogether, a rather more rowdy
lot than the juniors of either of the two other houses, or, indeed, than
those of both the other houses put together. Somehow Welch's was always
the rowdy house of Willoughby. The honours of the school, whether in
class or in field, always seemed to go in any direction but their own,
and as, for five or six years at any rate, they had been unable to claim
any one distinguished Willoughbite as a member of their house, they had
come to regard themselves somewhat in the light of Ishmaelites.
Everybody's hand seemed to be against them, and they therefore didn't
see why their hand shouldn't be against every one.
It was this feeling which had prompted the assaults of which the
youthful Parretts had come to complain, and which the Welchers
distributed as impartially as possible among all their fellow
Willoughbites.
The fact was, Welch's was a bad house. The fellows there rarely made
common cause for any lawful purpose, certainly never for the credit of
the school. They were split up into cliques and sets of all sorts, and
the rising generation among them were left to grow up pretty much as
they liked.
On the afternoon in question an entertainment on a small scale was going
on in the study jointly occupied by Cusack and Pilbury. Captain Cusack,
R.N., when he had parted from his dutiful son the night before, had put
five shillings into his hand as a pleasant memento of his visit; and
Master Cusack, directly after second school that morning, had skulked
down into Shellport with his hat-box, and returned in due time with the
same receptacle packed almost to bursting with dough-nuts, herrings,
peppermint-rock, and sherbet. With these dainties to recommend him (and
his possession of them soon got wind) it need hardly be said he became
all of a sudden the most popular youth in Welch's. Fellows who would
have liked to kick him yesterday now found themselves loving him like
their own brother, and the enthusiasm felt for him grew to such a pitch
that it really seemed as if not only his hat-box, but he himself, was in
danger. However, by a little judicious manoeuvring he got safe into his
study, and, after a hasty consultation with Pil, decided to ask Curtis,
Philpot, Morrison, and Morgan, their four most intimate friends, to do
them the pleasure of joining in a small "blow-out" after third school.
These four worthies, who, by a most curious coincidence, happened to be
loafing outside Cusack's study-door at the very moment when Pilbury
started off to find them, had much pleasure in accepting their friend's
kind invitation; and the rest, finding themselves out of it, yapped off
disconsolately, agreeing inwardly that Cusack was the stingiest beast in
all Willoughby.
If punctuality is a test of politeness, Curtis, Morgan, Philpot, and
Morrison were that afternoon four of the politest young gentlemen in the
land; for they were all inside Cusack's study almost before the bell
dismissing third school had ceased to sound.
"Jolly brickish of you, old man," said Morrison, complacently regarding
the unpacking of the magic hat-box. "I've not seen a dough-nut for
years."
"I got these at a new shop," said Cusack, trying to rescue some of the
sherbet which had fallen in among the herrings. "Gormon never has
anything but red-currant jam in his. These are greengage."
"How jolly prime!" was the delighted exclamation.
"Three-halfpence each, though," said Cusack, laying the herrings out in
a row on the table. "I say, I wish we'd got some forks or something to
toast these with."
"Wouldn't the slate do to stick them on?" suggested Curtis.
"Might do, only Grange wrote out a lot of Euclid questions on it, and
I've got to show them to him answered to-morrow, and I'd get in an awful
row if it was rubbed out."
"Rather a bore. I tell you what, though," exclaimed Philpot, struck
with the brilliant idea, "there's the pan in the chemistry-room they mix
up the sulphur and phosphorus and that sort of thing in. I'll cut and
get that. It's just the thing."
"All serene," said Cusack; "better give it a rub over in case it blows
up, you know."
Philpot said "All right," and went, leaving the others to poke up the
fire and get all ready for the reception of the pan.
He was a long while about it, certainly, considering that the chemistry-
room was only just at the end of the passage.
"I wonder what he's up to?" said Pilbury, when after about three minutes
he did not return.
"I wish he'd hurry up," said Curtis, whose special attraction was
towards the dough-nuts, which of course could not come on till after the
herrings.
"I wonder if he's larking about with some of the chemicals. I never
knew such a fellow as he is for smells and blow-ups--"
"I'll blow him up if he's not sharp," said Cusack, losing patience and
looking mournfully at the row of herrings on the table.
"Let's begin without him," said Pilbury.
"So we would if we had anything to do them on."
"I'll go and see if I can get a fork or two," said Morrison.
"Thanks, and wake up Philpot while you're out."
Morrison went, and the others kicked their heels impatiently and eyed
the good things hungrily as they waited.
Cusack tried toasting a herring on one of the small forks, but the heat
of the fire was too great for him to hold his hand at such close
quarters, and he gave it up in disgust.
What was the matter with everybody this afternoon? Morrison was away
ages and did not return.
"Oh, bother it all!" exclaimed Cusack, whose patience was now fairly
exhausted, "if they don't choose to come I'm hung if they'll get
anything now. I'll go and get the pan myself."
And off he went in high dudgeon, leaving his guests in charge of the
feast.
"If he can't get the pan or a toasting-fork," said Curtis,
disinterestedly, "wouldn't it be as well to have the dough-nuts now, and
leave the herrings till supper, eh, Pil? Pity for them to get stale."
Pilbury said nothing, but broke off a little piece of the peppermint-
rock in a meditative manner, and drummed his feet on the floor.
"Upon my word," he broke out after a good three minutes' waiting, "that
blessed pan must be jolly heavy. There's three of them sticking to it
now!"
"Wait a bit, I hear him coming," said Curtis, going to the door. He
stepped out into the passage, Morgan following him.
Pilbury heard a sudden scuffling outside, and a sound of what did not
seem like Welchers' voices. He hurried to the door to ascertain the
cause, and as he did so he found himself caught roughly by the arm and
slung violently against the opposite wall, while at the same moment
Telson, Parson, Bosher, and half a dozen Parrett juniors rushed past him
into the empty study, slamming and locking and barricading the door
behind them!
It was all so quickly done that the luckless Welchers could hardly
believe their own senses. But when they heard the distant voice of
Philpot shouting that he was locked up in the chemistry-room, and of
Morrison complaining that he couldn't get out of his own study, and of
Cusack demanding to be released from the lavatory; and when their
combined assault on the door produced nothing but defiant laughter
mingled with the merry frizzing of the herrings before the fire, they
knew it was no dream but a hideous fact. They had presence of mind
enough to release their incarcerated comrades and attempt another
assault in force on the door. But it came to nothing. In vain they
shouted, threatened, entreated, kicked. They only received facetious
answers from inside, which aggravated their misery.
"Go it, you fellows," shouted one voice, very like Parson's, only the
mouth was so full that it was hard to say for certain. "Jolly good
dough-nuts these; have another, Bosher, you've only had four. I say,
Cusack, where did you catch these prime herrings? Best I've tasted
since I came here. Afraid your slate's a little damaged; awfully sorry,
you ought to keep a toasting-fork--ha! ha!" and a chorus of laughter
greeted the sally. Cusack groaned and fumed.
"You pack of young cads," he howled through the key-hole. "Come out of
there, do you hear? you thieves you. I'll warm you, Parson, when I get
hold of you."
"Just what we're doing to the bloaters," cried Telson. There was a
pause. Then Pilbury cried in tones of feigned warning, "Here comes the
doctor! We'll see what he says."
"Won't do," shouted Parson from within. "Won't wash, my boy. Paddy's
down at Shellport. Any more sherbet left, King?"
"I'll go and tell the captain, that's what I'll do," said Pilbury.
"Won't wash again," cried Parson. "There's no captain to tell; I say,
we're leaving something for you, aren't we, you fellows? There'll be
all the heads of the herrings and the greengage stones-- jolly blow-out
for you."
It was no use attempting further parley, and the irate Welchers were
compelled to lurk furiously outside the door while the feast proceeded,
and console themselves with the prospect of paying the enemy out when it
was all over.
But the skill which had accompanied the execution of the raid so far was
not likely to omit all precautions possible to make good a retreat.
While most of the party were making all the noise they could, and
succeeding with jest and gibe in keeping the attention of those outside,
the barricade against the door had been quietly removed, and decks
cleared for the sortie.
"Now then, you fellows," cried Parson to his men, in a voice which those
outside were intended to hear, "make yourselves comfortable. Here's a
stunning lot of peppermint-rock here, pass it round. Needn't go home
for half an hour at least!"
The watchers outside groaned. There was no help at hand; and for one of
them to go and seek it was only to increase the odds against them. The
only thing was to wait patiently till the enemy did come out. _Then_ it
would be their turn. So they leaned up against the door and waited.
The revelry within became more and more boisterous, and the chances of a
speedy retreat more and more remote, when all of a sudden there was a
sharp click and the door swung back hard on its hinges, precipitating
Cusack, Pilbury, and Curtis backwards into the room in among the very
feet of the besieged as, in a compact body, they rushed out. Morrison,
Philpot, and Morgan did what little they could to oppose them but they
were simply run over and swept aside by the wily troop of Parretts, who
with shouts of derisive triumph gained the staircase with unbroken
ranks, and gave their pursuers the parting gratification of watching
them slide down the banisters one by one, and then lounge off arm-in-
arm, sated and jubilant, to their own quarters.