Mr Crossfield.--In reply to the gentleman's second question, I am sorry
to inform him that his impressions are about as correct and intelligent
as they usually are. (Renewed cheers and laughter, in the midst of
which Tucker subsided in a state of mind hardly amiable.)
As soon as silence was restored, Mr Porter wished to ask the captain of
the eleven whether the team to play against Rockshire was yet settled.
Mr Bloomfield.--Not quite. Nine names are fixed--Game, Tipper, Ashley,
Wibberly, and myself from Parrett's house, and Fairbairn, Porter,
Coates, and Crossfield from the schoolhouse. (Cheers and counter-
cheers, and loud cries of "What about the Welchers?") What about the
Welchers? That's what everybody wants to know! (Loud cheers.)
Hereupon Mr Cusack rose in his place and asked if the House was aware
that the Welchers' cricket club was started again; that he was the
secretary; and old Mr Pil the treasurer, and Mr Riddell the president,
that the subscription was two shillings and sixpence in advance, and
that-- But here the enthusiastic secretary's announcement was drowned in
the general laughter of the assembly, led by the Parrett's juniors, who
roared as if they'd never heard such a joke in their lives. "Won't be a
joke when we smash you in one innings," shouted Cusack, standing on his
seat to give emphasis to the challenge. "Ho, ho! when's that to be?"
"When you like," cried the Welchers. "Do you funk it?"
"Unless those juniors there hold their row," interposed Bloomfield, "I
shall have them turned out of the meeting." Whereat the little breeze
calmed down.
The President then called upon Mr Ashley to move the resolution
standing in his name, which he did in a rather feeble speech.
"I really don't think it necessary to say much to prove that the school
is degenerate. Look at the clubs! They aren't nearly as good as they
were in old Wyndham's time. Parrett's clubs, thanks to Mr Bloomfield,
keep up; but where are the others? Then the rows. (Hear, hear.) I'm
sure there have been more rows in the school this term than all the rest
of the year put together. The juniors seem to do what they
like,"--("Hear, hear," from Telson, Parson, and Co.)--"and no one seems
to know who has a right to keep any one else in order. Now, why is all
this? (Loud cheers from Bosher.) You know as well as I do. The
captain of the school always used to be a fellow the boys could look up
to. Old Wyndham and the captain before him were something like fellows.
(Loud Parrett's cheers.) _They_ weren't afraid to look any one in the
face--(cheers)--and _they_ didn't, when they got tired of one
house--(cheers)--ask the doctor to move them to another. (Terrific
applause from the Parrett's and Welchers.) Why, if this boat-race
affair had happened in old Wyndham's time, do you suppose he wouldn't
have made it right, and found out the fellow, even if it was his own
brother? (Loud cheers, amidst which young Wyndham blushed a great deal
at this unexpected piece of notoriety.) I'm not going to say any more."
("Hear, hear," from Fairbairn.)
Mr Porter rose to open the debate on the other side. He wasn't going
to give in that Willoughby was going down. It was unpatriotic.
(Cheers.) He meant to say if the school did go down it was the fellows'
own fault, and not all to be blamed on one boy. Mr Riddell would
probably answer for himself--(laughter)--but he (Mr Porter) was pretty
sure the school would not degenerate under him. The fellows seemed to
think the only thing in the world was brute strength. He had no
objection to brute strength--(cheers and laughter)--in fact he fancied
he had a little of his own--("Hear, hear," from Telson whose ears Porter
had boxed only that morning)--but Willoughby wanted something better
than that; and he meant to say there were plenty of fellows in the
school who didn't make much noise, but who did as much to keep up the
school as all the rowdies put together. And when things have quieted
down, as he hoped they would, these fellows would get more thanks than
they did now. (Cheers from a few, who apparently considered this last
allusion referred specially to them.)
Porter was not a good speaker, and the little he did say was a good deal
bungled. Still there was a manly ring about his speech which pleased
the better disposed section of his audience, some of whom did not even
belong to the same house.
Silk followed. The Welcher monitor was clever to a certain degree, and
although he never chose to devote his cleverness to good purposes, he
usually managed to get himself listened to when he chose to take the
trouble. And at present, his peculiar position as the deposed head of
Welch's gave a certain interest to what he had to say. Bitter enough it
was.
"What chance is there of the school not going down, I should like to
know," said he, "when cant is the order of the day? (Hear, hear.) Of
course the school is going down. What interests can any one have in his
house when some one comes and begins by setting the juniors against the
seniors and then turning up the whites of his eyes and saying, `What a
shocking state of disorder the house is in?' Why, before `the little
stranger'--(loud laughter)--came to Welch's, the seniors and juniors
never fell out," ("Hear, hear," from several quarters), "but now there's
a regular mutiny. And what's bad for one house is bad for the school.
I don't care who's head of Welch's. He's welcome to the honour if he
likes, but let him act above-board, that's what I say, and not snivel
and look pious while all the time he's doing a dirty trick." (Cheers
from Tucker and one or two more, which, however, instantly died out when
Crossfield rose.)
Crossfield was the plague of the senior Welchers' lives!
"I was much affected by the beautiful speech of the gentleman who has
just sat down," he began. "It is always so sweet to hear conscious
innocence asserting itself. After the gentleman's noble efforts for the
good of his house (laughter)--and the splendid example he has set of
rectitude--(laughter)--and high moral principle--(laughter)--it is truly
touching to find him put on one side for an interloper who is villainous
enough to tell the juniors they need not walk in his saintly footsteps!
(Laughter.) But that is not what I wanted to say, and as the gentleman
appears to be overcome by his emotions--(Silk was at that moment angrily
leaving the room)--I don't think we need trouble any more about him.
(Cheers and laughter.) All I wished to say was this: I always
understood from the gentlemen of Parrett's that Mr Bloomfield was
captain of Willoughby," (Loud cries of "So he is!"), "and that nobody
cared a straw for Mr Riddell." ("No more they do!"). "Then, I don't
think Mr Ashley is very complimentary to Mr Bloomfield when he says
the fault of all the mischief is that the captain is not an all-round
man. For all that he's quite correct. Mr Bloomfield is a well-meaning
man, no doubt, but he certainly is not an all-round man." (Uproar.)
Riddell then rose, and his rising was the signal for a great
demonstration of party feeling. Parrett's of course went against him,
and a large section of Welch's, but the schoolhouse, aided by Cusack,
Pilbury, and Co., backed him up. He spoke nervously but boldly.
"I am sorry to have to support the motion of Mr Ashley. I agree with
him that Willoughby is not what it was, and not what it should be.
(Cheers.) And I also agree with him in thinking that the school might
have a good deal better captain than it has." (Cries of "No!" from the
schoolhouse.) "However, I do not want to say a word about myself. What
I do want to say is this--it's one thing to discover that we are
degenerate, and another to try to put ourselves right again. And are we
likely to do that as long as we are all at sixes and sevens, pulling
different ways, caring far more about our own gratifications than the
good of the whole school? I don't think so, and I don't believe Mr
Bloomfield does either. Every fellow worth the name of a Willoughbite
must be sorry to see things as they are. (Hear, hear.) Why should they
remain so? Surely the good of the school is more important than
squabbling about who is captain and which is the best house. Of course,
we all back up our own house, and, as a Welcher now, I mean to try if
our house can't give a good account of itself before the term's over.
(Loud cheers from Pilbury, Cusack, Philpot, etcetera.) And if each
house pulls itself up, not at the expense of a rival house--(Hear,
hear)--but for the glory of the school--(Hear, hear)--we shan't have to
complain of Willoughby being degenerate much longer. You remember what
old Wyndham said the night before he left. As long as the fellows think
first of the school and then of themselves Willoughby will be all right.
Depend upon it he was right. We cheered him loud enough then, why not
take his advice still?" (Loud cheers.)
This spirited address roused the applause of all the better-minded
section, whose cheers were not wholly unmingled with self-reproach.
Bloomfield himself, it was plain, felt its force, and as to the more
vehement members of Parrett's, it considerably damped their ardour.
"Old man," said Fairbairn that evening to his friend the captain, "you
struck a really good blow for the school this afternoon. I don't know
how you managed to pitch on just the right thing to say, as you did.
Things will come all right, take my word for it. They're beginning
already."
Alas, there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, as Willoughby had
yet to discover.