Talbot Reed - The Willoughby Captains

“I suppose I’m sure to get expelled,” said the boy, dismally; “they’re sure to make it as bad against me as they can.”

Riddell reflected a little, and then said, “Perhaps it’s only a threat, and no more. At any rate, if the doctor is told he is sure to give you a chance of telling him everything, so don’t give up hope, old man.”

Poor Wyndham did not look or feel very hopeful certainly as he thought over the situation.

“Thanks for telling me about it, anyhow,” said he. “I say, shall you be there to hear what they say?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. But if you are sent for let me know, and I’ll go with you.”

With this grain of comfort the captain went, leaving Wyndham anything but disposed to show up at the cricket practice. Indeed, for a little while he gave up all thought of going out, and it was not till a messenger arrived to tell him he was keeping everybody waiting that he screwed himself up to the effort and went.

Riddell meanwhile, with the other half of his mission still to execute, went over to Parrett’s. Parson was lounging about at the door, with a towel over his arm, waiting, as any one might have guessed, for Telson.

“Has Bloomfield gone out?” asked the captain of this youthful hero.

Parson, who ever since the famous breakfast in Riddell’s room had looked upon the captain with eyes of favour, replied, “No, I don’t think so, I’ll go and see if you like.”

“Thanks. If he’s in, tell him I want to speak to him.”

“All serene. Hold my towel, do you mind? It’s Bosher’s, and he may try to collar it if he sees me. And tell Telson I’ll be back in a second.”

And off he went, leaving the captain in charge of Bosher’s towel.

He soon returned with a message that Bloomfield was getting up, and would be out in a minute or two.

“I say,” said he, after the two had waited impatiently some time, each for his own expected schoolfellow, “did you see much of the fight last night?”

“No,” said Riddell, “I didn’t see it at all.”

“Oh, hard lines. I got there late, as I went to tell Telson. Gilks used his right too much, you know. We both thought so. He keeps no guard to speak of, and— Hullo! where on earth have you been all this time?”

This last exclamation was in honour of Telson, who appeared on the scene at that moment, and with whom the speaker joyfully departed, leaving Riddell only half informed as to the scientific defects in Gilks’s style of boxing.

In due time Bloomfield appeared, not a little curious to know the object of this early interview.

Riddell, too, was embarrassed, for the last time they met they had parted on anything but cordial terms. However, that had nothing to do with his duty now.

“Good-morning,” he said, in reply to Bloomfield’s nod. “Do you mind taking a turn? I want to tell you something.”

Bloomfield obeyed, and that morning any one who looked out might have witnessed the unusual spectacle of the Willoughby captains walking together round the quadrangle in eager conversation.

“You heard of the fight?” said Riddell.

“Yes; what about it?” inquired Bloomfield.

“I’ve reported it. And last night Silk came to me and asked me to get back the names.”

“You won’t do it, will you?” asked Bloomfield.

“No. But the reason why Silk wanted it was because he was afraid of something else coming out. He says it was Gilks who cut the rudder-lines.”

“What! Gilks?” exclaimed Bloomfield, standing still in astonishment. “It can’t be! Gilks was one of us. He backed our boat all along!”

“That’s just what I can’t make out,” said the captain; “and I wanted to see what you think had better be done.”

“Have you asked Gilks?” inquired Bloomfield.

“No. I thought perhaps the best thing was to wait till they had been up to the doctor. They may let out about it to him, if there’s anything in it. If they don’t, we should see what Gilks says.”

“If it had been your lines that were cut,” said Bloomfield, “I could have believed it. He had a spite against all your fellows, and especially you, since he was kicked out of the boat. But he had betted over a sovereign on us, I know.”

“I shouldn’t have believed it at all,” said Riddell, “if Silk hadn’t sent me an anonymous note a week or two ago. Here it is, by the way.”

Bloomfield read the note.

“Did you go and see the boat-boy?” he asked.

“Yes; and all I could get out of him was that some one had got into the boat-house that night, and scrambled out of the window just in time to avoid being seen. But the fellow, whoever he was, dropped a knife, which I managed to get from Tom, and which turned out to be one young Wyndham had lost.”

“Young Wyndham! Then it was true you suspected him?”

“It was true.”

And then the captain told his companion the story of the complication of misunderstandings which had led him almost to the point of denouncing the boy as the culprit; at the end of which Bloomfield said, in a more friendly tone than he had yet assumed, “It was a shave, certainly. Young Wyndham ought to be grateful to you. He’d have found it not so easy to clear himself if you’d reported him at once.”

“I dare say it would have been hard,” said Riddell.

“I’m rather ashamed of myself now for trying to make you do it,” said Bloomfield.

“Oh, not at all,” said Riddell, dreading as he always did this sort of talk. “But, I say, what do you think ought to be done?”

“I think we’d better wait, as you say, till they’ve been to Paddy. Then if nothing has come out, you ought to see Gilks.”

“I think so, but I wish you’d be there too. As captain of the clubs, you’ve really more to do with it than I have.”

“You’re captain of the school, though,” said Bloomfield, “but I’ll be there too, if you like.”

“Thanks,” said Riddell.

And the two walked on discussing the situation, and drifting from it into other topics in so natural a way that it occurred to neither of them at the time to wonder how they two, of all boys, should have so much in common.

“I shall be awfully glad when it’s all cleared up,” said Riddell.

“So shall I. If it is cleared up the credit of it will belong to you, I say.”

“Not much credit in getting a fellow expelled,” said Riddell.

“Anyhow, it was to your credit sticking by young Wyndham as you did.”

“I was going to report him for it, though, the very day the matter was explained.”

“Well, all the more credit for making up your mind to an unpleasant duty like that when you might have shirked it.”

The bell for chapel began to ring at this point.

“There goes the bell,” said Bloomfield. “I say, how should you like to ask me to breakfast with you? I’d ask you to my room, only our fellows would be so inquisitive.”

Riddell jumped at the hint with the utmost delight, and to all the marvels of that wonderful term was added this other, of the two Willoughby captains breakfasting tête-à-tête , partaking of coffee out of the same pot and toast cut off the same loaf.

They talked far more than they ate or drank. It was more like the talk of two friends who had just met after a long separation, than of two schoolfellows who had sat shoulder to shoulder in the same class-room for weeks. Bloomfield confided all his troubles, and failures, and disappointments, and Riddell confessed his mistakes, and discouragements, and anxieties. And the Parrett’s captain marvelled to think how he could have gone on all this term without finding out what a much finer fellow the captain of the school was than himself. And Riddell reproached himself inwardly for never having made more serious efforts to secure the friendship of this honest, kind-hearted athlete, and gradually these secret thoughts oozed out in words.