The Willoughby Captains

by Talbot Baines Reed

  At length, however, while the result was still undecided, a cry of “Cave!” was raised.

  “Look out, here’s Riddell!” cried some small boy.

  A round was just beginning, and neither combatant evinced any desire to desist on account of the captain’s approach.

  Riddell was not alone, Fairbairn was with him, and, being naturally attracted by the crowd and shouting, they both hurried up in time to see the end of the round.

  As soon as it was over they pushed their way in among the crowd and entered the ring.

  “Stop the fight!” said Riddell.

  The two combatants glared at him angrily, and Gilks replied, “Who says so?”

  “I say so,” said Riddell, quietly.

  The days were long gone by when the captain issued his orders in an apologetic voice and a diffident manner. He had learned enough during this term to discover the value of a little self-confidence, and had profited by the discovery. Willoughby was far more docile to an order than to a request, and on the present occasion neither Gilks nor Silk seemed disposed to argue the matter.

  They put on their jackets sulkily, and, without further words to one another or to the monitors, betook their battered selves to their several quarters.

  Willoughby, perceiving that the matter was at an end, also dispersed and returned to its several quarters. The Welchers resumed their interrupted revel with unabated rejoicing; the melancholy Parretts called for more hot water to eke out the consolations of their teapot; the Limpets turned in again to their preparation, and the seniors to their studies — every one criticising the fight, and wondering how it would have ended, but scarcely one troubling himself much about its merit, and less still about its consequences.

  One of these consequences the principals in the engagement were not long in learning. A message arrived for each, before the evening was over, that they were reported to the doctor, and were to go to his room at nine next morning.

  Silk did not get the message till late, as he had been absent most of the evening in Tucker’s study, who was an expert at repairing the damage incurred in a pugilistic encounter.

  When about bedtime he returned to his own study and found the captain’s note lying on the table, he broke out into a state of fury which, to say the least of it, it was well there was no one at hand to witness.

  Late as the hour was, he went at once to Riddell’s study.

  Riddell was half-undressed as his visitor entered. “What do you want?” he inquired.

  “I want you! Do you mean to say you’ve reported me to the doctor?”

  “Of course. It was a fight. I’m bound to report it.”

  “Bound to report it. You snivelling humbug! Have you sent the name up yet?”

  “Why do you want to know?” said Riddell, who had ceased to be in bodily fear of Silk for some time past.

  “Because I want to know. Have you sent it up?”

  “I have.”

  “All right, you’ll be sorry for it,” said Silk.

  “I am sorry for it,” replied the captain.

  Silk saw at a glance that the captain was not to be bullied, and changed his tone.

  “I suppose you know,” said he, “we shall both be expelled?”

  “The doctor doesn’t usually expel for fighting,” said the captain.

  “Of course not. But you remember getting a note from me a little time ago.”

  “From you? No; I never had a note from you.”

  “What, not one telling you to go down and see Tom the boat-boy?”

  “Was that from you?” exclaimed Riddell, in astonishment.

  “Of course it was. And of course you know now what I mean.”

  “I don’t. I could discover nothing,” said the captain.

  “You mean to say you don’t know who cut the rudder-lines?”

  “No; who?”

  “Gilks!”

  Chapter Thirty Three

  A Treaty of Peace

  The captain’s first impulse on receiving from Silk this astounding piece of information was to go at once to the schoolhouse and confront Gilks with his accuser.

  But his second impulse was to doubt the whole story and look upon it as a mere fabrication got up in the vague hope of preventing him from reporting the fight to the doctor.

  It was absurd to suppose Gilks had cut the rudder-lines. Not that it was an action of which he would be incapable. On that score the accusation was likely enough. But then, Riddell remembered, Gilks, though a schoolhouse boy, had all along been a strong partisan of the Parretts’ boat, and, ever since he had been turned out of his own boat, had made no secret of his hope that Parrett’s might win. He had even, if rumours spoke truly, lost money on the race. How was it likely, then, he would do such an absurd thing as cut the rudder-lines of the very boat he wanted to win, and on whose success he had even made a bet?

  It was much more likely that Silk had made this wild charge for the sake of embarrassing the captain, and leading him to reconsider his determination to report the fight.

  And what followed partly confirmed this idea.

  “You don’t want to get both Gilks and me expelled?” said Silk, with a half-whine very different from his late bullying tones.

  “The doctor never expels fellows for fighting.”

  “But he will when he finds out all this other business,” said Silk.

  “I really can’t help that,” said the captain, not quite seeing how the two offences were involved one with another.

  “It’s bound to come out,” continued Silk, “and Gilks will bring me into it too. I say, can’t you get back the names?”

  “Certainly not,” said the captain.

  “You were glad enough to hush it all up when you thought it was young Wyndham had done it,” said Silk.

  The captain winced, and Silk was quick enough to see it.

  “You profess to be fair and honest. Do you call it fair to shelter one fellow because he’s your friend, and tell about another because he isn’t? Eh, Riddell?”

  It was not a bad move on Silk’s part. The question thrust home, and had he been content to leave the matter there, it might have been some time before the captain, with his own scrupulous way of regarding things, would have detected its fallacies. But, not for the first time, Silk overdid it.

  “Besides,” said he, seeing he had made an impression, and foolishly thinking to follow it up—“besides, young Wyndham’s a long way from being out of the wood himself yet. Of course I don’t want to do it, but I could make it rather awkward for him if I chose.”

  The captain fired up scornfully, but Silk did not notice it, and continued, “You wouldn’t like to see him expelled, would you? If I were to tell all I know about him, he would be, to a certainty.”

  Riddell, on whom these incautious words had acted with a result wholly different from what was intended, could scarcely contain himself to talk coolly as he replied, “Please leave my room. I don’t want you here.” Silk looked round in a startled way at the words, and his face changed colour.

  “What?” he demanded. “Please leave my room,” replied the captain. “Not till you promise to get back the names.”

  “I shall do nothing of the sort.”

  “You won’t? You know the consequence?” Riddell said nothing. “I shall tell of Wyndham,” said Silk. “Please leave my room,” once more said the captain. Silk glared at him, and took a step forward as though he meant to try one last method for extorting the promise.

  But Riddell stood his ground boldly, and the spirit of the bully faltered.

  “You’ll be sorry for it,” snarled the latter. Riddell said nothing, but waited patiently for him to go. Seeing that nothing more was to be gained, and baffled on all points — even on the point where he made sure of having his enemy, Silk turned on his heel and went, slamming the door viciously behind him.

  Riddell had rarely felt such a sense of relief as he experienced on being thus left to himself.

  The suddenness
of Silk’s disclosure and the strange way in which it had been followed up had disconcerted him. But now he had time to think calmly over the whole affair.

  And two things seemed pretty clear. One was that, strange as it seemed, there must be something in Silk’s story. He could hardly have invented it and stuck to it in the way he had for no other purpose than embarrassing the captain; and the pressure he had applied to get Riddell to withdraw the names before the doctor saw them, confirmed this idea.

  The other point made clear was that his duty, at whatever cost, even at the cost of young Wyndham himself, was to report the fight and make no terms with the offenders. If the result was what Silk threatened, he could only hope the doctor would deal leniently with the boy.

  One other thing was clear too. He must see both Wyndham and Bloomfield in the morning.

  With which resolve, and not without a prayer for wisdom better than his own to act in this crisis, he retired to bed.

  Early next morning, before almost any sign of life showed itself in Willoughby, the captain was up and dressed.

  The magic that so often attends on a night’s sleep had done its work on him, and as he walked across the quadrangle that fresh summer morning his head was clear and his mind made up.

  The outer door of the schoolhouse was still unopened, and he paced outside, as it seemed to him, for half an hour before he could get in.

  He went at once to Wyndham’s study, and found that young athlete arraying himself in his cricket flannels.

  “Hullo, Riddell!” cried he, as the captain entered; “have you come to see the practice? We’re going to play a scratch match with some of the seniors. You play too, will you?”

  The captain did not reply to this invitation, and his serious face convinced Wyndham something must be wrong.

  “What’s up, I say?” he inquired, looking concerned.

  “Nothing very pleasant,” said Riddell. “You heard of the fight last night?”

  “Eh? between Silk and Gilks? Yes. I half guessed it would come to that. They’ve been quarrelling a lot lately.”

  “I reported them, and they are to go to the doctor’s after breakfast,” said Riddell.

  “They’ll catch it, I expect,” said Wyndham. “Paddy’s sure to be down on them because they’re seniors.”

  “They expect to catch it. At least, Silk says so. He came to me last night and tried to get me to withdraw the names. And when I said I couldn’t be threatened to tell about you, and get you into a row.”

  Wyndham’s face changed colour.

  “What? I say, do you think he really will?” he exclaimed.

  “I think it’s very likely,” said the captain.

  “Of course, you can’t withdraw the names?” said the boy.

  “I’ve no right to do it — no, I can’t,” replied the captain.

  “Oh, of course. But I say, what had I better do?” faltered the boy. “I hoped that bother was all over.”

  “I would advise you to go to the doctor before chapel and tell him yourself.”

  The boy’s face fell.

  “How can I? I promised I wouldn’t, and Silk wouldn’t let me off when I asked him.”

  “But he is going to tell of you, he says. You had much better let the doctor hear it from you than from him.”

  “If only I could!” exclaimed the boy; “but how can I?”

  “I don’t want to persuade you to break a promise,” said the captain, “but I’m sorry for it.”

  “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.”