The Willoughby Captains

by Talbot Baines Reed

  “Of course. He’s the captain.”

  “Oh, look here!” cried Wibberly, quite convinced now that the rumours were no joke. “We’ll go back, and we’ll do lines for you, but for goodness’ sake don’t send us up to him.”

  “We had no warning, you see,” said Stutter, “that things were changed.”

  “Go back, then,” said Bloomfield, “and make up your minds unless you keep rules you’ll get treated just the same as any other rowdies. I won’t report you this time, but you’d better take care what you do.”

  This little incident made a remarkable impression, not only on the two boys immediately concerned, but on the school generally. For it soon got noised about, and no public proclamation could have made the state of Bloomfield’s mind clearer.

  But a day or two later the last glimmer of doubt was removed by the proceedings which took place in that august assembly, the Willoughby Parliament.

  Honourable members assembled in large numbers, as they always did after any special school excitement, and even had this inducement been lacking, the significant sentence, “Resignation of Mr Bloomfield — Election of President,” on the notice-board would have sufficed to pack the house.

  Riddell had implored Bloomfield not to take this step, or at least to defer it to the beginning of the next term. But he might as well have pleaded with a lamp-post. The Parrett’s captain was inexorable.

  “No,” said he; “if it was the last day of the term I’d do it. It would serve me right if I was kicked round the school for sticking there so long.”

  Before the business began Crossfield rose and asked to be allowed to put a question. This was the signal for a general buzz of anticipation which was not lessened by the sight of Messrs Game and Ashley looking very uncomfortable where they sat.

  “I should like to ask Mr Game, whom I see present, if he will kindly report to the House the proceedings of the last special meeting, which he summoned in the interests of the honour of the school. I hope the gentleman will speak out, as we are all anxious to hear him.”

  Game blushed up to the roots of his hair, and dug his hands in his pocket, and tried to look as unconcerned as possible at the laughter which greeted this innocent question.

  As he made no offer to reply, Crossfield thereupon regaled the House with a highly facetious report of that famous meeting, amid much laughter and cheers, not a few of which were directed to the heroic “Skyrockets.” This little diversion being at an end, it was suggested by the Chair that perhaps the matter might now drop, which, greatly to the relief of the discomfited ex-monitors, it accordingly did, and after a few other questions the orders of the day were reached.

  “Gentlemen,” said Bloomfield, rising and speaking nervously, but resolutely, “you will see by the notice-paper that I am going to resign the office of President of the Willoughby Parliament. (No, no.) Gentlemen, there’s a proverb which says, ‘It’s never too late to mend.’ That’s the principle on which I am doing this now. I’ve been in this chair under false pretences. (No, no.) I was elected here under false pretences. (No, no.) I was a fool to let myself be elected, and I’m ashamed of myself now. Gentlemen, I am not the captain of Willoughby! I never was; and I had no more right to be than any fag present. (Loud cheers from Parson, Telson, Cusack, and others.) The only thing I can do now, gentlemen, to show how ashamed I am, is to resign. And I do resign. For goodness’ sake, gentlemen, let’s be done with the folly that’s been working the very mischief in Willoughby all this term. I know I’ve been as bad as any one, so I’ve no right to abuse any one. But we’ve time to pull ourselves right yet. It wants three clear weeks to the holidays. (Groans from Bosher.) In three weeks, if we choose, we can make the old school what it was the day old Wyndham left. (Cheers.) We’ve had more than folly among us this term. We’ve had foul play — thank goodness no one here was concerned in that. We don’t want to kick fellows that are down, but now they’ve gone our chance of pulling up is all the better, and we’ll do it. (Cheers.) I said the only thing I could do to atone for my folly was to resign. No, gentlemen, there is something else I can do, and will do. I propose that the captain of Willoughby be elected our President! (Cheers.) He’s a jolly good fellow, gentlemen — (cheers) — and I can tell you this (and I’m not given to romancing), if it hadn’t been for him, gentlemen, there would have been scarcely anything of Willoughby left to pick up.”

  Bloomfield, whose spirited address had carried his audience by storm, as only a genuine, hearty outburst can, sat down amid tremendous cheers. The school had fast been coming round to his way of thinking, but it had wanted some one to give it utterance. Riddell, in his speech a week or two ago, had hit the right nail on the head, and now Bloomfield had driven it home.

  When presently the applause subsided, young Wyndham was discovered, all excitement and eagerness, trying to be heard.

  “I want to second that!” he cried, in a voice that positively trembled. “I’m only a Limpet, and I’ve been in lots of rows, but you none of you know what a brick he is. Gentlemen, he’s worth the lot of us put together! I mean it. If you only knew what he’s done for me, you’d say so. I’m in a row now.” (“Hear! hear!” from Cusack.) “I’m detained all the rest of the term. (Cheers from Bosher.) I can’t play in the second-eleven next week — (loud laughter) — but, gentlemen, I don’t care a hang now old Riddell’s put where he ought to be, at the head of the school — (applause) — and I’m proud to be allowed to second it.”

  This was no ordinary meeting truly. No sooner was Wyndham done, but Telson leapt on his form, and shouted,—

  “On behalf of the kids — (laughter) — I third that. (Laughter.) I don’t know what you’re grinning at — (laughter) — but, I can tell you, we all mean to back him up. (Loud cheers.) That’s all I’ve got to say!”

  Other speeches followed, equally cordial, from Fairbairn and the captain’s old schoolhouse friends, and even from some unexpected quarters where every one supposed the old partisanship still lurked.

  Amid much enthusiasm Riddell was elected President, and duly installed by his old rival.

  Then there were loud calls for “A speech!” from the captain. It was long before he could sufficiently overcome his nervousness to attempt it, but at last he said — or rather stammered — amidst the enthusiasm of the meeting, “I am much obliged, gentlemen. I wish Bloomfield had kept the post. I’m afraid I sha’n’t make a good President. Gentlemen, if we go on as we have begun to-day the captain of Willoughby will have nothing to do. The old school is looking up fast. (Cheers.) Now we are all pulling one way, I should like to see what can stop us! But I really can’t make a speech now. If you knew all I feel — but there, I shall only break down if I try to go on, so I’d better stop.”

  And thus Willoughby returned once more to her right mind.

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Willoughby herself again

  It was the day of the Templeton match, and all Willoughby had once more turned out into the Big to watch the achievements of its heroes.

  Yet it was not so much the cricket that fellows crowded out to see. Of course, the contest between the second-eleven and Templeton was moderately interesting. But it was not of the first importance, and Willoughby might have survived had it been deprived of the pleasure of witnessing it.

  But the pleasure of witnessing old Wyndham umpiring for the old school in the very Big where his own mighty victories had been achieved, was quite another matter; and in honour of this event it was that Willoughby turned out in a body and watched the Templeton match.

  The old captain had not much altered in the few weeks since he had left Willoughby. His whiskers had not had time to grow, and he even wore the same flannel jacket he had on at the athletic sports in May. But in the eyes of the boys he might have been no longer a man, but a demi-god, with such awe and reverence did they behold him.

  He had lately scored one hundred and five for the Colts of his county, and had even been selected to play in the eleven against M.C.C.
next week. What he might not achieve when he went up to Oxford in the autumn no one could say, but that he would be stroke of the eight and captain of the fifteen, and carry off all the events in the next University athletics, no one at the school ventured to doubt for a moment.

  The Templeton boys hardly knew what to make of all this demonstration in favour of their opponents’ umpire, and it added considerably to their nervousness to hear loud cries of “Well umpired, sir!” when any one was given out.

  Parson and Telson, having taken the precaution to send Bosher and Lawkins early in the day to keep seats for them on the round bench under the schoolhouse elms, viewed the match luxuriously, and not a little to the envy of other juniors, who had to stand or sit on the ground where they could.

  “Boshy play, you know,” says Telson, helping himself to monkey-nuts out of Parson’s hospitable pocket; “but it’s stunning to see the way old Wynd. gives middle. Any one else would take double the time over it.”

  “Right you are! And he’s awfully fair too. See the neat way he gave Forbes out leg before, just now!”

  “There’s another two for Tedbury. We’ll cheer him next time. Hullo, Bosher, old man! you needn’t be coming here. There’s no room; we’re full up.”

  “You might let us sit down a bit,” says Bosher; “I kept the seat from half-past ten to twelve for you.”

  “Jolly muff not to sit down, then, when you had the chance. Jolly gross conduct of the evil Bosher, eh, Telson?”

  “Rather! He’s small in the world, but he’d better get out of the light, my boy, or he’ll catch it!”

  Bosher subsides at this point, and the two friends resume their divided interest in the match, and old Wyndham, and the monkey-nuts.

  Presently two familiar forms saunter past, arm-in-arm.

  “There go Riddell and Bloomfield,” says Parson. “Awfully chummy they’ve got, haven’t they? Different from what it used to be!”

  “So it is,” says Parson. “Not nearly as much chance of a lark. But perhaps it’s no harm; it keeps those Welcher kids quiet.”

  “More than it’s doing just now! Look at the way young Cusack is bellowing over there! He’s as mad on this match as if he was in the eleven.”

  “So he expects to be, some day. But they’re not going to have it all their own way in Welch’s again. Our club’s going ahead like blazes now, and we’ve challenged them for a return match the day before break-up.”

  “There’s Tedbury out,” says Telson. “Twenty runs he’s made — not a bad score. We’d better cheer him, I say.”

  And the two grandees suit the action to the word, and rejoice the heart of Tedbury as he retires to the tent, by their lusty applause.

  The Willoughbites do not do badly as a whole. A few of them, either through incompetence or terror at the presence of old Wyndham, fail to break their duck’s-eggs, but the others among them put together the respectable score of one hundred and five — the identical figures, by the way, which Wyndham scored off his own bat the other day in the Colts’ match of his county.

  During the interval there is a general incursion of spectators into the ground, and a stampede by the more enthusiastic to the tent where the great umpire is known to be “on show” for a short time.

  Amongst others, Parson and Telson incautiously quit their seats, which are promptly “bagged” by Bosher and Lawkins, who have had their eyes on them all the morning, and are determined now, at any rate, to take the reward of their patience, and hold them against all comers.

  The crowd in the tent has not a long time wherein to feast its eyes on the old captain, for Willoughby goes out to field almost at once, and Templeton’s innings begins. Whatever may have been the case with the school, Templeton seems quite unable to perform under the eyes of the great “M.C.C.” man, and wicket after wicket falls in rapid succession, until with the miserable total of fifty-one they finally retire for this innings.

  “A follow-on,” says Game, who from near the tent is patronisingly looking on, in company with Ashley, Tipper, and Wibberly. “I suppose they ought to do them in one innings now?”

  “Ought to try,” says Tipper. “Some of these kids play fairly well.”

  “They get well coached, that’s what it is. What with Bloomfield, and Fairbairn, and Mr Parrett, they’ve been drilled, and no mistake.”

  “Let’s see,” says Wibberly, “there are five Parretts in the eleven, aren’t there.”

  Ashley laughs.

  “I don’t fancy any one thought of counting,” says he. “Perhaps we’d better not, or it may turn out as bad for us as in the Rockshire match.”

  “After all,” says Tipper, “I’m just as glad those rows are over. We’re none the worse off now.”

  “No, I suppose not,” says Game, a little doubtfully; “and Bloomfield and he are such friends. It’s just as well to keep in with the captain.”

  “Not very difficult either,” says Ashley.

  “He’s friendly enough, and doesn’t seem to have any grudge. He told me he hoped I’d be on the monitors’ list again next term.”

  “Ah, I’m having a shot at that too,” says Game. “Ah, it is a follow-on, then. There go our fellows to field again.”

  Just as the second innings of Templeton is half-over, a melancholy figure crosses the Big from the school and makes its way to the tent. It is young Wyndham, whose half-hour’s liberty has come round at last, and who now has come to witness the achievements of that second-eleven in which, alas! he may not play.

  However, he does not waste his time in growling, but cheers vociferously every piece of good fielding, and his voice becomes an inspiriting feature of the innings. But you can see, by the way he is constantly looking at his watch, that his liberty is limited, and that soon, like Cinderella at midnight, he must vanish once more into obscurity. He knows to half a second how long it takes him to run from the tent to the schoolhouse, and at one minute and twelve seconds to six, whatever he is doing, he will bolt like mad to his quarters.

  Before, however, his time is half-over the captain joins him.

  “Well, old man,” says the latter, “I wish you were playing. It’s hard lines for you.”

  “Not a bit — (Well thrown up, Gamble!) — not a bit hard lines,” says the boy. “Lucky for me I’m here at all to see the match.”

  “Well, it’ll be all right next term,” says the captain. “I say, it would have done you good to see the cheer your brother got when he turned up.”

  “Oh, I heard it,” said the boy. “Fairbairn lets me stick in his study — that window there, that looks right through the gap in the elms, so I can see most of what’s going on — (Now then, sir, pick it up there; fielded indeed!)”

  The match is nearly over, and it looks as if Wyndham will be able to see the end of it. Nine wickets are down for forty-nine, and five runs must yet be scored to save Templeton from a single-innings defeat.

  The last man begins ominously, for he makes two off his first ball. Willoughby presses round, breathless, to watch the next. It whizzes over the wicket, but does no harm. The next ball — one of Forbes’s shooters — strikes on the batsman’s pad.

  “How’s that, umpire?” yells every one.

  “Not out!” says old Wyndham.

  The next ball comes — but before it has left the bowler’s hand young Wyndham has begun to run. Loud shouts and laughter follow his headlong progress.

  “Well run, sir; put it on!” scream Parson and Telson.

  “Stop thief!” howl Bosher and his friends.

  “He’s gaining, there! Pull yourself together!” cry Cusack and Pilbury.

  Heedless of these familiar cheers — for lately this has been a daily performance — Wyndham saves his honour at two seconds to six, the identical moment when Forbes’s last ball sends the Templeton bails flying high over long-stop’s head, and Willoughby is proclaimed winner of the match by one innings and three runs.

  A jovial party assembles an hour later for “high tea” in the captai
n’s study.

  Fairbairn, Coates, Porter, and Crossfield are there, and Bloomfield and Riddell, and the two Wyndhams, and assuredly a cheerier party never sat down in Willoughby.

  “I never expected to find you a Welcher,” says old Wyndham to the captain.

  “No? A fellow’s sure to find his level, you see, some day,” replied Riddell, laughing.

  “Yes, but the thing is, Welch’s is coming up to his level,” says Bloomfield, “instead of his going down to Welch’s.”

  “I should say,” says young Wyndham, blushing a little to hear his own voice before this imposing assembly, “all Willoughby’s coming up to his level!”

  “The young ’un’s right, though he is a Limpet,” says Crossfield. “I had my doubts of old Riddell once, but I’ve more doubts about myself than him now.”

  “You know, Wynd.,” says Porter, “we’re such a happy family, I shouldn’t wonder if I forget before long what house I belong to.”

  “I’ll see you’re reminded of that, my boy, before the house football matches next term,” says Fairbairn, laughing.

  “Yes,” says the old captain, “you’ll be a poor show if you don’t stick up for your own house.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” says Porter, “we’ve had such a lot of sticking up for our own houses this term, that I’m rather sick of it.”

  “Sticking up for ourselves, you mean,” says Bloomfield, “that’s where one or two I could name went wrong.”

  “It seems to me,” says Coates, “that sticking up for your house, and sticking up for your school, and sticking up for yourself, are none of them bad things.”

  “But,” says old Wyndham, “unless you put them in the right order they may do more harm than good.”

  “And what do you say the right order is?” asks Crossfield.

  “Why, of course, Willoughby first, your house next, and yourself last.”

  “In other words,” says the captain, “if you stick up for Willoughby you can save yourself any trouble about the other two, for they are both included in the good of the old school. At least, that’s my notion!”