The Willoughby Captains Part 41

THE NEW CAPTAIN TURNED WELCHER.

Riddell, who probably felt the sting of the boat-race mishap more sensitively than any boy in Willoughby, was pacing the playground in a dispirited mood a morning or two after, when Dr Patrick suddenly confronted him.

"Ah, Riddell," said the latter, cheerily, "I'm glad I have met you. I want to have a talk. Let me see," said he, pulling out his watch, "there's hardly time now, though. Will you come and have tea with me this evening?"

Riddell turned pale at the bare suggestion, and would probably have invented some wild excuse to get off the dreaded honour had not the doctor continued, "I'm sorry Mrs Patrick and her sister are from home; they take a great interest in you, I can a.s.sure you."

"Oh, not at all," cried Riddell, whom the bare mention of those ladies'

names was sufficient to confuse hopelessly.

"Come at seven o'clock, will you?" said the doctor, pleasantly, not noticing his head boy's perturbation.

Riddell continued his walk in a state of considerable perplexity. For some moments he could not get beyond the fact that Mrs Patrick and Miss Stringer were from home, and the relief of that reflection was unspeakable. But what could the doctor want him for? Was it to tell him he did not consider him equal to the duties of captain, and to relieve him of his office? Riddell devoutly wished it might be so. And yet he hardly fancied from the head master's manner this was to be the subject of their interview.

Perhaps it was to cross-examine him as to the boat-race. That wretched boat-race! Riddell had hardly had a minute's peace since that afternoon. The burden of the whole affair seemed to rest upon him. The taunts of the disappointed Parretts, which glanced harmless off minds like Fairbairn's and Porter's, wounded him to the quick, and, until the mystery should be solved, Riddell felt almost like a guilty party himself. He rather hoped the doctor did want to talk about this. It would be a relief to unburden his mind, at any rate. But even these troubles were slight compared with Riddell's concern about his old friend's brother. In spite of all his efforts young Wyndham was going wrong. He was getting more irregular in his visits to Riddell's study, and when he did come he was more reserved and secret, and less inclined to confide in his friend than before. It was easy to guess the reason, and Riddell felt baffled and dispirited as he thought about it. To save young Wyndham from his bad friends would be worth to him more even than to secure the order of Willoughby, or to discover the perpetrator of the boat-race outrage.

In this troubled state of mind Riddell pa.s.sed the day till the time arrived for him to present himself at the doctor's.

He entered warily and suspiciously, as though not quite sure whether, after all, the two ladies might be lying in ambush somewhere for him.

But no, there was no deception, only the doctor was there, and he, unrestrained by the presence of his usual bodyguard, was most friendly and cordial.

"Ah, Riddell, glad to see you. Sit down. You find me a bachelor, you see, for once in a way."

Riddell was soon at his ease. The doctor chatted pleasantly over their tea about various Willoughby topics, giving his opinion on some and asking the captain's opinion on others, and so delicately showing his sympathy for the boy in his difficulties and his approval of his efforts for the good of the school, that Riddell was quite won over, and prepared for the serious matter which the doctor presently broached.

"Yes," said the latter, in reply to some reference by Riddell to the Welchers. "Yes, I am a good deal concerned about Welch's house, Riddell. I dare say you can understand why."

"I think so, sir. They don't seem to pull together there somehow, or have the sympathy with the good of the school."

"Precisely. That's just what it is," said the doctor, delighted to find his head boy so exactly understanding the nature of the house over which he was to be installed. "They seem to be `each man for himself, and none for the State,' I fear."

"I think so," said Riddell. "They hold aloof from most of the school doings, unless there's a chance of a row. They had no boat on the river this year, and I don't think they will have a man in the eleven against Rocks.h.i.+re. And they seem to have no ambition to work for the school."

The doctor mused a bit, and then said, with a half-sigh, as if to himself, "And I wish that were the worst of it." Then turning to Riddell, he said, "I am glad to hear your opinion of Welch's house, Riddell, and to find that you seem to understand what is wrong there.

What should you say to taking charge of that house in future?"

This was breaking the news suddenly, with a vengeance, and Riddell fairly gaped at the head master as he sat back in his chair, and wondered if he had heard aright.

"What, sir!" at length he gasped; "_I_ take charge of Welch's!"

"Yes, my boy," said the doctor, quietly.

"Oh, I could never do it, sir!" exclaimed Riddell, pale at the very notion.

"Try," said the head master. "It may not be so impossible as you think."

"I'm not popular, sir," faltered Riddell, "and I've no influence.

Indeed, it would only make things worse. Try some one else, sir. Try Fairbairn."

"I shall want Fairbairn to be the head of the schoolhouse," said the doctor.

"I'm sure it would be a mistake, sir," repeated Riddell. "If there was any chance of my succeeding I would try, but--"

"But," said the doctor, "you have not tried. Listen, Riddell; I know I am not inviting you to a bed of roses. It is a come-down, I know, for the captain of the school and the head of the schoolhouse to go down to Welch's, especially such a Welch's as ours is at present. But the post of danger, you know, is the post of honour. I leave it to you. You need not go unless you wish. I shall not think worse of you if you conscientiously feel you should not go. Think it over. Count all the cost. You have already made a position for yourself in the schoolhouse.

You will have to quit that, of course, and start afresh and single- handed in the new house, and it is not likely that those who defy the rules of the school will take at first to a fellow who comes to enforce them. Think it all over, I say, and decide with open eyes."

The doctor's words had a strange inspiriting effect on this shy and diffident boy. The recital of all the difficulties in the way was the most powerful argument to a nature like his, and when at length the doctor wished him good-night and told him to take till the following day to decide, Riddell was already growing accustomed to the prospect of his new duty.

For all that, the day that ensued was anxious and troubled. Not so much on account of Welch's. On that point his mind was pretty nearly made up. It seemed a call of duty, and therefore it was a call of honour, which Riddell dare not disobey. But to leave the schoolhouse just now, when it lay under the reproach caused by the boat-race accident; and worse still, to leave it just when young Wyndham seemed to be drifting from his moorings and yielding with less and less effort to the temptations of bad companions--these were troubles compared with which the perils and difficulties of his new task were but light.

For a long time that night Riddell sat in his study and pondered over the doctor's offer, and looked at it in all its aspects, and counted up all the cost.

Then like a wise man he took counsel of a Friend. Ah! you say, he talked it over with Fairbairn, or Porter, or the acute Crossfield--or, perhaps, he wrote a letter to old Wyndham? No, reader, Riddell had a Friend at Willoughby dearer even than old Wyndham, and nearer than Fairbairn, or Porter, or Crossfield, and that night when all the school was asleep, little dreaming what its captain did, he went to that Friend and told Him all his difficulties about Welch's, and his anxieties about young Wyndham, and even his unhappiness about the boat-race; and in doing so found himself wonderfully cheered and ready to face the new duty, and even hopeful of success.

Next morning he went to the doctor and told him he was ready to enter on his new duties. Dr Patrick was not the man to flatter his head boy or to inspire him with undue hopes; but he was undoubtedly gratified by the decision, and Riddell felt encouraged in the consciousness of his sympathy.

At call-over that evening the Welchers had the pleasure of being informed by the doctor of the new arrangements proposed for their welfare, and, it need hardly be said, were considerably moved thereby.

At first they were disposed to regard the affair as a joke and a capital piece of fun. But when that evening Riddell put in an appearance at supper, in their house, and when Telson was intercepted bringing over his late master's goods and chattels to the study next but one to that of Silk, they began to take the matter in rather more seriously.

For the first time for a long while Welch's house seemed to be of one mind--a mind made up of equal mixtures of resentment and amazement and amus.e.m.e.nt. Probably, had they been more accustomed to thinking together, they would have summoned a monster meeting, as Parrett's would have done, to discuss the situation. As it was, they resolved themselves into several small groups, each of which dealt with the topic of the hour in its own way.

The juniors of course had a good deal to say on the subject. Pilbury, Cusack, Philpot, Morgan, and a few other kindred spirits held a council of war in the study of the two former immediately after supper.

"Rum start this, eh, Pil!" said Cusack, by way of opening proceedings.

"You know," said Pil, confidentially, "I'm not surprised. He made such a regular mess of it in the schoolhouse."

"Don't know what's the good of his coming here, then," said Philpot; "our fellows aren't a bit quieter than the schoolhouse."

No one was bold enough to dispute this peculiarly modest description of the order of Welch's house.

"I wonder if he's been kicked out of the captaincy as well?" asked Cusack, who was apparently convinced in his own mind that the new move was a degradation for Riddell.

"I don't know," said Morgan; "Paddy said something about it being a good thing for us to get the captain of the school as head of our house."

"Oh, ah--a jolly good thing," said Pilbury; "jolly lookout for us if he's stuck here to pull us up whenever we have a lark."

"Bless you, _he_ can't pull a fellow up!" said somebody. "They said he used to now and then in the schoolhouse."

"Not he. He's afraid to look at a chap."

"I say," said Cusack, "rather a spree to fetch him, eh, you fellows, and see how he does. Eh?"

"I'm game," said Pilbury; "what shall we do? Smash in his study-door?"

"Oh, no," said Cusack, "no use doing that. Let's give him `Bouncer' to start with."

"That ought to startle him up," said Philpot, laughing, "if he's not used to it."