Talbot Baines Reed (continued 5)

“I hear the juniors have been saying something to you about starting the cricket club,” said Silk, in tones which were the reverse of conciliatory.

“Yes,” said Riddell; “or, rather, I suggested it to them.”

“You did! All I can say is, it’s like your impudence. Welch’s is come to a pretty pass if you’re sent here to look after our athletics.”

Riddell did not feel called upon to reply to this, and Silk therefore continued, “Don’t you know Tucker and I have been captains of the clubs here for the last two years?”

“I was told so.”

“Then what business have you to interfere?”

“There was no house club at all this year.”

“A lot you care about the cricket. I know well enough it’s just a canting dodge for snubbing Tucker and me before the fellows, nothing more.”

“You’re quite mistaken,” replied Riddell.

“Oh, of course! You’d like to make out that you care a fig about cricket. You who couldn’t even bowl a ball from one end of the wickets to the other!”

There seemed nothing particular to reply to in this, so Riddell remained silent. This only irritated Silk the more, who felt that he was by no means getting the best of it.

“You’d better stop this sort of thing at once,” he said, viciously. “You’re sent here to look after the morals of the house, not to interfere with what doesn’t concern you. Tucker and I can look after the cricket without you.”

“Are you and Tucker going to start the old club again, then?” asked Riddell quietly.

“Whatever business of yours is it whether we are or aren’t? Find out.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do. If you are, I’ll advise the other fellows to join it and not have two clubs.”

“You advise the fellows!” sneered Silk; “they don’t want a schoolhouse prig like you to advise them.”

It was evidently no use trying to conciliate a fellow like this, and Riddell began to get tired of the interview.

“I don’t want to offend you or anybody,” said he boldly; “but if you and Tucker won’t take the trouble to start the club, I don’t see that all the house is to be done out of their cricket in consequence. The fellows have little enough to keep them together as it is.”

“You are a nice little thing to keep them together with, I must say,” snarled Silk, “and you’ve made a good start by setting the juniors against their seniors.”

“I’ve done nothing of the sort,” replied Riddell, quietly; “and if you’ll excuse me, I’ve some work to do, and there’s really not much use talking on the subject.”

So saying, he turned, and began taking his books down from the shelf.

Silk, whose irritation had been gradually getting beyond bounds, was pleased to regard this action as a direct insult to himself, and flared up accordingly.

“Look here, you snivelling, stuck-up, hypocritical prig, you!” exclaimed he, advancing and seizing the captain roughly by the arm, “we’d better come to an understanding at once. If you think you’re going to cheek us just as you please here, you’re mistaken, I tell you. What do you mean by it?”

“By what?” inquired Riddell, mildly, but quite composedly.

Silk’s only reply was a passionate blow in the captain’s face, which sent him staggering to the other side of the room.

It was a critical moment. Riddell was no coward, nor was he one of those sickly individuals who, not satisfied to be struck on one cheek only, invite a repetition of the assault on the other side. Physically weak and nervous as he was, he had sufficient British instinct to move him to stand up for himself.

And yet as he stood there a moment irresolute, it flashed across him that whatever the cost he must not enter upon a fight with Silk.

Of course he would be called a coward, and nothing he could say could prove he wasn’t. He was no match for Silk, and consequently his refusal to defend himself would be called fear.

“And yet,” thought he, “if I fight, my chance in Welch’s is gone, even if I were able to beat him. The fellows will have no more respect for me than any other rowdy, and will soon enough make my thrashing an excuse for mutiny.”

It was a hard position for any boy, and the courage required to hold him back cost Riddell more effort than had he blindly rushed into the fray and given himself up to be thrashed.

“Will you fight?” shouted Silk, advancing.

“No,” said Riddell, as coolly as he could.

“Wretched coward!” exclaimed the bully, “of course you won’t. Then take what you deserve. I’ll give you the biggest hiding you ever had in your life.”

He would probably have carried out his threat, and Riddell would probably before half a minute have given up all further idea of non-resistance, when an opportune diversion occurred in the person of Telson, who appeared with the remainder of his late senior’s possessions from the schoolhouse.

“I say, Riddell,” he exclaimed, almost before the door was open, “here’s a jolly go! I’ve got to be that beast Gilks’s fag, and— Hullo! what’s up?”

This remark was caused by Silk’s suddenly turning on his heel and hurrying from the study without putting into execution his threat.

“What was he up to?” asked Telson, as the door was shut. “He was going to exterminate me, so he said,” replied Riddell, smiling.

“I wish he’d tried, and you’d given him a jolly licking,” said Telson. “He’s a cad. I wonder what young Wyndham or any one sees to like in him.”

“Wyndham likes him, then?” asked the captain. “They always seem jolly thick,” said the fag. “By the way, Riddell, were you ever at Beamish’s?”

“Beamish’s? No!” exclaimed Riddell. “Why?”

“Oh,” said Telson, “I only wanted to know what sort of place it was.”

“Not a good one. There’s a pretty strong rule against it in the school. Bad job for any one caught going there.”

“I know, I’m not going; I only wanted to know what sort of place it was. But I’m off, I’ve got a motion on in Parliament to-morrow. I say, Riddell, I wish you hadn’t left the schoolhouse.”

And off went the junior, leaving Riddell somewhat perplexed by his chatter, but considerably consoled nevertheless to think that there was any one in the schoolhouse, or anywhere, who was sorry to lose him.

However, the same reason which took Telson away left Riddell also little time to spend in vague reflections. He, too, had a speech to prepare for Parliament to-morrow.

The meeting promised to be an important one in many respects. It was the first after the boat-race, and consequently party feeling was likely to make use of the opportunity to let off a little of its steam. Then, of course, it was the captain’s first public appearance as the head of Welch’s, and that was sure to excite a good deal of curiosity and interest. And last, but not least, the subject for the evening was a debate on the question, “That Willoughby is Degenerate,” to be opened in the affirmative by Ashley, and in the negative by Porter, and on this burning question the debate as well as the division promised to be pretty interesting.

There was the usual lively time before the regular business was reached over “Questions,” of which there were a good many on the notice-paper. But it will be best to report the meeting in the usual Parliamentary style, as it would have appeared on the records of the House, had any record been kept at Willoughby:

Mr Bloomfield took the chair at three o’clock.

Mr Merrison (Welcher) gave notice that at the next meeting he would move—“That this House gives its support to the Liberal candidate in the coming election at Shellport, and does all in its power to kick out the Radical.” (Loud cheers.)

Mr Pringle (Parrett’s) asked the Home Secretary what day the summer holidays were to begin.

Mr Ashley replied that he was not in a position to inform the hon. member, but probably in about six weeks.

Mr Wyndham, jun. (schoolhouse), wished to ask why Parrett’s would not row another race when the schoolhouse had offered it? (Great schoolhouse cheers.)

Mr Game (First Lord of the Admiralty), amid equally loud cheers on Parrett’s side, replied that as soon as the schoolhouse found out who had been mean enough to cut the Parrett’s rudder-line, and gave him up to justice, they would see about it.

Whereupon Mr Wibberly begged to ask the schoolhouse stroke whether he had any information to give the House on the subject.

Mr Fairbairn.—The information I have to give the House is that Mr Riddell and I, directly after the race, went to Mr Bloomfield and said we were sorry for the accident—(ironical laughter from Parrett’s)—and offered to row them again any day they liked, and the offer was declined. (Schoolhouse cheers.)

Mr Tipper.—I should like to know if the schoolhouse fellows are making any efforts to discover the culprit by whose assistance they won the race. (Tremendous Parrett’s cheers.)

Mr Fairbairn.—I can’t say we are. (Derisive cheers of “Of course not!” from Parrett’s.) The hon. gentlemen opposite seem to know so much about it, that I think they had better find the culprit themselves. (“Hear, hear,” from the schoolhouse.)

The proceedings at this stage became rather noisy, every one being anxious to express his opinion on the question. It was not till after the President had threatened to “adjourn the House” that silence was at length restored.

Bloomfield took the sensible course, also, of announcing that, as quite enough questions had been asked about the race, he should not allow any more on that subject.

Whereupon Mr Tucker, the Welcher, rose and put a question on another matter. He wanted to know the reason why Mr Riddell had become a Welcher; whether it was true that he had been turned out of the schoolhouse for being incompetent; and whether he had been kicked out of the captaincy as well.

Mr Crossfield said he had been requested to reply. And first he must congratulate the hon. member on having succeeded in asking a question which any one could understand. (Laughter.)

In reply, he understood Mr Riddell had been sent to Welch’s in order to study the virtues of a fellow called Tucker, who was—

Mr Tucker, rising: Mr Chairman, I didn’t put my question in order to be insulted by Crossfield or any one. (Laughter.)

Mr Crossfield.—I apologise to the hon. gentleman. I will not insult him by supposing he has any virtues. I should say Mr Riddell has gone to take a few lessons in the art of keeping a house in order, which no one can so well teach him as Mr Tucker. (Loud laughter.) In reply to the gentleman’s second question—

Mr Tucker.—I don’t want any more. (Laughter.)

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.

Chapter Twenty.

Is Willoughby Mad?

Things did not mend all at once at Willoughby. No one expected they would. And within a few days after the “debate in Parliament” it seemed as if the school had finally abandoned all ideas of order and discipline.

The reader will remember that more than once mention had been made of an approaching election for the free and enlightened borough of Shellport, which was occupying the attention not only of the town, and of the doctor and his ladies, but also of the boys themselves. And the cheers with which Morrison’s notice of motion, mentioned in the last chapter, was received, showed plainly enough how things were going.

By long tradition Willoughby had been a Whig school. Fellows did not exactly know what Whig meant, but they knew it was the opposite of Tory on one side and Radical on the other, and they went accordingly. On the present occasion, moreover, they had a sort of personal interest in the event, for the Whig candidate, Sir George Pony, had been discovered to be a sort of second uncle a few times removed of Pringle, one of the Parrett’s fags, whereas the Radical, Mr Cheeseman, was a nobody!

For all these reasons Willoughby felt it had a great stake in the contest, and tacitly determined to make its voice heard.

Small election meetings were held by the more enthusiastic politicians of the school, for the purpose of giving vent to their anti-radical sympathies. At these one boy was usually compelled to represent the Whig and another to figure as the unpopular Radical. And the cheering of the one and the hooting of the other was an immense consolation to the young patriots; and when, as usually happened, the meeting proceeded to poll for the candidates, and it was announced that the Whig had got 15,999 votes (there were just 16,000 inhabitants in Shellport), and the Radical only one (polled by himself), the applause would become simply deafening.

Even the seniors, in a more dignified way, took up the Whig cause, and wore the Whig colours; and woe betide the rash boy who sported the opposition badge!

The juniors were hardly the boys to let an occasion like this slip, and many and glorious were the demonstrations in which they engaged. They broke out into a blaze of yellow, and insisted on wearing their colours even in bed. Pringle was a regular hero, and cheered whenever he showed his face; whereas Brown, the town boy, whose father was suspected of being a Radical, was daily and almost hourly mobbed till his life became a burden to him. All other distinctions and quarrels were forgotten in this enthusiastic and glorious outburst of patriotic feeling.

Two days before the election a mass meeting of juniors and Limpets of all houses and ages, summoned by proclamation, was held in a corner of the playground, “to hear addresses by the candidates, and elect a member for Shellport.” Pringle, of course, was to figure as his distant uncle, and upon the unhappy Bosher had fallen the lot of assuming the unpopular rôle of Mr Cheeseman. The meeting, though only professing to be a juniors’ assembly, attracted a good many seniors also, whose curiosity and sense of humour were by no means disappointed at the proceedings.

The chairman, Parson, standing on the top of two cricket-boxes, with a yellow band round his hat, a yellow rosette on each side of his jacket, and a yellow tie round his neck, said they were met to choose a member, and knew who was their man. (Loud cheers for “Pringle.”) “They didn’t want any Radical cads—(cheers)—and didn’t know what they wanted down here.” (Cheers.) (Bosher: “I don’t want to be a Radical, you know.”)—(Loud cries of “Shut up!” “Turn him out!”) He’d like to know what that young ass Curtis was grinning at? He’d have him turned out if he had any of his cheek. He always suspected Curtis was a Radical. (Curtis: “No, I’m not—I’m for Pony.”) There, he knew he was, because Radicals always told crams! Whereat Parson resumed the level ground. Pringle, who had about as much idea of public speaking as he had of Chinese, was then hoisted up on to the platform amid terrific applause.

He smiled vacantly, and nodded his head, and waved his hand, and occasionally, when he caught sight of some particularly familiar friend, brought it up vertically near his nose.

“Silence! Shut up! Hold your row for Pony!” yelled the chairman.

“Go ahead, Pringle!” cried the candidate’s supporters.

“Speak out!” shouted the crowd.

“All right,” said the unhappy orator, “what have I got to say, though?”

“Oh, anything—fire ahead. Any bosh will do.”

Pringle ruminated a bit, then, impelled to it by the cheers of his audience, he shouted, for lack of anything better to say, all he could remember of his English history lesson of that morning.

“Gentlemen—(cheers)—the first thing Edward III did on ascending the crown—(terrific applause, in which the seniors present joined)—was to behead the two favourite ministers—(prolonged cheers)—of his mother.” (Applause, amidst which Pringle suddenly disappeared from view, and Morrison, the Limpet, mounted the cricket-box. Morrison was a politician after Willoughby’s own heart.)

“I beg to move that Sir George Pony is a fit and proper member for Willoughby,” he screamed. “I think the Radicals ought all to be hung. (Cheers.) They’re worse than the Tories. (Counter-cheers.) One’s about as bad as the other. (United cheers.) We’re all Whigs here. (Applause.) I say down with everybody that isn’t. (Cheers.) If the Radical gets in I don’t mind if the Constitution gets smashed.” (“Nor do we!”) “It will serve them right for allowing the Radicals in.” (Mighty applause.)

I am not going to continue the report of this animated and intellectual meeting. It lasted till call-over, was renewed again directly after tea, and continued long after the speakers and audience were in bed. Bosher got dreadfully mobbed, besides being hit on the ear with a stone and hunted several times round the playground by the anti-Radicals.

Altogether Willoughby had gone a little “off its head,” so to speak, on the subject of the election. Riddell found himself powerless to control the excitement, and the other monitors were most of them too much interested in the event themselves to be of much service. The practice for the Rockshire match, as well as the play of the newly-started Welchers’ club, was for the time completely suspended; and it was evident that until the election was over there was no prospect of seeing the school in its right mind again.

The day before the event was a busy and anxious one for the captain. All day long fellows came applying to him on the wildest of pretexts for “permits” the following afternoon to go into town. Pilbury, Cusack, and Philpot wanted to get their hair cut. King and Wakefield had to get measured for boots, and to-morrow afternoon was the only time they could fix for the ceremony. Parson and Telson suddenly recollected that they had never called to pay their respects at Brown’s after the pleasant evening they had spent there a few weeks ago. Strutter, Tedbury, and a few other Limpets were anxious to study geology that afternoon at the Town Museum, Pringle wanted to see how his “uncle” was getting on, etcetera, etcetera.

All which ingenious pretexts the captain very naturally saw through and firmly declined, much to the mortification of the applicants—who many of them returned to the charge with fresh and still more ingenious arguments for making an exception in their particular case. But all to no effect. About midday the captain’s study was empty, and the following notice pasted on the door told its own story.

Notice.

By the Doctor’s order, no permits will be allowed to-morrow. Call-over will be at four instead of five.

A. Riddell, Capt.

In other words, the authorities were determined that Willoughby should take no part in the election, and to make things quite sure had fixed call-over for the very hour when the poll would be closing. Of course poor Riddell came in for all the blame of this unpopular announcement, and had a bad time of it in consequence. It was at first reported that the captain was a Radical, and that that was the reason of the prohibition, but this story was contradicted by his appearance that same evening with a yellow ribbon in his buttonhole. It was next insinuated that as he had not been allowed to go down himself he was determined no one else should, and Willoughby, having once taken up the idea, convinced itself this was the truth. However, when a good many of the disappointed applicants went to Bloomfield, and were met by him with a similar refusal, it began to dawn upon them that after all the doctor might be at the bottom of this plot to thwart them of their patriotic desires, and this discovery, though it by no means allayed their discontent, appeared to keep their resentment within some sort of bounds.

The juniors, disappointed in the hope of publicly displaying their anti-radical sentiments before all Shellport, looked about for consolation indoors that evening, and found it in a demonstration against the unlucky Bosher, who, against his will, had been forced to personate the Radical at the recent meeting, and now found it impossible to retrieve his reputation. He was hissed all round the playground, and finally had to barricade himself in his study to escape further persecution. But even there he was not safe. The youthful Whigs forced their way into his stronghold, and after much vituperation and reproach, proceeded to still more violent measures. “Howling young Radical cad!” exclaimed Telson, who, carried away by the excitement of the hour, had forgotten all Mr Parrett’s prohibitions, and had come to visit his old allies; “you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“Indeed, I’m Yellow,” pleaded the unhappy Bosher. “They forced me to be Cheeseman at the meeting, but it wasn’t my fault.”

“Don’t tell crams,” cried the others. “It’s bad enough to be a Radical without trying to deceive us.”

“I’m not trying to deceive you, really I’m not,” protested Bosher.

“I’ll be anything you like. I hate the Radicals. Oh, I say, don’t be cads, you fellows. Let me be a Whig, do!”

“No,” cried the virtuous Parson. “We’ll have no Radical cads on our side.”

“But I’m not a Radical cad,” cried Bosher; “at least not a Radical.”

At that moment King made a sudden grab at a small black book which lay on the mantelpiece.

“Oh, you fellows,” cried he, “here’s a lark. Here’s his diary.”

A mighty Whig cheer followed the discovery, amidst which Bosher’s wild protests and entreaties were quite drowned.

“His diary!” exclaimed Parson. “That’ll show if he’s a Radical or not. Hand it over, King. That’ll show up his jolly gross conduct, eh?”

“No, no!” cried Bosher. “Give it up, you fellows; it’s mine. Don’t be cads, I say; it’s private.” And he made a wild dash for his treasure.

But it was no use. Parson gravely addressed his prisoner.

“Look here, young Bosher, it’s no use making a row. We must look at the diary to see if you’re really a Radical or not. It’s our painful duty, so you’d better be quiet. We’re sorry to have to do it, you know, but it can’t be helped. If we find nothing Radical in the diary we’ll let you off.”

It was no use protesting, and poor Bosher had to submit with the best grace he could to hear his inmost thoughts read out in public.

“Here, Telson, old man,” said Parson, “you read it. Speak out, mind. Better go backwards; start at yesterday.”

Telson took the precious volume solemnly and began, frequently interrupted by the protests of the author, and more frequently by the laughter of his audience.

“‘Thursday, the 4th day of the week.’” (“I always thought it was the fifth,” observed Cusack).—“Rose at 6:13. Time forbad to shave down in the Big. N.B.—The world is big, I am small in the world, I sawest Riddell who is now in Welch’s playing cricket with the little boys. Pilbury sported too, ugly in the face. (Here all but Pilbury seemed greatly amused.) Also Cusack, who thinks a great deal,”—(“Hear, hear,” from Cusack)—“about himself. (Laughter.) I attend an election at 10:2 in the Big. Parson taketh the chair. Parson is a f—l and two between.”

“Oh!” broke in the outraged Parson. “I knew he was a Radical cad. All right, Bosher, my boy; you’ll catch it! Steam away, Telson!”

“‘It was a gross meeting, Pringle being much stuck-up. He maketh a speech. Meditations while Pringle is making a speech. The grass is very green. (Great laughter at Pringle’s expense.) I will aspire up Telson thinketh he is much, but thou ist not oh, Telson, much at all I spoke boldly and to the point. I am the Radical.’”

“There you are!” exclaimed Parson, triumphantly: “didn’t I tell you so? Bosher! What do you mean by telling such howling crams, Bosher?”

“I only meant—”

“Shut up! Fire away, Telson!”

“‘I am the Radical. I desire to smash everything the little Welchers make noises. Meditations: let me be noble dinner at 3:1 stew. The turnips are gross. I request leave of Riddell to go to the town to-morrow but he sayeth no. I am roused’—that’s all of yesterday.”

“About enough too!” exclaimed the wrathful Parson. “Just read the day before, before we start hiding him.”

“Oh, please don’t lick me!” cried the unhappy author: “I’ll apologise, you know, Parson, Telson; please don’t!”

“‘Wednesday—rose at 8:13. Sang as I shaved the Vicar of Bray. I shall now describe my fellows which are all ugly and gross. Parson is the worst.’”

“Eh?” exclaimed the wrathful owner of that name.

“‘Parson is the worst,’” read Telson, with evident glee, “‘and—and—’ oh, let’s see,” he added, hurriedly turning over the page.

“No, no; read fair; do you hear?” cried Parson. “No skipping.”

“I’ll crack your skull, Bosher,” said Telson, indignantly, handing the diary across to Parson and pointing to the passage.

“‘—And Telson is the most conceited ignorant schoolhouse frog I ever saw at breakfast got thirty lines for gross conduct with the abominable King.’”

“There!” exclaimed Telson, in a red heat; “what does he mean by it? Of course, I don’t care for myself; it’s about the schoolhouse.”

“What’s that he says about me?” said King.

“‘The abominable King,’” cried Telson, reading with great relish; “‘thirty lines for gross conduct with the abominable King.’”

“Oh, I say, this is too much, you fellows,” cried King.

“Not a bit too much. Just finish that day, Telson,” said Parson, handing back the diary.

“Please give it up,” pleaded Bosher, but he was immediately sat upon by his outraged companions, and forced to listen to the rest of the chronicle.

“‘Wyndham hath not found his knife. I grieve for Wyndham thinking Cusack and the little Welchers to be the thiefs. I smile when Cusack goes to prison in the Parliament a gross speech is made by Riddell I reply in noble speech for the Radicals.’”

“That’ll do, that’s enough; he is a Radical then; he says so himself!” cried Telson, shutting up the book, and flinging it across the room at Bosher, who was standing near the door and just dodged it in time. A regular scramble ensued to secure the “gross” volume, in the midst of which the unhappy author, seeing his chance, slipped from the room, and bolted for his life down the passage.

His persecutors did not trouble to pursue him, and a sudden rumour shortly afterwards that Mr Parrett was prowling about sent Telson and the few Welchers slinking back to their quarters. And so ended the eve of the great election.

The next morning Riddell and those interested in the discipline of the school were surprised to see that the excitement was apparently abated, instead of, as might have been expected, increased. The attendance at morning chapel and call-over was most punctual, and between breakfast and first school only two boys came to him to ask for permits to go into town. One of these was young Wyndham, whom Riddell had seen very little of since leaving the schoolhouse.

Wyndham’s desire to go down into town had, as it happened, no connection at all with the election. He was as much interested in that, of course, as the rest of Willoughby, but the reason he wanted to go to Shellport this afternoon was to see an old home chum of his, from whom he had just heard that he would be passing in the train through Shellport that afternoon.

Great, therefore, was his disappointment when Riddell told him that no permits were allowed that afternoon.

“What?” exclaimed the boy. “I’ve not seen Evans for a year, and he’ll think it so awfully low, after writing to me, if I don’t show up at the station.”

“I’m awfully sorry, Wyndham,” said Riddell, who had heard so many wild pretexts for getting leave during the last two days that he even doubted how far Wyndham’s might be true or not; “the doctor says no one is to go down, and I can’t give any permits.”

“But I tell you all I want is to see Evans—there’s no harm in that.”

“Of course not, and you should get the permit at once if any were allowed.”

“You could give me one if you chose.”

“But if I gave to one I should have to give to all.”

“I don’t see that you need tell everybody,” said Wyndham, nettled.

“I’m sorry it can’t be done, Wyndham; I can’t make any exceptions,” said the captain, firmly.

“You could well enough if you chose,” said Wyndham, sorely disappointed and aggrieved. “The fact is, I don’t know why, I believe you’ve got a spite against me of late.”

“You know I haven’t, Wyndham,” said Riddell, kindly.

Wyndham did know, and at any other time would have felt reproached by the consciousness of his own injustice. But he was just now so bitterly disappointed that he smothered every other feeling, and answered angrily, “Yes, you have, and I don’t care if you have; I suppose it’s because I’m friends with Silk. I can tell you Silk’s a good deal more brickish to me than you are!”

Poor Riddell! This, then, was the end of his hopes of winning over his old friend’s brother. The words struck him like a knife. He would almost sooner break all the rules in the school, so he felt that moment, than drive this one boy to throw in his lot with fellows like Silk!

“Wyndham!” he said, almost appealingly.

But Wyndham was gone, and the chance was lost.

The rest of that day passed miserably for the captain. An ominous silence and order seemed to hang over morning school. No further applicants molested him. No case of disorder was reported during the morning, and at dinner the boys were so quiet they might have been in church.

Just after morning school, and before dinner, as he crossed the playground, Wyndham passed him, talking and laughing with Silk; and neither of them noticed him.

The captain retired to his study, dejected and miserable, and, as his only comfort, buried himself in his books. For an hour at least before the early call-over he might forget his trouble in hard work.

But before that hour was half-over Riddell closed his book with a start and a sense of something unusual. This unearthly stillness all over the place—he never remembered anything of the sort before. Not a sound rose from the neighbouring studies, and when he looked out the playground was as deserted as if it had been the middle of the summer holidays. What did it all mean?

Then suddenly the truth flashed upon him. What could it mean, but that Willoughby had mutinied, and, in open defiance of his authority, gone down without leave to Shellport!

He hurried out of his room. There was scarcely a sound in the house. He went into the playground—only one boy, Gilks, was prowling about there, half-mad with toothache, and either unable or unwilling to give him any information. He looked in at Parrett’s, no one was there, and even the schoolhouse seemed desolate.

The captain returned to his study and waited in anything but a placid frame of mind. He felt utterly humbled and crestfallen. It had really seemed of late as if he was making some headway in his uphill task of ruling Willoughby, but this was a shock he had never expected. It seemed to point to a combination all over the school to thwart him, and in face of such a feeling further effort seemed hopeless.

Riddell imagined too much. Would it have pained him to know that three-quarters of those who, politics-mad, had thus broken bounds that afternoon had never so much as given him a thought in the matter, and in fact had gone off, not to defy him, but simply to please themselves?

The bell for call-over rang, and Riddell went despondingly to the big hall. Only about a score of fellows, including Bloomfield, Porter, Fairbairn, Coates, and Wibberly (who, by the way, always did as Bloomfield did), answered to their names amid a good deal of wonder and a little laughter.

Bloomfield, who had also regarded the afternoon’s business as a test of his authority, looked as crestfallen as the real captain, and for the first time that term he and Riddell approached one another with a common interest.

“There’ll be an awful row about this,” said he.

“There will,” said Riddell; “will you report your fellows, or shall I send up the whole list to the doctor?”

“You send up all the names,” said Bloomfield, “that is, unless Fairbairn wants to report the schoolhouse himself.”

“No,” said Fairbairn, “you send up the list, Riddell.”

And so Riddell’s captaincy received its first undisputed acknowledgment that term, and he sent up his formidable list to the doctor, and with mingled curiosity, impatience, and despondency waited the result.

Chapter Twenty One.

The new Captain to the Rescue.

There was something more than toothache the matter with Gilks that afternoon.

The fact was his spirits were a good deal worse than his teeth. Things had been going wrong with him for some time, ever since the day he was politely turned out of the schoolhouse boat. He had lost caste among his fellows, and what little influence he ever had among the juniors had also vanished.

Still, if that had been all, Gilks would scarcely have been moping up at Willoughby among the virtuous few that afternoon, while the rest of the school were running mad down in Shellport.

He had a greater trouble than this. Silk, in whose genial friendship he had basked for so many months, had not treated him well. Indeed, it was a well-known fact in Willoughby that between these two precious friends there had been some sort of unpleasantness bordering on a row; and it was also reported that Gilks had come off worst in the affair.

This was the secret of that unfortunate youth’s toothache—he had been jilted by his familiar friend. Who would not feel sad under the circumstances?

And yet Gilks’s frame of mind was, so to speak, a good deal more black than blue. As he paced up and down the playground, rather like a wolf in a cage waiting for dinner, he was far more exercised to devise some way of making his faithless friend smart for his cruelty than to win back his affection.

When two good fellows fall out it is bad enough, but when two bad fellows fall out it may be even worse, for whereas in the former case one of the two is probably in the right, in the latter both are pretty certain to be in the wrong.

No one knew exactly what the quarrel had been about, or what, if any, were its merits, or whether it was a breaking off of all friendship or merely a passing breeze. Whatever it was, it was enough to give Gilks the “toothache” on this particular afternoon and keep him at Willoughby.

The hour that elapsed after call-over dragged heavily for every one. The three heads of houses, after their brief consultation, went their several ways—at least Bloomfield went his, while Riddell and Fairbairn solaced themselves in one another’s society.

“What is the use of keeping up this farce?” exclaimed Riddell, when they were back in his study. “Isn’t it a farce?”

“Not a bit of it. I don’t think much of this affair at all. Of course there’ll be a row, but it seems to me a case of temporary lunacy that we can’t be responsible for.”

“But the doctor holds me responsible.”

“You may be sure he won’t be down on you for this.”

“And then, isn’t it just a proof to the whole school that I’ve no more authority than the smallest junior? Look at that miserable notice there on the door. Who has cared a rap about it?”

“My dear fellow, you’re always flying off to despair whenever you get the chance. The same thing might have happened to any captain.”

“I wish some one else was captain,” said Riddell. “The fellows will mind what I say less than ever now. I’m sure I would gladly give it up to Bloomfield.”

“All bosh. You know you wouldn’t. And when you’ve got your head back you’ll laugh at yourself for thinking it. Besides, wasn’t Bloomfield every bit as much cut up about it as you or me? But,” added Fairbairn, “to change the subject, do you see much of young Wyndham now you’ve left us?”

“Not much. What about him?” asked Riddell, eagerly.

“Only I fancy he’s not all straight,” said Fairbairn. “He’s fallen into bad hands I’m afraid.”

“That’s an old story,” said Riddell; “but what has he done?”

“Nothing particular. I caught him coming home one night late, long after call-over. I ought to have reported him for it, but I thought I’d tell you first. It’s a pity for him, for he’s not a bad fellow.”

“I’d give anything to get him away from Silk!” said Riddell. “It seems a sort of infatuation with him, for he knows well enough Silk means him no good, and yet he’s thick with him. And now I expect he’ll cut me altogether since I refused him a permit to the town this afternoon.”

“He’s gone down all the same,” said Fairbairn.

“Yes, and not alone either,” replied Riddell.

“Hullo!” exclaimed Fairbairn just then, as a sudden sound broke the unwonted stillness of the deserted school, “that sounds like some of the fellows coming back.”

He was right. As the two seniors stood leaning out of the window, the sounds which at first had been little more than a distant murmur increased to a roar.

Willoughby was evidently returning in force, and anything but peacefully.

Cries of “Now then, school!”

“Hack it through, there!”

“Down with the Radicals!”

“Pony for ever!” mingled with yells and cheers and coarser shouts of “Down with the schoolboys!” indicated clearly enough that a lively battle was in progress, and that Willoughby was fighting its way home.

The whole town seemed to be coming at their heels, and more than once a pitched battle had to be decided before any progress could be made. But slowly and surely the discipline of the schoolboys, animated by the familiar words of command of the football-field, asserted itself above the ill-conditioned force of their assailants, and at every forward step the triumphant shout of “Pony for ever!” rose with a mighty cheer, which deafened all opposition cries.

In due time the playground gate was reached, amid tremendous cheering, and next moment, driving before them some of their demoralised opponents, the vanguard of the school burst in.

Even Riddell and Fairbairn, as they looked down on the scene, could hardly forbear a little natural pride on witnessing this triumphant charge home of their truant schoolfellows.

That the battle had been sore and desperate was evident by the limping gait, the torn clothes, and the damaged faces of some of the combatants as they swarmed in in an irresistible tide, amid the applause of their comrades and the howls of the baffled enemy, who raged vainly without like so many wild beasts robbed of their prey.

Among the last to fight their way in were Game, Ashley, Tipper, and a few other seniors, who, truants as they were, had yet, to their credit, assumed the place of danger in the rear, where the crowd pressed thickest and with most violence. A sorry spectacle were some of these heroes when finally they plunged into the playground and then turned at bay at the gate.

“All in!” shouted a voice, and immediately a rush was made to close the gates and prevent further entrance, when a loud cry of “Hold on, Willoughby! Rescue here!” held them back.

Riddell started at the sound, and next moment had vaulted from the low window to the ground, closely followed by Fairbairn.

“Rescue! rescue! Man down!” cried the school within.

“Keep them in!—shut them in!” cried the roughs without.

“It’s young Wyndham!” said Riddell, rushing wildly to the front; “he’ll be murdered!”

“Scrag him!—scrag the schoolboy!” yelled the roughs, making a rush in the direction of the cries.

Not a moment was to be lost; in another minute it might be too late to do any good, and, with a tremendous shout of “Rescue, Willoughby!” the school turned as wildly to get out of the playground as it had just now struggled to get in.

The captain and Fairbairn were the first to get through the gate, followed closely by the other seniors. Riddell was conscious of seeing young Wyndham lying a few yards off among the feet of the roughs, and of being himself carried forward to within reach of him; then of a blow from behind, which sent him forward, half-stunned, right on to the top of his young friend.

After that Riddell was only dimly conscious of what passed, and it was not until he found himself once more in the playground, being helped along by Fairbairn towards the house, that he took in the fact that the rescue had been accomplished, and that the battle was at an end.

“Did they get Wyndham in all right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Was he much damaged?”

“Very little. You got it worse than he did.”

“Some fellow got behind me and sent me over,” said Riddell.

“Some fellow did,” said Fairbairn, fiercely, “and I know who.”

“Who?”

“Silk.”

“What! are you sure?”

“I was as close to you at the time as I am now—I’m quite sure.”

“The coward! Did any one else see it?”

“No, I think not.”

The two walked on in silence to Welch’s house, and once more reached the study they had so abruptly quitted.

“Are you badly hurt?” asked Fairbairn.

“Not a bit; my shin is a little barked, that’s all.”

“What a bulldog you can be when you like, old man,” said Fairbairn, laughing. “I never saw any one go into battle so gamely. Why, the whole glory of the rescue belongs to you.”

“What bosh! You had to rescue me as well as Wyndham. But I’m thankful he’s safe.”

“You’re awfully sweet about that precious youngster,” said Fairbairn. “I hope he’ll be grateful to you, that’s all.”

Riddell said nothing, and shortly afterwards Fairbairn said he must go. As he was leaving Riddell called him back.

“I say, Fairbairn,” said he, in his half-nervous way, “you needn’t say anything about Silk, there’s a good fellow; it wouldn’t do any good.”

“He deserves a good thrashing,” said Fairbairn, wrathfully.

“Never mind; don’t say anything about it, please.”

And Fairbairn promised and went.

It was quite a novel sensation for the captain to find himself figuring in the eyes of Willoughby as a “bulldog.” He knew he was about the last person to deserve the proud title, and yet such are the freaks of fortune, the exaggerated stories of the rescue, differing as they did in nearly every other particular, agreed in this, that he had performed prodigies of valour in the engagement, and had, in fact, rescued Wyndham single-handed.

More than one fellow dropped in during the evening to inquire how he was, and to confirm his new reputation.

Pilbury and Cusack were among the first.

“Is it true your leg’s broken?” cried the latter, as he entered the study, in tones of unfeigned concern.

“No, of course not,” replied the captain, laughing. “What made you think so?”

“The fellows said so. Pil and I were too far behind to back you up, you know, or we would have, wouldn’t we, Pil?”

“Rather,” replied Pil.

“Why,” said the captain, catching sight of the bruised and ragged condition of these young men of war—“why, you’ve been knocked about a great deal more than I have.”

“Oh,” said Cusack, “that was in the run up from Shellport, you know. We did get it a little hot at first until we pulled together and came up in a body.”

“Never mind,” said Pilbury, “it was a jolly fine show-up for Pony. He’s sure to get in; the Radicals were nowhere.”

“And what are you going to say to the doctor in the morning?” asked Riddell.

“Eh? oh, I suppose we shall catch it. Never mind, there’ll be lots to keep us company. And we’ve given Pony a stunning leg-up.”

And so the two heroes, highly delighted with themselves, and still far too excited to feel ashamed of their mutinous conduct, departed to talk over the day’s doings with the rest of their set, and rejoice in the glorious “leg-up” they had given to the Whig candidate.

Other fellows looked in, and bit by bit Riddell picked up the whole history of that eventful afternoon.

It did not appear whether the wholesale breaking of bounds had been a preconcerted act or a spontaneous and infectious impulse on the part of the whole school. Whichever it was, directly dinner was over and the monitors had retired to their houses, a general stampede had been made for Shellport, and almost before many of the truants knew where they were they were in the thick of the election crowd.

At first each set vented its loyalty in its own peculiar way. Some stood in the streets and cheered everything yellow they could discover; others crowded round the polling places and groaned the Radicals; some went off to look for the candidates themselves, and when at last Sir George Pony appeared on the scene in his carriage his enthusiastic young supporters set up a cheer enough to frighten the good old gentleman out of his wits, and, but for the active interference of the police, would have insisted on taking out the horses and dragging the triumphal car themselves round the town.

For a considerable time these juvenile demonstrations were allowed to pass with good-humoured forbearance by the town; but when presently, emboldened by their immunity, the schoolboys proceeded not only to hoot but occasionally to molest the opposite side, the young Shellporters began to resent the invasion. A few scuffles ensued, and the temper of both parties rose. The schoolboys waxed more and more outrageous, and the town boys more and more indignant, so that just about the time when the poll was closing, and when call-over was being sounded up at the school, a free fight had begun in the streets of Shellport.

At the first alarm the school had rallied from all sides, and concentrated its forces on the enemy, who seemed determined to dispute every inch of the ground between the town and the school.

How that battle ended, and how finally the schoolboys got home, we have already seen.

Riddell did not feel it his duty under present circumstances to read his visitors a lecture on the wickedness of breaking bounds. He said it was a wonder they had all got up as safely as they had, and that no more damage had been done. As to the penalties, he advised them to turn up at call-over in the morning and hear all about that from the doctor.

Early next morning, just as Riddell was dressed, there was a knock at his door, and young Wyndham entered.

He looked dejected and uncomfortable, but otherwise appeared to have recovered from the effects of yesterday’s ill-usage.

“I say,” said he, going up to the captain and holding out his hand, “I’m awfully sorry I was such a cad to you yesterday.”

“Not a bit, old fellow,” said Riddell, seizing his hand, and glowing with pleasure at this unexpected visit. “Everybody was a bit riled, and no wonder.”

“But I’ve no excuse, I know, after all your brickishness to me, and now, after your helping me out as you did in the scrimmage yesterday, I’m awfully ashamed of being such a low cad.”

This was evidently no put-on apology for the occasion, and Wyndham, as he spoke, looked as penitent as his words.

“Oh, nonsense!” said Riddell, who could never stand being apologised to, and always felt more uncomfortable at such times than the apologiser. “But I say, were you much hurt?”

“No, not much. I got down among their feet somehow and couldn’t get up. But if you hadn’t turned up when you did I might have got it hot.”

“It was Fairbairn pulled us both out, I think,” said Riddell, “for I was down too.”

“Yes, I hear you got an awful hack.”

“Nothing much at all.”

“I say, Riddell,” said Wyndham, nervously, after a pause, “I mean to break with Silk; I wish I’d never taken up with him. I shouldn’t have gone down to the town at all yesterday if it hadn’t been for him.”

“I think you’d be ever so much better without him,” said Riddell.

“I know I would. Do you recollect lecturing me about sticking up for myself that night last month? I’ve been uncomfortable about chumming with him ever since, but somehow he seemed to have a pull on me.”

“What sort of pull?”

“Oh,” said the boy, becoming still more uncomfortable, and afraid of breaking his promise to say nothing about Beamish’s, “a good many things of one sort or another. I’ve gone wrong, I know.”

Wyndham would have given much to be free to make a full confession of all his “going wrong” to the sympathetic Riddell, but, heartily weary as he was of Silk and Gilks, he had promised them to keep their secrets, and young Wyndham, whatever his faults, was honest.

Riddell was quick enough to see that there was something of the sort, and did not press to know more. It was too good news to hear from the boy’s own lips that he was determined to break loose from these bad friends, to need to know any more.

“I don’t know how it is,” said Wyndham, after another pause. “It seems so much easier for some fellows to keep square than for others. I’ve made up my mind I’d do right a dozen times this term, but it’s never come off.”

“It’s hard work, I know,” said Riddell, sympathisingly.

“Yet it seems easy enough to you. I say, I wish you’d look sharp after me for a week or so, Riddell, till I get a good start.”

Riddell laughed.

“A lot of good that would do you! The best person to look sharp after young Wyndham is young Wyndham himself.”

“Of course I know,” said the boy, “but I’ve sort of lost confidence in myself.”

“We can’t any of us stand by ourselves,” said the captain. “I know I can’t. But the help is easy to get, isn’t it?”

I need not repeat all the talk that took place that morning between the two boys. What they said was meant for no ears but their own. How one in his quiet manly way tried to help the younger boy, and how the other with all sorts of fears and hopes listened and took courage, was known only to the two friends themselves, and to One other from Whom no secrets—not even the secrets of a schoolboy—are hid.

The bell for call-over put an end to their talk, and with lighter hearts than most in Willoughby they walked across to the Great Hall and heard the doctor’s sentence on the truants of yesterday.

It was not very formidable. No half-holiday next Wednesday, and for the seniors a hundred lines of Greek to write out; for the Limpets a hundred lines of Latin, and for the juniors fifty lines of Latin. The doctor had evidently taken a lenient view of the case, regarding the escapade more as a case of temporary insanity than of determined disobedience. However, he relieved his mind by a good round lecture, to which the school listened most resignedly.

There was, however, one part of the punishment which fell heavily on a few of those present. Among the truants had been no less than five monitors—Game, Tipper, Ashley, Silk, and Tucker.

“It would be a farce,” said the doctor, severely, “after what has happened, to allow you to retain the posts of confidence you have held in the school. Your blame is all the greater in proportion as your influence was greater too. For the remainder of this term you cease to be monitors. It depends entirely on yourselves whether next term you are reinstated.”

Chapter Twenty Two.

A Mysterious Letter.

It was hardly to be expected that the political excitement of Willoughby would altogether disappear until the result of the election was made known. And for some reason or other a whole day had to elapse before the tidings found their way up to the school.

After what had happened no one had the hardihood to ask leave to go down into the town, and none of the butcher’s or baker’s boys that Parson and Telson intercepted in the grounds could give any information. The hopes of Willoughby centred on Brown, the town boy, whose arrival the next morning was awaited with as much excitement and impatience as if he had been a general returning home from a victorious campaign.

Fully aware of his importance, and feeling popularity to be too unusual a luxury to be lightly given up, he behaved himself at first with aggravating reserve.

“Who’s in!” shouted Parson from the school gate, the moment Brown appeared about a quarter of a mile down the road.

Brown, of course, could not hear.

The question was repeated with greater vehemence as he approached, until at last he had no excuse for not hearing.

“Do you hear, you old badger, who’s in?” yelled Parson and Telson.

“Look here, you kids,” said Brown, loftily, “who are you calling a badger? I’ll knock your cheeky heads together if you don’t look out.”

“Oh I say, who’s in! can’t you speak?” reiterated the youths, who at this moment possessed only one idea between them.

“Who is it? Who’s got in?” repeated some Limpets, who were as eager every bit to hear as the juniors.

“In where?” replied the aggravating Brown, shouldering his way in at the gate and intoxicated with his own importance. “What are you talking about?”

“Why, who’s been elected for Shellport? Is Pony in?” shouted the boys, impatiently.

“Pony!” rejoined Brown, half-contemptuously, “do you suppose they’d have an old stick like him!”

“What,” exclaimed Merrison. “Is Cheeseman in after all, then?”

“Eh?”

“Is Cheeseman in, can’t you hear?”

“I never said he was,” replied Brown, majestically.

This was rather too much, and a simultaneous rush was made for the pompous town boy, and the secret forcibly extracted in double quick time.

“Now,” cried one of the Limpets, giving his arm a premonitory screw, “out with it, or I’m sorry for you.”

“Here, let go my arm, you cad, I say; oh! you hurt! let go, I—oh! oh! Cheeseman’s in!”

The arm was flung away in disgust as a simultaneous groan greeted the announcement.

“How much by?” demanded the inquisitors, once more preparing to apply the screw.

But Brown had had quite enough of it, and answered glibly, “Eight hundred and twenty-five majority!”

This was a terrible blow, and in the general dismay which followed, Brown was temporarily overlooked.

“Eight hundred and twenty-five!” exclaimed Merrison. “Why, it’s an awful licking. Every one was sure Pony would be five hundred ahead.”

“It’s foul play and bribery, depend on it,” said another.

“Or they’ve counted wrong.”

“Or Brown is telling lies!”

Now, if Brown had been a wise boy he would have taken advantage of the excitement which immediately followed his announcement to retreat quietly and rapidly up to the school, and he reproached himself greatly that he had not. For the ill-temper of the assembly was only too ready to fix on some object upon which to vent itself, and this last suggestion, coupled with the suspicion that Brown’s father had been one of the backers of the Radical candidate, brought the town boy once more into most uncomfortable notoriety.

He was hunted almost for his life round the playground and up to the school. It was no use for him to protest that he was out-and-out yellow, that his father had been on Pony’s committee. He was far too valuable a scapegoat to be let off; and when at last he managed to bolt headlong into the school and seek shelter in the master’s cloak-room, it is safe to say that though he himself felt rather the worse for the adventure, Willoughby on the whole felt rather better.

In due time the news was confirmed, and the school settled rather viciously down to its ordinary work. It was almost a relief when first school was over, and all those who had impositions to write were ordered to keep their places and begin their tasks.

What venom of wrath and disappointment could they not put into those unlucky lines! If the paper had only been the skin of the Radical Cheeseman, and the pens needles, how they would have delighted in their penalty!

Scarcely had they begun work, however, when the school messenger came round unexpectedly to summon the whole school to assemble in the Great Hall. What could it be? Was it another lecture? or had the doctor repented of letting them off so easy? Or was there to be another change in the captaincy? or what?

The hall soon filled, and every one waited impatiently for the doctor. He arrived presently, with a letter in his hand and a somewhat important look on his face.

“The last time I spoke in this room,” said he, “I had to discharge the painful duty of punishing the whole school for a serious and inexcusable act of insubordination.”

“Why do they always call it a painful duty?” inquired the artless Telson of his ally; “I’m sure it doesn’t hurt them.”

“Silence! whoever is speaking!” said the doctor, sternly. “I hope what was said then will not be forgotten. An act of that kind could not possibly be allowed to pass without punishment, and any repetition of it would entail the severest measures. However, I say no more of that at present. I have called you together to read to you a letter I have just received from the newly-elected Member for Shellport, Mr Cheeseman.”

As the doctor pronounced this unpopular name, one hardy junior, quite mistaking the gravity of the occasion, began a low hiss.

Before the infection could spread the doctor suddenly laid down the letter, and with a voice of thunder demanded, “Who is that? Stand up, sir, in your place!”

The luckless form of the youthful Lawkins, pale and scared, rose from a back bench.

“Leave the room, sir!” said the doctor, wrathfully, “and write out your imposition double, and come to me after third school!”

Poor Lawkins retired, and the assembly, being warned by his awful example, heard the doctor out without further interruption.

“Mr Cheeseman writes as follows:—

“‘Dear Dr Patrick,—I hope I need no apology for writing to you on a matter affecting the boys under your charge. A large number of these young politicians, as you are aware, took a somewhat active part in the recent election, in which it was not my good fortune to be their favourite candidate. I understand that their crusade into the town was not only without your permission, but in direct opposition to your wishes; and I conclude, that being so, the offenders have merited the punishment due for such escapades. The election, as you know, is now decided, and I am anxious that one of my first acts in my new capacity should be one of intercession with you to take as lenient a view as you can of this schoolboy freak; and if you should find it consistent with your duty to remit any penalty that may have been inflicted, I shall be as grateful to you as no doubt your boys will be.’

“‘I am, dear doctor,’

“‘Yours faithfully,’

“‘A. Cheeseman.’”

The doctor laid down the letter amidst ominous silence, which even the feeble cheers of Bosher, Brown, and a few others barely disturbed.

“In consideration of this generous letter,” he continued, “I have decided to remit the impositions I gave on Saturday, and also to withdraw the prohibition about the half-holiday. The matter of the monitors I cannot reconsider. I may suggest that, after what has happened, it would be a graceful act on the part of the boys to send Mr Cheeseman a letter of thanks, at any rate, if not of apology. You are now dismissed.”

It was quite evident that the majority of the boys were at a loss how to take this strange and unexpected announcement. True, they hated the Radicals, but they also hated impositions and detention, and the probability is that, if left to themselves, they would quietly have availed themselves of Mr Cheeseman’s clemency.

But to the small band of hot-headed enthusiasts the very notion of being under an obligation to the Radical was repulsive. They could scarcely wait till the doctor had departed before they vehemently denounced the idea.

“Well,” said Merrison, “if that’s not what you call adding insult to injury, I don’t know what you do! I know I mean to write every letter of my impot if it was a thousand lines instead of a hundred!”

“So shall I; and I’ll not stir out of doors all Wednesday afternoon either,” said another.

“Of course not; no honourable fellow would.”

“I suppose he thinks he’s going to bribe us, the cad. Perhaps he hopes we’ll give him a leg-up next election?”

“I vote we put on a spurt with the impots and get them all done together,” said another. “Paddy shall see which way we go, at any rate.”

And so, sorely to the disappointment of some of the juniors, who had been rejoicing prematurely in the removal of their penalties, the order went round in all the houses that every boy was expected in honour to finish his imposition by next day, and also to remain in on Wednesday afternoon, as a protest against “Radical cheek,” and this was an appeal no loyal Whig could resist.

It was at least an unusual spectacle in Willoughby to see nearly the whole school insisting on performing a task which no one required of them; each boy not only doing it himself, but seeing that his neighbour did it too!

Several of the small boys and a few lazy seniors protested, but they were coerced with most terrific threats.

The Wednesday half-holiday was spent in determined seclusion, scarcely a boy showing his face in the playground. Even those who had not broken bounds on election-day, and who, therefore, in no case came under the penalty, felt quite out of it, and half ashamed of themselves in the presence of this general burst of political devotion; and it was rumoured that one or two of the weakest-minded of these actually stayed in and wrote out the imposition too!

The following morning was an impressive one in the annals of Willoughby. The doctor, as he stood in the Great Hall speaking to Mr Parrett after morning prayers, was, much to his amazement, waylaid by the school in a body. Every boy carried in his hand a sheet of paper, and wore on his face a most self-satisfied expression.

“What is all this?” inquired the doctor, sharply, a little bit frightened, perhaps, at this sudden and mysterious invasion of his privacy.

Merrison was pushed forward by the crowd, and advancing paper in hand, replied for the company generally.

“Please, sir,” said he, “we’ve brought the impositions.”

“Eh?” said the doctor.

“The impositions, sir. We didn’t want to be let off, so we stayed in yesterday afternoon, all of us, and wrote them.”

From the tones in which Merrison uttered this explanation one might have supposed he expected the doctor to fall on his neck and shed tears of joy over the lofty virtue of his pupils.

Dr Patrick was quick enough to take in the state of affairs at once, and was wise enough to make the best of the situation.

“Ah,” said he, coolly, taking Morrison’s proffered imposition and glancing his eyes down it. “I am glad to see you desire to make amends for what occurred on Saturday. You can leave the impositions on this table.”

“Please, sir, it’s not that,” said Merrison, hurriedly, alarmed at being suspected of anything like contrition. “It’s not that; we—”

“You can leave the impositions on the table,” said the doctor, sternly, turning at the same time to continue his conversation with Mr Parrett, which the arrival of the visitors had interrupted.

It was a sad blow for Willoughby, this! They had expected better things. They had meant their act of self-devotion to be a crushing defiance to the Radical, and even a mild rebuke to the doctor himself. But it had turned out neither.

Slowly and sorrowfully they filed past the table and laid their sacrifices thereon, and then departed, dejected and crestfallen. The doctor, with his back turned, never noticed them, and no one had the hardihood to attempt further to attract his attention.

So ended the election episode at Willoughby.

“I hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves,” said Crossfield to Tedbury the Limpet, that afternoon. “Jolly time you’ve had of it.”

“It’s all that young ass Morrison’s doing,” growled Tedbury.

“Never mind,” said Crossfield, laughing; “I’m sure it’s done you all good. You all wanted something of the sort, and you’ll be better of it.”

“You’re always trying to make a fool of me, Crossfield,” said Tedbury, wrathfully.

“My dear fellow, there’s not much chance of that. You are far too good a hand at making a fool of yourself to put any one else to the trouble. Ta, ta. Shall you be down at the cricket practice again now?”

This last was a pertinent question. For in the midst of all the late political excitement cricket had decidedly languished at the school, and the Rockshire match as well as the house matches were getting alarmingly near.

However, on the first afternoon after Willoughby had returned to its senses a general rush took place once more to the Big, and it was evident during the week which followed that the fellows intended to make up for lost time.

Nowhere was this activity more observed than in the newly-revived Welchers’ club, presided over by the captain, and enlivened by the countenances of that ardent trio, Cusack, Pilbury, and Philpot.

During the week preceding the election they had worked with unabated enthusiasm. You might have seen practice going on any morning at half-past six in the Welchers’ corner of the Big. The other houses at first regarded it as a good joke, and the earliest practices of the new club were usually performed in the presence of a large and facetious audience, who appeared to derive infinite delight from every ball that was bowled and every run that was made. But the Welchers were not to be snuffed out. Riddell watched over the fortunes of the new club with most paternal interest, losing no opportunity of firing its enthusiasm, and throwing himself heart and soul into its work. Indeed, as a cricketer the captain came out in quite a new light, which astonished even himself.

He had always taken for granted he was utterly incapable of any athletic achievement, but, with the steady practice now entailed upon him, it began to dawn, not only upon himself, but other people, that as a fielder—at slip or cover-slip—he was decidedly useful, while as a batsman he exhibited a certain style of his own that usually brought together a few runs for his side.

But even his own success was less than that of the club generally. Every member of that small fraternity was intent on the glory of the club, and worked hammer and tongs to secure it. Mr Parrett, kindly jack-of-all-trades as he was, was easily persuaded by Riddell to come down occasionally and bowl them a few balls, and give them a few hints as to style generally. And every time he came down he was more encouraging. Even Bloomfield and a few of the First Eleven magnates thought it worth their while to saunter round once or twice and watch the practice of this promising club.

It may be judged that, in proportion as the young Welchers found themselves succeeding, their enthusiasm for their club and its president increased. The club grew daily. Some Limpets joined it, and even a few seniors. There was some talk of a first eleven to play in the house matches, while by this time the second-eleven was an accomplished fact, its members thirsting for the day when they should match their prowess against the Parretts or schoolhouse juniors.

The election, as I have said, had rudely interrupted all this healthy preparation, and for a moment it seemed to Riddell as if all his new hold on his boys had disappeared. But that event once over, great was his relief to find that they returned to the sport with unabated and even increased ardour.

That week Welch’s had out for the first time two sets of wickets, and even thus could hardly keep going all who wanted to play.

“I tell you what,” said Bloomfield, one afternoon, as, with his friend Ashley, he was quietly looking on, while pretending not to do so, “say what you will, Riddell doesn’t do badly at slip. Watch this over.”

As it happened, Mr Parrett was bowling down some rather swift balls to the boy who was batting, with a little break from the off, which the batsman seemed unable to play in any manner but by sending them among the slips. So that, during the over, Riddell, blissfully unconscious of the critical eyes that were upon him, had a busy time of it. And so well did he pick the balls up that the two spies stayed to watch another over, and after that another, at the close of which Bloomfield said, “Upon my word, it’s not half bad. And a slip’s the very man we want to make up the eleven for Rockshire.”

“My dear fellow,” said Ashley, in tones almost of alarm, “you’re surely not thinking of putting a fellow like that into the eleven.”

“I don’t care much who goes in so long as he can play,” said Bloomfield.

“But fancy the fellow’s bumptiousness if he gets stuck into the team! He’s bad enough as it is,” said Ashley.

“We’ve got the schoolhouse fellows to look at,” said Bloomfield, “come along. If they’ve any one better we’ll take him, but we must get hold of the best man.”

So off they went, and the Welchers’ practice continued gaily till the bell for call-over sounded.

“Riddell,” said Cusack, who had become captain’s fag since the migration to Welch’s, “there’s a letter for you.”

“Where?” asked the captain.

“On your table. I saw it there when I was sticking away your pens just now.”

“You may as well bring it,” said Riddell; “I am going to the library.”

So Cusack went off, and presently reappeared in the library with the letter.

Riddell was busy at the moment searching through the catalogue, and consequently let the letter lie unopened for some little time beside him. In due time, however, he turned and took it up.

It was a strangely directed letter, at any rate—not in ordinary handwriting, but in printed characters, evidently to disguise the authorship.

Riddell hastily tore open the envelope of this mysterious missive and read the contents, which were also written like printing, in characters quite unrecognisable.

The letter was as follows:

“Riddel,—If you want to get to the bottom of that boat-race affair, you had better see what Tom the boat-boy has to say. That’s all.”

Chapter Twenty Three.

Tom the Boat-boy earns four-and-sixpence.

Riddell, as he read over and over again the mysterious document in his hand, hardly knew what to make of it.

It looked like a clue, certainly. But who had sent it? Was it a friend or an enemy; and if the latter, might it not just as likely be a hoax as not?

He examined the disguised writing letter for letter, but failed to recognise in it the hand of any one he knew. He called back Cusack and cross-examined him as to how and when the letter was brought to his study; but Cusack could tell him nothing. All he knew was that when he went in to look after Riddell’s tea that afternoon, it was lying there on the table. He couldn’t say how long it had been there. He hadn’t been in the room since dinner, nor had Riddell.

Cusack was very curious to know what the letter was about concerning which the captain seemed so much excited; but Riddell declined to gratify him on this point, and put the paper away in his pocket and returned to his work.

“No,” said he to himself, “if it’s a hoax there’s no object in making it public property, and still less reason if there’s anything in it.”

Of one thing he was determined—he must go down to-morrow morning and have an interview with Tom the boat-boy. The thing might all be a hoax, but if there was the remotest chance of its being otherwise it was clearly his duty to do what he could to find out the miscreant who had brought such disgrace upon Willoughby. So he spent a somewhat uneasy evening, and even appeared absent-minded when young Wyndham, now a constant visitor to his study, paid his usual evening call.

“I say,” said the boy, with beaming face, as he entered, “isn’t it prime, Riddell? Bloomfield’s going to try me in the second-eleven, he says. You know I’ve been grinding at cricket like a horse lately, and he came down and watched me this afternoon, and I was in, and made no end of a lucky score off Dobson’s bowling. And then Bloomfield said he’d bowl me an over. My eye! what a funk I was in. I could hardly hold the bat. But I straightened up somehow, and his first ball went by. The next was frightfully swift, and dead on, but it broke a bit to the leg, and I was just in time to get at it and send it right away between long-leg and long-stop in the elms—a safe five if we’d been running. And old Bloomfield laughed and said he couldn’t wait till the ball was sent up, and said I could turn up at the second-eleven Big practice to-morrow and see how I got on there. I say, isn’t it prime, Riddell? I tell you, I shall stand on my head if I get into the team.”

Riddell had only partially heard this jubilant speech, for at that moment Tom the boat-boy was more in his thoughts even than Wyndham the Limpet. However, he had heard enough to gather from it that his young protégé was in a vast state of joy and content, and as usual he was ready with any amount of sympathy.

“It will be splendid if you do get in,” said he.

“Yes. They’ve only got eight places actually fixed, I hear, so I’ve three chances. I say, Riddell, I like Bloomfield, do you know? I think he’s an awfully good captain.”

Riddell could not help smiling at this artless outburst from the young candidate for cricket honours, and replied, “I like him too, for he came and watched our practice too, here at Welch’s.”

“Did he bowl you any balls?” demanded Wyndham.

“No, happily,” said Riddell; “but some one told me he told somebody else that I might possibly squeeze into the eleven against Rockshire if I practised hard.”

“What!” exclaimed Wyndham, in most uncomplimentary astonishment. “You in the first eleven! I say, it must be a mistake.”

“I’m afraid they’ll think it a mistake,” said Riddell, laughing; “but I certainly have heard something of the sort.”

“Why, you usen’t to play at all in our house,” said Wyndham.

“No more I did; but since I came here I’ve been going in for it rather more, though I never dreamt of such rapid promotion.”

“Well,” said Wyndham, quite patronisingly, “I’m jolly glad to hear it; but I wish you were in the schoolhouse instead of Welch’s. By the way, how are the ‘kids’ in your house getting on?”

“The ‘kids’ are getting on very well, I fancy,” said the captain. “They’ve a match with the Parrett’s juniors fixed already, and mean to challenge the schoolhouse too, I fancy.”

“I say, that’s coming it rather strong,” said Wyndham, half incredulously.

“It’s a fact, though,” said Riddell, “and what’s more, I have it on Parrett’s authority that they are getting to play very well together, and any eleven that plays them will have to look out for itself if it is to beat them.”

“Ho, ho! I guess our fellows will be able to manage that. Of course, you know, if I’m in the second-eleven, I shan’t be able to play with my house juniors.”

“That will be a calamity!” said Riddell, laughing, as he began to get out his books and settle himself for the evening’s work.

Despite all the boy’s juvenile conceit and self-assurance, Riddell rejoiced to find him grown enthusiastic about anything so harmless as cricket. Wyndham had been working hard the last week or so in a double sense—working hard not only at cricket, but in striving to act up to the better resolutions which, with Riddell’s help, he had formed. And he had succeeded so far in both. Indeed, the cricket had helped the good resolutions, and the good resolutions had helped the cricket. As long as every spare moment was occupied with his congenial sport, and a place in the second-eleven was a prize within reach, he had neither time nor inclination to fall back on the society of Silk or Gilks, or any of their set. And as long as the good resolutions continued to fire his breast, he was only too glad to find refuge from temptation in the steady pursuit of so honourable an ambition as cricket.

He was, if truth must be told, more enthusiastic about his cricket than about his studies, and that evening it was a good while before Wyndham could get his mind detached from bats and balls and concentrated on Livy.

Riddell himself, too, found work more than ordinarily difficult that night, but his thoughts were wandering on far less congenial ground than cricket.

Supposing that letter did mean something, how ought he to act? It was no pleasant responsibility to have thrown on his shoulders the duty of bringing a criminal to justice, and possibly of being the means of his expulsion. And yet the honour of Willoughby was at stake, and no squeamishness ought to interfere with that. He wished, true or untrue, that the wretched letter had been left anywhere but in his study.

“I say,” said young Wyndham, after about an hour’s spell of work, and strangely enough starting the very topic with which Riddell’s mind was full—“I say, I think that boat-race business is blowing over, do you know? You don’t hear nearly so much about it now.”

“The thing is, ought it to blow over?” said the captain, gravely.

“Why, of course! Besides, after all it may have been an accident. I broke a bit of cord the other day, and it looked just as if it had been partly cut through. Anyhow, it’s just as much the Parretts business as ours, and they aren’t doing anything, I know.”

“It would be a good deal more satisfactory to have it cleared up,” said Riddell.

“It would do just as well to have a new race, and settle the thing right off—even if they were to lick us.”

Wyndham went soon afterwards. Riddell was too much occupied with his own perplexities to think much just then of the boy’s views on this burning question. And after all, had he thought of them, he would probably have guessed, as the reader may have done, that Wyndham’s present cricket mania made him dread any reopening of the old soreness between Parrett’s and the schoolhouse, which would be sure to result, among other things, in his exclusion, as a member of the latter fraternity, from the coveted place in the second-eleven.

The next morning the captain was up early, and on his way to the boat-house. Ever since the race the river had been almost deserted, at any rate in the early mornings.

Consequently when Riddell arrived at the boat-house he found no one up. After a good deal of knocking he managed to rouse the boatman.

“I want Tom,” he said, “to steer me up to the Willows.”

“You might have let me known you’d want the gig yesterday,” said the man, rather surlily; “I’d have left it out for you overnight.”

Had it been Bloomfield or Fairbairn, or any other of the boating heroes of Willoughby, Blades the boatman would have sung a very different song. But a boatman does not know anything about senior classics.

“You’ll find a boat moored by the landing there,” said that functionary; “and give a call for young Alf, he’ll do to steer you.”

But this would not suit Riddell at all. “No,” said he; “I want Tom, please, and tell him to be quick.”

The man went off surlily, and Riddell was left to kick his heels for twenty minutes in a state of very uncomfortable suspense.

At length, to his relief, Tom, a knowing youth of about fourteen, appeared, with a cushion over one shoulder and a pair of sculls over the other, and the embarkation was duly effected.

Tom was a privileged person at Willoughby. In consideration of not objecting to an occasional licking, he was permitted to be as impudent and familiar as he pleased to the young gentlemen in whose service he laboured. Being a professional waterman, he considered it his right to patronise everybody. Even old Wyndham last season had received most fatherly encouragement from this irreverent youngster, while any one who could make no pretensions to skill with the oars was simply at his mercy.

This being so, Riddell had made up his mind for a trying time of it, and was not disappointed.

“What! so you’re a-goin’ in for scullin’ then?” demanded the young waterman as the boat put off.

“Yes; I want to try my hand,” said the captain.

“You’ll never do no good at it, I can tell yer, before yer begins,” said the boy.

So it seemed. What with inexperience of the sculls, and nervousness under the eye of this ruthless young critic, and uneasiness as to the outcome of this strange interview, Riddell made a very bad performance.

“Ya-ow! I thought it would come to that!” jeered Tom when, after a few strokes, the captain got his sculls hopelessly feathered under water and could not get them up again. “There you are! That comes of diggin’! Always the way with you chaps!”

“Suppose, instead of going on like that,” said Riddell, getting up the blades of his sculls with a huge effort, “you show me the way to do it properly!”

“What’s the use of showing you? You could never learn, I can see it by the looks of you!”

After this particularly complimentary speech Riddell rowed ploddingly on for a little distance, Tom whistling shrilly in the stern all the way in a manner most discouraging for conversation.

But Riddell was determined, come what would, he would broach the unpleasant subject. Consequently, after some further progress up-stream, he rested on his oars, and said, “I’ve not been out on the water since the day of the boat-race.”

“Aren’t you, though?” said Tom.

A pause.

“That was a queer thing, the rudder-line breaking that day,” said Riddell, looking hard at his young companion.

Tom apparently did not quite like it. Either it seemed as if Riddell thought he knew something about the affair, or else his conscience was not quite easy.

“In course it was,” replied he, surlily. “I knows nothink about it.”

Riddell, for a quiet, nervous boy, was shrewd for his age, and there was something in Tom’s constrained and uncomfortable manner as he made this disclaimer that convinced him that after all the mysterious letter had something in it.

It was a bold step to take, he knew, and it might end in a failure, but he would chance it at any rate.

“You do know something about it, Tom!” said he, sternly, and with a searching look at the young waterman.

Tom did! He didn’t say so! Indeed he violently denied that he did, and broke out into a state of most virtuous indignation.

“Well I ever, if that ain’t a nice thing to say to a chap. I tell you, I knows nothink about it. The idea! What ’ud I know anythink about it for? I tell you you’re out, governor. You’re come to the wrong shop—do you hear?”

Riddell did hear; and watching the boy’s manner as he hurried out these protests, he was satisfied that he was on the right tack.

It had never occurred to him before. Perhaps the culprit was Tom himself; perhaps it was he who, for some reason of his own, had cut the line and caused all the mischief.