The Willoughby Captains Part 6

"No, sir," answered Riddell, steadily avoiding the eyes of the females.

"I often think you'd be better if you took more exercise," said the doctor.

"Judging by Mr Riddell's looks," said Mrs Patrick, "it would certainly seem as if he hardly did himself justice physically."

This enigmatical sentence, which might have been a compliment or might have been a rebuke or might have meant neither, Riddell found himself quite unable to reply to appropriately, and therefore, like a sensible man, took a drink of tea instead. It was the first dawn of reviving presence of mind.

"Apart from your own health altogether," continued the doctor, "I fancy your position with the other boys would be better if you entered rather more into their sports."

"I often feel that, sir," said Riddell, with a touch of seriousness in his tones, "and I wish I could do it."

"I hope that there is no consideration as to health which debars you from this very desirable exercise, Mr Riddell," said Mrs Patrick. "I beg your pardon," said Riddell, who did not quite take it in. Mrs Patrick never liked being asked to repeat her speeches. She flattered herself they were lucid enough to need no second delivery. She therefore repeated her remark slowly and in precisely the same words and tone--

"I hope that there is no consideration as to health which debars you from this very desirable exercise, Mr Riddell?"

Riddell took half a moment to consider, and then replied, triumphantly, "I'm quite well, thank you, ma'am."

"I am pleased to hear that," said Mrs Patrick, rather icily, for this last observation had seemed to her a little rude. "Very," chimed in Miss Stringer.

After this there was a silence, which Riddell devoutly hoped might last till it was time to go. Had the ladies not been there he would have liked very much to speak to the doctor about school matters, and the doctor, but for the same cause, would have wished to talk to his head boy. But it was evident this tea-table was not the place for such conversation.

"I hear," said the doctor, after the pause had continued some time, addressing his sister-in-law, "there is likely to be an election in Sh.e.l.lport before long; Sir Abraham is retiring."

"Indeed, you surprise me," said Miss Stringer. "It is unexpected," said the doctor, "but it is thought there will be a sharp contest for the seat."

"And are you a Liberal or a Conservative, Mr Riddell?" asked Mrs Patrick, thinking it time that unfortunate youth was again tempted into the conversation.

"A Liberal, ma'am," replied Riddell. "Oh! boys are generally Conservatives, are they not?" She asked this question in a tone as if she expected him to try to deceive her in his answer. However, he evaded it by replying bashfully, "I hope not."

"And pray," said Miss Stringer, putting down her cup, and turning full on her victim, "will you favour us with your reasons for such a hope, Mr Riddell?"

Poor Riddell! he little thought what he had let himself in for. If there was one subject the two ladies were rabid on it was politics.

They proceeded to pounce upon, devour, and annihilate the unlucky head cla.s.sic without mercy. They made him contradict himself twice or thrice in every sentence; they proved to him clearly that he knew nothing at all of what he was talking about, and generally gave him to understand that he was an impertinent, conceited puppy for presuming to have an opinion of his own on such matters!

Riddell came out of the ordeal very much as a duck comes out of the hands of the poulterer. Luckily, by the time the discussion was over it was time for him to go. He certainly could not have held out much longer. As it was, he was good for nothing after it, and went to bed early that night with a very bad headache.

Before he left, however, the doctor had accompanied him into the hall, and said, "There are a few things, Riddell, I want to speak to you about. Will you come to my study a quarter of an hour before morning chapel to-morrow?"

Had the invitation been to breakfast in that horrible parlour Riddell would flatly have declined it. As it was he cheerfully accepted it, and only wished the doctor had thought of it before, and spared him the misery of that evening with the two Willoughby griffins!

He could hardly help guessing what it was the doctor had to say to him, or why it was he had been asked to tea that evening. And he felt very dejected as he thought about it. Like most of the other Willoughbites, the idea of a new captain having to be appointed had never occurred to him till Wyndham had finally left the school. And when it did occur, and when moreover it began to dawn upon him that he himself was the probable successor, horror filled his mind. He couldn't do it. He was not cut out for it. He would sooner leave Willoughby altogether. The boys either knew nothing about him, or they laughed at him for his clumsiness, or they suspected him as a coward, or they despised him as a prig. He had wit enough to know what Willoughby thought of him, and that being so, how could he ever be its captain?

"I would much rather you named some one else," said he to the doctor at their interview next morning. "I know quite well I couldn't get on."

"You have not tried yet," said the doctor.

"But I've not the strength, and the boys don't like me," pleaded Riddell.

"You must make them like you, Riddell," said the doctor.

"How can I? They will dislike me all the more if I am made captain. I have no influence with them, indeed I have not."

"How do you know?" said the doctor again. "Have you tried yet?"

"I could never do what Wyndham did. He was such a splendid captain."

"Why?" asked the doctor.

"I suppose because he was a splendid athlete, and threw himself into all their pursuits, and--and set a good example himself."

"I think you are partly right and partly wrong," said the doctor.

"There are several fine athletes in Willoughby who would make poor captains; and as for throwing oneself into school pursuits and setting a good example, I don't think either is beyond your reach."

Riddell felt very uncomfortable. He began to feel that after all he might be shirking a duty he ought to undertake. But he made one more effort.

"There are so many others would do it better, sir, whom the boys look up to already," he said. "Bloomfield, for instance, or--"

The doctor held up his hand.

"We will not go into that, Riddell," he said. "You must not suppose I and others have not considered the good of Willoughby in this matter.

It remains for you to consider it also. As you grow older you will constantly find duties confronting you which may be sorely against your inclination, but which as an honest man you will know are not to be shirked. You have a chance of beginning now. I don't pretend to say you will find it easy or pleasant work, or that you are likely to succeed, at first at any rate, as well as others have done. But unless I am mistaken you will not give in on that account. Of course you will need to exert yourself. You know what boys look for in a captain; it's not mere muscle, or agility. Get them by all means if you can; but what will be worth far more than these will be sympathy. If they discover you are one with them, and that in your efforts to keep order you have the welfare of the school chiefly at heart, they will come out, depend upon it, and meet you half-way. It's worth trying, Riddell."

Riddell said nothing, but his face was rather more hopeful as he looked up at the doctor.

"Come," said the latter, "there's the bell for chapel. It's time we went in."

Riddell entered chapel that morning in a strangely conflicting frame of mind. The hope was still in his face, but the misgivings were still in his heart, and the whole prospect before him seemed to be a dream.

As the slight shy boy walked slowly up the floor to his place among the Sixth, the boys on either side eyed him curiously and eagerly, and a half-t.i.tter, half-sneer greeted his appearance.

Some regarded him with a disfavour which amounted to positive dislike, others with disdain and even contempt, and others thought of Wyndham and wondered what Willoughby was coming to. Even among the Sixth many an unfriendly glance was darted at him as he took his seat, and many a whispered foreboding pa.s.sed from boy to boy. Only a few watched him with looks of sympathy, and of these scarcely one was hopeful.

Happily for Riddell, he could not see half of all this; and when in a moment the doctor entered and prayers began, he saw none of it. For he was one of a few at Willoughby to whom this early-morning service was something more than a mere routine, and who felt, especially at times like this, that in those beautiful familiar words was to be found the best of all preparations for the day's duties.

Telson, as he stood down by the door, with his hands in his pockets, beside his friend Parson, was void of all such reflections. What was chiefly occupying his lordly mind at that moment was the discovery suddenly made, that if Riddell was the new captain, he of course would be captain's f.a.g. And he was not quite sure whether to be pleased or the reverse at his new dignity.

"You see," said he to his ally, in a whisper, "it's good larks marking the fellows off every morning as they come into chapel, but then, don't you twig that means I've got to be here the moment the bell begins ringing? and that's no joke."

"No, unless you got leave to ring the bell, too," said Parson. "Then of course they couldn't troop in till you were there. I'd come down and help with the bell, you know."

"Wouldn't do, I fancy," said Telson. "Then, of course, it's swell enough work to have to go about and tell the monitors what they've got to do, but I'm not so sure if it's a good thing to mix altogether with monitors--likely to spoil a chap, eh?"

"Rather," said Parson. "Look out, Porter's looking."

Whereupon this brief but edifying dialogue broke off for the present.

The monitors duly a.s.sembled in the doctor's library after chapel. They all of them knew what was coming, and their general att.i.tude did not seem promising for the new _regime_. Each one possibly fancied he had the interests of Willoughby at heart, and all but one or two felt convinced that in putting Riddell into the position of captain the doctor was committing a serious mistake. Every one could have given good reasons for thinking so, and would have a.s.serted that they had no personal ill-feeling towards the new captain, but for the sake of the school they were sure he was not the fit person. Whether each one felt equally sure that he himself would have filled the post better is a question it is not necessary to ask here.

The doctor was brief and to the point.