The Willoughby Captains - Reed Talbot Baines (книги бесплатно без регистрации TXT) 📗

“I over hear much of Wyndham the gross Telson and the evil Parson not knowing I am by the little boys say they have seen the ugly Wyndham come from Beamish’s. Oh evil Wyndham being taken by Silk and Gilks. No one knows and Wyndham is to be expelled. I joy much Riddell knoweth it. Telson telleth Parson that Riddell is gross expelling for Beamish’s and Wyndham weepeth in private. I smile at the practice Mr Parrett bowleth me balls. I taketh them and am out.”

If Bosher could have seen the effect of this elegant extract upon the captain he would probably have “joyed” with infinite self-satisfaction. Riddell’s colour changed as he read and re-read and re-read again these few lines of idiotic jargon.

He lay down the book half a dozen times, and as often took it up again, and scrutinised the entry, and as he did so quick looks of perplexity, or joy, or shame, even of humour, chased one another across his face.

The truth with all its new meaning slowly dawned upon him. It had been reserved to Bosher’s diary, of all agencies in the world, to explain everything, and cast a flood of light upon what had hitherto been incomprehensible!

Of course he could see it all now. If this diary was to be believed — but was it? Might it not be a hoax purposely put in his way to delude him?

Yet he could not believe that this laboriously written record could have been compiled for his sole benefit; and this one entry which he had lit upon by mere chance was only one of hundreds of stupid, absurd entries, most of which meant nothing at all, and which seemed more like the symptoms of a disease than the healthy productions of a sane boy.

In this one case, however, there seemed to be some method in the author’s madness, and he had given a clue so important that Riddell, in pondering over it that evening and calculating its true value, was very nearly being late for the doctor’s tea at seven o’clock.

However, he came to himself just in time to decorate his person, and hurry across the quadrangle before the clock struck.

On his way over he met Parson and Telson, walking arm-in-arm. Although the same spectacle had met his eyes on an average twice every day that term, and was about the commonest “show” in Willoughby, the sight of the faithful pair at this particular time when the revelations of Bosher’s diary were tingling in his ears impressed the captain. Indeed, it impressed him so much that, at the imminent risk of being late for the doctor’s tea, he pulled up to speak to them.

Parson, as became a loyal Parrett, made as though he would pass on, but Telson held him back.

“I say, you two,” said Riddell, “will you come to breakfast with me to-morrow morning after chapel?”

And without so much as waiting for a reply, he bolted off, leaving his two would-be guests a trifle concerned as to his sanity.

The clock was beginning to strike as Riddell knocked at the doctor’s door, and began at length to realise what he was in for.

He did not know whether to be thankful or not that Bloomfield and Fairbairn would be there to share his misery. They would be but two extra witnesses to his sufferings, and their tribulations were hardly likely to relieve his.

However, there was one comfort. He might have a chance before the evening was over of telling Bloomfield that he now had every reason to believe his suspicions about the culprit had been wrong.

How thankful he was he had held out against the temptation to name poor Wyndham two days ago!

“Well, Riddell, how are you?” said the doctor, in his usual genial fashion. “I think you have met these ladies before. Mr Riddell — my dear — Miss Stringer. These gentlemen you have probably seen before also. Ha! ha!”

Riddell saluted the ladies very much as he would have saluted two mad dogs, and nodded the usual Willoughby nod to his two fellow-monitors, who having already got over the introductions had retreated to a safe distance.

A common suffering is the surest bond of sympathy, and Riddell positively beamed on his rival in recognition of his salute.

“I trust your mother,” said Mrs Patrick, “whose indisposition we were regretting on the last occasion when you were here, is now better?”

“Very well indeed, I hope,” replied the captain, hardly knowing what he said. “Thank you.”

“And I trust, Mr Riddell,” chimed in Miss Stringer, “that you were gratified by the result of the election.”

“No, thank you,” replied Riddell, beginning to shake in his shoes.

“Indeed? If I remember right you professed yourself to be a Liberal?”

“Yes — that is — the Radical got in,” faltered Riddell, wondering why in common charity no one came to his rescue.

“And pray, Mr Riddell,” continued Miss Stringer, ruthlessly, “can you tell us the difference between a Liberal and a Radical? I have often longed to know — and you I have no doubt are an authority?”

Riddell at this point seriously meditated a forced retreat, and there is no saying what desperate act he might have committed had not the doctor providentially come to the rescue.

“The election altogether,” said he, laughing, “is rather a sore point in the school. I told you, my dear, about the manner in which Mr Cheeseman’s letter was received?”

“You did,” replied Mrs Patrick, who for some few moments had had her eyes upon Bloomfield, with a view to draw him out.

“Now do you really suppose, Mr Bloomfield, that the boys in your house, for instance, attached any true importance at all to the issue of the contest?”

Bloomfield, who had not been aware till this question was half over that it had been addressed to him, started and said — the most fatal observation he could have made—

“Eh? I beg your pardon, that is.”

“I inquired,” said Mrs Patrick, fixing him with her eye, “whether you really supposed that the boys in your house, for instance, attached any true importance at all to the issue of the contest?”

Bloomfield received this ponderous question meekly, and made a feeble effort to turn it over in his mind, and then dreading to hear it repeated once more, answered, “Oh, decidedly, ma’am.”

“In what respect?” inquired the lady, settling herself down on the settee, and awaiting, with raised eyebrows, her victim’s answer.

Poor Bloomfield was no match for this deliberate style of tactics.

“They were all yellow,” he replied, feebly.

“All what, sir?” demanded Mrs Patrick.

“All Whig, I mean,” he said.

“Exactly. What I mean to know is, do they any of them appreciate the distinction between a Whig (or, as Mr Riddell terms it, a Liberal)—”

Riddell winced.

”—Between a Whig and a Radical?”

“Oh, certainly not,” replied Bloomfield, wildly. “And yet you say that they decidedly attached a true importance to the issue of the contest? That is very extraordinary!”

And Mrs Patrick rose majestically to take her seat at the table, leaving Bloomfield writhing and turned mentally inside out, to recover as best he could from this interesting political discussion!

“The Rockshire match was a great triumph,” said the doctor, cheerily, as the company established itself at the festive board—“and a surprise too, surely — was it not?”

“Yes, sir,” said Fairbairn, who, seeing that Bloomfield was not yet in a condition to discourse, felt it incumbent on him to reply—“we never expected to win by so much.”

“It was quite an event,” said the doctor, “the heads of the three houses all playing together in the same eleven.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Fairbairn, “Bloomfield here was most impartial.”

Bloomfield said something which sounded like “Not at all.”

“I was especially glad to see the Welchers coming out again,” said the doctor, with a friendly nod to Riddell.

“Yes,” said Fairbairn, who appeared to be alarmingly at his ease; “and Welch’s did good service too; that catch of Riddell’s saved us a wicket or two, didn’t it, Bloomfield?”