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.