“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?”
“Yes,” replied Bloomfield.
“Was Rockshire a specially weak team this year?” asked the doctor.
“I don’t think so, sir,” replied Fairbairn, politely handing the toast to Miss Stringer as he spoke; “but they evidently weren’t so well together as our men.”
“And what, Mr Fairbairn,” asked Miss Stringer at this point, in her most stately tones—“what, pray, is the exact meaning of the expression ‘well together,’ as applied to a company of youths?”
Bloomfield and Riddell groaned inwardly for their comrade. They had seen what was coming, and had marked his rash approach to the mouth of the volcano with growing apprehension. They had been helpless to hold him back, and now his turn was come — he had met his fate.
So, at least, they imagined. What, then, was their amazement when he turned not a hair at the question, but replied, stirring his tea complacently as he did so, “You see, each of the Rockshire men may have been a good cricketer, and yet if they had not been used to playing together, as our fellows have been, we should have a decided pull on them.”
Miss Stringer regarded the speaker critically. She had not been used to have her problems so readily answered, and appeared to discover a suspicion of rudeness in the boy’s speech which called for a set-down.
“I do not understand what you mean by a ‘pull,’ Mr Fairbairn,” said she, sternly.
“Why,” replied Fairbairn, who was really interested in the subject, and quite pleased to be drawn out on so congenial a topic, “it’s almost as important to get to know the play of your own men as to know the play of your opponents. For instance, when we all know Bloomfield’s balls break a bit to the off, we generally know whereabouts in the field to expect them if they are taken; and when Porter goes on with slows every one knows to stand in close and look out for catches.”
“Yes,” said Bloomfield, gaining sudden courage by the example of his comrade, “that’s just where Rockshire were weak. They were always shifting about their field and bowlers. I’m certain they had scarcely played together once.”
“And,” added Riddell, also taking heart of grace, and entering into the humour of the situation—“and they seemed to save up their good bowlers for the end, instead of beginning with them. All our hitting men got the easy bowling, and the others, who were never expected to score in any case, were put out by the good.”
“In this respect, you see,” continued Fairbairn, addressing Miss Stringer, “a school eleven always get the pull of a scratch team.”
Miss Stringer, who during this conversation had been growing manifestly uncomfortable, vouchsafed no reply, but, turning to her sister, said, with marked formality, “My dear, were the Browns at home when you called this afternoon?”
“I regret to say they were out,” replied Mrs Patrick, with a withering glance round the table.
“Of course, it depends, too,” said Bloomfield, replying to Fairbairn’s last question and giving him an imperceptible sly kick under the table, “on whether it’s early or late in the season. If we were to play them in August they would know their own play as well as we know ours.”
“Only,” chimed in Riddell, “these county teams don’t stick to the same elevens as regularly as a school does.”
“My dear, have you done your tea?” inquired Mrs Patrick’s voice across the table.
“Yes. Shall I ring?” said the doctor.
“Allow me,” said Fairbairn, rising hastily, and nearly knocking over Miss Stringer in his eagerness.
The spinster, who had already received in her own opinion sufficient affront for one evening, put the worst construction possible on this accident, and answered with evident ill-temper, “You are very clumsy, sir!”
“I beg your pardon, indeed!” said Fairbairn. “I hope you are not hurt?”
“Be silent, sir!”
Fairbairn, quite taken aback by this unexpected exclamation, did not know what to say, and looked round inquiringly at the doctor, as much as to ask if the lady was often taken this way.
The doctor, however, volunteered no explanation, but looked uncomfortable and coughed.
“If you will excuse me,” said Miss Stringer to her sister, with a forced severity of tone, “I will go to my room.”
“You are not well, I fear,” said Mrs Patrick. “I will go with you”; and next moment the enemy was gone, and the doctor and his boys were together.
Dr Patrick, who, to tell the truth, seemed scarcely less relieved than his visitors, made no attempt to apologise for Miss Stringer’s sudden indisposition, and embarked at once on a friendly talk about school affairs.