Riddell, who was pacing the room moodily, stopped in a half-startled way as his visitor entered.
“Do you want me?” he said.
“No,” said Wyndham. “I only just came across to see you, because I thought you’d wonder what had become of me.”
“Yes,” said Riddell, trying to compose himself, “with all this cricket practice there’s not been much chance of seeing one another.”
“No,” replied Wyndham, whom the very mention of cricket was enough to excite. “I say, wasn’t it an awfully fine licking we gave them? Our fellows are crowing like anything, and, you know, if it hadn’t been for your catch it might have been a much more narrow affair.”
“Ah, well! it’s all over now,” said Riddell; “so I suppose you’ll come and see me oftener?”
“I hope so. Of course, there’s the second-eleven practices still going on for the Templeton match, but I’ll turn up here all the same.”
Riddell took a turn or two in silence. What was he to do? A word from him, he felt, could ruin this boy before all Willoughby, and possibly disgrace him for life.
He, Riddell, as captain of the school, seemed to have a clear duty in the matter. Had the culprit been any one else—had it been Silk, for instance, or Gilks — would he have hung back? He knew he would not, painful as the task would be. The honour of the school was in question, and he had no right to palter with that.
Yet how could he deal thus with young Wyndham? — his friend’s brother, the fellow he cared for most in Willoughby, over whose struggles he had watched so anxiously, and for whom, now, better resolves and honest ambitions were opening up so cheery a prospect. How could he do it?
Was there no chance that after all he might be mistaken? Alas! that cruel knife and the memory of that evening crushed out the hope. What could he do? To do nothing would be simply adding his own crime to that of another. If only the boy would confess voluntarily! Could that have possibly been the object which brought him there that evening? The last time they had talked together, even in the midst of his contrition, he had been strangely reserved about something in the past. Might not this be the very secret he had now come to confide?
“How have you been getting on the last week?” he asked, gravely. “Have you been able to keep pretty straight?”
“Yes, I hope so,” said Wyndham. “You see, this cricket doesn’t give a fellow much chance of going wrong.”
“No; but of course one needs to do more than merely not go wrong,” said the captain.
“What do you mean?”
“I suppose when any of us has done wrong we ought to try to make up for it somehow.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” said Wyndham, feeling a little uncomfortable. “The worst of it is, you can’t always do that except by keeping right in future.”
“Supposing you had owed some fellow a sovereign last term, you would consider that all you had to do was not to owe him any more this term?” said Riddell.
“No; of course not! I’d have to pay him, I know,” said Wyndham.
“Well, what I mean,” said the captain, “is that — that — why, the fact is, Wyndham,” said he, “I’m afraid you have still some old scores you ought to clear up.”
Wyndham looked hard at the captain, and coloured.
“I see what you mean,” he said, in a low voice. “I know you’re right. I wish I could do it.”
“You wish!” exclaimed Riddell. “Wishing will not do it.”
Wyndham looked hard at him once more, and answered, in agitated tones.
“I say, Riddell. Do you know about it, then?”
“I think I do.”
At that moment a bell began to sound across the quadrangle.
“That’s lock-up; I must go!” exclaimed Wyndham, wildly. “For goodness’ sake, don’t tell any one, Riddell! Oh what a fool I have been!”
And next moment he was gone.
Riddell continued to pace the room, half stupefied with bewilderment and misery.
“For goodness’ sake, don’t tell any one!” The cry rang in his ears till it drove him nearly mad.
Poor Wyndham! What must his state of mind be? What must it have been all this time, with that miserable secret lurking there and poisoning his whole life? And yet the chance had been given him, and he had clung to the secret still, and in the face of discovery had no other cry than this, “For goodness’ sake, don’t tell any one!”
That evening, so jubilant all over Willoughby, was one of the most wretched Riddell ever spent.
Chapter Twenty Six
An Explosion of “SkyRockets.”
Parson, Bosher, King, and the other Parrett’s juniors were in bad spirits. It was not so much the Rockshire match that was preying on the brotherhood, grievous as that blow had been. Nor were they at the present suffering under any particular infliction, or smarting under any special sense of injustice. Their healths and digestions were all tolerably good, and the mutual friendship in which they had been wont to rejoice showed no signs of immediate dissolution.
The fact was, they didn’t know exactly what was the matter with themselves. They could not pretend that it was remorse for the little amount of work they had done during the term, for they stoutly denied that they had done little. On the contrary, they insisted that they were being crammed to a shameful extent.
Nor was their conscience reproaching them for their past transgressions. Of course, they could not help admitting that they had occasionally got into rows lately, but, as every one knew, it was never their fault. It had always been owing to some accident or piece of bad luck, and it was quite enough to get punished for it, without being expected to reproach themselves for it.
No. When they came to think of it they didn’t see that they had anything to reproach themselves with. On the whole, they were more to be pitied than blamed. They invariably meant well, but they never got any credit for their good intentions, while they were everlastingly getting into trouble on account of their ill-luck!
The fact of the matter was, these virtuous young gentlemen were suffering from that most painful of maladies — dulness.
They had nothing to do — that is, they had nothing to do but work and play cricket. The latter was all very well, but even cricket, when it means three practices a day presided over by a strict senior, gets to be a little wearisome.
As for the work — they groaned as they thought of it. It hadn’t been so bad at the beginning of the term, when Bosher’s crib to the Caesar and Wakefield’s key to Colenso’s arithmetic had lent them their genial aid. But ever since Mr Parrett, in the vindictiveness of his heart, had suddenly started Eutropius in the place of Caesar, and Todhunter in the place of Colenso, life had barely been worth living.
It was this last grievance which was the special topic of discussion at an informal tea-party held, about a week after the Rockshire match, in Parson’s study.
The company solaced their wounded feelings with unlimited bloater-paste and red-currant jam, and under the soothing influence of these condiments, aided by the watery contents of Parson’s teapot, their sorrows found relief in words.
“I bet anything he pitched on Eutropius,” said Parson, with his cup to his lips, “because he knows nobody ever wrote a crib to him.”
“I don’t suppose any one could make him out enough,” said King. “It’s awful rot.”
“Yes, and Ashley says it’s awfully bad Latin.”
Parson laughed satirically.
“Jolly lot they care what sort of Latin it is as long as they can do us over it.”
“I believe,” said Bosher, “Gilks has a key to Todhunter.”
“He has? Young Telson had better collar it, then,” said King, whose opinions on the laws of property as regarded cribs were lax.
“Bah! What’s the use of bothering?” cried Parson, pouring himself out his eighth cup of tea. “If he pulls me up for not doing the beastly things I shall tell him they’re too hard, straight out.”