A merry laugh greeted the appearance of Bosher’s diary, which the pair recognised as a very old friend.
“It’s old Bosher’s diary,” said Telson. “He’s always dropping it about. I believe he does it on purpose. I say, isn’t it frightful bosh?”
“It isn’t very clear in parts,” said the captain.
“Did he call you ‘evil,’ or ‘gross,’ or ‘ugly in the face,’ in the part you looked at?” asked Telson; “because, if so, we may as well lick him for you.”
“No, don’t do that,” said Riddell; “you had better give it him back, though, and advise him from me not to drop it about more than he can help. Good-bye.”
With a great weight off his mind, Riddell went down to first school that day a thankful though a humbled man.
What a narrow escape he had had of doing the boy he cared for most in Willoughby a grievous injustice. Indeed, by suspecting him privately he had done him injustice enough as it was, for which he could not too soon atone.
In the midst of his relief about the boat-race he could scarcely bring himself to regard seriously the boy’s real offence, bad as that had been; and, indeed, it was not until Wyndham himself referred to it that afternoon that its gravity occurred to him.
Just as the special meeting of the Parliament (convened by private invitation of Game and Ashley to a select few of their own way of thinking) was assembling, Wyndham, in compliance with a message from the captain, strolled out into the Big towards the very bench where yesterday he had had his memorable talk with Silk.
Riddell was waiting there for him, and as the boy approached, his wretched, haggard looks smote the captain’s heart with remorse.
He had scarcely the spirit to return Riddell’s salute as he seated himself beside him on the bench and waited for what was to come.
“Old fellow,” said Riddell, “don’t look so wretched. Things mayn’t be so bad as you think.”
“How could they be anything else?” said Wyndham, dolefully.
“If you’ll listen to me, and not look so frightfully down,” said the captain, “I’ll tell you.”
Wyndham made a feeble attempt to rouse himself, and turned to hear what the captain had to say.
“You wonder,” said Riddell, “how I came to know about that visit to Beamish’s. Would it astonish you to hear that till this time yesterday I never knew about it at all?”
“What!” exclaimed Wyndham, incredulously; “you were talking to me about it two or three days before.”
“So you thought. You thought when I said it was my duty to report it, and that the honour of the school was involved in it, and all that, that I was talking about that scrape at Beamish’s.”
“Of course you were,” said Wyndham. “What else could you have been talking about? I confessed it to you myself.”
“And you couldn’t see what the honour of the school had to do with your going to Beamish’s, could you?” asked Riddell.
“Well, no. Perhaps it has, but I didn’t see it at the time.”
“Of course not,” said the captain, “and if I had been thinking of Beamish’s I should never have said such a stupid thing.”
“Why, what do you mean?” said Wyndham, puzzled.
“Why, this. In all our talks you never once mentioned Beamish’s. You concluded what I suspected you of was this, and I concluded that the scrape you were confessing was the one I suspected you of.”
“What do you suspect me of, then?” inquired Wyndham, “if it wasn’t that?”
“I’m ashamed to say,” said the captain, “I suspected you of having cut the lines of Parrett’s rudder at the boat-race.”
Wyndham, in the shock of this announcement, broke out into an almost hysterical laugh.
“Suspected me of cutting the rudder-lines!” he gasped.
“Yes,” said Riddell, sorrowfully. “I’m ashamed to say it.”
“Why, however could you?” exclaimed the boy, in strange bewilderment.
Riddell quietly told him the whole story. Of the mysterious letter, of his visit to Tom the boat-boy, of the knife, of the recollection of Wyndham’s movements on the night in question, and then of his supposed admission of his guilt.
Wyndham listened to it all with breathless attention and wonder, and when it was all done sighed as he replied, “Why, Riddell, it’s like a story, isn’t it?”
“It is,” said the captain, “and rather a pitiful story as far as I am concerned.”
“Not a bit,” replied the boy, as sympathetically as if Riddell was the person to be pitied and he was the person who had wronged him. “It was all a misunderstanding. How on earth could you have helped suspecting me? Any one would have done the same.
“But,” added he, after a pause, “what ought I to do about Beamish’s? Of course that was no end of a scrape, and the mischief is, I promised those two cads never to say a word about it. By the way, you saw me with Silk on this bench yesterday afternoon?”
“Yes,” said Riddell; “you didn’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”
“I should think I wasn’t. I’d been trying to get him to let me off that promise, and he had offered to do it for seven pounds, under condition. I might have closed with him if you hadn’t come past just then. He held me down to rile you, and I got so wild I rounded on him and made him in a frightful rage, and it’s very likely now he may tell Paddy if you don’t.”
“Not he,” said Riddell. “You’re well out of his clutches, old man, and it strikes me the best way you can atone for that affair is by keeping out of it for the future, and having no more to do with fellows like that.”
“What on earth should I have done,” said the boy, “without you to look after me? I’d have gone to the dogs, to a dead certainty.”
“It seems I can look after you rather too much sometimes,” said the captain. “Ah, there’s Silk coming this way. We needn’t stop, here to give him a return match. Come on.”
And the two friends rose and strolled off happily arm-in-arm.
Chapter Thirty One
Welch’s versus Parrett’s Juniors
“Of course,” said Riddell, as he and Wyndham strolled down by the river that afternoon, “now that your mystery is all cleared up we are as far off as ever finding out who really cut the rudder-lines.”
“Yes. My knife is the only clue, and that proves nothing, for I was always leaving it about, or lending it, or losing it. I don’t suppose I kept it one entire week in my pocket all the time I had it. And, for the matter of that, it’s not at all impossible I may have dropped it in the boat-house myself some time. I often used to change my jacket there.”
Riddell had half expected Wyndham would be able to afford some clue as to who had borrowed or taken the knife at that particular time. He was rather relieved to find that he could not.
“Tom the boat-boy,” said he, “distinctly says that the fellow who was getting out of the window dropped the knife as he did so. Of course that may be his fancy. Anyhow, I don’t want the knife any more, so you may as well take it.”
So saying he produced the knife from his pocket, and handed it to his companion.
“I don’t want the beastly thing,” cried Wyndham, taking it and pitching it into the middle of the river. “Goodness knows it’s done mischief enough! But, I say, whoever wrote that note must have known something about it.”
“Of course,” said the captain, “but he evidently intends the thing to be found out without his help.”
“Never mind,” said Wyndham, cheerily, “give yourself a little rest, old man, and come down and see the second-eleven practise. I’ve been too much up a tree to turn up lately, but I mean to do so this evening. I say, won’t it be jolly if my brother can come down to umpire in the match.”
“It will,” said Riddell, and the pair forthwith launched out into a discussion of the virtues of Wyndham senior, in which one was scarcely more enthusiastic than the other.