Poor Bloomfield had to administer justice right and left for every imaginable offence, and was so watched and prompted by officious admirers that he was constantly losing his head and making himself ridiculous.
He gave one boy a thrashing for being found with a paper dart in his hand, because Game had reported him; and to another, who had stolen a book, he gave only twenty lines, because he was in the second-eleven. Cusack and Welcher, who was caught climbing the schoolhouse elms one Monday, he sentenced to an hour’s detention; and Pilbury, whom he caught in the same act on Tuesday, he deprived of play for a week — that is, he said he was not to leave his house for a week. But Pilbury turned up the very next day in the “Big,” under the very nose of the Parrett captain, who did not even observe his presence.
It was this sort of thing which, as the term dragged on, made Bloomfield more and more uncomfortable with his position. It was all very well for Game, and Ashley, and Wibberly to declare that but for him Willoughby would have gone to the dogs — it was all very well of them to make game of and caricature Riddell and his failures. Seeing is believing; and Bloomfield, whose heart was honest, and whose common sense, when left to itself, was not altogether feeble, could not help making the unpleasant discovery that he was not doing very much after all for Willoughby.
But the boat-race was now coming on. There, at any rate, was a sphere in which he need fear no rival. With Parrett’s boat at the head of the river, and he its stroke, he would at any rate have one claim on the obedience of Willoughby which nobody could gainsay.
Chapter Thirteen
Telson and Parson go to an Evening Party
It was the Saturday before the boat-race, and the excitement of Willoughby was working up every hour. Boys who were generally in the habit of lying in bed till the chapel bell began to ring had been up at six for a week past, to look at the practices on the river. Parliament had adjourned till after the event, and even the doings of the rival captains indoors were forgotten for a while in prospect of the still more exciting contest out of doors.
Everybody — even the Welchers, who at the last moment had given up any attempt to form a crew, and “scratched”—found it hard to think or talk of any other subject, and beyond the school bounds, in Shellport itself, a rumour of the coming race had got wind and attracted many outsiders to the river banks.
But it was not the prospect of the coming race which this Saturday afternoon was agitating the mind of Master Henry Brown.
Brown was a Limpet, belonging to the schoolhouse, who occupied the distinguished position of being the only day-boarder in Willoughby. His parents lived in Shellport, and thus had the benefit of the constant society of their dear Harry; while the school, on the other hand, was deprived of that advantage for a portion of every day in the term.
It was probably to make up for this deprivation that Mr and Mrs Brown made it a practice of giving an evening party once a term, to which the doctor and his ladies were always invited, and also any two of dear Harry’s friends he liked to name.
In this way the fond parents not only felt they were doing a polite and neighbourly act to their son’s schoolmaster and schoolfellows, but that they were also the means of bringing together teacher and pupil in an easy unconstrained manner which would hardly be possible within the walls of the school itself.
It was the prospect of one of these delightful entertainments that was exhilarating Brown this Saturday afternoon.
And it must be confessed the excitement was due to very opposite emotions in the breast of the day-boarder. The doctor and his ladies were coming! On the last two occasions they had been unfortunately prevented, which had been a great blow to Brown’s “pa and ma” but a relief to Brown himself. And now the prospect of meeting these awful dignitaries face to face in his own house put him in a small panic. But on the other hand, he knew there would be jellies, and savoury pie, and strawberries, and tipsy-cake, at home that night. He had seen them arrive from the confectioner’s that morning, and, Limpet as he was, Brown smiled inwardly as he meditated thereon. This was a second ground for excitement. And a third, equal to either of the other two, was that Parson and Telson were invited and were coming!
He had tried one or two other fellows first. He had sounded Coates on the subject, but he unfortunately was engaged. He had pressed Wyndham to come, but Wyndham was busy that evening with the library. He had appealed to one or two other schoolhouse Limpets, but all, on hearing that the doctor and Co. were to be present, respectfully declined.
Finally Brown dropped upon Telson, and condescendingly proposed to him to be present as one of his two friends.
Telson thought the matter over and fancied it promised well. He liked the sound of the jellies and the tipsy-cake, and just at present he knew of no special reason for “funking” the doctor. As for the doctor’s ladies, Telson had never seen them, so they did not weigh particularly with him.
“Who else is going?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know yet,” said Brown, rather grandly. “I’ve one or two fellows in my mind.”
“Why don’t you ask young Parson?” suggested Telson, innocently.
“Parson? he’s not a schoolhouse kid.”
“I know he’s not, but he and I are very chummy, you know. I wouldn’t mind coming if he went.”
“I’ll see,” said Brown, mightily, but secretly relieved to know of some one likely to come as his second “friend.”
“All right,” said Telson. “I’ve not promised, mind, if he can’t come.”
“Oh, yes, you have!” replied Brown, severely, as he left the room.
In due time he found Parson and broached the subject to him.
Parson viewed the matter in very much the same light as Telson had. He liked the “tuck-in” better than the company.
It never occurred to him it was odd that Brown should come all the way from the schoolhouse to invite him, a Parrett’s junior, to his feast; nor did it occur to him either that the invitation put him under any obligation to his would-be host.
“I tell you what I’ll do,” said he, in a business-like manner, much as if Brown had asked him to clean out his study for him, “if you ask Telson to come too, I’m game.”
Brown half doubted whether these two allies had not been consulting together on the subject, so startling was the similarity of their conditions.
“Oh! Telson’s coming,” he said, in as offhand a way as he could.
“He is! Then I’m on, old man; rather!” exclaimed the delighted Parson.
“All right! Six-thirty, mind, and chokers!” said Brown, not a little relieved to have scraped up two friends for the festive occasion. At the appointed time — or rather before the appointed time, for they arrived at twenty minutes past six — our two heroes, arrayed in their Sunday jackets and white ties, presented themselves at the house of their host. They had “put it on” considerably in order to get ahead of the doctor’s party; for they considered that — as Parson expressed it—“it would be a jolly lot less blushy work” to be there before the head master arrived. There was no doubt about their success in this little manoeuvre, for when the servant opened the door the hall was full of rout seats, and a man, uncommonly like the greengrocer, in a dress coat, was busily unpacking plates out of a small hamper.
Into this scene of confusion Parson and Telson were ushered, and here they were left standing for about five minutes, interested spectators, till the hall was cleared and the domestic had leisure to go and tell Master Harry of their arrival.
Master Harry was dressing, and sent down word they had better go into the shoe-room till he came down. Which they did, and amused themselves during the interval with trying on Mr Brown’s Wellingtons, and tying together the laces of all Harry’s boots they could discover.