The Willoughby Captains

by Talbot Baines Reed

Bloomfield In Tribulation.

Bloomfield was beginning to discover already that the new dignity to which he had been raised by his own partisans at Willoughby was anything but a bed of roses. Vain and easily led as he was, he was not a bad fellow by any means; and when the mutiny against the new captain first began, he flattered himself that by allowing himself to be set up in opposition he was really doing a service to Willoughby, and securing the school against a great many disasters which were certain to ensue if Riddell was left supreme.

But in these lofty hopes he was getting to be a trifle disappointed. In his own house, of course, especially among those over whom he was wont to rule in athletic sports, his authority was paramount. But these, after all, constituted only a small section of Willoughby. Over the rest of the school his influence was strangely overlooked, and even the terrors of his arm failed to bring his subjects to obedience.

It was all very well at first, when the one idea was indignation against the doctor’s new appointment. But as soon as the malcontents discovered that they had raised one more tyrant over their own heads, they began to find out their mistake, and did their best to correct it. They argued that as they had elected Bloomfield themselves they weren’t bound to obey him unless they chose; and when it came to the point of having to give up their own will in obedience to his, they remembered he was not the real captain of Willoughby and had no right to order them!

So poor Bloomfield did not find things quite as comfortable as he had expected.

One of the first rebuffs he got was administered by no less stately a hand than that of Master Telson of the schoolhouse.

This young gentleman ever since his last unfortunate expedition in “Noah’s Ark” had been somewhat under a cloud. His forced absence from the river for a whole week had preyed upon his spirits. And when at the end of that period he did revisit his old haunts, armed with a captain’s permit, it was only to discover that whatever small chance he ever had of coxing his house’s boat at the coming regatta, had vanished under the new arrangement which had brought Riddell into the boat.

It is only fair to say that this disappointment, keen as it was, had no effect on his loyalty. He was as ready as ever to fight any one who spoke ill of the schoolhouse. But it certainly had given him a jar, which resulted in rather strained relations with some of his old allies in Parrett’s.

Of course nothing could shake his devotion to Parson. That was secure whatever happened, but towards the other heroes of Parrett’s, particularly the seniors, he felt unfriendly. He conceived he must have been the victim of a plot to prevent his steering the schoolhouse boat. It was the only reason he could think of for his ill-luck; and though he never tried to argue it out, it was pretty clear to his own mind some one was at the bottom of it. And if that was so, who more likely than Bloomfield and Game and that lot, who had everything to gain by his being turned out of the rival boat?

This was the state of mind of our aggrieved junior one afternoon not long before the regatta, as he strolled dismally across the “Big” on his way to the river. Parson was not with him. He was down coxing his boat, and the thought of this only reminded Telson of his own bad luck, and added to his ill-temper.