Amid such shouts the race ends. Wyndham first, Bloomfield a yard behind, and the Londoner, dead beat, a yard behind Bloomfield.
What wonder if the old school goes mad as it swarms over the cords and dashes towards the winner? Telson actually forgets Parson, Cusack deserts even his own father in the jubilation of the moment, each striving to get within cheering distance of the heroes of the day as they are carried shoulder-high round the ground amid the shouts and applause of the whole multitude.
So ended, in a victory unparalleled in its glorious annals, the May Day races of 19— at Willoughby; and there was not a fellow in the school, whether athlete or not, whose bosom did not glow with pride at the result. That the school would not disgrace herself everyone had been perfectly certain, for was not Willoughby one of the crack athletic schools of the country, boasting of an endless succession of fine runners, and rowers, and cricketers? But to score thus off a picked London athlete, beating him in two events, and in one of them doubly beating him, was a triumph only a very few had dared to anticipate, and even they were considerably astonished to find their prophecy come true.
Perhaps the person least excited by the entire day’s events was the hero of the day himself. Wyndham, the old captain, as he now was—for this was his last appearance at the old school—was not the sort of fellow to get his head turned by anything if he could help it. He hated scenes of any sort, and therefore took a specially long time over his bath, which his fag had prepared for him with the most lavish care. Boys waylaid his door and the schoolhouse gate for a full hour ready to cheer him when he came out; but he knew better than to gratify them and finally they went off and lionised Bloomfield instead, who bore his laurels with rather less indifference.
The old captain, however, could not wholly elude the honours destined for him. Dinner in the big hall that afternoon was crowded to overflowing. And when at its close the doctor stood up and, in accordance with immemorial custom, proposed the health of the old captain, who, he said, was not only head classic, but facile princeps in all the manly sports for which Willoughby was famed, you would have thought the old roof was coming down with the applause. Poor Wyndham would fain have shirked his duty, had he been allowed to do it. But Willoughby would as soon have given up a week of the summer holiday as have gone without the captain’s speech.
As he rose to his feet deafening cries of “Well run, sir; well run!” drowned any effort he could have made at speaking; and he had to stand till, by dint of sheer threats of violence, the monitors had reduced the company to order. Then he said, cheers interrupting him at every third word, “I’m much obliged to the doctor for speaking so kindly about me. You fellows know the old school will get on very well after I’ve gone. (No! no!) Willoughby always does get on, and any one who says, ‘No! no!’ ought to know better.”
The applause at this point was overpowering; and the few guilty ones tried hard, by joining in it, to cover their shame.
“I’ve had a jolly time here, and am proud of being a Willoughby captain. I shouldn’t be a bit proud if I didn’t think it was the finest school going. And the reason it’s the finest school is because the fellows think first of the school and next of themselves. As long as they do that Willoughby will be what she is now. Thank you, doctor, and you, fellows.”
These were the last words of the old captain. He left Willoughby next day, and few of the boys knew what they had lost till he had gone.
How he was missed, and how these parting words of his came often to ring in the ears of the old school during the months that were to follow, this story will show.