Chapter Four.A Friendly Chat.If Mark Railsford had been left with no better guide to his new duties and responsibilities than the few hurried utterances given by Dr Ponsford during their tour through the premises that morning, his progress would have been very slow and unsatisfactory. It was part of the doctor’s method never to do for anyone, colleague or boy, what they could possibly do for themselves. He believed in piling up difficulties at the beginning of an enterprise, instead of making smooth the start and saving up the hard things for later on. If a master of his got through his first term well, he would be pretty sure to turn out well in future. But meanwhile he got as little help from head-quarters as possible, and had to make all his discoveries, arrange his own methods, reap his own experiences for himself.Grover had good reason to know the doctor’s peculiarity in this respect, and took care to give his friend a few hints about starting work, which otherwise he might never have evolved out of his own consciousness.Amongst other things he advised that he should, as soon as possible, make the acquaintance of the head boys of his house, and try to come to a good understanding with them as to the work and conduct of the term. Accordingly four polite notes were that evening handed by the house-messenger to Messrs Ainger, Barnworth, Stafford, and Felgate, requesting the pleasure of their company at 7.30 in the new master’s rooms. The messenger had an easy task, for, oddly enough, he found the four gentlemen in question assembled in Ainger’s study. They were, in fact, discussing their new house-master when his four little missives were placed in their hands.“What’s the joke now, Mercury?” asked Barnworth.The messenger, who certainly was not nicknamed Mercury on account of the rapidity of his motions or the volatility of his spirits, replied, “I dunno; but I don’t see why one letter shouldn’t have done for the lot of yer. He’s flush with his writing-paper if he isn’t with his pounds, shillings and pence!”“Oh, he’s not tipped you, then? Never mind, I’m sure it wasn’t your fault!”Mercury, in private, turned this little sally over in his mind, and came to the conclusion that Mr Barnworth was not yet a finished pupil in manners. Meanwhile the four letters were being opened and perused critically.“‘Dear Ainger’—one would think he’d known me all my life!” said Ainger.“‘I shall be so glad if you will look in at my rooms,’” read Barnworth. “He evidently wants my opinion on his wall-paper.”“‘At 7.30, for a few minutes’ chat’—nothing about tea and toast, though,” said Stafford.“‘Believe me, yours very truly, M. Railsford.’ So I do believe you, my boy!” said Felgate. “Are you going, you fellows?”“Must,” said Ainger; “it’s a mandate, and there’s no time to get a doctor’s certificate.”“What does he want to chat about, I wonder?” said Stafford.“The weather, of course!” growled Barnworth; “what else is there?”Stafford coloured up as usual when anyone laughed at him.“He wants to get us to take the oath of allegiance, you fellows,” said Felgate. “‘Will you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly,’ that’s what he means. I think we’d better not go.”Ainger laughed rather spitefully.“It strikes me he’ll find us four fairly tough flies. I mean to go. I want to see what he’s like; I’m not at all sure that I like him.”“Poor beggar!” murmured Barnworth. “Now my doubt is whether he likes me. He ought to, oughtn’t he, Staff?”“Why, yes!” replied that amiable youth; “he doesn’t look as if he was very particular.”“Oh, thanks, awfully!” replied Barnworth.The amiable coloured up more than ever.“I really didn’t mean that,” he said, horrified at his unconscious joke. “I mean he doesn’t seem strict, or as if he’d be hard to get on with.”“I hope he’s not,” said Ainger, with a frown. “We had enough of that with Moss.”“Well,” said Felgate, “if you are going, I suppose I must come too; only take my advice, and don’t promise him too much.”Railsford meanwhile had transacted a good deal of business of a small kind on his own account. He had quelled a small riot in the junior preparation room, and intercepted one or two deserters in the act of quitting the house after hours. He had also gone up to inspect the dormitories, lavatories, and other domestic offices; and on his way down he had made glad the hearts of his coming kinsman and the baronet by a surprise visit in their study. He found them actively unpacking a few home treasures, including a small hamper full of ham, a pistol, some boxing-gloves, and a particularly fiendish-looking bull-dog. The last-named luxury was the baronet’s contribution to the common store, and, having been forgotten for some hours in the bustle of arrival, was now removed from his bandbox in a semi-comatose state.“Hullo!” said Railsford, whose arrival coincided with the unpacking of this natural history curiosity, “what have you got there?”Oakshott’s impulse, on hearing this challenge, had been to huddle his unhappy booty back into the bandbox; but, on second thoughts, he set it down on the mat, and gazing at it attentively, so as not to commit himself to a too hasty opinion, observed submissively that it was a dog.It is melancholy to have to record failure, in whatever sphere or form; but truth compels us to state that at this particular moment Mark Railsford blundered grievously. Instead of deciding definitely there and then on his own authority whether dogs were or were noten règlein Railsford’s house, he halted and hesitated.“That’s against rules, isn’t it?” said he.“Against rules!” said Arthur, crimson in the face—“against rules! Why, Dig and I had one a year ago, only he died, poor beast; he had a mill with a rat, and the rat got on to his nose, and punished him before—”“Yes,” said the master; “but I shall have to see whether it’s allowed to keep a dog. Meanwhile you must see he does not make a noise or become a nuisance.”“All serene,” replied Dig, who had already almost come to regard the new master as a sort of brother-in-law of his own; “he’s a great protection against rats and thieves. My mother gave him to me—didn’t she, Smiley?”Smiley was at that moment lying on his back all of a heap, with his limp legs lifted appealingly in the air, and too much occupied in gasping to vouchsafe any corroboration of his young master’s depositions.Railsford departed, leaving the whole question in an unsettled condition, and not altogether satisfied with himself. He knew, the moment he was outside the door, what he ought to have said; but that was very little consolation to him. Nor was it till he was back in his own room that he remembered he had not taken exception to the pistol. Of course, having looked at it and said nothing, its owner would assume that he did not disapprove of it. And yet he really could not sit down and write, “Dear Grover,—Please say by bearer if pistols and bull-dogs are allowed? Yours truly, M.R.” It looked too foolish. Of course, when he saw them written down on paper he knew they were not allowed; and yet it would be equally foolish now to go back to the study and say he had decided without inquiry that they were against rules.He was still debating this knotty point when a knock at the door apprised him that his expected guests had arrived. Alas! blunder number two trod hard on the heels of number one! He had no tea or coffee, not even a box of biscuits, to take off the edge of the interview and offer a retreat for his own inevitable embarrassment and the possible shyness of his visitors. The arrangements for that reception were as formal as the invitations had been. Was it much wonder if the conference turned out stiff and awkward? In the first place, as all four entered together, and none of them were labelled, he was quite at a loss to know their names. And it is a chilling beginning to a friendly chat to have to inquire the names of your guests. He shook hands rather nervously all round; and then, with an heroic effort at ease and freedom, said, singling out Felgate for the experiment—“Let me see, you are Ainger, are you not?”It was a most unfortunate shot; for nothing could have been less complimentary to the jealous and quick-tempered captain of the house than to be mistaken for his self-conceited and unstable inferior, with whom, he was in the habit of congratulating himself, he had little or nothing in common.“No, sir,” said Felgate, omitting, however, to confess his own name, or point out the lawful owner of the name of Ainger.The master tried to smile at his own dilemma, and had the presence of mind not to plunge further into the quicksands.“Which of you is Ainger?” he inquired.“I am, sir,” replied the captain haughtily.“Thank you,” said Mark, and could have eaten the word and his tongue into the bargain the moment he had spoken. This was blunder number three, and the worst yet! For so anxious was he to clear himself of the reproach of abasing himself before his head boys, that his next inquiries were made brusquely and snappishly.“And Barnworth?”“I am, sir.”“And Stafford?”“I am, sir.”“And Felgate?”“I am, sir.”That was all over. The master smiled. The boys looked grave.“Won’t you sit down?” said the former, drawing his own chair up to the hearth and poking the fire.Ainger and Felgate dropped into two seats, and Stafford, after a short excursion to a distant corner, deposited himself on another. Barnworth—there being no more chairs in the room—sat as gracefully as he could on the corner of the table.“I thought it would be well,” began Railsford, still dallying with the poker—“won’t you bring your chair in nearer, Stafford?”Stafford manoeuvred his chair in between Ainger and Felgate.“I thought it would not be a bad thing—haven’t you a chair, Barnworth? dear me! I’ll get one out of the bedroom!”And in his flurry he went off, poker in hand, to the cubicle.“What a day we’re having!” murmured Barnworth.Stafford giggled just as Railsford re-entered. It was awkward, and gave the new master a very unfavourable impression of the most harmless boy in his house.“Now,” said he, beginning on a new tack, “I am anxious to hear from you something about the state of the house. You’re my police, you know,” he added with a friendly smile.Stafford was the only one who smiled in response, and then ensued a dead silence.“What do you think, Ainger? Do things seem pretty right?”“Yes,” said Ainger laconically.“Have you noticed anything, Barnworth?”“There’s a draught in the big dormitory, sir,” replied Barnworth seriously.“Indeed, we must have that seen to. Of course, what I mean is as to the conduct of the boys, and so on. Are the rules pretty generally obeyed?”It was Stafford’s turn, and his report was disconcerting too.“No, sir, not very much.”The new master put down the poker.“I am sorry to hear that; for discipline must be maintained. Can you suggest anything to improve the state of the house?”“No, sir,” replied Felgate.This was getting intolerable. The new master’s patience was oozing away, and his wits, strange to say, were coming in.“This is rather damping,” he said. “Things seem pretty right, there’s a draught in the big dormitory, the rules are not very much obeyed, and nothing can be suggested to improve matters.”The four sat silent—the situation was quite as painful to them as to Mark.The latter grew desperate.“Now,” said he, raising his voice in a way which put up Ainger’s back. “You four boys are in the Sixth, and I understand that the discipline of the house is pretty much in your hands. I shall have to depend on you; and if things go wrong, of course I shall naturally hold you responsible.”Ainger flushed up at this; while Stafford, on whom the master’s eyes were fixed, vaguely nodded his head.“I am very anxious for the house to get a good name for order, and work—and,” added he, “I hope we shall be able to do something at sports, too.”Here, at least, the master expected he would meet with a response. But Ainger, the boy chiefly interested in sports, was sulking; and Barnworth, who also was an athlete, was too absorbed in speculating what remark was maturing itself in Felgate’s mind to heed what was being said.“I suppose the house has an eleven—for instance?”“Yes, generally,” said Stafford.Felgate now came in with his remark.“Something ought to be done to prevent our house being interfered with by Mr Bickers,” said he; “there are sure to be rows while that lasts.”“Oh,” said Railsford, who had heard rumours of this feud already; “how are we interfered with?”“Oh, every way,” replied Ainger; “but we needn’t trouble you about that, sir. We can take care of ourselves.”“But I should certainly wish to have any difficulty put right,” said the new master, “especially if it interferes with the discipline of the house.”“It will never be right as long as Mr Bickers stays at Grandcourt,” blurted Stafford; “he has a spite against everyone of our fellows.”“You forget you are talking of a colleague of mine, Stafford,” said Railsford, whom a sense of duty compelled to stand up even for a master whom he felt to be an enemy. “I can’t suppose one master would willingly do anything to injure the house of another.”Ainger smiled in a manner which offended Railsford considerably.“I am sorry to find,” he said, rather more severely, “that my head boys, who ought to aim at the good of their house, are parties to a feud which, I am sure, can do nobody any good. I must say I had hoped better things.”Ainger looked up quickly. “I am quite willing to resign the captaincy, sir, if you wish it.”“By no means,” said Railsford, a little alarmed at the length to which his protest had carried him, and becoming more conciliatory. “All I request is that you will do your best to heal the feud, so that we may have no obstacle in the way of the order of our own house. You may depend on me to co-operate in whatever tends in that direction, and I look to you to take the lead in bringing the house up to the mark and keeping it there.”At this particular juncture further conference was entirely suspended by a most alarming and fiendish disturbance in the room above.It was not an earthquake, for the ground beneath them neither shook nor trembled; it was not a dynamite explosion, for the sounds were dull and prolonged; it was not a chimney-stack fallen, for the room above was two storeys from the roof. Besides, above the uproar rose now and then the shrill yapping of a dog, and sometimes human voices mingled with the din.Railsford looked inquiringly at his prefects.“What is that?” he said.“Some one in the room above, sir,” replied Barnworth. “It was Sykes’ study last term,” added he, consulting Ainger. “Who’s got it this time?”“Nobody said anything to me about it,” said the house-captain.“The room above this is occupied by Herapath and Oakshott,” interposed Railsford.The captain made an exclamation.“Did they get your leave, sir?”“Not exactly; they told me they were going to have the study this term, and I concluded it was all right. Is it not so?”“They are Shell boys, and have no business on that floor. All the Shell boys keep on the second floor. Of course, they’ll say they’ve got leave.”“I’m afraid they will think so. Is there any other claimant to the study?”“No; not that I know of.”“Perhaps they had better remain for the present,” said the master. “But I cannot imagine what the noise is about. Will you see, Ainger, as you go up?”This was a broad hint that the merry party was at an end, and no one was particularly sorry.“Wait a second in my room, you fellows,” said Ainger, on the stairs, “while I go and shut up this row.”The mystery of this disorder was apparent as soon as he opened the door. The double study, measuring fifteen feet by nine, was temporarily converted into a football field. The tables and chairs were piled on one side “in touch”; one goal was formed by the towel-horse, the other drawn in chalk on the door. The ball was a disused pot-hat of the baronet’s, and the combatants were the two owners of the studyversustheir cronies and fellow “Shell-fish”—Tilbury, of the second eleven, and Dimsdale, the gossip. There had been some very fine play on both sides, and a maul in goal at the towel-horse end, in which the dog had participated, and been for a considerable period mistaken for the ball.Hinc illae lacrymae.At the moment when Ainger looked in, Herapath’s side had scored 35 goals against their adversaries’ 29. The rules were strict Rugby, and nothing was wanted to complete the sport but an umpire. The captain arrived in the nick of time.“Offside, Dim!—wasn’t he, Ainger? That’s a place-kick for us! Hang the dog! Get out, Smiley; go and keep goal. See fair play, won’t you, Ainger?”To this impudent request Ainger replied by impounding the ball. “Stop this row!” he said peremptorily. “Tilbury and Dimsdale, you get out of here, and write fifty lines each for being off your floor after eight.”“We only came to ask Herapath what Latin we’ve to do this term; and there’s no preparation for to-morrow.”“Well, if this is your way of finding out about your Latin, you know just as much up-stairs as down here. Be off; and mind I have the lines before dinner to-morrow.”The two champions retired disconcerted, leaving the captain to deal with the arch offenders.“First of all,” said he, “what business have you in this study?”“Oh, Railsford knows we’re here; we told him, and he didn’t object.”“Don’t you know you ought to come to the prefects about it?”Oddly enough, both the boys had completely forgotten.“Besides,” explained Dig, “as Railsford and Herapath are sort of brother-in-laws, you know, we thought it was all right.”The reason did not appear very obvious; but the information was interesting.“Oh, that’s it, is it?” asked the captain. “What relation is he to you?”“He’s spoons on my sister Daisy.”The captain laughed.“I hope she’s like her brother,” said he.The two culprits laughed vociferously. It was worth anything to them to get the captain in a good-humour.“Well, if that’s the case,” said Ainger, “I shan’t have anything to do with you. You’ve no right on this floor; you know that. If he chooses to let you be, he’ll have to keep you in order. I don’t pity him in the room underneath.”“I say, do you think he could hear us easily—when we were playing?”“Oh, no, not at all,” said the captain, laughing.“Really! I say, Ainger, perhaps we’d better have a study up-stairs, after all.”“Thanks; not if I know it. You might pitch over my head instead of his. I suppose, too, he’s allowed you to set up that dog?”“Yes; it’s a present from Dig’s mother. I say, he’s not a bad-looking beast, is he?”“Who? Dig? Not so very,” said the captain, quite relieved to be able to wash his hands of this precious couple.He departed, leaving the two worthies in a state of bewildered jubilation.“What a splendid lark!” exclaimed Arthur. “We shall be able to do just what we like all the term. There! we’re in luck. Mark thinks Ainger’s looking after us; and Ainger will think Mark’s looking after us; and, Diggy, my boy, nobody will look after us except Smiley—eh, old dog?”Smiley, who had wonderfully recovered since an hour ago, here made a playful run at the speaker’s heels under the belief that the football had recommenced; and the heart-rending yelps which Railsford heard in the room below a few moments later were occasioned by an endeavour to detach the playful pet’s teeth from the trouser-ends of his owner’s friend.The Master of the Shell retired to bed that night doubtful about his boys, and doubtful about himself. He was excellent at shutting stable doors after the abstraction of the horses, and could see a blunder clearly after it had been committed. Still, hope sprang eternal in the breast of Mark Railsford. He would return to the charge to-morrow, and the next day, and the next. Meanwhile he would go to sleep.The discussion in the captain’s room had not been unanimous.“Well,” said Felgate, when Ainger returned, “how do you like him?”“I don’t fancy I shall get on with him.”“Poor beggar!” drawled Barnworth. “I thought he might have been a good deal worse, myself.”“So did I,” said Stafford. “He was quite shy.”“No wonder, considering who his visitors were. We were all shy, for the matter of that.”“And I,” said Felgate, “intend to remain shy. I don’t like the animal. He’s too fussy for me.”“Just what he ought to be, but isn’t. He’ll let things go on, and make us responsible. Cool cheek!” said Ainger. “However, the row overhead will wake him up now and then. Fancy, young Herapath, unless he’s making a joke, which isn’t much in his line, says Railsford’s engaged to his sister; and on that account the young beggar and his precious chum get leave to have Sykes’ study and do what they like. They may, for all I shall interfere. If it’s a family affair, you don’t catch me poking my nose into it!”“Engaged, is he?” cried Felgate, laughing. “What a joke!”“It’s nothing to do with us,” said Barnworth, “whether he is or not.”“Unless he goes in for favouritism; which it seems he is doing,” said Ainger.“Well, even so, you’ve washed your hands of young Herapath, and he’s a lucky chap. But having done so, I don’t see what it matters to us how many wives or sweethearts he has.”“It seems to me,” said Ainger, who was still discontented, “we shall get no more backing from him than we did from Moss. I don’t care twopence about that young ass Herapath; but if the house is to go on as it was last term, and we are to be interfered with by Bickers and nobody to stand up for us, we may as well shut up at once, and let him appoint new prefects.”“Yes, but are you sure he won’t back us up?” drawled Barnworth. “I’m not a betting man, like Stafford, but I have a notion he’ll come out on our side.”Ainger grunted sceptically, and announced that he had to unpack; whereat his comrades left him.Few persons at Grandcourt gave the captain of Railsford’s house credit for being as honest as he was short-tempered, and as jealous for the honour of his house as he was short-sighted as to the best means of securing it. And yet Ainger was all this; and when he went to bed that night Railsford himself did not look forward more anxiously to the opening term than did his first lieutenant.
If Mark Railsford had been left with no better guide to his new duties and responsibilities than the few hurried utterances given by Dr Ponsford during their tour through the premises that morning, his progress would have been very slow and unsatisfactory. It was part of the doctor’s method never to do for anyone, colleague or boy, what they could possibly do for themselves. He believed in piling up difficulties at the beginning of an enterprise, instead of making smooth the start and saving up the hard things for later on. If a master of his got through his first term well, he would be pretty sure to turn out well in future. But meanwhile he got as little help from head-quarters as possible, and had to make all his discoveries, arrange his own methods, reap his own experiences for himself.
Grover had good reason to know the doctor’s peculiarity in this respect, and took care to give his friend a few hints about starting work, which otherwise he might never have evolved out of his own consciousness.
Amongst other things he advised that he should, as soon as possible, make the acquaintance of the head boys of his house, and try to come to a good understanding with them as to the work and conduct of the term. Accordingly four polite notes were that evening handed by the house-messenger to Messrs Ainger, Barnworth, Stafford, and Felgate, requesting the pleasure of their company at 7.30 in the new master’s rooms. The messenger had an easy task, for, oddly enough, he found the four gentlemen in question assembled in Ainger’s study. They were, in fact, discussing their new house-master when his four little missives were placed in their hands.
“What’s the joke now, Mercury?” asked Barnworth.
The messenger, who certainly was not nicknamed Mercury on account of the rapidity of his motions or the volatility of his spirits, replied, “I dunno; but I don’t see why one letter shouldn’t have done for the lot of yer. He’s flush with his writing-paper if he isn’t with his pounds, shillings and pence!”
“Oh, he’s not tipped you, then? Never mind, I’m sure it wasn’t your fault!”
Mercury, in private, turned this little sally over in his mind, and came to the conclusion that Mr Barnworth was not yet a finished pupil in manners. Meanwhile the four letters were being opened and perused critically.
“‘Dear Ainger’—one would think he’d known me all my life!” said Ainger.
“‘I shall be so glad if you will look in at my rooms,’” read Barnworth. “He evidently wants my opinion on his wall-paper.”
“‘At 7.30, for a few minutes’ chat’—nothing about tea and toast, though,” said Stafford.
“‘Believe me, yours very truly, M. Railsford.’ So I do believe you, my boy!” said Felgate. “Are you going, you fellows?”
“Must,” said Ainger; “it’s a mandate, and there’s no time to get a doctor’s certificate.”
“What does he want to chat about, I wonder?” said Stafford.
“The weather, of course!” growled Barnworth; “what else is there?”
Stafford coloured up as usual when anyone laughed at him.
“He wants to get us to take the oath of allegiance, you fellows,” said Felgate. “‘Will you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly,’ that’s what he means. I think we’d better not go.”
Ainger laughed rather spitefully.
“It strikes me he’ll find us four fairly tough flies. I mean to go. I want to see what he’s like; I’m not at all sure that I like him.”
“Poor beggar!” murmured Barnworth. “Now my doubt is whether he likes me. He ought to, oughtn’t he, Staff?”
“Why, yes!” replied that amiable youth; “he doesn’t look as if he was very particular.”
“Oh, thanks, awfully!” replied Barnworth.
The amiable coloured up more than ever.
“I really didn’t mean that,” he said, horrified at his unconscious joke. “I mean he doesn’t seem strict, or as if he’d be hard to get on with.”
“I hope he’s not,” said Ainger, with a frown. “We had enough of that with Moss.”
“Well,” said Felgate, “if you are going, I suppose I must come too; only take my advice, and don’t promise him too much.”
Railsford meanwhile had transacted a good deal of business of a small kind on his own account. He had quelled a small riot in the junior preparation room, and intercepted one or two deserters in the act of quitting the house after hours. He had also gone up to inspect the dormitories, lavatories, and other domestic offices; and on his way down he had made glad the hearts of his coming kinsman and the baronet by a surprise visit in their study. He found them actively unpacking a few home treasures, including a small hamper full of ham, a pistol, some boxing-gloves, and a particularly fiendish-looking bull-dog. The last-named luxury was the baronet’s contribution to the common store, and, having been forgotten for some hours in the bustle of arrival, was now removed from his bandbox in a semi-comatose state.
“Hullo!” said Railsford, whose arrival coincided with the unpacking of this natural history curiosity, “what have you got there?”
Oakshott’s impulse, on hearing this challenge, had been to huddle his unhappy booty back into the bandbox; but, on second thoughts, he set it down on the mat, and gazing at it attentively, so as not to commit himself to a too hasty opinion, observed submissively that it was a dog.
It is melancholy to have to record failure, in whatever sphere or form; but truth compels us to state that at this particular moment Mark Railsford blundered grievously. Instead of deciding definitely there and then on his own authority whether dogs were or were noten règlein Railsford’s house, he halted and hesitated.
“That’s against rules, isn’t it?” said he.
“Against rules!” said Arthur, crimson in the face—“against rules! Why, Dig and I had one a year ago, only he died, poor beast; he had a mill with a rat, and the rat got on to his nose, and punished him before—”
“Yes,” said the master; “but I shall have to see whether it’s allowed to keep a dog. Meanwhile you must see he does not make a noise or become a nuisance.”
“All serene,” replied Dig, who had already almost come to regard the new master as a sort of brother-in-law of his own; “he’s a great protection against rats and thieves. My mother gave him to me—didn’t she, Smiley?”
Smiley was at that moment lying on his back all of a heap, with his limp legs lifted appealingly in the air, and too much occupied in gasping to vouchsafe any corroboration of his young master’s depositions.
Railsford departed, leaving the whole question in an unsettled condition, and not altogether satisfied with himself. He knew, the moment he was outside the door, what he ought to have said; but that was very little consolation to him. Nor was it till he was back in his own room that he remembered he had not taken exception to the pistol. Of course, having looked at it and said nothing, its owner would assume that he did not disapprove of it. And yet he really could not sit down and write, “Dear Grover,—Please say by bearer if pistols and bull-dogs are allowed? Yours truly, M.R.” It looked too foolish. Of course, when he saw them written down on paper he knew they were not allowed; and yet it would be equally foolish now to go back to the study and say he had decided without inquiry that they were against rules.
He was still debating this knotty point when a knock at the door apprised him that his expected guests had arrived. Alas! blunder number two trod hard on the heels of number one! He had no tea or coffee, not even a box of biscuits, to take off the edge of the interview and offer a retreat for his own inevitable embarrassment and the possible shyness of his visitors. The arrangements for that reception were as formal as the invitations had been. Was it much wonder if the conference turned out stiff and awkward? In the first place, as all four entered together, and none of them were labelled, he was quite at a loss to know their names. And it is a chilling beginning to a friendly chat to have to inquire the names of your guests. He shook hands rather nervously all round; and then, with an heroic effort at ease and freedom, said, singling out Felgate for the experiment—
“Let me see, you are Ainger, are you not?”
It was a most unfortunate shot; for nothing could have been less complimentary to the jealous and quick-tempered captain of the house than to be mistaken for his self-conceited and unstable inferior, with whom, he was in the habit of congratulating himself, he had little or nothing in common.
“No, sir,” said Felgate, omitting, however, to confess his own name, or point out the lawful owner of the name of Ainger.
The master tried to smile at his own dilemma, and had the presence of mind not to plunge further into the quicksands.
“Which of you is Ainger?” he inquired.
“I am, sir,” replied the captain haughtily.
“Thank you,” said Mark, and could have eaten the word and his tongue into the bargain the moment he had spoken. This was blunder number three, and the worst yet! For so anxious was he to clear himself of the reproach of abasing himself before his head boys, that his next inquiries were made brusquely and snappishly.
“And Barnworth?”
“I am, sir.”
“And Stafford?”
“I am, sir.”
“And Felgate?”
“I am, sir.”
That was all over. The master smiled. The boys looked grave.
“Won’t you sit down?” said the former, drawing his own chair up to the hearth and poking the fire.
Ainger and Felgate dropped into two seats, and Stafford, after a short excursion to a distant corner, deposited himself on another. Barnworth—there being no more chairs in the room—sat as gracefully as he could on the corner of the table.
“I thought it would be well,” began Railsford, still dallying with the poker—“won’t you bring your chair in nearer, Stafford?”
Stafford manoeuvred his chair in between Ainger and Felgate.
“I thought it would not be a bad thing—haven’t you a chair, Barnworth? dear me! I’ll get one out of the bedroom!”
And in his flurry he went off, poker in hand, to the cubicle.
“What a day we’re having!” murmured Barnworth.
Stafford giggled just as Railsford re-entered. It was awkward, and gave the new master a very unfavourable impression of the most harmless boy in his house.
“Now,” said he, beginning on a new tack, “I am anxious to hear from you something about the state of the house. You’re my police, you know,” he added with a friendly smile.
Stafford was the only one who smiled in response, and then ensued a dead silence.
“What do you think, Ainger? Do things seem pretty right?”
“Yes,” said Ainger laconically.
“Have you noticed anything, Barnworth?”
“There’s a draught in the big dormitory, sir,” replied Barnworth seriously.
“Indeed, we must have that seen to. Of course, what I mean is as to the conduct of the boys, and so on. Are the rules pretty generally obeyed?”
It was Stafford’s turn, and his report was disconcerting too.
“No, sir, not very much.”
The new master put down the poker.
“I am sorry to hear that; for discipline must be maintained. Can you suggest anything to improve the state of the house?”
“No, sir,” replied Felgate.
This was getting intolerable. The new master’s patience was oozing away, and his wits, strange to say, were coming in.
“This is rather damping,” he said. “Things seem pretty right, there’s a draught in the big dormitory, the rules are not very much obeyed, and nothing can be suggested to improve matters.”
The four sat silent—the situation was quite as painful to them as to Mark.
The latter grew desperate.
“Now,” said he, raising his voice in a way which put up Ainger’s back. “You four boys are in the Sixth, and I understand that the discipline of the house is pretty much in your hands. I shall have to depend on you; and if things go wrong, of course I shall naturally hold you responsible.”
Ainger flushed up at this; while Stafford, on whom the master’s eyes were fixed, vaguely nodded his head.
“I am very anxious for the house to get a good name for order, and work—and,” added he, “I hope we shall be able to do something at sports, too.”
Here, at least, the master expected he would meet with a response. But Ainger, the boy chiefly interested in sports, was sulking; and Barnworth, who also was an athlete, was too absorbed in speculating what remark was maturing itself in Felgate’s mind to heed what was being said.
“I suppose the house has an eleven—for instance?”
“Yes, generally,” said Stafford.
Felgate now came in with his remark.
“Something ought to be done to prevent our house being interfered with by Mr Bickers,” said he; “there are sure to be rows while that lasts.”
“Oh,” said Railsford, who had heard rumours of this feud already; “how are we interfered with?”
“Oh, every way,” replied Ainger; “but we needn’t trouble you about that, sir. We can take care of ourselves.”
“But I should certainly wish to have any difficulty put right,” said the new master, “especially if it interferes with the discipline of the house.”
“It will never be right as long as Mr Bickers stays at Grandcourt,” blurted Stafford; “he has a spite against everyone of our fellows.”
“You forget you are talking of a colleague of mine, Stafford,” said Railsford, whom a sense of duty compelled to stand up even for a master whom he felt to be an enemy. “I can’t suppose one master would willingly do anything to injure the house of another.”
Ainger smiled in a manner which offended Railsford considerably.
“I am sorry to find,” he said, rather more severely, “that my head boys, who ought to aim at the good of their house, are parties to a feud which, I am sure, can do nobody any good. I must say I had hoped better things.”
Ainger looked up quickly. “I am quite willing to resign the captaincy, sir, if you wish it.”
“By no means,” said Railsford, a little alarmed at the length to which his protest had carried him, and becoming more conciliatory. “All I request is that you will do your best to heal the feud, so that we may have no obstacle in the way of the order of our own house. You may depend on me to co-operate in whatever tends in that direction, and I look to you to take the lead in bringing the house up to the mark and keeping it there.”
At this particular juncture further conference was entirely suspended by a most alarming and fiendish disturbance in the room above.
It was not an earthquake, for the ground beneath them neither shook nor trembled; it was not a dynamite explosion, for the sounds were dull and prolonged; it was not a chimney-stack fallen, for the room above was two storeys from the roof. Besides, above the uproar rose now and then the shrill yapping of a dog, and sometimes human voices mingled with the din.
Railsford looked inquiringly at his prefects.
“What is that?” he said.
“Some one in the room above, sir,” replied Barnworth. “It was Sykes’ study last term,” added he, consulting Ainger. “Who’s got it this time?”
“Nobody said anything to me about it,” said the house-captain.
“The room above this is occupied by Herapath and Oakshott,” interposed Railsford.
The captain made an exclamation.
“Did they get your leave, sir?”
“Not exactly; they told me they were going to have the study this term, and I concluded it was all right. Is it not so?”
“They are Shell boys, and have no business on that floor. All the Shell boys keep on the second floor. Of course, they’ll say they’ve got leave.”
“I’m afraid they will think so. Is there any other claimant to the study?”
“No; not that I know of.”
“Perhaps they had better remain for the present,” said the master. “But I cannot imagine what the noise is about. Will you see, Ainger, as you go up?”
This was a broad hint that the merry party was at an end, and no one was particularly sorry.
“Wait a second in my room, you fellows,” said Ainger, on the stairs, “while I go and shut up this row.”
The mystery of this disorder was apparent as soon as he opened the door. The double study, measuring fifteen feet by nine, was temporarily converted into a football field. The tables and chairs were piled on one side “in touch”; one goal was formed by the towel-horse, the other drawn in chalk on the door. The ball was a disused pot-hat of the baronet’s, and the combatants were the two owners of the studyversustheir cronies and fellow “Shell-fish”—Tilbury, of the second eleven, and Dimsdale, the gossip. There had been some very fine play on both sides, and a maul in goal at the towel-horse end, in which the dog had participated, and been for a considerable period mistaken for the ball.Hinc illae lacrymae.
At the moment when Ainger looked in, Herapath’s side had scored 35 goals against their adversaries’ 29. The rules were strict Rugby, and nothing was wanted to complete the sport but an umpire. The captain arrived in the nick of time.
“Offside, Dim!—wasn’t he, Ainger? That’s a place-kick for us! Hang the dog! Get out, Smiley; go and keep goal. See fair play, won’t you, Ainger?”
To this impudent request Ainger replied by impounding the ball. “Stop this row!” he said peremptorily. “Tilbury and Dimsdale, you get out of here, and write fifty lines each for being off your floor after eight.”
“We only came to ask Herapath what Latin we’ve to do this term; and there’s no preparation for to-morrow.”
“Well, if this is your way of finding out about your Latin, you know just as much up-stairs as down here. Be off; and mind I have the lines before dinner to-morrow.”
The two champions retired disconcerted, leaving the captain to deal with the arch offenders.
“First of all,” said he, “what business have you in this study?”
“Oh, Railsford knows we’re here; we told him, and he didn’t object.”
“Don’t you know you ought to come to the prefects about it?”
Oddly enough, both the boys had completely forgotten.
“Besides,” explained Dig, “as Railsford and Herapath are sort of brother-in-laws, you know, we thought it was all right.”
The reason did not appear very obvious; but the information was interesting.
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” asked the captain. “What relation is he to you?”
“He’s spoons on my sister Daisy.”
The captain laughed.
“I hope she’s like her brother,” said he.
The two culprits laughed vociferously. It was worth anything to them to get the captain in a good-humour.
“Well, if that’s the case,” said Ainger, “I shan’t have anything to do with you. You’ve no right on this floor; you know that. If he chooses to let you be, he’ll have to keep you in order. I don’t pity him in the room underneath.”
“I say, do you think he could hear us easily—when we were playing?”
“Oh, no, not at all,” said the captain, laughing.
“Really! I say, Ainger, perhaps we’d better have a study up-stairs, after all.”
“Thanks; not if I know it. You might pitch over my head instead of his. I suppose, too, he’s allowed you to set up that dog?”
“Yes; it’s a present from Dig’s mother. I say, he’s not a bad-looking beast, is he?”
“Who? Dig? Not so very,” said the captain, quite relieved to be able to wash his hands of this precious couple.
He departed, leaving the two worthies in a state of bewildered jubilation.
“What a splendid lark!” exclaimed Arthur. “We shall be able to do just what we like all the term. There! we’re in luck. Mark thinks Ainger’s looking after us; and Ainger will think Mark’s looking after us; and, Diggy, my boy, nobody will look after us except Smiley—eh, old dog?”
Smiley, who had wonderfully recovered since an hour ago, here made a playful run at the speaker’s heels under the belief that the football had recommenced; and the heart-rending yelps which Railsford heard in the room below a few moments later were occasioned by an endeavour to detach the playful pet’s teeth from the trouser-ends of his owner’s friend.
The Master of the Shell retired to bed that night doubtful about his boys, and doubtful about himself. He was excellent at shutting stable doors after the abstraction of the horses, and could see a blunder clearly after it had been committed. Still, hope sprang eternal in the breast of Mark Railsford. He would return to the charge to-morrow, and the next day, and the next. Meanwhile he would go to sleep.
The discussion in the captain’s room had not been unanimous.
“Well,” said Felgate, when Ainger returned, “how do you like him?”
“I don’t fancy I shall get on with him.”
“Poor beggar!” drawled Barnworth. “I thought he might have been a good deal worse, myself.”
“So did I,” said Stafford. “He was quite shy.”
“No wonder, considering who his visitors were. We were all shy, for the matter of that.”
“And I,” said Felgate, “intend to remain shy. I don’t like the animal. He’s too fussy for me.”
“Just what he ought to be, but isn’t. He’ll let things go on, and make us responsible. Cool cheek!” said Ainger. “However, the row overhead will wake him up now and then. Fancy, young Herapath, unless he’s making a joke, which isn’t much in his line, says Railsford’s engaged to his sister; and on that account the young beggar and his precious chum get leave to have Sykes’ study and do what they like. They may, for all I shall interfere. If it’s a family affair, you don’t catch me poking my nose into it!”
“Engaged, is he?” cried Felgate, laughing. “What a joke!”
“It’s nothing to do with us,” said Barnworth, “whether he is or not.”
“Unless he goes in for favouritism; which it seems he is doing,” said Ainger.
“Well, even so, you’ve washed your hands of young Herapath, and he’s a lucky chap. But having done so, I don’t see what it matters to us how many wives or sweethearts he has.”
“It seems to me,” said Ainger, who was still discontented, “we shall get no more backing from him than we did from Moss. I don’t care twopence about that young ass Herapath; but if the house is to go on as it was last term, and we are to be interfered with by Bickers and nobody to stand up for us, we may as well shut up at once, and let him appoint new prefects.”
“Yes, but are you sure he won’t back us up?” drawled Barnworth. “I’m not a betting man, like Stafford, but I have a notion he’ll come out on our side.”
Ainger grunted sceptically, and announced that he had to unpack; whereat his comrades left him.
Few persons at Grandcourt gave the captain of Railsford’s house credit for being as honest as he was short-tempered, and as jealous for the honour of his house as he was short-sighted as to the best means of securing it. And yet Ainger was all this; and when he went to bed that night Railsford himself did not look forward more anxiously to the opening term than did his first lieutenant.
Chapter Five.Arthur and the Baronet settle down for the Term.The reader is not to imagine that Railsford’s house contained nobody but the four prefects of the Sixth-form and the sedate tenants of the study immediately over the master’s head, who belonged to the Shell. On the contrary, the fifty boys who made up the little community were fully representative of all grades and classes of Grandcourt life. There was a considerable substratum of “Babies” belonging to the junior forms, who herded together noisily and buzzed like midges in every hole and corner of the house. Nor were Herapath and Oakshott, with their two cronies, by any means the sole representatives of that honourable fraternity known as the Shell, too mature for the junior school, and yet too juvenile for the upper forms. A score at least of Railsford’s subjects belonged to this noble army, and were ready to wage war with anybody or anything—for a consideration.Still ascending in the scale, came a compact phalanx of Fifth-form heroes, counting some of the best athletes of the second eleven and fifteen, and yet not falling in with the spirited foreign policy so prevalent in the rest of the house. On an emergency they could and would turn out, and their broad backs and sturdy arms generally gave a good account of themselves. But as a general rule they grieved their friends by an eccentric habit of “mugging,” which, as anybody knows, is a most uncomfortable and alarming symptom in a boy of a house such as Railsford’s. True, there were among them a few noble spirits who never did a stroke of work unless under compulsion; but as a rule the Fifth-form fellows in Railsford’s lay under the imputation of being studious, and took very little trouble to clear their characters. Only when the school sports came round, or the house matches, their detractors used to forgive them.The four prefects, to whom the reader has been already introduced, divided among them the merits and shortcomings of their juniors. Ainger and Felgate, though antagonistic by nature, were agreed as to an aggressive foreign policy; while Barnworth and of course the amiable Stafford considered there was quite enough work to do at home without going afield. Yet up to the present these four heroes had been popular in their house—Barnworth was the best high jumper Grandcourt had had for years, and Ainger was as steady as a rock at the wickets of the first eleven, and was reported to be about to run Smedley, the school captain, very close for the mile at the spring sports. Stafford, dear fellow that he was, was not a particularly “hot” man at anything, but he would hold the coat of anyone who asked him, and backed everybody up in turn, and always cheered the winner as heartily as he condoled with the loser. Felgate was one of those boys who could do better than they do, and whose unsteadiness is no one’s fault but their own. His ways were sometimes crooked, and his professions often exceeded his practice. He meant well sometimes, and did ill very often; and, in short, was just the kind of fellow for the short-tempered, honest Ainger cordially to dislike.Such was the miscellaneous community which Mark Railsford found himself called upon to govern. It was not worse than a good many masters’ houses, and had even its good points.And yet just now it was admitted to be in a bad way. The doctor had his eye on it, and there is nothing more adverse to reform than the consciousness that one has a bad name. The late master, Mr Moss, moreover, had notoriously found the place too hot for him, and had given it up. That again tells against the reputation of a house. And, lastly, although it had a few good scholars and athletes, who won laurels for the school, there seemed not enough of them to do anything for the house, which had steadily remained at the bottom of the list for general proficiency for several terms.If you inquired how all this came about, you would hear all sorts of explanations, but the one which found most favour in the delinquent house itself was summed up in the single word “Bickers.” The origin of the deadly feud between the boys of Railsford’s and the master of the adjoining house was a mystery passing the comprehension even of such as professed to understand the ins and outs of juvenile human nature. It had grown up like a mushroom, and no one exactly remembered how it began. Mr Bickers, some years ago, had been a candidate for the Mastership of the Shell, but had been passed over in favour of Mr Roe. And ever since, so report went, he had been actuated by a fiendish antipathy to the boys who “kept” in the house of his rival. He had worried Mr Moss out of the place, and the boys of the two houses, quick to take up the feuds of their chiefs, had been in a state of war for months. Not that Mr Bickers was a favourite in his own house. He was not, any more than Mr Moss had been in his. But any stick is good enough to beat a dog with, and when Mr Bickers’s boys had a mind to “go for” Moss’s boys, they espoused the cause of Bickers, and when Mr Moss’s boys went out to battle against those of Bickers’s house, their war-cry was “Moss.”Much legend had grown up round the feud; but if anyone had had patience to examine it to the bottom he would probably have found the long and short to be that Mr Bickers, being unhappily endowed with a fussy disposition and a sour and vindictive temper, had incurred the displeasure of the boys of his rival’s house, and not being the man to smooth away a bad impression, had aggravated it by resenting keenly what he considered to be an unjust prejudice against himself.This little digression may enable the reader, if he has had the patience to wade through it, to form an idea of the state of parties in that particular section of Grandcourt which chiefly came under Railsford’s observation. With Roe’s and Grover’s houses on the other side of the big square, his boys had comparatively little to do as a house, while with the remote communities in the little square they had still less in common.But to return to our story. The first week of the next term was one of the busiest Mark Railsford ever spent. His duties in the Shell began on the second day, and the opening performance was not calculated to elate his spirit. The sixty or seventy prodigies of learning who assembled there came from all houses. A few were bent seriously on work and promotion, the majority were equally in different about the one and the other, and the remainder were professional idlers—most successful in their profession.Such were the hopeful materials which Railsford was expected to inspire with a noble zeal in the pursuit of classics, history, and divinity. It would have bets as easy—at least, so it seemed to the master—to instruct he monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens. The few workers (scarcely one of whom, by the way, was in his own house) formed a littlecoterieapart, and grabbed up whatever morsels of wisdom and learning their master could afford to let drop in the midst of his hand-to-hand combat with the forces of anarchy and lethargy. But he had little to say to them. His appeals were addressed to the body of gaping, half-amused, half-bored loungers in the middle of the room, who listened pleasantly and forgot instantaneously; who never knew where to go on, and had an inveterate knack of misunderstanding the instructions for next day’s work. They endured their few morning hours in the Shell patiently, resignedly, and were polite enough to yawn behind their books. They were rarely put out by their own mistakes, and when occasionally the master dropped upon them with some penalty or remonstrance, they deemed it a pity that anyone should put himself so much about on their account.Railsford was baffled. There seemed more hope in the turbulent skirmishers at the back of the room, who at least could now and then be worked upon by thunder, and always, in theory, acknowledged that lessons were things to be learned. On the first day the “muggers” knew their task well, and Railsford glowed with hope as he expressed his approbation. But when he came to the gapers his spirits sunk to zero. They had unfortunately mistaken the passage, or else the page was torn out of their book, or else they had been prevented by colds or sprained wrists or chilblains from learning it. When told to construe a passage read out not two minutes before by one of the upper boys, they knew nothing about it, and feared it was too hard for their overwrought capacities; and when pinned down where they sat to the acquirement of some short rule or passage, they explained sorrowfully that that had not been Mr Moss’s method. In divinity they raised discussions on questions of dogma, and so subtly evaded challenge on questions of Greek Testament construction and various readings. In history they fell back on a few stock answers, which rarely possessed the merit of having any connection with the questions which they pretended to satisfy. But the gapers were men of peace, after all. They rarely insisted upon their own opinion, nor did it offend them to be told they were wrong.The noisier element were less complacent; it is true, they never did a lesson through, or construed a sentence from one end to the other. Still, when they took the trouble to “mug” a question up, they expected to be believed. It hurt them a good deal to be informed that they knew nothing; and to detain them or set them impositions because of a difference of opinion on an historical, classical, or theological question seemed grossly unjust. When, for instance, Sir Digby Oakshott, Baronet, on an early day of the term, publicly stated that the chief features of Cromwell’s character was a large mouth and a wart on the nose, he was both hurt and annoyed to be ordered peremptorily to remain for an hour after class and write out pages 245 to 252, inclusive, of the School History. He had no objection, as he confided to his friend and comforter, Arthur Herapath, Esquire, to the Master of the Shell entertaining his own opinions as to the character of the personage in question. But he believed in the maxim “give and take,” and just as he would cheerfully have received anything Mr Railsford might have to say on the subject, he at least expected that his own statement should be received in an equally candid spirit, particularly (as he was anxious to point out) since he had personally inspected a portrait of Cromwell not long ago, and verified the existence of the two features alleged.Sir Digby, indeed, deserved some little commiseration. He had come up to Grandcourt this term pledged to the hilt to work hard and live virtuously. He had produced and proudly hung in a conspicuous place in his study a time-table, beautifully ruled and written in red and black ink, showing how each hour of every day in the week was to be spent in honest toil and well-earned sport. He had explained to his friend the interesting fact that a duplicate of this table had been presented to his mother, who thereby would be able to tell at any moment how her dear son was occupied.“Let’s see,” said he, proudly, taking out his watch. “7.15. Now what am I doing at 7.15 on Thursdays? French preparation. There you are! So if she’s thinking about me now she knows what I’m up to.”“But you’re not doing French preparation,” suggested Arthur.“Of course I’m not, you ass. How could I when I lent Dimsdale my book? Besides, we’ve not started yet. I’ve got about a million lines to write. Do you know, I’m certain it was Bickers got me into that row about the omnibus; I saw him looking on. I say, that was a stunning lark, wasn’t it? I’d have won too if Riggles had kept his right side. Look here, I say, I’d better do some lines now; lend us a hand, there’s a good chap. Wouldn’t it be a tip if old Smiley could write; we could keep him going all day long!”Master Oakshott had, in fact, become considerably embarrassed at the beginning of the term by one or two accidents, which conspired to put off the operation of the time-table for a short period.The doctor had received information through some channel of the famous chariot race on opening day, and had solaced the defeated champion with a caning (which he did not mind) and five hundred lines of Virgil (which he greatly disliked). In addition to that, Digby had received fifty lines from Ainger for pea-shooting, which, not being handed in by the required time, had doubled and trebled, and bade fair to become another five hundred before they were done. And now he had received from Railsford—from his beloved friend’s future brother-in-law—seven pages of School History to write out, of which he had accomplished one during the detention hour, and had solemnly undertaken to complete the other six before to-morrow. It spoke a good deal for the forbearance and good spirits of the unfortunate baronet that he was not depressed by his misfortunes.Arthur, too, had come up with every idea of conducting himself as a model boy, and becoming a great moral support to his future brother-in-law. It had pained him somewhat to find that relative was not always as grateful for his countenance as he should have been. Still, he bore him no malice. The time would come when the elder would cry aloud to the younger for aid, and he should get it.Meanwhile, on this particular evening, Arthur found himself too busy, getting the new study into what he termed ship-shape order, to be able to adopt his friend’s suggestion about the lines. His idea of ship-shape did not in every particular correspond with the ordinary acceptation of the term. He had brought down in his trunk several fine works of art, selected chiefly from the sporting papers, and representing stirring incidents in the lives of the chief prize-fighters. These, after endeavouring to take out a few of the creases contracted in the journey, he displayed over the fireplace and above the door, attaching them to the wall by means of garden nails, which had an awkward way of digging prodigious holes in the plaster and never properly reaching the laths behind. Most of the pictures consequently required frequent re-hanging, and by the end of the evening looked as if they, like the shady characters painted on them, had been in the wars.Then Arthur had produced with some pride a small set of bookshelves, which packed away into a wonderfully small space, but which, when fitted together, were large enough to accommodate as many books as he possessed. The fitting together, however, was not very successful. Some of the screws were lost, and had to be replaced by nails, and having used the side-pieces for the shelves, and the shelves for the sides, he and Dig had a good deal of trouble with a saw and a cunningly constructed arrangement of strings to reduce the fabric into the similitude of a bookcase. When at last it was done and nailed to the wall, it exhibited a tendency to tilt forward the moment anything touched it, and pitch its contents on to the floor.After much thought it occurred to Herapath that if they turned it upside down this defect would operate in the other direction, and hold the books securely against the wall. So, having wrenched the nails out, and been fortunate enough to find a space on the wall not gaping with wounds in the plaster, they re-erected it inversely. But, alas! although the top shelf now tilted back at the wall, the bottom shelf swung forward an inch or two and let its contents out behind with the same regularity and punctuality with which it had previously ejected them in front.Dig pronounced it a rotten concern, and voted for smashing it up; but Herapath, more dauntless, determined on one further effort.He began to drive a large nail vehemently into thefloor immediately under the refractory bookcase, and then, tying a string round the bottom shelf, he hitched the other end round the nail and drew the fabric triumphantly into the wall. It was a complete success. Even Dig applauded, and cried out to his friend that another inch would make a job of it.Another inch did make a job of it, for just as the bottom shelf closed in the top gave a spring forward, pulling the nail along with it, and burying the two mechanics under a cascade of books, plaster, and shattered timber. Arthur and Dig sat on the floor and surveyed the ruin stolidly, while Smiley, evidently under the delusion that the whole entertainment had been got up for his amusement, barked vociferously, and, seizing aStudent’s Gibbonin his teeth, worried it, in the lightness of his heart, like a rat. At this juncture the door opened, and Railsford, with alarm in his face, entered.“Whateveristhe matter?” he exclaimed.It was an excellent cue for the two boys, who forthwith began to rub their arms and shoulders, and make a demonstration of quiet suffering.“This horrid bookcase won’t stick up!” said Arthur. “We were trying to put the things tidy, and it came down.”“It’s a pretty good weight on a fellow’s arm!” said the baronet, rubbing his limb, which had really been grazed in the downfall.“It is a very great noise on the top of my head,” said the master. “I dare say it was an accident, but you two will have to be a great deal quieter up here, or I shall have to interfere.”“We really couldn’t help it, Mark—I mean Rails—I mean Mr Railsford,” said Arthur, in an injured tone. “There’s Dig will get into no end of a row, as it is. He was writing out that imposition for you, and now he’s hurt his arm through helping me—brick that he is! I suppose you won’t mind if I finish the lines for him?”Arthur was staking high, and would have been sadly disconcerted had his kinsman taken him at his word.“Is your arm really hurt, Oakshott?” inquired the master.“Oh no; not much,” said Digby, wincing dramatically, and putting on an air of determined defiance to an inward agony. “I dare say I can manage, after a rest. We had taken some of the books out, so I only had the bookcase and three shelf-loads of books on the top of me! That wasn’t so much!”“How much have you written?” demanded the master.“Two pages, please, sir.”“This time I will let that do.”“Thanks, awfully!” broke in Arthur; “you’re a brick! Dig’ll never do it again, will you, Dig?”“I could do it, you know, if you really wanted,” said Dig, feeling up and down his wounded limb.“That will do!” said Mark, who had already begun to have a suspicion that he had been “done.” “Clear up this mess, and don’t let me hear any more noise overhead.”When he had gone, the friends embraced in a gust of jubilation.“No end of a notion of yours!” said Dig. “That leaves the lines for the doctor and the others for Ainger. He’ll keep. We’ll have him in to tea and dose him with marmalade, and square him up. But, there, I must do the doctor’s lines, or I shall catch it!”And so, despite his wounded arm, he set to work, aided by his friend, and worked off about half the penalty, by which time his arm and elbow were very sore indeed. Dimsdale, who came in later, was bribed with an invitation to jam breakfast in the morning, to help with the remainder, and the same inducement prevailed upon Tilbury. So that by a fine co-operative effort Dig stood clear with the doctor before night was over, and considered himself entitled to a little rest, which he forthwith proceeded to take.The breakfast-party next morning was a great success on the whole. It was a little marred by the fact that whereas covers were laid for four, just fourteen guests turned up. This was partly Arthur’s fault, for, having sallied forth with an invitation in his pocket to anyone who would help his friend out with a few lines, he had dropped them about in a good many other quarters. He had secured the attendance of Simson and Maple of the Shell, and of Bateson and Jukes of the Babies, and, with a view to ingratiate himself with some of his neighbours on the first floor, he had bidden to the banquet Wake, Ranger, Wignet, and Sherriff of the Fifth, and actually prevailed upon Stafford to lend the dignity of a Sixth-form patronage to thereunion.These heroes were naturally a little disgusted on turning up at the rendezvous to find the room crowded, with scarcely standing space to space, by a troop of hungry and noisy juniors. The good hosts perspired with the heat of the room, and, as guest after guest crowded in, began to look a little anxious at the modest fare on the table, and speculate mentally on how far one loaf, one pot of jam, four pats of butter, a pint coffee-pot, and three-and-a-half tea-cups would go round the lot. At length, when Stafford arrived, and could not get in at the door for the crush, despair seized them.“You kids had better hook it,” said Arthur, to half a dozen of the juniors, who had squeezed themselves into a front rank near the table. “There’s not room to-day. Come to-morrow.”Loud were the complaints, not unmingled with threatenings and gibes, of these disappointed Babies.“What a horrible shame!” exclaimed Jukes, in a very audible voice. “We were here first.”“Do you hear?—cut!” repeated the host.“Come, along,” said Bateson; “what’s the use of bothering about a crumb and a half a-piece? I never saw such a skinny spread in all my days.”And in the ten years which comprehended Master Bateson’s “days” he had had a little experience of that sort of thing.The company being now reduced to eight, to wit, Stafford, the four Fifth-form boys, the two hosts, and Dimsdale, assumed more manageable proportions. There was room at least to move an arm or a leg, and even to shut the door. But when it came to taking seats, it still became evident that the table could by no possibility hold more than six. Another crisis thereupon arose. Dimsdale was regretfully dismissed, and departed scarlet in the face, promising, as he slammed the door, to show “up” his hosts. These amiable worthies, much distressed, and not a whit cooler that the room was now comparatively empty, smiled feebly at this threat, and arranged to sit on one another’s laps, so as to bring the company finally down to the capabilities of the table. But at this juncture Stafford, who had grown tired of waiting, and evidently saw little prospect of conviviality in the entertainment, remembered that he had some work to do before morning school, and rose to leave.“Why, we’ve not begun yet,” gasped his hosts.“I really must go. Thanks for asking me. I’ve enjoyed it so much,” said the amiable prefect, departing.“Look here, I say,” expostulated Arthur, “you might stay. I’ll get some eggs, or a herring, if you’ll stop.”But the guest of the morning was beyond reach of these blandishments, and with muttered reflections on human depravity generally, the hosts took a seat at each end of the festive board, and bade the four Fifth-form fellows fall to.They had already done so. One had cut the loaf, another had meted out the jam, another had poured out the coffee, and another had distributed the butter.“Have some coffee?” said Wake, pleasantly, to Dig; “very good stuff.”“Thanks,” said Dig, trying to look grateful. “I’ll wait till there’s a cup to spare.”“If you’re putting on the eggs,” said Ranger, confidentially, to Arthur, “keep mine on an extra fifteen seconds, please. I like them a little hardish.”“Awfully sorry,” said Arthur, with a quaver in his voice; “jolly unlucky, but we’re out of eggs. Got none in the place.”“Oh, never mind,” said Ranger, reassuringly. “The herrings will do quite as well. Stafford may not fancy them, but we do, don’t we, you chaps?”“Rather,” said Sheriff, thoughtfully scooping out the last remnants of the jam from the pot.Arthur looked at the baronet and the baronet looked at Arthur. Things were growing desperate, and at all risks a diversion must be made. What could they do? Dig had a vague idea of creating a scare that Smiley had gone mad; but as the animal in question was at that moment peacefully reposing on the hearth, there seemed little probability of this panic “taking.” Then he calculated the possibilities of secretly cutting away one leg of the table, and so covering the defects of the meal by an unavoidable catastrophe. But he had not his penknife about him, and the two table-knives were in use.Arthur at this point came gallantly and desperately to the rescue.“I say, you fellows,” began he, ignoring the hint about the herrings, “do you want to know a regular lark?”“Ha, ha!” laughed Oakshott, not having the least idea what his friend was going to say, but anxious to impress upon his guests that the joke was to be a good one.“What is it?” asked Wignet, who never believed in anyone else’s capacities for story-telling.“Why,” said Arthur, getting up a boisterous giggle, “you know Railsford, the new master?”“Of course. What about him?”“Well—keep it dark, you know. Shut up, Dig, and don’t make me laugh, I say—there’s such a grand joke about him.”“Out with it,” said the guests, who were beginning to think again about the herrings.“Well, this fellow—I call him Marky, you know—Mark’s engaged to my sister, and—”“Ha ha ha!” chimed in Dig.“And—he calls her ‘Chuckey,’ I heard him. Oh, my wig!”This last exclamation was caused by his looking up and catching sight of Railsford standing at the door.The Master of the Shell had in fact called up in a friendly way to ask how Sir Digby Oakshott’s arm was after the accident of the previous night.
The reader is not to imagine that Railsford’s house contained nobody but the four prefects of the Sixth-form and the sedate tenants of the study immediately over the master’s head, who belonged to the Shell. On the contrary, the fifty boys who made up the little community were fully representative of all grades and classes of Grandcourt life. There was a considerable substratum of “Babies” belonging to the junior forms, who herded together noisily and buzzed like midges in every hole and corner of the house. Nor were Herapath and Oakshott, with their two cronies, by any means the sole representatives of that honourable fraternity known as the Shell, too mature for the junior school, and yet too juvenile for the upper forms. A score at least of Railsford’s subjects belonged to this noble army, and were ready to wage war with anybody or anything—for a consideration.
Still ascending in the scale, came a compact phalanx of Fifth-form heroes, counting some of the best athletes of the second eleven and fifteen, and yet not falling in with the spirited foreign policy so prevalent in the rest of the house. On an emergency they could and would turn out, and their broad backs and sturdy arms generally gave a good account of themselves. But as a general rule they grieved their friends by an eccentric habit of “mugging,” which, as anybody knows, is a most uncomfortable and alarming symptom in a boy of a house such as Railsford’s. True, there were among them a few noble spirits who never did a stroke of work unless under compulsion; but as a rule the Fifth-form fellows in Railsford’s lay under the imputation of being studious, and took very little trouble to clear their characters. Only when the school sports came round, or the house matches, their detractors used to forgive them.
The four prefects, to whom the reader has been already introduced, divided among them the merits and shortcomings of their juniors. Ainger and Felgate, though antagonistic by nature, were agreed as to an aggressive foreign policy; while Barnworth and of course the amiable Stafford considered there was quite enough work to do at home without going afield. Yet up to the present these four heroes had been popular in their house—Barnworth was the best high jumper Grandcourt had had for years, and Ainger was as steady as a rock at the wickets of the first eleven, and was reported to be about to run Smedley, the school captain, very close for the mile at the spring sports. Stafford, dear fellow that he was, was not a particularly “hot” man at anything, but he would hold the coat of anyone who asked him, and backed everybody up in turn, and always cheered the winner as heartily as he condoled with the loser. Felgate was one of those boys who could do better than they do, and whose unsteadiness is no one’s fault but their own. His ways were sometimes crooked, and his professions often exceeded his practice. He meant well sometimes, and did ill very often; and, in short, was just the kind of fellow for the short-tempered, honest Ainger cordially to dislike.
Such was the miscellaneous community which Mark Railsford found himself called upon to govern. It was not worse than a good many masters’ houses, and had even its good points.
And yet just now it was admitted to be in a bad way. The doctor had his eye on it, and there is nothing more adverse to reform than the consciousness that one has a bad name. The late master, Mr Moss, moreover, had notoriously found the place too hot for him, and had given it up. That again tells against the reputation of a house. And, lastly, although it had a few good scholars and athletes, who won laurels for the school, there seemed not enough of them to do anything for the house, which had steadily remained at the bottom of the list for general proficiency for several terms.
If you inquired how all this came about, you would hear all sorts of explanations, but the one which found most favour in the delinquent house itself was summed up in the single word “Bickers.” The origin of the deadly feud between the boys of Railsford’s and the master of the adjoining house was a mystery passing the comprehension even of such as professed to understand the ins and outs of juvenile human nature. It had grown up like a mushroom, and no one exactly remembered how it began. Mr Bickers, some years ago, had been a candidate for the Mastership of the Shell, but had been passed over in favour of Mr Roe. And ever since, so report went, he had been actuated by a fiendish antipathy to the boys who “kept” in the house of his rival. He had worried Mr Moss out of the place, and the boys of the two houses, quick to take up the feuds of their chiefs, had been in a state of war for months. Not that Mr Bickers was a favourite in his own house. He was not, any more than Mr Moss had been in his. But any stick is good enough to beat a dog with, and when Mr Bickers’s boys had a mind to “go for” Moss’s boys, they espoused the cause of Bickers, and when Mr Moss’s boys went out to battle against those of Bickers’s house, their war-cry was “Moss.”
Much legend had grown up round the feud; but if anyone had had patience to examine it to the bottom he would probably have found the long and short to be that Mr Bickers, being unhappily endowed with a fussy disposition and a sour and vindictive temper, had incurred the displeasure of the boys of his rival’s house, and not being the man to smooth away a bad impression, had aggravated it by resenting keenly what he considered to be an unjust prejudice against himself.
This little digression may enable the reader, if he has had the patience to wade through it, to form an idea of the state of parties in that particular section of Grandcourt which chiefly came under Railsford’s observation. With Roe’s and Grover’s houses on the other side of the big square, his boys had comparatively little to do as a house, while with the remote communities in the little square they had still less in common.
But to return to our story. The first week of the next term was one of the busiest Mark Railsford ever spent. His duties in the Shell began on the second day, and the opening performance was not calculated to elate his spirit. The sixty or seventy prodigies of learning who assembled there came from all houses. A few were bent seriously on work and promotion, the majority were equally in different about the one and the other, and the remainder were professional idlers—most successful in their profession.
Such were the hopeful materials which Railsford was expected to inspire with a noble zeal in the pursuit of classics, history, and divinity. It would have bets as easy—at least, so it seemed to the master—to instruct he monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens. The few workers (scarcely one of whom, by the way, was in his own house) formed a littlecoterieapart, and grabbed up whatever morsels of wisdom and learning their master could afford to let drop in the midst of his hand-to-hand combat with the forces of anarchy and lethargy. But he had little to say to them. His appeals were addressed to the body of gaping, half-amused, half-bored loungers in the middle of the room, who listened pleasantly and forgot instantaneously; who never knew where to go on, and had an inveterate knack of misunderstanding the instructions for next day’s work. They endured their few morning hours in the Shell patiently, resignedly, and were polite enough to yawn behind their books. They were rarely put out by their own mistakes, and when occasionally the master dropped upon them with some penalty or remonstrance, they deemed it a pity that anyone should put himself so much about on their account.
Railsford was baffled. There seemed more hope in the turbulent skirmishers at the back of the room, who at least could now and then be worked upon by thunder, and always, in theory, acknowledged that lessons were things to be learned. On the first day the “muggers” knew their task well, and Railsford glowed with hope as he expressed his approbation. But when he came to the gapers his spirits sunk to zero. They had unfortunately mistaken the passage, or else the page was torn out of their book, or else they had been prevented by colds or sprained wrists or chilblains from learning it. When told to construe a passage read out not two minutes before by one of the upper boys, they knew nothing about it, and feared it was too hard for their overwrought capacities; and when pinned down where they sat to the acquirement of some short rule or passage, they explained sorrowfully that that had not been Mr Moss’s method. In divinity they raised discussions on questions of dogma, and so subtly evaded challenge on questions of Greek Testament construction and various readings. In history they fell back on a few stock answers, which rarely possessed the merit of having any connection with the questions which they pretended to satisfy. But the gapers were men of peace, after all. They rarely insisted upon their own opinion, nor did it offend them to be told they were wrong.
The noisier element were less complacent; it is true, they never did a lesson through, or construed a sentence from one end to the other. Still, when they took the trouble to “mug” a question up, they expected to be believed. It hurt them a good deal to be informed that they knew nothing; and to detain them or set them impositions because of a difference of opinion on an historical, classical, or theological question seemed grossly unjust. When, for instance, Sir Digby Oakshott, Baronet, on an early day of the term, publicly stated that the chief features of Cromwell’s character was a large mouth and a wart on the nose, he was both hurt and annoyed to be ordered peremptorily to remain for an hour after class and write out pages 245 to 252, inclusive, of the School History. He had no objection, as he confided to his friend and comforter, Arthur Herapath, Esquire, to the Master of the Shell entertaining his own opinions as to the character of the personage in question. But he believed in the maxim “give and take,” and just as he would cheerfully have received anything Mr Railsford might have to say on the subject, he at least expected that his own statement should be received in an equally candid spirit, particularly (as he was anxious to point out) since he had personally inspected a portrait of Cromwell not long ago, and verified the existence of the two features alleged.
Sir Digby, indeed, deserved some little commiseration. He had come up to Grandcourt this term pledged to the hilt to work hard and live virtuously. He had produced and proudly hung in a conspicuous place in his study a time-table, beautifully ruled and written in red and black ink, showing how each hour of every day in the week was to be spent in honest toil and well-earned sport. He had explained to his friend the interesting fact that a duplicate of this table had been presented to his mother, who thereby would be able to tell at any moment how her dear son was occupied.
“Let’s see,” said he, proudly, taking out his watch. “7.15. Now what am I doing at 7.15 on Thursdays? French preparation. There you are! So if she’s thinking about me now she knows what I’m up to.”
“But you’re not doing French preparation,” suggested Arthur.
“Of course I’m not, you ass. How could I when I lent Dimsdale my book? Besides, we’ve not started yet. I’ve got about a million lines to write. Do you know, I’m certain it was Bickers got me into that row about the omnibus; I saw him looking on. I say, that was a stunning lark, wasn’t it? I’d have won too if Riggles had kept his right side. Look here, I say, I’d better do some lines now; lend us a hand, there’s a good chap. Wouldn’t it be a tip if old Smiley could write; we could keep him going all day long!”
Master Oakshott had, in fact, become considerably embarrassed at the beginning of the term by one or two accidents, which conspired to put off the operation of the time-table for a short period.
The doctor had received information through some channel of the famous chariot race on opening day, and had solaced the defeated champion with a caning (which he did not mind) and five hundred lines of Virgil (which he greatly disliked). In addition to that, Digby had received fifty lines from Ainger for pea-shooting, which, not being handed in by the required time, had doubled and trebled, and bade fair to become another five hundred before they were done. And now he had received from Railsford—from his beloved friend’s future brother-in-law—seven pages of School History to write out, of which he had accomplished one during the detention hour, and had solemnly undertaken to complete the other six before to-morrow. It spoke a good deal for the forbearance and good spirits of the unfortunate baronet that he was not depressed by his misfortunes.
Arthur, too, had come up with every idea of conducting himself as a model boy, and becoming a great moral support to his future brother-in-law. It had pained him somewhat to find that relative was not always as grateful for his countenance as he should have been. Still, he bore him no malice. The time would come when the elder would cry aloud to the younger for aid, and he should get it.
Meanwhile, on this particular evening, Arthur found himself too busy, getting the new study into what he termed ship-shape order, to be able to adopt his friend’s suggestion about the lines. His idea of ship-shape did not in every particular correspond with the ordinary acceptation of the term. He had brought down in his trunk several fine works of art, selected chiefly from the sporting papers, and representing stirring incidents in the lives of the chief prize-fighters. These, after endeavouring to take out a few of the creases contracted in the journey, he displayed over the fireplace and above the door, attaching them to the wall by means of garden nails, which had an awkward way of digging prodigious holes in the plaster and never properly reaching the laths behind. Most of the pictures consequently required frequent re-hanging, and by the end of the evening looked as if they, like the shady characters painted on them, had been in the wars.
Then Arthur had produced with some pride a small set of bookshelves, which packed away into a wonderfully small space, but which, when fitted together, were large enough to accommodate as many books as he possessed. The fitting together, however, was not very successful. Some of the screws were lost, and had to be replaced by nails, and having used the side-pieces for the shelves, and the shelves for the sides, he and Dig had a good deal of trouble with a saw and a cunningly constructed arrangement of strings to reduce the fabric into the similitude of a bookcase. When at last it was done and nailed to the wall, it exhibited a tendency to tilt forward the moment anything touched it, and pitch its contents on to the floor.
After much thought it occurred to Herapath that if they turned it upside down this defect would operate in the other direction, and hold the books securely against the wall. So, having wrenched the nails out, and been fortunate enough to find a space on the wall not gaping with wounds in the plaster, they re-erected it inversely. But, alas! although the top shelf now tilted back at the wall, the bottom shelf swung forward an inch or two and let its contents out behind with the same regularity and punctuality with which it had previously ejected them in front.
Dig pronounced it a rotten concern, and voted for smashing it up; but Herapath, more dauntless, determined on one further effort.
He began to drive a large nail vehemently into thefloor immediately under the refractory bookcase, and then, tying a string round the bottom shelf, he hitched the other end round the nail and drew the fabric triumphantly into the wall. It was a complete success. Even Dig applauded, and cried out to his friend that another inch would make a job of it.
Another inch did make a job of it, for just as the bottom shelf closed in the top gave a spring forward, pulling the nail along with it, and burying the two mechanics under a cascade of books, plaster, and shattered timber. Arthur and Dig sat on the floor and surveyed the ruin stolidly, while Smiley, evidently under the delusion that the whole entertainment had been got up for his amusement, barked vociferously, and, seizing aStudent’s Gibbonin his teeth, worried it, in the lightness of his heart, like a rat. At this juncture the door opened, and Railsford, with alarm in his face, entered.
“Whateveristhe matter?” he exclaimed.
It was an excellent cue for the two boys, who forthwith began to rub their arms and shoulders, and make a demonstration of quiet suffering.
“This horrid bookcase won’t stick up!” said Arthur. “We were trying to put the things tidy, and it came down.”
“It’s a pretty good weight on a fellow’s arm!” said the baronet, rubbing his limb, which had really been grazed in the downfall.
“It is a very great noise on the top of my head,” said the master. “I dare say it was an accident, but you two will have to be a great deal quieter up here, or I shall have to interfere.”
“We really couldn’t help it, Mark—I mean Rails—I mean Mr Railsford,” said Arthur, in an injured tone. “There’s Dig will get into no end of a row, as it is. He was writing out that imposition for you, and now he’s hurt his arm through helping me—brick that he is! I suppose you won’t mind if I finish the lines for him?”
Arthur was staking high, and would have been sadly disconcerted had his kinsman taken him at his word.
“Is your arm really hurt, Oakshott?” inquired the master.
“Oh no; not much,” said Digby, wincing dramatically, and putting on an air of determined defiance to an inward agony. “I dare say I can manage, after a rest. We had taken some of the books out, so I only had the bookcase and three shelf-loads of books on the top of me! That wasn’t so much!”
“How much have you written?” demanded the master.
“Two pages, please, sir.”
“This time I will let that do.”
“Thanks, awfully!” broke in Arthur; “you’re a brick! Dig’ll never do it again, will you, Dig?”
“I could do it, you know, if you really wanted,” said Dig, feeling up and down his wounded limb.
“That will do!” said Mark, who had already begun to have a suspicion that he had been “done.” “Clear up this mess, and don’t let me hear any more noise overhead.”
When he had gone, the friends embraced in a gust of jubilation.
“No end of a notion of yours!” said Dig. “That leaves the lines for the doctor and the others for Ainger. He’ll keep. We’ll have him in to tea and dose him with marmalade, and square him up. But, there, I must do the doctor’s lines, or I shall catch it!”
And so, despite his wounded arm, he set to work, aided by his friend, and worked off about half the penalty, by which time his arm and elbow were very sore indeed. Dimsdale, who came in later, was bribed with an invitation to jam breakfast in the morning, to help with the remainder, and the same inducement prevailed upon Tilbury. So that by a fine co-operative effort Dig stood clear with the doctor before night was over, and considered himself entitled to a little rest, which he forthwith proceeded to take.
The breakfast-party next morning was a great success on the whole. It was a little marred by the fact that whereas covers were laid for four, just fourteen guests turned up. This was partly Arthur’s fault, for, having sallied forth with an invitation in his pocket to anyone who would help his friend out with a few lines, he had dropped them about in a good many other quarters. He had secured the attendance of Simson and Maple of the Shell, and of Bateson and Jukes of the Babies, and, with a view to ingratiate himself with some of his neighbours on the first floor, he had bidden to the banquet Wake, Ranger, Wignet, and Sherriff of the Fifth, and actually prevailed upon Stafford to lend the dignity of a Sixth-form patronage to thereunion.
These heroes were naturally a little disgusted on turning up at the rendezvous to find the room crowded, with scarcely standing space to space, by a troop of hungry and noisy juniors. The good hosts perspired with the heat of the room, and, as guest after guest crowded in, began to look a little anxious at the modest fare on the table, and speculate mentally on how far one loaf, one pot of jam, four pats of butter, a pint coffee-pot, and three-and-a-half tea-cups would go round the lot. At length, when Stafford arrived, and could not get in at the door for the crush, despair seized them.
“You kids had better hook it,” said Arthur, to half a dozen of the juniors, who had squeezed themselves into a front rank near the table. “There’s not room to-day. Come to-morrow.”
Loud were the complaints, not unmingled with threatenings and gibes, of these disappointed Babies.
“What a horrible shame!” exclaimed Jukes, in a very audible voice. “We were here first.”
“Do you hear?—cut!” repeated the host.
“Come, along,” said Bateson; “what’s the use of bothering about a crumb and a half a-piece? I never saw such a skinny spread in all my days.”
And in the ten years which comprehended Master Bateson’s “days” he had had a little experience of that sort of thing.
The company being now reduced to eight, to wit, Stafford, the four Fifth-form boys, the two hosts, and Dimsdale, assumed more manageable proportions. There was room at least to move an arm or a leg, and even to shut the door. But when it came to taking seats, it still became evident that the table could by no possibility hold more than six. Another crisis thereupon arose. Dimsdale was regretfully dismissed, and departed scarlet in the face, promising, as he slammed the door, to show “up” his hosts. These amiable worthies, much distressed, and not a whit cooler that the room was now comparatively empty, smiled feebly at this threat, and arranged to sit on one another’s laps, so as to bring the company finally down to the capabilities of the table. But at this juncture Stafford, who had grown tired of waiting, and evidently saw little prospect of conviviality in the entertainment, remembered that he had some work to do before morning school, and rose to leave.
“Why, we’ve not begun yet,” gasped his hosts.
“I really must go. Thanks for asking me. I’ve enjoyed it so much,” said the amiable prefect, departing.
“Look here, I say,” expostulated Arthur, “you might stay. I’ll get some eggs, or a herring, if you’ll stop.”
But the guest of the morning was beyond reach of these blandishments, and with muttered reflections on human depravity generally, the hosts took a seat at each end of the festive board, and bade the four Fifth-form fellows fall to.
They had already done so. One had cut the loaf, another had meted out the jam, another had poured out the coffee, and another had distributed the butter.
“Have some coffee?” said Wake, pleasantly, to Dig; “very good stuff.”
“Thanks,” said Dig, trying to look grateful. “I’ll wait till there’s a cup to spare.”
“If you’re putting on the eggs,” said Ranger, confidentially, to Arthur, “keep mine on an extra fifteen seconds, please. I like them a little hardish.”
“Awfully sorry,” said Arthur, with a quaver in his voice; “jolly unlucky, but we’re out of eggs. Got none in the place.”
“Oh, never mind,” said Ranger, reassuringly. “The herrings will do quite as well. Stafford may not fancy them, but we do, don’t we, you chaps?”
“Rather,” said Sheriff, thoughtfully scooping out the last remnants of the jam from the pot.
Arthur looked at the baronet and the baronet looked at Arthur. Things were growing desperate, and at all risks a diversion must be made. What could they do? Dig had a vague idea of creating a scare that Smiley had gone mad; but as the animal in question was at that moment peacefully reposing on the hearth, there seemed little probability of this panic “taking.” Then he calculated the possibilities of secretly cutting away one leg of the table, and so covering the defects of the meal by an unavoidable catastrophe. But he had not his penknife about him, and the two table-knives were in use.
Arthur at this point came gallantly and desperately to the rescue.
“I say, you fellows,” began he, ignoring the hint about the herrings, “do you want to know a regular lark?”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Oakshott, not having the least idea what his friend was going to say, but anxious to impress upon his guests that the joke was to be a good one.
“What is it?” asked Wignet, who never believed in anyone else’s capacities for story-telling.
“Why,” said Arthur, getting up a boisterous giggle, “you know Railsford, the new master?”
“Of course. What about him?”
“Well—keep it dark, you know. Shut up, Dig, and don’t make me laugh, I say—there’s such a grand joke about him.”
“Out with it,” said the guests, who were beginning to think again about the herrings.
“Well, this fellow—I call him Marky, you know—Mark’s engaged to my sister, and—”
“Ha ha ha!” chimed in Dig.
“And—he calls her ‘Chuckey,’ I heard him. Oh, my wig!”
This last exclamation was caused by his looking up and catching sight of Railsford standing at the door.
The Master of the Shell had in fact called up in a friendly way to ask how Sir Digby Oakshott’s arm was after the accident of the previous night.
Chapter Six.When the Cat’s away the Mice will play.If Railsford had entertained any lurking hope that his private affairs were sacred in the hands of his prospective kinsman, the little incident recorded at the close of the last chapter did away with the last remnant of any such delusion. He did not say anything about it. He was punctilious to a degree in anything which affected his honour; and as what he had overheard on the occasion in question had been part of a private conversation not intended for his ears, he felt himself unable to take any notice of it. Still, it was impossible for him to regard the faithless Arthur with quite as brotherly an eye as before; and the manner in which that young gentleman avoided him for the next few days, and hung out signals of distress in his presence, showed pretty plainly that these silent reproaches were not being thrown away.Of course Arthur did every imaginable thing to make matters worse in the house, by way of proving his contrition. He besought Wake not to let the story go about, greatly to the amusement of that young humourist, who had already heard it from half a dozen sources since the beginning of the term. He threatened Dimsdale with all sorts of penalties if he spread the secret any further. Dimsdale, who had long ago informed everyone of his acquaintance, cheerfully promised it should go no further. So anxious was Arthur to make up for his offence, that when one or two fellows spoke to him about it, and asked him if it was true that Railsford and his sister were going to be married, he prevaricated and hedged till he got hopelessly out of his depth.“Married!” he would reply, scornfully, “fiddlesticks! I tell you there’s nothing in it—all jaw! Who told you they were going to be married?”From utterances like these an impression got abroad in some quarters that Railsford wanted to marry “Chuckey,” but “Chuckey” wouldn’t have him. So the last end of the story was worse than the first.Railsford, however, did not hear this latest version of his own romance; and, indeed, had plenty of other things just, at this time to occupy his attention.Much to his own satisfaction, he received a polite note from Smedley, the captain of the school, to inform him that he had been elected a vice-president of the Athletic Union, and expressing a hope that he would favour the treasurer with the annual subscription now due, and attend a committee on Saturday evening in Mr Roe’s house to arrange about the spring sports.Both requests he gladly complied with. Previous to the meeting he had been present as umpire at a football-match in the meadows between the first twelve against the next twenty. It was a finely-contested battle, and his opinion of Grandcourt rose as he stood and looked on.It had not occurred to him till he was about to start that his two principal prefects would of course be members of the committee in whose deliberations he was to take part. But he considered he might safely leave the control of the house during his short absence to the keeping of Stafford and Felgate, who, though neither of them the kind of boy to inspire much confidence, had at least the title to be considered equal to the task. After all, it was only for an hour. Possibly no one would know of his absence, and on this the first occasion of his being present at a meeting in whose objects he had so much interest, he felt that his duty to the school had as much claim on him as his duty to his house. So he ran the risk, and went quietly out at the appointed time, in the comfortable assurance that his house was absorbed in preparation, and would never miss him.The meeting came up to his expectations. He was the only master present, and as such was voted to the chair. He made a little speech he had got ready in case of need, lauding up athletics to the skies, and confessing his own sympathy and enthusiasm for whatever tended towards the physical improvement of Grandcourt. The boys cheered him at every sentence, and when Smedley afterwards welcomed him in the name of the boys, and said they were all proud to have an old “Blue” among their masters, he received quite a small ovation. Then the meeting went heartily to work over the business of the sports.After an hour and a half’s steady work the programme was arranged, the date was fixed, the expenses were estimated, and the vote of thanks was given to the chairman.“Would you mind umpiring again next Saturday, sir?” asked Smedley, as they parted.“With all the pleasure in the world—any time,” said the master, only wishing he could play in the fifteen himself.Railsford’s house, meanwhile, had celebrated the temporary absence of its ruler in strictly orthodox fashion. Scarcely had he departed, flattering himself that the deluded mice were still under the spell of the cat’s presence in their neighbourhood, when the word went round like wildfire, “Coast’s clear!” Arthur and the baronet heard it in their study, and flung their books to the four winds and rushed howling down to the common room. The Babies heard it, and kicked over their forms, and executed war-dances in the passages. The Fifth-form “muggers” heard it, and barricaded their doors and put cotton-wool in their ears. Stafford and Felgate heard it, and shrugged their shoulders and wondered when the other prefects would be back.“There’s nobody about. Come on. We can kick up as much row as we like!” shouted the high-principled Arthur. “Who cares for my spooney old brother-in-law, Marky?”The shout of laughter which followed this noble appeal suddenly dropped into a deadly silence as the lank form of Mr Bickers appeared in the doorway. Arthur rapidly lost himself in the crowd. The two prefects, with flushed faces, elbowed their way into the room as though just arrived to quell the uproar. A few boys snatched up books and flopped down at their desks. But Mr Bickers had too keen an eye to let himself be imposed upon. He had witnessed the scene from a window in his own house, and surmising by the noise that no authority was present to deal with the disorder, had taken upon himself to look in in a friendly way and set things right.“Silence!” he cried, closing the door behind him, and walking two steps into the room. “Where is Mr Railsford?”“Out, sir,” said Stafford.“And the prefects?”“Felgate and I are prefects, sir. The other two are out.”“And you two have allowed this noise and disorder to go on for half an hour?”“We were going to stop it,” said Felgate, faltering.“By looking on and applauding?” responded the master. “You forget that from one of my windows everything that goes on here is plainly visible, including those who stand at the door and look on when they ought to know better. Go to your rooms, you two.”“We are in charge of the house, sir,” mildly protested Felgate.“Iam in charge of the house,” thundered Mr Bickers. “Obey me, and go.”They withdrew, chafing, crestfallen, and very uncomfortable.“Now,” said Mr Bickers, when the door was again closed, “Arthur Herapath, come here.”Mr Bickers’s knowledge of the names of the boys in other houses was quite phenomenal. Arthur, with hanging head and thumping heart, slunk forward.“So, sir,” said Mr Bickers, fixing him with his eye, “you are the model boy whom I heard proclaiming as I came in that you could make as much noise as you liked, and called your absent master by an insulting name.”“Please, sir,” pleaded the unlucky Arthur, “I didn’t mean it to be insulting. I only called him Marky, because he’s my brother-in-law—I mean he’s going to be.”“That’s right, Mr Bickers,” said the baronet, nobly backing up his friend; “he’s spoo— I mean he’s engaged to Daisy, Herapath’s sister.”“Silence, sir,” said the master with a curl of his lips. “Herapath, come here, and hold out your hand.”So saying, he took up a ruler from a desk close at hand.“Please, sir,” expostulated Arthur—he didn’t mind a cane, but had a rooted objection to rulers—“I really didn’t—”“Hold out your hand, sir!”There was no denying Mr Bickers. Arthur held out his hand, and was there and then, before half his house, admonished six times consecutively, with an emphasis which brought the tears fairly into his hardened eyes.“Now go, all of you, to your studies, and continue your preparation. I shall remain in the house till Mr Railsford returns, and report what has occurred to him.”When half an hour later the Master of the Shell, full of his athletic prospects, returned to his quarters, he was gratified as well as surprised by the dead silence which reigned, His astonishment was by no means diminished when on entering the common room he encountered Mr Bickers pacing up and down the floor amidst the scared juniors there assembled.Railsford, with all his follies, was a man of quick perception, and took in the whole situation at a glance. He understood why Mr Bickers was there, and why the place was so silent. Still more, he perceived that his own authority in the house had suffered a shock, and that a lesson was being read him by the man whom, of all his colleagues, he disliked the most.“Good-evening,” said Mr Bickers, with a show of friendliness.Mark nodded.“I am glad to be able to render up your house to you in rather better order than I found it. If you’ll take my advice, Railsford, you will not venture out, in the evening specially, leaving no one in authority. It is sure to be taken advantage of.”Railsford bit his lips.“I ought to be much obliged to you,” said he coldly. “As it happens, I did not venture out without leaving anyone in authority.”“If you mean Stafford and—what is his name?—Felgate—I can’t congratulate you on your deputies. They were, in fact, aiding and abetting the disorder, and I have sent them to their rooms as incompetent. I would advise you to relieve them of their office as soon as you can.”“Thank you for your advice,” said Railsford, whose blood was getting up. “I will make my own arrangements in my own house.”“Of course, my dear fellow,” replied Bickers, blandly, “but you should really find two better men than those. There was no attempt to stop the disorder (which had been going on for half an hour) when I arrived. I had to castigate one of the ringleaders myself—Herapath by name, claiming kinship with you, by the way. I’m not sure that you ought not to report him to Dr Ponsford.”It was all Railsford could do to listen quietly to this speech, drawled out slowly and cuttingly by his rival. He made a desperate effort to control himself, as he replied—“Don’t you think, Mr Bickers, you might with advantage go and see how your own house is getting on in your absence?”Mr Bickers smiled.“Happily, I have responsible prefects. However, now you are back—and if you are not going out again—I will say good-night.”Railsford said “Good-night,” and disregarding the proffered hand of his colleague, walked moodily up to his own room.He may be excused if he was put out and miserable. He was in the wrong, and he knew it. And yet the manner in which the rebuke had been administered was such as no man of spirit could cheerfully endure. The one idea in his mind was, not how to punish the house for its disorder, but how to settle scores with Bickers for restoring order; not how to admonish the incompetent prefects, but how to justify them against their accuser.He sent for the four prefects to his room before bed hour. Ainger and Barnworth, it was plain to see, had been informed of all that had happened, and were in a more warlike mood even than their two companions.“I hear,” said Railsford, “that there was a disturbance in the house while I was away for a short time this evening. Ainger and Barnworth of course were out too, but I should like to hear from you, Stafford and Felgate, what it was all about.”Stafford allowed Felgate to give his version; which was, like most of Felgate’s versions, decidedly apocryphal.“There was rather a row, sir,” said he, “among some of the juniors. Some of them were wrestling, I fancy. As soon as we saw what was going on, Stafford and I came to stop it, when Mr Bickers turned up and sent us to our rooms. We told him we had been left in charge by you, but he would not listen.”“Very annoying!” said the master.“It’s rather humiliating to our house, sir,” said Ainger, “if our prefects are not to be allowed to deal with our own fellows.”“I agree with you,” said Mark, warmly. “I have no reason whatever for doubting that they can and will do their duty when—”He had intended to say “when they are not interfered with,” but deemed it more prudent to say, “when occasion requires.”“We could easily have stopped the row, sir,” said Stafford, “if we had been allowed to do so.”“I have no doubt of it,” said the master. “I am glad to have had this little explanation. The honour of our house is of common interest to all of us.”A week ago this speech would have seemed a mere commonplace exhortation, but under present circumstances it had a double meaning for those present.“He’s a brick,” said Ainger, as they returned to their studies. “He means to back us up, after all, and pay Bickers out.”“What surprises me,” said Barnworth, “is that Stafford, the bull-dog, did not invite the intruder out into the square and impress the honour of our house with two black marks on each of his eyes.”“I’m just as glad,” said Felgate, “it’s all happened. We shouldn’t have got Railsford with us if—”“If you’d done your duty, and stopped the row the moment it began,” said Ainger; who, with all his jealousy for his house, had no toleration for humbug, even in a prefect whose cause he espoused. So Railsford’s house went to bed that night in a warlike mood.
If Railsford had entertained any lurking hope that his private affairs were sacred in the hands of his prospective kinsman, the little incident recorded at the close of the last chapter did away with the last remnant of any such delusion. He did not say anything about it. He was punctilious to a degree in anything which affected his honour; and as what he had overheard on the occasion in question had been part of a private conversation not intended for his ears, he felt himself unable to take any notice of it. Still, it was impossible for him to regard the faithless Arthur with quite as brotherly an eye as before; and the manner in which that young gentleman avoided him for the next few days, and hung out signals of distress in his presence, showed pretty plainly that these silent reproaches were not being thrown away.
Of course Arthur did every imaginable thing to make matters worse in the house, by way of proving his contrition. He besought Wake not to let the story go about, greatly to the amusement of that young humourist, who had already heard it from half a dozen sources since the beginning of the term. He threatened Dimsdale with all sorts of penalties if he spread the secret any further. Dimsdale, who had long ago informed everyone of his acquaintance, cheerfully promised it should go no further. So anxious was Arthur to make up for his offence, that when one or two fellows spoke to him about it, and asked him if it was true that Railsford and his sister were going to be married, he prevaricated and hedged till he got hopelessly out of his depth.
“Married!” he would reply, scornfully, “fiddlesticks! I tell you there’s nothing in it—all jaw! Who told you they were going to be married?”
From utterances like these an impression got abroad in some quarters that Railsford wanted to marry “Chuckey,” but “Chuckey” wouldn’t have him. So the last end of the story was worse than the first.
Railsford, however, did not hear this latest version of his own romance; and, indeed, had plenty of other things just, at this time to occupy his attention.
Much to his own satisfaction, he received a polite note from Smedley, the captain of the school, to inform him that he had been elected a vice-president of the Athletic Union, and expressing a hope that he would favour the treasurer with the annual subscription now due, and attend a committee on Saturday evening in Mr Roe’s house to arrange about the spring sports.
Both requests he gladly complied with. Previous to the meeting he had been present as umpire at a football-match in the meadows between the first twelve against the next twenty. It was a finely-contested battle, and his opinion of Grandcourt rose as he stood and looked on.
It had not occurred to him till he was about to start that his two principal prefects would of course be members of the committee in whose deliberations he was to take part. But he considered he might safely leave the control of the house during his short absence to the keeping of Stafford and Felgate, who, though neither of them the kind of boy to inspire much confidence, had at least the title to be considered equal to the task. After all, it was only for an hour. Possibly no one would know of his absence, and on this the first occasion of his being present at a meeting in whose objects he had so much interest, he felt that his duty to the school had as much claim on him as his duty to his house. So he ran the risk, and went quietly out at the appointed time, in the comfortable assurance that his house was absorbed in preparation, and would never miss him.
The meeting came up to his expectations. He was the only master present, and as such was voted to the chair. He made a little speech he had got ready in case of need, lauding up athletics to the skies, and confessing his own sympathy and enthusiasm for whatever tended towards the physical improvement of Grandcourt. The boys cheered him at every sentence, and when Smedley afterwards welcomed him in the name of the boys, and said they were all proud to have an old “Blue” among their masters, he received quite a small ovation. Then the meeting went heartily to work over the business of the sports.
After an hour and a half’s steady work the programme was arranged, the date was fixed, the expenses were estimated, and the vote of thanks was given to the chairman.
“Would you mind umpiring again next Saturday, sir?” asked Smedley, as they parted.
“With all the pleasure in the world—any time,” said the master, only wishing he could play in the fifteen himself.
Railsford’s house, meanwhile, had celebrated the temporary absence of its ruler in strictly orthodox fashion. Scarcely had he departed, flattering himself that the deluded mice were still under the spell of the cat’s presence in their neighbourhood, when the word went round like wildfire, “Coast’s clear!” Arthur and the baronet heard it in their study, and flung their books to the four winds and rushed howling down to the common room. The Babies heard it, and kicked over their forms, and executed war-dances in the passages. The Fifth-form “muggers” heard it, and barricaded their doors and put cotton-wool in their ears. Stafford and Felgate heard it, and shrugged their shoulders and wondered when the other prefects would be back.
“There’s nobody about. Come on. We can kick up as much row as we like!” shouted the high-principled Arthur. “Who cares for my spooney old brother-in-law, Marky?”
The shout of laughter which followed this noble appeal suddenly dropped into a deadly silence as the lank form of Mr Bickers appeared in the doorway. Arthur rapidly lost himself in the crowd. The two prefects, with flushed faces, elbowed their way into the room as though just arrived to quell the uproar. A few boys snatched up books and flopped down at their desks. But Mr Bickers had too keen an eye to let himself be imposed upon. He had witnessed the scene from a window in his own house, and surmising by the noise that no authority was present to deal with the disorder, had taken upon himself to look in in a friendly way and set things right.
“Silence!” he cried, closing the door behind him, and walking two steps into the room. “Where is Mr Railsford?”
“Out, sir,” said Stafford.
“And the prefects?”
“Felgate and I are prefects, sir. The other two are out.”
“And you two have allowed this noise and disorder to go on for half an hour?”
“We were going to stop it,” said Felgate, faltering.
“By looking on and applauding?” responded the master. “You forget that from one of my windows everything that goes on here is plainly visible, including those who stand at the door and look on when they ought to know better. Go to your rooms, you two.”
“We are in charge of the house, sir,” mildly protested Felgate.
“Iam in charge of the house,” thundered Mr Bickers. “Obey me, and go.”
They withdrew, chafing, crestfallen, and very uncomfortable.
“Now,” said Mr Bickers, when the door was again closed, “Arthur Herapath, come here.”
Mr Bickers’s knowledge of the names of the boys in other houses was quite phenomenal. Arthur, with hanging head and thumping heart, slunk forward.
“So, sir,” said Mr Bickers, fixing him with his eye, “you are the model boy whom I heard proclaiming as I came in that you could make as much noise as you liked, and called your absent master by an insulting name.”
“Please, sir,” pleaded the unlucky Arthur, “I didn’t mean it to be insulting. I only called him Marky, because he’s my brother-in-law—I mean he’s going to be.”
“That’s right, Mr Bickers,” said the baronet, nobly backing up his friend; “he’s spoo— I mean he’s engaged to Daisy, Herapath’s sister.”
“Silence, sir,” said the master with a curl of his lips. “Herapath, come here, and hold out your hand.”
So saying, he took up a ruler from a desk close at hand.
“Please, sir,” expostulated Arthur—he didn’t mind a cane, but had a rooted objection to rulers—“I really didn’t—”
“Hold out your hand, sir!”
There was no denying Mr Bickers. Arthur held out his hand, and was there and then, before half his house, admonished six times consecutively, with an emphasis which brought the tears fairly into his hardened eyes.
“Now go, all of you, to your studies, and continue your preparation. I shall remain in the house till Mr Railsford returns, and report what has occurred to him.”
When half an hour later the Master of the Shell, full of his athletic prospects, returned to his quarters, he was gratified as well as surprised by the dead silence which reigned, His astonishment was by no means diminished when on entering the common room he encountered Mr Bickers pacing up and down the floor amidst the scared juniors there assembled.
Railsford, with all his follies, was a man of quick perception, and took in the whole situation at a glance. He understood why Mr Bickers was there, and why the place was so silent. Still more, he perceived that his own authority in the house had suffered a shock, and that a lesson was being read him by the man whom, of all his colleagues, he disliked the most.
“Good-evening,” said Mr Bickers, with a show of friendliness.
Mark nodded.
“I am glad to be able to render up your house to you in rather better order than I found it. If you’ll take my advice, Railsford, you will not venture out, in the evening specially, leaving no one in authority. It is sure to be taken advantage of.”
Railsford bit his lips.
“I ought to be much obliged to you,” said he coldly. “As it happens, I did not venture out without leaving anyone in authority.”
“If you mean Stafford and—what is his name?—Felgate—I can’t congratulate you on your deputies. They were, in fact, aiding and abetting the disorder, and I have sent them to their rooms as incompetent. I would advise you to relieve them of their office as soon as you can.”
“Thank you for your advice,” said Railsford, whose blood was getting up. “I will make my own arrangements in my own house.”
“Of course, my dear fellow,” replied Bickers, blandly, “but you should really find two better men than those. There was no attempt to stop the disorder (which had been going on for half an hour) when I arrived. I had to castigate one of the ringleaders myself—Herapath by name, claiming kinship with you, by the way. I’m not sure that you ought not to report him to Dr Ponsford.”
It was all Railsford could do to listen quietly to this speech, drawled out slowly and cuttingly by his rival. He made a desperate effort to control himself, as he replied—
“Don’t you think, Mr Bickers, you might with advantage go and see how your own house is getting on in your absence?”
Mr Bickers smiled.
“Happily, I have responsible prefects. However, now you are back—and if you are not going out again—I will say good-night.”
Railsford said “Good-night,” and disregarding the proffered hand of his colleague, walked moodily up to his own room.
He may be excused if he was put out and miserable. He was in the wrong, and he knew it. And yet the manner in which the rebuke had been administered was such as no man of spirit could cheerfully endure. The one idea in his mind was, not how to punish the house for its disorder, but how to settle scores with Bickers for restoring order; not how to admonish the incompetent prefects, but how to justify them against their accuser.
He sent for the four prefects to his room before bed hour. Ainger and Barnworth, it was plain to see, had been informed of all that had happened, and were in a more warlike mood even than their two companions.
“I hear,” said Railsford, “that there was a disturbance in the house while I was away for a short time this evening. Ainger and Barnworth of course were out too, but I should like to hear from you, Stafford and Felgate, what it was all about.”
Stafford allowed Felgate to give his version; which was, like most of Felgate’s versions, decidedly apocryphal.
“There was rather a row, sir,” said he, “among some of the juniors. Some of them were wrestling, I fancy. As soon as we saw what was going on, Stafford and I came to stop it, when Mr Bickers turned up and sent us to our rooms. We told him we had been left in charge by you, but he would not listen.”
“Very annoying!” said the master.
“It’s rather humiliating to our house, sir,” said Ainger, “if our prefects are not to be allowed to deal with our own fellows.”
“I agree with you,” said Mark, warmly. “I have no reason whatever for doubting that they can and will do their duty when—”
He had intended to say “when they are not interfered with,” but deemed it more prudent to say, “when occasion requires.”
“We could easily have stopped the row, sir,” said Stafford, “if we had been allowed to do so.”
“I have no doubt of it,” said the master. “I am glad to have had this little explanation. The honour of our house is of common interest to all of us.”
A week ago this speech would have seemed a mere commonplace exhortation, but under present circumstances it had a double meaning for those present.
“He’s a brick,” said Ainger, as they returned to their studies. “He means to back us up, after all, and pay Bickers out.”
“What surprises me,” said Barnworth, “is that Stafford, the bull-dog, did not invite the intruder out into the square and impress the honour of our house with two black marks on each of his eyes.”
“I’m just as glad,” said Felgate, “it’s all happened. We shouldn’t have got Railsford with us if—”
“If you’d done your duty, and stopped the row the moment it began,” said Ainger; who, with all his jealousy for his house, had no toleration for humbug, even in a prefect whose cause he espoused. So Railsford’s house went to bed that night in a warlike mood.