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 little
_coterie_ apart, 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 the floor 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 a _Student's Gibbon_ in 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.
"Whatever _is_ the 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 the _reunion_.
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.