The Master of the Shell | Page 9

boy's
wardrobes, but is under your direction in other matters. I shall
introduce you to her as we go down.
"I refer you to the school time-table for particulars as to rising, chapel,
preparation, and lights out, and so forth. Discipline on all these points
is essential. Cases of difficulty may be referred to a session of the other
masters, or in extreme cases to me; but please remember I do not invite
consultation in matters of detail. A house-master may use the cane in
special cases, which must be reported through the masters' session to
me. So much for your house duties.
"As Master of the Shell, you preside at morning school there every day,
and, as you know, have to teach classics, English, and divinity. In the
afternoon the boys are taken by the French, mathematical, and chemical
masters. But you are nominally responsible for the whole, and any case
of insubordination or idleness during afternoon school will be reported
to you by the master in charge, and you must deal with it as though you

had been in charge at the time.
"Now come and make Mrs. Farthing's acquaintance."
Mrs. Farthing, a lean, wrathful-looking personage, stood in the midst of
a wilderness of sheets and blankets, and received her new superior with
a very bad grace. She looked him up and looked him down, and then
sniffed.
"Very good, Mr. Railsford; we shall become better acquainted, I've no
doubt."
Railsford shuddered at the prospect; and finding that his luggage was
still knocking about at the porter's lodge, he made further expedition in
search of it, and at last, with superhuman efforts, succeeded in getting it
transferred to his quarters, greatly to the disgust of Mrs. Hastings, who
remarked in an audible aside to her fellow-scrubber, Mrs. Willis, that
people ought to keep their dirty traps to themselves till the place is
ready for them.
After which Railsford deemed it prudent to take open-air exercise, and
await patiently the hour when his carpets should be laid and Grandcourt
should wake up into life for the new term.
Chapter III
Opening Day
The combined labours of Mesdames Farthing, Hastings, Wilson, and
their myrmidons had barely reached a successful climax that afternoon,
in the rescue of order out of the chaos which had reigned in Railsford's
house, when the first contingent of the Grandcourtiers arrived in the
great square. Railsford, who had at last been permitted to take
possession of his rooms and to unstrap his boxes, looked down from his
window with some little curiosity at the scene below.
The solemn quadrangle, which an hour ago had looked so ghostly and
dreary, was now alive with a crowd of boys, descending headlong from

the inside and outside of four big omnibuses, hailing one another
boisterously, scrambling for their luggage, scrimmaging for the
possession of Mrs. Farthing's or the porter's services, indulging in
horseplay with the drivers, singing, hooting, challenging, rejoicing,
stamping, running, jumping, kicking--anything, in fact, but standing
still. In their own opinion, evidently, they were the lords and masters of
Grandcourt. They strutted about with the airs of proprietors, and
Railsford began to grow half uneasy lest any of them should detect him
at the window and demand what right he had there.
The scene grew more and more lively. A new cavalcade discharged its
contents on the heels of the first, and upon them came cabs top-heavy
with luggage, and a stampede of pedestrians who had quitted the
omnibuses a mile from home and run in, and one or two on tricycles,
and one hero in great state on horseback. Cheers, sometimes yells,
greeted each arrival; and when presently there lumbered up some staid
old four-wheeler with a luckless new boy on board, the demonstration
became most imposing.
"See you to-morrow!" thought Railsford to himself, as he peered down.
Suddenly an unwonted excitement manifested itself. This was
occasioned by an impromptu race between two omnibuses and a
hansom cab, which, having been all temporarily deserted by their
rightful Jehus, had been boarded by three amateur charioteers and set in
motion. The hero in charge of the hansom cab generously gave his
more heavily-weighted competitors a start of fifty yards; and, standing
up in his perch, shook his reins defiantly and smacked his whip, to the
infinite delight of everyone but the licenced gentleman who was the
nominal proprietor of the vehicle. Of the omnibuses, one got speedily
into difficulties, owing to the charioteer getting the reins a trifle mixed
and thereby spinning his vehicle round in a semicircle, and bringing it
up finally in the middle of the lawn, where he abruptly vacated his post
and retired into private life.
The other omnibuses had a more glorious career. The horses were
spirited, and entered into the fun of the