The Master of the Shell

Talbot Baines Reed (continued 7)

Reading edition

The radiant faces of the boys peeped out from among the phalanges of their no less radiant people. The prize boys on the front benches kept up a running fire of talk and cheering; the masters in their gowns beamed right and left, as if all of them put together could not give a fellow a hundred lines if he asked for it; and the college servants, grouped at the doors, smiled as if no cloud had ever ruffled their temper since last speech-day: while the doctor, as he rose, resplendent in his academical robes, and called for silence, looked as if no more solemn question had engaged his attention all the term than the arrangement of his strings and the droop of the scarlet hood on his back.

Then speech-day began. My readers hardly want me to describe so familiar a scene. They will be able to picture to themselves, better than I can picture it for them, how Smedley was cheered when he got up to deliver the English Oration in honour of the old school; and how he blushed and ran short of breath when he came to the quotation from Milton at the end, which had something about a Violet in it!—how, when Ainger rose to give the Greek Speech, his own fellows rose at him amid cries of “Well run, sir!” “Well hit!” “Well fielded!” and cheered every sentence of the Greek, though they had not an idea what it was about—how Barnworth was similarly encouraged through his Latin Oration with cries of “Jump it out!” “One inch more!” mingled sometimes with “False quantity!” “Speak up, prompter!”—how, after the speechifying was done, the examiners rose and made their reports, which nobody listened to and everyone voted a bore.

How, next, Dr Ponsford rose with a rustle of his silk gown, which was heard all over the hall in the dead silence, and proceeded to tell the Earl of Somebody and the other distinguished guests what everybody knew, namely, that the school had now come to the end of another year’s work, and etcetera, etcetera. But how, when he took up his list, and the tables containing the prizes were wheeled forward and uncovered, attention once more awoke, the boys on the prize benches settled their cravats, and felt if their hair-partings were all right, and then sat back in their places with a delightful simulation of indifference—

The reader knows all about it; he has been through it. He knows the cheers which hailed the announcement that Smedley was going up to Oxford with a Balliol scholarship in his pocket, and that Ainger had won one of the minor scholarships at George’s. He does not need to be told of the shouts which greeted the appearance of boy after boy from Railsford’s house on the platform steps to receive his prize; or of the grim smile on the doctor’s face as a youthful voice from the prize benches, forgetting the solemnity of the occasion, shouted, “Marky again, bravo us!” Nor when presently Arthur Herapath was called up to receive a piece of paper informing him that he was the winner of half the Swift Exhibition, or when, close behind, Digby Oakshott—the doctor scurrilously omitted his full title—trotted up to accept the Shell History prize—can anyone who has been in such a scene before fail to imagine the cheers and laughter and chaff which the public appearance of these two notorious characters evoked?

So the ceremony went on—and the reader, I think, can bear me out when I say that, after an hour of it, I distinctly saw—for I was there, near the front—several ladies yawn behind their fans, and otherwise show signs of fatigue, so that when the poor little Babies, who had done as honest work as anybody, toddled up to get their little prizes, scarcely anybody looked at them, and were glad when they were polished off. Which I thought a shame; and resolved, whenever I am head-master of a public school, I shall turn my prize list upside down and call the Babies up first.

It was all over at last; and then followed that wonderful event, the speech-day dinner, when boys and visitors all sat down promiscuously to the festive board and celebrated the glories of the day with a still more glorious spread.

Arthur and Dig were in high feather. They had, I am sorry to say, “shunted” their progenitors up to the doctor’s table, and, in the congenial society of some of their own “lot,” were jammed in at one of the side tables, with just elbow-room enough to do execution. Arthur was comfortably packed between Sherriff's sister and Maple’s second cousin, and cheered by game pie and mellowed by ginger ale, made himself vastly agreeable.

“See that chap with the sandy wig!” said he to Miss Sherriff, “he’s a baronet—Sir Digby Oakshott, Baronet, A.S.S., P.I.G., and nobody knows what else—he’s my chum; aren’t you, Dig? Sherriff’s sister, you know, make yourself civil, can’t you? Dig can make you laugh sometimes,” added he, aside, to his fair neighbour.

Then his genial eye roamed up and down the room and lit up suddenly as he perceived, with their backs to him, Railsford and Daisy dining happily at the next table.

He gave a whistle to Dig, and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. Dig, who was in the middle of a pull at the ginger ale, put down his tankard suddenly and crammed his handkerchief into his mouth.

“Such a game!” said Arthur to Maple’s second cousin on his right. “Look round, behind you. Do you see them?”

“See whom?” asked the young lady.

“Those two. Regular pair of spoons; look at him helping her to raspberry pie. Oh, my word!”

“Who are they?” asked his neighbour, laughing.

But Arthur was at that moment busy attracting the attention of all his friends within call, and indicating to them in pantomimic gesture what was going on.

“Oh,” said he, hearing the question at last, “that’s Marky, our house-master, you know; and he’s spoons on my sister Daisy—just see how they’re going it. Do you want to be introduced to my sister? I say, I’ll—”

“Oh, no indeed, not yet,” said the young lady in alarm, “presently, please.”

“All right. Dig, I say, pass the word down to those fellows to fill up their mugs, do you hear? And fill up Sherriff's sister’s mug too, and all those girls’ down there. Look out now, and keep your eye on me.”

Whereupon he rose and made a little speech, partially audible to those immediately round him, but supremely inaudible to the two parties specially concerned behind.

“We’re going to drink a toast,” said Arthur. “I vote we drink the health of jolly old Marky and my sister Daisy; there they are behind, going the pace like a house on fire. Gentlemen and ladies, I vote we drink their very good health, and the sooner Daisy’s the dame of Railsford’s the better larks for us.”

The toast was honoured with much enthusiasm; and there were loud cries for a speech in return. But the Master of the Shell was making speeches of quite another kind, and utterly unconscious of the flattering little demonstration which was taking place behind him; he was telling Daisy in whispers the story of the term, and feeling himself rewarded for all he had gone through by her sympathetic smile.

The dinner ended at last, and but one more ceremony remained. This was the time-honoured cheering with which speech-day at Grandcourt always came to an end.

Smedley and the prefects walked in procession to the head table and ranged themselves behind the head governor’s chair, while everyone stood up.

“Three cheers for Grandcourt!” called the captain.

And you may fancy the earthquake that ensued.

Then in regular order followed—

“Three cheers for the doctor!”

“Three cheers for Miss Violet!”

“Three cheers for the governors!”

Then again, in regular order, the captain of each house stepped forward and called for three cheers for his own house, all of which were vigorously given—each house being on its mettle to drown all the others.

Last in the list Ainger stepped forward and called for “Three cheers for Railsford’s!”

Then Arthur and Dig and the rest of the house got upon their chairs and put their backs into the shout; and everyone allowed that, whatever else Railsford’s wasn’t first in, it could carry off the palm for noise. At the end of the third cheer a voice called out,—

“One more for the cock house!”

Whereat Arthur and Dig and the rest of them got on their chairs again and yelled till the roof rang.

Then amid a multitude of promiscuous cheers for “the captain,” “the prefects,” “the cook,” “Jason,” “the school cat,” “Thucydides!” and finally for “Dulce Domum!” Grandcourt broke up for the holidays.

Let you and me, friendly reader, say good-bye here amid all the cheery bustle and excitement of the crowded quadrangle. It is better to part so than to linger about talking morality till the great square is empty—till the last of the cabs has rumbled away out of hearing—till the echoes of our own voices come back and startle us from behind the chapel buttresses. If we wait till then, we part sadly and miss the promise of a meeting again. But if we part now, while Arthur, on the box of his cab, with his “people” safely stowed inside, is whooping his noisy farewells right and left—while Smedley, with his Balliol scholarship in his pocket, is leaving Grandcourt for good, and casting his last shy look up at the doctor’s window—while Messrs Roe, Grover, and Railsford are talking cheerfully of their Highland trip in August—while monsieur, humming Partant pour la Syrie, is hurrying away to his own dear France and his still dearer little girls—while Ainger and Barnworth, the old and the new captains of Railsford’s, are grasping hands at the door—if we part now, we part not as those who bid a long farewell, but as those who think and talk of meeting again.