Pastors and Masters

I

“Well, this is a nice thing! A nice thing this schoolmastering! Up at seven, and in a room with a black fire … I should have thought it might have occurred to one out of forty boys to poke it … and hard at work, before other men think it time to be awake! And while you are about it, don’t pile on as much coal as it would take the day’s profits of the school to pay for. And here is a thing I have to see every morning of my life! Here is a thing I have to be degraded by, every morning when I come down to an honest day’s work, a middle-aged man working to support his family! I am surprised to see people with such a want of self-respect. I admit that I am. I would rather see a boy come in roundly late, than slip in on the stroke, half dressed and half asleep, and pass as being in time. It is an ungentlemanly thing to do.”

Mr. Merry, a tall, thin man about fifty, leaned back in his chair, and fixed on his pupils his little, pale, screwed up eyes, to which he had the gift of imparting an alluring kindness. His feelings towards them, affection, disgust, pride and despair, seemed to oust each other over his face.

“Yes, I am sick and tired of this sort of thing. I will not mince matters with you. And get to your seats without upsetting everything on your way, will you please? Oh, who would be a schoolmaster? I should not be doing my duty to you all, if I did not warn you all against it. And I suppose it is a good thing to have the east wind from an east window blowing in upon forty people, thirty-nine of them growing boys, before their breakfast on a March morning? And … one, two, three, four, five, six, seven … it takes eleven boys to shut a window, does it? And I suppose I cannot make a few remarks, without having you all fidgeting and gaping, and behaving like a set of clodhoppers instead of gentlemen? Get to your work at once; and don’t look up again before the gong.”

Mr. Merry gave a gesture of despairing acquiescence, as the boys obeyed this summons without his endorsing it. He followed them down to their basement dining-room.

Mrs. Merry, a smooth-headed, mild-looking woman with a grieved expression, was standing at the head of a long table, pouring out tea. Her four little girls were seated near her. A thin dark lady of forty, matron and teacher of music and French, was cutting bread.

“Well, Mother,” said Mr. Merry, in the tone of a tender husband and tried man.

“Well, dear,” said Mrs. Merry, without raising her eyes.

“Good morning, Miss Basden,” said Mr. Merry, with the almost exaggerated courtesy due to a lady he employed.

“Good morning, Mr. Merry,” said Miss Basden, in a tone in which equality, respect, and absorption in her duty were rather remarkably mingled.

“Now, look here,” said Mr. Merry, “I have never had such an ungentlemanly set of boys. Now, go out again, all of you, and come in like gentlemen meeting a lady for the first time in the day.”

A retirement from the room was succeeded by a chorus of “Good morning, Mrs. Merry.”

“Good morning, boys,” said Mrs. Merry.

“Have you all met Miss Basden already today?” Mr. Merry inquired, looking round frigidly.

“Good morning, Miss Basden.”

“Good morning, boys,” said Miss Basden, in a casual tone, still cutting.

“Hillman!” said Mr. Merry. “How often am I to say that I will not have sitting down before grace is said? Pray do not show your nature to the rest of us.”

Hillman gained his feet.

“For these and all other mercies may we be given thankful hearts,” said Mr. Merry, his eyes taking a covert general survey.

“Johnson, I am disgusted! I am more. I cannot tell you before ladies what I think of you. I hoped I should never have a boy in my school who would not control himself for a moment to give his attention to sacred things. What was it, pray, that you had to say, of such importance that it could not wait for a second?”

Johnson, who had been observing that it was wise to ask for thankful hearts for such mercies, was silent.

“Now,” said Mr. Merry, preparing again to bend his head, “we will say grace again, and I hope nothing so humiliating will occur a second time. I shall not speak of the matter, Johnson.”

Mrs. Merry and Miss Basden bowed their heads a little lower than before, though it was hardly to be thought that their experience had not been suitable.

“I cannot bear to see a sulky boy,” said Mr. Merry, throwing a disgusted glance at Johnson.

“Will you have tea or coffee, dear?” said Mrs. Merry.

“Oh, either, either; anything will do for me.”

“I always arrange for you to have your choice, dear.”

“Yes, Mother; yes. You take good care of me. You spend your life taking care of people, I am afraid.” Mr. Merry looked round on the boys with an air of rebuking ingratitude.

“Yes, I have done a good deal of taking care in my time. I think I have done very little else.”

“Well, Mrs. Merry, we must begin to take care of you,” said Miss Basden, putting the toast rack near to Mrs. Merry.

“How did you sleep, Miss Basden?” said Mr. Merry, in an extremely interested manner.

“Mrs. Merry,” Miss Basden said, in a rather high monotone, “the boys are saying that the marmalade is watery. I am telling them that no water is used in marmalade, that marmalade does not contain water; so I do not see how it can be.”

“I do not see how it can be, either; but of course I wish to be told if anything is not as nice as it can be. Let me taste the marmalade.”