Daisy might have been still more affected by this brotherly effusion than she was, had not she received a letter by the same post from Mark himself, telling her of his later troubles, and containing a somewhat more explicit narrative of recent events than had been afforded in the letter of his prospective brother-in-law.
“I am, I confess, almost at a loss,” said he. “I do not like to believe that anyone in the house can have the meanness to involve us all in this misfortune by his own guilty silence. ... Much depends now on the spirit which my prefects show. I believe, myself, that if they take a proper view of the situation, we may weather the storm. But the new order of things hits them harder than anyone else, for it excludes them from football, cricket, and the sports; and I fear it is too much to expect that they will even try to make the best of it! I begin to feel that a master, after all, if he is to do any good, must be a sort of head boy himself, and I would be thankful if my seniors let me into their confidence, and we were not always dealing with one another at arm’s length. All this, I fear, is uninteresting to you; but it means a good deal to me. The flighty Arthur does not appear to be much cast down by our troubles. I wish I could help him to a little of the ballast he so greatly needs. But, although I am the master of this house, I seem scarcely ever to see him. I hear him, though. I hear him this minute. He and his chum occupy the room over me, and when they execute a war dance—which occurs on an average six times a day—it makes me tremble for my ceiling. I have a notion Arthur spends his weekly allowance rather recklessly, and am thinking of suggesting to your father that a reduction might be judicious,” etcetera, etcetera.
Had Railsford guessed, as he wrote these rather despondent lines, that his youthful kinsman in the room above was hugging himself for his own astuteness in tracking out his (Railsford’s) villainy, he might perhaps have regarded the situation of affairs as still less cheerful. As it was, after the first discovery, the hope had begun to dawn upon the Master of the Shell, as it had already dawned on Barnworth, that some good might even result from the present misfortunes of the house. And as the days passed, he became still more confirmed in the hope, and, with his usual sanguine temper, thought he could see already Railsford’s house starting on a new career and turning its troubles to credit.
Alas! Mark Railsford had rough waters still to pass through. And the house, before it was to start on its new career, had several little affairs to wind up and dispose of.
Among others, the Central Criminal Court Assizes were coming on, and the boys were summoned, “at their peril,” not to fail in appearing on the occasion.
Chapter Eleven.
A “Cause Célèbre.”
Wake, of the Fifth, was one of those restless, vivacious spirits who, with no spare time on their hands, contrive to accomplish as much as any ordinary half-dozen people put together. He formed part of the much-despised band of fellows in his form contemptuously termed “muggers.” In other words, he read hard, and took no part in the desultory amusements which consumed the odd moments of so many in the house. And yet he was an excellent cricketer and runner, as the school was bound to acknowledge whenever it called out its champions to do battle for it in the playing-fields.