MacColl - Mr. Strangers Sealed Packet

The new master was certainly a remarkable man; remarkable from many points of view. In the first place, he was remarkable in appearance. He was unquestionably handsome-we all agreed upon that point-yet his hair, his short thick beard, and his moustache were perfectly grey. About his age we could not agree at all. By this I mean his three colleagues: John Greywood, the classical master; Richard Johnson, the mathematical master; and I, Percy Jones, the English master. The new master, whom the Doctor (Dr. Sutherland) had introduced to us as Mr. Stranger, was the science master. We could not agree in our estimate of his age, because there was such a contrast between his grey hair and beard and his youthful-looking face. His eyebrows and eyelashes were dark brown; his eyes were hazel; his complexion a clear, healthy brown; his features beautifully hiseled. The classical master put him down as fifty; I thought he must be somewhere near thirty; while the mathematical master was sure that his age was the arithmetical mean of the two, that is to say, forty.

In the next place, the new master was remarkable in his habits and manners. Though he looked strong and healthy, he seemed never to eat. He sat regularly at table with the rest of us, and helped in the carving, at which he was very expert; but he never partook of anything himself except bread and water. At every meal, breakfast, dinner, tea, or supper, it was always the same: bread and water, nothing else, and extremely little even of that. When he had finished, and he had generally finished before his colleagues had fairly begun, he completely abstracted his thoughts from the objective world around him. His eyes were indeed open, but he saw not; his ears were open, but he heard not. He would stare at his vis-a-vis, and occasionally smile at him, or nod at him, or frown at him; while in reality he never saw him or thought of him at all.

One would suppose that such a master could not possibly win the respect of his pupils, that his oddities would be a constant subject of laughter amongst them. Yet it was not so. They did indeed laugh at his oddities amongst themselves, but they always restrained themselves in his presence. There was something in the expression of his eyes when the fit of abstraction was overwhen he returned to objective consciousnessthat took away all inclination to unseemly merriment. Masters as well as boys somehow felt fascinated by the light which issued from those strange hazel eyes, though they could not in the least explain why. For myself, I invariably felt a kind of indescribable tremor pass through my frame whenever our eyes met; and as long as his eyes were directed towards me I felt powerless to withdraw my own. The other two masters confessed themselves similarly affected. No less remarkable was the influence exerted by his voice when he spoke. It seemed to compel attention even when what he said was the merest commonplace. Altogether, his voice, look, and manner somehow inspired one with a conviction that he had seen, heard, and learnt things which had changed his whole nature, and virtually separated him, morally, intellectually, and physically, from the rest of his fellow-creatures.