nine
o'clock
When he reached his own desk he lifted the lid and remained for some moments motionless , gazing into it . His apparent meditation however was simply the combined reflection of his own features in a small pocket-mirror in its recesses and a perplexing doubt in his mind whether the sacrifice of his budding moustache was not essential to the professional austerity of his countenance . But he was presently aware of the sound of small voices , light cries , and brief laughter scattered at vague and remote distances from the schoolhouse -- not unlike the birds and squirrels he had just dispossessed . He recognized by these signs that it was nine o'clock , and his scholars were assembling . They came in their usual desultory fashion -- the fashion of country school-children the world over -- irregularly , spasmodically , and always as if accidentally ; a few hand-in-hand , others driven ahead of or dropped behind their elders ; some in straggling groups more or less coherent and at times only connected by far-off intermediate voices scattered on a space of half a mile , but never quite alone ; always preoccupied by something else than the actual business on hand ; appearing suddenly from ditches , behind trunks , and between fence-rails ; cropping up in unexpected places along the road after vague and purposeless detours -- seemingly going anywhere and everywhere but to school ! So unlooked-for , in fact , was their final arrival that the master , who had a few moments before failed to descry a single torn straw hat or ruined sun-bonnet above his visible horizon , was always startled to find them suddenly under his windows , as if , like the birds , they had alighted from the trees . Nor was their moral attitude towards their duty any the more varied ; they always arrived as if tired and reluctant , with a doubting sulkiness that perhaps afterwards beamed into a charming hypocrisy , but invariably temporizing with their instincts until the last moment , and only relinquishing possible truancy on the very threshold .