Eric
by
Frederic William Farrar
Part 1 out of 6
Produced by Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.
ERIC
OR, LITTLE BY LITTLE
A TALE OF ROSLYN SCHOOL
By
FREDERIC W. FARRAR, D.D.
Author of "The Life of Christ," "Julian Home," "St. Winifreds," etc
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
GEORGE A. TRAVER
1902
CONTENTS
PART I
CHAPTER I--CHILDHOOD
CHAPTER II--A NEW HOME
CHAPTER III--BULLYING
CHAPTER IV--CRIBBING
CHAPTER V--THE SECOND TERM
CHAPTER VI--HOME AFFECTIONS
CHAPTER VII--ERIC A BOARDER
CHAPTER VIII--"TAKING UP"
CHAPTER IX--"DEAD FLIES," OR "YE SHALL BE AS GODS"
CHAPTER X--DORMITORY LIFE
CHAPTER XI--ERIC IN COVENTRY
CHAPTER XII--THE TRIAL
CHAPTER XIII--THE ADVENTURE AT THE STACK
CHAPTER XIV--THE SILVER CORD BROKEN
CHAPTER XV--HOME AGAIN
PART II
CHAPTER I--ABDIEL
CHAPTER II--WILDNEY
CHAPTER III--THE JOLLY HERRING
CHAPTER IV--MR. ROSE AND BRIGSON
CHAPTER V--RIPPLES
CHAPTER VI--ERIC AND MONTAGU
CHAPTER VII--THE PIGEONS
CHAPTER VIII--SOWING THE WIND
CHAPTER IX--WHOM THE GODS LOVE DIE YOUNG
CHAPTER X--THE LAST TEMPTATION
CHAPTER XI--REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
CHAPTER XII--THE STORMY PETREL
CHAPTER XIII--HOME AT LAST
CHAPTER XIV--CONCLUSION
ILLUSTRATIONS
BULLYING
ERIC _Vignette on title-page_
SMOKING
ON THE ROCK
OUT OF THE WINDOW
ERIC AND VERNON
HIDING
ERIC ESCAPING FROM THE SHIP _Frontispiece_
ERIC: OR, LITTLE BY LITTLE
PART 1
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD
"Ah dear delights, that o'er my soul
On memory's wing like shadows fly!
Ah flowers that Joy from Eden stole,
While Innocence stood laughing by."--COLERIDGE.
"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" cried a young boy, as he capered vigorously
about, and clapped his hands. "Papa and mamma will be home in a week
now, and then we shall stay here a little time, and _then_, and _then_,
I shall go to school."
The last words were enunciated with immense importance, as he stopped
his impromptu dance before the chair where his sober cousin Fanny was
patiently working at her crochet; but she did not look so much affected
by the announcement as the boy seemed to demand, so he again exclaimed,
"And then, Miss Fanny, I shall go to school."
"Well, Eric," said Fanny, raising her matter-of-fact quiet face from her
endless work, "I doubt, dear, whether you will talk of it with quite as
much joy a year hence."
"O ay, Fanny, that's just like you to say so; you're always talking and
prophesying; but never mind, I'm going to school, so hurrah! hurrah!
hurrah!" and he again began his capering,--jumping over the chairs,
trying to vault the tables, singing and dancing with an exuberance of
delight, till, catching a sudden sight of his little spaniel Flo, he
sprang through the open window into the garden, and disappeared behind
the trees of the shrubbery; but Fanny still heard his clear, ringing,
silvery laughter, as he continued his games in the summer air.
She looked up from her work after he had gone, and sighed. In spite of
the sunshine and balm of the bright weather, a sense of heaviness and
foreboding oppressed her. Everything looked smiling and beautiful, and
there was an almost irresistible contagion in the mirth of her young
cousin, but still she could not help feeling sad. It was not merely that
she would have to part with Eric, "but that bright boy," thought Fanny,
"what will become of him? I have heard strange things of schools; oh, if
he should be spoilt and ruined, what misery it would be. Those baby
lips, that pure young heart, a year may work sad change in their words
and thoughts!" She sighed again, and her eyes glistened as she raised
them upwards, and breathed a silent prayer.
She loved the boy dearly, and had taught him from his earliest years.
In most things she found him an apt pupil. Truthful, ingenuous, quick,
he would acquire almost without effort any subject that interested him,
and a word was often enough to bring the impetuous blood to his cheeks,
in a flush, of pride or indignation. He required the gentlest teaching,
and had received it, while his mind seemed cast in such a mould of
stainless honor that he avoided most of the faults to which children are
prone. But he was far from blameless. He was proud to a fault; he well
knew that few of his fellows had gifts like his, either of mind or
person, and his fair face often showed a clear impression of his own
superiority. His passion, too, was imperious, and though it always met
with prompt correction, his cousin had latterly found it difficult to
subdue. She felt, in a word, that he was outgrowing her rule. Beyond a
certain age no boy of spirit can be safely guided by a woman's
hand alone.
Eric Williams was now twelve years old. His father was a civilian in
India, and was returning on furlough to England after a long absence.
Eric had been born in India, but had been sent to England by his parents
at an early age, in charge of a lady friend of his mother. The parting,
which had been agony to his father and mother, he was too young to feel;
indeed the moment itself passed by without his being conscious of it.
They took him on board the ship, and, after a time, gave him a hammer
and some nails to play with. These had always been to him a supreme
delight, and while he hammered away, Mr. and Mrs. Williams, denying
themselves, for the child's sake, even one more tearful embrace, went
ashore in the boat and left him. It was not till the ship sailed that he
was told he would not see them again for a long, long time. Poor child,
his tears and cries were wild when he first understood it; but the
sorrows of four years old are very transient, and before a week was
over, little Eric felt almost reconciled to his position, and had become
the universal pet and plaything of every one on board, from Captain
Broadland down to the cabin boy, with whom he very soon struck up an
acquaintance. Yet twice a day at least, he would shed a tear, as he
lisped his little prayer, kneeling at Mrs. Munro's knee, and asked God
"to bless his dear dear father and mother, and make him a good boy."
When Eric arrived in England, he was intrusted to the care of a widowed
aunt, whose daughter, Fanny, had the main charge of his early teaching.
At first, the wayward little Indian seemed likely to form no accession
to the quiet household, but he soon became its brightest ornament and
pride. Everything was in his favor at the pleasant home of Mrs. Trevor.
He was treated with motherly kindness and tenderness, yet firmly checked
when he went wrong. From the first he had a well-spring of strength,
against temptation, in the long letters which every mail brought from
his parents; and all his childish affections were entwined round the
fancied image of a brother born since he had left India. In his bed-room
there hung a cherub's head, drawn in pencil by his mother, and this
picture was inextricably identified in his imagination with his "little
brother Vernon." He loved it dearly, and whenever he went astray,
nothing weighed on his mind so strongly as the thought, that if he were
naughty he would teach little Vernon to be naughty too when he
came home.
And Nature also--wisest, gentlest, holiest of teachers-was with him in
his childhood. Fairholm Cottage, where his aunt lived, was situated in
the beautiful Vale of Ayrton, and a clear stream ran through the valley
at the bottom of Mrs. Trevor's orchard. Eric loved this stream, and was
always happy as he roamed by its side, or over the low green hills and
scattered dingles, which lent unusual loveliness to every winding of its
waters. He was allowed to go about a good deal by himself, and it did
him good. He grew up fearless and self-dependent, and never felt the
want of amusement. The garden and orchard supplied him a theatre for
endless games and romps, sometimes with no other companion than his
cousin and his dog, and sometimes with the few children of his own age
whom he knew in the hamlet. Very soon he forgot all about India; it only
hung like a distant golden haze on the horizon of his memory. When asked
if he remembered it, he would say thoughtfully, that in dreams and at
some other times, he saw a little child, with long curly hair, running
about in a little garden, near a great river, in a place where the air
was very bright. But whether the little boy was himself or his brother
Vernon, whom he had never seen, he couldn't quite tell.
But above all, it was happy for Eric that his training was religious and
enlightened. With Mrs. Trevor and her daughter, religion was not a
system but a habit--not a theory, but a continued act of life. All was
simple, sweet, and unaffected about their charity and their devotions.
They loved God, and they did all the good they could to those around
them. The floating gossip and ill-nature of the little village never
affected them; it melted away insensibly in the presence of their
cultivated minds; and so friendship with them was a bond of union among
all, and from the vicar to the dairyman every one loved and respected
them, asked their counsel, and sought their sympathy.
They called themselves by no sectarian name, nor could they have told to
what "party" they belonged. They troubled themselves with no theories of
education, but mingled gentle nurture with "wholesome neglect." There
was nothing exotic or constrained in the growth of Eric's character. He
was not one of your angelically good children at all, and knew none of
the phrases of which infant prodigies are supposed to be so fond. He had
not been taught any distinction between "Sunday books" and "week-day"
books, but no book had been put in his way that was not healthy and
genuine in tone. He had not been told that he might use his Noah's ark
on Sunday, because it was "a Sunday plaything," while all other toys
were on that day forbidden. Of these things the Trevors thought little;
they only saw that no child could be happy in enforced idleness or
constrained employment; and so Eric grew up to love Sunday quite as well
as any other day in the week, though, unlike your angelic children, he
never professed to like it better. But to be truthful, to be honest, to
be kind, to be brave, these had been taught him, and he never _quite_
forgot the lesson; nor amid the sorrows of after life did he ever quite
lose the sense--learnt at dear quiet Fairholm--of a present loving God,
of a tender and long-suffering Father.
As yet he could be hardly said to know what school was. He had been sent
indeed to Mr. Lawley's grammar-school for the last half-year, and had
learned a few declensions in his Latin grammar. But as Mr. Lawley
allowed his upper class to hear the little boys their lessons, Eric had
managed to get on pretty much as he liked. Only _once_ in the entire
half-year had he said a lesson to the dreadful master himself, and of
course it was a ruinous failure, involving some tremendous pulls of
Eric's hair, and making him tremble like a leaf. Several things combined
to make Mr. Lawley dreadful to his imagination. Ever since he was quite
little, he remembered hearing the howls which proceeded from the "Latin
school" as he passed by, whilst some luckless youngster was getting
caned; and the reverend pedagogue was notoriously passionate. Then,
again, he spoke so indistinctly with his deep, gruff voice, that Eric
never could and never did syllable a word he said, and this kept him in
a perpetual terror. Once Mr. Lawley had told him to go out, and see what
time it was by the church clock. Only hearing that he was to do
something, too frightened to ask what it was, and feeling sure that even
if he did, he should not understand what the master said, Eric ran out,
went straight to Mr. Lawley's house, and after having managed by
strenuous jumps to touch the knocker, informed the servant "that Mr.
Lawley wanted his man."
"What man?" said the maid-servant, "the young man? or the butler? or is
it the clerk?"
Here was a puzzler! all Eric knew was that he was in the habit of
sending sometimes for one or the other of these functionaries; but he
was in for it, so with a faltering voice he said "the young man" at
hazard, and went back to the Latin school.
"Why have you been so long?" roared Mr. Lawley, as he timidly entered.
Fear entirely prevented Eric from hearing what was said, so he answered
at random, "He's coming, sir." The master, seeing by his scared look
that something was wrong, waited to see what would turn up.
Soon after, in walked "the young man," and coming to the astonished Mr.
Lawley, bowed, scraped, and said, "Master Williams said you sent for
me, sir."
"A mistake," growled the schoolmaster, turning on Eric a look which
nearly petrified him; he quite expected a book at his head, or at best a
great whack of the cane; but Mr. Lawley had naturally a kind heart,
soured as it was, and pitying perhaps the child's white face, he
contented himself with the effects of his look.
The simple truth was, that poor Mr. Lawley was a little wrong in the
head. A scholar and a gentleman, early misfortunes and an imprudent
marriage had driven him to the mastership of the little country
grammar-school; and here the perpetual annoyance caused to his refined
mind by the coarseness of clumsy or spiteful boys, had gradually
unhinged his intellect. Often did he tell the boys "that it was an
easier life by far to break stones by the roadside than to teach them;"
and at last his eccentricities became too obvious to be any longer
overlooked.
The denouement of his history was a tragic one, and had come a few days
before the time when, our narrative opens. It was a common practice
among the Latin school boys, as I suppose among all boys, to amuse
themselves by putting a heavy book on the top of a door left partially
ajar, and to cry out "Crown him" as the first luckless youngster who
happened to come in received the book thundering on his head. One day,
just as the trap had been adroitly laid, Mr. Lawley walked in
unexpectedly. The moment he entered the school-room, down came an
Ainsworth's Dictionary on the top of his hat, and the boy, concealed
behind the door, unconscious of who the victim was, enunciated with mock
gravity, "Crown him! three cheers."
It took Mr. Lawley a second to raise from his eyebrows the battered hat,
and recover from his confusion; the next instant he was springing after
the boy who had caused the mishap, and who, knowing the effects of the
master's fury, fled with precipitation. In one minute the offender was
caught, and Mr. Lawley's heavy hand fell recklessly on his ears and
back, until he screamed with terror. At last by a tremendous writhe,
wrenching himself free, he darted towards the door, and Mr. Lawley, too
exhausted to pursue, snatched his large gold watch out of his fob, and
hurled it at the boy's retreating figure. The watch flew through the
air;--crash! it had missed its aim, and, striking the wall above the
lintel, fell smashed into a thousand shivers.
The sound, the violence of the action, the sight of the broken watch,
which was the gift of a cherished friend, instantly woke the master to
his senses. The whole school had seen it; they sate there pale and
breathless with excitement and awe. The poor man could bear it no
longer. He flung himself into his chair, hid his face with his hands,
and burst into hysterical tears. It was the outbreak of feelings long
pent up. In that instant all his life passed before him--its hopes, its
failures, its miseries, its madness. "Yes!" he thought, "I am mad."
Raising his head, he cried wildly, "Boys, go, I am mad!" and sank again
into his former position, rocking himself to and fro. One by one the
boys stole out, and he was left alone. The end is soon told. Forced to
leave Ayrton, he had no means of earning his daily bread; and the weight
of this new anxiety hastening the crisis, the handsome proud scholar
became an inmate of the Brerely Lunatic Asylum. A few years afterwards,
Eric heard that he was dead. Poor broken human heart! may he rest
in peace.
Such was Eric's first school and schoolmaster. But although he learnt
little there, and gained no experience of the character of others or of
his own, yet there was one point about Ayrton Latin School, which he
never regretted. It was the mixture there of all classes. On those
benches gentlemen's sons sat side by side with plebeians, and no harm,
but only good, seemed to come from the intercourse. The neighboring
gentry, most of whom had begun their education there, were drawn into
closer and kindlier union with their neighbors and dependents, from the
fact of having been their associates in the days of their boyhood. Many
a time afterwards, when Eric, as he passed down the streets,
interchanged friendly greetings with some young glazier or tradesman
whom he remembered at school, he felt glad that thus early he had learnt
practically to despise the accidental and nominal differences which
separate man from man.
CHAPTER II
A NEW HOME
"Life hath its May, and all is joyous then;
The woods are vocal and the flowers breathe odour,
The very breeze hath, mirth in't."--OLD PLAY.
At last the longed-for yet dreaded day approached, and a letter informed
the Trevors that Mr. and Mrs. Williams would arrive at Southampton on
July 5th, and would probably reach Ayrton the evening after. They
particularly requested that no one should come to meet them on their
landing. "We shall reach Southampton," wrote Mrs. Trevor, "tired, pale,
and travel-stained, and had much rather see you first at dear Fairholm,
where we shall be spared the painful constraint of a meeting in public.
So please expect our arrival at about seven in the evening."
Poor Eric! although he had been longing for the time ever since the news
came, yet now he was too agitated to enjoy. Exertion and expectation
made him restless, and he could settle down to nothing all day, every
hour of which hung most heavily on his hands.
At last the afternoon wore away, and a soft summer evening filled the
sky with its gorgeous calm. Far off they caught the sound of wheels; a
carriage dashed up to the door, and the next moment Eric sprang into his
mother's arms.
"O mother, mother!"
"My own darling, darling boy!"
And as the pale sweet face of the mother met the bright and rosy
child-face, each of them was wet with a rush of ineffable tears. In
another moment Eric had been folded to his father's heart, and locked in
the arms of "little brother Vernon." Who shall describe the emotions of
those few moments? they did not seem like earthly moments; they seemed
to belong not to time, but to eternity.
The first evening of such a scene is too excited to be happy. The little
party at Fairholm retired early, and Eric was soon fast asleep with his
arm round his newfound brother's neck.
Quiet steps entered the little room, and noiselessly the father and
mother sat down by the bedside of their children. Earth could have shown
no scene more perfect in its beauty than that which met their eyes. The
pure moonlight flooded the little room, and showed distinctly the forms
and countenances of the sleepers, whose soft regular breathing was the
only sound that broke the stillness of the July night. The small shining
flower-like faces, with their fair hair--the trustful loving arms folded
round each brother's neck--the closed lids and parted lips made an
exquisite picture, and one never to be forgotten. Side by side, without
a word, the parents knelt down, and with eyes wet with tears of
joyfulness, poured out their hearts in passionate prayer for their young
and beloved boys.
Very happily the next month glided away; a new life seemed opened to
Eric in the world of rich affections which had unfolded itself before
him. His parents--above all, his mother--were everything that he had
longed for; and Vernon more than fulfilled to his loving heart the ideal
of his childish fancy. He was never tired of playing with and
patronising his little brother, and their rambles by stream and hill
made those days appear the happiest he had ever spent. Every evening
(for he had not yet laid aside the habits of childhood) he said his
prayers by his mother's knee, and at the end of one long summer's day,
when prayers were finished, and full of life and happiness he lay down
to sleep, "O mother," he said, "I am so happy--I like to say my prayers
when you are here."
"Yes, my boy, and God loves to hear them."
"Aren't there some who never say prayers, mother?"
"Very many, love, I fear."
"How unhappy they must be! I shall _always_ love to say my prayers."
"Ah, Eric, God grant that you may!"
And the fond mother hoped he always would. But these words often came
back to Eric's mind in later and less happy days--days when that gentle
hand could no longer rest lovingly on his head--when those mild blue
eyes were dim with tears, and the fair boy, changed in heart and life,
often flung himself down with an unreproaching conscience to
prayerless sleep.
It had been settled that in another week Eric was to go to school in
the Isle of Roslyn. Mr. Williams had hired a small house in the town of
Ellan, and intended to stay there for his year of furlough, at the end
of which period Vernon was to be left at Fairholm, and Eric in the house
of the head-master of the school. Eric enjoyed the prospect of all
things, and he hardly fancied that Paradise itself could be happier than
a life at the seaside with his father and mother and Vernon, combined
with the commencement of schoolboy dignity. When the time for the voyage
came, his first glimpse of the sea, and the sensation of sailing over it
with only a few planks between him and the deep waters, struck him
silent with admiring wonder. It was a cloudless day; the line of blue
sky melted into the line of blue wave, and the air was filled with
sunlight. At evening they landed, and the coach took them to Ellan. On
the way Eric saw for the first time the strength of the hills, so that
when they reached the town and took possession of their cottage, he was
dumb with the inrush of new and marvellous impressions.
Next morning he was awake early, and jumping out of bed, so as not to
disturb the sleeping Vernon, he drew up the window-blind, and gently
opened the window. A very beautiful scene burst on him, one destined to
be long mingled with all his most vivid reminiscences. Not twenty yards
below the garden, in front of the house, lay Ellan Bay, at that moment
rippling with golden laughter in the fresh breeze of sunrise. On either
side of the bay was a bold headland, the one stretching out in a series
of broken crags, the other terminating in a huge mass of rock, called
from its shape the Stack. To the right lay the town, with its grey old
castle, and the mountain stream running through it into the sea; to the
left, high above the beach, rose the crumbling fragment of a picturesque
fort, behind which towered the lofty buildings of Roslyn School. Eric
learnt the whole landscape by heart, and thought himself a most happy
boy to come to such a place. He fancied that he should be never tired of
looking at the sea, and could not take his eyes off the great buoy that
rolled about in the centre of the bay, and flashed in the sunlight at
every move. He turned round full of hope and spirits, and, after
watching for a few moments the beautiful face of his sleeping brother,
he awoke him with a boisterous kiss.
That day Eric was to have his first interview with Dr. Rowlands. The
school had already re-opened, and one of the boys in his college cap
passed by the window while they were breakfasting. He looked very happy
and engaging, and was humming a tune as he strolled along. Eric started
up and gazed after him with the most intense curiosity. At that moment
the unconscious schoolboy was to him the most interesting person in the
whole world, and he couldn't realize the fact that, before the day was
over, he would be a Roslyn boy himself. He very much wondered what sort
of a fellow the boy was, and whether he should ever recognise him again,
and make his acquaintance. Yes, Eric, the thread of that boy's destiny
is twined a good deal with yours; his name is Montagu, as you will know
very soon.
At nine o'clock Mr. Williams started towards the school with his son.
The walk led them by the sea-side, over the sands, and past the ruin, at
the foot of which the waves broke at high tide. At any other time Eric
would have been overflowing with life and wonder at the murmur of the
ripples, the sight of the ships passing by the rock-bound bay, and the
numberless little shells, with their bright colors and sculptured
shapes, which lay about the beach. But now his mind was too full of a
single sensation, and when, after crossing a green playground, they
stood by the head-master's door, his heart fluttered, and it required
all his energy to keep down the nervous trembling which shook him.
Mr. Williams gave his card, and they were shown into Dr. Rowlands'
study. He was a kind-looking gentlemanly man, and when he turned to
address Eric, after a few minutes' conversation with his father, the boy
felt instantly reassured by the pleasant sincerity and frank courtesy of
his manner. A short examination showed that Eric's attainments were very
slight as yet, and he was to be put in the lowest form of all, under the
superintendence of the Rev. Henry Gordon. Dr. Rowlands wrote a short
note in pencil, and giving it to Eric, directed the servant to show him
to Mr. Gordon's school-room.
The bell had just done ringing when they had started for the school, so
that Eric knew that all the boys would be by this time assembled at
their work, and that he should have to go alone into the middle of them.
As he walked after the servant through the long corridors and up the
broad stairs, he longed to make friends with him, so as, if possible, to
feel less lonely. But he had only time to get out, "I say, what sort of
a fellow is Mr. Gordon?"
"Terrible strict, Sir, I hear," said the man, touching his cap with a
comic expression, which didn't at all tend to enliven the future pupil.
"That's the door," he continued, "and you'll have to give him the
doctor's note;" and, pointing to a door at the end of the passage, he
walked off.
Eric stopped irresolutely. The man had disappeared, and he was by
himself in the great silent building. Afraid of the sound of his own
footsteps, he ran along the passage, and knocked timidly. He heard a
low, a very low murmur in the room, but there was no answer. He knocked
again a little louder; still no notice; then, overdoing it in his
fright, he gave a very loud tap indeed.
"Come in," said a voice, which to the new boy sounded awful; but
he opened the door, and entered. As he came in every head was
quickly raised, he heard a whisper of "New fellow," and the crimson
flooded his face, as he felt himself the cynosure of some forty
intensely-inquisitive pairs of eyes.
He found himself in a high airy room, with three large windows opening
towards the sea. At one end was the master's throne, and facing it, all
down the room, were desks and benches, along which the boys were sitting
at work. Every one knows how very confusing it is to enter a strange
room full of strange people, and especially when you enter it from a
darker passage. Eric felt dazzled, and not seeing the regular route to
the master's desk, went towards it between two of the benches. As these
were at no great distance from each other, he stumbled against several
legs on his way, and felt pretty sure that they were put out on purpose
to trip him, especially by one boy, who, pretending to be much hurt,
drew up his leg, and began rubbing it, ejaculating _sotto voce_,
"awkward little fool."
In this very clumsy way he at last reached the desk, and presented his
missive. The master's eye was on him, but all Eric had time to observe
was, that he looked rather stern, and had in his hand a book which he
seemed to be studying with the deepest interest. He glanced first at the
note, and then looked full at the boy, as though determined to read his
character at a glance.
"Williams, I suppose?"
"Yes, Sir," said Eric, very low, still painfully conscious that all the
boys were looking at him, as well as the master.
"Very well, Williams, you are placed in the lowest form--the fourth. I
hope you will work well. At present they are learning their Cesar. Go
and sit next to that boy," pointing towards the lower end of the room;
"he will show you the lesson, and let you look over his book. Barker,
let Williams look over you!"
Eric went and sat down at the end of a bench by the boy indicated. He
was a rough-looking fellow, with a shock head of black hair, and a very
dogged look. Eric secretly thought that he wasn't a very nice-looking
specimen of Roslyn school. However, he sate by him, and glanced at the
Cesar which the boy shoved about a quarter of an inch in his direction.
But Barker didn't seem inclined to make any further advances, and
presently Eric asked in a whisper,
"What's the lesson?"
The boy glanced at him, but took no further notice.
Eric repeated, "I say, what's the lesson?"
Instead of answering, Barker stared at him, and grunted,
"What's your name?"
"Eric--I mean Williams."
"Then why don't you say what you mean?"
Eric moved his foot impatiently at this ungracious reception; but as he
seemed to have no redress, he pulled the Cesar nearer towards him.
"Drop that; 't isn't yours."
Mr. Gordon heard a whisper, and glanced that way. "Silence!" he said,
and Barker pretended to be deep in his work, while Eric, resigning
himself to his fate, looked about him.
He had plenty to occupy his attention in the faces round him. He
furtively examined Mr. Gordon, as he bent over his high desk, writing,
but couldn't make our the physiognomy. There had been something reserved
and imperious in the master's manner, yet he thought he should not
dislike him on the whole. With the countenances of his future
schoolfellows he was not altogether pleased, but there were one or two
which thoroughly attracted him. One boy, whose side face was turned
towards him as he sat on the bench in front, took his fancy
particularly, so, tired of doing nothing, he plucked up courage, and
leaning forward whispered, "Do lend me your Cesar for a few minutes."
The boy at once handed it to him with a pleasant smile, and as the
lesson was marked, Eric had time to hurry over a few sentences, when Mr.
Gordon's sonorous voice exclaimed,
"Fourth form, come up!"
Some twenty of the boys went up, and stood in a large semicircle round
the desk. Eric of course was placed last, and the lesson commenced.
"Russell, begin," said the master; and immediately the boy who had
handed Eric his Caesar, began reading a few sentences, and construed
them very creditably, only losing a place or two. He had a frank open
face, bright intelligent fearless eyes, and a very taking voice and
manner. Eric listened admiringly and felt sure he should like him.
Barker was put on next. He bungled through the Latin in a grating
irresolute sort of a way, with several false quantities, for each of
which the next boy took him up. Then he began to construe;--a frightful
confusion of nominatives without verbs, accusatives translated as
ablatives, and perfects turned into prepositions ensued, and after a
hopeless flounder, during which Mr. Gordon left him entirely to himself,
Barker came to a full stop; his catastrophe was so ludicrous, that Eric
could not help joining in the general titter Barker scowled.
"As usual, Barker," said the master, with a curl of the lip. "Hold out
your hand!"
Barker did so, looking sullen defiance, and the cane immediately
descended on his open palm. Six similar cuts followed, during which the
form looked on, not without terror; and Barker, squeezing his hands
tight together, went back to his seat.
"Williams, translate the piece in which Barker has just failed!"
Eric did as he was bid, and got through it pretty well. He had now quite
recovered his ordinary bearing, and spoke out clearly and without
nervousness. He afterwards won several places by answering questions,
and at the end of the lesson was marked about half-way up the form. The
boys' numbers were then taken down in the weekly register, and they went
back to their seats.
On his desk Eric found a torn bit of paper, on which was clumsily
scrawled, "I'll teach you to grin when I'm turned, you young brute."
The paper seemed to fascinate his eyes. He stared at it fixedly, and
augured ominously of Barker's intentions, since that worthy obviously
alluded to his having smiled in form, and chose to interpret it as an
intentional provocation. He felt that he was in for it, and that Barker
meant to pick a quarrel with him. This puzzled and annoyed him, and he
felt very sad to have found an enemy already.
While he was looking at the paper, the great school-clock struck twelve;
and the captain of the form getting up, threw open the folding-doors of
the school-room.
"You may go," said Mr. Gordon; and leaving his seat disappeared by a
door at the further end of the room.
Instantly there was a rash for caps, and the boys poured out in a
confused and noisy stream, while at the same moment the other
school-rooms disgorged their inmates. Eric naturally went out among the
last; but just as he was going to take his cap, Barker seized it, and
flung it with a whoop to the end of the passage, where it was trampled
on by a number of the boys as they ran out.
Eric, gulping down his fury with a great effort, turned to his opponent,
and said coolly, "Is that what you always do to new fellows?"
"Yes, you bumptious young owl, it is, and that too;" and a tolerably
smart slap on the face followed--leaving a red mark on a cheek already
aflame with, anger and indignation,--"should you like a little more?"
He was hurt, both mind and body, but was too proud to cry. "What's that
for?" he said, with flashing eyes.
"For your conceit in laughing at me when I was caned."
Eric stamped. "I did nothing of the kind, and you know it as well as I
do."
"What! I'm a liar, am I? O we shall take this kind of thing out of you,
you young cub--take that;" and a heavier blow followed.
"You brutal cowardly bully," shouted Eric; and in another moment he
would have sprung upon him. It was lucky for him that he did not, for
Barker was three years older than he, and very powerful. Such an attack
would hare been most unfortunate for him in every way. But at this
instant some boys hearing the quarrel ran up, and Russell among them.
"Hallo, Barker," said one, "what's up?"
"Why, I'm teaching this new fry to be less bumptious, that's all."
"Shame!" said Russell, as he saw the mark on Eric's cheek; "what a
fellow you are, Barker. Why couldn't you leave him alone for his first
day, at any rate?"
"What's that to you? I'll kick you too, if you say much."
"Cave, cave!" whispered half a dozen voices, and instantly the knot of
boys dispersed in every direction, as Mr. Gordon was seen approaching.
He had caught a glimpse of the scene without understanding it, and
seeing the new boy's red and angry face, he only said, as he passed by,
"What, Williams! fighting already? Take care."
This was the cruellest cut of all. "So," thought Eric, "a nice
beginning! it seems both boys and masters are against me;" and very
disconsolately he walked to pick up his cap.
The boys were all dispersed in the play-ground at different games, and
as he went home he was stopped perpetually, and had to answer the usual
questions, "What's your name? Are you a boarder or a day scholar? What
form are you in?" Eric expected all this, and it therefore did not annoy
him. Under any other circumstances, he would have answered cheerfully
and frankly enough; but now he felt miserable at his morning's
rencontre, and his answers were short and sheepish, his only desire
being to get away as soon as possible. It was an additional vexation to
feel sure that his manner did not make a favorable impression.
Before he had got out of the play ground, Russell ran up to him. "I'm
afraid you won't like this, or think much of us, Williams," he said.
"But never mind. It'll only last a day or two, and the fellows are not
so bad as they seem; except that Barker. I'm sorry you've come across
him, but it can't be helped."
It was the first kind word he had had since the morning, and after his
troubles kindness melted him. He felt half inclined to cry, and for a
few moments could say nothing in reply to Russell's soothing words. But
the boy's friendliness went far to comfort him, and at last, shaking
hands with him, he said--
"Do let me speak to you sometimes, while I am a new boy, Russell."
"O yes," said Russell, laughing, "as much as ever you like. And as
Barker hates me pretty much as he seems inclined to hate you, we are in
the same box. Good bye."
So Eric left the field, and wandered home, like Calchas in the Iliad,
"Sorrowful by the side of the sounding sea." Already the purple mantle
had fallen from his ideal of schoolboy life. He got home later than they
expected, and found his parents waiting for him. It was rather
disappointing to them to see his face so melancholy, when they expected
him to be full of animation and pleasure. Mrs. Williams drew her own
conclusions from the red mark on his cheek, as well as the traces of
tears welling to his eyes; but, like a wise mother, she asked nothing,
and left the boy to tell his own story,--which, in time he did, omitting
all the painful part, speaking enthusiastically of Russell, and only
admitting that he had been a little teased.
CHAPTER III
BULLYING
"Give to the morn of life its natural blessedness." Wordsworth.
Why is it that new boys are almost invariably ill-treated? I have often
fancied that there must be in boyhood a pseudo-instinctive cruelty, a
sort of "wild trick of the ancestral savage," which, no amount of
civilization can entirely repress. Certain it is, that to most boys the
first term is a trying ordeal. They are being tested and weighed. Their
place in the general estimation is not yet fixed, and the slightest
circumstances are seized upon to settle the category under which the boy
is to be classed. A few apparently trivial accidents of his first few
weeks at school often decide his position in the general regard for the
remainder of his boyhood. And yet these are _not_ accidents; they are
the slight indications which give an unerring proof of the general
tendencies of his character and training. Hence much of the apparent
cruelty with which new boys are treated is not exactly intentional. At
first, of course, as they can have no friends worth speaking of, there
are always plenty of coarse and brutal minds that take a pleasure in
their torment, particularly if they at once recognise any innate
superiority to themselves. Of this class was Barker. He hated Eric at
first sight, simply because his feeble mind could only realise one idea
about him, and that was the new boy's striking contrast with his own
imperfections. Hence he left no means untried to vent on Eric his low
and mean jealousy. He showed undisguised pleasure when he fell in form,
and signs of disgust when he rose; he fomented every little source of
disapproval or quarrelling which happened to arise against him; he never
looked at him without a frown or a sneer; he waited for him to kick and
annoy him as he came out of, or went into, the school-room. In fact, he
did his very best to make the boy's life miserable, and the occupation
of hating him seemed in some measure to fill up the vacuity of an
ill-conditioned and degraded mind.
Hatred is a most mysterious and painful phenomenon to the unhappy person
who is the object of it, and more especially if he have incurred it by
no one assignable reason. To Eric it was peculiarly painful; he was
utterly unprepared for it. In his bright joyous life at Fairholm, in the
little he saw of the boys at the Latin school, he had met with nothing
but kindness and caresses, and the generous nobleness of his character
had seemed to claim them as a natural element. "And now, why," he asked
impatiently, "should this bull-dog sort of fellow have set his whole aim
to annoy, vex, and hurt me?" Incapable himself of so mean a spirit of
jealousy at superior excellence, he could not make it out; but such,
was the fact, and the very mysteriousness of it made it more
intolerable to bear.
But it must be admitted that he made matters worse by his own bursts of
passion. His was not the temper to turn the other cheek; but, brave and
spirited as he was, he felt how utterly hopeless would be any attempt on
his part to repel force by force. He would have tried some slight
conciliation, but it was really impossible with such a boy as his enemy.
Barker never gave him even so much as an indifferent look, much less a
civil word. Eric loathed him, and the only good and happy part of the
matter to his own mind was, that conscientiously his only desire was to
get rid of him and be left alone, while he never cherished a particle
of revenge.
While every day Eric was getting on better in form, and winning himself
a very good position with the other boys, who liked his frankness, his
mirth, his spirit, and cleverness, he felt this feud with Barker like a
dark background to all his enjoyment. He even had to manoeuvre daily how
to escape him, and violent scenes were of constant occurrence between
them. Eric could not, and would not, brook his bullying with silence.
His resentment was loud and stinging, and, Ishmaelite as Barker was,
even _his_ phlegmatic temperament took fire when Eric shouted his fierce
and uncompromising retorts in the hearing of the others.
Meanwhile Eric was on the best of terms with the rest of the form, and
such of the other boys as he knew, although, at first, his position as a
home-boarder prevented his knowing many. Besides Russell, there were
three whom he liked best, and respected most--Duncan, Montagu, and Owen.
They were very different boys, but all of them had qualities which well
deserved his esteem. Duncan was the most boyish of boys, intensely full
of fun, good-nature, and vigor; with fair abilities, he never got on
well, because he could not be still for two minutes, and even if, in
some fit of sudden ambition, he got up high in the form, he was sure to
be put to the bottom again before the day was over, for trifling or
talking. But out of school he was the soul of every game; whatever _he_
took up was sure to be done pleasantly, and no party of amusement was
ever planned without endeavoring to secure him as one of the number.
Montagu's chief merit was, that he was such a thorough little gentleman;
"such a jolly little fellow" every one said of him. Without being clever
or athletic, he managed to do very fairly both at work and at the games,
and while he was too exclusive to make many _intimate_ friends,
everybody liked walking about or talking with him. Even Barker,
blackguard as he was, seemed to be a little uneasy when confronted with
Montagu's naturally noble and chivalrous bearing. In nearly all respects
his influence was thoroughly good, and few boys were more
generally popular.
Owen, again, was a very different boy. His merit was a ceaseless
diligence, in which it was doubtful whether ambition or
conscientiousness had the greatest share. Reserved and thoughtful,
unfitted for or indifferent to most games, he was anything but a
favorite with the rest, and Eric rather respected than liked him. When
he first came, he had been one of the most natural butts for Barker's
craving ill-nature, and for a time he had been tremendously bullied. But
gradually his mental superiority asserted itself. He took everything
without tears and without passion, and this diminished the pleasure of
annoying him. One day when Barker had given him an unprovoked kick, he
quietly said,
"Barker, next time you do that, I'll tell Mr. Gordon."
"Sneak! do it if you dare." And he kicked him again; but the moment
after he was sorry for it, for there was a dark look in Owen's eyes, as
he turned instantly into the door of the master's room, and laid a
formal complaint against Barker for bullying.
Mr. Gordon didn't like "telling," and he said so to Owen, without
reserve. An ordinary boy would have broken into a flood of explanations
and palliations, but Owen simply bowed, and said nothing. "He stood
there for justice," and he had counted the cost. Strong-minded and
clear-headed, he calculated correctly that the momentary dislike of his
schoolfellows, with whom he well knew that he never could be popular,
would be less unbearable than Barker's villanous insults. The
consequence was that Barker was caned soundly, although, with some
injustice, Mr. Gordon made no attempt to conceal that he did it
unwillingly.
Of course the fellows were very indignant with Owen for sneaking, as
they called it, and for a week or two he had the keen mortification of
seeing "Owen is a sneak," written up all about the walls. But he was
too proud or too cold to make any defence till called upon, and bore it
in silence. Barker vowed eternal vengeance, and the very day after, had
seized Owen with the avowed intention of "half murdering him." But
before he could once strike him, Owen said in the most chill tone,
"Barker, if you touch me, I shall go straight to Dr. Rowlands." The
bully well knew that Owen never broke his word, but he could not govern
his rage, and first giving Owen a violent shake, he proceeded to thrash
him without limit or remorse.
Pale, but unmoved, Owen got away, and walked straight to Dr. Rowlands'
door. The thing was unheard of, and the boys were amazed at his
temerity, for the doctor was to all their imaginations a regular _Deus
ex machina._ That afternoon, again Barker was publicly caned, with the
threat that the next offence would be followed by instant and public
expulsion. This punishment he particularly dreaded, because he was
intended for the army, and he well knew that it might ruin his
prospects. The consequence was, that Owen never suffered from him again,
although he daily received a shower of oaths and curses, which he passed
over with silent contempt.
My dear boy-reader, don't suppose that I want you to imitate Owen in
this matter. I despise a boy who "tells" as much as you do, and it is a
far better and braver thing to bear bullying with such a mixture of
spirit and good humor, as in time to disarm it. But Owen was a peculiar
boy, and remember he had _no_ redress. He bore for a time, until he felt
that he _must_ have the justice and defence, without which it would
have been impossible for him to continue at Roslyn school.
But why, you ask, didn't he tell the monitors? Unfortunately at Roslyn
the monitorial system was not established. Although it was a school of
250 boys, the sixth form, with all their privileges, had no prerogative
of authority. They hadn't the least right to interfere, because no such
power had been delegated to them, and therefore they felt themselves
merely on a par with the rest, except for such eminence as their
intellectual superiority gave them. The consequence was, that any
interference from them would have been of a simply individual nature,
and was exerted very rarely. It would have done Owen no more good to
tell a sixth-form boy, than to tell any other boy; and as he was not a
favorite, he was not likely to find any champion to fight his battles or
maintain his just rights.
All this had happened before Eric's time, and he heard it from his best
friend Russell. His heart clave to that boy. They became friends at once
by a kind of electric sympathy; the first glance of each at the other's
face prepared the friendship, and every day of acquaintance more firmly
cemented it. Eric could not have had a better friend; not so clever as
himself, not so diligent as Owen, not so athletic as Duncan, or so
fascinating as Montagu, Russell combined the best qualities of them all.
And, above all, he acted invariably from the highest principle; he
presented that noblest of all noble spectacles--one so rare that many
think it impossible--the spectacle of an honorable, pure-hearted, happy
boy, who, as his early years speed by, is ever growing in wisdom, and
stature, and favor with God and man.
"Did that brute Barker ever bully you as he bullies me?" said Eric, one
day, as he walked on the sea-shore with his friend.
"Yes," said Russell; "I slept in his dormitory when I first came, and he
has often made me so wretched that I have flung myself on my knees at
night in pretence of prayer, but really to get a little quiet time to
cry like a child."
"And when was it he left off at last?"
"Why, you know, Upton in the fifth is my cousin, and very fond of me; he
heard of it, though I didn't say anything about it, and told Barker that
if ever he caught him at it, he would thrash him within an inch of his
life; and that frightened him for one thing. Besides, Duncan, Montagu,
and other friends of mine began to cut him in consequence, so he thought
it best to leave off."
"How is it, Russell, that fellows stand by and let him do it?"
"You see, Williams," said Russell, "Barker is an enormously strong
fellow, and that makes the younger chaps, whom he fags, look up to him
as a great hero. And there isn't one in our part of the school who can
thrash him. Besides, people never do interfere, you know--at least not
often. I remember once seeing a street-row in London, at which twenty
people stood by, and let a drunken beast of a husband strike his wife
without ever stirring to defend her."
"Well," sighed Eric, "I hope my day of deliverance will come soon, for
I can't stand it much longer, and 'tell' I won't, whatever Owen may do."
Eric's deliverance came very soon. It was afternoon; the boys were
playing at different games in the green playground, and he was waiting
for his turn at rounders. At this moment Barker lounged up, and calmly
snatching off Eric's cap, shied it over Dr. Rowlands' garden wall.
"There, go and fetch that."
"You blackguard!" said Eric, standing irresolutely for a few minutes;
and then with tears in his eyes began to climb the wall. It was not very
high, but boys were peremptorily forbidden to get over it under any
circumstances, and Eric broke the rule not without trepidation. However,
he dropped down on one of Mrs. Rowlands' flower-beds, and got his cap in
a hurry, and clambered back undiscovered.
He thought this would have satisfied his tormentor for one day; but
Barker was in a mischievous mood, so he again came up to Eric, and
calling out, "Who'll have a game at football?" again snatched the cap,
and gave it a kick; Eric tried to recover it, but every time he came up
Barker gave it a fresh kick, and finally kicked it into a puddle.
Eric stood still, trembling with rage, while his eyes lightened scorn
and indignation. "You hulking, stupid, cowardly bully,"--here Barker
seized him, and every word brought a tremendous blow on the head, but
blind with passion Eric went on--"you despicable bully, I won't touch
that cap again, you shall pick it up yourself. Duncan, Russell, here! do
help me against this intolerable brute."
Several boys ran up, but they were all weaker than Barker, who besides
was now in a towering fury, and kicked Eric unmercifully.
"Leave him alone," shouted Duncan, "or by heaven I'll get you a sound
thrashing from some fellow."
"I won't; mind your own business," growled Barker, shaking himself free
from Duncan's hand.
"Barker, I'll never speak to you again from this day," said Montagu,
turning on his heel with a look of withering contempt.
"What do I care? puppy, you want taking down too," was the reply, and
some more kicks at Eric followed.
"Barker, I won't stand this any longer," said Russell; and seizing him
by the arm, he dealt him a swinging blow on the face.
The bully stood in amazement, and dropped Eric, who fell on the turf
nearly fainting, and bleeding at the nose. But now Russell's turn came,
and in a moment Barker, who was twice his weight, had tripped him up,
when he found himself collared in an iron grasp.
There had been an unobserved spectator of the whole scene, in the person
of Mr. Williams himself, and it was his strong hand that now griped
Barker's shoulder. He was greatly respected by the boys, who all knew
his tall handsome figure by sight, and he frequently stood a quiet and
pleased observer of their games. The boys in the playground came
crowding round, and Barker in vain struggled to escape. Mr. Williams
held him firmly, and said in a calm voice, "I have just seen you treat
one of your schoolfellows with the grossest violence. It makes me blush
for you, Roslyn Boys," he continued, turning to the group that
surrounded him, "that you can stand by unmoved, and see such things
done. You know that you despise any one who tells a master, yet you
allow this bullying to go on, and that, too, without any provocation.
Now, mark; it makes no difference that the boy hurt is my own son; I
would have punished this scoundrel, whoever it had been, and I shall
punish him now." With these words he lifted the riding-whip which he
happened to be carrying, and gave Barker one of the most satisfactory
castigations he had ever undergone; the boys declared that Dr. Rowlands'
"swishings" were nothing to it. Mr. Williams saw that the offender was a
tough subject, and determined that he should not soon forget the
punishment he then received. He had never heard from Eric how this boy
had been treating him, but he had heard it from Russell, and now he had
seen one of the worst specimens of it with his own eyes. He therefore
belabored him till his sullen obstinacy gave way to a roar for mercy,
and promises never so to offend again.
At this crisis he flung the boy from him with a "phew" of disgust, and
said, "I give nothing for your word; but if ever you do bully in this
way again, and I see or hear of it, your present punishment shall be a
trifle to what I shall then administer. At present, thank me for not
informing your master." So saying, he made Barker pick up the cap, and,
turning away, walked home with Eric leaning on his arm.
Barker, too, carried himself off with the best grace be could; but it
certainly didn't mend matters when he heard numbers of fellows, even
little boys, say openly, "I'm so glad; serves you right."
From that day Eric was never troubled with personal violence from Barker
or any other boy. But rancor smouldered deep in the mind of the baffled
tyrant, and, as we shall see hereafter, there are subtler means of
making an enemy wretched than striking or kicking him.
CHAPTER IV
CRIBBING
"Et nos ergo manum forulae subduximus."--Juv. i. 15.
It must not be thought that Eric's year as a home boarder was made up of
dark experiences. Roslyn had a very bright as well as a dark side, and
Eric enjoyed it "to the finger-tips." School-life, like all other life,
is an April day of shower and sunshine. Its joys may be more childish,
its sorrows more trifling than those of after years;--but they are more
keenly felt.
And yet, although we know it to be a mere delusion, we all idealise and
idolise our childhood. The memory of it makes pleasant purple in the
distance, and as we look back on the sunlight of its blue far-off hills,
we forget how steep we sometimes found them.
After Barker's discomfiture, which took place some three weeks after his
arrival, Eric liked the school more and more, and got liked by it more
and more. This might have been easily foreseen, for he was the type of a
thoroughly boyish mind in its more genial and honorable characteristics,
and his round of acquaintances daily increased. Among others, a few of
the sixth, who were also day-scholars, began to notice and walk home
with him. He looked on them as great heroes, and their condescension
much increased his dignity both in his own estimation and that of
his equals.
Now, too, he began to ask some of his most intimate acquaintances to
spend an evening with him sometimes at home. This was a pleasure much
coveted, for no boy ever saw Mrs. Williams without loving her, and they
felt themselves humanised by the friendly interest of a lady who
reminded every boy of his own mother. Vernon, too, now a lively and
active child of nine, was a great pet among them, so that every one
liked Eric who "knew him at home." A boy generally shows his best side
at home; the softening shadows of a mother's tender influence play over
him, and tone down the roughness of boyish character. Duncan, Montagu,
and Owen were special favorites in the home circle, and Mrs. Williams
felt truly glad that her son had singled out friends who seemed, on the
whole, so desirable. But Montagu and Russell were the most frequent
visitors, and the latter became almost like one of the family; he won so
much on all their hearts that Mrs. Williams was not surprised when Eric
confided to her one day that he loved Russell almost as well as be
loved Vernon.
As Christmas approached, the boys began to take a lively interest in the
half-year's prizes, and Eric was particularly eager about them. He had
improved wonderfully, and as both his father and mother prevented him
from being idle, even had he been so inclined, he had soon shown that
he was one of the best in the form. Two prizes were given, half-yearly
to each remove; one for "marks" indicating the boy who had generally
been highest throughout the half year, and the other for the test proofs
of proficiency in a special examination. It was commonly thought in the
form that Owen would get the first of these prizes, and Eric the other;
and towards the approach of the examination, he threw his whole energy
into the desire to win. The desire was not selfish. Some ambition was of
course natural; but he longed for the prize chiefly for the delight
which he knew his success would cause at Fairholm, and still more to his
own family.
During the last week, an untoward circumstance happened, which, while it
increased his popularity, diminished a good deal (as he thought) his
chance of success. The fourth form were learning a Homer lesson, and
Barker, totally unable to do it by his own resources, was trying to
borrow a crib. Eric, much to their mutual disgust, still sat next to him
in school, and would have helped him if he had chosen to ask; but he
never did choose, nor did Eric care to volunteer. The consequence was,
that unless he could borrow a crib, he was invariably turned, and he was
now particularly anxious to get one, because the time was nearly up.
There was a certain idle, good-natured boy, named Llewellyn, who had
"cribs" to every book they did, and who, with a pernicious _bonhommie,_
lent them promiscuously to the rest, all of whom were only too glad to
avail themselves of the help, except the few at the top of the form, who
found it a slovenly way of learning the lesson, which was sure to get
them into worse difficulties than an honest attempt to master the
meaning for themselves. Llewellyn sat at the farther end of the form in
front, so Barker scribbled in the fly-leaf of his book, "Please send us
your Homer crib," and got the book passed on to Llewellyn, who
immediately shoved his crib in Barker's direction. The only danger of
the transaction being noticed, was when the book was being handed from
one bench to another, and as Eric unluckily had an end seat, he had got
into trouble more than once.
On this occasion, just as Graham, the last boy on the form in front,
handed Eric the crib, Mr. Gordon happened to look up, and Eric, very
naturally anxious to screen another from trouble, popped the book under
his own Homer.
"Williams, what are you doing?"
"Nothing, Sir," said Eric, looking up innocently.
"Bring me that book under your Homer."
Eric blushed, hesitated--but at last, amid a dead silence, took up the
book. Mr. Gordon looked at it for a moment, let it fall on the ground,
and then, with an unnecessary affectation of disgust, took it up with
the tongs, and dropped it into the fire. There was a titter round
the room.
"Silence," thundered the master; "this is no matter for laughing. So,
sir, _this_ is the way you get up to the top of the form?"
"I wasn't using it, sir," said Eric.
"Not using it! Why, I saw you put it, open, under your Homer."
"It isn't mine, sir."
"Then whose is it?" Mr. Gordon looked at the fly leaf, but of course no
name was there; in those days it was dangerous to write one's name in a
translation.
Eric was silent.
"Under the circumstances, Williams, I must punish you," said Mr. Gordon.
"Of course I am _bound_ to believe you, but the circumstances are very
suspicious. You had no business with such a book at all. Hold out
your hand."
As yet, Eric had never been caned. It would have been easy for him in
this case to clear himself without mentioning names, but (very rightly)
he thought it unmanly to clamor about being punished, and he felt
nettled at Mr. Gordon's merely official belief of his word. He knew that
he had his faults, but certainly want of honor was not among them.
Indeed, there were only three boys out of the twenty in the form, who
did not resort to modes of unfairness far worse than the use of cribs,
and those three were Russell, Owen, and himself; even Duncan, even
Montagu, inured to it by custom, were not ashamed to read their lesson
off a concealed book, or copy a date from a furtive piece of paper. They
would have been ashamed of it before they came to Roslyn school, but the
commonness of the habit had now made them blind or indifferent to its
meanness. It was peculiarly bad in the fourth form, because the master
treated them with implicit confidence, and being scrupulously honorable
himself, was unsuspicious of others. He was therefore extremely
indignant at this apparent discovery of an attempt to overreach him in
a boy so promising and so much of a favorite as Eric Williams.
"Hold out your hand," he repeated.
Eric did so, and the cane tingled sharply across his palm. He could bear
the pain well enough, but he was keenly alive to the disgrace; he, a boy
at the head of his form, to be caned in this way by a man who didn't
understand him, and unjustly too! He mustered up an indifferent air,
closed his lips tight, and determined to give no further signs. The
defiance of his look made Mr. Gordon angry, and he inflicted in
succession five hard cuts on either hand, each one of which, was more
excruciating than the last.
"Now, go to your seat."
Eric did go to his seat, with all his bad passions roused, and he walked
in a jaunty and defiant kind of way that made the master really grieve
at the disgrace into which he had fallen. But he instantly became a hero
with the form, who unanimously called him a great brick for not telling,
and admired him immensely for bearing up without crying under so severe
a punishment. The punishment _was_ most severe, and for some weeks after
there were dark weals visible across Eric's palm, which rendered the use
of his hands painful.
"Poor Williams," said Duncan, as they went out of school, "how very
plucky of you not to cry."
"Vengeance deep brooding o'er the _cane_,
Had locked the source of softer woe;
And burning pride, and high disdain,
Forbade the gentler tear to flow,"
said Eric, with a smile.
But he only bore up until he got home, and there, while he was telling
his father the occurrence, he burst into a storm of passionate tears,
mingled with the fiercest invectives against Mr. Gordon for his
injustice.
"Never mind, Eric," said his father; "only take care that you never get
a punishment _justly_, and I shall always be as proud of you as I am
now. And don't cherish this resentment, my boy; it will only do you
harm. Try to forgive and forget."
"But, Papa, Mr. Gordon is so hasty. I have indeed been rather a favorite
of his, yet now he shows that he has no confidence in me. It is a great
shame that he shouldn't believe my word. I don't mind the pain; but I
shan't like him any more, and I'm sure, now, I shan't get the
examination prize."
"You don't mean, Eric, that he will be influenced by partiality in the
matter?"
"No, Papa, not exactly; at least I dare say he won't _intend_ to be. But
it is unlucky to be on bad terms with a master, and I know I shan't
work so well."
On the whole, the boy was right in thinking this incident a misfortune.
Although he had nothing particular for which to blame himself, yet the
affair had increased his pride, while it lowered his self-respect; and
he had an indistinct consciousness that the popularity in his form would
do him as much harm as the change of feeling in his master. He grew
careless and dispirited, nor was it till in the very heat of the final
competition, that he felt his energies fully revived.
Half the form were as eager about the examination as the other half
were indifferent; but none were more eager than Eric. He was much
hindered by Barker's unceasing attempt to copy his papers
surreptitiously; and very much disgusted at the shameless way in which
many of the boys "cribbed" from books, and from each other, or used torn
leaves concealed in their sleeves, or dates written on their wristbands,
and on their nails. He saw how easily much of this might have been
prevented; but Mr. Gordon was fresh at his work, and had not yet learnt
the practical lesson, that to trust young boys to any great extent, is
really to increase their temptations. He _did_ learn the lesson
afterwards, and then almost entirely suppressed the practice, partly by
increased vigilance, and partly by forbidding _any_ book to be brought
into the room during the time of examination. But meanwhile, much evil
had been done by the habitual abuse of his former confidence.
I shall not linger over the examination. At its close, the day before
the breaking-up, the list was posted on the door of the great
school-room, and most boys made an impetuous rush to see the result. But
Eric was too nervous to be present at the hour when this was usually
done, and he had asked Russell to bring him the news.
He was walking up and down the garden, counting the number of steps he
took, counting the number of shrubs along each path, and devising every
sort of means to beguile the time, when he heard hasty steps, and
Russell burst in at the back gate, breathless with haste, and bright
with excitement.
"Hurrah! old fellow," he cried, seizing both Eric's hands; "I never
felt so glad in my life;" and he shook his friend's arms up and down,
laughing joyously.
"Well! tell me," said Eric.
"First, {Owen/Williams} Aequales," "you've got head remove you see, in
spite of your forebodings, as I always said you would; and I
congratulate you with all my heart."
"No?" said Eric, "have I really?--you're not joking? Oh! hurrah!--I must
rush in and tell them;" and he bounded off.
In a second he was back at Russell's side. "What a selfish animal I am!
Where are you placed, Russell?"
"Oh! magnificent; I'm third;--far higher than I expected."
"I'm so glad," said Eric. "Come in with me and tell them. I'm head
remove, mother," he shouted, springing into the parlor where his father
and mother sat.
In the lively joy that this announcement excited, Russell stood by for
the moment unheeded; and when Eric took him by the hand to tell them
that he was third, he hung his head, and a tear was in his eye.
"Poor boy! I'm afraid you're disappointed," said Mrs. Williams kindly,
drawing him to her side.
"Oh no, no! it's not _that_," said Russell, hastily, as he lifted his
swimming eyes towards her face.
"Are you hurt, Russell?" asked Eric, surprised.
"Oh! no; don't ask me; I am only foolish to-day;" and with a burst of
sorrow he flung his arms round Mrs. Williams' neck. She folded him to
her heart, and kissed him tenderly; and when his sobs would let him
speak, he whispered to her in a low tone, "It is but a year since I
became an orphan."
"Dearest child," she said, "look on me as a mother; I love you very
dearly for your own sake as well as Eric's."
Gradually he grew calmer. They made him stay to dinner and spend the
rest of the day there, and by the evening he had recovered all his usual
sprightliness. Towards sunset he and Eric went for a stroll down the
bay, and talked over the term and the examination.
They sat down on a green bank just beyond the beach, and watched the
tide come in, while the sea-distance was crimson with the glory of
evening. The beauty and the murmur filled them with a quiet happiness,
not untinged with the melancholy thought of parting the next day.
At last Eric broke the silence. "Russell, let me always call you Edwin,
and call me Eric."
"Very gladly, Eric. Your coming here has made me so happy." And the two
boys squeezed each other's hands, and looked into each other's faces,
and silently promised that they would be loving friends for ever.
CHAPTER V
THE SECOND TERM
"Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil our vines; for our
vines have tender grapes."--CANT. ii. 15.
The second term at school is generally the great test of the strength of
a boy's principles and resolutions. During the first term the novelty,
the loneliness, the dread of unknown punishments, the respect for
authorities, the desire to measure himself with his companions--all tend
to keep him right and diligent. But many of these incentives are removed
after the first brush of novelty, and many a lad who has given good
promise at first, turns out, after a short probation, idle, or vicious,
or indifferent.
But there was little comparative danger for Eric, so long as he
continued to be a home boarder, which was for another half-year. On the
contrary, he was anxious to support in his new remove the prestige of
having been head boy; and as he still continued under Mr. Gordon, he
really wished to turn over a new leaf in his conduct towards him, and
recover, if possible, his lost esteem.
His popularity was a fatal snare. He enjoyed and was very proud of it,
and was half inclined to be angry with Russell for not fully sharing his
feelings; but Russell had a far larger experience of school life than
his new friend, and dreaded with all his heart lest "he should follow a
multitude to do evil."
The "cribbing," which had astonished and pained Eric at first, was more
flagrant than even in the Upper Fourth, and assumed a chronic form. In
all the repetition lessons one of the boys used to write out in a large
hand the passage to be learnt by heart, and dexterously pin it to the
front of Mr. Gordon's desk. There any boy who chose could read it off
with little danger of detection, and, as before, the only boys who
refused to avail themselves of this trickery were Eric, Russell,
and Owen.
Eric did _not_ yield to it; never once did he suffer his eyes to glance
at the paper when his turn to repeat came round. But although this was
the case, he never spoke against the practice to the other boys, even
when he lost places by it. Nay more, he would laugh when any one told
him how he had escaped "skewing" (_i.e._ being turned) by reading it
off; and he even went so far as to allow them to suppose that he
wouldn't himself object to take advantage of the master's unsuspicious
confidence.
"I say, Williams," said Duncan, one morning as they strolled into the
school-yard, "do you know your Rep.?"
"No," said Eric, "not very well; I haven't given more than ten minutes
to it."
"Oh, well, never mind it now; come and have a game at racquets? Russel
and Montagu have taken the court."
"But I shall skew."
"Oh no, you needn't, you know. I'll take care to pin it up on the desk
near you."
"Well, I don't much care. At any rate I'll chance it." And off the boys
ran to the racquet-court, Eric intending to occupy the last quarter of
an hour before school-time in learning his lesson. Russell and he stood
the other two, and they were very well matched. They had finished two
splendid games, and each side had been victorious in turn, when Duncan,
in the highest spirits, shouted, "Now, Russell, for the conqueror."
"Get some one else in my place," said Russell; "I don't know my Rep.,
and must cut and learn it."
"O bother the Rep.," said Montagu; "somebody's sure to write it out in
school, and old Gordon'll never see."
"You forget, Montagu, I never condescend to that."
"O ay, I forgot. Well, after all, you're quite right; I only wish I was
as good."
"What a capital fellow he is," continued Montagu, leaning on his racquet
and looking after him, as Russell left the court; "but I say, Williams,
you're not going too, are you?"
"I think I must, I don't know half my lesson."
"O no! don't go; there's Llewellyn; he'll take Russell's place, and we
_must_ have the conquering game."
Again Eric yielded; and when the clock struck he ran into school, hot,
vexed with himself, and certain to break down, just as Russell strolled
in, whispering, "I've had lots of time to get up the Horace, and know
it pat."
Still he clung to the little thistledown of hope that he should have
plenty of time to cram it before the form were called up. But another
temptation awaited him. No sooner was he seated than Graham whispered,
"Williams, it's your turn to write out the Horace; I did last time,
you know."
Poor Eric. He was reaping the fruits of his desire to keep up
popularity, by never denying his complicity in the general cheating.
Everybody seemed to assume now that _he_ at any rate didn't think much
of it, and he had never claimed his real right up to that time of
asserting his innocence. But this was a step further than he had ever
gone before. He drew back--
"My _turn_, what do you mean?"
"Why, you know as well as I do that we all write it out by turns."
"Do you mean to say that Owen or Russell ever wrote it out?"
"Of course not; you wouldn't expect the saints to be guilty of such a
thing, would you?"
"I'd rather not, Graham," he said, getting very red.
"Well, that _is_ cowardly," answered Graham, angrily; "then I suppose I
must do it myself."
"Here, I'll do it," said Eric suddenly; "shy us the paper."
His conscience smote him bitterly. In his silly dread of giving
offence, he was doing what he heartily despised, and he felt most
uncomfortable.
"There," he said, pushing the paper from him in a pet; "I've written it,
and I'll have nothing more to do with it."
Just as he finished they were called up, and Barker, taking the paper,
succeeded in pinning it as usual on the front of the desk. Eric had
never seen it done so carelessly and clumsily before, and firmly
believed, what was indeed a fact, that Barker had done it badly on
purpose, in the hope that it might be discovered, and so Eric be got
once more into a scrape. He was in an agony of apprehension, and when
put on, was totally unable to say a word of his Rep. But low as he had
fallen, he would not cheat like the rest; he kept his eyes resolutely
turned away from the guilty paper, and even refused to repeat the words
which were prompted in his ear by the boys on each side. Mr. Gordon,
after waiting a moment, said--
"Why, Sir, you know nothing about it; you can't have looked at it. Go to
the bottom and write it out five times."
"_Write it out_" thought Eric; "this is retribution, I suppose;" and
covered with shame and vexation, he took his place below the malicious
Barker at the bottom of the form.
It happened that during the lesson the fire began to smoke, and Mr.
Gordon told Owen to open the window for a moment. No sooner was this
done than the mischievous whiff of sea air which entered the room began
to trifle and coquet with the perdulous half sheet pinned in front of
the desk, causing thereby an unwonted little pattering crepitation. In
alarm, Duncan thoughtlessly pulled out the pin, and immediately the
paper floated gracefully over Russell's head, as he sat at the top of
the form, and, after one or two gyrations, fluttered down in the centre
of the room.
"Bring me that piece of paper," said Mr. Gordon, full of vague
suspicion.
Several boys moved uneasily, and Eric looked nervously around.
"Did you hear? fetch me that half sheet of paper."
A boy picked it up and handed it to him. He held it for a full minute in
his hands without a word, while vexation, deep disgust, and rising anger
struggled in his countenance. At last, he suddenly turned full on Eric,
whose writing he recognized, and broke out,
"So, Sir! a second time caught in gross deceit. I should not have
thought it possible. Your face and manners belie you. You have lost my
confidence forever. I _despise_ you."
"Indeed, Sir," said the penitent Eric, "I never meant--"
"Silence--you are detected, as cheats always will be. I shall report you
to Dr. Rowlands."
The next boy was put on, and broke down. The same with the next, and the
next, and the next; Montagu, Graham, Llewellyn, Duncan, Barker, all
hopeless failures; only two boys had said it right--Russell and Owen.
Mr. Gordon's face grew blacker and blacker. The deep undisguised pain
which the discovery caused him was swallowed up in unbounded
indignation. "False-hearted, dishonorable boys," he exclaimed,
"henceforth my treatment of you shall be very different. The whole form,
except Russell and Owen, shall have an extra lesson every half-holiday;
not one of the rest of you will I trust again. I took you for gentlemen.
I was mistaken. Go." And so saying, he waved them to their seats with
imperious disdain.
They went, looking sheepish, and ashamed. Eric, deeply vexed, kept
twisting and untwisting a bit of paper, without raising his eyes, and
even Barker thoroughly repented his short-sighted treachery; the rest
were silent and miserable.
At twelve o'clock two boys lingered in the room to speak to Mr. Gordon;
they were Eric Williams and Edwin Russell, but they were full of very
different feelings.
Eric stepped to the desk first. Mr. Gordon looked up.
"You! Williams, I wonder that you have the audacity to speak to me.
Go--I have nothing to say to you!"
"But, sir, I want to tell you that--"
"Your guilt is only too clear, Williams. You will hear more of this. Go,
I tell you."
Eric's passion overcame him; he stamped furiously on the ground, and
burst out, "I _will_ speak, sir; you have been unjust to me for a long
time, but I will _not_ be--"
Mr. Gordon's cane fell sharply across the boy's back; he stopped, glared
for a moment; and then saying:
"Very well, sir! I shall tell Dr. Rowlands that you strike before you
hear me," he angrily left the room, and slammed the door violently
behind him.
Before Mr. Gordon had time to recover from his astonishment, Russell
stood by him.
"Well, my boy," said the master, softening in a moment, and laying his
hand gently on Russell's head, "what have you to say? You cannot tell
how I rejoice, amid the deep sorrow that this has caused me, to find
that _you_ at least are uncontaminated. But I _knew_, Edwin, that I
could trust you."
"O sir, I come to speak for Eric--for Williams." Mr. Gordon's brow
darkened again, and the storm gathered, as he interrupted vehemently,
"Not a word, Russell; not a word. This is the _second_ time that he has
wilfully deceived me; and this time he has involved others too in his
base deceit."
"Indeed, sir, you wrong him. I can't think how he came to write the
paper, but I _know_ that he did not and would not use it. Didn't you see
yourself, sir, how he turned his head quite another way when he
broke down."
"It is very kind of you, Edwin, to defend him," said Mr. Gordon coldly,
"but at present, at any rate, I must not hear you. Leave me; I feel very
sad, and must have time to think over this disgraceful affair."
Russell went away disconsolate, and met his friend striding up and down,
the passage, waiting for Dr. Rowlands to come out of the library.
"O Eric," he said, "how came you to write that paper?"
"Why, Russell, I did feel very much ashamed, and I would have explained
it, and said so; but that Gordon spites me so. It is such a shame; I
don't feel now as if I cared one bit."
"I am sorry you don't get on with him; but remember you have given him
in this case good cause to suspect. You never crib, Eric, I know, but I
can't help being sorry that you wrote the paper."
"But then Graham asked me to do it, and called me cowardly because I
refused at first."
"Ah, Eric," said Russell, "they will ask you to do worse things if you
yield so easily. I wouldn't say anything to Dr. Rowlands about it, if I
were you."
Eric took the advice, and, full of mortification, went home. He gave his
father a true and manly account of the whole occurrence, and that
afternoon Mr. Williams wrote a note of apology and explanation to Mr.
Gordon. Next time the form went up, Mr. Gordon said, in his most
freezing tones, "Williams, at present I shall take no further notice of
your offence beyond including you in the extra lesson every
half-holiday."
From that day forward Eric felt that he was marked and suspected, and
the feeling worked on him with the worst effects. He grew more careless
in work, and more trifling and indifferent in manner. Several boys now
beat him whom he had easily surpassed before, and his energies were for
a time entirely directed to keeping that supremacy in the games which he
had won by his activity and strength.
It was a Sunday afternoon, towards the end of the summer term, and the
boys were sauntering about in the green playground, or lying on the
banks reading and chatting. Eric was with a little knot of his chief
friends, enjoying the sea breeze as they sat on the grass. At last the
bell of the school chapel began to ring, and they went in to the
afternoon service. Eric usually sat with Duncan and Llewellyn,
immediately behind the benches allotted to chance visitors. The bench in
front of them happened on this afternoon to be occupied by some rather
odd people, viz., an old man with long white hair, and two ladies
remarkably stout, who were dressed with much juvenility, although past
middle age. Their appearance immediately attracted notice, and no sooner
had they taken their seats than Duncan and Llewellyn began to titter.
The ladies' bonnets, which were of white, trimmed with long green leaves
and flowers, just peered over the top of the boys' pew, and excited much
amusement. But Eric had not yet learnt to disregard the solemnity of the
place, and the sacred act in which they were engaged. He tried to look
away, and attend to the service, and for a time he partially succeeded,
although, seated as he was between the two triflers, who were
perpetually telegraphing to each other their jokes, he found it a
difficult task, and secretly he began to be much tickled.
At last the sermon commenced, and Llewellyn, who had imprisoned a
grasshopper in a paper cage, suddenly let it hop out. The first hop took
it to the top of the pew; the second perched it on the shoulder of the
stoutest lady. Duncan and Llewellyn tittered louder, and even Eric could
not resist a smile. But when the lady, feeling some irritation on her
shoulder, raised her hand, and the grasshopper took a frightened leap
into the centre of the green foliage which enwreathed her bonnet, none
of the three could stand it, and they burst into fits of laughter, which
they tried in vain to conceal by bending down their heads and cramming
their handkerchiefs into their mouths. Eric, having once given way,
enjoyed the joke uncontrollably, and the lady made matters worse by her
uneasy attempts to dislodge the unknown intruder, and discover the cause
of the tittering, which she could not help hearing. At last all three
began to laugh so violently that several heads were turned in their
direction, and Dr. Rowlands' stern eye caught sight of their levity. He
stopped short in his sermon, and for one instant transfixed them with
his indignant glance. Quiet was instantly restored, and alarm reduced
them to the most perfect order, although the grasshopper still sat
imperturbable among the artificial flowers. Meanwhile the stout lady had
discovered that for some unknown reason she had been causing
considerable amusement, and, attributing it to intentional ridicule,
looked round, justly hurt. Eric, with real shame, observed the deep
vexation of her manner, and bitterly repented his share in the
transaction.
Next morning Dr. Rowlands, in full academicals, sailed into the
fourth-form room. His entrance was the signal for every boy to rise, and
after a word or two to Mr. Gordon, he motioned them to be seated. Eric's
heart sank within him.
"Williams, Duncan, and Llewellyn, stand out!" said the Doctor. The boys,
with downcast eyes and burning cheeks, stood before him.
"I was sorry to notice," said he, "your shameful conduct in chapel
yesterday afternoon. As far as I could observe, you were making
yourselves merry in that sacred place with the personal defects of
others. The lessons you receive here must be futile indeed, if they do
not teach you the duty of reverence to God, and courtesy to man. It
gives me special pain, Williams, to have observed that you, too, a boy
high in your remove, were guilty of this most culpable levity. You will
all come to me at twelve o'clock in the library."
At twelve o'clock they each received a flogging. The pain inflicted was
not great, and Duncan and Llewellyn, who had got into similar trouble
before, cared very little for it, and went out laughing to tell the
number of swishes they had received, to a little crowd of boys who were
lingering outside the library door. But not so Eric. It was his _first_
flogging, and he felt it deeply. To his proud spirit the disgrace was
intolerable. At that moment he hated Dr. Rowlands, he hated Mr. Gordon,
he hated his schoolfellows, he hated everybody. He had been flogged; the
thought haunted him; he, Eric Williams, had been forced to receive this
most degrading corporal punishment. He pushed fiercely through the knot
of boys, and strode as quick as he could along the playground, angry and
impenitent.
At the gate Russell met him. Eric felt the meeting inopportune; he was
ashamed to meet his friend, ashamed to speak to him, envious of him, and
jealous of his better reputation. He wanted to pass him by without
notice, but Russell would not suffer this. He came up to him and took
his arm affectionately. The slightest allusion to his late disgrace
would have made Eric flame out into passion; but Russell was too kind to
allude to it then. He talked as if nothing had happened, and tried to
turn his friend's thoughts to more pleasant subjects. Eric appreciated
his kindness, but he was still sullen and fretful, and it was not until
they parted that his better feelings won the day. But when Russell said
to him "Good bye, Eric," it was too much for him, and seizing Edwin's
hand, he wrung it hard, and tears rushed to his eyes.
"Dear, good Edwin! how I wish I was like you. If all my friends were
like you, I should never get into these troubles."
"Nay, Eric," said Russell, "you may be far better than I. You have far
batter gifts, if you will only do yourself justice."
They parted by Mr. Williams' door, and Russell walked home sad and
thoughtful; but Eric, barely answering his brother's greeting, rushed up
to his room, and, flinging himself on his bed, sobbed like a child at
the remembrance of his disgrace. They were not refreshing tears; he felt
something hard at his heart, and, as he prayed neither for help nor
forgiveness, it was pride and rebellion, not penitence, that made him
miserable.
CHAPTER VI
HOME AFFECTIONS
"Keep the spell of home affection.
Still alive in every heart;
May its power, with mild direction,
Draw our love from self apart,
Till thy children
Feel that thou their Father art."
SCHOOL HYMN.
"I have caught such a lot of pretty sea anemones, Eric," said little
Vernon Williams, as his brother strolled in after morning school; "I
wish you would come and look at them."
"O, I can't come now, Verny; I am going out to play cricket with some
fellows directly."
"But it won't take you a minute; do come."
"What a little bore you are. Where are the things?"
"O, never mind, Eric, if you don't want to look at them," said Vernon,
hurt at his brother's rough manner.
"First you ask me to look, and then say 'never mind,'" said Eric
impatiently; "here, show me them."
The little boy brought a large saucer, round which the crimson
sea-flowers were waving their long tentacula in the salt water.
"Oh, ay; very pretty indeed. But I must be off to cricket."
Vernon looked up at his brother sadly.
"You aren't so kind to me, Eric, as you used to be."
"What nonsense! and all because I don't admire those nasty red-jelly
things, which one may see on the shore by thousands any day. What a
little goose you are, Vernon!"
Vernon made no reply, but was putting away his sea-anemones with a sigh,
when in came Russell to fetch Eric to the cricket.
"Well, Verny," he said, "have you been getting those pretty
sea-anemones? come here and show me them. Ah, I declare you've got one
of those famous white plumosa fellows among them. What a lucky little
chap you are!"
Vernon was delighted.
"Mind you take care of them," said Russell. "Where did you find them?"
"I have been down the shore getting them."
"And have you had a pleasant morning?"
"Yes, Russell, thank you. Only it is rather dull being always by myself,
and Eric never comes with me now."
"Naughty Eric," said Russell, playfully. "Never mind, Verny; you and I
will cut him, and go by ourselves."
Eric had stood by during the conversation, and the contrast of Russel's
unselfish kindness with his own harsh want of sympathy, struck him. He
threw his arms round his brother's neck, and said, "We will both go with
you, Verny, next half holiday."
"O, thank you, Eric," said his brother; and the two schoolboys ran out.
But when the next half holiday came, warm and bright, with the promise
of a good match that afternoon, Eric repented his promise, and left
Russell to amuse his little brother, while he went off, as usual, to the
playground.
There was one silent witness of scenes like these, who laid them up
deeply in her heart. Mrs. Williams was not unobservant of the gradual
but steady falling off in Eric's character, and the first thing she
noticed was the blunting of his home affections. When they first came to
Roslyn, the boy used constantly to join his father and mother in their
walks; but now he went seldom or never; and even if he did go, he seemed
ashamed, while with them, to meet any of his schoolfellows. The spirit
of false independence was awake and growing in her darling son. The
bright afternoons they had spent together on the sunny shore, or seeking
for sea-flowers among the lonely rocks of the neighboring
headlands,--the walks at evening and sunset among the hills, and the
sweet counsel they had together, when the boy's character opened like a
flower in the light and warmth of his mother's love,--the long twilights
when he would sit on a stool with his young head resting on her knees,
and her loving hand among his fair hair,--all these things were becoming
to Mrs. Williams memories, and nothing more.
It was the trial of her life, and very sad to bear; the more so because
they were soon to be parted, certainly for years, perhaps for ever. The
time was drawing nearer and nearer; it was now June, and Mr. Williams'
term of furlough ended in two months. The holidays at Roslyn were the
months of July and August, and towards their close Mr. and Mrs. Williams
intended to leave Vernon at Fairholm, and start for India--sending back
Eric by himself as a boarder in Dr. Rowlands' house.
After morning school, on fine days, the boys used to run straight down
to the shore and bathe. A bright and joyous scene it was. They stripped
off their clothes on the shingle that adjoined the beach, and then
running along the sands, would swim out far into the bay till their
heads looked like small dots glancing in the sunshine. This year Eric
had learned to swim, and he enjoyed the bathing more than any
other pleasure.
One day after they had dressed, Russell and he began to amuse themselves
on the sea-shore. The little translucent pools left on the sands by the
ebbing tide always swarm with life, and the two boys found great fun in
hunting audacious little crabs, or catching the shrimps that shuffled
about in the shallow water. At last Eric picked up a piece of wood which
he found lying on the beach, and said, "What do you say to coming
crabfishing, Edwin? this bit of stick will do capitally to thrust
between the rocks in the holes where they lie?"
Russell agreed, and they started to the rocks of the Ness to seek a
likely place for their purpose. The Ness was a mile off, but in the
excitement of their pleasure they were oblivious of time.
The Williams', for the boys' convenience, usually dined at one, but on
this day they waited half an hour for Eric. Since, however, he didn't
appear, they dined without him, supposing that he was accidentally
detained, and expecting him to come in every minute. But two o'clock
came, and no Eric; half-past two, and no Eric; three, but still no Eric.
Mrs. Williams became seriously alarmed, and even her husband
grew uneasy.
Vernon was watching for his brother at the window, and seeing Duncan
pass by, ran down to ask him, "If he knew where Eric was?"
"No," said Duncan; "last time I saw him was on the shore. We bathed
together, and I remember his clothes were lying by mine when I dressed.
But I hav'n't seen him since. If you like we'll go and look for him. I
daresay he's on the beach somewhere."
But they found no traces of him there; and when they returned with this
intelligence, his mother got so agitated that it required all her
husband's firm gentleness to support her sinking spirits. There was
enough to cause anxiety, for Vernon repeatedly ran out to ask the boys
who were passing if they had seen his brother, and the answer always
was, that they had left him bathing in the sea.
Meanwhile our young friends, having caught several crabs, suddenly
noticed by the sun that it was getting late.
"Good gracious, Edwin," said Eric, pulling out his watch, "it's
half-past three; what have we been thinking of? How frightened they'll
be at home;" and running back as fast as they could, they reached the
house at five o'clock, and rushed into the room.
"Eric, Eric," said Mrs. Williams faintly, "where have you been? has
anything happened to you, my child?"
"No, mother, nothing. I've only been crabfishing with Russell, and we
forgot the time."
"Thoughtless boy," said his father, "your mother has been in an agony
about you."
Eric saw her pale face and tearful eyes, and flung himself in her arms,
and mother and son wept in a long embrace. "Only two months," whispered
Mrs. Williams, "and we shall leave you, dear boy, perhaps forever. O do
not forget your love for us in the midst of new companions."
The end of term arrived; this time Eric came out eighth only instead of
first, and, therefore, on the prize day, was obliged to sit among the
crowd of undistinguished boys. He saw that his parents were
disappointed, and his own ambition was grievously mortified. But he had
full confidence in his own powers, and made the strongest resolutions to
work hard the next half-year, when he had got out of "that
Gordon's" clutches.
The Williams' spent the holidays at Fairholm, and now, indeed, in the
prospect of losing them, Eric's feelings to his parents came out in all
their strength. Most happily the days glided by, and the father and
mother used them wisely. All their gentle influence, all their deep
affection, were employed in leaving on the boy's heart lasting
impressions of godliness and truth. He learnt to feel that their love
would encircle him for ever with its heavenly tenderness, and their pure
prayers rise for him night and day to the throne of God.
The day of parting came, and most bitter and heartrending it was. In the
wildness of their passionate sorrow, Eric and Vernon seemed to hear the
sound of everlasting farewells. It is God's mercy that ordains how
seldom young hearts have to endure such misery.
At length it was over. The last sound of wheels had died away; and
during those hours the hearts of parents and children felt the
bitterness of death. Mrs. Trevor and Fanny, themselves filled with
grief, still used all their unselfish endeavors to comfort their dear
boys. Vernon, weary of crying, soon sank to sleep; but not so Eric. He
sat on a low stool, his face buried in his hands, breaking the stillness
every now and then with his convulsive sobs.
"O Aunty," he cried, "do you think I shall ever see them again? I have
been so wicked, and so little grateful for all their love. O, I wish I
had thought at Roslyn how soon I was to lose them."
"Yes, dearest," said Mrs. Trevor, "I have no doubt we shall all meet
again soon. Your father is only going for five years, you know, and that
will not seem very long. And then they will be writing continually to
us, and we to them. Think, Eric, how gladdened their hearts will be to
hear that you and Vernon are good boys, and getting on well."
"O, I _will_ be a better boy, I _will_ indeed," said Eric; "I mean to do
great things, and they shall have nothing but good reports of me."
"God helping you, dear," said his aunt, pushing back his hair from his
forehead, and kissing it softly; "without his help, Eric, we are all
weak indeed."
She sighed. But how far deeper her sigh would have been had she known
the future. Merciful is the darkness that shrouds it from human eyes!
CHAPTER VII
ERIC A BOARDER
"We were, fair queen,
Two lads that thought there was no more behind,
But such a day to-morrow as to-day,
And to be boy eternal."--WINTER'S TALE, i. 2.
The holidays were over. Vernon was to have a tutor at Fairholm, and Eric
was to return alone, and be received into Dr. Rowlands' house.
As he went on board the steam-packet, he saw numbers of the well-known
faces on deck, and merry voices greeted him.
"Hallo, Williams! here you are at last," said Duncan, seizing his hand.
"How have you enjoyed the holidays? It's so jolly to see you again."
"So you're coming as a boarder," said Montagu, "and to our noble house,
too. Mind you stick up for it, old fellow. Come along, and let's watch
whether the boats are bringing any more fellows; we shall be starting in
a few minutes."
"Ha! there's Russell," said Eric, springing to the gangway, and warmly
shaking his friend's hand as he came on board.
"Have your father and mother gone, Eric?" said Russell, after a few
minutes' talk.
"Yes," said Eric, turning away his head, and hastily brushing his eyes.
"They are on their way back to India."
"I'm so sorry," said Russell; "I don't think anyone has ever been so
kind to me as they were."
"And they loved you, Edwin, dearly, and told me, almost the last thing,
that they hoped we should always be friends. Stop! they gave me
something for you." Eric opened his carpet-bag, and took out a little
box carefully wrapped up, which he gave to Russell. It contained a
pretty silver watch, and inside the case was engraved--"Edwin Russell,
from the mother of his friend Eric."
The boy's eyes glistened with joyful surprise. "How good they are," he
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