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 I.

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 dénouement 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.”

“Cavè, cavè!” 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 machinâ. 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 he 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 ferulæ 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 said; “I shall write and thank Mrs. Williams directly we
get to Roslyn.”

They had a fine bright voyage, and arrived that night. Eric, as
a new comer, was ushered at once into Dr. Rowlands’ drawing-room,
where the head master was sitting with his wife and children. His
greeting was dignified, but not unkindly; and, on saying “good
night,” he gave Eric a few plain words of affectionate advice.

At that moment Eric hardly cared for advice. He was full of life
and spirits, brave, bright, impetuous, tingling with hope, in the
flush and flower of boyhood. He bounded down the stairs, and in
another minute entered the large room where all Dr. Rowlands’
boarders assembled, and where most of them lived, except the few
privileged sixth form, and other boys who had “studies.” A cheer
greeted his entrance into the room. By this time most of the
Rowlandites knew him, and were proud to have him among their
number. They knew that he was clever enough to get them credit in
the school, and, what was better still, that he would be a capital
accession of strength to the cricket and football. Except Barker,
there was not one who had not a personal liking for him, and on
this occasion even Barker was gracious.

The room in which Eric found himself was large and high. At one
end was a huge fire-place, and there was generally a throng of boys
round the great iron fender, where, in cold weather, a little boy
could seldom get. The large windows opened on the green playground;
and iron bars prevented any exit through them. This large room,
called “the boarders’ room,” was the joint habitation of Eric and
some thirty other boys; and at one side ran a range of shelves and
drawers, where they kept their books and private property. There
the younger Rowlandites breakfasted, dined, had tea, and, for the
most part, lived. Here, too, they had to get through all such work
as was not performed under direct supervision. How many and what
varied scenes had not that room beheld! had those dumb walls any
feeling, what worlds of life and experience they would have
acquired! If against each boy’s name, as it was rudely cut on the
oak panels, could have been also cut the fate that had befallen
him, the good that he had there learnt, the evil that he had there
suffered–what noble histories would the records unfold of
honor and success, of baffled temptations and hard-won triumphs;
what awful histories of hopes blighted and habits learned,
of wasted talents and ruined lives!

The routine of school-life was on this wise:–At half-past seven
the boys came down to prayers, which were immediately followed by
breakfast. At nine they went into school, where they continued,
with little interruption, till twelve. At one they dined, and,
except on half-holidays, went into school again from two till five.
The lock-up bell rang at dusk; at six o’clock they had tea–which
was a repetition of breakfast, with leave to add to it whatever
else they liked–and immediately after sat down to “preparation,”
which lasted from seven till nine. During this time one of the
masters was always in the room, who allowed them to read amusing
books, or employ themselves in any other quiet way they liked, as
soon as ever they had learnt their lessons for the following day.
At nine Dr. Rowlands came in and read prayers, after which the boys
were dismissed to bed.

The arrangement of the dormitories was peculiar. They were a
suite of rooms, exactly the same size, each opening into the other;
six on each side of a lavatory, which occupied the space between
them, so that, when all the doors were open, you could see from one
end of the whole range to the other. The only advantage of this
arrangement was, that one master walking up and down could keep all
the boys in order while they were getting into bed. About a quarter
of an hour was allowed for this process, and then the master went
along the rooms putting out the lights. A few of the “study-boys”
were allowed to sit up till ten, and their bedrooms were elsewhere.
The consequence was, that in these dormitories the boys felt
perfectly secure from any interruption. There were only two ways by
which a master could get at them; one up the great staircase, and
through the lavatory; the other by a door at the extreme end of the
range, which led into Dr. Rowlands’ house, but was generally kept
locked.

In each dormitory slept four or five boys, distributed by their
order in the school list, so that, in all the dormitories, there
were nearly sixty; and of these a goodly number were, on Eric’s
arrival, collected in the boarders’ room, the rest being in their
studies, or in the classrooms which some were allowed to use in
order to prevent too great a crowd in the room below.

At nine o’clock the prayer-bell rang. Immediately all the
boarders took their seats for prayers, each with an open Bible
before him; and when the school servants had also come in, Dr.
Rowlands read a chapter, and offered up an extempore prayer. While
reading, he generally interspersed a few pointed remarks or graphic
explanations, and Eric learnt much in this simple way. The prayer,
though short, was always well suited to the occasion, and
calculated to carry with it the attention of the worshippers.

Prayers over, the boys noisily dispersed to their bed rooms, and
Eric found himself placed in a room immediately to the right of the
lavatory, occupied by Duncan, Graham, Llewellyn, and two other boys
named Bull and Attlay, all in the same form with himself They were
all tired with their voyage, and the excitement of coming back to
school, so that they did not talk much that night, and before long
Eric was fast asleep, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming that he should
have a very happy life at Roslyn school, and seeing himself win no
end of distinctions, and make no end of new friends.

CHAPTER VIII

“TAKING UP”

“We are not worst at once; the course of evil
Begins so slowly, and from such slight source,
An infant’s hand might stop the breach with clay;
But let the stream grow wider, and Philosophy–
Ay, and Religion too–may strive in vain
To stem the headlong current!”–ANON.

With intense delight Eric heard it announced next morning, when
the new school-list was read, that he had got his remove into the
“Shell,” as the form was called which intervened between the fourth
and the fifth. Russell, Owen, and Montagu also got their removes
with him, but his other friends were left for the present in the
form below.

Mr. Rose, hiss new master, was in every respect a great contrast
with Mr. Gordon. He was not so brilliant in his acquirements, nor
so vigorous in his teaching, and therefore clever boys did not
catch fire from him so much as from the fourth-form master. But he
was a far truer and deeper Christian; and, with no less scrupulous
a sense of honor, and detestation of every form of moral obliquity,
he never yielded to those storms of passionate indignation which
Mr. Gordon found it impossible to control. Disappointed in early
life, subjected to the deepest and most painful trials, Mr. Rose’s
fine character had come out like gold from the flame. He now lived
in and for the boys alone, and his whole life was one long
self-devotion to their service and interests. The boys felt this,
and even the worst of them, in their worst moments, loved and
honored Mr. Rose. But he was not seeking for gratitude, which he
neither expected nor required; he asked no affection in return for
his self-denials; he worked with a pure spirit of human and
self-sacrificing love, happy beyond all payment if ever he were
instrumental in saving one of his charge from evil, or turning one
wanderer from the error of his ways.

He was an unmarried man, and therefore took no boarders himself,
but lived in the school-buildings, and had the care of the boys in
Dr. Rowlands’ house.

Such was the master under whom Eric was now placed, and the boy
was sadly afraid that an evil report would have reached his ears,
and given him already an unfavorable impression. But he was soon
happily undeceived. Mr. Rose at once addressed him with much
kindness, and he felt that, however bad he had been before, he
would now have an opportunity to turn over a new leaf, and begin
again a career of hope. He worked admirably at first, and even
beat, for the first week or two, his old competitors, Owen and
Russell.

From the beginning, Mr. Rose took a deep interest in him. Few
could look at the boy’s bright blue eyes and noble face without
doing so, and the more when they knew that his father and mother
were thousands of miles away, leaving him alone in the midst of so
many dangers. Often the master asked him, and Russell, and Owen,
and Montagu, to supper with him in the library, which gave them the
privilege of sitting up later than usual, and enjoying a more quiet
and pleasant evening than was possible in the noisy rooms. Boys and
master were soon quite at home with each other, and in this way Mr.
Rose had an opportunity of instilling many a useful warning without
the formality of regular discipline or stereotyped instruction.

Eric found the life of the “boarders’ room” far rougher than he
had expected. Work was out of the question there, except during the
hours of preparation, and the long dark winter evenings were often
dull enough. Sometimes, indeed, they would all join in some regular
indoor boys’ game like “baste the bear,” or “high-cockolorum;” or
they would have amusing “ghost-hunts,” as they called them, after
some dressed-up boy among the dark corridors and staircases. This
was good enough fun, but at other times they got tired of games,
and could not get them up, and then numbers of boys felt the idle
time hang heavy on their hands. When this was the case, some of the
worse sort, as might have been expected, would fill up their
leisure with bullying or mischief.

For some time they had a form of diversion which disgusted and
annoyed Eric exceedingly. On each of the long iron-bound deal
tables were placed two or three tallow candles in tin candlesticks,
and this was the only light the boys had. Of course, these candles
often, wanted snuffing, and as snuffers were sure to be thrown
about and broken as soon as they were brought into the room, the
only resource was to snuff them with the fingers, at which all the
boys became great adepts from necessity. One evening Barker, having
snuffed the candle, suddenly and slyly put the smouldering wick
unnoticed on the head of a little quiet inoffensive fellow named
Wright, who happened to be sitting next to him. It went on
smouldering for some time without Wright’s perceiving it, and at
last Barker, highly delighted, exclaimed–

“I see a chimney,” and laughed.

Four or five boys looked up, and very soon every one in the room
had noticed the trick except little Wright himself, who
unconsciously wrote on at the letter he was sending home.

Eric did not like this; but not wishing to come across Barker
again, said nothing, and affected not to have observed. But Russell
said quietly, “There’s something on your head, Wright,” and the
little boy putting up his hand, hastily brushed off the horrid
wick.

“What a shame!” he said, as it fell on his letter, and made a
smudge.

“Who told you to interfere?” said Barker, turning fiercely to
Russell. Russell, as usual, took not the slightest notice of him,
and Barker, after a little more bluster, repeated the trick on
another boy. This time Russell thought that every one might be on
the look out for himself, and so went on with his work. But when
Barker again chanted maliciously–

“I see a chimney,” every boy who happened to be reading or
writing, uneasily felt to discover this time he was himself the
victim or no; and so things continued for half an hour.

Ridiculous and disgusting as this folly was, it became, when
constantly repeated, very annoying. A boy could not sit down to any
quiet work without constant danger of having some one creep up
behind him and put the offensive fragment of smoking snuff on his
head; and neither Barker nor any of his little gang of imitators
seemed disposed to give up their low mischief.

One night, when the usual exclamation was made, Eric felt sure,
from seeing several boys looking at him, that this time some one
had been treating him in the same way. He indignantly shook his
head, and sure enough the bit of wick dropped off. Eric was
furious, and springing up, he shouted–

“By Jove! I won’t stand this any longer.”

“You’ll have to sit it then,” said Barker.

“O, it was you who did it, was it? Then take that;” and,
seizing one of the tin candlesticks, Eric hurled it at Barker’s
head. Barker dodged, but the edge of it cut open his eyebrow as it
whizzed by, and the blood flowed fast.

“I’ll kill you for that,” said Barker, leaping at Eric, and
seizing him by the hair.

“You’ll get killed yourself then, you brute,” said Upton,
Russell’s cousin, a fifth-form boy, who had just come into the
room–and he boxed his ears as a premonitory admonition. “But, I
say, young un,” continued he to Eric, “this kind of thing won’t do,
you snow. You’ll get into rows if you shy candlesticks at fellows’
heads at that rate.”

“He has been making the room intolerable for the last month by
his filthy tricks,” said Eric hotly; “some one must stop him, and I
will somehow, if no one else does.”

“It wasn’t I who put the thing on your head, you passionate
young fool,” growled Barker.

“Who was it then? How was I to know? You began it.”

“You shut up, Barker,” said Upton; “I’ve heard of your ways
before, and when I catch you at your tricks, I’ll teach you a
lesson. Come up to my study, Williams, if you like.”

Upton was a fine sturdy fellow of eighteen, immensely popular in
the school for his prowess and good looks. He hated bullying, and
often interfered to protect little boys, who accordingly idolised
him, and did anything he told them very willingly. He meant to do
no harm, but he did great harm. He was full of misdirected
impulses, and had a great notion of being manly, which he thought
consisted in a fearless disregard of all school rules, and the
performance of the wildest tricks. For this reason he was never
very intimate with his cousin Russell, whom he liked very much, but
who was too scrupulous and independent to please him. Eric, on the
other hand, was just the boy to take his fancy, and to admire him
in return; his life, strength, and pluck, made him a ready pupil in
all schemes of mischief, and Upton, who had often noticed him,
would have been the first to shudder had he known how far his
example went to undermine all Eric’s lingering good resolutions,
and ruin for ever the boy of whom he was so fond.

From this time Eric was much in Upton’s study, and constantly by
his side in the playground. In spite of their disparity in age and
position in the school, they became sworn friends, though, their
friendship was broken every now and then by little quarrels, which
united them all the more closely after they had not spoken to each
other perhaps for a week.

“Your cousin Upton has ‘taken up’ Williams,” said Montagu to
Russell one afternoon, as he saw the two strolling together on the
beach, with Eric’s arm in Upton’s.

“Yes, I am sorry for it.”

“So am I. We shan’t see so much of him now.”

“O, that’s not my only reason,” answered Russell, who had a rare
habit of always going straight to the point.

“You mean you don’t like the ‘taking-up’ system.”

“No, Montagu; I used once to have fine theories about it. I used
to fancy that a big fellow would do no end of good to one lower in
the school, and that the two would stand to each other in the
relation of knight to squire. You know what the young knights were
taught, Monty–to keep their bodies under, and bring them into
subjection; to love God, and speak the truth always. That sounds
very grand and noble to me. But when a big fellow takes up a little
one you know pretty well that those are not the kind
of lessons he teaches.”

“No, Russell; you’re quite right. It’s bad for a fellow in every
way. First of all, it keeps him in an unnatural sort of dependence;
then ten to one it makes him conceited, and prevents his character
from really coming out well. And besides, the young chap generally
gets paid out in kicks and abuse from the jealousy and contempt of
the rest; and if his protector happens to leave, or anything of
that kind, woe betide him!”

“No fear for Eric in that line, though,” said Russell; “he can
hold his own pretty well against any one. And after all, he is a
most jolly fellow. I don’t think even Upton will spoil him; it’s
chiefly the soft self-indulgent fellows, who are all straw and no
iron, who get spoilt by being ‘taken up.'”

Russell was partly right. Eric learnt a great deal of harm from
Upton, and the misapplied hero-worship led to bad results. But he
was too manly a little fellow, and had too much self-respect, to
sink into the effeminate condition which usually grows on the young
delectables who have the misfortune to be “taken up.”

Nor did he in the least drop his old friends, except Owen. A
coolness grew up between the latter and Eric, not unmingled with a
little mutual contempt. Eric sneered at Owen as a fellow who did
nothing but grind all day long, and had no geniality in him; while
Owen pitied the love of popularity which so often led Eric into
delinquencies, which he himself despised. Owen had, indeed, but few
friends in the school; the only boy who knew him well enough to
respect and like him thoroughly was Russell, who found in him the
only one who took the same high, ground with himself. But Russell
loved the good in every one, and was loved by all in return, and
Eric he loved most of all, while he often mourned over his
increasing failures.

One day as the two were walking together in the green
playground, Mr. Gordon passed by; and as the boys touched their
caps, he nodded and smiled pleasantly at Russell, but hardly
noticed, and did not return Eric’s salute. He had begun to dislike
the latter more and more, and had given him up altogether as one of
the reprobates.

“What a surly devil that is,” said Eric, when he had passed;
“did you see how he purposely cut me?”

“A surly …? Oh Eric, that’s the first time I ever heard you
swear.”

Eric blushed. He hadn’t meant the word to slip out in Russell’s
hearing, though similar expressions were common enough in his talk
with other boys. But he didn’t like to be reproved, even by
Russell, and in the ready spirit of self-defence, he answered–

“Pooh, Edwin, you don’t call that swearing, do you? You’re so
strict, so religious, you know. I love you for it, but then, there
are none like you. Nobody thinks anything of swearing here.”

Russell was silent.

“Besides, what can be the harm of it? it means nothing. I was
thinking the other night, and I concluded that you and Owen are the
only two fellows here who don’t swear.”

Russell still said nothing.

“And, after all, I didn’t swear; I only called that fellow a
surly devil.”

“O, hush! Eric, hush!” said Russell sadly. “You wouldn’t have
said so half-a-year ago.”

Eric knew what he meant. The image of his father and mother rose
before him, as they sate far away in their lonely Indian home,
thinking of him, praying for him, centring all their hopes in him.
In him!–and he knew how many things he was daily doing and saying,
which would cut them to the heart. He knew that all his moral
consciousness was fast vanishing, and leaving him a bad and
reckless boy.

In a moment, all this passed through his mind. He remembered how
shocked he had been at swearing at first; and even when it became
too familiar to shock him, how he determined never to fall into the
habit himself. Then he remembered how gradually it had become quite
a graceful sound in his ears; a sound of entire freedom and
independence of moral restraint; an open casting off, as it were,
of all authority, so that he had begun to admire it, particularly
in Duncan, and above all, in his new hero, Upton; and he
recollected how, at last, an oath had one day slipped out suddenly
in his own words, and how strange it sounded to him, and how Upton
smiled to hear it, though conscience had reproached him bitterly;
but now that he had done it once, it became less dreadful, and
gradually grew common enough, till even conscience hardly reminded
him that he was doing wrong.

He thought of all this, and hung his head. Pride struggled with
him for a moment, but at length he answered, “O Edwin, I fear I am
getting utterly bad; I wish I were more like you,” he added, in a
low sad tone.

“Dear Eric, I have no right to say it, full of faults as I am
myself; but you will be so much happier, if you try not to yield to
all the bad things round us. Remember, I know more of school than
you.”

The two boys strolled on silently. That night Eric knelt at his
bedside, and prayed as he had not done for many a long day.

CHAPTER IX

“DEAD FLIES,” OR “YE SHALL BE AS GODS”

“In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark
night.” PROV. vii. 9.

At Roslyn, even in summer, the hour for going to bed was
half-past nine. It was hardly likely that so many boys, overflowing
with turbulent life, should lie down quietly, and get to sleep.
They never dreamt of doing so. Very soon after the masters were
gone, the sconces were often relighted, sometimes in separate
dormitories, sometimes in all of them, and the boys amused
themselves by reading novels or making a row. They would play
various games about the bedrooms, vaulting or jumping over the
beds, running races in sheets, getting through the windows upon the
roofs, to frighten the study-boys with sham ghosts, or playing the
thousand other pranks which suggested themselves to the fertile
imagination of fifteen. But the favorite amusement was a bolstering
match. One room would challenge another, and, stripping the covers
off their bolsters, would meet in mortal fray. A bolster well
wielded, especially when dexterously applied to the legs, is a very
efficient instrument to bring a boy to the ground; but it doesn’t
hurt very much, even when the blows fall on the head. Hence these
matches were excellent trials of strength and temper, and were
generally accompanied with shouts of laughter, never ending until
one side was driven back to its own room. Many a long and tough
struggle had Eric enjoyed, and his prowess was so universally
acknowledged, that his dormitory, No. 7, was a match for any other,
and far stronger in this warfare than most of the rest. At
bolstering, Duncan was a perfect champion; his strength and
activity were marvellous, and his mirth uproarious. Eric and Graham
backed him up brilliantly; while Llewellyn and Attlay, with sturdy
vigor, supported the skirmishers. Bull, the sixth boy in No. 7, was
the only fainéant among them, though he did
occasionally help to keep off the smaller fry.

Happy would it have been for all of them if Bull had never been
placed in No. 7; happier still if he had never come to Roslyn
school. Backward in work, overflowing with vanity at his supposed
good looks, of mean disposition and feeble intellect, he was the
very worst specimen of a boy that Eric had ever seen. Not even
Barker so deeply excited Eric’s repulsion and contempt. And yet,
since the affair of Upton, Barker and Eric were declared enemies,
and, much to the satisfaction of the latter, never spoke to each
other; but with Bull–much as he inwardly loathed him–he was
professedly and apparently on good terms. His silly love of
universal popularity made him accept and tolerate the society even
of this worthless boy.

Any two boys talking to each other about Bull would probably
profess to like him “well enough,” but if they were honest, they
would generally end by allowing their contempt.

“We’ve got a nice set in No. 7, haven’t we?” said Duncan to Eric
one day.

“Capital. Old Llewellyn’s a stunner, and I like Attlay and
Graham.”

“Don’t you like Bull then?”

“O yes; pretty well.”

The two boys looked each other in the face, then, like the
confidential augurs, burst out laughing.

“You know you detest him,” said Duncan.

“No, I don’t. He never did me any harm that I know of.”

“Him!–well, I detest him.”

“Well!” answered Eric, “on coming to think of it, so do I. And
yet he is popular enough in the school. I wonder how that is.”

“He’s not really popular. I’ve often noticed that fellows
pretty generally despise him, yet somehow don’t like to say
so.”

“Why do you dislike him, Duncan?”

“I don’t know. Why do you?”

“I don’t know either.”

Neither Eric nor Duncan meant this answer to be false, and yet
if they had taken the trouble to consider, they would have found
out in their secret souls the reasons of their dislike.

Bull had been to school before, and of this school he often
bragged as the acmé of desirability and wickedness. He was
always telling boys what they did at “his old school,” and he quite
inflamed the minds of such as fell under his influence by
marvellous tales of the wild and wilful things which he and his
former school-fellows had done. Many and many a scheme of sin and
mischief, at Roslyn was suggested, planned, and carried out on the
model of Bull’s reminiscences of his previous life.

He had tasted more largely of the tree of the knowledge of evil
than any other boy, and strange to say, this was the secret why the
general odium was never expressed. He claimed his guilty experience
so often as a ground of superiority, that at last the claim was
silently allowed. He spoke from the platform of more advanced
iniquity, and the others listened first curiously, then eagerly to
his words.

“Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Such was the
temptation which assailed the other boys in dormitory No. 7; and
Eric among the number. Bull was the tempter. Secretly, gradually,
he dropped into their too willing ears the poison of his polluting
acquirements.

In brief, Bull was cursed with a degraded and corrupting
mind.

I hurry over a part of my subject inconceivably painful; I hurry
over it, but if I am to perform my self-imposed duty of giving a
true picture of what school life sometimes is, I must not
pass it by altogether.

The first time that Eric heard indecent words in dormitory No.
7, he was shocked beyond bound or measure. Dark though it was, he
felt himself blushing scarlet to the roots of his hair, and then
growing pale again, while a hot dew was left upon his forehead.
Bull was the speaker; but this time there was a silence, and the
subject instantly dropped. The others felt that “a new boy” was in
the room; they did not know how he would take it; they were
unconsciously abashed.

Besides, though they had themselves joined in such conversation
before, they did not love it, and on the contrary, felt ashamed of
yielding to it.

Now, Eric, now or never! Life and death, ruin and salvation,
corruption and purity, are perhaps in the balance together, and the
scale of your destiny may hang on a single word of yours. Speak
out, boy! Tell these fellows that unseemly words wound your
conscience; tell them that they are ruinous, sinful, damnable;
speak out and save yourself and the rest. Virtue is strong and
beautiful, Eric, and vice is downcast in her awful presence. Lose
your purity of heart, Eric, and you have lost a jewel which the
whole world, if it were “one entire and perfect chrysolite,” cannot
replace.

Good spirits guard that young boy, and give him grace in this
his hour of trial! Open his eyes that he may see the fiery horses
and the fiery chariots of the angels who would defend him, and the
dark array of spiritual foes who throng around his bed. Point a
pitying finger to the yawning abyss of shame, ruin, and despair
that even now perhaps is being cleft under his feet. Show him the
garlands of the present and the past, withering at the touch of the
Erinnys in the future. In pity, in pity show him the canker which
he is introducing into the sap of the tree of life, which shall
cause its root to be hereafter as bitterness, and its blossom to go
up as dust.

But the sense of sin was on Eric’s mind. How could he
speak? was not his own language sometimes profane? How–how could
he profess to reprove another boy on the ground of morality, when
he himself said did things less ruinous perhaps, but equally
forbidden?

For half an hour, in an agony of struggle with himself, Eric lay
silent. Since Bull’s last words nobody had spoken. They were going
to sleep. It was too late to speak now, Eric thought. The moment
passed by for ever; Eric had listened without objection to foul
words, and the irreparable harm was done.

How easy it would have been to speak! With the temptation, God
had provided also a way to escape. Next time it came, it was far
harder to resist, and it soon became, to men, impossible.

Ah Eric, Eric! how little we know the moments which decide the
destinies of life. We live on as usual. The day is a common day,
the hour a common hour. We never thought twice about the change of
intention, which by one of the accidents–(accidents!)–of life
determined for good or for evil, for happiness or misery, the color
of our remaining years. The stroke of the pen was done in a moment
which led unconsciously to our ruin; the word was uttered quite
heedlessly, on which turned for ever the decision of our weal or
woe.

Eric lay silent. The darkness was not broken by the flashing of
an angel’s wing, the stillness was not syllabled by the sound of an
angel’s voice; but to his dying day Eric never forgot the moments
which passed, until, weary and self-reproachful, he fell
asleep.

Next morning he awoke, restless and feverish. He at once
remembered what had passed. Bull’s words haunted him; he could not
forget them; they burnt within him like the flame of a moral fever.
He was moody and petulant, and for a time could hardly conceal his
aversion to Bull. Ah Eric! moodiness and petulance cannot save you,
but prayerfulness would; one word, Eric, at the throne of
grace–one prayer before you go down among the boys, that God in
his mercy would wash away, in the blood of his dear Son, your
crimson stains, and keep your conscience and memory clean.

The boy knelt down for a few minutes, and repeated to himself a
few formal words. Had he stayed longer on his knees, he might have
given way to a burst of penitence and supplication–but he heard
Bull’s footstep, and getting up, he ran down stairs to breakfast;
so Eric did not pray.

Conversations did not generally drop so suddenly in dormitory
No. 7. On the contrary, they generally flashed along in the
liveliest way, till some one said “Good night;” and then the boys
turned off to sleep. Eric knew this, and instantly conjectured that
it was only a sort of respect for him, and ignorance of the manner
in which he would consider it, that prevented Duncan and the rest
from taking any further notice of Bull’s remark. It was therefore
no good disburdening his mind to any of them; but he determined to
speak about the matter to Russell in their next walk.

They usually walked together on Sunday. Dr. Rowlands had
discontinued the odious and ridiculous custom of the younger boys
taking their exercise under a master’s inspection. Boys are not
generally fond of constitutionals, so that on the half-holidays
they almost entirely confined their open-air exercise to the
regular games, and many of them hardly left the play-ground
boundaries once a week. But on Sundays they often went walks, each
with his favorite friend or companion. When Eric first came as a
boarder, he invariably went with Russell on Sunday, and many a
pleasant stroll they had taken together, sometimes accompanied by
Duncan, Montagu, or Owen. The latter, however, had dropped even
this intercourse with Eric, who for the last few weeks had more
often gone with his new friend Upton.

“Come a walk, boy,” said Upton, as they left the
dining-room.

“O excuse me to-day, Upton,” said Eric, “I’m going with your
cousin.”

“Oh very well,” said Upton, in high dudgeon, and, hoping
to make Eric jealous, he went a walk with Graham, whom he had
“taken up” before he knew Williams.

Russell was rather surprised when Eric came to him and said,
“Come a stroll to Fort Island, Edwin–will you?”

“O yes,” said Russell cheerfully; “why, we haven’t seen each
other for some time lately! I was beginning to fancy that you meant
to drop me, Eric.”

He spoke with a smile, and in a rallying tone, but Eric hung his
head, for the charge was true. Proud of his popularity among all
the school, and especially at his friendship with so leading a
fellow as Upton, Eric had not seen much of his friend since
their last conversation about swearing. Indeed, conscious of
failure, he felt sometimes uneasy in Russell’s company.

He faltered, and answered humbly, “I hope you will never drop
me, Edwin, however bad I get? But I particularly want to
speak to you to-day.”

In an instant Russell had twined his arm in Eric’s, as they
turned towards Fort Island; and Eric, with an effort, was just
going to begin, when they heard Montagu’s voice calling after
them–

“I say, you fellows, where are you off to! may I come with
you?”

“O yes, Monty, do,” said Russell, “It will be quite like old
times; now that my cousin Horace has got hold of Eric, we have to
sing ‘When shall we three meet again?'”

Russell only spoke in fun; but, unintentionally, his words
jarred in Eric’s heart. He was silent, and answered in
monosyllables, so the walk was provokingly dull. At last they
reached Fort Island, and sat down by the ruined chapel looking on
the sea.

“Why what’s the row with you, old boy,” said Montagu, playfully
shaking Eric by the shoulder, “you’re as silent as Zimmerman on
Solitude, and as doleful as Harvey on the Tombs. I expect you’ve
been going through a select course of Blair’s Grave, Young’s Night
Thoughts, and Drelincourt on Death.”

To his surprise Eric’s head was still bent, and, at last, he
heard a deep suppressed sigh.

“My dear child, what is the matter with you?” said Russell,
affectionately taking his hand, “surely you’re not offended at my
nonsense?”

Eric had not liked to speak while Montagu was by, but now he
gulped down his rising emotion, and briefly told them of Bull’s
vile words the night before. They listened in silence.

“I knew it must come, Eric,” said Russell at last, “and I am so
sorry you didn’t speak at the time.”

“Do the fellows ever talk in that way in either of your
dormitories?” asked Eric.

“No,” said Russell.

“Very little,” said Montagu.

A pause followed, during which all three plucked the grass and
looked away.

“Let me tell you,” said Russell solemnly; “my father (he is dead
now you know, Eric), when I was sent to school, warned me of this
kind of thing. I had been brought up in utter ignorance of such
coarse knowledge as is forced upon one here, and with my
reminiscences of home, I could not bear even that much of it which
was impossible to avoid. But the very first time such talk was
begun in my dormitory I spoke out. What I said I don’t know, but I
felt as if I was trampling on a slimy poisonous adder, and, at any
rate, I showed such pain and distress that the fellows dropped it
at the time. Since then I have absolutely refused to stay in the
room if ever such talk is begun. So it never is now, and I do think
the fellows are very glad of it themselves.”

“Well,” said Montagu, “I don’t profess to look on it from the
religious ground, you know, but I thought it blackguardly, and in
bad taste, and said so. The fellow who began it, threatened to kick
me for a conceited little fool, but he didn’t; and they hardly ever
venture on that ground now.”

“It is more than blackguardly–it is deadly,” answered Russell;
“my father said it was the most fatal curse which could ever become
rife in a public school.”

“Why do masters never give us any help or advice on these
matters?” asked Eric thoughtfully.

“In sermons they do. Don’t you remember Rowlands’ sermon not two
weeks ago on Kibroth-Hattaavah? But I for one think them quite
right not to speak to us privately on such subjects, unless we
invite confidence. Besides, they cannot know that any boys talk in
this way. After all, it is only a very few of the worst who ever
do.”

They got up and walked home, but from day to day Eric put off
performing the duty which Russell had advised, viz.–a private
request to Bull to abstain from his offensive communications, and
an endeavor to enlist Duncan into his wishes.

One evening they were telling each other stories in No. 7.
Bull’s turn came, and in his story the vile element again appeared.
For a while Eric said nothing, but as the strain grew worse, he
made a faint remonstrance.

“Shut up there, Williams,” said Attlay, “and don’t spoil the
story.”

“Very well. It’s your own fault, and I shall shut my ears.”

He did for a time, but a general laugh awoke him. He pretended
to be asleep, but he listened. Iniquity of this kind was utterly
new to him; his curiosity was awakened; he no longer feigned
indifference, and the poison flowed deep into his veins. Before
that evening was over, Eric Williams was “a god, knowing good from
evil.”

O young boys, if your eyes ever read these pages, pause and
beware. The knowledge of evil is ruin, and the continuance in it
hell. That little matter–that beginning of evil,–it will be like
the snowflake detached by the breath of air from the mountain-top,
which, as it rushes down, gains size, and strength, and impetus,
till it has swollen to the mighty and irresistible avalanche that
overwhelms garden, and field, and village, in a chaos of
undistinguishable death.

Kibroth-Hattaavah! Many and many a young Englishman has perished
there! Many and many a happy English boy, the jewel of his mother’s
heart,–brave, and beautiful, and strong,–lies buried there. Very
pale their shadows rise before us–the shadows of our young
brothers who have sinned and suffered. From the sea and the sod,
from foreign graves and English churchyards, they start up and
throng around us in the paleness of their fall. May every schoolboy
who reads this page be warned by the waving of their wasted hands,
from that burning marle of passion, where they found nothing but
shame and ruin, polluted affections, and an early grave.

CHAPTER X

DORMITORY LIFE

[Greek: Aspasiae trillistos hepaeluths nux
herebennae.]
HOM.

For a few days after the Sunday walk narrated in the last
chapter, Upton and Eric cut each other dead. Upton was angry at
Eric’s declining the honor of his company, and Eric was piqued at
Upton’s unreasonableness. In the “taking up” system, such quarrels
were of frequent occurrence, and as the existence of a
misunderstanding was generally indicated in this very public way,
the variations of good will between such friends generally excited
no little notice and amusement among the other boys. But both Upton
and Eric were too sensible to carry their differences so far as
others similarly circumstanced; each thoroughly enjoyed the other’s
company, and they generally seized an early opportunity for
effecting a reconciliation, which united them more firmly than
ever.

As soon as Eric had got over his little pique, he made the first
advances, by writing a note to Upton, which he slipped under his
study door, and which ran as follows:–

“Dear Horace–Don’t let us quarrel about nothing. Silly fellow,
why should you be angry with me because for once I wanted to go a
walk with Russell, who, by the bye, is twice as good a fellow as
you? I shall expect you to make it up directly after
prayers.–Yours, if you are not silly, E.W.”

The consequence was, that as they came out from prayers, Upton
seized Eric’s hand, and slapped him on the back, after which they
had a good laugh over their own foolish fracas, and ran up stairs
chattering merrily.

“There’s to be an awful lark in the dormitories tonight,” said
Eric; “the doctor’s gone to a dinner-party, and we’re going to have
no end of fun.”

“Are you? Well, if it gets amusing, come to my study and tell
me, I’ll come and look on.”

“Very well; depend upon it, I’ll come.” And they parted at the
foot of the study stairs.

It was Mr. Rose’s night of duty. He walked slowly up and down
the range of Dormitories until every boy seemed ready to get into
bed, and then he put out all the candles. So long as he was
present, the boys observed the utmost quiet and decorum. All
continued quite orderly until he had passed away through the
lavatory, and one of the boys following him as a scout, had seen
the last glimmer of his candle disappear round the corner at the
foot of the great staircase, and heard the library door close
behind him.

After that, particularly as Dr. Rowlands was absent, the boys
knew that they were safe from disturbance, and the occupants of No.
7 were the first to stir.

“Now for some fun,” said Duncan, starting up, and by way of
initiative pitching his pillow at Eric’s head.

“I’ll pay you out for that when I’m ready,” said Eric, laughing;
“but give us a match, first.”

Duncan produced some vestas, and no sooner had they lighted
their candle, than several of the dormitory doors began to be
thrown open, and one after another all requested a light, which
Duncan and Eric conveyed to them in a sort of emulous
lampadephoria, so that a length all the twelve dormitories had
their sconces lit, and the boys began all sorts of amusement, some
in their night-shirts and others with their trousers slipped on.
Leap-frog was the prevalent game for a time, but at last Graham
suggested theatricals, and they were agreed on.

“But we’re making a regular knock-me-down shindy,” said
Llewellyn; “somebody must keep cavè.”

“O, old Rose is safe enough at his Hebrew in the library; no
fear of disturbing him if we were dancing hippopotami,” answered
Graham.

But it was generally considered safest to put some one at the
top of the stairs, in case of an unexpected diversion in that
direction, and little Wright consented to go first. He had only to
leave the lavatory door open; and stand at the top of the
staircase, and he then commanded for a great distance the only
avenue in which danger was expected. If any master’s candle
appeared n the hall, the boys had full three minutes’ warning, and
a single loudly-whispered “cave” would cause some one in each
dormitory instantly to “douse the glim,” and shut the door; so that
by the time of the adversary’s arrival, they would all be (of
course) fast asleep in bed, some of them snoring in an alarming
manner. Whatever noise the master might have heard, it would be
impossible to fix it on any of the sleepers.

So at the top of the stairs stood little Wright, shoeless, and
shivering in his night-gown, but keenly entering into the fun, and
not unconscious of the dignity of his position. Meanwhile the rest
were getting up a scenic representation of Bombastes Furioso,
arranging a stage, piling a lot of beds together for a theatre, and
dressing up the actors in the most fantastic apparel.

The impromptu Bombastes excited universal applause, and just at
the end Wright ran in through the lavatory.

“I say,” said the little fellow, “it’s jolly cold standing at
the top of the stairs. Won’t some one relieve guard?”

“O, I will,” answered Eric, good-naturedly; “it’s a shame that
one fellow should have all the bother and none of the fun;” and he
ran to take Wright’s post.

After watching a minute or two, he felt sure that there was no
danger, and therefore ran up to Upton’s study for a change.

“Well, what’s up?” said the study-boy, approvingly, as he
glanced at Eric’s laughing eyes.

“O, we’ve been having leap-frog, and then Bombastes Furioso. But
I’m keeping ‘cavè’ now; only it’s so cold that I thought I’d
run up to your study.”

“Little traitor; we’ll shoot you for a deserting sentinel.”

“O no;” said Eric, “it’s all serene; Rowley’s out, and dear old
Rose’d never dream of supposing us elsewhere than in the arms of
Morpheus. Besides the fellows are making less row now.”

“Well! look here! let’s go and look on, and I’ll tell you a
dodge; put one of the tin washing-basins against the iron door of
the lavatory, and then if any one comes he’ll make clang enough to
wake dead; and while he’s amusing himself with this, there’ll be
lots of time to ‘extinguish the superfluous abundance of the
nocturnal illuminators.’ Eh?”

“Capital!” said Eric, “come along.”

They went down and arranged the signal very artistically,
leaving the iron door ajar a little, and then neatly poising the
large tin basin on its edge, so as to lean against it. Having
extremely enjoyed this part of the proceeding, they went to look at
the theatricals again, the boys being highly delighted at Upton’s
appearance among them.

They at once made Eric take a part in some very distant
reminiscences of Macbeth, and corked his cheeks with whiskers and
mustachios to make him resemble Banquo, his costume being completed
by a girdle round his nightshirt, consisting of a very fine crimson
silk handkerchief, richly broidered with gold, which had been
brought to him from India, and which at first, in the innocence of
his heart, he used to wear on Sundays, until he acquired the
sobriquet of “the Dragon.” Duncan made a superb Macbeth.

They were doing the dagger-scene, which was put on the stage in
a most novel manner. A sheet had been pinned from the top of the
room, on one side of which stood a boy with a broken dinner knife,
the handle end of which he was pushing through a hole in the middle
of the sheet at the shadow of Duncan on the other side.

Duncan himself, in an attitude of intensely affected melodrama,
was spouting–

“Is this a dagger which I see before me?
The handle towards me now? come, let me clutch thee;”

And he snatched convulsively at the handle of the protruded
knife; but as soon as he nearly touched it, this end was
immediately withdrawn, and the blade end substituted, which made
the comic Macbeth instantly draw back again, and recommence his
apostrophe. This scene had tickled the audience immensely, and
Duncan, amid shouts of laughter, was just drawing the somewhat
unwarrantable conclusion that it was

“A dagger of the mind, a false creation,”

when a sudden grating, followed by a reverbrated clang, produced
a dead silence.

“Cavè,” shouted Eric, and took a flying leap into his
bed. Instantly there was a bolt in different directions; the sheet
was torn down, the candles dashed out, the beds shoved aside, and
the dormitories at once plunged in profound silence, only broken by
the heavy breathing of sleepers, when in strode–not Mr. Rose or
any of the under masters–but–Dr. Rowlands himself!

He stood for a moment to survey the scene. All the dormitory
doors were wide open; the sheet which had formed the stage curtain
lay torn on the floor of No. 7; the beds in all the adjoining rooms
were in the strangest positions; and half-extinguished wicks still
smouldered in several of the sconces. Every boy was in bed, but the
extraordinary way in which the bed clothes were huddled about told
an unmistakeable tale.

He glanced quickly round, but the moment he had passed into No.
8, he heard a run, and, turning, just caught sight of Upton’s
figure vanishing into the darkness of the lavatory, towards the
study stairs.

He said not a word, but stalked hastily through all dormitories,
again stopping at No. 7 on his return.

He heard nothing but the deep snores of Duncan, and instantly
fixed on him as a chief culprit.

“Duncan!”

No reply; but calm stertorous music from Duncan’s bed.

“Duncan!” he said, still louder and more sternly, “you sleep
soundly, sir, too soundly; get up directly,” and he laid his hand
on the boy’s arm.

“Get away, you old donkey,” said Duncan sleepily; “‘t, aint time
to get up yet. First bell hasn’t rung.”

“Come, sir, this shamming will only increase your punishment;”
but the imperturbable Duncan stretched himself lazily, gave a great
yawn, and then awoke with such an admirably feigned start at seeing
Dr. Rowlands, that Eric, who had been peeping at the scene from
over his bed-clothes, burst into an irresistible explosion of
laughter.

Dr. Rowlands swung round on his heel–“What! Williams! get out
of bed, sir, this instant.”

Eric, forgetful of his disguise, sheepishly obeyed; but when he
stood on the floor, he looked so odd in his crimson girdle and
corked cheeks, with Dr. Rowlands surveying him in intense
astonishment, that the scene became overpoweringly ludicrous to
Duncan, who now in his turn was convulsed with a storm of laughter,
faintly echoed in stifled titterings from other beds.

“Very good,” said Dr. Rowlands, now thoroughly angry,
“you will hear of this to-morrow;” and he walked away with a heavy
step, stopping at the lavatory door to restore the tin basin to its
proper place, and then mounting to the studies.

Standing in the passage into which the studies opened, he
knocked at one of the doors, and told a boy to summon all their
occupants at once to the library.

Meanwhile, the dormitory-boys were aghast, and as soon as they
heard the doctor’s retreating footsteps, began flocking in the dark
to No. 7, not daring to relight their candles.

“Good gracious!” said Attlay, “only to think of Rowley
appearing! How could he have twigged?”

“He must have seen our lights in the window as he came home,”
said Eric.

“I say, what a row that tin-basin dodge of yours made! What a
rage the Doctor will be in to-morrow?”

“Won’t you just catch it!” said Barker to Duncan, but intending
the remark for Eric.

“Just like your mean chaff,” retorted Duncan. “But I say,
Williams,” he continued, laughing, “you did look so funny in
the whiskers.”

At this juncture they heard all the study-boys running down
stairs to the library, and, lost in conjecture, retired to their
different rooms.

“What do you think he’ll do to us?” asked Eric.

“I don’t know,” said Duncan uneasily; “flog us, for one thing,
that’s certain. I’m so sorry about that basin, Eric; but it’s no
good fretting. We’ve had our cake, and now we must pay for it,
that’s all.”

Eric’s cogitations began to be unpleasant, when the door opened,
and somebody stole noiselessly in.

“Who’s there?”

“Upton. I’ve come to have a chat. The Doctor’s like a
turkey-cock in sight of a red handkerchief. Never saw him in such a
rage.”

“Why, what’s he been saying?” asked Eric, as Upton came and took
a seat on his bed.

“Oh! he’s been rowing us like six o’clock,” said Upton, “about
‘moral responsibility,’ ‘abetting the follies of children,’
‘forgetting our position in the school,’ and I don’t know what all;
and he ended by asking who’d been in the dormitories. Of course I
confessed the soft impeachment, whereon he snorted ‘Ha! I suspected
so. Very well, Sir, you don’t know how to use a study; you shall be
deprived of it till the end of term.'”

“Did he really, Horace?” said Eric. “And it’s all my doing that
you’ve got into the scrape. Do forgive me.”

“Bosh! My dear fellow,” said Upton, “it’s twice as much my fault
as yours; and, after all, it was only a bit of fun. It’s rather a
bore losing the study, certainly; but never mind, we shall see all
the more of each other. Good night; I must be off.”

Next morning, prayers were no sooner over than Dr. Rowlands said
to the boys, “Stop! I have a word to say to you.”

“I find that there was the utmost disorder in the dormitories
yesterday evening. All the candles were relighted at forbidden
hours, and the noise made was so great that it was heard through
the whole building. I am grieved that I cannot leave you, even for
a few hours, without your taking such advantage of my absence; and
that the upper boys, so far from using their influence to prevent
these infractions of discipline, seem inclined rather to join in
them themselves. On this occasion I have punished Upton, by
depriving him of a privilege which he has abused; and as I myself
detected Duncan and Williams, they will be flogged in the library
at twelve. But I now come to the worst part of the proceeding.
Somebody had been reckless enough to try and prevent surprise by
the dangerous expedient of putting a tin basin against the iron
door. The consequence was, that I was severely hurt, and
might have been seriously injured in entering the lavatory.
I must know the name of the delinquent.”

Upton and Eric immediately stood up. Dr. Rowlands looked
surprised, and there was an expression of grieved interest in Mr.
Rose’s face.

“Very well,” said the Doctor, “I shall speak to you both
privately.”

Twelve o’clock came, and Duncan and Eric received a severe
caning. Corporal punishment, however necessary and desirable for
some dispositions, always produced on Eric the worst effects. He
burned, not with remorse or regret, but with shame and violent
indignation, and listened, with a glare in his eye, to Dr.
Rowlands’ warnings. When the flogging was over, he almost rushed
out of the room, to choke in solitude his sense of humiliation, nor
would he suffer any one for an instant to allude to his disgrace.
Dr. Rowlands had hinted that Upton was doing him no good; but he
passionately resented the suggestion, and determined, with
obstinate perversity, to cling more than ever to the boy whom he
had helped to involve in the same trouble with himself.

Any attempt on the part of masters to interfere in the
friendships of boys is usually unsuccessful. The boy who has been
warned against his new acquaintance not seldom repeats to him the
fact that Mr. So-and-so doesn’t like seeing them together, and
after that they fancy themselves bound in honor to show that they
are not afraid of continuing their connection. It was not strange,
therefore, that Eric and Upton were thrown more than ever into each
other’s society, and consequently, that Eric, while he improved
daily in strength, activity, and prowess, neglected more and more
his school duties and honorable ambitions.

Mr. Rose sadly remarked the failure of promise in his character
and abilities, and did all that could be done, by gentle firmness
and unwavering kindness, to recal his pupil to a sense of duty. One
night he sent for him to supper, and invited no one else. During
the evening he drew out Eric’s exercise, and compared it with,
those of Russell and Owen, who were now getting easily ahead of him
in marks. Eric’s was careless, hurried, and untidy; the other two
were neat, spirited, and painstaking, and had, therefore, been
marked much higher.

“Your exercises used to be far better–I may say
incomparably better,” said Mr. Rose; “what is the cause of this
falling off?”

Eric was silent.

Mr. Rose laid his hand gently on his head. “I fear, my boy, you
have not been improving lately. You have got into many scrapes, and
are letting boys beat you in form who are far your inferiors in
ability. That is a very bad sign, Eric; in itself it is a
discouraging fact, but I fear it indicates worse evils. You are
wasting the golden hours, my boy, that can never return. I only
hope and trust that no other change for the worse is going on in
your character.”

And so he talked on till the boy’s sorrow was undisguised.
“Come,” he said gently, “let us kneel down together before we
part.”

Boy and master knelt down humbly side by side, and, from a full
heart, the young man poured out his fervent petitions for the child
beside him. Eric’s heart seemed to catch a glow from his words, and
he loved him as a brother. He rose from his knees full of the
strongest resolutions, and earnestly promised amendment for the
future.

But poor Eric did not yet know his own infirmity. For a time,
indeed, there was a marked improvement; but daily life flowed on
with its usual allurements, and when the hours of temptation came,
his good intentions melted away, so that, in a few more weeks, the
prayer, and the vows that followed it, had been obliterated from
his memory without leaving any traces in his life.

CHAPTER XI

ERIC IN COVENTRY

           “And
either greet him not
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not looked on.”–TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, iii. 3.

Upton, expatriated from his study, was allowed to use one of the
smaller class-rooms which were occupied during play-hours by those
boys who were too high in the school for “the boarders’ room,” and
who were waiting to succeed to the studies as they fell vacant.
There were three or four others with him in this class-room, and
although it was less pleasant than his old quarters, it was yet far
more comfortable than the Pandemonium of the shell and fourth-form
boys.

As a general rule, no boys were allowed to sit in any of the
class-rooms except their legitimate occupants. The rule, however,
was very generally overlooked, and hence Eric, always glad of an
opportunity to escape from the company of Barker and his
associates, became a constant frequenter of his friend’s new abode.
Here they used to make themselves very comfortable. Joining the
rest, they would drink coffee or chocolate, and amuse themselves
over the fire with Punch, or some warlike novel in a green or
yellow cover. One of them very often read aloud to the rest: and
Eric, being both a good reader and a merry, intelligent listener,
soon became quite a favorite among the other boys.

Mr. Rose had often seen him sitting there, and left him
unmolested; but if ever Mr. Gordon happened to come in and notice
him, he invariably turned him out, and after the first offence or
two, had several times set him an imposition. This treatment gave
fresh intensity to his now deeply-seated disgust at his late
master, and his expressions of indignation at “Gordon’s spite” were
loud and frequent.

One day Mr. Gordon had accidentally come in, and found no one
there but Upton and Eric; they were standing very harmlessly by the
window, with Upton’s arm resting kindly on Eric’s shoulder as they
watched with admiration the net-work of rippled sunbeams that
flashed over the sea. Upton had just been telling Eric the splendid
phrase [Greek: anêrithmon gelasma pontiôn], which he
had stumbled upon in an Aeschylus lesson that morning, and they
were trying which would hit on the best rendering of it. Eric stuck
up for the literal sublimity of “the innumerable laughter of the
sea,” while Upton was trying to win him over to “the many-twinkling
smile of ocean.” They were enjoying the discussion, and each
stoutly maintaining his own rendering, when Mr. Gordon entered.

On this occasion he was particularly angry; he had an especial
dislike of seeing the two boys together, because he fancied that
the younger had grown more than usually conceited and neglectful,
since he had been under the fifth-form patronage; and he saw in
Eric’s presence there, a new case of wilful disobedience.

“Williams, here again!” he exclaimed sharply. “Why, sir,
you seem to suppose that you may defy rules with impunity! How
often have I told you that no one is allowed to sit here, except
the regular occupants?”

His voice startled the two boys from their pleasant
discussion.

“No other master takes any notice of it, sir,” said Upton.

“I have nothing to do with other masters, Williams, you will
bring me the fourth Georgic, written out by Saturday morning, for
your repeated disobedience. Upton, I have a great mind to punish
you also, for tempting him to come here.”

This was a mistake on Mr. Gordon’s part, of which Upton took
immediate advantage.

“I have no power to prevent it, sir, if he wishes it. Besides,”
he continued, with annoying blandness of tone, “it would be
inhospitable; and I am too glad of his company.”

Eric smiled, and Mr. Gordon frowned. “Williams, leave the room
instantly.”

The boy obeyed slowly and doggedly. “Mr. Rose never interferes
with me, when he sees me here,” he said as he retreated.

“Then I shall request Mr. Rose to do so in future; your conceit
and impertinence are getting intolerable.”

Eric only answered with a fiery glance; the next minute Upton
joined him on the stairs, and Mr. Gordon heard them laughing a
little ostentatiously, as they ran out into the playground
together. He went away full of strong contempt, and from that
moment began to look on the friends as two of the worst boys in the
school.

This incident had happened on Thursday, which was a
half-holiday, and instead of being able to join in any of the
games, Eric had to spend that weary afternoon in writing away at
the fourth Georgic; Upton staying in a part of the time to help him
a little, by dictating the lines to him–an occupation not
unfrequently interrupted by storms of furious denunciation against
Mr. Gordon’s injustice and tyranny; Eric vowing “that he would pay
him out somehow yet.”

The imposition was not finished that evening, and it again
consumed some of the next day’s leisure, part of it being written
between schools in the forbidden class-room. Still it was not quite
finished on Friday afternoon at six, when school ended, and Eric
stayed a few minutes behind the rest to scribble off the last ten
lines; which done, he banged down the lid of his desk, not locking
it, and ran out.

The next morning an incident happened which involved
considerable consequences to some of the actors in my story.

Mr. Rose and several other masters had not a room to themselves,
like Mr. Gordon, but heard their forms in the great hall. At one
end of this hall was a board used for the various school notices,
to which there were always affixed two or three pieces of paper
containing announcements about examinations and other matters of
general interest.

On Saturday morning (when Eric was to give up his Georgic), the
boys, as they dropped into the hall for morning school, observed a
new notice on the board, and, thronging round to see what it was,
read these words, written on a half-sheet of paper, attached by
wafers to the board–

“GORDON IS A SURLY DEVIL.”

As may be supposed, so completely novel an announcement took
them all very much by surprise, and they wondered who had been so
audacious as to play this trick. But their wonder was cut short by
the entrance of the masters, and they all took their seats, without
any one tearing down the dangerous paper.

After a few minutes the eye of the second master, Mr. Ready,
fell on the paper, and, going up, he read it, stood for a moment
transfixed with astonishment, and then called Mr. Rose.

Pointing to the inscription, he said: “I think we had better
leave that there, Rose, exactly as it is, till Dr. Rowlands has
seen it. Would you mind asking him to step in here?”

Just at this juncture Eric came in, having been delayed by Mr.
Gordon while he rigidly inspected the imposition. As he took his
seat, Montagu, who was next him, whispered–

“I say, have you seen the notice-board?”

“No. Why?”

“Why, some fellow has been writing up an opinion of Gordon not
very favorable.”

“And serve him right, too, brute!” said Eric, smarting with the
memory of his imposition.

“Well, there’ll be no end of a row; you’ll see.”

During this conversation, Dr. Rowlands came in with Mr. Rose. He
read the paper, frowned, pondered a moment, and then said to Mr.
Rose–“Would you kindly summon the lower school into the hall? As
it would be painful to Mr. Gordon to be present, you had better
explain to him how matters stand.”

“Halloa! here’s a rumpus!” whispered Montagu; “he never has the
lower school down for nothing.”

A noise was heard on the stairs, and in flocked the lower
school. When they had ranged themselves on the vacant forms, there
was a dead silence and hush of expectation.

“I have summoned you all together,” said the Doctor, “on a most
serious occasion. This morning, on coming into the school-room, the
masters found that the notice-board had been abused for the purpose
of writing up an insult to one of our number, which is at once
coarse and wicked. As only a few of you have seen it, it becomes my
deeply painful duty to inform you of its purport; the words are
these–‘Gordon is a surly devil.'”–A very slight titter
followed this statement, which was instantly succeeded by a sort of
thrilling excitement; but Eric, when he heard the words, started
perceptibly, and colored as he caught Montagu’s eye fixed on
him.

Dr. Rowlands continued–“I suppose this dastardly impertinence
has been perpetrated by some boy out of a spirit of revenge. I am
perfectly amazed at the unparalleled audacity and meanness of the
attempt, and it may be very difficult to discover the author of it.
But, depend upon it, discover him we will, at whatever cost.
Whoever the offender may be, and he must be listening to me at this
moment, let him be assured that he shall not be unpunished.
His guilty secret shall be torn from him. His punishment can only
be mitigated by his instantly yielding himself up.”

No one stirred, but during the latter part of this address Eric
was so uneasy, and his cheek burned with such hot crimson, that
several eyes were upon him, and the suspicions of more than one boy
were awakened.

“Very well,” said the head master, “the guilty boy is not
inclined to confess. Mark, then; if his name has not been given up
to me by to-day week, every indulgence to the school will be
forfeited, the next whole holiday stopped, and the coming
cricket-match prohibited.”

“The handwriting may be some clue,” suggested Mr. Ready. “Would
you have any objection to my examining the note-books of the
Shell?”

“None at all. The Shell-boys are to show their books to Mr.
Ready immediately.”

The head-boy of the Shell collected the books, and took them to
the desk; the three masters glanced casually at about a dozen, and
suddenly stopped at one. Eric’s heart beat loud, as his saw Mr.
Rose point towards him.

“We have discovered a handwriting which remarkably resembles
that on the board. I give the offender one more chance of
substituting confession for detection.”

No one stirred; but Montagu felt that his friend was trembling
violently.

“Eric Williams, stand out in the room.”

Blushing scarlet, and deeply agitated, the boy obeyed

“The writing on the notice is exactly like yours. Do you know
anything of this shameful proceeding?”

“Nothing, sir,” he murmured in a low tone.

“Nothing whatever?”

“Nothing whatever, sir.”

Dr. Rowlands’ look searched him through and through, and seemed
to burn into his heart. He did not meet it, but hung his head. The
Doctor felt certain from his manner that he was guilty. He chained
him to the spot with his glance for a minute or two, and then said
slowly, and with a deep sigh–

“Very well; I hope you have spoken the truth; but whether
you have or no, we shall soon discover. The school, and especially
the upper boys, will remember what I have said. I shall now tear
down the insulting notice, and put it into your hands, Avonley, as
head of the school, that you may make further inquiries.” He left
the room, and the boys resumed their usual avocation till twelve
o’clock. But poor Eric could hardly get through his ordinary
pursuits; he felt sick and giddy, until everybody noticed his
strange embarrassed manner, and random answers.

No sooner had twelve o’clock struck, than the whole school broke
up into knots of buzzing and eager talkers.

“I wonder who did it,” said a dozen voices at once.

“The writing was undoubtedly Williams’,” suggested some.

“And did you notice how red and pale he got when the Doctor
spoke to him, and how he hung his head?”

“Yes; and one knows how he hates Gordon.”

“Ay; by the bye, Gordon set him a Georgic only on Thursday, and
he has been swearing at him ever since.”

“I noticed that he stayed in after all the rest last night,”
said Barker.

“Did he? By Jove, that looks bad.”

“Has any one charged him with it?” asked Duncan.

“Yes,” answered one of the group: “but he’s as proud about it as
Lucifer, and is furious if you mention it to him. He says we ought
to know him better than to think him capable of such a thing.”

“And quite right, too,” said Duncan. “If he did it, he’s done
something totally unlike what one would have believed possible of
him.”

The various items of evidence were put together, and certainly
they seemed to prove a strong case against Eric. In addition to the
probabilities already mentioned, it was found that the ink used was
of a violet color, and a peculiar kind, which Eric was known to
patronise; and not only so, but the wafers with which the paper had
been attached to the board were yellow, and exactly of the same
size with some which Eric was said to possess. How the latter facts
had been discovered, nobody exactly knew, but they began to be very
generally whispered throughout the school.

In short, the almost universal conviction among the boys
proclaimed that he was guilty, and many urged him to confess it at
once, and save the school from the threatened punishment. But he
listened to such suggestions with the most passionate
indignation.

“What!” he said, angrily, “tell a wilful lie to blacken my own
innocent character? Never!”

The consequence was, they all began to shun him. Eric was put
into Coventry. Very few boys in the school still clung to him, and
maintained his innocence in spite of appearances, but they were the
boys whom he had most loved and valued, and they were most vigorous
in his defence. They were Russell, Montagu, Duncan, Owen, and
little Wright.

On the evening of the Saturday, Upton had sought out Eric, and
said in a very serious tone, “This is a bad business, Williams. I
cannot forget how you have been abusing Gordon lately, and though I
won’t believe you guilty, yet you ought to explain.”

“What? even you, then suspect me?” said Eric, bursting
into proud tears. “Very well. I shan’t condescend to deny
it. I won’t speak to you again till you have repented of
mistrusting me;” and he resolutely rejected all further overtures
on Upton’s part.

He was alone in his misery. Some one, he perceived, had plotted
to destroy his character, and he saw too clearly how many causes of
suspicion told against him. But it was very bitter to think that
the whole school could so readily suppose that he would do a thing
which from his soul he abhorred. “No,” he thought, “bad I may be,
but I could not have done such a base and cowardly
trick.”

Never in his life had he been so wretched. He wandered alone to
the rocks, and watched the waves dashing against them with the
rising tide. The tumult of the weather seemed to relieve and
console the tumult of his heart. He drank in strength and defiance
from the roar of the waters, and climbed to their very edge along
the rocks, where every fresh, rush of the waves enveloped him in
white swirls of angry loam. The look of the green, rough, hungry
sea, harmonised with his feelings, and he sat down and stared into
it, to find relief from the torment of his thoughts.

At last, with a deep sigh, he turned away to go back, and meet
the crowd of suspicious and unkindly companions, and brood alone
over his sorrow in the midst of them. He had not gone many steps,
when he caught sight of Russell in the distance. His first impulse
was to run away and escape; but Russell determined to stop him, and
when he came up, said, “Dear Eric, I have sought you out on purpose
to tell you that I don’t suspect you, and have never done so
for a moment. I know you too well, my boy, and be sure that
I will always stick to you, even if the whole school cut
you.”

“Oh, Edwin, I am so wretched. I needn’t tell you that I
am quite innocent of this. What have I done to be so suspected?
Why, even your cousin Upton won’t believe me.”

“But he does, Eric,” said Russell; “he told me so just now, and
several others said the same thing.”

A transient gleam passed over Eric’s face.

“O, I do so long for home again,” he said. “Except you, I have
no friend.”

“Don’t say so, Eric. This cloud will soon blow over. Depend upon
it, as the Doctor said, we shall discover the offender yet, and the
fellows will soon make you reparation for their false suspicions.
And you have one friend, Eric,” he continued, pointing
reverently upwards.

Eric was overcome; he sat down on the grass and hid his face
till the tears flowed through his closed fingers. Russell sat
silent and pitying beside him, and let Eric’s head rest upon his
shoulder.

When they got home, Eric found three notes in his drawer. One
was from Mr. Gordon, and ran thus:–

“I have little doubt, Williams, that you have done this act.
Believe me, I feel no anger, only pity for you. Come to me and
confess, and I promise, by every means in my power, to befriend and
save you.”

This note he read, and then, stamping on the floor, tore it up
furiously into twenty pieces, which he scattered about the
room.

Another was from Mr. Rose;

“Dear Eric–I cannot, will not, believe you guilty,
although appearances look very black. You have many faults, but I
feel sure that I cannot be mistaken in supposing you too
noble-minded for a revenge so petty and so mean. Come to me, dear
boy, if I can help you in any way. I trust you, Eric, and
will use every endeavor to right you in the general estimation. You
are innocent; pray to God for help under this cruel trial, and be
sure that your character will yet be cleared.–Affectionately
yours, WALTER ROSE.”

“P.S.–I can easily understand that just now you will
like quiet; come and sit with me in the library as much as you
like.”

He read this note two or three times with grateful emotion, and
at that moment would have died for Mr. Rose. The third note was
from Owen, as follows:–

“Dear Williams–We have been cool to each other lately;
naturally, perhaps. But yet I think that it will be some
consolation to you to be told, even by a rival, that I, for one,
feel certain of your innocence. If you want company, I shall be
delighted now to walk with you.–Yours truly, D. OWEN.”

This note, too, brought much comfort to the poor boy’s lonely
and passionate heart. He put it into his pocket, and determined at
once to accept Mr. Rose’s kind offer of allowing him to sit for the
present in the library.

There were several boys in the room while he was reading his
notes, but none of them spoke to him, and he was too proud to
notice them, or interrupt the constrained silence. As he went out
he met Duncan and Montagu, who at once addressed him in the hearing
of the rest.

“Ha! Williams,” said Duncan, “we have been looking everywhere
for you, dear fellow. Cheer up, you shall be cleared yet. I, for
one, and Monty for another, will maintain your innocence before the
whole school.”

Montagu said nothing, but Eric understood full well the
trustful kindness of his soft pressure of the hand. His heart was
too full to speak, and he went on towards the library.

“I wonder at your speaking to that fellow,” said Bull, as the
two new comers joined the group at the fire-place.

“You will be yourself ashamed of having ever suspected him
before long,” said Montagu warmly; “ay, the whole lot of you; and
you are very unkind to condemn him before you are certain.”

“I wish you joy of your friend, Duncan,” sneered
Barker.

“Friend?” said Duncan, firing up; “yes! he is my friend, and I’m
not ashamed of him. It would be well for the school if all
the fellows were as honorable as Williams.”

Barker took the hint, and although he was too brazen to blush,
thought it better to say no more.

CHAPTER XII

THE TRIAL

“A plot, a plot, a plot, to ruin all.” TENNYSON, The
Princess.

On the Monday evening, the head boy reported to Dr. Rowlands
that the perpetrator of the offence had not been discovered, but
that one boy was very generally suspected, and on grounds that
seemed plausible. “I admit,” he added, “that from the little I know
of him he seems to me a very unlikely sort of boy to do it.”

“I think,” suggested the Doctor, “that the best way would be for
you to have a regular trial on the subject, and hear the evidence.
Do you think that you can be trusted to carry on the investigation
publicly, with good order and fairness?”

“I think so, sir,” said Avonley.

“Very well. Put up a notice, asking all the school to meet by
themselves in the boarders’ room tomorrow afternoon at three, and
see what you can do among you.”

Avonley did as the Doctor suggested. At first, when the boys
assembled, they seemed inclined to treat the matter as a joke, and
were rather disorderly; but Avonley briefly begged them, if they
determined to have a trial, to see that it was conducted sensibly;
and by general consent he was himself voted into the desk as
president. He then got up and said–

“There must be no sham or nonsense about this affair. Let all
the boys take their seats quietly down the room.”

They did so, and Avonley asked, “Is Williams here?”

Looking round, they discovered he was not. Russell instantly
went to the library to fetch him, and told him what was going on.
He took Eric’s arm kindly as they entered, to show the whole school
that he was not ashamed of him, and Eric deeply felt the delicacy
of his goodwill.

“Are you willing to be tried, Williams,” asked Avonley, “on the
charge of having written the insulting paper about Mr. Gordon? Of
course we know very little how these kind of things ought to be
conducted, but we will see that everything done is open and above
ground, and try to manage it properly.”

“There is nothing I should like better,” said Eric.

He had quite recovered his firm, manly bearing. A quiet
conversation with his dearly loved friend and master had assured
him in the confidence of innocence, and though the color on his
cheek had through excitement sunk into two bright red spots, he
looked wonderfully noble and winning as he stood before the boys in
the centre of the room. His appearance caused a little reaction in
his favor, and a murmur of applause followed his answer.

“Good,” said Avonley; “who will prosecute on the part of the
school?”

There was a pause. Nobody seemed to covet the office.

“Very well; if no one is willing to prosecute, the charge
drops.”

“I will do it,” said Gibson, a Rowlandite, one of the study boys
at the top of the fifth form. He was a clever fellow, and Eric
liked the little he had seen of him.

“Have you any objection, Williams, to the jury being composed of
the sixth form? or are there any names among them which you wish to
challenge?”

“No,” said Eric, glancing round with confidence.

“Well, now, who will defend the accused?”

Another pause, and Upton got up.

“No,” said Eric, at once. “You were inclined to distrust me,
Upton, and I will only be defended by somebody who never doubted my
innocence.”

Another pause followed, and then, blushing crimson, Russell got
up. “I am only a Shell-boy,” he said, “but if Eric doesn’t mind
trusting his cause to me, I will defend him, since no other
fifth-form fellow stirs.”

“Thank you, Russell, I wanted you to offer, I could wish
no better defender.”

“Will Owen, Duncan, and Montagu help me, if they can?” asked
Russell.

“Very willingly,” they all three said, and went to take their
seats by him. They conversed eagerly for a few minutes, and then
declared themselves ready.

“All I have got to do,” said Gibson, rising, “is to bring before
the school the grounds for suspecting Williams, and all the
evidence which makes it probable that he is the offender. Now,
first of all, the thing must have been done between Friday evening
and Saturday morning; and since the school-room door is generally
locked soon after school, it was probably done in the short
interval between six and a quarter past. I shall now examine some
witnesses.”

The first boy called upon was Pietrie, who deposed, that on
Friday evening, when he left the room, having been detained a few
minutes, the only boy remaining in it was Williams.

Carter, the school-servant, was then sent for, and deposed, that
he had met Master Williams hastily running out of the room, when he
went at a quarter past six to lock the door.

Examined by Gibson.–“Was any boy in the room when you did lock
the door?”

“No one.”

“Did you meet any one else in the passage?”

“No.”

Cross-examined by Russell.–“Do boys ever get into the room
after the door is locked?”

“Yes.”

“By what means?”

“Through the side windows.”

“That will do.”

Russell here whispered something to Duncan, who at once left the
room, and on returning, after a few minutes’ absence, gave Russell
a significant nod.

Barker was next brought forward, and questioned by Gibson.

“Do you know that Williams is in the habit of using a particular
kind of ink?”

“Yes; it is of a violet color, and has a peculiar smell.”

“Could you recognise anything written with it?”

“Yes.”

Gibson here handed to Barker the paper which had caused so much
trouble.

“Is that the kind of ink?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the handwriting on that paper?”

“Yes; it is Williams’ hand.”

“How can you tell?”

“He makes his r’s in a curious way.”

“Turn the paper over. Have you ever seen those kind of wafers
before?”

“Yes; Williams has a box of them in his desk.”

“Has any other boy, that you are aware of, wafers like
those?”

“No.”

Cross-examined by Duncan.–“How do you know that Williams
has wafers like those?”

“I have seen him use them.”

“For what purpose?”

“To fasten letters.”

“I can’t help remarking that you seem very well acquainted with
what he does. Several of those who know him best, and have seen him
oftenest, never heard of these wafers. May I ask,” he said, “if any
one else in the school will witness to having seen Williams use
these wafers?”

No one spoke, and Barker, whose malice seemed to have been
changed into uneasiness, sat down.

Upton was the next witness. Gibson began–“You have seen a good
deal of Williams?”

“Yes,” said Upton smiling.

“Have you ever heard him express any opinion of Mr. Gordon?”

“Often.”

“Of what kind?”

“Dislike and contempt,” said Upton, amidst general laughter.

“Have you ever heard him say anything which implied a desire to
injure him?”

“The other day Mr. Gordon gave him a Georgic as an imposition,
and I heard Williams say that he would like to pay him out.”

This last fact was new to the school, and excited a great
sensation.

“When did he say this?”

“On Friday afternoon.”

Upton had given his evidence with great reluctance, although,
being simply desirous that the truth should come out, he concealed
nothing that he knew. He brightened up a little when Russell rose
to cross-examine him.

“Have you ever known Williams to do any mean act?”

“Never.”

“Do you consider him a boy likely to have been guilty on
this occasion?”

“Distinctly the reverse. I am convinced of his innocence.”

The answer was given with vehement emphasis, and Eric felt
greatly relieved by it.

One or two other boys were then called on as witnesses to the
great agitation which Eric had shown during the investigation in
the school-room, and then Gibson, who was a sensible,
self-contained fellow, said, “I have now done my part. I have shown
that the accused had a grudge against Mr. Gordon at the time of the
occurrence, and had threatened to be revenged on him; that he was
the last boy in the room during the time when the offence must have
been committed; that the handwriting is known to resemble his, and
that the ink and wafers employed were such as he, and he only, was
known to possess. In addition to all this, his behavior, when the
matter was first publicly noticed, was exactly such as coincides
with the supposition of his guilt. I think you will all agree in
considering these grounds of suspicion very strong; and leaving
them to carry their full weight with you, I close the case for the
prosecution.”

The school listened to Gibson’s quiet formality with a kind of
grim and gloomy satisfaction, and when he had concluded, there were
probably few but Eric’s own immediate friends who were not fully
convinced of his guilt, however sorry they might be to admit so
unfavorable an opinion of a companion whom they all admired.

After a minute or two, Russell rose for the defence, and asked,
“Has Williams any objection to his desk being brought, and any of
its contents put in as evidence?”

“Not the least; there is the key, and you will find it in my
place in school.”

The desk was brought, but it was found to be already unlocked,
and Russell looked at some of the note-paper which it contained. He
then began–“In spite of the evidence adduced, I think I can show
that Williams is not guilty. It is quite true that he dislikes Mr.
Gordon, and would not object to any open way of showing it; it is
quite true that he used the expressions attributed to him, and that
the ink and wafers are such as may be found in his desk, and that
the handwriting is not unlike his. But is it probable that a boy
intending to post up an insult such as this, would do so in a
manner, and at a time so likely to involve him in immediate
detection, and certain punishment? At any rate, he would surely
disguise his usual handwriting. Now, I ask any one to look at this
paper, and tell me whether it is not clear, on the contrary, that
these letters were traced slowly and with care, as would be the
case with an elaborate attempt to imitate?” Russell here handed the
paper to the jury, who again narrowly examined it.

“Now the evidence of Pietrie and Carter is of no use, because
Carter himself admitted that boys often enter the room by the
window; a fact to which we shall have to allude again.

“We admit the evidence about the ink and wafers. But it is
rather strange that Barker should know about the wafers, since
neither I, nor any other friend of Williams, often as we have sat
by him when writing letters, have ever observed that he possessed
any like them.”

Several boys began to look at Barker, who was sitting very ill
at ease on the corner of a form, in vain trying to appear
unconcerned.

“There is another fact which no one yet knows, but which I must
mention. It will explain Williams’ agitation when Dr. Rowlands read
out the words on that paper; and, confident of his innocence, I am
indifferent to its appearing to tell against him. I myself once
heard Williams use the very words written on that paper, and not
only heard them, but expostulated with him strongly for the use of
them. I need hardly say how very unlikely it is, that remembering
this, he should thus publicly draw my suspicions on him, if he
meant to insult Mr. Gordon, undiscovered. But, besides myself,
there was another boy who accidentally overheard that expression.
That boy was Barker.

“I have to bring forward a new piece of evidence which at least
ought to go for something. Looking at this half-sheet of
note-paper, I see that the printer’s name on the stamp in the
corner is ‘Graves, York.’ Now, I have just found that there is no
paper at all like this in Williams’ desk; all the note-paper it
contains is marked ‘Blakes, Ayrton.’

“I might bring many witnesses to prove how very unlike Williams’
general character a trick of this kind would be. But I am not going
to do this. We think we know the real offender. We have had one
trial, and now demand another. It is our painful duty to prove
Williams’ innocence by proving another’s guilt. That other is a
known enemy of mine, and of Montagu’s, and of Owen’s. We therefore
leave the charge of stating the case against him to Duncan, with
whom he has never quarrelled.”

Russell sat down amid general applause; he had performed his
task with a wonderful modesty and self-possession, which filled
every one with admiration, and Eric warmly pressed his hand.

The interest of the school was intensely excited, and Duncan,
after a minute’s pause, starting up, said–“Williams has allowed
his desk to be brought in and examined. Will Barker do the
same?”

The real culprit now saw at once that his plot to ruin Eric was
recoiling on himself. He got up, swore and blustered at Russell,
Duncan, and Williams, and at first flatly refused to allow his desk
to be brought. He was, however, forced to yield, and when opened,
it was immediately seen that the note-paper it contained was
identical with that on which the words had been written. At this he
affected to be perfectly unconcerned, and merely protested against
what he called the meanness of trying to fix the charge on him.

“And what have you been doing the whole of the last day or two,”
asked Gibson, quietly, “but endeavoring to fix the charge on
another?”

“We have stronger evidence against you,” said Duncan,
confronting him with an undaunted look, before which his insolence
quailed. “Russell, will you call Graham?”

Graham was called, and put on his honor.

“You were in the sick-room on Friday evening?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see any one get into the school-room through the side
window?”

“I may as well tell you all about it. I was sitting doing
nothing in the sick-room, when I suddenly saw Barker clamber in to
the school-room by the window, which he left open. I was looking on
simply from curiosity, and saw him search Williams’ desk, from
which he took out something, I could not make out what. He then
went to his own place, and wrote for about ten minutes, after which
I observed him go up and stand by the notice board. When he had
done this he got out by the window again, and ran off.”

“Didn’t this strike you as extraordinary?”

“No; I thought nothing more about it, till some one told me in
the sick-room about this row. I then mentioned privately what I had
seen, and it wasn’t till I saw Duncan, half an hour ago, that I
thought it worth while to make it generally known.”

Duncan turned an enquiring eye to Barker (who sat black and
silent), and then pulled some bits of torn paper from his pocket,
put them together, and called Owen to stand up. Showing him the
fragments of paper, he asked, “Have you ever seen these
before?”

“Yes. On Saturday, when the boys left the schoolroom, I stayed
behind to think a little over what had occurred, feeling convinced
that Williams was not guilty, spite of appearances. I was
standing by the empty fire-place, when these bits of paper caught
my eye. I picked them up, and, after a great deal of trouble,
fitted them together. They are covered apparently with failures in
an attempt at forgery, viz., first, ‘Gordon is a sur–‘ and then a
stop, as though the writer were dissatisfied, and several of the
words written over again for practice, and then a number of r’s
made in the way that Williams makes them.”

“There you may stop,” said Barker, stamping fiercely; “I did it
all.”

A perfect yell of scorn and execration followed this
announcement.

“What! you did it, and caused all this misery, you
ineffable blackguard!” shouted Upton, grasping him with one hand,
while he struck him with the other.

“Stop!” said Avonley; “just see that he doesn’t escape, while we
decide on his punishment.”

It was very soon decided by the sixth form that he should run
the gauntlet of the school. The boys instantly took out their
handkerchiefs, and knotted them tight. They then made a double line
down each side of the corridor, and turned Barker loose. He stood
stock-still at one end, while the fellows nearest him thrashed him
unmercifully with the heavy knots. At last the pain was getting
severe, and he moved on, finally beginning to run. Five times he
was forced up and down the line, and five times did every boy in
the line give him a blow, which, if it did not hurt much, at least
spoke of no slight anger and contempt. He was dogged and unmoved to
the last, and then Avonley hauled him into the presence of Dr.
Rowlands. He was put in a secure room by himself, and the next
morning was first flogged and then publicly expelled. Thenceforth
he disappears from the history of Roslyn school.

I need hardly say that neither Eric nor his friends took any
part in this retributive act. They sat together in the boarders’
room till it was over, engaged in exciting discussion of the recent
event. Most warmly did Eric thank them for their trustfulness.
“Thank you,” he said, “with all my heart, for proving my innocence;
but thank you, even more a great deal, for first believing it.”

Upton was the first to join them, and since he had but wavered
for a moment, he was soon warmly reconciled with Eric. They had
hardly shaken hands when the rest came flocking in. “We have all
been unjust,” said Avonley; “let’s make up for it as well as we
can. Three cheers for Eric Williams!”

They gave, not three, but a dozen, till they were tired; and
meanwhile, every one was pressing round him, telling him how sorry
they were for the false suspicion, and doing all they could to show
their regret for his recent troubles. His genial, boyish heart
readily forgave them, and his eyes were long wet with tears of joy.
The delicious sensation of returning esteem made him almost think
it worth while to have under gone his trial.

Most happily did he spend the remainder of that afternoon, and
it was no small relief to all the Rowlandites in the evening to
find themselves finally rid of Barker, whose fate no one pitied,
and whose name no one mentioned without disgust. He had done more
than any other boy to introduce meanness, quarrelling, and vice,
and the very atmosphere of the rooms seemed healthier in his
absence. One boy only forgave him, one boy only prayed for him, one
boy only endeavored to see him for one last kind word. That boy was
Edwin Russell.

After prayers, Mr. Gordon, who had been at Dr. Rowlands’ to
dinner, apologised to Eric amply and frankly for his note, and did
and said all that could be done by an honorable man to repair the
injury of an unjust doubt. Eric felt his generous humility, and
from thenceforth, though they were never friends, he and Mr. Gordon
ceased to be enemies.

That night Mr. Rose crowned his happiness by asking him and his
defenders to supper in the library. A most bright and joyous
evening they passed, for they were in the highest spirits; and when
the master bade them “good night,” he kindly detained Eric, and
said to him, “Keep an innocent heart, my boy, and you need never
fear trouble. Only think if you had been guilty, and were now in
Barker’s place!”

“O, I couldn’t be guilty, sir,” said Eric, gaily.

“Not of such a fault, perhaps. But,” he added solemnly, “there
are many kinds of temptation, Eric many kinds. And they are easy to
fall into. You will find it no light battle to resist them.”

“Believe me, sir, I will try,” he answered with humility.

“Jehovah-Nissi!” said Mr. Rose. “Let the Lord be your banner,
Eric, and you will win the victory. God bless you.”

And as the boy’s graceful figure disappeared through the door,
Mr. Rose drew his arm-chair to the fire, and sat and meditated
long. He was imagining for Eric a sunny future–a future of
splendid usefulness, of reciprocated love, of brilliant fame.

CHAPTER XIII

THE ADVENTURE AT THE STACK

“Ten cables from where green meadows
And quiet homes could be seen,
    No greater space
    From peril to peace,
But the savage sea between!”–EDWIN ARNOLD.

The Easter holidays at Roslyn lasted about ten days, and as most
of the boys came from a distance, they usually spent them at
school. Many of the usual rules were suspended during this time,
and the boys were supplied every day with pocket-money;
consequently the Easter holidays passed very pleasantly, and there
was plenty of fun.

It was the great time for excursions all over the island, and
the boys would often be out the whole day long among the hills, or
about the coast. Eric enjoyed the time particularly, and was in
great request among all the boys. He was now more gay and popular
than ever, and felt as if nothing were wanting to his happiness.
But this brilliant prosperity was not good for him, and he felt
continually that he cared far less for the reproaches of conscience
than he had done in the hours of his trial; sought far less for
help from God than he had done when he was lonely and
neglected.

He always knew that his great safeguard was the affection of
Russell. For Edwin’s sake, and for shame at the thought of Edwin’s
disapproval, he abstained from many things into which he would
otherwise have insensibly glided in conformation to the general
looseness of the school morality. But Russell’s influence worked on
him powerfully, and tended to counteract a multitude of
temptations.

Among other dangerous lessons, Upton had taught Eric to smoke;
and he was now one of those who often spent a part of his holidays
in lurking about with pipes in their mouths at places where they
were unlikely to be disturbed, instead of joining in some hearty
and healthy game. When he began to “learn” smoking, he found it
anything but pleasant; but a little practice had made him an adept,
and he found a certain amount of enjoyable excitement in finding
out cozy places by the river, where he and Upton might go and
lounge for an hour to enjoy the forbidden luxury.

In reality he, like most boys, detested the habit; but it seemed
a fine thing to do, and to some, at any rate, it was a refuge from
vacuity. Besides, they had a confused notion that there was
something “manly” in it, and it derived an additional zest from the
stringency of the rules adopted to put it down. So a number of the
boys smoked, and some few of them to such excess as to get them
into great mischief, and form a habit which they could never
afterwards abandon.

One morning of the Easter holidays, Eric, Montagu, and Russell
started for an excursion down the coast to Rilby Head. As they
passed through Ellan, Eric was deputed to go and buy Easter eggs
and other provisions, as they did not mean to be back for dinner.
In about ten minutes he caught up the other two, just as they were
getting out of the town.

“What an age you’ve been buying a few Easter eggs,” said
Russell, laughing; “have you been waiting till the hens laid?”

“No; they are not the only things I’ve got.”

“Well, but you might have got all the grub at the same
shop.”

“Ay; but I’ve procured a more refined article. Guess what it
is?”

The two boys didn’t guess, and Eric said, to enlighten them,
“Will you have a whiff, Monty?”

“A whiff! Oh! I see you’ve been wasting your tin on
cigars–alias, rolled cabbage-leaves. Oh fumose puer!”

“Well, will you have one?”

“If you like,” said Montagu, wavering; “but I don’t much care to
smoke.”

“Well, I shall, at any rate,” said Eric, keeping off the
wind with his cap, as he lighted a cigar, and began to puff.

They strolled on in silence; the smoking didn’t promote
conversation, and Russell thought he had never seen his friend look
so ridiculous, and entirely unlike himself, as he did while
strutting along with the weed in his mouth. The fact was, Eric
didn’t guess how much he was hurting Edwin’s feelings, and he was
smoking more to “make things look like the holidays,” by a little
bravado, than anything else. But suddenly he caught the expression
of Russell’s face, and instantly said–

“O, I forgot, Edwin; I know you don’t like smoking;” and he
instantly flung the cigar over the hedge, being really rather glad
to get rid of it. With the cigar, he seemed to have flung away the
affected manner he displayed just before, and the spirits of all
three rose at once.

“It isn’t that I don’t like smoking only, Eric, but I
think it wrong–for us I mean.”

“O, my dear fellow! surely there can’t be any harm in it. Why
everybody smokes.”

“It may be all very well for men, although I’m not so sure of
that. But, at any rate, it’s wrong and ridiculous in boys. You know
yourself what harm it does in every way.”

“O, it’s a mere school rule against it. How can it be wrong?
Why, I even know clergymen who smoke.”

Montagu laughed. “Well, clergymen ain’t immaculate,” said he;
“but I never met a man yet who didn’t tell you that he was
sorry he’d acquired the habit.”

“I’m sure you won’t thank that rascally cousin of mine for
having taught you,” said Russell; “but seriously, isn’t it a very
moping way of spending the afternoon, to go and lie down behind
some hay-stack, or in some frowsy tumble-down barn, as you smokers
do, instead of playing racquets or football?”

“O, it’s pleasant enough sometimes,” said Eric, speaking rather
against his own convictions.

“As for me, I’ve nearly left it off,” said Montagu, “and I think
Rose convinced me that it was a mistake. Not that he knows that I
ever did smoke; I should be precious sorry if he did, for I know
how he despises it in boys. Were you in school the other day when
he caught Pietrie and Brooking?”

“No.”

“Well, when Brooking went up to have his exercise corrected,
Rose smelt that he had been smoking, and charged him with it.
Brooking stoutly denied it, but after he had told the most robust
lies, Rose made him empty his pockets, and there, sure enough, were
a pipe and a cigar-case half full! You should have heard how
Rose thundered and lightened at him for his lying, and then sent
him to the Doctor. I never saw him so terrific before.”

“You don’t mean to say you were convinced it was wrong because
Brooking was caught, and told lies–do you? Non
sequitur.”

“Stop–not so fast.” Very soon after Rose twigged Pietrie, who
at once confessed, and was caned. I happened to be in the library
when Rose sent for him, and Pietrie said mildly that “he didn’t see
the harm of it.” Rose smiled in his kind way, and said, “Don’t see
the harm of it! Do you see any good in it?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, isn’t it forbidden?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And doesn’t it waste your money?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And tempt you to break rules, and tell lies to screen
yourself?”

“Yes, sir,” said Pietrie, putting his tail between his legs.

“And don’t your parents disapprove it? And doesn’t it throw you
among some of the worst boys, and get you into great troubles?
Silly child,” he said, pulling Pietrie’s ear (as he sometimes does,
you know), “don’t talk nonsense; and remember next time you’re
caught I shall have you punished.” So off went Pietrie, [Greek:
achreian idon] as our friend Homer says. And your humble servant
was convinced.”

“Well, well,” said Eric laughing, “I suppose you’re right. At
any rate, I give in. Two to one ain’t fair; [Greek: ards duo o
Aerachlaes], since you’re in a quoting humor.”

Talking in this way they got to Rilby Head, where they found
plenty to amuse them. It was a splendid headland, rising bluff four
hundred feet out of the sea, and presenting magnificent reaches of
rock scenery on all sides. The boys lay on the turf at the summit,
and flung innocuous stones at the sea-gulls as they sailed far
below them over the water, and every now and then pounced at some
stray fish that came to the surface; or they watched the stately
barks as they sailed by on the horizon, wondering at their cargo
and destination; or chaffed the fishermen, whose boats heaved on
the waves at the foot of the promontory. When they were rested,
they visited a copper-mine by the side of the head, and filled
their pockets with bits of bright quartz or red shining spar, which
they found in plenty among the rocks.

In the afternoon they strolled towards home, determining to stop
a little at the Stack on their way. The Stack formed one of the
extremities of Ellan Bay, and was a huge mass of isolated schist,
accessible at low water, but entirely surrounded at high tide. It
was a very favorite resort of Eric’s, as the coast all about it was
bold and romantic; and he often went there with Russell on a Sunday
evening to watch the long line of golden radiance slanting to them
over the water from the setting sun–a sight which they often
agreed to consider one of the most peaceful and mysteriously
beautiful in nature.

They reached the Stack, and began to climb to its summit. The
sun was just preparing to set, and the west was gorgeous with red
and gold.

“We shan’t see the line on the waters this evening,” said Eric;
“there’s too much of a breeze. But look, what a glorious
sunset!”

“Yes; it’ll be stormy tomorrow,” answered Russell, “but come
along, let’s get to the top; the wind’s rising, and the waves will
be rather grand.”

“Ay, we’ll sit and watch them; and let’s finish our grub; I’ve
got several eggs left, and I want to get them out of my
pocket.”

They devoured the eggs, and then stood enjoying the sight of the
waves, which sometimes climbed up the rock almost to their feet,
and then fell back, hissing and discomfited. Suddenly they
remembered that it was getting late, and that they ought to get
home for tea at seven.

“Hallo!” said Russell, looking at his watch, “it’s half-past
six. We must cut back as hard as we can. By the bye, I hope the
tide hasn’t been coming in all this time.”

“Good God!” said Montagu, with a violent start, “I’m afraid it
has, though! What asses we have been, with our waves and sunsets.
Let’s set off as hard as we can pelt.”

Immediately they scrambled, by the aid of hands and knees, down
the Stack, and made their way for the belt of rock which joined it
to the mainland; but, to their horror, they at once saw that the
tide had come in, and that a narrow gulf of sea already divided
them from the shore.

“There’s only one way for it,” said Eric; “if we’re plucky we
can jump that; but we musn’t wait till it gets worse. A good jump
will take us nearly to the other side–far enough, at any
rate, to let us flounder across somehow.”

As fast as they could they hurried along down to the place where
the momentarily increasing zone of water seemed as yet to be
narrowest; and where the rocks on the other side were lower than
those on which they stood. Their situation was by no means
pleasant. The wind had been rising more and more, and the waves
dashed into this little channel with such violence, that to swim it
would have been a most hazardous experiment, particularly as they
could not dive in from the ledge on which they stood, from their
ignorance of the depth of water.

Eric’s courage supported the other two. “There’s no good
thinking about it,” said he, “jump we must; the
sooner the better. We can but be a little hurt at the worst. Here,
I’ll set the example.”

He drew back a step or two, and sprang out with all his force.
He was a practised and agile jumper, and, to their great relief, he
alighted near the water’s edge, on the other side, where, after
slipping once or twice on the wet and seaweed-covered rocks, he
effected a safe landing, with no worse harm than a wetting up to
the knees.

“Now then, you too,” he shouted; “no time to lose.”

“Will you jump first, Monty?” said Russell; “both of you are
better jumpers than I, and to tell the truth I’m rather
afraid.”

“Then I won’t leave you,” said Montagu; “we’ll both stay
here.”

“And perhaps be drowned or starved for our pains No, Monty,
you can clear it, I’ve no doubt.”

“Couldn’t we try to swim it together, Edwin?”

“Madness! look there.” And as he spoke, a huge furious wave
swept down the whole length of the gulf by which they stood,
roaring and surging along till the whole water seethed, and tearing
the seaweeds from their roots in the rock.

“Now’s your time,” shouted Eric again. “What are you
waiting for? For God’s sake, jump before another wave comes.”

“Monty, you must jump now,” said Russell, “if only to
help me when I try.”

Montagu went back as far as he could, which was only a few
steps, and leapt wildly forward. He lighted into deep water, nearly
up to his neck, and at first tried in vain to secure a footing on
the sharp slippery schist; but he stumbled forwards vigorously, and
in half a minute, Eric leaning out as far as he could, caught his
hand, and just pulled him to the other side in time to escape
another rush of tumultuous and angry foam.

“Now, Edwin,” they both shouted, “it’ll be too late in another
minute. Jump for your life.”

Russell stood on the rock pale and irresolute. Once or twice he
prepared to spring, and stopped from fear at the critical instant.
In truth, the leap was now most formidable; to clear it was
hopeless; and the fury of the rock-tormented waves rendered the
prospect of a swim on the other side terrible to contemplate. Once
in the grasp of one of those billows, even a strong man must have
been carried out of the narrow channel, and hurled against the
towering sweep of rocks which lay beyond it.

“Oh Edwin, Edwin–dear Edwin–do jump,” cried Eric with
passionate excitement. “We will rush in for you.”

Russell now seemed to have determined on running the risk; he
stepped back, ran to the edge, missed his footing, and with a sharp
cry of pain, fell heavily forward into the water. For an instant,
Eric and Montagu stood breathless,–but the next instant, they saw
Russell’s head emerge, and then another wave foaming madly by, made
them run backwards for their lives, and hid him from their view.
When it had passed, they saw him clinging with both hands, in the
desperate instinct of self-preservation, to a projecting bit of
rock, by the aid of which he gradually drew himself out of the
water, and grasping at crevices or bits of seaweed, slowly and
painfully reached the ledge on which they had stood before they
took the leap. He presented a pitiable spectacle; his face, pale as
death, was dabbled with blood; his head drooped on his breast; his
clothes were torn, and streamed with the salt water; his cap was
gone, and the wet hair, which he seemed too exhausted to push
aside, hung over his forehead and eyes. He was evidently dizzy, and
in pain; and they noticed that he only seemed to use one foot.

While he was regaining the ledge, neither of the boys spoke,
lest their voices should startle him, and make him fall; but now,
they both cried out, “Are you hurt, Edwin?”

He did not answer, but supported his pale face on one hand,
while he put the other to his head, from which the blood was
flowing fast.

“O Edwin, for the love of God, try once more,” said Montagu;
“you will die if you spend the night on that rock.”

They could not catch the reply, and called again. The wind and
waves were both rising fast, and it was only by listening intently,
that they caught the faint words, “I can’t, my leg is hurt.”
Besides, they both saw that a jump was no longer possible; the
channel was more than double the width which it had been when Eric
leaped, and from the rapid ascent of rocks on both sides, it was
now far out of depth.

“O God, what can we do,” said Montagu, bursting into tears. “We
can never save him; and all but the very top of the Stack is
covered at high tide.”

Eric had not lost his presence of mind. “Cheer up, Edwin,” he
shouted; “I will get back to you somehow. If I fail, crawl
up to the top again.”

Again the wind carried away the reply, and Russell had sunk back
on the rock.

“Monty,” said Eric, “just watch for a minute or two. When I have
got across, run to Ellan as hard as you can tear, and tell them
that we are cut off by the tide on the Stack. They’ll bring round
the life-boat. It’s our only chance.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Montagu, terrified. “Why,
Eric, it’s death to attempt swimming that. Heavens!” And he drew
Eric back hastily, as another vast swell of water came rolling
along, shaking its white curled mane, like a sea-monster bent on
destruction.

“Monty, it’s no use,” said Eric hastily, tearing off his jacket
and waistcoat; “I’m not going to let Russell die on that ledge of
rock. I shall try to reach him, whatever happens to me. Here; I
want to keep these things dry. Be on the look out; if I get across,
fling them over to me if you can, and then do as I told you.”

He turned round; the wave had just spent its fury, and knowing
that his only chance was to swim over before another came, he
plunged in, and struck out like a man. He was a strong and expert
swimmer, and as yet the channel was not more than a dozen yards
across. He dashed over with the speed and strength of despair, and
had just time to clutch the rocks on the other side before the next
mighty swirl of the tide swept up in its white and tormented
course. In another minute he was on the ledge by Russell’s
side.

He took him tenderly in his arms, and called to Montagu for the
dry clothes. Montagu tied them skilfully with his neck-handkerchief
round a fragment of rock, adding his own jacket to the bundle, and
then flung it over. Eric wrapped up his friend in the clothes, and
once more shouted to Montagu to go on his errand. For a short time
the boy lingered, reluctant to leave them, and then started off at
the run. Looking back after a few minutes, he caught, through the
gathering dusk, his last glimpse of the friends in their perilous
situation. Eric was seated supporting Russell across his knees;
when he saw Montagu turn he waved his cap over his head as a signal
of encouragement, and then began to carry Edwin higher up the rock
for safety. It soon grew too dark to distinguish them, and Montagu
at full speed flew to Ellan, which was a mile off. When he got to
the harbor he told some sailors of the danger in which his friends
were, and then ran on to the school. It was now eight o’clock, and
quite dark. Tea was over, and lock-up time long past, when he stood
excited, breathless, and without his jacket, at Dr. Rowlands’
door.

“Good gracious! Master Montagu,” said the servant; “what’s the
matter; have you been robbed?”

He pushed the girl aside, and ran straight to Dr. Rowlands’
study. “O sir!” he exclaimed, bursting in, “Williams and Russell
are on the Stack, cut off by the tide.”

Dr. Rowlands started up hastily. “What! on this stormy night?
Have you raised the alarm?”

“I told the life-boat people, sir, and then ran on.”

“I will set off myself at once,” said the Doctor, seizing his
hat. “But, my poor boy, how pale and ill you look, and you are wet
through too. You had better change your clothes at once, or go to
bed.”

“O no, sir,” said Montagu, pleadingly; “do take me with
you.”

“Very well; but you must change first, or you may suffer in
consequence. Make haste, and directly you are dressed, a cup of tea
shall be ready for you down here, and we will start.”

Montagu was off in an instant, and only stopped on his way to
tell Duncan and the others of the danger which threatened their
companions. The absence of the three boys from tea and lock-up had
already excited general surmise, and Montagu’s appearance,
jacketless and wet, at the door of the boarders’ room, at once
attracted a group round him. He rapidly told them how things stood,
and, hastening off, left them nearly as much agitated as himself.
In a very short time he presented himself again before Dr.
Rowlands, and when he had swallowed with difficulty the cup of tea,
they sallied out.

It was pitch dark, and only one or two stars were seen at
intervals struggling through the ragged masses of cloud. The wind
howled in fitful gusts, and as their road led by the sea-side,
Montagu shuddered to hear how rough and turbulent the sea was, even
on the sands. He stumbled once or twice, and then the Doctor kindly
drew his trembling arm through his own, and made him describe the
whole occurrence, while the servant went on in front with the
lantern. When Montagu told how Williams had braved the danger of
reaching his friend at the risk of his life, Dr. Rowlands’
admiration was unbounded. “Noble boy,” he exclaimed, with
enthusiasm; “I shall find it hard to believe any evil of him after
this.”

They reached Ellan, and went to the boat-house.

“Have you put out the life-boat?” said Dr. Rowlands
anxiously.

“Ill luck, sir,” said one of the sailors, touching his cap; “the
life-boat went to a wreck at Port Vash two days ago, and she hasn’t
been brought round again yet.”

“Indeed! but I do trust you have sent out another boat to try
and save those poor boys.”

“We’ve been trying, sir, and a boat has just managed to start;
but in a sea like that it’s very dangerous, and it’s so dark and
gusty that I doubt it’s no use, so I expect they’ll put back.”

The Doctor sighed deeply. “Don’t alarm any other people,” he
said; “it will merely raise a crowd to no purpose. Here, George,”
he continued to the servant, “give me the lantern; I will go with
this boy to the Stack; you follow us with ropes, and order a
carriage from the King’s Head. Take care to bring anything with you
that seems likely to be useful.”

Montagu and Dr. Rowlands again started, and with difficulty made
their way through the storm to the shore opposite the Stack. Here
they raised the lantern and shouted; but the wind was now screaming
with such violence that they were not sure that they heard any
answering shout. Their eyes, accustomed to the darkness, could just
make out the huge black outline of the Stack rising from the yeast
of boiling waves, and enveloped every moment in blinding sheets of
spray. On the top of it Montagu half thought that he saw something,
but he was not sure.

“Thank God, there is yet hope,” said the Doctor, with difficulty
making his young companion catch his words amid the uproar of the
elements; “if they can but keep warm in their wet clothes, we may
perhaps rescue them before morning.”

Again he shouted to cheer them with his strong voice, and
Montagu joined his clear ringing tones to the shout. This time they
fancied that in one of the pauses of the wind they heard a faint
cheer returned, was sound more welcome, and as they paced up and
down they shouted at intervals, and held up the lantern, to show
the boys that friends and help were near.

Eric heard them. When Montagu left, he had carried Russell to
the highest point of the rock, and there, with gentle hands and
soothing words, made him as comfortable as he could. He wrapped him
in every piece of dry clothing he could find, and held him in his
arms, heedless of the blood which covered him. Very faintly Russell
thanked him, and pressed his hand; but he moaned in pain
continually, and at last fainted away.

Meanwhile the wind rose higher, and the tide gained on the
rocks, and the sacred darkness came down. At first Eric could think
of nothing but storm and sea. Cold, and cruel, and remorseless, the
sea beat up, drenching them to the skin continually with, its
clammy spray; and the storm shrieked round them pitilessly, and
flung about the wet hair on Eric’s bare head, and forced him to
plant himself firmly, lest the rage of the gusts should hurl them
from their narrow resting-place. The darkness made everything more
fearful, for his eyes could distinguish nothing but the gulfs of
black water glistening here and there with hissing foam, and he
shuddered as his ears caught the unearthly noises that came to him
in the mingled scream of weltering tempest and plangent wave. It
was fearful to be isolated on the black rent rock, and see the
waves gaining on them higher, higher, higher, every moment and he
was in ceaseless terror lest they should be swept away by the
violence of the breakers. “At least,” thought he, as he looked down
and saw that the ledge on which they had been standing had long
been covered with deep and agitated waves, “at least I have saved
Edwin’s life.” And he bravely made up his mind to keep up heart and
hope, and weather the comfortless night with Russell in his
arms.

And then his thoughts turned to Russell, who was still
unconscious; and stooping down he kissed fondly the pale white
forehead of his friend. He felt then, how deeply he loved
him, how much he owed him; and no mother could have nursed a child
more tenderly than he did the fainting boy. Russell’s head rested
on his breast, and the soft hair, tangled with welling blood,
stained his clothes. Eric feared that he would die, his
fainting-fit continued so long, and from the helpless way in which
one of his legs trailed on the ground he felt sure that he had
received some dangerous hurt.

At last Russell stirred and groaned. “Where am I?” he said, and
half opened his eyes; he started up frightened, and fell-back
heavily. He saw only the darkness; felt only the fierce wind and
salt mist; heard only the relentless yell of the blast. Memory had
no time to wake, and he screamed and fainted once more.

Poor Eric knew not what to do but to shelter him to the best of
his power, and when he showed any signs of consciousness again, he
bent over him, and said, “Don’t you remember, Edwin? We’re quite
safe. I’m with you, and Monty’s gone for help.”

“Oh! I daren’t jump,” sobbed Russell; “oh mother, I shall be
drowned. Save me! save me! I’m so glad they’re safe, mother; but my
leg hurts so.” And he moaned again. He was delirious.

“How cold it is, and wet too! where’s Eric? are we bathing? run
along, we shall be late. But stop, you’re smoking. Dear Eric, don’t
smoke. Poor fellow, I’m afraid he’s getting spoilt, and learning
bad ways. Oh save him.” And as he wandered on, he repeated a prayer
for Eric, which evidently had been often on his lips.

Eric was touched to the heart’s core, and in one rapid
lightning-like glance, his memory revealed to him the faultful
past, in all its sorrowfulness. And he, too, prayed wildly
for help both for soul and body. Alone on the crag, with the sea
tumbling and plashing round them, growing and gaining so much on
their place of refuge, that his terror began to summon up the image
of certain death; alone, wet, hungry, and exhausted, with the
wounded and delirious boy, whose life depended on his courage, he
prayed as he had never prayed before, and seemed to grow calmer by
his prayer, and to feel God nearer him than ever he had done in the
green cricket-field, or the safe dormitories of Roslyn school.

A shout startled him. Lights on the water heaved up and down,
now disappearing, and now lifted high, and at intervals there came
the sound of voices. Thank God! help was near; they were coming in
a boat to save them.

But the lights grew more distant; he saw then disappearing
towards the harbor. Yes! it was of no use; no boat could live in
the surf at the foot of the Stack cliffs, and the sailors had given
it up in despair. His heart sank again, all the more for the
glimpse of hope, and his strength began to give way. Russell’s
delirium continued, and he grew too frightened even to pray.

A light from the land. The sound of shouts–yes, he could be
sure of it; it was Dr. Rowlands’ voice and Montagu’s. He got
convinced of this, and summoned all his strength to shout in
return. The light kept moving up and down on the shore, not a
hundred yards off. His fear vanished; they were no longer alone.
The first moment that the tide suffered any one to reach them they
would be rescued. His mind grew calm again, and he determined to
hold up for Russell’s sake until help should come; and every now
and then, to make it feel less lonely, he answered the shouts which
came from the friendly voices in the fitful pauses of the
storm.

But Dr. Rowlands and Montagu paced up and down, and the master
soothed the boy’s fears, and talked to him so kindly, so gently,
that Montagu began to wonder if this really could be the awful
head-master, whose warm strong hand he was grasping, and who was
comforting him as a father might. What a depth of genuine human
kindness that stern exterior concealed! And every now and then,
when the storm blew loudest, the Doctor would stand still for a
moment, and offer up a short intense prayer, or ejaculation, that
help and safety might come to his beloved charge in their exposure
and peril.

Six or seven hours passed away; at last the wind began to sink,
and the sea to be less violent. The tide was on the turn. The
carriage drove up with, more men and lights, and the thoughtful
servant brought with him the school surgeon, Dr. Underhay. Long and
anxiously did they watch the ebbing tide, and when it had gone out
sufficiently to allow of two stout planks being laid across the
channel, an active sailor ventured over with a light, and in a few
moments stood by Eric’s side. Eric saw him coming, but was too weak
and numb to move; and when the sailor lifted up the unconscious
Russell from his knees, Eric was too much exhausted even to speak.
The man returned for him, and lifting him on his back crossed the
plank once more in safety, and carried them both to the carriage,
where Dr. Underhay had taken care to have everything likely to
revive and sustain them. They were driven rapidly to the school,
and the Doctor raised to God tearful eyes of gratitude as the boys
were taken to the rooms prepared for them. Mrs. Rowlands was
anxiously awaiting their arrival, and the noise of wheels was the
signal for twenty heads to be put through the dormitory windows,
with many an anxious inquiry, “Are they safe?”

“Yes, thank God!” called Dr. Rowlands; “so now, boys, shut the
windows, and get to sleep.”

Russell was carefully undressed, and put to bed in the Doctor’s
own house, and the wound in his head was dressed. Eric and Montagu
had beds provided them in another room by themselves, away from the
dormitory: the room was bright and cheerful, with a blazing fire,
and looked like home and when the two boys had drank some warm
wine, and cried for weariness and joy, they sank to sleep after
their dangers and fatigues, and slept the deep, calm, dreamless
sleep of tired children.

So ended the perilous adventure of that eventful night of the
Easter holidays.

CHAPTER XIV

THE SILVER CORD BROKEN

“Calm on the bosom of thy God,
  Fair spirit, rest thee now!
E’en while with us thy footsteps trod,
  His seal was on thy brow.”–MRS. HEMANS.

They did not awake till noon. Montagu opened his eyes, and at
first could not collect his thoughts, as he saw the carpeted little
room, the bright fire, and the housekeeper seated in her arm-chair
before it. But turning his head, he caught a glimpse of Eric, who
was still asleep, and he then remembered all. He sprang out of bed,
refreshed and perfectly well, and the sound of his voice woke Eric;
but Eric was still languid and weak, and did not get up that day,
nor was he able to go to work again for some days; but he was young
and strong, and his vigorous constitution soon threw off the
effects of his fast and exposure.

Their first inquiry was for Edwin. The nurse shook her head
sadly. “He is very dangerously ill.”

“Is he?” said they both, anxiously. And then they preserved a
deep silence; and when Montagu, who immediately began to dress,
knelt down to say his prayers, Eric, though unable to get up, knelt
also over his pillow, and the two felt that their young earnest
prayers were mingling for the one who seemed to have been taken
while they were left.

The reports grew darker and darker about Edwin, At first it was
thought that the blow on his head was dangerous, and that the
exposure to wet, cold, fear, and hunger, had permanently weakened
his constitution; and when his youth seemed to be triumphing over
these dangers, another became more threatening. His leg never
mended; he had both sprained the knee badly, and given the tibia an
awkward twist, so that the least motion was agony to him.

In his fever he was constantly delirious. No one was allowed to
see him, though many of the boys tried to do so, and many were the
earnest inquiries for him day by day. It then became more fully
apparent than ever, that, although Edwin was among them without
being of them, no boy in the school was more deeply honored
and fondly loved than he. Even the elastic spirits of boyhood could
not quite throw off the shadow of gloom which his illness cast over
the school.

Very tenderly they nursed him. All that human kindness could do
was done for him by the stranger hands. And yet not all; poor Edwin
had no father, no mother, hardly any relatives. His only aunt, Mrs.
Upton, would have come to nurse him, but she was an invalid, and he
was often left alone in his delirium and agony.

Alone, yet not alone. There was One with him–always in his
thoughts, always leading, guiding, blessing him unseen–not
deserting the hurt lamb of his flock; one who was once a boy
himself, and who, when he was a boy, did his Father’s business, and
was subject unto his parents in the obscure home of the despised
village. Alone! nay, to them whose eyes were opened, the room of
sickness and pain was thronged and beautiful with angelic
presences.

Often did Eric, and Upton, and Montagu, talk of their loved
friend. Eric’s life seemed absorbed in the thought of him, and in
passionate, unspeakable longings for his recovery. Now he valued
more than ever the sweet remembered hours spent with him; their
games, and communnings, and walks, and Russell’s gentle influence,
and brave, kindly rebukes. Yet he must not even see him, must not
whisper one word of soothing to him in his anguish; he could only
pray for him, and that he did with a depth of hope.

At last Upton, in virtue of his relationship, was allowed to
visit him. His delirium had become more infrequent, but he could
not yet even recognise his cousin, and the visits to his sick-room
were so sad and useless, that Upton forbore. “And yet you should
hear him talk in his delirium,” he said to Eric; “not one evil
word, or bad thought, or wicked thing, ever escapes him. I’m
afraid, Eric, it would hardly be so with you or me.”

“No” said Eric, in a low and humble tone; and guilty conscience
brought the deep color, wave after wave, of crimson into his
cheeks.

“And he talks with such affection of you, Eric. He speaks
sometimes of all of us very gently; but you seem to be always in
his thoughts, and every now and then he prays for you quite
unconsciously.”

Eric turned his head to brush away a tear. “When do you think I
shall be allowed too see him?”

“Not just yet, I fear.”

After a week or two of most anxious suspense, Russell’s mind
ceased to wander, but the state of his sprain gave more cause for
alarm. Fresh advice was called in, and it was decided that the leg
must be amputated.

When Eric was told of this, he burst into passionate complaints.
“Only think, Monty, isn’t it hard, isn’t it cruel? When we see our
brave, bright Edwin again, he will be a cripple.” Eric hardly
understood that he was railing at the providence of a merciful
God.

The day for the operation came. When it was over, poor Russell
seemed to amend, and the removal of the perpetual pain gave him
relief. They were all deeply moved at his touching resignation; no
murmur, no cry escaped him; no words but the sweetest thanks for
every little office of kindness done to him. A few days after, he
asked Dr. Underhay “if he might see Eric?”

“Yes, my boy,” said the doctor kindly, “you may see him, and one
or two other of your particular friends if you like, provided you
don’t excite yourself too much. I trust you will get better
now.”

So Eric and Montagu were told by Dr. Rowlands that at six they
might go and see their friend. “Be sure,” he added, “that you don’t
startle or excite him.”

They promised, and after school on that beautiful evening of
early summer they went to the sick-room door Stopping, they held
their breath, and knocked very gently. Yes! it was the well-known
voice which gave the answer, but it was faint and low. Full of awe,
they softly opened the door, which admitted them into the presence
of the dear companion whom they had not seen for so long. Since
then it seemed as though gulfs far deeper than the sea had been
flowing between him and them.

Full of awe, and hand in hand, they entered the room on
tiptoe–the darkened room where Russell was What a hush and
oppression there seemed to them at first in the dim, silent
chamber; what an awfulness in all the appliances which showed how
long and deeply their schoolfellow had suffered. But all this
vanished directly they caught sight of his face. There he lay, so
calm, and weak, and still, with his bright, earnest eyes turned
towards them, as though to see whether any of their affection for
him had ceased or been forgotten!

In an instant they were kneeling in silence by the bed with
bowed foreheads; and the sick boy tenderly put his hands on their
heads, and pushed the frail white fingers through their hair, and
looked at them tearfully without a word, till they hid their faces
with their hands, and broke into deep suppressed sobs of
compassion.

“Oh hush, hush!” he said, as he felt their tears dropping on his
hands while they kissed him. “Dear Eric, dear Monty, why should you
cry so for me? I am very happy.”

But they caught the outline of his form as he lay on the bed,
and had now for the first time realized that he was a cripple for
life; and as the throng of memories came on them–memories of his
skill and fame at cricket, and racquets, and football–of their
sunny bathes together in sea and river, and all their happy holiday
wanderings–they could not restrain their emotion, and wept
uncontrollably. Neither of them could speak a word, or break the
holy silence; and as he patted their heads and cheeks, his own
tears flowed fast in sympathy and self-pity. But he felt the
comforting affection which they could not utter; he felt it in his
loneliness, and it did him good.

The nurse broke in upon the scene, which she feared would
agitate Edwin too much; and with red eyes and heavy hearts the boys
left, only whispering, “We will come again to-morrow, Edwin!”

They came the next day, and many days, and got to talk quite
cheerfully with him, and read to him. They loved this occupation
more than any game, and devoted themselves to it. The sorrow of the
sick-room more than repaid them for the glad life without, when
they heard Russell’s simple and heartfelt thanks. “Ah! how good of
you, dear fellows,” he would say, “to give up the merry playground
for a wretched cripple,” and he would smile cheerfully to show that
his trial had not made him weary of life. Indeed, he often told
them that he believed they felt for him more than he did
himself.

One day Eric brought him a little bunch of primroses and
violets. He seemed much better, and Eric’s spirits were high with
the thoughts and hopes of the coming holidays. “There, Edwin,” he
said, as the boy gratefully and eagerly took the flowers, “don’t
they make you glad? They are one of our three signs, you
know, of the approaching holidays. One sign was the first sight of
the summer steamer going across the bay; another was May eve, when
these island-fellows light big gorse fires all over the mountains,
and throw yellow marsh-lilies at their doors to keep off the
fairies. Do you remember, Eddy, gathering some last May eve, and
sitting out in the playground till sunset, watching the fires begin
to twinkle on Cronck-Irey and Barrule for miles away? What a jolly
talk we had that evening about the holidays; but my father and
mother were here then, you know, and we were all going to Fairholm.
But the third sign–the first primrose and violet–was always the
happiest. You can’t think how I grabbed at the first
primrose this year; I found it by a cave on the Ness. And though
these are rather the last than the first, yet I knew you’d like
them, Eddy, so I hunted for them everywhere. And how much better
you’re looking too; such shining eyes, and, yes! I positively
declare, quite a ruddy cheek like your old one. You’ll soon be out
among us again, that’s clear—-“

He stopped abruptly: he had been rattling on just in the merry
way that Russell now most loved to hear, but, as he was talking, he
caught the touch of sadness on Russell’s face, and saw his long,
abstracted, eager look at the flowers.

“Dear fellow, you’re not worse, are you?” he said quickly. “What
a fool I am to chatter so; it makes you ill.”

“No, no, Eric, talk on; you can’t think how I love to hear you.
Oh, how very beautiful these primroses are! Thank you, thank you,
for bringing them.” And he again fixed on them the eager dreamy
look which had startled Eric–as though he were learning their
color and shape by heart.

“I wish I hadn’t brought them, though,” said Eric, “they are
filling your mind with regrets. But, Eddy, you’ll be well by the
holidays–a month hence, you know–or else I shouldn’t have talked
so gladly about them.”

“No, Eric,” said Russell sadly, “these dear flowers are the last
spring blossoms that I shall see–here at least. Yes, I will
keep them, for your sake, Eric, till I die.”

“Oh don’t talk so,” said Eric, shocked and flustered, “why
everybody knows and says that you’re getting better.”

Russell smiled and shook his head. “No, Eric, I shall die. There
stop, dear fellow, don’t cry,” said he, raising his hands quietly
to Eric’s face; “isn’t it better for me so? I own it seemed sad at
first to leave this bright world and the sea–yes, even that cruel
sea,” he continued smiling; “and to leave Roslyn, and Upton, and
Monty, and, above all, to leave you, Eric, whom I love best
in all the world. Yes, remember I’ve no home, Eric, and no
prospects. There was nothing to be sorry for in this, so long as
God gave me health and strength; but health went for ever into
those waves at the Stack, where you saved my life, dear, gallant
Eric; and what could I do now? It doesn’t look so happy to
halt through life. Oh Eric, Eric, I am young, but I am
dying–dying, Eric,” he said solemnly, “my brother; let me call you
brother; I have no near relations, you know, to fill up the love in
my yearning heart, but I do love you. Kiss me, Eric,
as though I were a child, and you a child. There, that comforts me;
I feel as if I were a child again, and had a dear
brother;–and I shall be a child again soon, Eric, in the
courts of a Father’s house.”

Eric could not speak. These words startled him; he never dreamt
recently of Russell’s death, but had begun to reckon on his
recovery, and now life seemed darker to him than ever.

But Russell was pressing the flowers to his lips. “The grass
withereth,” he murmured, “the flower fadeth, and the glory of its
beauty perisheth; but–but the word of the Lord endureth for
ever.” And here he too burst into natural tears, and Eric pressed
his hand, with more than a brother’s fondness, to his heart.

“Oh Eddy, Eddy, my heart is full,” he said, “too full to speak
to you. Let me read to you;” and with Russell’s arm round his neck
he sat down, beside his pillow, and read to him about “the pure
river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the
throne of God and of the Lamb.” At first sobs choked his voice, but
it gathered firmness as he went on.

“In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the
river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of
fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the
tree were for the healing of the nations.

“And there shall be no more curse”–and here the reader’s
musical voice rose into deeper and steadier sweetness–“but the
throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants
shall serve him; and they shall see his face; and his name shall be
in their foreheads.”

“And they shall see his face,” murmured Russell, “and they
shall see his face” Eric paused and looked at him; a sort of
rapture seemed to be lighted in his eyes, as though they saw
heavenly things, and his countenance was like an angel’s to look
upon. Eric closed the book reverently, and gazed.

“And now pray for me, Eric, will you?” Eric knelt down, but no
prayer would come; his breast swelled; and his heart beat fast, but
emotion prevented him from uttering a word. But Russell laid his
hand on his head and prayed.

“O gracious Lord God, look down, merciful Father on us, two
erring, weak, sinful boys; look down and bless us, Lord, for the
love thou bearest unto thy children. One thou art taking; Lord,
take me to the green pastures of thy home, where no curse is; and
one remains–O Lord! bless him with the dew of thy blessing; lead
and guide him, and keep him for ever in thy fear and love, that he
may continue thine for ever, and hereafter we may meet together
among the redeemed, in the immortal glory of the resurrection. Hear
us, O Father, for thy dear Son’s sake. Amen! Amen!”

The childlike, holy, reverent voice ceased, and Eric rose. One
long brotherly kiss he printed on Russell’s forehead, and, full of
sorrowful forebodings, bade him good night.

He asked Dr. Underhay whether his fears were correct. “Yes,” he
said, “he may die at any time; he must die soon. It is even
best that he should; besides the loss of a limb, that blow on the
head would certainly affect the brain and the intellect if he
lived.”

Eric shuddered–a long cold shudder.

The holidays drew on; for Russell’s sake, and at his earnest
wish, Eric had worked harder than he ever did before. All his
brilliant abilities, all his boyish ambition, were called into
exercise; and, to the delight of every one, he gained ground
rapidly, and seemed likely once more to dispute the palm with Owen.
No one rejoiced more in this than Mr. Rose, and he often gladdened
Russell’s heart by telling him about it; for every day he had a
long visit to the sick boy’s room, which refreshed and comforted
them both.

In other respects, too, Eric seemed to be turning over a new
leaf. He and Upton, by common consent, had laid aside smoking, and
every bad habit or disobedient custom which would have grieved the
dying boy, whom they both loved so well. And although Eric’s
popularity, after the romantic Stack adventure and his chivalrous
daring, was at its very zenith,–although he had received a medal
and flattering letter from the Humane Society, who had been
informed of the transaction by Dr. Rowlands,–although his success
both physical and intellectual was higher than ever,–yet the dread
of the great loss he was doomed to suffer, and the friendship which
was to be snapped, overpowered every other feeling, and his heart
was ennobled and purified by contact with his suffering friend.

It was a June evening, and he and Russell were alone; he had
drawn up the blind, and through the open window the summer breeze,
pure from the sea and fragrant from the garden, was blowing
refreshfully into the sick boy’s room. Russell was very, very
happy. No doubt, no fear, assailed him; all was peace and
trustfulness. Long and earnestly that evening did he talk to Eric,
and implore him to shun evil ways, striving to lead him gently to
that love of God which was his only support and refuge now.
Tearfully and humbly Eric listened, and every now and then the
sufferer stopped to pray aloud.

“Good night, Eric,” he said, “I am tired, so tired. I
hope we shall meet again; I shall give you my desk and all my
books, Eric, except a few for Horace, Owen, Duncan, and Monty. And
my watch, that dear watch your mother, my mother, gave me, I
shall leave to Rose as a remembrance of us both. Good night,
brother.”

A little before ten that night Eric was again summoned with
Upton and Montagu to Russell’s bedside. He was sinking fast; and as
he had but a short time to live, he expressed a desire to see them,
though he could see no others.

They came, and were amazed to see how bright the dying boy
looked. They received his last farewells–he would die that night.
Sweetly he blessed them, and made them promise to avoid all evil,
and read the Bible, and pray to God. But he had only strength to
speak at intervals. Mr. Rose, too, was there; it seemed as though
he held the boy by the hand, as fearlessly now, yea, joyously, he
entered the waters of the dark river.

“Oh, I should so like to stay with you, Monty, Horace,
dear, dear Eric, but God calls me. I am going–a long way–to my
father and mother–and to the light. I shall not be a cripple
there–nor be in pain.” His words grew slow and difficult. “God
bless you, dear fellows; God bless you, dear Eric; I am going–to
God.”

He sighed very gently; there was a slight sound in his throat,
and he was dead. A terrible scene of boyish anguish followed, as
they kissed again and again the lifeless brow. But quietly, calmly,
Mr. Rose checked them, and they knelt down with streaming eyes
while he prayed.

CHAPTER XV

HOME AGAIN

“O far beyond the waters
  The fickle feet may roam,
But they find no light so pure and bright
  As the one fair star of home;
The star of tender hearts, lady,
  That glows in an English home,”

F.W.F.

That night when Eric returned to No. 7, full of grief, and
weighed down with the sense of desolation and mystery, the other
boys were silent from sympathy in his sorrow. Duncan and Llewellyn
both knew and loved Russell themselves, and they were awestruck to
hear of his death; they asked some of the particulars, but Eric was
not calm enough to tell them that evening. The one sense of
infinite loss agitated him, and he indulged his paroxysms of
emotion unrestrained, yet silently. Reader, if ever the life has
been cut short which you most dearly loved, if ever you have been
made to feel absolutely lonely in the world, then, and then only,
will you appreciate the depth of his affliction.

But, like all affliction, it purified and sanctified. To Eric,
as he rested his aching head on a pillow wet with tears, and vainly
sought for the sleep whose blessing he had never learned to prize
before, how odious seemed all the vice which he had seen and
partaken in since he became an inmate of that little room. How his
soul revolted with infinite disgust from the language which he had
heard, and the open glorying in sin of which he had so often been a
witness. The stain and the shame of sin fell heavier than ever on
his heart; it rode on his breast like a nightmare; it haunted his
fancy with visions of guilty memory, and shapes of horrible regret.
The ghosts of buried misdoings, which he had thought long lost in
the mists of recollection, started up menacingly from their
forgotten graves, and made him shrink with a sense of their awful
reality. Behind him, like a wilderness, lay years which the locust
had eaten; the intrusted hours which had passed away, and been
reckoned to him as they past.

And the thought of Russell mingled with all–Russell, as he
fondly imagined him now, glorified with the glory of heaven,
crowned, and in white robes, and with a palm in his hand. Yes, he
had walked and talked with one of the Holy Ones. Had Edwin’s death,
quenched his human affections, and altered his human heart? If not,
might not he be there even now, leaning over his friend with the
beauty of his invisible presence? The thought startled him, and
seemed to give an awful lustre to the moonbeam which fell into the
room. No; he could not endure such a presence now, with his weak
conscience and corrupted heart; and Eric hid his head under the
clothes, and shut his eyes.

Once more the pang of separation entered like iron into his
soul. Should he ever meet Russell again? What if he had died
instead of Edwin, where would he have been? “Oh, no! no!” he
murmured aloud, as the terrible thought came over him of his own
utter unfitness for death, and the possibility that he might never,
never again hear the beloved accents, or gaze on the cherished
countenance of his school friend.

In this tumult of accusing thoughts he fell asleep; but that
night the dew of blessing did not fall for him on the fields of
sleep. He was frightened by unbidden dreams, in all of which his
conscience obtruded on him his sinfulness, and his affection called
up the haunting lineaments of the dear dead face. He was wandering
down a path, at the end of which Russell stood with open arms
inviting him earnestly to join him there; he saw his bright
ingenuous smile, and heard, as of old, his joyous words, and he
hastened to meet him; when suddenly the boy-figure disappeared, and
in its place he saw the stern brow, and gleaming garments, and
drawn flaming sword of the Avenger. And then he was in a great wood
alone, and wandering, when the well-known voice called his name,
and entreated him to turn from that evil place; and he longed to
turn,–but, whenever he tried, ghostly hands seemed to wave him
back again, and irresistible cords to drag him into the dark
forest, amid the sound of mocking laughs. Then he was sinking,
sinking, sinking into a gulf, deep and darker even than the inner
darkness of a sin-desolated heart; sinking, helplessly, hopelessly,
everlastingly; while far away, like a star, stood the loved figure
in light infinitely above him, and with pleading hands implored his
deliverance, but could not prevail; and Eric was still sinking,
sinking, infinitely, when the agony awoke him with a violent start
and stifled scream.

He could sleep no longer. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw the
pale, dead, holy features of Edwin, and at last he fancied that he
was praying beside his corpse, praying to be more like him,
who lay there so white and calm; sorrowing beside it, sorrowing
that he had so often rejected his kind warnings, and pained his
affectionate heart. So Eric began again to make good resolutions
about all his future life. Ah! how often he had done so before, and
how often they had failed. He had not yet learned the lesson which
David learned by sad experience; “Then I said, it is mine own
infirmity, but I will remember the years of the right hand of
the Most High.”

That, too, was an eventful night for Montagu. He had grown of
late far more thoughtful than before; under Edwin’s influence he
had been laying aside, one by one, the careless sins of school
life, and his tone was nobler and manlier than it had ever been.
Montagu had never known or heard much about godliness; his father,
a gentleman, a scholar, and a man of the world, had trained him in
the principles of refinement and good taste, and given him a high
standard of conventional honor; but he passed through life lightly,
and had taught his son to do the same. Possessed of an ample
fortune, which Montagu was to inherit, he troubled himself with
none of the deep mysteries of life, and

“Pampered the coward heart
With feelings all too delicate for use;
Nursing in some delicious solitude
His dainty love and slothful sympathies.”

But Montagu in Edwin’s sick-room and by his death bed; in the
terrible storm at the Stack, and by contact with Dr. Rowlands’
earnestness, and Mr. Rose’s deep, unaffected, sorrow-mingled piety;
by witnessing Eric’s failures and recoveries; and by beginning to
take in his course the same heartfelt interest which Edwin taught
him–Montagu, in consequence of these things, had begun to see
another side of life, which awoke all his dormant affections and
profoundest reasonings. It seemed as though, for the first time, he
began to catch some of

“The still gad music of humanity,”

and to listen with deep eagerness to the strain. Hitherto, to be
well dressed, handsome, agreeable, rich, and popular, had been to
him a realised ideal of life; but now he awoke to higher and
worthier aims; and once, when Russell, whose intelligent interest
in his work exceeded that of any other boy, had pointed out to him
that solemn question of Euripides–

“[Greek: Ohiei su tous thanontas o Nichaezate
Tzuphaes hapasaes metalabontas en bips
Pepheugenai to theion];”

he fell into a train of reflection, which made a lasting
impression upon his character.

The holidays were approaching. Eric, to escape as much, as
possible from his sorrow, plunged into the excitement of working
for the examination, and rapidly made up for lost ground. He now
spent most of his time with the best of his friends, particularly
Montagu, Owen, and Upton; for Upton, like himself, had been much
sobered by sorrow at their loss. This time he came out
second in his form, and gained more than one prize. This was
his first glimpse of real delight since Russell’s death; and when
the prize-day came, and he stood with his companions in the
flower-decorated room, and went up amid universal applause to take
his prize-books, and receive a few words of compliment from the
governor who took the chair, he felt almost happy, and keenly
entered into the pleasure which his success caused, as well as into
the honors won by his friends. One outward sign only remained of
his late bereavement–his mourning dress. All the prize-boys wore
rosebuds or lilies of the valley in their button-holes on the
occasion, but on this day Eric would not wear them. Little Wright,
who was a great friend of theirs, had brought some as a present
both to Eric and Montagu, as they stood together on the prize-day
morning; they took them with thanks, and, as their eyes met, they
understood each other’s thoughts.

“No,” said Eric to Wright, “we won’t wear these to-day, although
we have both got prizes. Come along I know what we will do with
them.”

They all three walked together to the little green, quiet
churchyard, where, by his own request, Edwin had been buried. Many
a silent visit had the friends paid to that grave, on which the
turf was now green again, and the daisies had begun to bloom. A
stone had just been placed to mark the spot, and they read–

SACRED TO THE MEMORY
OF
AN ORPHAN,
WHO DIED AT ROSLYN SCHOOL, MAY 1847,
AGED FIFTEEN YEARS.
———
“Is it well with the child? It is well.”
2 KINGS iv. 26.

The three boys stood by the grave in silence and sorrow for a
time.

“He would have been the gladdest at our success. Monty,” said
Eric; “let us leave the signs of it upon his grave.”

And, with reverent hand, scattering over that small mound the
choice rosebuds and fragrant lilies with their green leaves, they
turned away without another word.

The next morning the great piles of corded boxes which crowded
the passage were put on the coach, and the boys, gladly leaving the
deserted building, drove in every sort of vehicle to the steamer.
What joyous triumphant mornings those were! How the heart exulted
and bounded with, the sense of life and pleasure, and how universal
was the gladness and good humor of every one. Never were voyages so
merry as those of the steamer that day, and even the “good-byes”
that had to be said at Southpool were lightly borne. From thence
the boys quickly scattered to the different railways, and the
numbers of those who were travelling together got thinner and
thinner as the distance increased. Wright and one or two others
went nearly all the way with Eric, and when he got down at the
little roadside station, from whence started the branch rail to
Ayrton, he bade them merry and affectionate farewell. The branch
train soon started, and in another hour he would be at
Fairholm.

It was not till then that his home feelings woke in all their
intensity. He had not been there for a year. At Roslyn the summer
holidays were nine weeks, and the holidays at Christmas and Easter
were short, so that it had not been worth while to travel so far as
Fairholm, and Eric had spent his Christmas with friends in another
part of the island. But now he was once more to see dear Fairholm,
and his aunt, his cousin Fanny, and above all, his little brother.
His heart was beating fast with joy, and his eyes sparkling with
pleasure and excitement. As he thrust his head out of the window,
each well-remembered landmark gave him the delicious sensation of
meeting again an old friend. “Ah! there’s the white bridge, and
there’s the canal, and the stile; and there runs the river,
and there’s Velvet Lawn. Hurrah! here we are.” And springing out of
the train before it had well stopped, he had shaken hands heartily
with the old coachman, who was expecting him, and jumped up into
the carriage in a moment.

Through the lanes he knew so well, by whose hedgerows he had so
often plucked sorrel and wild roses; past the old church with its
sleeping churchyard; through, the quiet village, where every ten
yards he met old acquaintances who looked pleased to see him, and
whom he greeted with glad smiles and nods of recognition; past the
Latin school, from which came murmurs and voices as of yore (what a
man he felt himself now by comparison!);–by the old Roman camp,
where he had imagined such heroic things when he was a child;
through all the scenes so rich with the memories and associations
of his happy childhood, they flew along; and now they had entered
the avenue, and Eric was painfully on the look-out.

Yes! there they were all three–Mrs. Trevor, and Fanny, and
Vernon, on the mound at the end of the avenue; and the younger ones
ran to meet him. It was a joyous meeting; he gave Fanny a hearty
kiss, and put his arm round Vernon’s neck, and then held him in
front to have a look at him.

“How tall you’ve grown, Verny, and how well you look,” he said,
gazing proudly at him; and indeed the boy was a brother to be
justly proud of. And Vernon quite returned the admiration as he saw
the healthy glow of Eric’s features, and the strong graceful
development of his limbs.

And so they quickly joined Mrs. Trevor, who embraced her nephew
with a mother’s love: and, amid all that nameless questioning of
delightful trifles, that “blossoming vein” of household talk, which
gives such an incommunicable charm to the revisiting of home, they
all three turned into the house, where Eric, hungry with his
travels, did ample justice to the “jolly spread” prepared for him,
luxurious beyond anything he had seen for his last year at school.
When he and Vernon went up to their room at night–the same little
room in which they slept on the night when they first had met–they
marked their heights on the door again, which showed Eric that in
the last year he had grown two inches, a fact which he pointed out
to Vernon with no little exultation. And then they went to bed, and
to a sleep over which brooded the indefinite sensation of a great
unknown joy;–that rare heavenly sleep which only comes once or
twice or thrice in life, on occasions such as this.

He was up early next morning, and, opening his window, leaned
out with his hands among the green vine-leaves which encircled it.
The garden looked beautiful as ever, and he promised himself an
early enjoyment of those currants which hung in ruby clusters over
the walls. Everything was bathed in the dewy balm of summer
morning, and he felt very happy as, with his little spaniel
frisking round him, he visited the great Newfoundland in his
kennel, and his old pet the pony in the stable. He had barely
finished his rounds when breakfast was ready, and he once more met
the home-circle from which he had been separated for a year. And
yet over all his happiness hung a sense of change and half
melancholy; they were not changed but he was changed. Mrs.
Trevor, and Fanny, and Vernon were the same as ever, but over
him, had come an alteration of feeling and circumstance; an
unknown or half-known something which cast a shadow between
them and him, and sometimes made him half shrink and start as he
met their loving looks. Can no schoolboy, who reads history,
understand and explain the feeling which I mean?

By that mail he wrote to his father and mother an account of
Russell’s death, and he felt that they would guess why the letter
was so blurred. “But,” he wrote, “I have some friends still;
especially Mr. Rose among the masters, and Monty and Upton among
the boys. Monty you know; he is more like Edwin than any other boy,
and I like him very much. You didn’t know Upton, but I am a great
deal with him, though he is much older than I am. He is a fine
handsome fellow, and one of the most popular in the school. I hope
you will know him some day.”

The very next morning Eric received a letter which he at once
recognised to be in Upton’s handwriting He eagerly tore off the
envelope, and read–

“My dearest Eric–I have got bad news to tell you, at least, I
feel it to be bad news for me, and I flatter myself that you will
feel it to be bad news for you. In short, I am going to leave
Roslyn, and probably we shall never meet there again. The reason
is, I have had a cadetship given me, and I am to sail for India in
September. I have already written to the school to tell them to
pack up and send me all my books and clothes.

“I feel leaving very much; it has made me quite miserable. I
wanted to stay at school another year at least; and I will honestly
tell you, Eric, one reason: I’m very much afraid that I’ve done
you, and Graham, and other fellows, no good; and I wanted, if I
possibly could, to undo the harm I had done. Poor Edwin’s death
opened my eyes to a good many things, and now I’d give all I have
never to have taught or encouraged you in wrong things. Unluckily
it’s too late;–only, I hope that you already see, as I do, that
the things I mean lead to evil far greater than we ever used to
dream of.

“Good-bye now, old fellow! Do write to me soon, and forgive me,
and believe me ever–Your most affectionate, HORACE UPTON.”

“P.S.–Is that jolly little Vernon going back to school with you
this time? I remember seeing him running about the shore with my
poor cousin, when you were a home-boarder, and thinking what a nice
little chap he looked. I hope you’ll look after him as a brother
should, and keep him out of mischief.”

Eric folded the letter sadly, and put it into his pocket; he
didn’t often show them his school letters, because, like this one,
they often contained allusions to things which he did not like his
aunt to know. The thought of Upton’s leaving him made him quite
unhappy, and he wrote him a long letter by that post, indignantly
denying the supposition that his friendship had ever done him
anything but good.

The postscript about Vernon suggested a thought that had often
been in his mind. He could not but shudder in himself, when he
thought of that bright little brother of his being initiated in the
mysteries of evil which he himself had learnt, and sinking like
himself into slow degeneracy of heart and life. It puzzled and
perplexed him, and at last he determined to open his heart,
partially at least, in a letter to Mr. Rose. The master fully
understood his doubts, and wrote him the following reply:–

“My dear Eric–I have just received your letter about your
brother Vernon, and I think that it does you honor. I will briefly
give you my own opinion.

“You mean, no doubt, that, from your own experience, you fear
that Vernon will hear at school many things which will shock his
modesty, and much language which is evil and blasphemous; you fear
that he will meet with many bad examples, and learn to look on God
and godliness in a way far different from that to which he has been
accustomed at home. You fear, in short, that he must pass through
the same painful temptations to which you have yourself been
subjected; to which, perhaps, you have even succumbed.

“Well, Eric, this is all true. Yet, knowing this, I say, by all
means let Vernon come to Roslyn. The innocence of mere ignorance is
a poor thing; it cannot, under any circumstances, be
permanent, nor is it at all valuable as a foundation of character.
The true preparation for life, the true basis of a manly character,
is not to have been ignorant of evil, but to have known it and
avoided it; not to hare been sheltered from temptation, but to have
passed through it and overcome it by God’s help. Many have drawn
exaggerated pictures of the lowness of public school morality; the
best answer is to point to the good and splendid men that have been
trained in public schools, and who lose no opportunity of recurring
to them with affection. It is quite possible to be in the
little world of school-life, and yet not of it. The ruin of
human souls can never be achieved by enemies from without, unless
they be aided by traitors from within. Remember our lost friend;
the peculiar lustre of his piety was caused by the circumstances
under which he was placed. He often told me before his last hour,
that he rejoiced to have been at Roslyn; that he had experienced
there much real happiness, and derived in every way lasting
good.

“I hope you have been enjoying your holidays, and that you will
come back with the ‘spell of home affection’ alive in your heart. I
shall rejoice to make Vernon’s acquaintance, and will do for him
all I can. Bring him with you to me in the library as soon as you
arrive.–Ever, dear Eric,

“Affectionately yours,

“WALTER ROSA.”

END OF PART I

PART II

  “Sed revocare
gradum.”–VIRGIL.

CHAPTER I

ABDIEL

[Greek: Phtheirousin aethae chraesth’ omiliai
kakai].–MENANDEB.

A year had passed since the events narrated in the last chapter,
and had brought with it many changes.

To Eric the changes were not for good. The memories of Russell
were getting dim; the resolutions made during his illness had
vanished; the bad habits laid aside after his death had been
resumed. All this took place very gradually; there were many inward
struggles, much occasional remorse, but the struggles by degrees
grew weaker, and remorse lost its sting, and Eric Williams soon
learned again to follow the multitude to do evil.

He was now sixteen years old, and high in the fifth form, and,
besides this, he was captain of the school eleven. In work he had
fallen off and no one now expected the fulfilment of that promise
of genius which he had given when he first came. But in all school
sports he had improved, and was the acknowledged leader and
champion in matters requiring boldness and courage. His popularity
made him giddy; favor of man led him to forgetfulness of God; and
even a glance at his countenance showed a self-sufficiency and
arrogance which ill became the refinement of his features, and ill
replaced the ingenuous modesty of former years.

And Vernon Williams was no longer a new boy. The worst had
happened to him, which Eric in his better moments could have
feared. He had fallen into thoroughly bad hands, and Eric, who
should have been his natural guardian and guide, began to treat him
with indifference, and scarcely ever had any affectionate
intercourse with him. It is by no means unfrequent that brothers at
school see but little of each other, and follow their several
pursuits, and choose their various companions, with small regard to
the relationship between them.

Yet Eric could not overlook or be blind to the fact, that
Vernon’s chief friend or leader was the most undesirable whom he
could have chosen. It was a new boy named Brigson. This boy had
been expelled from one of the most ill-managed schools in Ireland,
although, of course, the fact had been most treacherously concealed
from the authorities at Roslyn; and now he was let loose, without
warning or caution, among the Roslyn boys. Better for them if their
gates had been open to the pestilence! the pestilence could but
have killed the body, but this boy–this fore-front fighter in the
devil’s battle–did ruin many an immortal soul. He systematically,
from the very first, called evil good and good evil, put bitter for
sweet and sweet for bitter. He openly threw aside the admission of
any one moral obligation. Never did some of the Roslyn boys, to
their dying day, forget the deep, intolerable, unfathomable flood
of moral turpitude and iniquity which he bore with him; a flood,
which seemed so irresistible, and the influence of such boys as
Montagu and Owen to stay its onrush seemed as futile as the weight
of a feather to bar the fury of a mountain stream. Eric might have
done much, Duncan might have done much, to aid the better cause,
had they tried; but they resisted at first but faintly, and then
not at all, until they too were swept away in the broadening tide
of degeneracy and sin.

Big, burly, and strong, though much younger than he looked (if
he stated his age correctly, which I doubt), Brigson, being low in
the school, naturally became the bully and the Coryphaeus of all
the lower forms–the bully if they opposed him, the Coryphaeus if
they accepted his guidance. A little army of small boys attended
him, and were ever ready for the schemes of mischief to which he
deliberately trained them, until they grew almost as turbulent, as
disobedient, and as wicked, as himself. He taught, both, by precept
and example, that towards masters neither honor was to be
recognized, nor respect to be considered due. To cheat them, to lie
to them, to annoy them in every possible way–to misrepresent their
motives, mimic their defects, and calumniate their actions–was the
conduct which he inaugurated towards them; and for the time that he
continued at Roslyn the whole lower school was a Pandemonium of
evil passions and despicable habits.

Every one of the little boys became more or less amenable to his
influence, and among them. Vernon Williams. Had Eric done his duty
this would never have been; but he was half-ashamed to be often
with his brother, and disliked to find him so often creeping to his
side. He flattered himself that in this feeling he was only anxious
that Vernon should grow spirited and independent; but, had he
examined himself, he would have found selfishness at the bottom of
it. Once or twice his manner showed harshness to Vernon, and the
little boy both observed and resented it. Montagu and others
noticed him for Eric’s sake; but, being in the same form with
Brigson, Vernon was thrown much with him, and feeling, as he did,
deserted and lonely, he was easily caught by the ascendancy of his
physical strength and reckless daring. Before three months were
over, he became, to Eric’s intolerable disgust, a ringleader in the
band of troublesome scapegraces, whose increasing numbers were the
despair of all who had the interests of the school at heart.

Unfortunately, Owen was now head of the school, and from his
constitutional want of geniality, he was so little of a boy that he
had no sympathy from the others, and little authority over them. He
simply kept aloof, holding his own way, and retiring into his own
tastes and pursuits, and the society of one or two congenial
spirits in the school, so as in no way to come in contact with the
spreading corruption.

Montagu, now Owen’s chief friend, was also in the sixth, and
fearlessly expressed at once his contempt for Brigson, and his
dread of the evil he was effecting. Had the monitorial system
existed, that contagion could have been checked at once; but, as it
was, brute force the unlimited authority. Ill indeed are those
informed who raise a cry, and join in the ignorant abuse of that
noble safeguard of English schools. Any who have had personal and
intimate experience of how schools work with it and
without it, know what a Palladium it is of happiness and
morality; how it prevents bullying, upholds manliness, is the
bulwark of discipline, and makes boys more earnest and thoughtful,
often at the most critical period of their lives, by enlisting all
their sympathies and interests on the side of the honorable and the
just.

Brigson knew at a glance whom he had most to fear; Bull, Attlay,
Llewellyn, Graham, all tolerated or even approved of him. Owen did
not come in his way, so he left him unmolested. To Eric and Duncan
he was scrupulously civil, and by flattery and deference managed to
keep apparently on excellent terms with them. Eric pretended to be
ignorant of the harm he was bringing about, and in answer to the
indignant and measureless invectives of Montagu and others,
professed to see in Brigson a very good fellow; rather wild,
perhaps, but still a very good fellow.

Brigson hated Montagu, because he read on his features the
unvarying glance of withering contempt. He dared not come across
him openly, since Montagu was so high in the school; and besides,
though much the bigger of the two, Brigson was decidedly afraid of
him. But he chose sly methods of perpetual annoyance. He nick-named
him “Rosebud;” he talked at him whenever he had an
opportunity; he poisoned the minds of the gang of youngsters
against him; he spread malicious reports about him; he diminished
his popularity, and embittered his feelings, by every secret and
underhand means which, lay in his power.

One method of torment was most successful. As a study-boy,
Montagu did not come to bed till an hour later than the
lower part of the school, and Brigson taught some of the little
fellows to play all kinds of tricks to his bed and room, so that,
when he came down, it was with the certainty of finding everything
in confusion. Sometimes his bed would be turned right on end, and
he would have to put it to the ground and remake it before he could
lie down. Sometimes all the furniture in the room would be thrown
about in different corners, with no trace of the offender.
Sometimes he would find all sorts of things put inside the bed
itself. The intolerable part of the vexation was, to be certain
that this was done by Brigson’s instigation, or by his own hand,
without having the means of convicting or preventing him. Poor
Monty grew very sad at heart, and this perpetual dastardly
annoyance weighed the more heavily on his spirits, from its being
of a kind which peculiarly grated on his refined taste, and his
natural sense of what was gentlemanly and fair.

One night, coming down, as usual, in melancholy dread, he saw a
light under the door of his room. It struck him that he was earlier
than usual, and he walked up quickly and noiselessly. There they
were at it! The instant he entered, there was a rush through the
opposite door, and he felt convinced that one of the retreating
figures was Brigson’s. In a second he had sprung across, so as to
prevent the rest from running, and with heaving breast and flaming
eyes, glared at the intruders as they stood there, sheepish and
afraid.

“What!” he said angrily, “so you are the fellows who have
had the cowardice to annoy me thus, night after night, for weeks;
you miserable, degraded young animals!” And he looked at the four
or five who had not made their escape. “What! and you among
them,” he said with a start, as he caught the eye of Vernon
Williams–“Oh, this is too bad.” His tone showed the deepest sorrow
and vexation, and for a moment he said no more. Instantly Vernon
was by him.

“Do forgive me, do forgive me, Montagu,” he said;
“I really didn’t know it teased you so much.”

But Montagu shook him off, and at once recovered himself.
“Wretched boys! let me see what you have been doing to-night. Oh,
as usual,” he said, glancing at the complete disorder which they
had been effecting. “Ha! but what is this? So Brigson has
introduced another vile secret among you. Well, he shall rue it!”
and he pointed to some small, almost invisible flakes of a whitish
substance scattered here and there over his pillow. It was a kind
of powder, which if once it touched the skin, caused the most
violent and painful irritation.

“By heavens, this is too bad!” he exclaimed, stamping his
foot with anger. “What have I ever done to you young blackguards,
that you should treat me thus? Have I ever been a bully? Have I
ever harmed one of you? And you, too, Vernon Williams!”

The little boy trembled and looked ashamed under his noble
glance of sorrow and scorn.

“Well, I know who has put you up to this; but you shall
not escape so. I shall thrash you every one.”

Very quietly he suited the action to the word, sparing none.
They took it patiently enough, conscious of richly deserving it;
and when it was over, Vernon said, “Forgive me, Montagu. I am very
sorry, and will never do so again.” Montagu, without deigning a
reply, motioned them to go, and then sat down, full of grief, on
his bed. But the outrage was not over for that night, and no sooner
had he put out the light than he became painfully aware that
several boys were stealing into the room, and the next moment he
felt a bolster fall on his head. He was out of bed in an instant,
and with a few fierce and indignant blows, had scattered the crowd
of his cowardly assailants, and driven them away. A number of
fellows had set on him in the dark–on him, of all others.
Oh, what a change must have happened in the school that this should
be possible! He felt that the contagion of Brigson’s baseness had
spread far indeed.

He fought like a lion, and several of the conspirators had
reason to repent their miscalculation in assaulting so spirited an
antagonist. But this did not content him; his blood was up, and he
determined to attack the evil at its source. He strode through his
discomfited enemies straight into Brigson’s room, struck a match,
and said, “Brigson, get out of bed this instant.”

“Hullo!” grunted Brigson, pretending to be only just awake.

“None of that, you blackguard! Will you take a thrashing?”

“No!” roared Brigson, “I should think not.”

“Well, then, take that!” he shouted, striking him in the
face.

The fight that followed was very short. In a single round
Montagu had utterly thrashed, and stricken to the earth, and forced
to beg for mercy, his cumbrous and brutal opponent. He seemed to
tower above him with a magnificent superiority, and there was a
self-controlled passion about him which gave tremendous energy to
every blow. Brigson was utterly dashed, confounded, and cowed, and
took without a word the parting kick of ineffable contempt which
Montagu bestowed on him.

“There,” he said to the fellows, who had thronged in from all
the dormitories at the first hint of a fight, “I, a sixth-form
fellow, have condescended to thrash that base coward there, whom
all you miserable lower boys have been making an idol and hero of,
and from whom you have been so readily learning every sort of
blackguardly and debasing trick. But let me tell you and your hero,
that if any of you dare to annoy or lift a finger at me again, you
shall do it at your peril. I despise you all; there is hardly one
gentlemanly or honorable fellow left among you since that fellow
Brigson has come here; yes, I despise you, and you know that you
deserve it.” And every one of them did shrink before his
just and fiery rebuke.

The scene was not over when the door suddenly opened, and Mr.
Rose appeared. He stood amazed to see Montagu there in his
night-shirt, the boys all round, and Brigson washing his nose,
which was bleeding profusely, at his basin.

Montagu instantly stepped up to him. “You can trust me, sir; may
I ask you kindly to say nothing of this? I have been thrashing some
one that deserved it, and teaching these fellows a lesson.”

Mr. Rose saw and allowed for his excited manner. “I can trust
you,” he said, “Montagu, and shall take no farther notice of this
irregularity. And now get instantly to your beds.”

But Montagu, slipping on his clothes, went straight up to the
studies, and called the upper boys together. He briefly told them
what had occurred, and they rejoiced greatly, binding themselves
for the future to check, if they could, by all fair means,
Brigson’s pernicious influence and abominable example.

But it was too late now; the mischief was done.

“O Eric,” said Montagu, “why did you not make a stand against
all this before? Your own brother was one of them.”

“Little wretch. I’ll kick him well for it,” said Eric.

“No, no!” said Montagu, “that’ll do no good. Try rather to look
after him a little more.”

“I hope you will forgive him, and try and rescue
him.”

“I will do what I can,” said Montagu, coldly.

Eric sighed, and they parted.

Montagu had hoped that after this Eric would at least break off
all open connection with Brigson; and, indeed, Eric had meant to do
so. But that personage kept carefully out of his way until the
first burst of indignation against him had subsided, and after a
time began to address Eric as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile he
had completely regained his ascendancy over the lower part of the
school, which was not difficult, because they were wincing under
Montagu’s contempt, and mingled no little dislike with it; a
dislike which all are too apt to feel towards those whose very
presence and moral superiority are a tacit rebuke of their own
failings. But while Montagu was hated, Eric was at the zenith of
popular favor, a favor which Brigson ostentatiously encouraged. He
was openly flattered and caressed, and if ever he got a large score
at cricket, it was chalked triumphantly over the walls. All this he
was weak enough to enjoy immensely, and it was one of the reasons
why he did not wish to risk his popularity by breaking with
Brigson. So, after a little constraint and coldness, he began to
stand in much the same relation to him as before.

The best-disposed of the upper boys disliked all this very much,
and the sixth and fifth forms began to be split up into two main
parties–the one, headed by Eric, and, to a much less degree, by
Duncan, who devoted themselves to the games and diversions of the
school, and troubled themselves comparatively little about anything
else; the other, headed by Montagu, who took the lead in
intellectual pursuits, and endeavored, by every means in their
power, to counteract the pernicious effects of the spreading
immorality.

And so at Roslyn, owing mainly to the wickedness of one depraved
boy, and the weak fear of man which actuated others, all was
disunion, misery, and deterioration. The community which had once
been peaceful, happy, and united, was filled with violent jealousy
and heart-burnings; every boy’s hand seemed to be against his
neighbor; lying, bad language, dishonesty, grew fearfully rife, and
the few who, like Owen and Montagu, remained uncontaminated by the
general mischief, walked alone and despondent amid their
uncongenial and degraded schoolfellow.

CHAPTER II

WILDNEY

“That punishment’s the best to bear
   That follows soonest on the sin,
And guilt’s a game where losers fare
   Better than those who seem to win.”

COV. PATMORE.

At the beginning of this quarter Eric and Duncan had succeeded
to one of the studies, and Owen shared with Montagu the one which
adjoined it.

Latterly the small boys, in the universal spirit of
disobedience, had frequented the studies a good deal, but it was
generally understood that no study-boy might ask any one to be a
regular visitor to his room without the leave of its other
occupant.

So one evening Duncan said to Eric, “Do you know little
Wildney?”

“You mean that jolly fearless-looking little fellow, with, the
great black eyes, who came at the beginning of the quarter? No, I
don’t know him.”

“Well, he’s a very nice little fellow; a regular devil”

“Humph!” said Eric, laughing; “I shall bring out a new
Duncan-dictionary, in which. [Greek: chezchochezons chos] = very
nice little fellow.”

“Pooh!” said Duncan; “you know well enough what I mean; I mean
he’s not one of your white-faced, lily-hearted new boys, but has
lots of fun in him.”

“Well, what of him?”

“Have you any objection to my asking him to sit in the study
when he likes?”

“Not the least in the world.”

“Very well, I’ll go and fetch him now. But wouldn’t you like to
ask your brother Vernon to come in too whenever he’s inclined?”

“No,” said Eric, “I don’t care. He does come every now and
then.”

Duncan went to fetch Wildney, and while he was gone, Brie was
thinking why he didn’t give Vernon the free run of his
study. He would not admit to himself the true reason, which was,
that he had too much ground to fear that his example would do his
brother no good.

Eric soon learned to like Wildney, who was a very bright,
engaging, spirited boy, with a dash of pleasant impudence about him
which took Eric’s fancy. He had been one of the most mischievous of
the lower fellows, but, although clever, did little or nothing in
school, and was in the worst repute with the masters. Until he was
“taken up” by Eric, he had been a regular little hero among his
compeers, because he was game for any kind of mischief, and, in the
new tone of popular morality, his fearless disregard of rules made
him the object of general admiration. From this time, however, he
was much in the studies, and unhappily carried with him to those
upper regions the temptation to a deeper and more injurious class
of transgressions than had yet penetrated there.

It was an ill day for General Wildney when he sent his idolised
little son to Roslyn; it was an ill day for Eric when Duncan first
asked the child to frequent their study.

It was past nine at night, and the lower school had gone to bed,
but there was Wildney quietly sitting on Eric’s knee by the study
fire, while Duncan was doing some Arnold’s verses for him to be
shown up next day.

“Bother these verses,” said Duncan, “I shall have a whiff. Do
you mind, Eric?”

“No; not at all.”

“Give me a weed, too,” said Wildney.

“What! young un–you don’t mean to say you smoke?” asked Eric in
surprise.

“Don’t I, though? let me show you. Why, a whole lot of us went
and smoked two or three pipes by Riverbend only yesterday.”

“Phew!” said Eric, “then I suppose I must smoke too to keep you
in countenance;” and he took a cigar. It was the first time he had
touched one since the day at the Stack. The remembrance made him
gloomy and silent. “Tempora mutantur,” thought he, “nos et mutamur
in illis.”

“Why, how glum you are,” said Wildney, patting him on the
head.

“O no!” said Eric, shaking off unpleasant memories. “Look,” he
continued, pointing out of the window to change the subject, “what
a glorious night it is! Nothing but stars, stars, stars.”

“Yes,” said Duncan, yawning; “this smoking makes one very
thirsty. I wish I’d some beer.”

“Well, why shouldn’t we get some?” said Wildney “it would he
very jolly.”

“Get some! What! at this time of night?”

“Yes; I’ll go now, if you like, to Ellan, and be back before
ten.”

“Nonsense,” said Eric; “it aint worth while.”

“I believe you think I’m afraid,” said Wildney, laughing, and
looking at Eric with his dark eyes; “and what’s more, I believe
you’re afraid.”

“Little whippersnapper!” said Eric, coloring, “as if I was
afraid to do anything you dare do. I’ll go with you at once,
if you like.”

“What are you thinking of?” asked Duncan. “I don’t care twopence
about the beer, and I hope you won’t go.”

“But I will, though,” said Eric, a little nettled that Wildney,
of all people, should think him wanting in pluck.

“But how will you get out?”

“Oh, I’ll show you a dodge there,” said Wildney. “Come
along. Have you a dark lantern?”

“No, but I’ll get Llewellyn’s.”

“Come along then.”

So the little boy of twelve took the initiative, and, carrying
the dark lantern, instructed the two study-boys of sixteen in a
secret which had long been known to the lower part of the
school.

“Ibant obscuri dubiâ sub luce.” He led them quietly down
stairs, stole with them noiselessly past the library door, and took
them to a window in the passage, where a pane was broken.

“Could you get through that?” he whispered to Eric, “if we broke
away the rest of the glass?”

“I don’t know. But, then, there’s the bar outside.”

“Oh, I’ll manage that. But will you go and peep through the
key-hole of the library, and see who’s there, Duncan?”

“No,” said Duncan, bluntly, “no key-holes for me.”

“Hush! then I will,” and he glided away, while Eric, as
quietly as he could, broke away the glass until it was all
removed.

“There’s only old Stupid,” whispered he, irreverently
designating an under-master named Harley, “and he’s asleep before
the fire. Now, then, just lift me up, Eric, will you?”

Eric lifted him, and he removed the nails which fastened the end
of the bar. They looked secure enough, and were nails an inch long
driven into the mortar; but they had been successfully loosened,
and only wanted a little pull to bring them out. In one minute
Wildney had unfastened and pushed down one end of the bar. He then
got through the broken pane, and dropped down outside. Eric
followed with some little difficulty, for the aperture would only
just admit his passage; and Duncan, going back to the study,
anxiously awaited their return.

It was a bright moonlight night, and the autumn air was pleasant
and cool. But Eric’s first thought, as he dropped on to the ground,
was one of shame that he should suffer his new friend, a mere
child, so easily to tempt him into disobedience and sin. He had
hardly thought till then of what their errand was to be, but now
his couldn’t help so strongly disapproving of it, that he was
half-inclined to turn back. He did not, however, dare to suggest
this, lest Wildney should charge him with cowardice, and betray it
to the rest. Besides, the adventure had its own excitement, the
stars looked splendid, and the stolen waters were sweet.

“I hope we shan’t be seen crossing the play-ground,” said
Wildney. “My eye, shouldn’t we catch it!”

He was obviously beginning to be afraid, so Eric assumed an air
of nonchalance, and played the part of protector.

“Here, take my arm,” he said; and as Wildney grasped it tight,
instead of feeling angry and ashamed at having been misled by one
so much his junior, Eric felt strongly drawn towards him by
community of danger and interest. Reaching Ellan, it suddenly
struck him that he didn’t know where they were going to buy the
beer. He asked Wildney.

“Oh, I see you’re not half up to snuff,” said Wildney, whose
courage had risen; “I’ll show you.”

He led to a little low public-house, whence tipsy songs were
booming, and tapped at a side door three times. As they looked in
they saw some sailors boozing in a dirty tap-room, and enveloped in
tobacco-smoke.

The side-door was opened, and a cunning wicked-looking man held
up a light to see who they were.

“Hollo, Billy,” said Wildney, confidentially, “all serene; give
us two bottles of beer–on tick, you know.”

“Yessir–d’reckly,” said the man, with a hateful twinkle of the
eyes. “So you’re out for a spree,” he continued, winking in a
knowing way. “Won’t you walk into the back-parlor while I get
them?” And he showed them into a dingy horrid room behind the
house, stale with smoke, and begrimed with dust.

Eric was silent and disgusted, but Wildney seemed quite at home.
The man soon returned with the beer. “Wouldn’t you like a glass of
summat now, young gen’lmen?” he asked, in an insinuating way.

“No, Billy! don’t jabber–we must be off. Here open the
door.”

“Stop, I’ll pay,” said Eric. “What’s the damage?”

“Three shilling, sir,” said the man. “Glad to see a new
customer, sir.” He pocketed the money, and showed them, out,
standing to look after them with a malicious leer as they
disappeared, and jerking his left thumb over his shoulder.

“Faugh!” said Eric, taking a long breath as they got out again
into the moonlight, “what a poisonous place! Good gracious,
Charlie, who introduced you there?”

“Oh, I don’t think much of going there” said Wildney,
carelessly; “we go every-week almost.”

“We! who?”

“Oh, Brigson and a lot of us. We have a club there which we call
the ‘Anti-muffs,’ and that’s our smoking-room.”

“And is that horrid beast the landlord?”

“Yes; he was an old school-servant, and there’s no harm in him
that I know of.”

But Eric only “phewed” again two or three times, and thought of
Montagu.

Suddenly Wildney clutched him by the arm, and pulled him into
the deep shadow of a porch, whispering, in a low tone, “Look!”

Under a lamp-post, directly opposite them, stood Mr. Rose! He
had heard voices and footsteps a moment before, and, puzzled at
their sudden cessation in the noiseless street, he was looking
round.

“We must run for it,” whispered Wildney hastily, as Mr. Rose
approached the porch; and the two boys took to their heels, and
scampered away as hard as they could, Eric helping on Wildney by
taking his hand, and neither of them looking behind. They heard Mr.
Rose following them at first, but soon distanced him, and reached a
place where two roads met, either of which would lead to the
school.

“We won’t go by the road; I know a short cut by the fields. What
fun!” said Wildney, laughing.

“What an audacious little monkey you are; you know all sorts of
dodges,” said Eric.

They had no time to talk, but with, a speed winged by fear got
to the school, sprang on the buttress beneath the window, effected
their entrance, and vanished after replacing the bar–Eric to his
study, and Wildney to his dormitory.

“Here’s a go!” said the latter, as they ran up stairs; “I’ve
smashed one of the beer-bottles in getting through the window, and
my trousers are deluged with the stuff.”

They had hardly separated when Mr. Rose’s step was heard on the
stairs. He was just returning from a dinner-party, when the sight
of two boys and the sound of their voices startled him in the
street, and their sudden disappearance made him sure that they were
Roslyn boys, particularly when they began to run. He strongly
suspected that he recognised Wildney as one of them, and therefore
made straight for his dormitory, which he entered, just as that
worthy had thrust the beer-stained trousers under his bed. Mr.
Rose, walked up quietly to his bedside, and observed that he was
not asleep, and that he still had half has clothes on. He was going
away when he saw a little bit of the trousers protruding under the
mattress, and giving a pull, out they came, wringing wet with the
streams of beer. He could not tell at first what this imported, but
a fragment of the bottle fell out of the pocket with, a crash on
the floor, and he then discovered. Taking no notice of Wildney’s
pretended sleep, he said, quietly, “Come to me before breakfast
tomorrow, Wildney,” and went down stairs.

Eric came in soon after, and found the little fellow vainly
attempting to appear indifferent, as he related to his admiring
auditors the night’s adventure; being evidently rather prouder of
the “Eric and I,” which he introduced every now and then into his
story.

“Has he twigged you?”

“Yes.”

“And me?”

“I don’t know; we shall see to-morrow.”

“I hope not,” said Eric; “I’m sorry for you, Charlie.”

“Can’t be cured, must be endured,” said Wildney.

“Well, good night! and don’t lose heart.”

Eric went back to Duncan in the study, and they finished the
other bottle of beer between them, though without much enjoyment,
because they were full of surmises as to the extent of the
discovery, and the nature of the punishment.

Eric went in to tell Montagu of their escapade.

He listened very coldly, and said, “Well, Eric, it would serve
you right to be caught. What business have you to be going out at
night, at the invitation of contemptible small fry, like this
little Wildney?”

“I beg you won’t speak of any friend of mine in those terms,”
said Eric, drawing up haughtily.

“I hope you don’t call a bad little boy like Wildney, who’d be
no credit to any one, your friend, Eric?”

“Yes I do, though. He’s one of the pluckiest, finest, most
promising fellows in the lower school.”

“How I begin to hate that word plucky,” said Montagu; “it’s made
the excuse here for everything that’s wrong, base, and unmanly. It
seems to me it’s infinitely more ‘plucky’ just now to do your duty
and not be ashamed of it.”

“You’ve certainly required that kind of pluck to bear you
up lately, Monty,” said Owen, looking up from his books.

“Pluck!” said Montagu, scornfully; “you seem to me to think it
consists in lowering yourself down to the level of that odious
Brigson, and joining hand and glove with the dregs of the
school.”

“Dregs of the school! Upon my word, you’re cool, to speak of any
of my associates in that way,” said Eric, now thoroughly angry.

“Associates!” retorted Montagu, hotly; “pretty associates! How
do you expect anything good to go on, when fellows high in the
school like you have such dealings with the refined honorable
Brigson, and the exemplary intellectual Wildney?”

“You’re a couple of confounded muffs,” shouted Eric, banging the
door, and flinging into his own study again without farther
reply.

“Hav’n’t you been a little hard on him, considering the row he’s
in?” asked Owen.

Montagu’s head was resting on his hand as he bent over the
table. “Perhaps I have, indeed. But who could help it, Owen, in the
present state of things? Yes, you’re right,” he said, after a
pause; “this wasn’t the time to speak. I’ll go and talk to
him again. But how utterly changed he is!”

He found Eric on the stairs going down to bed with an
affectation of noise and gaiety. He ran after him, and said–

“Forgive me my passion and sarcasm, Williams. You know I am apt
to express myself strongly.” He could not trust himself to say
more, but held out his hand.

Eric got red, and hesitated for a moment.

“Come, Eric, it isn’t wholly my fault, is it, that we are
not so warm to each other as we were when …”

“Oh, Monty, Monty!” said Eric, softened by the allusion; and
warmly grasped his friend’s proffered hand.

“Oh, Eric!”

The two shook hands in silence, and as they left each other they
felt that while things continued thus their friendship could not
last. It was a sad thought for both.

Next morning Wildney received a severe flogging, but gained
great reputation by not betraying his companion, and refusing to
drop the least hint as to their means of getting out, or their
purpose in visiting Ellan. So the secret of the bar remained
undiscovered, and when any boy wanted to get out at
night–(unhappily the trick now became common enough)–he had only
to break a pane of glass in that particular window, which, as it
was in the passage, often remained unmended and undiscovered for
weeks.

After the flogging, Mr. Rose said shortly to Eric, “I want to
speak to you.”

The boy’s heart misgave him as they entered the familiar
library.

“I think I suspect who was Wildney’s companion.”

Eric was silent.

“I have no proof, and shall not therefore act on vague
suspicion; but the boy whom I do suspect is one whose course
lately has given me the deepest pain; one who has violated all the
early promise he gave; one who seems to be going farther and
farther astray, and sacrificing all moral principle to the ghost of
a fleeting and most despicable popularity–to the approval of those
whom he cannot himself approve.”

Eric still silent.

“Whatever you do yourself, Williams”–(it was the first
time for two years that Mr. Rose had called him “Williams,” and he
winced a little)–“whatever you do yourself, Williams, rests
with you; but remember it is a ten-thousandfold heavier and
more accursed crime to set stumbling-blocks in the way of others,
and abuse your influence to cause any of Christ’s little ones to
perish.”

“I wasn’t the tempter, however,” thought Eric, still silent.

“Well, you seem hardened, and give no sign. Believe me,
Williams, I grieve for you, and that bitterly. My interest in you
is no less warm, though my affection for you cannot be the same.
You may go.”

“Another friend alienated, and oh, how true a one! He has not
asked me to see him once this term,” thought Eric, sadly; but a
shout of pleasure greeted him directly he joined the football in
the play-ground, and, half consoled, he hoped Mr. Rose had heard
it, and understood that was meant for the boy whom he had just been
rebuking. “Well, after all,” he thought, “I have some
friends still.”

Yes, friends, such as they were! Except Duncan, hardly one boy
whom he really respected ever walked with him now. Even little
Wright, one of the very few lower boys who had risen superior to
Brigson’s temptations, seemed to keep clear of him as much as he
could; and, in absolute vacuity, he was obliged to associate with
fellows like Attlay, and Graham, and Llewellyn, and Bull.

Even with Bull! All Eric’s repugnance for this boy seemed to
have evaporated; they were often together, and, to all appearance,
were sworn friends. Eric did not shrink now from such conversation
as was pursued unchecked in his presence by nearly every one; nay,
worse, it had lost its horror, and he was neither afraid nor
ashamed to join in it himself. This plague-spot had fretted more
deeply than any other into the heart of the school morality, and
the least boys seemed the greatest proficients in unbaring without
a blush, its hideous ugliness.

CHAPTER III

“THE JOLLY HERRING”

“Velut unda supervenit undam.”–VIRGIL.

The Anti-muffs request the honor of Williams’ company to a
spread they are going to have to-morrow evening at half-past four,
in their smoking-room–

A note to this effect was put into Eric’s hands by Wildney after
prayers. He read it when he got into his study, and hardly knew
whether to be pleased or disgusted at it.

He tossed it to Duncan, and said, “What shall I do?”

Duncan turned up his nose, and chucked the note into the
fire.

“I’d give them that answer, and no other.”

“Why?”

“Because, Eric,” said Duncan, with more seriousness than was
usual with him, “I can’t help thinking things have gone too far
lately.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I’m no saint myself, Heaven knows; but I do think that
the fellows are worse now than I have ever known them–far worse.
Your friend Brigson reigns supreme out of the studies; he has laid
down a law that no work is to be done down stairs ever under
any pretence, and it’s only by getting into one of the studies that
good little chaps like Wright can get on at all. Even in the
class-rooms there’s so much row and confusion that the mere thought
of work is ridiculous.”

“Well, there’s no great harm in a little noise, if that’s
all.”

“But it isn’t all. The talk of nearly the whole school is
getting most blackguardly; shamelessly so. Only yesterday Wildney
was chatting with Vernon up here (you were out, or Vernon would not
have been here) while I was reading; they didn’t seem to mind me,
and I’m sure you’d have been vexed to the heart if you’d heard how
they talked to each other. At last I couldn’t stand it any longer,
and bouncing up, I boxed both their ears smartly, and kicked them
down stairs.”

As Eric said nothing, Duncan continued, “And I wish it ended in
talk, but—-“

“But I believe you’re turning Owenite. Why, bless me, we’re only
schoolboys; it’ll be lots of time to turn saint some other
day.”

Eric was talking at random, and in the spirit of opposition.
“You don’t want to make the whole school such a muffish set as the
rosebuds, do you?”

There was something of assumed bravado in Eric’s whole manner
which jarred on Duncan exceedingly. “Do as you like,” he said,
curtly, and went into another study.

Immediately after came a rap at the door, and in walked Wildney,
as he often did after the rest were gone to bed, merely slipping
his trousers over his nightshirt, and running up to the
studies.

“Well, you’ll come to the Anti-muffs, won’t you?” he said.

“To that pestilential place again?–not I.”

Wildney looked offended. “Not after we’ve all asked you? The
fellows won’t half like your refusing.”

He had touched Eric’s weak point.

“Do come,” he said, looking up in Eric’s face.

“Confound it all,” answered Eric, hastily. “Yes, I’ve no
friends, I’ll come, Charlie. Anything to please you, boy.”

“That’s a brick. Then I shall cut down and tell the fellows.
They’ll be no end glad. No friends! why all the school like you.”
And he scampered off, leaving Eric ill at ease.

Duncan didn’t re-enter the study that evening.

The next day, about half-past four, Eric found himself on the
way to Ellan. As he was starting, Bull caught him up, and
said–

“Are you going to the Anti-muffs?”

“Yes; why? are you going too?”

“Yes; do you mind our going together?”

“Not at all.”

In fact, Eric was very glad of some one–no matter who–to keep
him in countenance, for he felt considerably more than half
ashamed of himself.

They went to “The Jolly Herring,” as the pot-house was called,
and passed through the dingy beery tap-room into the back parlor,
to which Eric had already been introduced by Wildney. About a dozen
boys were assembled, and there was a great clapping on the table as
the two new-comers entered. A long table was laid down the room,
which was regularly spread for dinner.

“Now then, Billy; make haste with the goose,” called Brigson. “I
vote, boys, that Eric Williams takes the chair.”

“Hear! hear!” said half a dozen; and Eric, rather against his
will, found himself ensconced at the end of the table, with Brigson
and Bull on either hand. The villainous-low-foreheaded man, whom
they called Billy, soon brought in a tough goose at one end of the
table, and some fowls at the other; and they fell to, doing ample
justice to the [Greek: daiz heisae] while Billy waited on them.
There was immense uproar during the dinner, every one eating as
fast, and talking as loud, as he could.

The birds soon vanished, and were succeeded by long rolly-polly
puddings, which the boys called Goliahs; and they, too, rapidly
disappeared. Meanwhile beer was circling only too plentifully.

“Now for the dessert, Billy,” called several voices; and that
worthy proceeded to put on the table some figs, cakes, oranges, and
four black bottles of wine. There was a general grab for these
dainties, and one boy shouted, “I say, I’ve had no wine.”

“Well, it’s all gone. We must get some brandy–it’s cheaper,”
said Brigson; and accordingly some brandy was brought in, which the
boys diluted with hot water, and soon despatched.

“Here! before you’re all done swilling,” said Brigson, “I’ve got
a health; ‘Confound muffs and masters, and success to the
anti’s.'”

“And their chairman,’ suggested Wildney.

“And their chairman, the best fellow in the school,” added
Brigson.

The health was drunk with due clamor, and Eric got up to thank
them.

“I’m not going to spout,” he said; “but boys must be boys, and
there’s no harm in a bit of fun. I for one have enjoyed it, and am
much obliged to you for asking me; and now I call for a song.”

“Wildney! Wildney’s song,” called several.

Wildney had a good voice, and struck up, without the least
bashfulness–

“Come, landlord, fill the flowing bowl,
  Until it does run overt
Come, landlord, fill,” &c

“Now,” he said, “join in the chorus!” The boys, all more or less
excited, joined in heartily and uproariously–

“For to-night we’ll merry merry be!
For to-night we’ll merry merry be!
For to-night we’ll merry merry be!
  To-morrow we’ll be sober!”

While Wildney sang, Eric had time to think. As he glanced round
the room, at the flushed faces of the boys, some of whom he could
not recognise in the dusky atmosphere, a qualm of disgust and shame
passed over him. Several of them were smoking, and, with Bull and
Brigson heading the line on each, side of the table, he could not
help observing what a bad set they looked. The remembrance of
Russell came back to him. Oh, if Edwin could have known that he was
in such company at such a place! And by the door stood Billy,
watching them all like an evil spirit, with a leer of saturnine
malice on his evil face.

But the bright little Wildney, unconscious of Eric’s bitter
thoughts, sang on with overflowing mirth. As Eric looked at him,
shining out like a sunbeam among the rest, he felt something like
blood-guiltiness on his soul, when, he felt that he was sanctioning
the young boy’s presence in that degraded assemblage.

Wildney meanwhile was just beginning the next verse, when he was
interrupted by a general cry of “cavé, cavé.” In an
instant the room was in confusion; some one dashed the candles upon
the floor, the table was overturned with a mighty crash, and
plates, glasses, and bottles rushed on to the ground in shivers.
Nearly every one bolted for the door, which led through the passage
into the street; and in their headlong flight and selfishness, they
stumbled over each other, and prevented all egress, several being
knocked down and bruised in the crush. Others made for the
tap-room; but, as they opened the door leading into it, there stood
Mr. Ready and Mr. Gordon! and as it was impossible to pass without
being seen, they made no further attempt at escape. All this was
the work of a minute. Entering the back parlor, the two masters
quickly took down the names of full half the boys who, in the
suddenness of the surprise, had been unable to make their exit.

And Eric?

The instant that the candles were knocked over, he felt Wildney
seize his hand, and whisper, “This way all serene;” following, he
groped his way in the dark to the end of the room, where Wildney,
shoving aside a green baize curtain, noiselessly opened a door,
which at once let them into a little garden. There they both
crouched down, under a lilac tree beside the house, and listened
intently.

There was no need for this precaution; their door remained
unsuspected, and in five minutes the coast was clear. Creeping into
the house again, they whistled, and Billy coming in, told them that
the masters had gone, and all was safe.

“Glad ye’re not twigged, gen’lmen,” he said; “but there’ll be a
pretty sight of damage for all this glass and plates.”

“Shut up with your glass and plates,” said Wildney. “Here, Eric,
we must cut for it again.”

It was the dusk of a winter evening when they got out from the
close room into the open air, and they had to consider which way
they would choose to avoid discovery. They happened to choose the
wrong, but escaped by dint of hard running, and Wildney’s old short
cut. As they ran they passed several boys (who having been caught,
were walking home leisurely), and managed to get back undiscovered,
when they both answered their names quite innocently at the
roll-call, immediately after lock up.

“What lucky dogs you are to get off,” said many boys to
them.

“Yes, it’s precious lucky for me,” said Wildney. “If I’d been
caught at this kind of thing a second time, I should have got
something worse than a swishing.”

“Well, it’s all through you I escaped,” said Eric, “you knowing
little scamp.”

“I’m glad of it, Eric,” said Wildney in his fascinating way,
“since it is all through me you went. It’s rather too hazardous
though; we must manage better another time.”

During tea-time Eric was silent, as he felt pretty sure that
none of the sixth form or other study boys would particularly
sympathise with his late associates. Since the previous evening he
had been cool with Duncan, and the rest had long rather despised
him as a boy who’d do anything to be popular; so he sat there
silent, looking as disdainful as he could, and not touching the
tea, for which he felt disinclined after the recent potations. But
the contemptuous exterior hid a self-reproving heart, and he felt
how far more noble Owen and Montagu were than he. How gladly would
he have changed places with them! how much he would have given to
recover some of their forfeited esteem!

The master on duty was Mr. Rose, and after tea he left the room
for a few minutes while the tables were cleared for “preparation,”
and the boys were getting out their books and exercises. All the
study and class-room boys were expected to go away during this
interval; but Eric, not noticing Mr. Rose’s entrance, sat
gossipping with Wildney about the dinner and its possible
consequences to the school.

He was sitting on the desk carelessly, with one leg over the
other, and bending down towards Wildney. He had just told him that
he looked like a regular little sunbeam in the smoking-room of the
Jolly Herring, and Wildney was pretending to be immensely offended
by the simile.

“Hush! no more talking,” said Mr. Rose, who did everything very
gently and quietly. Eric heard him, but he was inclined to linger,
and had always received such mild treatment from Mr. Rose, that he
didn’t think he would take much notice of the delay. For the moment
he did not, so Wildney began to chatter again.

“All study boys to leave the room,” said Mr. Rose.

Eric just glanced round and moved slightly; he might have gone
away, but that he caught a satirical look in Wildney’s eye, and
besides wanted to show off a little indifference to his old master,
with whom he had had no intercourse since their last-mentioned
conversation.

“Williams, go away instantly; what do you mean by staying after
I have dismissed you?” said Mr. Rose sternly.

Every one knew what a favorite Eric had once been, so this
speech created a slight titter. The boy heard it just as he was
going out of the room, and it annoyed him, and called to arms all
his proud and dogged obstinacy. Pretending to have forgotten
something, he walked conceitedly back to Wildney, and whispered to
him, “I shan’t go if he chooses to speak like that.”

A red flush passed over Mr. Rose’s cheek; he took two strides to
Eric, and laid the cane sharply once across his back.

Eric was not quite himself, or he would not have acted as he had
done. His potations, though not deep, had, with the exciting events
of the evening, made his head giddy, and the stroke of the cane,
which he had not felt now for two years, roused him to madness. He
bounded up, sprang towards Mr. Rose, and almost before he knew what
he was about, had wrenched the cane out of his hands, twisted it
violently in the middle until it broke, and flung one of the pieces
furiously into the fire.

For one instant, boy and master–Eric Williams and Mr.
Rose–stood facing each other amid breathless silence, the boy
panting and passionate, with his brain swimming, and his heart on
fire; the master pale, grieved, amazed beyond measure, but
perfectly self-collected.

“After that exhibition,” said Mr. Rose, with cold and quiet
dignity, “you had better leave the room.”

“Yes, I had,” answered Eric bitterly; “there’s your cane.” And,
flinging the other fragment at Mr. Rose’s head, he strode blindly
out of the room, sweeping books from the table, and overturning
several boys in his way. He then banged the door with all his
force, and rushed up into his study.

Duncan was there, and remarking his wild look and demeanor,
asked, after a moment’s awkward silence, “Is anything the matter,
Williams?”

“Williams!” echoed Eric with a scornful laugh; “yes, that’s
always the way with a fellow when he’s in trouble. I always know
what’s coming when you begin to leave off calling me by my
Christian name.”

“Very well, then,” said Duncan, good-humoredly, “what’s the
matter, Eric?”

“Matter?” answered Brie, pacing up and down the little room with
an angry to-and-fro like a caged wild beast, and kicking everything
which came in his way. “Matter? hang you all, you are all turning
against me, because you are a set of muffs, and—-“

“Take care!” said Duncan; but suddenly he caught Eric’s look,
and stopped.

“And I’ve been breaking Rose’s cane over his head, because he
had the impudence to touch, me with it, and—-“

“Eric, you’re not yourself to-night,” said Duncan, interrupting,
but speaking in the kindest tone; and taking Eric’s hand, he looked
him steadily in the face.

Their eyes met; the boy’s false self once more slipped off. By a
strong effort he repressed the rising passion which the fumes of
drink had caused, and flinging him self on his chair, refused to
speak again, or even to go down stairs when the prayer-bell
rang.

Seeing that in his present mood there was nothing to be done
with him, Duncan, instead of returning to the study, went after
prayers into Montagu’s, and talked with him over the recent events,
of which the boys’ minds were all full.

But Eric sat lonely, sulky, and miserable, in his study, doing
nothing, and when Montagu came in to visit him, felt inclined to
resent his presence.

“So!” he said, looking up at the ceiling, “another saint come to
cast a stone at me! Well! I suppose I must be resigned,” he
continued, dropping his cheek on his hand again; “only don’t let
the sermon be long.”

But Montagu took no notice of his sardonic harshness, and seated
himself by his side, though Eric pettishly pushed him away.

“Come, Eric,” said Montagu, taking the hand which was repelling
him; “I won’t be repulsed in this way. Look at me. What? won’t you
even look? Oh Eric, one wouldn’t have fancied this in past days,
when we were so much together with one who is dead. It’s a long
long time since we’ve eyen alluded to him, but I shall never
forget those happy days.”

Eric heaved a deep sigh.

“I’m not come to reproach you. You don’t give me a friend’s
right to reprove. But still, Eric, for your own sake, dear fellow,
I can’t help being sorry for all this. I did hope you’d have broken
with Brigson after the thrashing I gave him, for the way in which
he treated me. I don’t think you can know the mischief he is
doing.”

The large tears began to soften the fire of Eric’s eye, “Ah!” he
said, “it’s all of no use; you’re all giving me the cold shoulder,
and I’m going to the bad, that’s the long and short of it.”

“Oh, Eric! for your own sake, for your parents’ sake, for the
school’s sake, for all your real friends’ sake, don’t talk in that
bitter hopeless way. You are too noble a fellow to be made the tool
or the patron of the boys who lead, while they seem to follow you.
I do hope you’ll join us even yet in resisting them.”

Eric had laid his head on the table, which shook with his
emotion. “I can’t talk, Monty,” he said, in an altered tone; “but
leave me now; and if you like, we will have a walk to-morrow.”

“Most willingly, Eric.” And again, warmly pressing his hand,
Montagu returned to his own study.

Soon after, there came a timid knock at Eric’s door. He expected
Wildney as usual; a little before, he had been looking out for him,
and hoping he would come, but he didn’t want to see him now, so he
answered rather peevishly, “Come in; but I don’t want to be
bothered to-night.”

Not Wildney, but Vernon appeared at the door. “May I come in?
not if it bothers you, Eric,” he said, gently.

“Oh, Verny, I didn’t know it was you; I thought it would be
Wildney. You never come now.”

The little boy came in, and his pleading look seemed to say,
“Whose fault is that?”

“Come here, Verny;” and Eric drew him towards him, and put him
on his knee, while the tears trembled large and luminous in the
child’s eyes.

It was the first time for many a long day that the brothers had
been alone together, the first time for many a long day that any
acts of kindness had passed between them. Both seemed to remember
this, and, at the same time, to remember home, and their absent
parents, and their mother’s prayers, and all the quiet
half-forgotten vista of innocent pleasures, and sacred
relationships, and holy affections. And why did they see each other
so little at school? Their consciences told them both, that either
wished to conceal from the other his wickedness and forgetfulness
of God.

They wept together; and once more, as they had not done since
they were children, each brother put his arm round the other’s
neck, and remorseful Eric could not help being amazed, how, in his
cruel heartless selfishness, he had let that fair child go so far
astray; left him as a prey to such boys as were his companions in
the lower school.

“Eric, did you know I was caught to-night at the dinner?”

“You!” said Brie, with a start and a deep blush. “Good heavens!
I didn’t notice you, and should not have dreamt of coming, if I’d
known you were there. Oh, Vernon, forgive me for setting you such,
a bad example.”

“Yes, I was there, and I was caught.”

“Poor boy! but never mind; there are such a lot that you can’t
get much done to you.”

“It isn’t that I care for; I’ve been flogged before, you
know. But–may I say something?”

“Yes, Vernon, anything you like.”

“Well, then,–oh, Eric! I am so, so sorry that you did that to
Mr. Rose to-night. All the fellows are praising you up, of course;
but I could have cried to see it, and I did. I wouldn’t have minded
if it had been anybody but Rose.”

“But why?”

“Because, Eric, he’s been so good, so kind to both of us. You’ve
often told me about him, you know, at Fairholm, and he’s done such,
lots of kind things to me. And only to-night, when he heard I was
caught, he sent for me to the library, and spoke so firmly, yet so
gently, about the wickedness of going to such low places, and about
so young a boy as I am learning to drink, and the ruin of it
and–and”–His voice was choked by sobs for a time,–“and then he
knelt down and prayed for me, so as I have never heard any one pray
but mother;–and do you know, Eric, it was strange, but I thought I
did hear our mother’s voice praying for me too, while he
prayed, and”–He tried in vain to go on; but Eric’s conscience
continued for him; “and just as he had ceased doing this for one
brother, the other brother, for whom he has often done the same,
treated him with coarseness, violence, and insolence.”

“Oh, I am utterly wretched, Verny. I hate myself And to think
that while I am like this, they are yet loving and praising me at
home. And, oh, Verny, I was so sorry to hear from Duncan, how you
were talking the other day.”

Vernon hid his face on Eric’s shoulder; and as his brother
stooped over him, and folded him to his heart, they cried in
silence, until wearied with sorrow, the younger fell asleep; and
then Eric carried him tenderly down stairs, and laid him, still
half-sleeping, upon his bed.

He laid him down, and looked at him as he slumbered. The other
boys had not been disturbed by their noiseless entrance, and he sat
down on his brother’s bed to think, shading off the light of the
candle with his hand. It was rarely now that Eric’s thoughts were
so rich with the memories of childhood, and sombre with the
consciousness of sin, as they were that night, while he gazed on
his brother Vernon’s face. He did not know what made him look so
long and earnestly; an indistinct sorrow, an unconjectured
foreboding, passed over his mind, like the shadow of a summer
cloud. Vernon was now slumbering deeply; his soft childish curls
fell off his forehead, and his head nestled in the pillow; but
there was an expression of uneasiness on his sleeping features, and
the long eyelashes were still wet with tears.

“Poor child,” thought Eric; “dear little Vernon; and he is to be
flogged, perhaps birched, to-morrow.”

He went off sadly to bed, and hardly once remembered, that
he too would come in for certain punishment the next
day.

CHAPTER IV

MR. ROSE AND BRIGSON

“Raro antecedentem scelestum
Deseruit pede Poena claudo.”–HOR.

After prayers the next morning Dr. Rowlands spoke to his
boarders on the previous day’s discovery, and in a few forcible
vivid words set before them, the enormity of the offence. He ended
by announcing that the boys who were caught would be
birched,–“except the elder ones, Bull and Brigson, who will bring
me one hundred lines every hour of the half-holidays till further
notice. There are some,” he said, “I am well aware, who, though
present yesterday, were not detected. I am sorry for it, for
their sakes; they will be more likely to sin again. In cases
like this, punishment is a blessing, and impunity a burden.” On
leaving the room he bade Eric follow him into his study. Eric
obeyed, and stood before the head-master with downcast eyes.

“Williams,” he said, “I have had a great regard for you, and
felt a deep interest in you from the day I first saw you, and knew
your excellent parents. At one time I had conceived great hopes of
your future course, and your abilities seemed likely to blossom
into noble fruit. But you fell off greatly, and grew idle and
careless. At last an event happened, in which for a time you acted
worthily of yourself, and which seemed to arouse you from your
negligence and indifference. All my hopes in you revived; but as I
continued to watch your course (more closely, perhaps, than you
supposed), I observed with pain that those hopes must be again
disappointed. It needs but a glance at your countenance to be sure
that you are not so upright or right-minded a boy as you were two
years ago. I can judge only from your outward course; but I deeply
fear, Williams, I deeply fear, that in other respects also
you are going the down-hill road. And what am I to think now, when
on the same morning, you and your little brother both
come before me for such serious and heavy faults? I cannot free you
from blame even for his misdoings, for you are his natural
guardian here; I am only glad that you were not involved with him
in that charge.”

“Let me bear the punishment, sir, instead of him,” said
Eric, by a sudden impulse; “for I misled him, and was there
myself.”

Dr. Rowlands paced the room in deep sorrow. “You, Williams! on
the verge of the sixth form. Alas! I fear, from this, that the
state of things among you is even worse than I had supposed.”

Eric again hung his head.

“No; you have confessed the sin voluntarily, and therefore at
present I shall not notice it; only, let me entreat you to beware.
But I must turn to the other matter. What excuse have you for your
intolerable conduct to Mr. Rose, who, as I know, has shown you from
the first the most unusual and disinterested kindness?”

“I cannot defend myself, sir. I was excited, and could not
control my passion.”

“Then you must sit down here, and write an apology, which I
shall make you read aloud before the whole school at twelve
to-day.”

Eric, with trembling hand, wrote his apology, and Dr Rowlands
glanced at it. “Come to me again at twelve,” he said.

At twelve all the school were assembled, and Eric, pale and
miserable, followed the Doctor into the great school-room. The
masters stood at one end of the room, and among them Mr. Rose, who,
however, appeared an indifferent and uninterested spectator of the
transaction. Every eye was fixed on Eric, and every one pitied
him.

“We are assembled,” said Dr. Rowlands, “for an act of justice.
One of your number has insulted a master publicly, and is ashamed
of his conduct, and has himself written the apology which he will
read. I had intended to add a still severer punishment, but Mr.
Rose has earnestly begged me not to do so, and I have succumbed to
his wishes. Williams, read your apology.”

There was a dead hush, and Eric tried once or twice in vain to
utter a word. At last, by a spasmodic effort, he regained his
voice, and read, but in so low and nervous a tone, that not even
those nearest him heard what he was saying.

Dr. Rowlands took the paper from him. “Owing,” he said, “to a
very natural and pardonable emotion, the apology has been read in
such a way that you could not have understood it. I will therefore
read it myself. It is to this effect–

“‘I, Eric Williams, beg humbly and sincerely to apologise for my
passionate and ungrateful insult to Mr. Rose.’

“You will understand that he was left quite free to choose his
own expressions; and as he has acknowledged his shame and
compunction for the act, I trust that none of you will be tempted
to elevate him into a hero, for a folly which he himself so much
regrets. This affair,–as I should wish all bad deeds to be after
they have once been punished,–will now be forgiven, and I hope
forgotten.”

They left the room and dispersed, and Eric fancied that all
shunned and looked coldly on his degradation But not so: Montagu
came, and taking his arm in the old friendly way, went a walk with
him. It was a constrained and silent walk, and they were both glad
when it was over, although Montagu did all he could to show that he
loved Eric no less than before. Still it was weeks since they had
been much together, and they had far fewer things in common now
than they used to have.

“I’m so wretched, Monty,” said Eric at last; “do you think Rose
despises me?”

“I am sure of the contrary. Won’t you go to him, Eric,
and say all you feel?”

“Heigh ho! I shall never get right again. Oh, to recover the
last two years!”

“You can redeem them, Eric, by a nobler present. Let the same
words comfort you that have often brought hope to me–‘I will
restore the years which the locust hath eaten.'”

They reached the school-door, and Eric went straight to the
library. Mr. Rose was there alone. He received him kindly, as
usual, and Eric went up to the fire-place where he was standing.
They had often stood by that library fire on far different
terms.

“Forgive me, sir,” was all Eric could say, as the tears rushed
to his eyes.

“Freely, my boy,” said Mr. Rose, sadly. “I wish you could feel
how fully I forgive you; but,” he added, laying his hand for the
last time on Eric’s head, “you have far more, Eric, to forgive
yourself. I will not talk to you, Eric; it would be little good, I
fear; but you little know how much I pity and tremble for you.”

While these scenes were being enacted with Eric, a large group
was collected round the fire-place in the boarders’ room, and many
tongues were loudly discussing the recent events.

Alas for gratitude! there was not a boy in that group to whom
Mr. Rose had not done many an act of kindness; and to most of them
far more than they ever knew. Many a weary hour had he toiled for
them in private, when his weak frame was harassed by suffering;
many a sleepless night had he wrestled for them in prayer, when,
for their sakes, his own many troubles were laid aside. Work on,
Walter Rose, and He who seeth in secret will reward you openly! but
expect no gratitude from those for whose salvation you, like the
great tenderhearted apostle, would almost be ready to wish yourself
accursed.

Nearly every one in that noisy group was abusing Mr. Rose. It
had long been Brigson’s cue to do so; he derided him on every
opportunity, and delighted to represent him as hypocritical and
insincere. Even his weak health was the subject of Brigson’s coarse
ridicule, and the bad boy paid, in deep hatred, the natural tribute
which vice must ever accord to excellence.

“You see how he turns on his pets if they offend him,” said
Brigson; “why, even that old beast Gordon isn’t as bad.”

“Yes; while poor Eric was reading, Rose reminded me of Milton’s
serpent,” drawled Bull;

“Hope elevates and joy brightens his
crest.”

“He-e-ar! He-e-ar!” said Pietrie; “vide the last fifth
form Rep.”

“I expect Eric won’t see everything so much couleur de
Rose now, as the French frog hath it,” remarked Graham.

“It was too bad to stand by and triumph, certainly,” observed
Wildney.

“I say, you fellows,” remonstrated Wright, who, with Vernon, was
sitting reading a book at one of the desks, “all that isn’t fair.
I’m sure you all saw how really sorry Rose looked about it; and he
said, you know, that it was merely for the sake of school
discipline that he put the matter in Rowlands’ hands.”

“Discipline be hanged,” shouted Brigson; “we’ll have our revenge
on him yet, discipline or no.”

“I hope you won’t, though,” said Vernon; “I know Eric will be
sorry if you do.”

“The more muff he. We shall do as we like.”

“Well, I shall tell him; and I’m sure he’ll ask you not. You
know how he tries to stick up for Rose.”

“If you say a word more,” said Brigson, unaccustomed to being
opposed among his knot of courtiers, “I’ll kick you out of the
room; you and that wretched little fool there with you.”

“You may do as you like,” answered Wright, quietly, “but you
won’t go on like this long, I can tell you.”

Brigson tried to seize him, but failing, contented himself with
flinging a big coal at him as he ran out of the room, which
narrowly missed his head.

“I have it!” said Brigson; “that little donkey’s given me an
idea. We’ll crust Rose to-night.”

“To crust,” gentle reader, means to pelt an obnoxious person
with crusts.

“Capital!” said some of the worst boys present; “we will.”

“Well, who’ll take part?”

No one offered. “What! are we all turning sneaks and cowards?
Here, Wildney, won’t you? you were abusing Rose just now.”

“Yes, I will,” said Wildney, but with no great alacrity. “You’ll
not have done till you’ve got us all expelled, I believe.”

“Fiddle-stick end! and what if we are? besides, he can’t expel
half the school.”

First two or three more offered, and then a whole lot, gaining
courage by numbers. So the plot was regularly laid. Pietrie and
Graham were to put out the lights at each end of one table
immediately after tea, and Wildney and Brooking at the other, when
the study fellows had gone out. There would then be only Mr. Rose’s
candle burning, and the two middle candles, which, in so large a
room, would just give enough light for their purpose. Then all the
conspirators were to throng around the door, and from it aim their
crusts at Mr. Rose’s head, Not nearly so many would have
volunteered to join, but that they fancied Mr. Rose was too gentle
to take up the matter with vigor, and they were encouraged by his
quiet leniency towards Eric the night before. It was agreed that no
study-boy should be told of the intention, lest any of them should
interfere.

Many hearts beat fast at tea that night as they observed that
numbers of boys, instead of eating all their bread, were cutting
off the crusts, and breaking them into good-sized bits.

Tea finished, Mr. Rose said grace, and then sat down quietly
reading in his desk. The signal agreed on was the (accidental)
dropping of a plate by Brigson. The study-boys left the room.

Crash!–down fell a plate on the floor, breaking to pieces in
the fall.

Instantly the four candles went out, and there was a hurried
movement towards the door, and a murmur of voices.

“Now then,” said Brigson, in a loud whisper, “what a funky set
you are! Here goes?”

The master, surprised at the sudden gloom and confusion, had
just looked up, unable to conjecture what was the matter. Brigson’s
crust caught him a sharp rap on the forehead as he moved.

In an instant he started up, and ten or twelve more crusts flew
by or hit him on the head, as he strode out of the desk towards the
door. Directly he stirred, there was a rush of boys into the
passage, and if he had once lost his judgment or temper, worse harm
might have followed. But he did not. Going to the door, he said,
“Preparation will be in five minutes; every boy not then in his
place will be punished.”

During that five minutes the servants had cleared away the tea,
full of wonder; but Mr. Rose paced up and down the room, taking no
notice of any one. Immediately after, all the boys were in their
places, with their books open before them, and in the thrilling
silence you might have heard a pin drop. Every one felt that Mr.
Rose was master of the occasion, and awaited his next step in
terrified suspense.

They all perceived how thoroughly they had mistaken their
subject. The ringleaders would have given all they had to be well
out of the scrape. Mr. Rose ruled by kindness, but he never
suffered his will to be disputed for an instant. He governed with
such consummate tact, that they hardly felt it to be government at
all, and hence arose their stupid miscalculation. But he felt that
the time was now come to assert his paramount authority, and
determined to do so at once and for ever.

“Some of you have mistaken me,” he said, in a voice so strong
and stern that it almost startled them. “The silly display of
passion in one boy yesterday has led you to presume that you may
trifle with me. You are wrong. For Williams’ sake, as a boy who
has, or at least once had, something noble in him, I left
that matter in the Doctor’s hands. I shall not do so
to-night. Which of you put out the candles?”

Dead silence. A pause.

“Which of you had the audacity to throw pieces of bread at
me?”

Still silence.

“I warn you that I will know, and it will be far worse
for the guilty if I do not know at once.” There was unmistakeable
decision in the tone.

“Very well. I know many boys who were not guilty because
I saw them in parts of the room where to throw was impossible. I
shall now ask all the rest, one by one, if they took any
part in this. And beware of telling me a lie.”

There was an uneasy sensation in the room, and several boys
began to whisper aloud, “Brigson! Brigson!” The whisper grew
louder, and Mr. Rose heard it. He turned on Brigson like a lion,
and said–

“They call your name; stand out!”

The awkward, big, ungainly boy, with his repulsive countenance,
shambled out of his place into the middle of the room. Mr. Rose
swept him with one flashing glance. “That is the boy,”
thought he to himself, “who has been like an ulcer to this school.
These boys shall have a good look at their hero.” It was but
recently that Mr. Rose knew all the harm which Brigson had been
doing, though he had discovered, almost from the first, what
sort of character he had.

So Brigson stood out in the room, and as they looked at him,
many a boy cursed him in their hearts for evil taught them, such as
a lifetime’s struggle could not unteach. And it was that
fellow, that stupid, clumsy, base compound of meanness and malice,
that had ruled like a king among them. Faugh!

“They call your name! Do you know anything of this?”

“No!” said Brigson; “I’ll swear I’d nothing to do with it.”

“Oh-h-h-h!” the long, intense, deep-drawn expression of disgust
and contempt ran round the room.

“You have told me a lie!” said Mr. Rose, slowly, and with
ineffable contempt. “No words can express my loathing for your
false and dishonorable conduct. Nor shall your lie save you, as you
shall find immediately. Still, you shall escape if you can or dare
to deny it again. I repeat my question–Were you engaged in
this?”

He fixed his full, piercing eye on the culprit, whom it seemed
to scorch and wither. Brigson winced back, and said nothing. “As I
thought,” said Mr. Rose.

“Not one boy only, but many, were engaged. I shall call
you up one by one to answer me. Wildney, come here.”

The boy walked in front of the desk.

“Were you one of those who threw?”

Wildney, full as he was of dangerous and deadly faults, was no
coward, and not a liar. He knew, or at least feared, that this new
scrape might be fatal to him, but, raising his dark and glistening
eyes to Mr. Rose, he said penitently–

“I didn’t throw, sir, but I did put out one of the
candles that it might be done.”

The contrast with Brigson was very great; the dark cloud hung a
little less darkly on Mr. Rose’s forehead, and there was a very
faint murmur of applause.

“Good! stand back. Pietrie, come up.”

Pietrie, too, confessed, and indeed all the rest of the plotters
except Brooking. Mr. Rose’s lip curled with scorn as he heard the
exclamation which his denial caused; but he suffered him to sit
down.

When Wright’s turn came to be asked, Mr. Rose said–“No! I shall
not even ask you, Wright. I know well that your character is too
good to be involved in such an attempt.”

The boy bowed humbly, and sat down. Among the last questioned
was Vernon Williams, and Mr. Rose seemed anxious for his
answer.

“No,” he said at once,–and seemed to wish to add something.

“Go on,” said Mr. Rose, encouragingly.

“Oh, sir! I only wanted to say that I hope you won’t think Eric
knew of this. He would have hated it, sir, more even than I
do.”

“Good,” said Mr. Rose; “I am sure of it. And now,” turning to
the offenders, “I shall teach you never to dare again to be guilty
of such presumption and wickedness as to-night. I shall punish you
according to my notion of your degrees of guilt. Brigson, bring me
a cane from that desk.”

He brought it.

“Hold out your hand.”

The cane fell, and instantly split up from top to bottom. Mr.
Rose looked at it, for it was new that morning.

“Hah! I see; more mischief; there is a hair in it.”

The boys were too much frightened to smile at the complete
success of the trick.

“Who did this? I must be told at once.”

“I did, sir,” said Wildney, stepping forward.

“Ha! very well,” said Mr. Rose, while, in spite of his anger, a
smile hovered at the corner of his lips. “Go and borrow me a cane
from Mr. Harley.”

While he went there was unbroken silence.

“Now, sir,” said he to Brigson, “I shall flog you.”

Corporal punishment was avoided with the bigger boys, and
Brigson had never undergone it before. At the first stroke he
writhed and yelled; at the second he retreated, twisting like a
serpent, and blubbering like a baby; at the third he flung himself
on his knees, and, as the strokes fell fast, clasped Mr. Rose’s
arm, and implored and besought for mercy.

“Miserable coward,” said Mr. Rose, throwing into the word
such ringing scorn that no one who heard it ever forgot it. He
indignantly shook the boy off, and caned him till he rolled on the
floor, losing every particle of self-control, and calling out, “The
devil–the devil–the devil!” (“invoking his patron saint,” as
Wildney maliciously observed).

“There! cease to blaspheme, and get up,” said the master,
blowing out a cloud of fiery indignation. “There, sir. Retribution
comes at last, leaden-footed but iron-handed. A long catalogue of
sins is visited on you to-day, and not only on your shrinking body,
but on your conscience too, if you have one left. Let those red
marks betoken that your reign is ended. Liar and tempter, you have
led boys into the sins which you then meanly deny! And now, you
boys, there in that coward, who cannot even endure his
richly-merited punishment, see the boy whom you have suffered to be
your leader for well-nigh six months!”

“Now, sir”–again he turned upon Brigson–“that flogging shall
be repeated with interest on your next offence. At present you will
take each boy on your back while I cane him. It is fit that they
should see where you lead them to.”

Trembling violently, and cowed beyond description, he did as he
was bid. No other boy cried, or even winced; a few sharp cuts was
all which Mr. Rose gave them, and even they grew fewer each time,
for he was tired, and displeased to be an executioner.

“And now,” he said, “since that disgusting but necessary scene
is over, never let me have to repeat it again.”

But his authority was established like a rock from that night
forward. No one ever ventured to dispute it again, or forgot that
evening. Mr. Rose’s noble moral influence gained tenfold strength
from the respect and wholesome fear that he then inspired.

But, as he had said, Brigson’s reign was over. Looks of the most
unmitigated disgust and contempt were darted at him, as he sat
alone and shunned at the end of the table; and the boys seemed now
to loathe and nauseate the golden calf they had been worshipping.
He had not done blubbering even yet, when the prayer-bell rang. No
sooner had Mr. Rose left the room than Wildney, his dark eyes
sparkling with rage, leaped on the table, and shouted–

“Three groans, hoots, and hisses, for a liar and a coward,” a
sign of execration which he was the first to lead off, and which
the boys echoed like a storm.

Astonished at the tumult, Mr. Rose re-appeared at the door. “Oh,
we’re not hissing you, sir,” said Wildney excitedly; “we’re all
hissing at lying and cowardice.”

Mr. Rose thought the revulsion of feeling might do good, and he
was striding out again, without a word, when–

“Three times three for Mr. Rose,” sang out Wildney.

Never did a more hearty or spontaneous cheer burst from the lips
and lungs of fifty boys than that. The news had spread like
wildfire to the studies, and the other boys came flocking in during
the uproar, to join in it heartily. Cheer after cheer rang out like
a sound of silver clarions from the clear boy-voices; and in the
midst of the excited throng stood Eric and Montagu, side by side,
hurrahing more lustily than all the rest.

But Mr. Rose, in the library, was on his knees, with moving lips
and lifted hands. He coveted the popular applause as little as he
had dreaded the popular opposition; and the evening’s painful
experiences had taught him anew the bitter lesson to expect no
gratitude, and hope for no reward, but simply, and contentedly, and
unmurmuringly, to work on in God’s vineyard so long as life and
health should last.

Brigson’s brazen forehead bore him through the disgrace which
would have crushed another. But still he felt that his position at
Roslyn could never be what it had been before, and he therefore
determined to leave at once. By grossly calumniating the school, he
got his father to remove him, and announced, to every one’s great
delight, that he was going in a fortnight. On his last day, by way
of bravado, he smashed and damaged as much of the school property
as he could, a proceeding which failed to gain him any admiration,
and merely put his father to ruinous expense.

The day after his exposure Eric had cut him dead, without the
least pretence of concealment; an example pretty generally followed
throughout the school.

In the evening Brigson went up to Eric and hissed in his ear,
“You cut me, curse you; but, never fear, I’ll be revenged on you
yet.”

“Do your worst,” answered Eric, contemptuously, “and never speak
to me again.”

CHAPTER V

RIPPLES

“Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And live for ever and for ever.”–TENNYSON.

Owen and Montagu were walking by Silverburn, and talking over
the affairs of the school. During their walk they saw Wright and
Vernon Williams in front of them.

“I am so glad to see those two together,” said Montagu; “I
really think Wright is one of the best little fellows in the
school, and he’ll be the saving of Vernon. He’s already persuaded
him to leave off smoking and other bad things, and has got him to
work a little harder, and turn over a new leaf altogether.”

“Yes,” answered Owen; “I’ve seen a marvellous improvement in
little Williams lately. I think that Duncan gave him a rough lesson
the other night which did him good, and dear old Rose too has been
leading him by the hand; but the best thing is that, through
Wright, he sees less of Eric’s friend, that young scapegrace
Wildney.”

“Yes; that little wretch has a good deal to answer for. What a
pity that Eric spoils him so, or rather suffers himself to be
spoilt by him. I’m glad Vernon’s escaped his influence now; he’s
too fine a boy to be made as bad as the general run of them. What a
brilliant little fellow he is; just like his brother.”

“Just like what his brother was,” said Owen; “his face,
like his mind, has suffered lately.”

“Too true,” answered Montagu, with a sigh; “and yet, cool as we
now are in our outward intercourse, he little knows how I love him,
and yearn for the Eric I once knew. Would to God poor Russell had
lived, and then I believe that Williams wouldn’t have gone so for
wrong.”

“Well, I think there’s another chance for him now
that–that–what name is bad enough, for that Brigson?–is
gone.”

“I hope so. But”–he added after a pause–“his works do follow
him. Look there!” He took a large stone and threw it into the
Silverburn stream; there was a great splash, and then ever-widening
circles of blue ripple broke the surface of the water, dying away
one by one in the sedges on the bank. “There,” he said, “see how
long those ripples last, and how numerous they are.”

Owen understood him. “Poor Williams! What a gleam of new hope
there was in him after Russell’s death!”

“Yes, for a time,” said Montagu; “heigh ho! I fear we shall
never be warm friends again. We can’t be while he goes on as he is
doing. And yet I love him.”

A sudden turn of the stream brought them to the place called
Riverbend.

“If you want a practical comment on what we’ve been talking
about, you’ll see it there,” said Montagu.

He pointed to a party of boys, four or five, all lying on a
pleasant grass bank, smoking pipes. Prominent among them was Eric,
stretched at ease, and looking up at the clouds, towards which
curled the puffed fumes of his meerschaum–a gift of Wildney’s.
That worthy was beside him similarly employed.

The two sixth-form boys hoped to pass by unobserved, as they did
not wish for a rencontre with our hero under such circumstances.
But they saw Wildney pointing to them, and, from the fits of
laughter which followed his remarks, they had little doubt that
they were the subject of the young gentleman’s wit. This is never a
pleasant sensation; but they observed that Eric made a point of not
looking their way, and went on in silence.

“How very sad!” said Montagu.

“How very contemptible!” said Owen.

“Did you observe what they were doing?”

“Smoking?”

“Worse than that a good deal. They were doing something which,
if Eric doesn’t take care, will one day be his ruin.”

“What?”

“I saw them drinking. I have little doubt it was brandy.”

“Good heavens!”

“It is getting a common practice with some fellows. One of the
ripples, you see, of Brigson’s influence.”

Before they got home they caught up Wright and Vernon, and
walked in together.

“We’ve been talking,” said Wright, “about a bad matter. Vernon
here says that there’s no good working for a prize in his form,
because the cribbing’s so atrocious. Indeed, it’s very nearly as
bad in my form. It always is under Gordon; he can’t
understand fellows doing dishonorable things.”

“It’s a great bore in the weekly examinations,” said Vernon;
“every now and then Gordon will even leave the room for a few
minutes, and then out come dozens of books.”

“Well, Wright,” said Montagu, “if that happens again next
examination, I’d speak out about it.”

“How?”

“Why, I’d get every fellow who disapproves of it to give me his
name, and get up and read the list, and say that you at least have
pledged yourselves not to do it.”

“Humph! I don’t know how that would answer. They’d half kill me
for one thing.”

“Never mind; do your duty. I wish I’d such an opportunity, if
only to show how sorry I am for my own past unfairness.”

And so talking, the four went in, and the two elder went to
their study.

It was too true that drinking had become a common vice at Roslyn
school. Accordingly, when Eric came in with Wildney about half an
hour after, Owen and Montagu heard them talk about ordering some
brandy, and then arrange to have a “jollification,” that
evening.

They got the brandy through “Billy.” One of Brigson’s most
cursed legacies to the school was the introduction of this man to a
nefarious intercourse with the boys. His character was so well
known that it had long been forbidden, under the strictest penalty,
for any boy ever to speak to him; yet, strange to say, they seemed
to take a pleasure in doing so, and just now particularly it was
thought a fine thing, a sign of “pluck” and “anti-muffishness,” to
be on familiar and intimate terms with that degraded and villainous
scoundrel.

Duncan had made friends again with Eric; but he did not join him
in his escapades and excesses, and sat much in other studies. He
had not been altogether a good boy, but yet there was a sort of
rough honesty and good sense about him, which preserved him from
the worst and most dangerous failings, and his character had been
gradually improving as he mounted higher in the school. He was
getting steadier, more diligent, more thoughtful, more manly; he
was passing through that change so frequent in boys as they grow
older, to which Eric was so sad an exception. Accordingly Duncan,
though sincerely fond of Eric, had latterly disapproved vehemently
of his proceedings, and had therefore taken to snubbing his old
friend Wildney, in whose favor Eric seemed to have an infatuation,
and who was the means of involving him in every kind of impropriety
and mischief. So that night Duncan, hearing of what was intended,
sat in the next study, and Eric, with Bull, Wildney, Graham, and
Pietrie, had the room to themselves. Several of them were lower
boys still, but they came to the studies after bed-time, according
to Wildney’s almost nightly custom.

A little pebble struck the study window.

“Hurrah!” said Wildney, clapping his hands, “here’s the
grub.”

They opened the window and looked out. Billy was there, and they
let down to him a long piece of cord, to which he attached a
basket, and, after bidding them “Good night, and a merry drink,”
retired. No sooner had they shut the window, than he grimaced as
usual towards them, and shook his fist in a sort of demoniacal
exultation, muttering, “Oh, I’ll have you all under my thumb yet,
you fine young fools!”

Meanwhile the unconscious boys had opened the basket, and spread
its contents on the table. They were, bread, a large dish of
sausages, a tart, beer, and, alas! a bottle of brandy.

They soon got very noisy, and at last uproarious. The snatches
of songs, peals of laughter, and rattle of plates, at last grew so
loud that the other study-boys were afraid lest one of the masters
should come up and catch the revellers. All of them heard every
word that was spoken by Eric and his party as the walls between the
rooms were very thin; and very objectionable much of the
conversation was.

“This won’t do,” said Duncan emphatically, after a louder
burst of merriment than usual; “those fellows are getting drunk; I
can tell it to a certainty from the confused and random way in
which some of them are talking.”

“We’d better go in and speak to them,” said Montagu; “at any
rate, they’ve no right to disturb us all night. Will you come?”

“I’ll join you,” said Owen; “though I’m afraid my presence won’t
do you much good.”

The three boys went to the door of Eric’s study, and their knock
could not at first be heard for the noise. When they went in they
found a scene of reckless disorder; books were scattered about,
plates and glasses lay broken on the floor, beer was spilt on all
sides, and there was an intolerable smell of brandy.

“If you fellows don’t care,” said Duncan, sharply, “Rose or
somebody’ll be coming up and catching you. It’s ten now.”

“What’s that to you?” answered Graham, with an insolent
look.

“It’s something to me that you nice young men have been making
such a row that none of the rest of us can hear our own voices, and
that, between you, you’ve made this study in such a mess that I
can’t endure it.”

“Pooh!” said Pietrie; “we’re all getting such saints, that one
can’t have the least bit of spree now-a-days.”

“Spree!” burst in Montagu indignantly; “fine spree, to make sots
of yourselves with spirits; fine spree, to—-“

“Amen!” said Wildney, who was perched on the back of a chair;
and he turned up his eyes and clasped his hands with a mock-heroic
air.

“There, Williams,” continued Montagu, pointing to the
mischievous-looking little boy; “see that spectacle, and be ashamed
of yourself, if you can. That’s what you lead boys to! Are you
anxious to become the teacher of drunkenness?”

In truth, there was good ground for his sorrowful apostrophe,
for the scene was very painful to a high-minded witness.

They hardly understood the look on Eric’s countenance; he had
been taking far more than was good for him; his eyes sparkled
fiercely, and though as yet he said nothing, he seemed to be
resenting the intrusion in furious silence.

“How much longer is this interesting lecture to last?” asked
Bull, with his usual insufferable drawl; “for I want to finish my
brandy.”

Montagu rather looked as if he intended to give the speaker a
box on the ear; but he was just deciding that Bull wasn’t worth the
trouble, when Wildney, who had been grimacing all the time, burst
into a fit of laughter.

“Let’s turn out these impudent lower-school fellows,” said
Montagu, speaking to Duncan. “Here! you go first,” he said, seizing
Wildney by the arm, and giving him a swing, which, as he was by no
means steady on his legs, brought him sprawling to the ground.

“By Jove, I won’t stand this any longer,” shouted Eric,
springing up ferociously. “What on earth do you mean by daring to
come in like this? Do you hear?”

Montagu took no sort of notice of his threatening gesture, for
he was looking to see if Wildney was hurt, and finding he was not,
proceeded to drag him out, struggling and kicking frantically.

“Drop me, you fellow, drop me, I say. I won’t go for you,” cried
Wildney, shaking with passion. “Eric, why do you let him bully
me?”

“You let him go this minute,” repeated Eric, hoarsely.

“I shall do no such thing. You don’t know what you’re
about.”

“Don’t I? Well, then, take that, to show whether I do or
no!” and suddenly leaning forward, he struck Montagu a violent
back-handed blow on the mouth.

Everybody saw it, everybody heard it; and it instantly astounded
them into silence. That Montagu should have been struck in public,
and that by Eric–by a boy who had loved him, and whom he had
loved–by a boy who had been his schoolfellow for three years now,
and whose whole life seemed bound to him by so many associations;
it was strange, and sad indeed.

Montagu sprang straight upright; for an instant he took one
stride towards his striker with lifted hand and lightning eyes,
while the blood started to his lips in consequence of the blow. But
he stopped suddenly and his hand fell to his side; by a strong
effort of self-control he contrived to master himself, and sitting
down quite quietly on a chair, he put his white handkerchief to his
wounded mouth, and took it away stained with blood.

No one spoke; and rising with quiet dignity, he went back into
his study without a word.

“Very well,” said Duncan; “you may all do as you like; only I
heartily hope now you will be caught. Come, Owen.”

“Oh, Williams,” said Owen, “you are changed indeed, to treat
your best friend so.”

But Eric was excited with drink, and the slave of every evil
passion at that moment. “Serve him right,” he said; “what business
has he to interfere with what I choose to do?”

There was no more noise that night. Wildney and the rest slunk
off ashamed and frightened, and Eric, leaving his candle flaring on
the table, went down to his bed-room, where he was very sick. He
had neither strength nor spirit to undress, and flung himself into
bed just as was. When they heard that he was gone, Owen and Duncan
(for Montagu was silent and melancholy) went into his study, put
out the candle, and had only just cleared away, to the best of
their power, the traces of the carouse, when Dr. Rowlands came up
stairs on his usual nightly rounds. They had been lighting brown
paper to take away the fumes of the brandy, and the Doctor asked
them casually the cause of the smell of burning. Neither of them
answered, and seeing Owen there, in whom he placed implicit trust,
the Doctor thought no more about it.

Eric awoke with a bad headache, and a sense of shame and
sickness. When he got up he felt most wretched, and while washing
he thought to himself, “Ah! that I could thus wash away the memory
of last night!” Of course, after what had occurred, Eric and
Montagu were no longer on speaking terms, and miserable as poor
Eric felt when he saw how his blow had bruised and disfigured his
friend’s face, he made no advances. He longed, indeed, from his
inmost heart, to be reconciled to him; but feeling that he had done
grievous wrong, he dreaded a repulse, and his pride would not
suffer him to run the risk. So he pretended to feel no regret, and,
supported by his late boon-companions, represented the matter as
occurring in the defence of Wildney, whom Montagu was bullying.

Montagu, too, was very miserable; but he felt that, although
ready to forgive Eric, he could not, in common self-respect, take
the first step to a reconciliation: indeed, he rightly thought that
it was not for Eric’s good that he should do so.

“You and Williams appear never to speak to each other now,” said
Mr. Rose. “I am sorry for it, Monty; I think you are the only boy
who has any influence over him.”

“I fear you are mistaken, sir, in that. Little Wildney has much
more.”

“Wildney?” asked Mr. Rose, in sorrowful surprise. “Wildney more
influence than you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ah, that our poor Edwin had lived!”

So, with a sigh, Walter Rose and Harry Montagu buried their
friendship for Eric until happier days.

CHAPTER VI

ERIC AND MONTAGU

“And constancy lives in realms above;
  And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
  Doth work like madness in the brain.

---

Each spoke words of high disdain
  And insult to his heart’s best brother.”

COLERIDGE’S Christabel.

Wright had not forgotten Montagu’s advice, and had endeavored to
get the names of boys who wern’t afraid to scout publicly the
disgrace of cheating in form. But he could only get one name
promised him–the name of Vernon Williams; and feeling how little
could be gained by using it, he determined to spare Vernon the
trial, and speak, if he spoke at all, on his own
responsibility.

As usual, the cribbing at the next weekly examination was
well-nigh universal, and when Mr. Gordon went out to fetch
something he had forgotten, merely saying, “I trust to your honor
not to abuse my absence,” books and papers were immediately pulled
out with the coolest and most unblushing indifference.

This was the time for Wright to deliver his conscience; he had
counted the cost, and, rightly or wrongly considering it to be his
duty, he had decided that speak he would. He well knew that his
interference would be attributed to jealousy, meanness, sneaking,
and every kind of wrong motive, since he was himself one of the
greatest sufferers from the prevalent dishonesty; but still he had
come to the conclusion that he ought not to draw back, and
therefore he bravely determined that he would make his protest,
whatever happened.

So, very nervously, he rose and said, “I want to tell you all
that I think this cheating very wrong and blackguardly. I don’t
mind losing by it myself, but if Vernon Williams loses the prize in
the lower fourth, and any one gets it by copying, I’ve made up my
mind to tell Gordon.”

His voice trembled a little at first, but he spoke fast, and
acquired firmness as he went on. Absolute astonishment and
curiosity had held the boys silent with amazement, but by the end
of this sentence they had recovered themselves, and a perfect burst
of derision and indignation followed.

“Let’s see if that’ll cut short his oration,” said
Wildney, throwing a book at his head, which was instantly followed
by others from all quarters.

“My word! we’ve had nothing but lectures lately,” said Brooking.
“Horrid little Owenite saint.”

“Saint!–sneak, you mean. I’ll teach him,” growled Pietrie, and
jumping up, he belabored Wright’s head with the Latin grammar out
of which he had just been cribbing.

The whole room was in confusion and hubbub, during which Wright
sat stock still, quietly enduring without bowing to the storm.

Only one boy sympathised with him, but he did so deeply–poor
little penitent Vernon. He felt his position hard because Wright
had alluded so prominently to him, and he knew how much he must be
misconstrued, but he had his brother’s spirit, and would not
shrink. Amid the tumult he got up in his seat, and they heard his
pleasant, childish voice saying boldly, “I hope Wright won’t tell;
but he’s the best fellow in the room, and cribbing is a
shame, as he says.”

What notice would have been taken of this speech is doubtful,
for at the critical moment Mr. Gordon reappeared, and the whispered
cavè caused instantaneous quiet.

Poor Wright awaited with some dread the end of school; and many
an angry kick and blow he got, though he disarmed malice by the
spirit and heroism with which he endured them. The news of his
impudence spread like wildfire, and not five boys in the school
approved of what he had done, while most of them were furious at
his ill-judged threat of informing Mr. Gordon. There was a general
agreement to thrash him after roll-call that afternoon.

Eric had lately taken a violent dislike to Wright, though he had
been fond of him in better days. He used to denounce him as a
disagreeable and pragmatical little muff, and was as loud as any of
them in condemning his announced determination to “sneak.” Had he
known that Wright had acted under Montagu’s well-meant, though
rather mistaken advice, he might have abstained from having
anything more to do with the matter, but now he promised to kick
Wright himself after the four o’clock bell.

Four o’clock came; the names were called; the master left the
room. Wright, who perfectly knew what was threatened, stood there
pale but fearless. His indifferent look was an additional annoyance
to Eric, who walked up to him carelessly, and boxing his ears,
though without hurting him, said contemptuously, “Conceited little
sneak.”

Montagu had been told of the intended kicking, and had
determined even single-handed to prevent it. He did not,
however, expect that Eric would have taken part in it, and was
therefore unprepared. The color rushed into his cheeks; he went up,
took Wright quietly by the hand, and said with firm determination,
“No one in the school shall touch Wright again.”

“What? no one! just hark to that,” said Graham; “I suppose he
thinks himself cock of the school.”

Eric quite misunderstood Montagu’s proceedings; he took it for a
public challenge. All the Rowlandites were round, and to yield
would have looked like cowardice. Above all, his evil genius
Wildney was by, and said, “How very nice! another dictation
lesson!”

A threatening circle had formed round Montagu, but his closed
lips, and flushing brow, and dilated nostrils, betrayed a spirit
which made them waver, and he quietly repeated, “No one shall touch
you, Wright.”

“They will, though,” said Eric instantly; “I will,
for one, and I should like to see you prevent me.” And so saying he
gave Wright another slight blow.

Montagu dropped Wright’s hand and said slowly, “Eric Williams, I
have taken one unexpected blow from you without a word, and bear
the marks of it yet. It is time to show that it was not
through cowardice that I did not return it. Will you fight?”

The answer was not prompt by any means, though every one in the
school knew that Eric was not afraid. So sure was he of this, that,
for the sake of “auld lang syne,” he would probably have declined
to fight with Montagu had he been left to his own impulses.

“I have been in the wrong, Montagu, more than once,” he
answered, falteringly, “and we have been friends–“

But it was the object of many of the worst boys that the two
should fight–not only that they might see the fun, but that
Montagu’s authority, which stood in their way, might be flung
aside. So Brooking whispered in an audible voice–

“Faith! he’s showing the white feather.”

“You’re a liar!” flung in Eric; and turning to Montagu, he
said–“There! I’ll fight you this moment.”

Instantly they had stripped off their coats and prepared for
action. A ring of excited boys crowded round them. Fellows of
sixteen, like Montagu and Eric, rarely fight, because their battles
have usually been decided in their earlier school-days; and it was
also but seldom that two boys so strong, active, and prominent,
took this method of settling their differences.

The fight began, and at first the popular favor was entirely on
the side of Eric, while Montagu found few or none to back him. But
he fought with a fire and courage which soon won applause; and as
Eric, on the other hand, was random and spiritless, the cry was
soon pretty fairly divided between them.

After a sharp round they paused for breath, and Owen, who had
been a silent and disgusted spectator of such a combat between boys
of such high standing, said with much, feeling–

“This is not a very creditable affair, Montagu.”

“It is necessary,” was Montagu’s laconic reply.

Among other boys who had left the room before the fracas had
taken place, was Vernon Williams, who shrank away to avoid the pain
of seeing his new friend Wright bullied and tormented. But
curiosity soon took him back, and he came in just as the second
round began. At first he only saw a crowd of boys in the middle of
the room, but jumping on a desk he had a full view of what was
going on.

There was a tremendous hubbub of voices, and Eric, now
thoroughly roused by the remarks he overheard, and especially by
Wildney’s whisper that “he was letting himself be licked,” was
exerting himself with more vigor and effect. It was anything but a
noble sight; the faces of the combatants were streaked with blood
and sweat, and as the miserable gang of lower school-boys backed
them on with eager shouts of–“Now Eric, now Eric,” “Now Montagu,
go it, sixth, form,” etc., both of them fought under a sense of
deep disgrace, increased by the recollections which they shared in
common.

All this Vernon marked in a moment, and, filled with pain and
vexation, his said in a voice which, though low, could be heard
amid all the uproar, “Oh Eric, Eric, fighting with Montagu!” There
was reproach and sorrow in the tone, which touched more than one
boy there, for Vernon, spite of the recent change in him, could not
but continue a favorite.

“Shut up there, you little donkey,” shouted one or two, looking
back at him for a moment.

But Eric heard the words, and knew that it was his brother’s
voice. The thought rushed on him how degraded his whole position
was, and how different it might have been. He felt that he was
utterly in the wrong, and Montagu altogether in the right; and from
that moment his blows once more grew feeble and ill-directed. When
they again stopped to take rest, the general shout for Montagu
showed that he was considered to have the best of it.

“I’m getting so tired of this,” muttered Eric, during the
pause.

“Why, you’re fighting like a regular muff,” said Graham; “you’ll
have to acknowledge yourself thrashed in a minute.”

“That I’ll never do,” he said, once more firing up.

Just as the third round began, Duncan came striding in, for
Owen, who had left the room, told him what was going on. He had
always been a leading fellow, and quite recently his influence had
several times been exerted in the right direction, and he was very
much looked up to by all the boys alike, good or bad. He
determined, for the credit of the sixth, that the fight should not
go on, and bursting into the ring, with his strong shoulders he
hurled on each side the boys who stood in his way, and struck down
the lifted arms of the fighters.

“You shan’t fight,” he said, doggedly, thrusting himself
between them; “so there’s an end of it. If you do, you’ll both have
to fight me first.”

“Shame!” said several of the boys, and the cry was caught up by
Bull and others.

“Shame, is it?” said Duncan, and his lip curled with scorn.
“There’s only one way to argue with, you fellows. Bull, if you, or
any other boy, repeat that word, I’ll thrash him. Here, Monty, come
away from this disgraceful scene.”

“I’m sick enough of it,” said Montagu, “and am ready to stop if
Williams is,–provided no one touches Wright.”

“I’m sick of it too,” said Eric sullenly.

“Then you two shall shake hands,” said Duncan.

For one instant–an instant which he regretted till the end of
his life–Montagu drew himself up and hesitated. He had been deeply
wronged, deeply provoked, and no one could blame him for the
momentary feeling: but Eric had observed the gesture, and his
passionate pride took the alarm. “It’s come to this, then,” he
thought; “Montagu doesn’t think me good enough to be shaken hands
with.”

“Pish!” he said aloud, in a tone of sarcasm; “it may be an awful
honor to shake hands with such an immaculate person as Montagu, but
I’m not proud on the subject;” and he turned away.

Montagu’s hesitation was but momentary, and without a particle
of anger or indignation he sorrowfully held out his hand. It was
too late; that moment had done the mischief, and it was now Eric’s
turn coldly to withdraw.

“You don’t think me worthy of your friendship, and what’s the
good of grasping hands if we don’t do it with cordial hearts?”

Montagu’s lip trembled, but he said nothing, and quietly putting
on his coat, waved back the throng of boys with a proud sweep of
his arm, and left the room with Duncan.

“Come along, Wright,” he said.

“Nay, leave him,” said Eric with a touch of remorse. “Much as
you think me beneath you, I have honor enough to see that no one
hurts him.”

The group of boys gradually dispersed, but one or two remained
with Eric, although he was excessively wearied by their
observations.

“You didn’t fight half like yourself,” said Wildney.

“Can’t you tell why? I had the wrong side to fight for.” And
getting up abruptly, he left the room, to be alone in his study,
and bathe his swollen and aching face.

In a few minutes Vernon joined him, and at the mere sight of him
Eric burst into tears of shame. That evening with Vernon in the
study, after the dinner at the Jolly Herring, had revived all his
really warm affection for his little brother; and as he could no
longer conceal the line he took in the school, they had been often
together since then; and Eric’s moral obliquity was not so great as
to prevent him from feeling deep joy at the change for the better
in Vernon’s character.

“Verny, Verny,” he said, as the boy came up and affectionately
took his hand, “it was you who lost me that fight.”

“Oh, but, Eric, you were fighting with Montagu.”

“Don’t you remember the days, Eric,” he continued, “when we were
home-boarders, and how kind Monty used to be to me even then, and
how mother liked him, and thought him quite your truest friend,
except poor Russell?”

“I do, indeed. I didn’t think then that it would come to
this.”

“I’ve always been so sorry,” said Vernon, “that I joined
the fellows in playing him tricks. I can’t think how I came to do
it, except that I’ve done such lots of bad things here. But he’s
forgiven and forgotten that long ago, and is very kind to me
now.”

It was true; but Eric didn’t know that half the kindness which
Montagu showed to his brother was shown solely for his
sake.

“Do you know, I’ve thought of a plan for making you two friends
again? I’ve written to Aunt Trevor to ask him to Fairholm with us
next holidays.”

“Oh, have you? Good Verny! Yes; there we might be
friends. Perhaps there,” he added, half to himself, “I might be
more like what I was in better days.”

“But it’s a long time to look forward to. Easter hasn’t come
yet,” said Vernon.

So the two young boys proposed; but God had disposed it
otherwise.

CHAPTER VII

THE PIGEONS

“Et motae ad Lunam trepidabis arundinis umbram.”

Juv. X. 21.

“How awfully dull it is, Charlie,” said Eric, a few weeks before
Easter, as he sat with Wildney in his study one holiday
afternoon.

“Yes; too late for football, too early for cricket.” And Wildney
stretched himself and yawned.

“I suppose this is what they call ennui,” said Eric again, after
a pause. “What is to be done, Sunbeam?”

“You shan’t call me that, so there’s an end of it,” said
Wildney, hitting him on the arm.

“By the bye, Eric, you remind me to-morrow’s my birth-day, and
I’ve got a parcel coming this afternoon full of grub from home.
Let’s go and see if it’s come.”

“Capital! We will.”

So Eric and Wildney started off to the coach-office, where they
found the hamper, and ordered it to be brought at once to the
school, and carried up to Eric’s study.

On opening it they found it rich in dainties, among which were a
pair of fowls and a large plum-cake.

“Hurrah!” said Wildney, “you were talking of nothing to do; I
vote we have a carouse to-morrow.”

“Very well; only let’s have it before prayers, because we
were so nearly caught last time.”

“Ay, and let it be in one of the class-rooms, Eric; not up here,
lest we have another incursion of the ‘Rosebuds.’ I shall have to
cut preparation, but that don’t matter, It’s Harley’s night, and
old Stupid will never twig.”

“Well, whom shall we ask?” said Eric.

“Old Llewellyn for one,” said Wildney. “We havn’t seen him for
an age, and he’s getting too lazy even for a bit of fun.”

“Good; and Graham,” suggested Eric. He and Wildney regarded
their possessions so much as common property, that he hadn’t the
least delicacy in mentioning the boys whom he wanted to invite.

“Yes; Graham’s a jolly bird; and Bull?”

“I’ve no objection; and Pietrie?”

“Well; and your brother Vernon?”

“No!” said Eric, emphatically. “At any rate I won’t lead
him into mischief any more.”

“Attlay, then; and what do you say to Brooking?”

“No, again,” said Eric; “he’s a blackguard.”

“I wonder you haven’t mentioned Duncan,” said Wildney.

“Duncan! why, my dear child, you might as well ask Owen, or even
old Rose, at once. Bless you, Charlie, he’s a great deal too
correct to come now.”

“Well; we’ve got six already, that’s quite enough.”

“Yes; but two fowls isn’t enough for six hungry boys.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Wildney. He thought a little, and then,
clapping his hands, danced about and said, “Are you game for a
regular lark, Eric?”

“Yes; anything to make it less dull. I declare I’ve very nearly
been taking to work again to fill up the time.”

Eric often talked now of work in this slighting way partly as an
excuse for the low places in form to which he was gradually
sinking. Everybody knew that had he properly exerted his abilities
he was capable of beating almost any boy; so, to quiet his
conscience, he professed to ridicule diligence as an unboyish piece
of muffishness, and was never slow to sneer at the “grinders,” as
he contemptuously called all those who laid themselves out to win
school distinctions.

“Ha, ha!” said Wildney, “that’s rather good! No, Eric, it’s too
late for you to turn ‘grinder’ now. I might as well think of doing
it myself, and I’ve never been higher than five from lag in my form
yet.”

“Haven’t you? But what’s the regular lark you hinted at?”

“Why, we’ll go and seize the Gordonites’ pigeons, and
make another dish of them.”

“Seize the Gordonites’ pigeons! Why, when do you mean?”

“To-night.”

Eric gave a long whistle. “But wouldn’t it be st–t–?”

“Stealing?” said Wildney, with a loud laugh. “Pooh!
‘convey the wise call it.'”

But Eric still looked serious. “Why, my dear old boy,” continued
Wildney, “the Gordonites’ll be the first to laugh at the trick when
we tell them of it next morning, as of course we will do. There,
now, don’t look grumpy. I shall cut away and arrange it with.
Graham, and tell you the whole dodge ready prepared to-night at
bed-time.”

After lights were put out, Wildney came up to the study
according to promise, and threw out hints about the proposed plan.
He didn’t tell it plainly, because Duncan was there, but Duncan
caught enough to guess what was intended, and said, when Wildney
had gone–

“Take my advice, and have nothing to do with this, Eric.”

Eric had grown very touchy lately about advice, particularly
from any fellow of his own standing; and after the checks he had
recently received, a coolness had sprung up between him and nearly
all the study-boys, which made him more than ever inclined to
assert his independence, and defy and thwart them in every way.

“Keep your advice to yourself, Duncan, till it’s asked for,” he
answered, roughly. “You’ve done nothing but advise lately,
and I’m rather sick of it.”

“Comme vous voulez,” replied Duncan, with a shrug. “Gang your
own gait; I’ll have nothing more to do with trying to stop you,
since you will ruin yourself.”

Nothing more was said in the study that evening, and when Eric
went down he didn’t even bid Duncan goodnight.

“Charlie,” he said, as he stole on tiptoe into Wildney’s
dormitory.

“Hush!” whispered Wildney, “the other fellows are asleep. Come
and sit by my bedside, and I’ll tell you what we’re going to
do.”

Eric went and sat by him, and he sat up in his bed “First of
all, you’re to keep awake till twelve to-night,” he
whispered; “old Rowley’ll have gone round by that time, and it’ll
be all safe. Then come and awake me again, and I’ll watch till one,
Pietrie till two, and Graham till three. Then Graham’ll awake us
all, and we’ll dress.”

“Very well. But how will you get the key of the lavatory?”

“Oh, I’ll manage that,” said Wildney, chuckling. “But come again
and awake me at twelve, will you?”

Eric went to his room and lay down, but he didn’t take off his
clothes, for fear he should go to sleep. Dr. Rowlands came round as
usual at eleven, and then Eric closed his eyes for a few minutes,
till the head-master had disappeared. After that he lay awake
thinking for an hour, but his thoughts weren’t very pleasant.

At twelve he went and awoke Wildney.

“I don’t feel very sleepy. Shall I sit with you for your hour,
Charlie?”

“Oh, do! I should like it of all things. But douse the glim
there; we shan’t want it, and it might give the alarm.”

“All right.”

So Eric went and sat by his dangerous little friend, and they
talked in low voices until they heard the great school clock strike
one. They then woke Pietrie, and Eric went off to bed again.

At three Graham awoke him, and dressing hastily, he joined the
others in the lavatory.

“Now, I’m going to get the key,” said Wildney, “and mean to have
a stomach-ache for the purpose.”

Laughing quietly he went up to the door of Mr. Harley’s
bed-room, which opened out of the lavatory, and knocked.

No answer. He knocked a little louder. Still no answer. Louder
still.

“Bother the fellow,” said Wildney; “he sleeps like a grampus.
Won’t one of you try to wake him?”

“No,” said Graham; “‘taint dignified for fifth-form boys to have
stomach-aches.”

“Well, I must try again.” But it seemed no use knocking, and
Wildney at last, in a fit of impatience, thumped a regular tattoo
on the bed-room door.

“Who’s there?” said the startled voice of Mr. Harley.

“Only me, sir!” answered Wildney, in a mild and innocent
way.

“What do you want?”

“Please, sir, I want the key of the lavatory. I’m indisposed,”
said Wildney again, in a tone of such disciplined suavity, that the
others shook with laughing.

Mr. Harley opened the door about an inch, and peered about
suspiciously.

“Oh, well, you must go and awake Mr. Rose. I don’t happen to
have the key to-night.” And so saying, he shut the door.

“Phew! Here’s a go!” said Wildney, recovering immediately.
“It’ll never do to awake old Rose. He’d smell a rat in no
time.”

“I have it,” said Pietrie. “I’ve got an old nail, with which I
believe I can open the lock quite simply. Let’s try.”

“Quietly and quick, then,” said Eric.

In ten minutes he had silently shot back the lock with the old
nail, and the boys were on the landing. They carried their shoes in
their hands, ran noiselessly down stairs, and went to the same
window at which Eric and Wildney had got out before. Wildney had
taken care beforehand to break the pane and move away the glass, so
they had only to loosen the bar and slip through one by one.

It was cold and very dark, and as on the March morning they
stood out in the playground, all four would rather have been safe
and harmlessly in bed. But the novelty and the excitement of the
enterprise bore them up, and they started off quickly for the house
at which Mr. Gordon and his pupils lived, which was about half a
mile from the school. They went arm in arm to assure each other a
little, for at first in their fright they were inclined to take
every post and tree for a man in ambush, and to hear a recalling
voice in every sound of wind and wave.

Not far from Mr. Gordon’s was a carpenter’s shop, and outside of
this there was generally a ladder standing. They had arranged to
carry this ladder with them (as it was only a short one), climb the
low garden wall with it, and then place it against the house,
immediately under the dovecot which hung by the first
story-windows. Wildney, as the lightest of the four, was to take
the birds, while the others held the ladder.

Slanting it so that it should be as far from the side of the
window as possible, Wildney ascended and thrust both hands into the
cot. He succeeded in seizing a pigeon with each hand, but in doing
so threw the other birds into a state of such alarm that they
fluttered about in the wildest manner, and the moment his hands
were withdrawn, flew out with a great flapping of hurried
wings.

The noise they made alarmed the plunderer, and he hurried down
the ladder as fast as he could. He handed the pigeons to the
others, who instantly wrung their necks.

“I’m nearly sure I heard somebody stir,” said Wildney; “we
haven’t been half quiet enough. Here! let’s crouch down in this
corner.”

All four shrank up as close to the wall as they could, and held
their breath. Some one was certainly stirring, and at last they
heard the window open. A head was thrust out, and Mr. Gordon’s
voice asked sternly–“Who’s there?”

He seemed at once to have caught sight of the ladder, and made
an endeavor to reach it; but though he stretched out his arm at
full length, he could not do so.

“We must cut for it,” said Eric; “it’s quite too dark for him to
see us, or even to notice that we are boys.”

They moved the ladder to the wall, and sprang over, one after
the other, as fast as they could. Eric was last, and just as he got
to the top of the wall he heard the back door open, and some one
run out into the yard.

“Run for your lives,” said Eric hurriedly; “it’s Gordon, and
he’s raising the alarm.”

They heard footsteps following them, and an occasional shout of
“thieves! thieves!”

“We must separate and run different ways, or we’ve no chance of
escape. We’d better turn towards the town to put them off the right
scent,” said Eric again.

“Don’t leave me,” pleaded Wildney; “you know I can’t run very
fast.”

“No, Charlie, I won’t;” and grasping his hand, Eric hurried him
over the style and through the fields, while Pietrie and Graham
took the opposite direction.

Some one (they did not know who it was, but suspected it to be
Mr. Gordon’s servant-man) was running after them, and they could
distinctly hear his footsteps, which seemed to be half a field
distant. He carried a light, and they heard him panting. They were
themselves tired, and in the utmost trepidation; the usually
courageous Wildney was trembling all over, and his fear
communicated itself to Eric. Horrible visions of a trial for
burglary, imprisonment in the castle jail, and perhaps
transportation, presented themselves to their excited imaginations,
as the sound of the footsteps came nearer.

“I can’t run any further, Eric,” said Wildney. “What shall we
do? don’t leave me, for heaven’s sake.”

“Not I, Charlie. We must hide the minute we get t’other side of
this hedge.”

They scrambled over the gate, and plunged into the thickest part
of a plantation close by, lying down on the ground behind some
bushes, and keeping as still as they could, taking care to cover
over their white collars.

The pursuer reached the gate, and no longer hearing footsteps in
front of him, he paused. He went a little distance up the hedge on
both sides and held up his light, but did not detect the cowering
boys, and at last giving up the search in despair, went slowly
home. They heard him plodding back over the field, and it was not
until the sound of his footsteps had died away, that Eric
cautiously broke cover, and looked over the hedge. He saw the man’s
light gradually getting more distant, and said, “All right now,
Charlie. We must make the best of our way home.”

“Are you sure he’s gone?” said Wildney, who had not yet
recovered from his fright.

“Quite; come along. I only hope Pietrie and Graham ain’t
caught.”

They got back about half-past four, and climbed in unheard and
undetected through the window pane. They then stole up stairs with
beating hearts, and sat in Eric’s room to wait for the other two.
To their great relief they heard them enter the lavatory about ten
minutes after.

“Were you twigged?” asked Wildney eagerly.

“No,” said Graham; “precious near it though. Old Gordon and some
men were after us, but at last we doubled rather neatly, and
escaped them. It’s all serene, and we shan’t be caught.”

“Well, we’d best to bed now,” said Eric; “and, to my thinking,
we should be wise to keep a quiet tongue in our heads about this
affair.”

“Yes, we had better tell no one.” They agreed, and went
off to bed again. So, next morning, they all four got up quite as
if nothing had happened, and made no allusion to the preceding
night, although, they could not help chuckling inwardly a little
when the Gordonites came to morning school, brimful of a story
about their house having been attacked in the night by thieves,
who, after bagging some pigeons, had been chevied by Gordon and the
servants. Wildney professed immense interest in the incident, and
asked many questions, which showed that there was not a shadow of
suspicion in any one’s mind as to the real culprits.

Carter, the school servant, didn’t seem to have noticed that the
lavatory door was unlocked, and Mr. Harley never alluded again to
his disturbance in the night. So the theft of the pigeons remained
undiscovered, and remains so till this day. If any old Roslyn boy
reads this veracious history, he will doubtless be astounded to
hear that the burglars on that memorable night were Brio, Pietrie,
Graham, and Wildney.

CHAPTER VIII

SOWING THE WIND

“Praepediuntur
Crura vacillanti, tardescit lingua, madet mens,
Nant oculi.”

LUCR. iii. 417.

Next evening, when preparation began, Pietrie and Graham got
everything ready for a carouse in their class-room. Wildney,
relying on the chance of names not being called over (which, was
only done in case any one’s absence was observed), had absented
himself altogether from the boarders’ room, and helped busily to
spread the table for the banquet. The cook had roasted for them the
fowls and pigeons, and Billy had brought an ample supply of beer
and some brandy for the occasion. A little before eight o’clock
everything was ready, and Eric, Attlay, and Llewellyn were summoned
to join the rest.

The fowls, pigeons, and beer had soon vanished, and the boys
were in the highest spirits. Eric’s reckless gaiety was kindled by
Wildney’s frolicsome vivacity, and Graham’s sparkling wit; they
were all six in a roar of perpetual laughter at some fresh sally of
fun elicited by the more phlegmatic natures of Attlay or Llewellyn,
and the dainties of Wildney’s parcel were accompanied by draughts
of brandy and water, which were sometimes exchanged for potations
of the raw liquor. It was not the first time, be it remembered,
that the members of that young party had been present at similar
scenes, and even the scoundrel Billy was astonished, and alarmed
occasionally at the quantities of spirits and other inebriating
drinks that of late had found their way to the studies. The
disgraceful and deadly habit of tippling had already told
physically on both Eric and Wildney. The former felt painfully that
he was losing his clear-headedness, and that his intellectual
tastes were getting not only blunted but destroyed; and while he
perceived in himself the terrible effects of his sinful indulgence,
he saw them still more indisputably in the gradual coarseness which
seemed to be spreading, like a grey lichen, over the countenance,
the mind, and the manners of his younger companion. Sometimes the
vision of a Nemesis breaking in fire out of his darkened future,
terrified his guilty conscience in the watches of the night; and
the conviction of some fearful Erynnis, some discovery dawning out
of the night of his undetected sins, made his heart beat fast with
agony and fear. But he fancied it too late to repent. He strangled
the half-formed resolutions as they rose, and trusted to the time
when, by leaving school, he should escape, as he idly supposed, the
temptations to which he had yielded. Meanwhile, the friends who
would have rescued him had been alienated by his follies, and the
principles which might have preserved him had been eradicated by
his guilt. He had long flung away the shield of prayer, and the
helmet of holiness, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God; and now, unarmed and helpless, Eric stood alone, a mark for
the fiery arrows of his enemies, while, through the weakened inlet
of every corrupted sense, temptation rushed in upon him perpetually
and unawares.

As the class-room they had selected was in a remote part of the
building, there was little immediate chance of detection. So the
laughter of the party grew louder and sillier; the talk more
foolish and random; the merriment more noisy and meaningless. But
still most of them mingled some sense of caution with their
enjoyment, and warned Eric and Wildney more than once that they
must look out, and not take too much that night for fear of being
caught. But it was Wildney’s birth-day, and Eric’s boyish mirth,
suppressed by his recent troubles, was blazing out unrestrained. In
the riot of their feasting, the caution had been utterly neglected,
and the boys were far from being sober when the sound of the
prayer-bell ringing through the great hall, startled them into
momentary consciousness.

“Good heavens!” shouted Graham, springing up; “there’s the
prayer-bell; I’d no notion it was so late. Here, let’s shove these
brandy bottles and things into the cupboards and drawers, and then
we must run down.”

There was no time to lose. The least muddled of the party had
cleared the room in a moment, and then addressed themselves to the
more difficult task of trying to quiet Eric and Wildney, and
conduct them steadily into the prayer-room.

Wildney’s seat was near the door, so there was little difficulty
in getting him to his place comparatively unobserved. Llewellyn
took him by the arm, and after a little stumbling, helped him
safely to his seat, where he assumed a look of preternatural
gravity. But Eric sat near the head of the first table, not far
from Dr. Rowlands’ desk, and none of the others had to go to that
part of the room. Graham grasped his arm tight, led him carefully
down stairs, and, as they were reaching the door, said to him, in a
most earnest and imploring tone–“Do try and walk sensibly to your
place, Eric, or we shall all be caught.”

It was rather late when they got down. Everybody was quietly
seated, and most of the Bibles were already open, although the
Doctor had not yet come in. Consequently, the room was still, and
the entrance of Graham and Eric after the rest attracted general
notice. Eric had just sense enough to try and assume his ordinary
manner; but he was too giddy with the fumes of drink to walk
straight, or act naturally.

Vernon was sitting next to Wright, and stared at his brother
with great eyes and open lips. He was not the only observer.

“Wright,” whispered he, in a timid voice; “just see how Eric
walks. What can be the matter with him? Good gracious, he must be
ill!” he said, starting up, as Eric suddenly made a great stagger
to one side, and nearly fell in the attempt to recover himself.

Wright pulled the little boy down with a firm hand.

“Hush!” he whispered; “take no notice; he’s been drinking,
Verny, and I fear he’ll be caught.”

Vernon instantly sat down, and turned deadly pale. He thought,
and he had hoped, that since the day at the “Jolly Herring,” his
brother had abandoned all such practices, for Eric had been most
careful to conceal from him the worst of his failings. And now he
trembled violently with fear for his discovery, and horror at his
disgraceful condition.

The sound of Eric’s unsteady footsteps had made Mr. Rose quickly
raise his head; but at the same moment Duncan hastily made room for
the boy on the seat beside him, and held out his hand to assist
him. It was not Eric’s proper place; but Mr. Rose, after one long
look of astonishment, looked down at his book again, and said
nothing.

It made other hearts besides Vernon’s ache to see the unhappy
boy roll to his place in that helpless way.

Dr. Rowlands came in, and prayers commenced. When they were
finished, the names were called, and Eric, instead of quietly
answering his “adsum,” as he should have done, stood up, with a
foolish look, and said, “Yes, Sir.” The head master looked at him
for a minute; the boy’s glassy eyes, and jocosely stupid
appearance, told an unmistakable tale; but Dr. Rowlands only
remarked, “Williams, you don’t look well. You had better go at once
to bed.”

It was hopeless for Eric to attempt getting along without help,
so Duncan at once got up, took him by the arm, and with much
difficulty (for Eric staggered at every step) conducted him to his
bed-room.

Wildney’s condition was also too evident; and Mr. Rose, while
walking up and down the dormitories, had no doubt left on his mind
that both Eric and Wildney had been drinking. But he made no
remarks to them, and merely went to the Doctor to talk over the
steps which were to be taken.

“I shall summon the school,” said Dr. Rowlands, “on Monday, and
by that time we will decide on the punishment. Expulsion, I fear,
is the only course open to us.”

“Is not that a very severe line to take?”

“Perhaps; but the offence is of the worst character I must
consider the matter.”

“Poor Williams!” sighed Mr. Rose, as he left the room.

The whole of the miserable Sunday that followed was spent by
Eric and his companions in vain inquiries and futile restlessness.
It seemed clear that two of them at least were detected, and they
were inexpressibly wretched with anxiety and suspense. Wildney, who
had to stay in bed, was even more depressed; his head ached
violently, and he was alone with his own terrified thoughts. He
longed for the morrow, that at least he might have the poor
consolation of knowing his fate. No one came near him all day. Eric
wished to do so, but as he could not have visited the room without
express leave, the rest dissuaded him from asking, lest he should
excite further suspicion. His apparent neglect made poor Wildney
even more unhappy, for Wildney loved Eric as much as it was
possible for his volatile mind to love any one; and it seemed hard
to be deserted in the moment of disgrace and sorrow by so close a
friend.

At school the next morning the various masters read out to their
forms a notice from Dr. Rowlands, that the whole school were to
meet at ten in the great schoolroom. The object of the summons was
pretty clearly understood; and few boys had any doubt that it had
reference to the drinking on Saturday night. Still nothing had been
said on the subject as yet; and every guilty heart among
those 250 boys beat fast lest his sin too should have been
discovered, and he should be called out for some public and heavy
punishment.

The hour arrived. The boys thronging into the great school-room,
took their places according to their respective forms. The masters
in their caps and gowns were all seated on a small semicircular
bench at the upper end of the room, and in the centre of them,
before a small table, sate Dr. Rowlands.

The sound of whispering voices sank to a dead and painful hush.
The blood was tingling consciously in many cheeks, and not even a
breath could be heard in the deep expectation of that anxious and
solemn moment.

Dr. Rowlands spread before him the list of the school, and said,
“I shall first read out the names of the boys in the first-fifth,
and upper-fourth forms.”

This was done to ascertain formally whether the boys were
present on whose account the meeting was convened; and it at once
told Eric and Wildney that they were the boys to be
punished, and that the others had escaped.

The names were called over, and an attentive observer might have
told, from the sound of the boys’ voices as they answered, which of
them were afflicted with a troubled conscience.

Another slight pause, and breathless hush.

“Eric Williams and Charles Wildney, stand forward.”

The boys obeyed. From his place in the fifth, where he was
sitting with his head propped on his hand, Eric rose and advanced;
and Wildney, from the other end of the room, where the younger boys
sat, getting up, came and stood by his side.

Both of them fixed their eyes on the ground, whence they never
once raised them; and in the deadly pallor of their haggard faces,
you could scarcely have recognized the joyous high-spirited
friends, whose laugh and shout had often rung so merrily through
the play-ground, and woke the echoes of the rocks along the shore.
Every eye was on them, and they were conscious of it, though they
could not see it–painfully conscious of it, so that they wished
the very ground to yawn beneath their feet for the moment, and
swallow up their shame. Companionship in disgrace increased the
suffering; had either of them been alone, he would have been less
acutely sensible to the trying nature of his position; but that
they, so different in their ages and position in the school, should
thus have their friendship and the results of it blazoned, or
rather branded, before their friends and enemies added keenly to
the misery they felt. So, with eyes bent on the floor, Eric and
Charlie awaited their sentence.

“Williams and Wildney,” said Dr. Rowlands in a solemn voice, of
which every articulation thrilled to the heart of every hearer,
“you have been detected in a sin most disgraceful and most
dangerous. On Saturday night you were both drinking, and you were
guilty of such gross excess, that you were neither of you in a fit
state to appear among your companions–least of all to appear among
them at the hour of prayer. I shall not waste many words on an
occasion like this; only I trust that those of your schoolfellows
who saw you staggering and rolling into the room on Saturday
evening in a manner so unspeakably shameful and degrading, will
learn from that melancholy sight the lesson which the Spartans
taught their children by exhibiting a drunkard before them–the
lesson of the brutalising and fearful character of this most
ruinous vice. Eric Williams and Charles Wildney, your punishment
will be public expulsion, for which you will prepare this very
evening. I am unwilling that for a single day either of
you–especially the elder of you–should linger, so as possibly to
contaminate others with the danger of so pernicious an
example.”

Such a sentence was wholly unexpected; it took boys and masters
equally by surprise. The announcement of it caused an uneasy
sensation, which was evident to all present, though no one spoke a
word; but Dr. Rowlands took no notice of it, and only said to the
culprits–

“You may return to your seats.”

The two boys found their way back instinctively, they hardly
knew how. They seemed confounded and thunderstruck by their
sentence, and the painful accessories of its publicity. Eric leaned
over the desk with his head resting on a book, too stunned even to
think; and Wildney looked straight before him with his eyes fixed
in a stupid and unobserved stare.

Form by form the school dispersed, and the moment he was
liberated Eric sprang away from the boys, who would have spoken to
him, and rushed wildly to his study, where he locked the door. In a
moment, however, he re-opened it, for he heard Wildney’s step, and,
after admitting him, locked it once more.

Without a word Wildney, who looked very pale, flung his arms
round Eric’s neck, and, unable to bear up any longer, burst into a
flood of tears. Both of them felt relief in giving the reins to
their sorrow.

“O my father! my father!” sobbed Wildney at length. “What will
he say? He will disown me, I know; he is so stern always with me
when he thinks I bring disgrace on him.”

Eric thought of Fairholm, and of his own far-distant parents,
and of the pang which his disgrace would cause their loving
hearts; but he could say nothing, and only stroked Wildney’s dark
hair again and again with a soothing hand.

They sat there long, hardly knowing how the time passed; Eric
could not help thinking how very, very different their relative
positions might have been; how, while he might have been aiding and
ennobling the young boy beside him, he had alternately led and
followed him into wickedness and disgrace. His heart was full of
misery and bitterness, and he felt almost indifferent to all the
future, and weary of his life.

A loud knocking at the door disturbed them. It was Carter, the
school servant.

“You must pack up to go this evening, young gentlemen.”

“O no! no! no!” exclaimed Wildney; “cannot be sent away
like this. It would break my father’s heart. Eric, do come
and entreat Dr. Rowlands to forgive us only this once.”

“Yes,” said Eric, starting up with sudden energy; “he
shall forgive us–you at any rate. I will not leave
him till he does. Cheer up, Charlie, cheer up, and come along.”

Filled with an irresistible impulse, he pushed Carter aside, and
sprang down stairs three steps at a time, with Wildney following
him. They went straight for the Doctor’s study, and without waiting
for the answer to their knock at the door, Eric walked up to Dr.
Rowlands, who sate thinking in his arm-chair by the fire, and burst
out passionately, “O sir, forgive us this once.”

The Doctor was completely taken by surprise, so sudden was the
intrusion, and so intense was the boy’s manner. He remained silent
a moment from astonishment, and then said with asperity–

“Your offence is one of the most dangerous possible. There could
be no more perilous example for the school, than the one you have
been setting, Williams. Leave the room,” he added, with an
authoritative gesture, “my mind is made up.”

But Eric was too excited to be overawed by the master’s manner;
an imperious passion blinded him to all ordinary considerations,
and, heedless of the command, he broke out again–

“O sir, try me but once, only try me. I promise you most
faithfully that I will never again commit the sin. O sir, do, do
trust me, and I will be responsible for Wildney too.”

Dr. Rowlands, seeing that in Eric’s present mood he must and
would be heard, unless he were ejected by actual force, began to
pace silently up and down the room in perplexed and anxious
thought; at last he stopped and turned over the pages of a thick
school register, and found Eric’s name.

“It is not your first offence, Williams, even of this very kind.
That most seriously aggravates your fault.”

“O sir! give us one more chance to mend. O, I feel that I
could do such great things, if you will be but merciful, and
give me time to change. O, I entreat you, sir, to forgive us only
this once, and I will never ask again. Let us bear any other
punishment but this. O sir,” he said, approaching the doctor in an
imploring attitude, “spare us this one time for the sake of our
friends.”

The head-master made no reply for a time, but again paced the
room in silence. He was touched, and seemed hardly able to restrain
his emotion.

“It was my deliberate conclusion to expel you, Williams. I must
not weakly yield to entreaty. You must go.”

Eric wrung his hands in agony. “O, sir, then, if you must do so,
expel me only, and not Charlie, I can bear it, but do not
let me ruin him also. O I implore you, sir, for the love of God do,
do forgive him. It is I who have misled him;” and he flung himself
on his knees, and lifted his hands entreatingly towards the
Doctor.

Dr. Rowlands looked at him–at his blue eyes drowned with tears,
his agitated gesture, his pale, expressive face, full of passionate
supplication. He looked at Wildney, too, who stood trembling with a
look of painful and miserable suspense, and occasionally added his
wild word of entreaty, or uttered sobs more powerful still, that
seemed to come from the depth of his heart. He was shaken in his
resolve, wavered for a moment, and then once more looked at the
register.

“Yes,” he said, after a long pause, “here is an entry which
shall save you this time. I find written here against your name,
‘April 3. Risked his life in the endeavor to save Edwin Russell at
the Stack.’ That one good and noble deed shall be the proof that
you are capable of better things. It may be weak perhaps–I know
that it will be called weak–and I do not feel certain that I am
doing right; but if I err it shall be on the side of mercy. I shall
change expulsion into some other punishment. You may go.”

Wildney’s face lighted up as suddenly and joyously as when a ray
of sun-light gleams for an instant out of a dark cloud.

“O thank you, thank you, sir,” he exclaimed, drying his eyes,
and pouring into the words a world of expression, which it was no
light pleasure to have heard. But Eric spoke less impulsively, and
while the two boys were stammering out their deep gratitude, a
timid hand knocked at the door, and Vernon entered.

“I have come, sir, to speak for poor Eric,” he said in a low
voice, and trembling with emotion, as, with downcast eyes, he
modestly approached towards Dr. Rowlands, not even observing the
presence of the others in the complete absorption of his feelings.
He stood in a sorrowful attitude, not venturing to look up, and his
hand played nervously with the ribbon of his straw hat.

“I have just forgiven him, my little boy,” said the Doctor
kindly, patting his stooping head; “there he is, and he has been
speaking for himself.”

“O, Eric, I am so, so glad, I don’t know what to say for joy. O
Eric, thank God that you are not to be expelled;” and Vernon went
to his brother, and embraced him with the deepest affection.

Dr. Rowlands watched the scene with moist eyes. He was generally
a man of prompt decision, and he well knew that he would incur by
this act the charge of vacillation. It was a noble self-denial in
him to be willing to do so, but it would have required an iron
heart to resist such earnest supplications, and he was more than
repaid when he saw how much anguish he had removed by yielding to
their entreaties.

Once more humbly expressing their gratitude, the boys
retired.

They did not know that other influences had been also exerted in
their favor, which, although ineffectual at the time, had tended to
alter the Doctor’s intention. Immediately after school Mr. Rose had
been strongly endeavoring to change the Doctor’s mind, and had
dwelt forcibly on all the good points in Eric’s character, and the
promise of his earlier career. And Montagu had gone with Owen and
Duncan to beg that the expulsion might be commuted into some other
punishment. They had failed to convince him; but, perhaps, had they
not thus exerted themselves, Dr. Rowlands might have been unshaken,
though he could not be unmoved by Vernon’s gentle intercession and
Eric’s passionate prayers.

Wildney, full of joy, and excited by the sudden revulsion of
feeling, only shook Eric’s hand with all his might, and then darted
out into the playground to announce the happy news. The boys all
flocked round him, and received the intelligence with unmitigated
pleasure. Among them all there was not one who did not rejoice that
Eric and Wildney were yet to continue of their number.

But the two brothers returned to the study, and there, sorrowful
in his penitence, with his heart still aching with remorse, Eric
sat down on a chair facing the window, and drew Vernon to his side.
The sun was setting behind the purple hills, flooding the green
fields and silver sea with the crimson of his parting rays. The air
was full of peace and coolness, and the merry sounds of the cricket
field blended joyously with the whisper of the evening breeze. Eric
was fond of beauty in every shape, and his father had early taught
him a keen appreciation of the glories of nature. He had often
gazed before on that splendid scene, as he was now gazing on it
thoughtfully with his brother by his side. He looked long and
wistfully at the gorgeous pageantry of quiet clouds, and passed his
arm more fondly round Vernon’s shoulder.

“What are you thinking of, Eric? Why, I declare you are crying
still,” said Vernon playfully, as he wiped a tear which had
overflowed on his brother’s cheek, “aren’t you glad that the Doctor
has forgiven you?”

“Gladder, far gladder than I can say, Verny. O Verny, Verny, I
hope your school-life may be happier than mine has been. I would
give up all I have, Verny, to have kept free from the sins I have
learnt. God grant that I may yet have time and space to do
better.”

“Let us pray together, Eric,” whispered his brother reverently,
and they knelt down and prayed; they prayed for their distant
parents and friends; they prayed for their schoolfellows and for
each other, and for Wildney, and they thanked God for all his
goodness to them; and then Eric poured out his heart in a fervent
prayer that a holier and happier future might atone for his
desecrated past, and that his sins might be forgiven for his
Saviour’s sake.

The brothers rose from their knees calmer and more
light-hearted, and gave each other a solemn affectionate kiss,
before they went down again to the play-ground. But they avoided
the rest of the boys, and took a stroll together along the sands,
talking quietly, and happily, and hoping bright hopes for future
days.

CHAPTER IX

WHOM THE GODS LOVE DIE YOUNG

“Oh is it weed, or fish, or floating hair?
A tress of maiden’s hair,
Of drowned maiden’s hair,
Above the nets at sea?”–KINGSLEY.

Eric and Wildney were flogged and confined to gates for a time
instead of being expelled, and they both bore the punishment in a
manly and penitent way, and set themselves with all their might to
repair the injury which their characters had received. Eric,
especially, seemed to be devoting himself with every energy to
regain, if possible, his long lost position, and by the altered
complexion of his remaining school-life, to atone in some poor
measure for its earlier sins. And he carried Wildney with him,
influencing others also of his late companions in a greater or less
degree. It was not Eric’s nature to do things by halves, and it
became obvious to all that his exertions to resist and abandon his
old temptations were strenuous and unwavering. He could no longer
hope for the school distinctions, which would have once lain so
easily within his reach, for the ground lost during weeks of
idleness cannot be recovered by a wish; but he succeeded
sufficiently, by dint of desperately hard work, to acquit himself
with considerable credit, and in the Easter examination came out
sufficiently high, to secure his remove into the sixth form after
the holidays.

He felt far happier in the endeavor to fulfill his duty, than he
had ever done during the last years of recklessness and neglect,
and the change for the better in his character tended to restore
unanimity and good will to the school. Eric no longer headed the
party which made a point of ridiculing and preventing industry;
and, sharing as he did the sympathy of nearly all the boys, he was
able quietly and unobtrusively to calm down the jealousies and
allay the heartburnings which had for so long a time brought
discord and disunion into the school society. Cheerfulness and
unanimity began to prevail once more at Roslyn, and Eric had the
intense happiness of seeing how much good lay still within his
power.

So the Easter holidays commenced with promise, and the few first
days glided away in innocent enjoyments. Eric was now reconciled
again to Owen and Duncan, and, therefore, had a wider choice of
companions more truly congenial to his high nature than the narrow
circle of his late associates.

“What do you say to a boat excursion to-morrow?” asked Duncan,
as they chatted together one evening.

“I won’t go without leave,” said Eric; “I should only get
caught, and get into another mess. Besides, I feel myself pledged
now to strict obedience.”

“Ay, you’re quite right. We’ll get leave easily enough though,
provided we agree to take Jim the boatman with us; so I vote we
make up a party.”

“By the bye, I forgot; I’m engaged to Wildney to-morrow.”

“Never mind. Bring him with you, and Graham too, if you
like.”

“Most gladly,” said Eric, really pleased; for he saw by this
that Duncan observed the improvement in his old friends, and was
falling in with the endeavor to make all the boys really cordial to
each other, and destroy all traces of the late factions.

“Do you mind my bringing Montagu?”

“Not at all. Why should I?” answered Eric, with a slight blush.
Montagu and he had never been formally reconciled, nor had they, as
yet, spoken to each other. Indeed Duncan had purposely planned the
excursion to give them an opportunity of becoming friends once
more, by being thrown together. He knew well that they both
earnestly wished it, although, with the natural shyness of boys,
they hardly knew how to set about effecting it. Montagu hung back
lest he should seem to be patronising a fallen enemy, and Eric lest
he should have sinned too deeply to be forgiven.

The next morning dawned gloriously, and it was agreed that they
should meet at Starhaven, the point where they were to get the
boat, at ten o’clock. As they had supposed, Dr. Rowlands gave a
ready consent to the row, on condition of their being accompanied
by the experienced sailor whom the boys called Jim. The precaution
was by no means unnecessary, for the various currents which ran
round the island were violent at certain stages of the tide, and
extremely dangerous for any who were not aware of their general
course.

Feeling that the day would pass off very unpleasantly if any
feeling of restraint remained between him and Montagu, Eric, by a
strong effort, determined to “make up with him” before starting,
and went into his study for that purpose after breakfast. Directly
he came in, Montagu jumped up and welcomed him cordially, and when,
without any allusion to the past, the two shook hands with all
warmth, and looked the old proud look into each other’s faces, they
felt once more that their former affection was unimpaired, and that
in heart they were real and loving friends. Most keenly did they
both enjoy the renewed intercourse, and they found endless subjects
to talk about on their way to Starhaven, where the others were
already assembled when they came.

With Jim’s assistance they shoved a boat into the water, and
sprang into it in the highest spirits. Just as they were pushing
off they saw Wright and Vernon running down to the shore towards
them, and they waited to see what they wanted. “Couldn’t you take
us with you?” asked Vernon, breathless with his run.

“I’m afraid not, Verny,” said Montagu; “the boat won’t hold more
than six, will it, Jim?”

“No, sir, not safely.”

“Never mind, you shall have my place, Verny,” said Eric, as he
saw his brother’s disappointed look.

“Then Wright shall take mine,” said Wildney.

“O dear no,” said Wright, “we wouldn’t turn you out for the
world. Vernon and I will take an immense walk down the coast
instead, and will meet you here as we come back.”

“Well, good bye, then; off we go;” and with light hearts the
boaters and the pedestrians parted.

Eric, Graham, Duncan, and Montagu took the first turn at the
oars, while Wildney steered. Graham’s “crabs,” and Wildney’s rather
crooked steering, gave plenty of opportunity for chaff, and they
were full of fun as the oar-blades splashed and sparkled in the
waves. Then they made Jim sing them some of his old sailor songs as
they rowed, and joined vigorously in the choruses. They had
arranged to make straight for St. Catherine’s Head, and land
somewhere near it to choose a place for their pic-nic. It took them
nearly two hours to get there, as they rowed leisurely, and enjoyed
the luxury of the vernal air. It was one of the sunniest days of
early spring; the air was pure and delicious, and the calm sea
breeze, just strong enough to make the sea flame and glister in the
warm sunlight, was exhilarating as new wine. Underneath them the
water was transparent as crystal, and far below they could see the
green and purple sea-weeds rising like a many-colored wood, through
which occasionally they saw a fish, startled by their oars, dart
like an arrow. The sky overhead was a cloudless blue, and as they
kept not far from shore, the clearly cut outline of the coast, with
its rocks and hills standing out in the vivid atmosphere, made a
glowing picture, to which the golden green of the spring herbage,
bathed in its morning sunlight, lent the magic of enchantment. Who
could have been otherwise than happy in such a scene and at such a
time? but these were boys with the long bright holiday before them,
and happiness is almost too quiet a word to express the bounding
exultation of heart, the royal and tingling sense of vigorous life,
which made them shout and sing, as their boat rustled through the
ripples, from a mere instinct of inexpressible enjoyment.

They had each contributed some luxury to the pic-nic, and it
made a very tempting display as they spread it out, under a sunny
pebbled cave, by St. Catherine’s Head; although, instead of
anything more objectionable, they had thought it best to content
themselves with a very moderate quantity of beer. When they had
done eating, they amused themselves on the shore; and had
magnificent games among the rocks, and in every fantastic nook of
the romantic promontory. And then Eric suggested a bathe to wind up
with, as it was the first day when it had been quite warm enough to
make bathing pleasant.

“But we’ve got no towels.”

“Oh! chance the towels. We can run about till we’re dry.” So
they bathed, and then getting in the boat to row back again, they
all agreed that it was the very jolliest day they’d ever had at
Roslyn, and voted to renew the experiment before the holidays were
over, and take Wright and Vernon with them in a larger boat.

It was afternoon,–and afternoon still warm and beautiful,–when
they began to row home; so they took it quietly, and kept near the
land for variety’s sake, laughing, joking, and talking as merrily
as ever.

“I declare I think this is the prettiest or anyhow the grandest
bit of the whole coast,” said Eric, as they neared a glen through
whose narrow gorge a green and garrulous little river gambolled
down with noisy turbulence into the sea. He might well admire that
glen; its steep and rugged sides were veiled with lichens, moss,
and wild-flowers, and the sea-birds found safe refuge in its lonely
windings, which were colored with topaz and emerald by the
pencillings of nature and the rich stains of time.

“Yes,” answered Montagu, “I always stick up for Avon Glen
as the finest scene we’ve got about here. But, I say, who’s that
gesticulating on the rock there to the right of it? I verily
believe it’s Wright, apostrophising the ocean for Vernon’s benefit.
I only see one of them though.”

“I bet you he’s spouting

‘Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean–roll!
Ten thousand fleets, etc.'”

said Graham laughing.

“What do you say to putting in to shore there?” said Duncan;
“it’s only two miles to Starhaven, and I dare say we could make
shift to take them in for that distance. If Jim says anything we’ll
chuck him overboard.”

They rowed towards Avon Glen, and to their surprise Wright, who
stood there alone (for with a pocket telescope they clearly made
out that it was Wright), still continued to wave his arms
and beckon them in a manner which they at first thought ridiculous,
but which soon make them feel rather uneasy. Jim took an oar, and
they soon got within two hundred yards of the beach. Wright had
ceased to make signals, but appeared to be shouting to them, and
pointing towards one corner of the glen; but though they caught the
sound of his voice they could not hear what he said.

“I wonder why Vernon isn’t with him,” said Eric anxiously; “I
hope–why, what are you looking at, Charlie?”

“What’s that in the water there?” said Wildney, pointing in the
direction to which Wright was also looking.

Montagu snatched the telescope out of his hand and looked. “Good
God!” he exclaimed, turning pale; “what can be the matter?”

“O do let me look,” said Eric.

“No! stop, stop, Eric, you’d better not, I think; pray don’t, it
may be all a mistake. You’d better not–but it looked–nay, you
really mustn’t, Eric,” he said, and, as if accidentally, he
let the telescope fall into the water, and they saw it sink down
among the seaweeds at the bottom.