Volume Two--Chapter Two.Wildney.That punishment’s the best to hearThat follows soonest on the sin,And guilt’s a game where losers fareBetter 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 whichKerkokepovuchosequals ‘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, Eric was thinkingwhyhe 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 worse and more injurious follies 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 by the study are, 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.“Oh 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 be 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 ain’t 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 believeyou’reafraid.”“Little whippersnapper!” said Eric, colouring, “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’llshow 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, initiated the two study-boys of sixteen into a secret which had long been known to the lower part of the school.“Ibant obscuri dubia 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! thenIwill,” 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 he 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 playground,” 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 did not 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 taproom, and enveloped in tobacco smoke.The side door was opened, and a cunning man held up a light to see who they were.“Hallo, 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 parlour 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’leman?” 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 goingthere,” 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 his 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 to-morrow, 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 proud 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,yourfriend, 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 requiredthatkind 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 honourable 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 further reply.“Haven’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; “thiswasn’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’twhollymy fault, is it, that we are not so warm to each other as we were when—”“O Monty, Monty!” said Eric, softened by the allusion; and he warmly grasped his friend’s proffered hand.“O 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 Idosuspect 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 doyourselfWilliams,”—(it was the first time for two years that Mr Rose had called him “Williams,” and he winced a little)—“whatever you doyourselfWilliams, rests withyou; 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;—it was the silence of pride and unwilling conviction.“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 playground, and half consoled, he hoped Mr Rose had heard it, and understood that it was meant for the boy whom he had just been rebuking. “Well, after all,” he thought, “I havesomefriends 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 Ball.Even with Ball! 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.
That punishment’s the best to hearThat follows soonest on the sin,And guilt’s a game where losers fareBetter than those who seem to win.Cov. Patmore.
That punishment’s the best to hearThat follows soonest on the sin,And guilt’s a game where losers fareBetter 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 whichKerkokepovuchosequals ‘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, Eric was thinkingwhyhe 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 worse and more injurious follies 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 by the study are, 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.
“Oh 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 be 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 ain’t 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 believeyou’reafraid.”
“Little whippersnapper!” said Eric, colouring, “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’llshow 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, initiated the two study-boys of sixteen into a secret which had long been known to the lower part of the school.
“Ibant obscuri dubia 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! thenIwill,” 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 he 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 playground,” 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 did not 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 taproom, and enveloped in tobacco smoke.
The side door was opened, and a cunning man held up a light to see who they were.
“Hallo, 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 parlour 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’leman?” 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 goingthere,” 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 his 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 to-morrow, 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 proud 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,yourfriend, 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 requiredthatkind 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 honourable 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 further reply.
“Haven’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; “thiswasn’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’twhollymy fault, is it, that we are not so warm to each other as we were when—”
“O Monty, Monty!” said Eric, softened by the allusion; and he warmly grasped his friend’s proffered hand.
“O 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 Idosuspect 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 doyourselfWilliams,”—(it was the first time for two years that Mr Rose had called him “Williams,” and he winced a little)—“whatever you doyourselfWilliams, rests withyou; 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;—it was the silence of pride and unwilling conviction.
“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 playground, and half consoled, he hoped Mr Rose had heard it, and understood that it was meant for the boy whom he had just been rebuking. “Well, after all,” he thought, “I havesomefriends 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 Ball.
Even with Ball! 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.
Volume Two--Chapter Three.“The Jolly Herring.”Velut unda supervenit undam.—Horace.“The Anti-muffs request the honour of Eric Williams’s 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 with muchempressementby 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 thatno workis 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 classrooms 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 night-shirt, 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! what bosh! 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, Ball 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 taproom into the back parlour, to which Eric had already been introduced by Wildney. About a dozen boys were assembled, and there was a great clapping as the two newcomers 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 Ball 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 thedais eise, 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 roly-poly 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 antis.’”“And their chairman,” suggested Wildney.“And their chairman, the best fellow in the school,” added Brigson.The health was drunk with due clamour, and Eric (ridiculous and meaningless as he thought the toast) 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 bowlUntil it does run overCome, landlord, fill, etc.”“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 Ball 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 taproom; 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 parlour, 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 led 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’lemen,” 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 was 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 worthy 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 classroom boys were expected to go away during this interval; but Eric, not noticing Mr Rose’s entrance, sat gossiping 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 favourite 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 demeanour, 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-humouredly, “what’s the matter, Eric?”“Matter?” answered Eric, 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 himself 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? O 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 even alluded to him, butIshall 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 foul way in which he treated me. I don’t think youcanknow 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.”“O 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 fine a fellow to be made the tool or the patron of the boys who lead, while they seem to follow you. Idohope 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. Younevercome 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 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 Eric, 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’tthatI care for; I’ve been flogged before, you know. But—may I say something?”“Yes, Vernon, anything you like.”“Well, then,—oh, Eric! I’mso sosorry 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, Ididhear 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’m like this they are yet loving and praising me at home. And, O 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, for there seemed no more to say, 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 bright hair fell over 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 thathetoo would come in for very severe and certain punishment the next day.
Velut unda supervenit undam.—Horace.
Velut unda supervenit undam.—Horace.
“The Anti-muffs request the honour of Eric Williams’s 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 with muchempressementby 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 thatno workis 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 classrooms 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 night-shirt, 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! what bosh! 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, Ball 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 taproom into the back parlour, to which Eric had already been introduced by Wildney. About a dozen boys were assembled, and there was a great clapping as the two newcomers 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 Ball 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 thedais eise, 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 roly-poly 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 antis.’”
“And their chairman,” suggested Wildney.
“And their chairman, the best fellow in the school,” added Brigson.
The health was drunk with due clamour, and Eric (ridiculous and meaningless as he thought the toast) 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 bowlUntil it does run overCome, landlord, fill, etc.”
“Come, landlord, fill the flowing bowlUntil it does run overCome, landlord, fill, etc.”
“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!”
“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 Ball 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 taproom; 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 parlour, 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 led 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’lemen,” 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 was 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 worthy 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 classroom boys were expected to go away during this interval; but Eric, not noticing Mr Rose’s entrance, sat gossiping 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 favourite 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 demeanour, 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-humouredly, “what’s the matter, Eric?”
“Matter?” answered Eric, 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 himself 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? O 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 even alluded to him, butIshall 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 foul way in which he treated me. I don’t think youcanknow 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.”
“O 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 fine a fellow to be made the tool or the patron of the boys who lead, while they seem to follow you. Idohope 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. Younevercome 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 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 Eric, 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’tthatI care for; I’ve been flogged before, you know. But—may I say something?”
“Yes, Vernon, anything you like.”
“Well, then,—oh, Eric! I’mso sosorry 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, Ididhear 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’m like this they are yet loving and praising me at home. And, O 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, for there seemed no more to say, 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 bright hair fell over 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 thathetoo would come in for very severe and certain punishment the next day.
Volume Two--Chapter Four.Mr Rose and Brigson.Raro antecedentem scelestumDeseruit pede Poena claudo.Horace.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, 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 fortheirsakes; 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 excellent 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 inotherrespects also you are going the down-hill road. And what am I to think now, when, on thesamemorning, you and your little brotherbothcome before me for such serious and heavy faults? I cannot free you from blame even forhismisdoings, for you are his natural guardian here; I am only glad that you were not involved with him in that charge.”“Letmebear 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. “That will do,” he said; “I am glad you take a right view of the matter. Come to me again at twelve.”At twelve all the school were assembled, and Eric, pale and miserable, followed the Doctor into the great schoolroom. 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 glance 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 before. Eric’s sprightliness, once the delight of all his friends, was now rarely exhibited, except in the company of Wildney and Graham.“I’m so wretched, Monty,” said Eric at last; “do you think Rose despises me?”“I amsureof 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 wiser 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 fireplace 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 fireplace 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 tender-hearted 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,” observed Ball sententiously—“Hope elevates, and joyBrightens his crest.”“He-e-ar! he-e-ar!” said Pietrie; “videthe last fifth-form Repetition.”“I expect Eric won’t see everything so muchcouleur de rosenow, as the French frog hath it,” remarked Graham.“Turn him out for his bad pun,” said Wildney.“That means you’re jealous of it, old fellow,” answered Graham.“I can’t say either you or herosein my estimation in consequence,” said Wildney, chuckling, as he dodged away to escape Graham’s pursuit.“It was too bad to stand by and triumph, certainly,” observed Llewellyn.“I say, you fellows,” remonstrated the sober little 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’s 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 often 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’llcrustRose 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.”“Fiddlestick-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 Booking 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 vigour, and they were encouraged in their project 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.The hearts of many 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 wretched 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’s sake, as a boy who has, or at least oncehad, something noble in him, I left that matter in the Doctor’s hands. I shallnotdo 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 Iwillknow, and it will be far worse for all the guilty if I do not know at once.” There was unmistakable decision in the tone.“Very well. I know many boys who werenotguilty, because I saw them in parts of the room where to throw was impossible. I shall nowaskall 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 indignantly, 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. “Thatis 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, whatsortof character he had.So Brigson stood out in the room, and as they looked at him, many a boy cursed him in their hearts. And it wasthatfellow, 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 strong contempt. “No words can express my loathing for your false and dishonourable 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 Ididput 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 Booking. 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.“Ha! 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.“Miserablecoward,” 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,therein that coward, who cannot even endure his richly-merited punishment, see the boy whom you have suffered to be yourleaderfor 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 whereyoulead 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,neverlet 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 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 reappeared 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.”
Raro antecedentem scelestumDeseruit pede Poena claudo.Horace.
Raro antecedentem scelestumDeseruit pede Poena claudo.Horace.
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, 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 fortheirsakes; 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 excellent 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 inotherrespects also you are going the down-hill road. And what am I to think now, when, on thesamemorning, you and your little brotherbothcome before me for such serious and heavy faults? I cannot free you from blame even forhismisdoings, for you are his natural guardian here; I am only glad that you were not involved with him in that charge.”
“Letmebear 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. “That will do,” he said; “I am glad you take a right view of the matter. Come to me again at twelve.”
At twelve all the school were assembled, and Eric, pale and miserable, followed the Doctor into the great schoolroom. 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 glance 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 before. Eric’s sprightliness, once the delight of all his friends, was now rarely exhibited, except in the company of Wildney and Graham.
“I’m so wretched, Monty,” said Eric at last; “do you think Rose despises me?”
“I amsureof 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 wiser 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 fireplace 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 fireplace 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 tender-hearted 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,” observed Ball sententiously—
“Hope elevates, and joyBrightens his crest.”
“Hope elevates, and joyBrightens his crest.”
“He-e-ar! he-e-ar!” said Pietrie; “videthe last fifth-form Repetition.”
“I expect Eric won’t see everything so muchcouleur de rosenow, as the French frog hath it,” remarked Graham.
“Turn him out for his bad pun,” said Wildney.
“That means you’re jealous of it, old fellow,” answered Graham.
“I can’t say either you or herosein my estimation in consequence,” said Wildney, chuckling, as he dodged away to escape Graham’s pursuit.
“It was too bad to stand by and triumph, certainly,” observed Llewellyn.
“I say, you fellows,” remonstrated the sober little 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’s 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 often 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’llcrustRose 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.”
“Fiddlestick-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 Booking 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 vigour, and they were encouraged in their project 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.
The hearts of many 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 wretched 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’s sake, as a boy who has, or at least oncehad, something noble in him, I left that matter in the Doctor’s hands. I shallnotdo 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 Iwillknow, and it will be far worse for all the guilty if I do not know at once.” There was unmistakable decision in the tone.
“Very well. I know many boys who werenotguilty, because I saw them in parts of the room where to throw was impossible. I shall nowaskall 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 indignantly, 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. “Thatis 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, whatsortof character he had.
So Brigson stood out in the room, and as they looked at him, many a boy cursed him in their hearts. And it wasthatfellow, 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 strong contempt. “No words can express my loathing for your false and dishonourable 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 Ididput 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 Booking. 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.
“Ha! 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.
“Miserablecoward,” 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,therein that coward, who cannot even endure his richly-merited punishment, see the boy whom you have suffered to be yourleaderfor 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 whereyoulead 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,neverlet 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 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 reappeared 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.”