Eric Part 21

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

He was up early next morning, and, opening his window, leaned out with his hands among the green vine-leaves which encircled it. The garden looked beautiful as ever, and he promised himself an early enjoyment of those currants which hung in ruby cl.u.s.ters over the walls. Everything was bathed in the dewy balm of summer morning, and he felt very happy as, with his little spaniel frisking round him, he visited the great Newfoundland in his kennel, and his old pet the pony in the stable. He had barely finished his rounds when breakfast was ready, and he once more met the home-circle from which he had been separated for a year.

And yet over all his happiness hung a sense of change and half melancholy; they were not changed but _he_ was changed. Mrs. Trevor, and f.a.n.n.y, and Vernon were the same as ever, but over _him_, had come an alteration of feeling and circ.u.mstance; an unknown or half-known _something_ which cast a shadow between them and him, and sometimes made him half shrink and start as he met their loving looks. Can no schoolboy, who reads history, understand and explain the feeling which I mean?

By that mail he wrote to his father and mother an account of Russell's death, and he felt that they would guess why the letter was so blurred.

"But," he wrote, "I have some friends still; especially Mr. Rose among the masters, and Monty and Upton among the boys. Monty you know; he is more like Edwin than any other boy, and I like him very much. You didn't know Upton, but I am a great deal with him, though he is much older than I am. He is a fine handsome fellow, and one of the most popular in the school. I hope you will know him some day."

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

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

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

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

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

Eric folded the letter sadly, and put it into his pocket; he didn't often show them his school letters, because, like this one, they often contained allusions to things which he did not like his aunt to know.

The thought of Upton's leaving him made him quite unhappy, and he wrote him a long letter by that post, indignantly denying the supposition that his friendship had ever done him anything but good.

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

Rose. The master fully understood his doubts, and wrote him the following reply:--

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

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

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

"I hope you have been enjoying your holidays, and that you will come back with the 'spell of home affection' alive in your heart. I shall rejoice to make Vernon's acquaintance, and will do for him all I can.

Bring him with you to me in the library as soon as you arrive.--Ever, dear Eric,

"Affectionately yours,

"WALTER ROSA."

END OF PART I

PART II

"Sed revocare gradum."--VIRGIL.

CHAPTER I

ABDIEL

[Greek: Phtheirousin aethae chraesth' omiliai kakai].--MENANDEB.

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

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

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

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

Yet Eric could not overlook or be blind to the fact, that Vernon's chief friend or leader was the most undesirable whom he could have chosen. It was a new boy named Brigson. This boy had been expelled from one of the most ill-managed schools in Ireland, although, of course, the fact had been most treacherously concealed from the authorities at Roslyn; and now he was let loose, without warning or caution, among the Roslyn boys.

Better for them if their gates had been open to the pestilence! the pestilence could but have killed the body, but this boy--this fore-front fighter in the devil's battle--did ruin many an immortal soul. He systematically, from the very first, called evil good and good evil, put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. He openly threw aside the admission of any one moral obligation. Never did some of the Roslyn boys, to their dying day, forget the deep, intolerable, unfathomable flood of moral turpitude and iniquity which he bore with him; a flood, which seemed so irresistible, and the influence of such boys as Montagu and Owen to stay its onrush seemed as futile as the weight of a feather to bar the fury of a mountain stream. Eric might have done much, Duncan might have done much, to aid the better cause, had they tried; but they resisted at first but faintly, and then not at all, until they too were swept away in the broadening tide of degeneracy and sin.

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

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

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

Montagu, now Owen's chief friend, was also in the sixth, and fearlessly expressed at once his contempt for Brigson, and his dread of the evil he was effecting. Had the monitorial system existed, that contagion could have been checked at once; but, as it was, brute force the unlimited authority. Ill indeed are those informed who raise a cry, and join in the ignorant abuse of that n.o.ble safeguard of English schools. Any who have had personal and intimate experience of how schools work _with_ it and _without_ it, know what a Palladium it is of happiness and morality; how it prevents bullying, upholds manliness, is the bulwark of discipline, and makes boys more earnest and thoughtful, often at the most critical period of their lives, by enlisting all their sympathies and interests on the side of the honorable and the just.

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

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

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

One night, coming down, as usual, in melancholy dread, he saw a light under the door of his room. It struck him that he was earlier than usual, and he walked up quickly and noiselessly. There they were at it!

The instant he entered, there was a rush through the opposite door, and he felt convinced that one of the retreating figures was Brigson's. In a second he had sprung across, so as to prevent the rest from running, and with heaving breast and flaming eyes, glared at the intruders as they stood there, sheepish and afraid.

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

"_Do_ forgive me, _do_ forgive me, Montagu," he said; "I really didn't know it teased you so much."

But Montagu shook him off, and at once recovered himself. "Wretched boys! let me see what you have been doing to-night. Oh, as usual," he said, glancing at the complete disorder which they had been effecting.

"Ha! but what is this? So Brigson has introduced another vile secret among you. Well, he shall rue it!" and he pointed to some small, almost invisible flakes of a whitish substance scattered here and there over his pillow. It was a kind of powder, which if once it touched the skin, caused the most violent and painful irritation.

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

And _you_, too, Vernon Williams!"

The little boy trembled and looked ashamed under his n.o.ble glance of sorrow and scorn.

"Well, I _know_ who has put you up to this; but you shall not escape so.

I shall thrash you every one."

Very quietly he suited the action to the word, sparing none. They took it patiently enough, conscious of richly deserving it; and when it was over, Vernon said, "Forgive me, Montagu. I am very sorry, and will never do so again." Montagu, without deigning a reply, motioned them to go, and then sat down, full of grief, on his bed. But the outrage was not over for that night, and no sooner had he put out the light than he became painfully aware that several boys were stealing into the room, and the next moment he felt a bolster fall on his head. He was out of bed in an instant, and with a few fierce and indignant blows, had scattered the crowd of his cowardly a.s.sailants, and driven them away. A number of fellows had set on him in the dark--on _him_, of all others.

Oh, what a change must have happened in the school that this should be possible! He felt that the contagion of Brigson's baseness had spread far indeed.