Eric, or Little by Little Part 24

"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 gla.s.s 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 going _there_," said Wildney carelessly; "we go every week almost."

"We! who?"

"Oh, Brigson and a lot of us. We have a club there which we call 'the Anti-m.u.f.fs,' 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 b.u.t.tress 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, _your_ friend, Eric?"

"Yes, I do though. He's one of the pluckiest, finest, most promising fellows in the lower-school."

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

"You've certainly required _that_ kind of pluck to bear you up lately, Monty," said Owen, looking up from his books.

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

"Dregs of the school! Upon my word, you're cool, to speak of any of my a.s.sociates in that way," said Eric, now thoroughly angry.

"a.s.sociates!" retorted Montagu hotly; "pretty a.s.sociates! 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 m.u.f.fs!" 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.