Eric, or Little by Little Part 30

While he went there was unbroken silence.

"Now, sir," said he to Brigson, "I shall flog you." Corporal punishment was avoided with the bigger boys, and Brigson had never undergone it before. At the first stroke he writhed and yelled; at the second he retreated, twisting like a serpent, and blubbering like a baby; at the third he flung himself on his knees, and as the strokes fell fast, clasped Mr Rose's arm, and implored and besought for mercy.

"_Miserable_ coward," said Mr Rose, throwing into the word such ringing scorn that no one who heard it ever forgot it. He indignantly shook the boy off, and caned him till he rolled on the floor, losing every particle of self-control, and calling out, "The devil--the devil--the devil!" ("invoking his patron saint," as Wildney maliciously observed).

"There! cease to blaspheme, and get up," said the master, blowing out a cloud of fiery indignation. "There, sir. Retribution comes at last, leaden-footed but iron-handed. A long catalogue of sins is visited on you to-day, and not only on your shrinking body, but on your conscience too, if you have one left. Let those red marks betoken that your reign is ended. Liar and tempter, you have led boys into the sins which you then meanly deny! And now, you boys, _there_ in that coward, who cannot even endure his richly-merited punishment, see the boy whom you have suffered to be your _leader_ for well-nigh six months!"

"Now, sir,"--again he turned upon Brigson--"that flogging shall be repeated with interest on your next offence. At present you will take each boy on your back while I cane him. It is fit that they should see where _you_ lead them to."

Trembling violently, and cowed beyond description, he did as he was bid.

No other boy cried, or even winced; a few sharp cuts was all which Mr Rose gave them, and even they grew fewer each time, for he was tired, and displeased to be an executioner.

"And now," he said, "since that disgusting but necessary scene is over, _never_ let me have to repeat it again." But his authority was established like a rock from that night forward. No one ever ventured to dispute it again, or forgot that evening. Mr Rose's n.o.ble 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 l.u.s.tily 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 grat.i.tude, and hope for no reward, but simply, and contentedly, and unmurmuringly, to work on in G.o.d'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."

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIVE.

RIPPLES.

Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And live for ever and for ever.

_Tennyson_.

Owen and Montagu were walking by Silverburn, and talking over the affairs of the school. During their walk they saw Wright and Vernon Williams in front of them.

"I am so glad to see those two together," said Montagu; "I really think Wright is one of the best little fellows in the school, and he'll be the saving of Vernon. He's already persuaded him to leave off smoking and other bad things, and has got him to work a little harder, and turn over a new leaf altogether."

"Yes," answered Owen; "I've seen a marvellous improvement in little Williams lately. I think that Duncan gave him a rough lesson the other night which did him good, and dear old Rose too has been leading him by the hand; but the best thing is that, through Wright, he sees less of Eric's _friend_, that young scapegrace Wildney."

"Yes; that little wretch has a good deal to answer for. What a pity that Eric spoils him so, or rather suffers himself to be spoilt by him.

I'm glad Vernon's escaped his influence now: he's too fine a nature to be made as bad as the general run of them. What a brilliant little fellow he is; just like his brother."

"Just like what his brother _was_," said Owen; "his face, like his mind, has suffered lately."

"Too true," answered Montagu, with a sigh; "and yet, cool as we now are in our outward intercourse, he little knows how I love him, and yearn for the Eric I once knew--Eric the fair-haired, as Russell and I used sometimes to call him in fun. Would to G.o.d poor Russell had lived, and then I believe that he wouldn't have gone so far wrong."

"Well, I think there's another chance for him now that--that--what name is bad enough for that Brigson?--is gone."

"I hope so. But,"--he added after a pause--"his works do follow him.

Look there!" He took a large stone and threw it into the Silverburn stream; there was a great splash, and the ever-widening circles of blue ripple broke the surface of the water, dying away one by one in the sedges on the bank. "There," he said, "see how long those ripples last, and how numerous they are."

Owen understood him. "Poor Eric! What a gleam of new hope there was in him after Russell's death!"

"Yes, for a time," said Montagu; "heigh ho! I fear we shall never be warm friends again. We can't be while he goes on as he is doing. And yet I love him."

A sudden turn of the stream brought them to the place called Riverbend.

"If you want a practical comment on what we've been talking about, you'll see it there," said Montagu.

He pointed to a party of boys, four or five, all lying on a pleasant gra.s.s bank, smoking pipes. Prominent among them was Eric, stretched at ease, and looking up at the clouds, towards which curled the puffed fumes of his meerschaum, a gift of Wildney's. That worthy was beside him similarly employed.

The two sixth-form boys hoped to pa.s.s by un.o.bserved, as they did not wish for a rencontre with our hero under such circ.u.mstances. But they saw Wildney pointing to them, and, from the fits of laughter which followed his remarks, they had little doubt that they were the subject of the young gentleman's wit. This is never a pleasant sensation; but they observed that Eric made a point of not looking their way, and went on in silence.

"How very sad!" said Montagu.

"How very contemptible!" said Owen. "Harf.a.gher among his subjects!"

"Did you observe what they were doing?"

"Smoking?"

"Worse than that a good deal. They were doing something which, if Eric doesn't take care, will one day be his ruin."

"What?"

"I saw them drinking. I have little doubt it was brandy."

"Good heavens!"

"It is getting a common practice with some fellows. One of the ripples, you see, of Brigson's influence."

Before they got home they caught up Wright and Vernon, and walked in together.

"We've been talking," said Wright, "about a bad matter. Vernon here says that there's no good working for a prize in his form, because the cribbing's so atrocious. Indeed, it's very nearly as bad in my form.

It always is under Gordon; he _can't_ understand fellows doing dishonourable things."