Eric, or Little by Little Part 5

"I think I must, I don't know half my lesson."

"Oh no, I don't go; there's Llewellyn; he'll take Russell's place, and we _must_ have the conquering game."

Again Eric yielded; and when the clock struck, he ran into school, hot, vexed with himself and certain to break down, just as Russell strolled in, whispering, "I've had lots of time to get up the Horace, and know it pat."

Still he clung to the little thistledown of hope that he should have plenty of time to cram it before the form were called up. But another temptation waited him. No sooner was he seated than Graham whispered, "Williams, it's your turn to write out the Horace; I did last time, you know."

Poor Eric! He was reaping the fruits of his desire to keep up popularity, which had prevented him from expressing a manly disapproval of the general cheating. Everybody seemed to a.s.sume now that _he_ at any rate didn't think much of it, and he had never claimed his real right up to that time of a.s.serting his innocence. But this was a step farther than he had ever gone before. He drew back--

"My _turn_, what do you mean?"

"Why, you know as well as I do that we all write it out by turns."

"Do you mean to say Owen or Russell ever wrote it out?"

"Of course not; you wouldn't expect the saints to be guilty of such a thing, would you?"

"I'd rather not, Graham," he said, getting very red.

"Well, that _is_ cowardly," answered Graham angrily; "then I suppose I must do it myself."

"Here, I'll do it," said Eric suddenly; "shy us the paper."

His conscience smote him bitterly. In his silly dread of giving offence, he was doing what he heartily despised, and he felt most uncomfortable.

"There," he said, pushing the paper from him in a pet; "I've written it, and I'll have nothing more to do with it."

Just as he finished, they were called up, and Barker, taking the paper, succeeded in pinning it as usual on the front of the desk. Eric had never seen it done so carelessly and clumsily before, and firmly believed, what was indeed a fact, that Barker had done it badly on purpose, in the hope that it might be discovered, and so Eric be got once more into a sc.r.a.pe. He was in an agony of apprehension, and when put on, was totally unable to say a word of his Repet.i.tion. But far as he had yielded, he would not cheat like the rest; in this respect, at any rate, he would not give up his claim to chivalrous and stainless honour; he kept his eyes resolutely turned away from the guilty paper, and even refused to repeat the words which were prompted in his ear by the boys on each side. Mr Gordon, after waiting a moment, said--

"Why, sir, you know nothing about it; you can't have looked at it. Go to the bottom, and write it out five times."

"_Write it out_," thought Eric; "this is retribution, I suppose," and, covered with shame and vexation, he took his place below the malicious Barker at the bottom of the form.

It happened that during the lesson the fire began to smoke, and Mr Gordon told Owen to open the window for a moment. No sooner was this done than the mischievous whiff of sea-air which entered the room began to trifle and coquet with the pendulous half-sheet pinned in front of the desk, causing thereby an unwonted little pattering crepitation. In alarm, Duncan thoughtlessly pulled out the pin, and immediately the paper floated gracefully over Russell's head, as he sat at the top of the form, and, after one or two gyrations, fluttered down in the centre of the room.

"Bring me that piece of paper," said Mr Gordon, full of vague suspicion.

Several boys moved uneasily, and Eric looked nervously round.

"Did you hear? fetch me that half-sheet of paper."

A boy picked it up, and handed it to him. Mr Gordon held it for a full minute in his hands without a word, while vexation, deep disgust, and rising anger, struggled in his countenance. At last, he suddenly turned full on Eric, whose writing he recognised, and broke out--

"So, sir! a second time caught in gross deceit. I should not have thought it possible. Your face and manners belie you. You have lost my confidence for ever. I _despise_ you."

"Indeed, sir," said the penitent Eric, "I never meant--"

"Silence--you are detected, as cheats always will be. I shall report you to Dr Rowlands."

The next boy was put on, and broke down. The same with the next, and the next, and the next; Montagu, Graham, Llewellyn, Duncan, Barker, all hopeless failures; only two boys had said it right--Russell and Owen.

Mr Gordon's face grew blacker and blacker. The deep undisguised pain which the discovery caused him was swallowed up in unbounded indignation. "Deceitful, dishonourable boys," he exclaimed, "henceforth my treatment of you shall be very different. The whole form, except Russell and Owen, shall have an extra lesson every half-holiday; not one of the rest of you will I trust again. I took you for gentlemen. I was mistaken. Go." And so saying, he motioned them to their seats with imperious disdain.

They went, looking sheepish and ashamed. Eric, deeply vexed, kept twisting and untwisting a bit of paper, without raising his eyes, and even Barker thoroughly repented his short-sighted treachery; the rest were silent and miserable.

At twelve o'clock two boys lingered in the room to speak to Mr Gordon; they were Eric Williams and Edwin Russell, but they were full of very different feelings.

Eric stepped to the desk first. Mr Gordon looked up.

"You! Williams, I wonder that you have the audacity to speak to me.

Go--I have nothing to say to you."

"But, sir, I want to tell you that--"

"Your guilt is only too clear, Williams. You will hear more of this.

Go, I tell you."

Eric's pa.s.sion overcame him; he stamped furiously on the ground, and burst out, "I _will_ speak, sir; you have been unjust to me for a long time, but I will _not_ be--"

Mr Gordon's cane fell sharply across the boy's back; he stopped, glared for a moment, and then saying, "Very well, sir! I shall tell Dr Rowlands that you strike before you hear me," he angrily left the room, and slammed the door violently behind him.

Before Mr Gordon had time to recover from his astonishment, Russell stood by him.

"Well, my boy," said the master, softening in a moment, and laying his hand gently on Russell's head, "what have you to say? You cannot tell how I rejoice, amid the vexation and disgust that this has caused me, to find that _you_ at least are honourable. But I _knew_, Edwin, that I could trust you."

"Oh, sir, I come to speak for Eric--for Williams."

Mr Gordon's brow darkened again and the storm gathered, as he interrupted vehemently, "Not a word, Russell; not a word. This is the _second_ time that he has wilfully deceived me; and this time he has involved others too in his base deceit."

"Indeed, sir, you wrong him. I can't think how he came to write the paper, but I _know_ that he did not and would not use it. Didn't you see yourself, sir, how he turned his head quite another way when he broke down?"

"It is very kind of you, Edwin, to defend him," said Mr Gordon coldly, "but at present, at any rate, I must not hear you. Leave me; I feel deeply vexed, and must have time to think over this disgraceful affair."

Russell went away disconsolate, and met his friend striding up and down the pa.s.sage, waiting for Dr Rowlands to come out of the library.

"Oh, Eric," he said, "how came you to write that paper?"

"Why, Russell, I did feel very much ashamed, and I would have explained it, and said so; but that Gordon spites me so. It is such a shame; I don't feel now as if I cared one bit."

"I am sorry you don't get on with him; but remember you have given him in this case good cause to suspect. You never crib, Eric, I know, so I can't help being sorry that you wrote the paper."

"But then Graham asked me to do it, and called me cowardly because I refused at first."

"Ah, Eric," said Russell, "they will ask you to do worse things if you yield so easily. I wouldn't say anything to Dr Rowlands about it, if I were you."

Eric took the advice, and, full of mortification, went home. He gave his father a true and manly account of the whole occurrence, and that afternoon Mr Williams wrote a note of apology and explanation to Mr Gordon. Next time the form went up, Mr Gordon said, in his most freezing tone, "Williams, at present I shall take no further notice of your offence beyond including you in the extra lesson every half-holiday."

From that day forward Eric felt that he was marked and suspected, and the feeling worked on him with the worst effects. He grew more careless in work, and more trifling and indifferent in manner. Several boys now got above him in form whom he had easily surpa.s.sed before, and his energies were for a time entirely directed to keeping that supremacy in the games which he had won by his activity and strength.