Louis' School Days Part 14

cried Ferrers: "but will Alfred tell?"

"He does not know," replied Louis, in a low tone.

"But will he not mention what has pa.s.sed?"

"I will warn him then," said Louis.

Ferrers then in broken sentences renewed his thanks, and Louis, after hearing a few in silence, as if he heard nothing, turned his full moist eyes on him with a sorrowful beseeching look,

"You have done a very wicked thing, Ferrers. Oh do pray to G.o.d to forgive you."

"I will try to do any thing you wish," replied Ferrers.

"A prayer because _I_ wished, could do you no good. You must feel you have sinned against G.o.d. Do try to think of this. If it should make you do so, I _think_ I could cheerfully bear this disgrace a little longer for you, though what it is to bear I cannot tell you."

"You are almost an angel, Louis!" exclaimed Ferrers.

"Oh don't say such things to me, Ferrers," said Louis, "pray don't.

I am not more so than I was before this--I am but a sinful creature like yourself, and it is the remembrance of this that makes me pity you. Now do leave me alone; I cannot bear to hear you flatter me now."

Ferrers lingered yet, though Louis moved from him with a shuddering abhorrence of the fawning, creeping manner of his school-fellow. Seeing that Ferrers still loitered near him, he asked if there were any thing more to say.

"Will your brother know this?"

"Reginald?" replied Louis. "Of course--no--_I_ shall not tell him."

"A thousand thousand times I thank you,--oh Louis, Louis, you are too good!"

"Will you be kind enough to let me alone," said Louis gently, but very decidedly.

This time the request was complied with, and Louis resumed his former seat, and fixing his eyes vacantly on the sweet prospect before him, ruminated with a full heart on the recent discovery; and, strange to say, though he had voluntarily promised to screen Ferrers a little longer from his justly merited disgrace, he felt as if it had been only a compulsory sense of duty and not benevolence which had led him to do so, and was inclined to murmur at his hard lot. For some time he sat in a kind of sullen apathy, without being able to send up a prayer, even though he felt he needed help to feel rightly. At length the kindly tears burst forth, and covering his face with his hands he wept softly.

"I am very wrong--very ungrateful to G.o.d for His love to me. He has borne so much for me, and I am so unwilling to bear a little for poor Ferrers.

Oh what sinful feelings I have! My heavenly Father, teach me to feel pity for him, for he has no one to help him; help him, teach him, Thyself."

Such, and many more, were the deep heart-breathings of the dear boy, and who ever sought for guidance and grace, and was rejected? and how unspeakably comfortable is the a.s.surance, that for each of us there is with Christ the very grace we need.

The sullen fit was gone, and Louis was his own happy self again, when little Alfred came to tell him that Mr. Witworth had given the order to return home,--"And I came to tell you, dear Louis, for I wanted to walk home with you. What a beast that Ferrers is! see if I won't tell Edward of him."

"Hush, Alfred!" said Louis, putting his finger on the little boy's mouth.

"Do you know that G.o.d is very angry when we call each other bad names, and surely you do not wish to revenge yourself? I will tell you a very sweet verse which our Saviour said: '_Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven._'" As the little monitor spoke, the soft consciousness of the comfort of those sweet words rushed over his own mind, "_children of your Father who is in heaven_."

"And am I a child--His child indeed! I will try to glorify my Saviour who has given me that great name."

That is a sure promise that "they who water shall be watered," and who is there that has endeavored to lead another heavenward, that has not felt, at one time or another, a double share of that living water refreshing his own soul?

With one arm round his little friend's neck, Louis wandered home, and, during the walk, easily persuaded Alfred not to say a word of what had pa.s.sed; and as for Louis--oh, his eye was brighter, his step more buoyant, his heart full of gladness!

A little word, and I will close this long chapter. It is good for us to consider how unable we are to think and to do rightly ourselves: we must do so if we would be saved by Christ. When we have done all, we are unprofitable servants; but oh, how gracious--how incomprehensible is that love that puts into our minds good desires, brings the same to good effect, and rewards us for those things which He Himself has enabled us to do!

CHAPTER VIII.

"Charity suffereth long, and is kind."--1 Cor. xiii. 4.

Louis entered the cla.s.s-room sooner than usual one evening, and sitting down by his brother, spread before him a few strawberries and some sweet-cakes, inviting him and one of Salisbury's brothers who was on the other side of him to partake of them.

"What beauties they are!" exclaimed John Salisbury; "have you had a box, Louis? How _did_ you get them?"

"Guess," said Louis.

"Nay, I can't guess. Strawberries like these don't come at this time of the year in boxes."

"I guess," said Frank Digby from the opposite side of the table, in a tone as if he had been speaking to some one behind him.

"Fudge has a dinner party to-night, hasn't he?"

"Yes," said Louis, laughing; "how did you know that?"

"Oh, I have the little green bird that tells every thing," replied Frank.

"What's that, Frank?" cried Salisbury; "Fudge a dinner party? How snug he's kept it!"

"Why you don't suppose that he's obliged to inform us all when he has some idea of doing the genteel," remarked one of the first cla.s.s.

"Are Hamilton and Trevannion invited?" asked Salisbury.

"In good troth! thou art a bat of the most blind species," said Frank; "didn't you see them both just now in all their best toggery? Trevannion went up to his room just after school, and has, I believe, at last adorned his beauteous person to his mind--all graces and delicious odors.--Faugh! he puts me in mind of a hair-dresser's shop."

"He declares that his new perfumes are something expressly superior,"

said another. "_He_ wouldn't touch your vulgar scents."

"His _millefleurs_ is at all events uncommonly like a muskrat,"

said Salisbury.

"And," remarked Frank, "as that erudite youth, Oars, would say, 'puts me in mind of some poet, but I've forgotten his name.' However, two lines borrowed from him, which my sister quotes to me when I am genteel, will do as well as his name:

"'I cannot talk with civet in the room-- A fine puss gentleman, that's all perfume.'"

Reginald laughed. "I often think of the overrun flower-pots in the cottages at Dashwood, when Trevannion has been adorning himself.

I once mortally offended him by the same quotation."

"Had you the amazing audacity! the intolerable presumption!" cried Frank, pretending to start. "I perceive his magnificent scorn didn't quite annihilate you; I think, though, he was three hours embellishing himself to-night."

"Frank, that's impossible!" cried Louis, laughing, "for it was four o'clock when he went, and it's only half-past six now."

"Cease your speech, and eat your booty: I dare say it is sweet enough; sweetness is the usual concomitant of goods so obtained."