Louis' School Days Part 9

For even hereunto ye were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously,"--and the feeling of indignation against Ferrers was gradually changed into almost pity for him, for Louis knew by experience the pain of a loaded conscience. While his thoughts thus ran over the past and present, he heard the firm step of Dr. Wilkinson crossing the hall, and nearly at the same moment that gentleman entered the room. There was no pity in his countenance--the dark lines in his face seemed fixed in their most iron mould; and briefly announcing to his trembling pupil that the time allowed him for consideration had expired, he asked whether he were prepared to acknowledge his fault. Louis meekly persisted in his denial, which had only the effect of making the doctor consider him a more hardened offender; and after a few words, expressing the strongest reprehension of his wickedness and cowardice, he gave him severe caning, and sent him immediately to bed, although it was but the middle of the day.

In spite of the better feelings which urged poor Louis to acknowledge the justice, under the circ.u.mstances, of his master's proceedings, he could not help thinking that he had been very hardly treated. He hurried up stairs, glad to indulge his grief in silence. How many times, in the affliction of the next few hours, did he repeat a little hymn he had learned at home:

"Thy lambs, dear Shepherd, that are weak, Are thy peculiar care; 'Tis Thine in judgment to afflict, And Thine in love to spare.

"Though young in years, yet, oh! how oft Have I a rebel been; My punishment, O Lord, is mild, Nor equals all my sin.

"Since all the chastis.e.m.e.nts I feel Are from Thy love alone, Let not one murmuring thought arise, But may Thy will be done.

"Then let me blush with holy shame, And mourn before my Lord, That I have lived to Thee no more, No more obeyed Thy word."

--"Hymns for Sunday-Schools"

At last he fell asleep, and oh! to wake; from that sleep! It was surely good to be afflicted, and in the happiness of his mind Louis forgot his trouble. But he had yet to endure much more, and the bitterest part of his punishment came the next morning, when, according to his master's orders, he repaired to the study with his books. He had been desired to remain in this room out of school-hours, and was forbidden to speak to any of his school-fellows without leave. While he was sitting there the first morning after the inquiry related in this chapter, Dr. Wilkinson entered with a letter, and sat down at the table where Louis was reading. As he opened his desk, he said, "I have a painful task to perform. This is a letter from your father, Louis Mortimer, and he particularly requests that I should give him an account of your conduct and your brother's; you know what an account I can give of you both."

Louis had listened very attentively to his master's speech, and when it was concluded he gave way to such a burst of sorrow as quite touched the doctor. For some minutes he wept almost frantically, and then clasping his hands, he implored Dr. Wilkinson not to tell his father what had happened: "It will break mamma's heart, it will break mamma's heart, sir--do not tell my father."

"Confess your fault, Louis, and I may then speak of amendment,"

said the doctor.

"I cannot, indeed--indeed I cannot. It will all come out by and bye: you will see, sir--oh! you will see, sir," sobbed Louis, deprecating the gathering of the angry cloud on the doctor's face. "Oh! do not tell mamma, for it is not true."

"I do not wish to hear any more, sir," said the doctor, sternly.

"Oh! what shall I do--what shall I do!" cried Louis; and he pushed his chair quickly from the table, and, throwing himself on his knees by Dr. Wilkinson, seized the hand that was beginning to date the dreaded letter--"I a.s.sure you I did not, sir--I am speaking the truth."

"As you always do, doubtless," said the doctor, drawing his hand roughly away. "Get up, sir; kneel to Him you have so deeply offended, but not to me."

Louis rose, but stood still in the same place. "Will you hear only this one thing, sir? I will not say any thing more about my innocence--just hear me, if you please, sir."

Dr. Wilkinson turned his head coldly towards him.

Louis dried his tears, and spoke with tolerable calmness: "I have one thing to ask, sir--will you allow me still to remain in the second cla.s.s, and to do my lessons always in this room? You will then see if I can do without keys, or having any help."

"I know you can if you choose," replied Dr. Wilkinson, coldly, "or I should not have placed you in that cla.s.s."

"But, if you please, sir, I know all,"--Louis paused, he had promised to say no more on that subject.

There was a little silence, during which Dr. Wilkinson looked earnestly at Louis. At last he said, "You may stay in the cla.s.s; but, remember, you are forbidden to speak to any of your school-fellows for the next week without express permission."

"Not to my brother, sir?"

"No; now go."

"May I write to mamma?"

"Yes, if you wish it."

After timidly thanking the doctor, Louis returned to his seat, and Dr. Wilkinson continued his letter, which went off by the same post that took Louis' to his mother.

CHAPTER V.

"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."--Heb. xii. 11.

"Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Thy word."--Psalm cxix. 67.

Perhaps there is no state more dangerous to a Christian's peace of mind than one of continual prosperity. In adversity even the worldly man will sometimes talk of resignation, and feel that it is a good thing to be acquainted and at peace with G.o.d, and that when all human help is cut off, it is a sweet thing to have a sure refuge in an almighty Saviour. But in prosperity the unG.o.dly never look to Him; and His own children, carrying about with them a sinful nature, against which they must continually maintain a warfare, are too apt to forget the Giver in his gifts, and to imagine that all is well because nothing occurs to disturb the regularity of their blessings.

Our little Louis, though the trial he now underwent was a bitter one, and though at times it seemed almost too hard to be endured, learned by degrees to feel that it was good for him. He had been in too high favor, he had trusted too much in the good word of his school-fellows, and had suffered the fear of man to deter him from his duty to G.o.d; and now, isolated and looked upon as an unworthy member of the little society to which he belonged, he learned to find his sole happiness in that sweet communion which he had now solitary leisure to enjoy. His very troubles carried him to a throne of grace; his desolate condition made him feel that there was only One who never changed nor forsook His people; only One who could understand and feel for the infirmities and sorrows of a human creature; and though to the unG.o.dly it is a terror to know that there is "nothing that is not manifest in G.o.d's sight," to the true child of G.o.d it is an unspeakable comfort to feel that his thoughts and actions are "known long before" by his unwearied Guardian.

The effects of Louis' lonely communings were soon visible in his daily conduct, and after his term of punishment had expired, the meekness of his bearing, and the gentle lowliness of his demeanor, often disarmed the most severe and unpitying of his youthful judges. There was no servility in his manner, for he neither courted nor shunned observation; nor, though he was as willing as ever to do a kind action for any one, did he allow himself to be persuaded to give up all his time to his idler school-fellows. There seemed more firmness and decision in his naturally yielding disposition, and those who knew not the power of a.s.sisting grace, looked and wondered at the firmness the sweet but weak boy could at times a.s.sume. He would have told them it was not his own.

He was very quiet, and spoke little, even to his brother, of what was pa.s.sing in his mind, and sometimes his thoughts were so quietly happy that he did not like to be spoken to. To Ferrers, Louis was as gentle and courteous as to the rest of his companions, and, indeed, he had now little other feeling towards him than that of sorrow and pity.

There had been an unusual noise in the study one evening, while Louis was absent, and when he entered it, he found the confusion attendant on a grand uproar. Very little was doing, and tokens of the late skirmish lay about the floor in torn and scattered books, and overthrown forms.

Among others, Ferrers was hunting for a missing book, but to discover it in such a chaos was a difficult task, especially as no one would now allow the candles to be used in the search.

With many expressions, so unfitted for refined ears that I do not choose to present them to my reader, Ferrers continued his search, now and then attempting to s.n.a.t.c.h a candle from the table, in which he was regularly foiled by those sitting there.

"Well, at least have the civility to move and let me see if it is under the table," he said at length.

"You have hindered us long enough," said Salisbury; "Smith, Jones, and I have done nothing to-night. If you will have rows, you must e'en take the consequences."

"Can't you get under the form?" asked Smith, derisively.

Ferrers was going to make some angry, reply, when Louis dived between the table and the form, with some trouble, and, at the expense of receiving a few unceremonious kicks, recovered the book and gave it to Ferrers, who hardly thanked him, but leaning his head on his hand, seemed almost incapable of doing any thing. Presently he looked up, and asked in a tone of mingled anger and weariness, what had become of the inkstand he had brought.

"Loosing's seeking, Finding's keeping,"

said Salisbury. "Which is yours? Perhaps it's under the table too."

"Hold your nonsense," cried Ferrers, angrily. "It's very shabby of you to hinder me in this manner."

Louis quietly slipped an inkstand near him, an action of which Ferrers was quite aware, and though he pretended not to notice it, he availed himself presently of the convenience. A racking headache, however, almost disabled him from thinking, and though he was really unwell, there was only the boy he had so cruelly injured who felt any sympathy for his suffering.

Louis carefully avoided any direct manifestation of his anxiety to return good for evil, for he felt, though he hardly knew why, that his actions would be misconstrued, but whenever any little opportunity occurred in which he could really render any service, he was always as ready to do it for Ferrers as for another; and now, when from his cla.s.smates Ferrers met with nothing but jokes on his "beautiful temper,"

and "placid state of mind," he could not help feeling the gentleness of Louis' conduct, the absence of pleasure in his annoyance, and the look of evident sympathy he met whenever he accidentally turned his eyes in his direction. For a few days after this he was obliged to keep his bed, and during this time, though Louis only once saw him, he thought of every little kind attention he could, that might be grateful to the invalid.

Knowing that he was not a favorite, and that few in the school would trouble themselves about him, he borrowed books and sent them to him for his amus.e.m.e.nt, and empowered the old cake man to procure some grapes, which he sent up to him by a servant, with strict orders to say nothing of where they came from. The servant met Hamilton at the door of the room, and he relieved her of her charge, and as she did not consider herself under promise of secrecy towards him, she mentioned it, desiring him at the same time to say nothing to Ferrers.

Louis had now established a regular time for doing his own lessons, and kept to it with great perseverance to the end of the half-year, with one exception, when he had been acting prisoner in a trial performed in the school-room, by half his own cla.s.s and the third, and let the evening slip by without remembering how late it grew.

His cla.s.s-fellows were in the same predicament as himself, and as they had barely time to write a necessary exercise, they agreed among themselves to learn each his own piece of the lesson they had to repeat.

Louis did not seriously consider the deceit they were practising, and adopted the same plan. One of the number, not trusting to his memory, hit upon the singular expedient of writing the whole of his piece and the next on a piece of paper, and wafering it to the instep of his shoe when he went up to his cla.s.s. Unhappily for his scheme, he was so placed that he dared not expose his foot so as to allow him to avail himself of this delectable a.s.sistance, and consequently, after much looking on the floor for inspiration, and much incoherent muttering, was pa.s.sed over, and the order of things being thereby disturbed, of course no one could say the missing lines until the head boy was applied to, and the lower half of the cla.s.s was turned down, with the exception of Louis, who, standing on this occasion just above the gentleman of shoe memory, had been able to say his share.

As they were breaking up, Mr. Danby said to Louis, "You have been very industrious lately, Louis Mortimer: I am glad you have been so correct to-day."

Louis blushed from a consciousness of undeserved praise; but though his natural fear of offending and losing favor sprung up directly, a higher principle faced it, and bearing down all obstacles, forced him to acknowledge his unworthiness of the present encomium.