Eric, or Little by Little Part 2

Eric, gulping down his fury with a great effort, turned to his opponent, and said coolly, "Is that what you always do to new fellows?"

"Yes, you b.u.mptious young owl, it is, and that too;" and a tolerably smart slap on the face followed--leaving a red mark on a cheek already aflame with anger and indignation,--"should you like a little more?"

He was hurt and offended, but was too proud to cry. "What's that for?"

he said, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

"For your conceit in laughing at me when I was caned."

Eric stamped. "I did nothing of the kind, and you know it as well as I do."

"What? I'm a liar, am I? Oh, we shall take this kind of thing out of you, you young cub; take that;" and a heavier blow followed.

"You brutal cowardly bully," shouted Eric; and in another moment he would have sprung upon him. It was lucky for him that he did not, for Barker was three years older than he, and very powerful. Such an attack would have been most unfortunate for him in every way. But at this instant some boys hearing the quarrel ran up, and Russell among them.

"Hallo, Barker," said one; "what's up?"

"Why, I'm teaching this new fry to be less b.u.mptious, that's all."

"Shame!" said Russell, as he saw the mark on Eric's cheek; "what a fellow you are, Barker. Why couldn't you let him alone for the first day at any rate?"

"What's that to you? I'll kick you too if you say much."

"Cave! cave!" whispered half a dozen voices, and instantly the knot of boys dispersed in every direction, as Mr Gordon was seen approaching.

He had caught a glimpse of the scene without understanding it, and seeing the new boy's red and angry face, he only said, as he pa.s.sed by, "What, Williams! fighting already? Take care."

This was the cruellest cut of all. "So," thought Eric, "a nice beginning! it seems both boys and masters are against me," and very disconsolately he walked to pick up his cap.

The boys were all dispersed on the playground at different games, and as he went home he was stopped perpetually, and had to answer the usual questions, "What's your name? Are you a boarder or a day scholar? What form are you in?" Eric expected all this, and it therefore did not annoy him. Under any other circ.u.mstances, he would have answered cheerfully and frankly enough; but now he felt miserable at his morning's rencontre, and his answers were short and sheepish, his only desire being to get away as soon as possible. It was an additional vexation to feel sure that his manner did not make a favourable impression.

Before he had got out of the playground, Russell ran up to him. "I'm afraid you won't like this, or think much of us, Williams," he said.

"But never mind. It'll only last a day or two, and the fellows are not so bad as they seem; except that Barker. I'm sorry you've come across him, but it can't be helped."

It was the first kind word he had had since the morning, and after his troubles kindness melted him. He felt half inclined to cry, and for a few moments could say nothing in reply to Russell's soothing words. But the boy's friendliness went far to comfort him, and at last, shaking hands with him, he said--

"Do let me speak to you sometimes, while I am a new boy, Russell."

"Oh yes," said Russell, laughing, "as much as ever you like. And as Barker hates me pretty much as he seems inclined to hate you, we are in the same box. Good-bye."

So Eric left the field, and wandered home, like Calchas in the Iliad, "sorrowful by the side of the sounding sea." Already the purple mantle had fallen from his ideal of schoolboy life. He got home later than they expected, and found his parents waiting for him. It was rather disappointing to them to see his face so melancholy, when they expected him to be full of animation and pleasure. Mrs Williams drew her own conclusions from the red mark on his cheek, as well as the traces of tears welling to his eyes; but, like a wise mother, she asked nothing, and left the boy to tell his own story,--which in time he did, omitting all the painful part, speaking enthusiastically of Russell, and only admitting that he had been a little teased.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THREE.

BULLYING.

Give to the morn of life its natural blessedness.

_Wordsworth_.

Why is it that new boys are almost invariably ill-treated? I have often fancied that there must be in boyhood a pseudo-instinctive cruelty, a sort of "wild trick of the ancestral savage," which no amount of civilisation can entirely repress. Certain it is, that to most boys the first term is a trying ordeal. They are being tested and weighed.

Their place in the general estimation is not yet fixed, and the slightest circ.u.mstances are seized upon to settle the category, under which the boy is to be cla.s.sed. A few apparently trivial accidents of his first few weeks at school often decide his position in the general regard for the remainder of his boyhood. And yet these are not accidents; they are the slight indications which give an unerring proof of the general tendencies of his character and training. Hence much of the apparent cruelty with which new boys are treated is not exactly intentional. At first, of course, as they can have no friends worth speaking of; there are always plenty of coa.r.s.e and brutal minds that take a pleasure in their torment, particularly if they at once recognise any innate superiority to themselves. Of this cla.s.s was Barker. He hated Eric at first sight, simply because his feeble mind could only realise one idea about him, and that was the new boy's striking contrast with his own imperfections. Hence he left no means untried to vent on Eric his low and mean jealousy. He showed undisguised pleasure when he fell in form, and signs of disgust when he rose; he fomented every little source of disapproval or quarrelling which happened to arise against him; he never looked at him without a frown or a sneer; he waited for him to kick and annoy him as he came out of, or went in to, the schoolroom. In fact, he did his very best to make the boy's life miserable, and the occupation of hating him seemed in some measure to fill up the vacuity of an ill-conditioned and degraded mind.

Hatred is a most mysterious and painful phenomenon to the unhappy person who is the object of it, and more especially if he have incurred it by no one a.s.signable reason. Why it happens that no heart can be so generous, no life so self-denying, no intentions so honourable and pure, as to s.h.i.+eld a man from the enmity of his fellows, must remain a dark question for ever. But certain it is, that to bear the undeserved malignity of the evil-minded, to hear unmoved the sneers of the proud and the calumnies of the base, is one of the hardest lessons in life.

And to Eric this opposition was peculiarly painful; he was utterly unprepared for it. In his bright joyous life at Fairholm, in the little he saw of the boys at the Latin-school, he had met with nothing but kindness and caresses, and the generous n.o.bleness of his character had seemed to claim them as a natural element. "And now, why," he asked impatiently, "should this bulldog sort of fellow have set his whole aim to annoy, vex, and hurt me?" Incapable himself of so mean a spirit of jealousy at superior excellence, he could not make it out; but such was the fact, and the very mysteriousness of it made it more intolerable to bear.

But it must be admitted that he made matters worse by his own bursts of pa.s.sion. His was not the temper to turn the other cheek; but, brave and spirited as he was, he felt how utterly hopeless would be any attempt on his part to repel force by force. He would have tried some slight conciliation, but it was really impossible with such a boy as his enemy.

Barker never gave him even so much as an indifferent look, much less a civil word. Eric loathed him, and the only good and happy part of the matter to his own mind was, that conscientiously his only desire was to get rid of him, and be left alone, while he never cherished a particle of revenge.

While every day Eric was getting on better in form, and winning himself a very good position with the other boys, who liked his frankness, his mirth, his spirit, and cleverness, he felt this feud with Barker like a dark background to all his enjoyment. He even had to manoeuvre daily how to escape him, and violent scenes were of constant occurrence between them.

Eric could not, and would not, brook his bullying with silence. His resentment was loud and stinging, and, Ishmaelite as Barker was, even _his_ phlegmatic temperament took fire when Eric shouted his fierce and uncompromising retorts in the hearing of the others.

Meanwhile Eric was on the best of terms with the rest of the form, and such of the other boys as he knew, although, at first, his position as a home-boarder prevented his knowing many. Besides Russell, there were three whom he liked best, and respected most--Duncan, Montagu, and Owen.

They were very different boys, but all of them had qualities which well deserved his esteem. Duncan was the most boyish of boys, intensely full of fun, good nature, and vigour; with fair abilities, he never got on well, because he could not be still for two minutes; and even if, in some fit of sudden ambition, he got up high in the form, he was sure to be put to the bottom again before the day was over, for trifling or talking. But out of school he was the soul of every game; whatever _he_ took up was sure to be done pleasantly, and no party of amus.e.m.e.nt was ever planned without endeavouring to secure him as one of the number.

Montagu's chief merit was, that he was such a thorough little gentleman; "such a jolly little fellow," every one said of him. Without being clever or athletic, he managed to do very fairly both at work and at the games, and while he was too exclusive to make many _intimate_ friends, everybody liked walking about or talking with him. Even Barker, blackguard as he was, seemed to be a little uneasy when confronted with Montagu's naturally n.o.ble and chivalrous bearing. In nearly all respects his influence was thoroughly good, and few boys were more generally popular.

Owen, again, was a very different boy. His merit was a ceaseless diligence, in which it was doubtful whether ambition or conscientiousness had the greatest share. Reserved and thoughtful, unfitted for or indifferent to most games, he was anything but a favourite with the rest, and Eric rather respected than liked him. When he first came he had been one of the most natural b.u.t.ts for Barker's craving ill-nature, and for a time he had been tremendously bullied.

But gradually his mental superiority a.s.serted itself. He took everything without tears and without pa.s.sion, and this diminished the pleasure of annoying him. One day when Barker had given him an unprovoked kick, he quietly said--

"Barker, next time you do that I'll tell Mr Gordon."

"Sneak! do it if you dare." And he kicked him again; but the moment after he was sorry for it, for there was a dark look in Owen's eyes, as he turned instantly into the door of the master's room, and laid a formal complaint against Barker for bullying.

Mr Gordon didn't like "telling," and he said so to Owen, without reserve. An ordinary boy would have broken into a flood of explanations and palliations, but Owen simply bowed, and said nothing. "He stood there for justice," and he had counted the cost. Strong-minded and clear-headed, he calculated correctly that the momentary dislike of his school-fellows, with whom he well knew that he never could be popular, would be less unbearable than Barker's villainous insults. The consequence was, that Mr Gordon caned Barker soundly, although, with some injustice, he made no attempt to conceal that he did it unwillingly.

Of course the fellows were very indignant with Owen for sneaking, as they called it, and for a week or two he had the keen mortification of seeing "Owen is a sneak" written up all about the walls. But he was too proud or too cold to make any defence till called upon, and bore it in silence. Barker threatened eternal vengeance, and the very day after had seized Owen with the avowed intention of "half murdering him." But before he could once strike him, Owen said in the most chill tone, "Barker, if you touch me, I shall go straight to Dr Rowlands." The bully well knew that Owen never broke his word, but he could not govern his rage, and first giving Owen a violent shake, he proceeded to thrash him without limit or remorse.

Pale but unmoved, Owen got away, and walked straight to Dr Rowlands's door. The thing was unheard of, and the boys were amazed at his temerity, for the Doctor was to all their imaginations a regular _Deus ex machina_. That afternoon, again, Barker was publicly caned, with the threat that the next offence would be followed by instant and public expulsion. This punishment he particularly dreaded, because he was intended for the army, and he well knew that it might ruin his prospects. The consequence was, that Owen never suffered from him again, although he daily received a shower of oaths and curses, which he pa.s.sed over with silent contempt.

Now, I do not recommend any boy to imitate Owen in this matter. It is a far better and braver thing to bear bullying with such a mixture of spirit and good-humour, as in time to disarm it. But Owen was a peculiar boy, and remember he had _no_ redress. He bore for a time, until he felt that he _must_ have the justice and defence, without which it would have been impossible for him to continue at Roslyn School.

But why, you ask, didn't he tell the monitors? Unfortunately at Roslyn the monitorial system was not established. Although it was a school of 250 boys, the sixth-form, with all their privileges, had no prerogative of authority. They hadn't the least right to interfere, because no such power had been delegated to them, and therefore they felt themselves merely on a par with the rest, except for such eminence as their intellectual superiority gave them. The consequence was, that any interference from them would have been of a simply individual nature, and was exerted very rarely. It would have done Owen no more good to tell a sixth-form boy than to tell any other boy; and as he was not a favourite, he was not likely to find any champion to fight his battles or maintain his just rights.

All this had happened before Eric's time, and he heard it from his best friend Russell. His heart clave to that boy. They became friends at once by a kind of electric sympathy; the first glance of each at the other's face prepared the friends.h.i.+p, and every day of acquaintance more firmly cemented it. Eric could not have had a better friend; not so clever as himself not so diligent as Owen, not so athletic as Duncan, or so fascinating as Montagu, Russell combined the best qualities of them all. And, above all, he acted invariably from the highest principle; he presented that n.o.blest of all n.o.ble spectacles--one so rare that many think it impossible--the spectacle of an honourable, pure-hearted, happy boy, who, as his early years speed by, is ever growing in wisdom and stature, and favour with G.o.d and man.

"Did that brute Barker ever bully you as he bullies me?" said Eric one day, as he walked on the sea-sh.o.r.e with his friend.

"Yes," said Russell. "I slept in his dormitory when I first came, and he has often made me so wretched that I have flung myself on my knees at night in pretence of prayer, but really to get a little quiet time to cry like a child."

"And when was it he left off at last?"

"Why, you know, Upton in the fifth is my cousin, and very fond of me; he heard of it, though I didn't say anything about it, and told Barker that if ever he caught him at it, he would thrash him within an inch of his life; and that frightened him for one thing. Besides, Duncan, Montagu, and other friends of mine, began to cut him in consequence, so he thought it best to leave off."

"How is it, Russell, that fellows stand by and let him do it?"

"You see," said Russell, "Barker is an enormously strong fellow, and that makes the younger chaps, whom he f.a.gs, look up to him as a great hero. And there isn't one in our part of the school who can thrash him.

Besides, people never do interfere, you know--at least not often. I remember once seeing a street-row in London, at which twenty people stood by, and let a drunken beast of a husband strike his wife without ever stirring to defend her."