Eric, or Little by Little Part 4

"Vengeance deep brooding o'er the _cane_ Had locked the source of softer woe And burning pride and high disdain Forbade the gentler tear to flow," said Eric, with a smile.

But he only bore up till he got home, and there, while he was telling his father the occurrence, he burst into a storm of pa.s.sionate tears, mingled with the fiercest invectives against Mr Gordon for his injustice.

"Never mind, Eric," said his father; "only take care that you never get a punishment _justly_, and I shall always be as proud of you as I am now. And don't cherish this resentment, my boy; it will only do you harm. Try to forgive and forget."

"But, father, Mr Gordon is so hasty. I have indeed been rather a favourite of his, yet now he shows that he has no confidence in me. It is a great shame that he shouldn't believe my word. I don't mind the pain; but I shan't like him any more, and I'm sure now I shan't get the examination prize."

"You don't mean, Eric, that he will be influenced by partiality in the matter?"

"No, father, not exactly; at least I dare say he won't _intend_ to be.

But it is unlucky to be on bad terms with a master, and I know I shan't work so well."

On the whole the boy was right in thinking this incident a misfortune.

Although he had nothing particular for which to blame himself, yet the affair had increased his pride, while it lowered his self-respect; and he had an indistinct consciousness that the popularity in his form would do him as much harm as the change of feeling in his master. He grew careless and dispirited, nor was it till in the very heat of the final compet.i.tion that he felt his energies fully revived.

Half the form were as eager about the examination as the other half were indifferent; but none were more eager than Eric. He was much hindered by Barker's unceasing attempt to copy his papers surrept.i.tiously; and very much disgusted at the shameless way in which many of the boys "cribbed" from books, and from each other, or used torn leaves concealed in their sleeves, or dates written on their wristbands and on their nails. He saw how easily much of this might have been prevented; but Mr Gordon was fresh at his work, and had not yet learned the practical lesson (which cost him many a qualm of sorrow and disgust), that to trust young boys to any great extent is really to increase their temptations. He _did_ learn the lesson afterwards, and then almost entirely suppressed the practice, partly by increased vigilance, and partly by forbidding _any_ book to be brought into the room during the time of examination. But meanwhile much evil had been done by the habitual abuse of his former confidence.

I shall not linger over the examination. At its close, the day before the breaking up, the list was posted on the door of the great schoolroom, and most boys made an impetuous rush to see the result. But Eric was too nervous to be present at the hour when this was usually done, and he had asked Russell to bring him the news.

He was walking up and down the garden, counting the number of steps he took, counting the number of shrubs along each path, and devising every sort of means to beguile the time, when he heard hasty steps, and Russell burst in at the back gate, breathless with haste and bright with excitement.

"Hurrah! old fellow!" he cried, seizing both Eric's hands; "I never felt so glad in my life," and he shook his friend's arms up and down, laughing joyously.

"Well! tell me," said Eric.

"First, Owen and Williams aequales," said he; "you've got head-remove, you see, in spite of your forebodings, as I always said you would; and I congratulate you with all my heart."

"No?" said Eric, "have I really?--you're not joking? Oh! hurrah!--I must rush in and tell them," and he bounded off.

In a second he was back at Russell's side. "What a selfish animal I am!

Where are you placed, Russell?"

"Oh! magnificent; I'm third--far higher than I expected."

"I'm so glad," said Eric. "Come in with me and tell them. I'm head-remove, mother," he shouted, springing into the parlour where his father and mother sat.

In the lively joy that this announcement excited, Russell stood by for the moment unheeded; and when Eric took him by the hand to tell them that he was third, he hung his head, and a tear was in his eye.

"Poor boy! I'm afraid you're disappointed," said Mrs Williams kindly, drawing him to her side.

"Oh, no, no! it's not _that_," said Russell hastily, as he lifted his swimming eyes to her face.

"What's the matter, Russell?" asked Eric, surprised.

"Oh, nothing; don't ask me; I'm only foolish to-day," and with a burst of sorrow he bent down, and hid his face. Mrs Williams guessed the source of his anguish, and soothed him tenderly; nor was she surprised when, as soon as his sobs would let him speak, he kissed her hand, and whispered in a low tone, "It is but a year since I became an orphan."

"Dearest child," she said, "I know how to sympathise with you. But I am sure, my boy, that you have learnt to feel Who is the Father of the fatherless."

Russell's eye brightened, but his only answer was a look of intelligence and grat.i.tude, as he hastily dried his tears.

Gradually he grew calmer. They made him stay to dinner and spend the rest of the day there, and by the evening he had recovered all his usual sprightliness. Towards sunset he and Eric went for a stroll down the bay, and talked over the term and the examination.

They sat down on a green bank just beyond the beach, and watched the tide come in, while the sea-distance was crimson with the glory of evening. The beauty and the murmur filled them with a quiet happiness, not untinged with the melancholy thought of parting the next day.

At last Eric broke the silence. "Russell, let me always call you Edwin, and call me Eric."

"Very gladly, Eric. Your coming here has made me so happy." And the two boys squeezed each other's hands, and looked into each other's faces, and silently promised that they would be loving friends for ever.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FIVE.

THE SECOND TERM.

Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil our vines; for our vines have tender grapes.--Cant. ii. 15.

The second term at school is generally the great test of the strength of a boy's principles and resolutions. During the first term the novelty, the loneliness, the dread of unknown punishments, the respect for authorities, the desire to measure himself with his companions--all tend to keep him right and diligent. But many of these incentives are removed after the first brush of novelty, and many a lad who has given good promise at first, turns out, after a short probation, idle or vicious, or indifferent.

But there was little comparative danger for Eric, so long as he continued to be a home-boarder, which was for another half-year. On the contrary, he was anxious to support in his new remove the prestige of having been head-boy; and as he still continued under Mr Gordon, he really wished to turn over a new leaf in his conduct towards him, and recover, if possible, his lost esteem.

His popularity was a fatal snare. He enjoyed and was very proud of it, and was half inclined to be angry with Russell for not fully sharing his feelings; but Russell had a far larger experience of school-life than his new friend, and dreaded with all his heart lest "he should follow a mult.i.tude to do evil."

The "cribbing," which had astonished and pained Eric at first, was more flagrant than even in the Upper-Fourth, and a.s.sumed a chronic form. In all the Repet.i.tion lessons one of the boys used to write out in a large hand the pa.s.sage to be learnt by heart, and dexterously pin it to the front of Mr Gordon's desk. There any boy who chose could read it off with little danger of detection, and, as before, the only boys who refused to avail themselves of this trickery were Eric, Russell, and Owen.

Eric did _not_ yield to it; never once did he suffer his eyes to glance at the paper when his turn to repeat came round. But although this was the case, he never spoke against the practice to the other boys, even when he lost places by it. Nay more, he would laugh when any one told him how he had escaped "skewing" (i.e. being turned) by reading it off; and he even went so far as to allow them to suppose that he wouldn't himself object to take advantage of the master's unsuspicious confidence.

"I say, Williams," said Duncan, one morning as they strolled into the school-yard, "do you know your Repet.i.tion?"

"No," said Eric, "not very well; I haven't given more than ten minutes to it."

"Oh, well, never mind it now; come and have a game at racquets. Russell and Montagu have taken the court."

"But I shall skew."

"Oh no, you needn't, you know. I'll take care to pin it upon the desk near you."

"Well, I don't much care. At any rate I'll chance it." And off the boys ran to the racquet-court, Eric intending to occupy the last quarter of an hour before school-time in learning his lesson. Russell and he stood the other two, and they were very well matched. They had finished two splendid games, and each side had been victorious in turn, when Duncan, in the highest spirits, shouted, "Now, Russell, for the conqueror."

"Get some one else in my place," said Russell; "I don't know my Repet.i.tion, and must cut and learn it."

"Oh, bother the Repet.i.tion," said Montagu, "somebody's sure to write it out in school, and old Gordon'll never see."

"You forget, Montagu, I don't deign to crib. It isn't fair."

"Oh ay, I forgot. Well, after all, you're quite right; I only wish I was as good."

"What a capital fellow he is," continued Montagu, leaning on his racquet and looking after him, as Russell left the court. "But I say, Williams, you're not going too, are you?"