St. Winifred's Part 13

"Poor little Eden--poor little fiddlestick," said Jones, "it does the young cub good."

"Send him home to his grandmamma, and let him have his bib and his night-cap," growled Harpour; "is he made of b.u.t.ter, and are you afraid of his melting, you Evson, that you make such a fuss with him? You want your lickings yourself, and shall have them if you don't look out."

"I don't care what you do to _me_, Harpour," rejoined Walter, "and I don't think you'll do very much. But I do tell you that it's a blackguard shame for a great big fellow like you to torment a little delicate chap like Eden; and what's more, you shan't do it."

"Shan't! my patience. I like that I why, who is to prevent me?"

"I suppose he'll turn sneak, and peach," said Jones; "he'd do anything that's mean, we all know."

Walter was always liable to that taunt now. It was a part of his punishment, and the one which lasted longest. From any other boy he might have winced under it; but really, coming from Jones, it was too contemptible to notice.

"You shut up, Jones," he said angrily; "you shan't touch Eden again, I can tell you, whatever Harpour does, and he'd better look out what he does."

"Look out yourself," said Harpour, flinging a football boot at Walter's head.

"You'll find your boot on the gra.s.s outside to-morrow morning," said Walter, opening the window, and dropping it down. He wasn't a bit afraid, because he always went on the instinctive and never-mistaken a.s.sumption, that a bully must be a coward in his inmost nature. Cruelty to the weaker is incompatible with the generosity of all true courage.

"By Jove, I'll thrash you for that to-morrow," shouted Harpour.

"_To-morrow_!" said Walter with great contempt.

"Oh, don't make him angry, Walter," whispered Eden; "you know what a strong fellow he is," (Eden shuddered, as though _he_ had reason to know); "and you can't fight him; and you mustn't get a thras.h.i.+ng for my sake. I'm not worth that. I'd rather bear it myself, Walter--indeed I would."

"Good-night, poor little Eden," said Walter; "you're safe to-night at any rate. Why, how cold you are! What _have_ they been doing to you?"

"I daren't tell you to-night, Walter; I will to-morrow," he answered in a low tone, s.h.i.+vering all over.

"Well, then, go to sleep now, my little man; and don't you be afraid of Harpour or any one else. I won't let them bully you if I can help it."

Eden squeezed Walter's hand tight, and sobbed his thanks, while Walter gently smoothed the child's pillow and dried his tears.

Poor Eden! as I said before, he was too weak, too delicate, too tenderly nurtured, and far, far too young for the battle of life in a public school. For even at Saint Winifred's, as there are and must be at all great schools, there were some black sheep in the flock undiscovered, and therefore unseparated from the rest.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

MY BROTHER'S KEEPER.

"'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.

Our bodies are gardens to the which our wills are gardeners."

Oth.e.l.lo, Act One Scene 3.

As Walter lay awake for a few quiet moments before he sent his thoughts to rest, he glanced critically, like an Indian gymnosophist, over the occurrences of the day. He could not but rejoice that the last person for whom he felt real regard had forgiven him his rash act, and that his offence had thus finally been absolved on earth as in heaven. He rejoiced, too, that Mr Percival's kind permission to learn his lessons in his room would give him far greater advantages and opportunities than he had hitherto enjoyed. Yet Walter's conscience was not quite at ease.

The last scene had disturbed him. The sobs and s.h.i.+verings of little Eden had fallen very reproachfully into his heart. Walter felt that he might have done far more for him than he had done. He had, indeed, even throughout his own absorbing troubles, extended to the child a general protection, but not a special care. It never occurred to him to excuse himself with the thought that he was "not his brother's keeper." The truth was that he had found Eden uninteresting, because he had not taken the pains to be interested in him, and while one voice within his heart reproved him of neglect and selfishness, another voice seemed to say to him, in a firm yet kindlier tone, "Now that thou are converted, strengthen thy brethren."

For indeed as yet Eden's had been a very unhappy lot. Bullied, teased, and persecuted by the few among whom accident had first thrown him, and judged to belong to their set by others who on that account considered him a boy of a bad sort, he was almost friendless at Saint Winifred's.

And the loneliness, the despair of this feeling, weighing upon his heart, robbed him of all courage to face the difficulties of work, so that in school as well as out of it, he was always in trouble. He was for ever clumsily scrawling in his now illegible hand the crooked and blotted lines of punishment which his seeming ignorance or sluggishness brought upon him; and although he was always to be seen at detention, he almost hailed this disgrace as affording him at least some miserable shadow of occupation, and a refuge, however undesirable, from the torments of those degraded few to whom his childish tears, his weak entreaties, his bursts of impotent pa.s.sion, caused nothing but low amus.e.m.e.nt. Out of school his great object always was to hide himself; anywhere, so as to be beyond the reach of Jones, Harpour, and other bullies of the same calibre. For this purpose he would conceal himself for a whole afternoon at a time up in the fir-groves, listlessly gathering into heaps the red sheddings of their umbrage, and pulling to pieces their dry and fragrant cones; or, when he feared that these resorts would be disturbed by some little gang of lounging smokers, he would choose some lonely place, under the shadow of the mountain cliffs, and sit for hours together, aimlessly rolling white lumps of quartz over the s.h.i.+ngly banks. Under continued trials like these he became quite changed. The childish innocence and beauty of countenance, the childish frankness and gaiety of heart, the childish quickness and intelligence of understanding, were exchanged for vacant looks, stupid indifference, and that half-cunning expression which is always induced by craven fear.

Accustomed, too, to be waited upon and helped continually in the home where his mother, a gay young widow, had petted and spoiled him, he became slovenly and untidy in dress and habits. He rarely found time or heart to write home, and even when he did, he so well knew that his mother was incapable of sympathy or comprehension of his suffering, that the dirty and ill-spelt scrawl rarely alluded to the one dim consciousness that brooded over him night and day--that he couldn't understand life, and only knew that he was a very friendless, unhappy, unpitied little boy. If he could have found even one to whom to unfold and communicate his griefs, even one to love him unreservedly, all the inner beauty and brightness of his character would have blown and expanded in that genial warmth. He once thought that in Walter he had found such an one, but when he saw that his dullness bored Walter, and that his listless manners and untidy habits made him cross, he shrank back within himself. He was thankful to Walter as a protector, but did not look upon him as a friend in whom he could implicitly confide. The flower without suns.h.i.+ne will lose its colour and its perfume. Six weeks after Arthur Eden, a merry, bright-eyed child, alighted from his mother's carriage at the old gate of Saint Winifred's school, no casual stranger would have recognised him again in the pale and moping little fellow who seemed to be afraid of every one whom he met.

Oh, if we knew how rare, how sweet, how deep human love can be, how easily, yet how seldom it is gained, how inexpressible the treasure is when once it _has_ been gained, we should not trample on human hearts as lightly as most men do! Any one who in that hard time had spoken a few kindly words to Eden--any one who would have taken him gently for a short while by the hand, and helped him over the stony places that hurt his unaccustomed feet--any one who would have suffered, or who would have invited him, to pour his sorrows into their ears and a.s.sist him to sustain them--might have won, even at that slight cost, the deepest and most pa.s.sionate love of that trembling young heart. He might have saved him from hours of numbing pain, and won the rich reward of a grat.i.tude well-deserved and generously repaid. There were many boys at Saint Winifred's gentle-hearted, right-minded, of kindly and manly impulses; but all of them, except Walter, lost this golden opportunity of conferring pure happiness by disinterested good deeds. They did not buy up the occasion, which goes away and burns the priceless books she offers, if they are not purchased unquestioningly and at once.

And Walter regretfully felt that he was very very nearly too late; so nearly, that perhaps in a week or two more Eden might have lost hopelessly, and for ever, all trace of self-respect--might have been benumbed into mental imbecility by the torpedo-like influence of helpless grief. Walter felt as if he had been selfishly looking on while a fellow-creature was fast sinking in the water, and as if it were only at the last possible moment that he had held out a saving hand.

But, by G.o.d's grace, he _did_ hold out the saving hand at last, and it was grasped firmly, and a dear life was saved. Years after when Arthur Eden had grown into--but stop, I must not so far antic.i.p.ate my story.

Suffice it to say, that Walter's kindness to Eden, helped to bring about long afterwards one of the chief happinesses of his own life.

"Come a stroll, Eden, before third school, and let's have a talk," he said, as they came out from dinner in hall the next day.

Eden looked up happily, and he was proud to be seen by Walter's side in the throng of boys, as they pa.s.sed out, and across the court, and under the shadow of the arch towards Walter's favourite haunt, the seash.o.r.e.

Walter never felt weak or unhappy for long together, when the sweetness of the sea-wind was on his forehead, and the song of the sea waves in his ear. A run upon the sh.o.r.e in all weathers, if only for five minutes, was his daily pleasure and resource.

They sat down; the sea flashed before them a mirror of molten gold, except where the summits of the great mountain of Appenfell threw their deep broad shadows, which seemed purple by contrast with the brightness over which they fell. Walter sat, full of healthy enjoyment as he breathed the pure atmosphere, and felt the delicious wind upon his glowing cheeks; and Eden was happy to be with him, and to sit quietly by his side.

"Eden," said Walter, after a few moments, "I'm afraid you've not been happy lately."

The poor child shook his head, and answered, "No one cares for me here; every one looks down on me, and is unkind; I've no friends."

"What, don't you count me as a friend, then?"

"Yes, Walter, you're very kind; I'm sure I _couldn't_ have lived here if it hadn't been for you; but you're so much above me, and--"

Walter would not press him to fill up the omission, he could understand the rest of the sentence for himself.

"You mustn't think I don't feel how good you've been to me, Walter,"

said the boy, drawing near to him, and taking his hand; "but--"

"Yes, yes," said Walter; "I understand it all. Well, never mind, I _will_ be a friend to you now."

A tear trembled on Eden's long eyelashes as he looked up quickly into Walter's face. "Will you, Walter? thank you, I have no other friend here; and please--"

"Well, what is it?"

"Will you call me Arthur, as they do at home?"

Walter smiled. "Well now," he said, "tell me what they were doing to you last night?"

"You won't tell them I told you, Walter," he answered, looking round, with the old look of decrepit fear usurping his face, which had brightened for the moment.

"No, no," said Walter, impatiently; "why, what a little coward you are, Eden."

The boy shrank back into himself as if he had received a blow, and relaxed his grasp of Walter's hand; but Walter, struck with the sensitive timidity which unkindness had caused, and sorry to have given him pain in all his troubles, said kindly--

"There, Arty, never mind; I didn't mean it; don't be afraid; tell me what they did to you. I saw a light in our dormitory as I was coming back from Percival's, and I saw something dragged through the window.

What was it?"

"That was me," said Eden naively.

"You?"