Читать книгу Eric, or Little by Little - Frederic W. Farrar - Страница 6

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Et nos ergo manum ferulae subduximus.—Juvenal i. 15.

IT must not be thought that Eric's year as a home-boarder was made up of dark experiences. Roslyn had a very bright as well as a dark side and Eric enjoyed it "to the finger-tips." School-life, like all other life, is an April day of shower and sunshine. Its joys may be more childish, its sorrows more trifling, than those of after years;—but they are more keenly felt.

And yet, although we know it to be a mere delusion, we all idealise and idolise our childhood. The memory of it makes pleasant purple in the distance, and as we look back on the sunlight of its blue far-off hills, we forget how steep we sometimes found them.

Upon Barker's discomfiture, which took place some three weeks after his arrival, Eric liked the school more and more, and got liked by it more and more. This might have been easily foreseen, for he was the type of a thoroughly boyish nature in its more genial and honourable characteristics, and his round of acquaintances daily increased. Among others, a few of the sixth, who were also day-scholars, began to notice and walk home with him. He looked on them as great heroes, and their condescension much increased his dignity both in his own estimation and that of his equals.

Now, too, he began to ask some of his most intimate acquaintances to spend an evening with him sometimes at home. This was a pleasure much coveted, for no boy ever saw Mrs Williams without loving her, and they felt themselves humanised by the friendly interest of a lady who reminded every boy of his own mother. Vernon, too, now a lively and active child of nine, was a great pet among them, so that every one liked Eric who "knew him at home." A boy generally shows his best side at home; the softening shadows of a mother's tender influence play over him, and tone down the roughnesses of boyish character. Duncan, Montagu and Owen were special favourites in the home circle, and Mrs Williams felt truly glad that her son had singled out friends who seemed, on the whole, so desirable. But Montagu and Russell were the most frequent visitors, and the latter became almost like one of the family; he won so much on all their hearts that Mrs Williams was not surprised when Eric confided to her one day that he loved Russell almost as well as he loved Vernon.

As Christmas approached, the boys began to take a lively interest in the half-year's prizes, and Eric was particularly eager about them. He had improved wonderfully, and as both his father and mother prevented him from being idle, even had he been so inclined, he had soon shown that he was one of the best in the form. Two prizes were given half-yearly to each remove; one for "marks," indicating the boy who had generally been highest throughout the half-year, and the other for the best proofs of proficiency in a special examination. It was commonly thought in the form that Owen would get the first of these prizes, and Eric the other; and towards the approach of the examination, he threw his whole energy into the desire to win. The desire was not selfish. Some ambition was of course natural; but he longed for the prize chiefly for the delight which he knew his success would cause at Fairholm, and still more to his own family.

During the last week an untoward circumstance happened, which, while it increased his popularity, diminished a good deal (as he thought) his chance of success. The fourth-form were learning a Homer lesson, and Barker, totally unable to do it by his own resources, was trying to borrow a crib. Eric, much to their mutual disgust, still sat next to him in school, and would have helped him if he had chosen to ask; but he never did choose, nor did Eric care to volunteer. The consequence was, that unless he could borrow a crib, he was invariably turned, and he was now particularly anxious to get one, because the time was nearly up.

There was a certain idle, good-natured boy, named Llewellyn, who had "cribs" to every book they did, and who, with a pernicious bonhommie, lent them promiscuously to the rest, all of whom were only too glad to avail themselves of the help, except the few at the top of the form, who found it a slovenly way of learning the lesson, which was sure to get them into worse difficulties than an honest attempt to master the meaning for themselves. Llewellyn sat at the farther end of the form in front, so Barker scribbled in the fly-leaf of his book, "Please send us your Homer crib," and got the book passed on to Llewellyn, who immediately shoved his crib in Barker's direction. The only danger of the transaction being noticed was when the book was being handed from one bench to another, and as Eric unluckily had an end seat, he had got into trouble more than once.

On this occasion, just as Graham, the last boy on the form in front, handed Eric the crib, Mr Gordon happened to look up, and Eric, very naturally anxious to screen another from trouble, popped the book under his own Homer.

"Williams, what are you doing?"

"Nothing, sir," said Eric, looking up innocently.

"Bring me that book under your Homer."

Eric blushed, hesitated—but at last, amid a dead silence, took up the book. Mr Gordon looked at it for a minute, let it fall on the ground, and then, with an unnecessary affectation of disgust, took it up with the tongs, and dropped it into the grate. There was a titter round the room.

"Silence!" thundered the master; "this is no matter for laughing. So, sir, this is the way you get up to the top of the form?"

"I wasn't using it, sir," said Eric.

"Not using it. Why, I saw you put it, open, under your Homer."

"It isn't mine, sir."

"Then whose is it?" Mr Gordon, motioning to Eric to pick up the book, looked at the fly-leaf, but of course no name was there; in those days it was dangerous to write one's name in a translation.

Eric was silent.

"Under the circumstances, Williams, I must punish you," said Mr Gordon. "Of course I am bound to believe you, but the circumstances are very suspicious. You had no business with such a book at all. Hold out your hand."

As yet Eric had never been caned. It would have been easy for him in this case to clear himself without mentioning names, but (very rightly) he thought it unmanly to clamour about being punished, and he felt nettled at Mr Gordon's merely official belief of his word. He knew that he had his faults, but certainly want of honour was not among them. Indeed, there were only three boys out of the twenty in the form who did not resort to modes of unfairness far worse than the use of cribs, and those three were—Russell, Owen, and himself; even Duncan, even Montagu, inured to it by custom, were not ashamed to read their lesson off a concealed book, or copy a date from a furtive piece of paper. They would have been ashamed of it before they came to Roslyn School, but the commonness of the habit had now made them blind or indifferent to its meanness. It was peculiarly bad in the fourth-form, because the master treated them with implicit confidence, and being scrupulously honourable himself, was unsuspicious of others. He was therefore extremely indignant at this apparent discovery of an attempt to overreach him in a boy so promising and so much of a favourite as Eric Williams.

"Hold out your hand," he repeated.

Eric did so, and the cane tingled sharply across his palm. He could bear the pain well enough, but he was keenly alive to the disgrace; he, a boy at the head of his form, to be caned in this way by a man who didn't understand him, and unjustly too! He mustered up an indifferent air, closed his lips tight, and determined to give no further signs. The defiance of his look made Mr Gordon angry, and he inflicted in succession five hard cuts on either hand, each one of which was more excruciating than the last.

"Now, go to your seat."

Eric did go to his seat, with all his bad passions roused, and he walked in a jaunty and defiant kind of way, that made the master really grieve at the disgrace into which he had fallen. But he instantly became a hero with the form, who unanimously called him a great brick for not telling, and admired him immensely for bearing up without crying under so severe a punishment. The punishment was most severe, and for some weeks after there were dark weals visible across Eric's palm, which rendered the use of his hands painful.

"Poor Williams," said Duncan, as they went out of school, "how very plucky of you not to cry."

"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 passionate 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 competition 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 surreptitiously; 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 gratitude, 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.