Eric, or Little by Little Part 46

"Here it is at last," said Wildney. "Now, then, for the key. Here's a letter for me, hurrah!--two for you, Miss Trevor--_what_ people you young ladies are for writing to each other! None for you, Monty--oh yes! I'm wrong, here's one; but none for Eric."

"I expected none," said Eric, sighing; but his eye was fixed earnestly on one of Mrs Trevor's letters. He saw that it was from India, and directed in his father's hand.

Mrs Trevor caught his look. "Shall I read it aloud to you, dear? Do you think you can stand it? Remember it will be in answer to ours, telling them of--"

"Oh yes, yes," he said eagerly, "do let me hear it."

With instinctive delicacy Montagu and Wildney rose, but Eric pressed them to stay. "It will help me to bear what mother says, if I see you by me," he pleaded.

G.o.d forbid that I should transcribe that letter. It was written from the depths of such sorrow as He only can fully sympathise with, who for thirty years pitched his tent in the valley of human misery. By the former mail Mrs Williams had heard of Verny's melancholy death; by the next she had been told that her only other child, Eric, was not dead indeed, but a wandering outcast, marked with the brand of terrible suspicion. Let her agony be sacred; it was G.o.d who sent it, and He only enabled her to endure it. With bent head, and streaming eyes, and a breast that heaved involuntarily with fitful sobs, Eric listened as though to his mother's voice, and only now and then he murmured low to himself, "O mother, mother, mother--but I am forgiven now. O mother, G.o.d and man have forgiven me, and we shall be at peace again once more."

Mrs Trevor's eyes grew too dim with weeping to read it all, and f.a.n.n.y finished it. "Here is a little note from your father, Eric, which dropped out when we opened dear aunt's letter. Shall I read it too?"

"Perhaps not now, love," said Mrs Trevor. "Poor Eric is too tired and excited already."

"Well, then, let me glance at it myself, aunty," he said. He opened it, read a line or two, and then, with a scream, fell back swooning, while it dropped out of his hands.

Terrified, they picked up the fallen paper; it told briefly, in a few heart-rending words, that, after writing the letter, Mrs Williams had been taken ill; that her life was absolutely despaired of, and that, before the letter reached England, she would, in all human probability, be dead. It conveyed the impression of a soul resigned indeed, and humble, but crushed down to the very earth with the load of mysterious bereavement and irretrievable sorrow.

"Oh, I have killed her, I have killed my mother!" said Eric, in a hollow voice, when he came to himself. "O G.o.d, forgive me, forgive me!"

They gathered round him they soothed, and comforted, and prayed for him; but his soul refused comfort, and all his strength appeared to have been broken down at once like a feeble reed. At last a momentary energy returned; his eyes were lifted to the gloaming heaven where a few stars had already begun to s.h.i.+ne, and a bright look illuminated his countenance. They listened deeply--"Yes, mother," he murmured, in broken tones, "forgiven now, for Christ's dear sake. Oh, Thou merciful G.o.d! Yes, there they are, and we shall meet again. Verny--oh, happy, happy at last--too happy!"

The sounds died away, and his head fell back; for a transient moment more the smile and the brightness played over his fair features like a lambent flame. It pa.s.sed away, and Eric was with those he dearliest loved, in the land where there is no more curse.

"Yes, dearest Eric, forgiven and happy now," sobbed Mrs Trevor; and her tears fell fast upon the dead boy's face, as she pressed upon it a long, last kiss.

But Montagu, as he consoled the poignancy of Wildney's grief, was reminded by Mrs Trevor's words of that sweet German verse--

Doch sonst an keinem Orte Wohnt die ersehnte Ruh, Nur durch die dunkle Pforte Seht man der Heimath zu.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

CONCLUSION.

And hath that early hope been blessed with truth?

Hath he fulfilled the promise of his youth?

And borne unscathed through danger's stormy field Honour's white wreath and virtue's stainless s.h.i.+eld?

_Harrow. A Prize Poem_.

The other day I was staying with Montagu. He has succeeded to his father's estate, and is the best loved landlord for miles around. He intends to stand for the county at the next general election, and I haven't the shadow of a doubt that he will succeed. If he does, Parliament will have gained a worthy addition. Montagu has the very soul of honour, and he can set off the conclusions of his vigorous judgment, and the treasures of his cultivated taste, with an eloquence that rises to extraordinary grandeur when he is fulminating his scorn at any species of tyranny or meanness.

It was very pleasant to talk with him about our old schooldays in his charming home. We sate by the open window (which looks over his grounds, and then across one of the richest plains in England) one long summer evening, recalling all the vanished scenes and figures of the past, until we almost felt ourselves boys again.

"I have just been staying at Trinity," said I, "and Owen, as I suppose you know, is doing brilliantly. He has taken a high first cla.s.s, and they have already elected him fellow and a.s.sistant tutor."

"Is he liked?"

"Yes, very much. He always used to strike me at school as one of those fellows who are much more likely to be happy and successful as men than they had ever any chance of being as boys. I hope the _greatest_ things of him; but have you heard anything of Duncan lately?"

"Yes, he's just been gazetted as lieutenant. I had a letter from him the other day. He's met two old Roslyn fellows, Wildney and Upton, the latter of whom is now Captain Upton; he says that there are not two finer or manlier officers in the whole service, and Wildney, as you may easily guess, is the favourite of the mess-room. You know, I suppose, that Graham is making a great start at the bar."

"Is he? I'm delighted to hear it."

"Yes. He had a 'mauvais sujet' to defend the other day, in the person of our old enemy Brigson, who having been at last disowned by his relations, is at present a policeman in London."

"On the principle, I suppose, of 'Set a thief to catch a thief'" said Montagu, with a smile.

"Yes; but he exemplifies the truth, 'cha.s.sez le naturel, il revient an galop;' for he was charged with abetting a street fight between two boys, which very nearly ended fatally. However, he was penitent, and Graham got him off with wonderful cleverness--"

"Ah!" said Montagu, sighing, "there was _one_ who would have been the pride of Roslyn had he lived. Poor, poor Eric!"

We talked long of our loved friend; his bright face, his winning words, his merry smile, came back to us with the memory of his melancholy fate, and a deep sadness fell over us.

"Poor boy, he is at peace now," said Montagu; and he told me once more the sorrowful particulars of his death. "Shall I read you some verses,"

he asked, "which he must have composed, poor fellow, on board the _Stormy Petrel_ though he probably wrote them at Fairholm afterwards?"

"Yes, do."

And Montagu, in his pleasant musical voice, read me, with much feeling, these lines, written in Eric's boyish hand, and signed with his name--

Alone, Yet Not Alone.

Alone, alone! ah, weary soul, In all the world alone I stand, With none to wed their hearts to mine, Or link in mine a loving hand.

Ah! tell me not that I have those Who own the ties of blood and name; Or pitying friends who love me well, And dear returns of friends.h.i.+p claim.

I have, I have! but none can heal, And none shall see my inward woe, And the deep thoughts within me veiled No other heart but mine shall know.

And yet amid my sins and shames The s.h.i.+eld of G.o.d is o'er me thrown And 'neath its awful shade I feel Alone,--yet, ah, not all alone!

Not all alone! and though my life Be dragged along the stained earth, O G.o.d! I feel thee near me still, And thank thee for my birth!

EW.

Montagu gave me the paper, and I cherish it as my dearest memorial of my erring but n.o.ble schoolboy friend.

Knowing how strong an interest Mr Rose always took in Eric, I gave him a copy of these verses when last I visited him at his pleasant vicarage of Seaford, to which he was presented a year or two ago by Dr Rowlands, now Bishop of Roslyn, who has also appointed him examining chaplain. I sat and watched Mr Rose while he read them. A mournful interest was depicted on his face, his hand trembled a little, and I fancied that he bent his grey hair over the paper to hide a tear. We always knew at school that Eric was one of his greatest favourites, as indeed he and Vernon were with all of us; and when the unhappy boy had run away without even having the opportunity for bidding any one farewell, Mr Rose displayed such real grief, that for weeks he was like a man who went mourning for a son. After those summer holidays, when we returned to school, Montagu and Wildney brought back with them the intelligence of Eric's return to Fairholm, and of his death. The news plunged many of us in sorrow, and when, on the first Sunday in chapel, Mr Rose alluded to this sad tale, there were few dry eyes among those who listened to him. I shall never forget that Sunday afternoon. A deep hush brooded over us, and before the sermon was over, many a face was hidden to conceal the emotion which could not be suppressed.

"I speak," said Mr Rose, "to a congregation of mourners, for one who but a few weeks back was sitting among you as one of yourselves. But, for myself, I do _not_ mourn over his death. Many a time have I mourned for him in past days, when I marked how widely he went astray--but I do not mourn now, for after his fiery trials he died penitent and happy, and at last his sorrows are over for ever, and the dreams of ambition have vanished, and the fires of pa.s.sion have been quenched, and for all eternity the young soul is in the presence of its G.o.d. Let none of you think that his life has been wasted. Possibly, had it pleased Heaven to spare him, he might have found great works to do among his fellow-men, and he would have done them as few else could. But do not let us fancy that our work must cease of necessity with our lives. Not so; far rather must we believe that it will continue for ever, seeing that we are all partakers of G.o.d's unspeakable blessing, the common mystery of immortality. Perhaps it may be the glorious destiny of very many here to recognise that truth more fully when we meet and converse with our dear departed brother in a holier and happier world."

I have preserved some faint echo of the words he used, but I can give no conception of the dignity and earnestness of his manner, or the intense pathos of his tones.

The scene pa.s.sed before me again as I looked at him, while he lingered over Eric's verses, and seemed lost in a reverie of thought.

At last he looked up and sighed. "Poor Eric!--But no, I will not call him poor! After all, he is happier now than we. You loved him well,"

he continued; "why do you not try and preserve some records of his life?"