Eric, or Little by Little Part 6

It was a Sunday afternoon, toward the end of the summer term, and the boys were sauntering about in the green playground, or lying on the banks reading and chatting. Eric was with a little knot of his chief friends, enjoying the sea-breeze as they sat on the gra.s.s. At last the bell of the school chapel began to ring, and they went in to the afternoon service. Eric usually sat with Duncan and Llewellyn, immediately behind the benches allotted to chance visitors. The bench in front of them happened on this afternoon to be occupied by some rather odd people, viz, an old man with long white hair,--and two ladies remarkably stout, who were dressed with much juvenility, although past middle age. Their appearance immediately attracted notice, and no sooner had they taken their seats than Duncan and Llewellyn began to t.i.tter. The ladies' bonnets, which were of white, trimmed with long green leaves and flowers, just peered over the top of the boys' pew, and excited much amus.e.m.e.nt; particularly when Duncan, in his irresistible sense of the ludicrous, began to adorn them with little bits of paper.

But Eric had not yet learnt to disregard the solemnity of the place, and the sacred act in which they were engaged. He tried to look away and attend to the service, and for a time he partially succeeded, although, seated as he was between the two triflers, who were perpetually telegraphing to each other their jokes, he found it a difficult task, and secretly he began to be much tickled.

At last the sermon commenced, and Llewellyn, who had imprisoned a gra.s.shopper in a paper cage, suddenly let it hop out. The first hop took it to the top of the pew; the second perched it on the shoulder of the stoutest lady. Duncan and Llewellyn t.i.ttered louder, and even Eric could not resist a smile. But when the lady, feeling some irritation on her shoulder, raised her hand, and the gra.s.shopper took a frightened leap into the centre of the green foliage which enwreathed her bonnet, none of the three could stand it, and they burst into fits of laughter, which they tried in vain to conceal by bending down their heads and cramming their fists into their mouths. Eric, having once given way, enjoyed the joke uncontrollably, and the lady made matters worse by her uneasy attempts to dislodge the unknown intruder, and discover the cause of the t.i.ttering, which she could not help hearing. At last all three began to laugh so violently that several heads were turned in their direction, and Dr Rowlands's stern eye caught sight of their levity.

He stopped short in his sermon, and for one instant transfixed them with his indignant glance. Quiet was instantly restored, and alarm reduced them to the most perfect order, although the gra.s.shopper still sat imperturbable among the artificial flowers. Meanwhile the stout lady had discovered that for some unknown reason she had been causing considerable amus.e.m.e.nt, and attributing it to intentional ridicule, looked round, justly hurt. Eric, with real shame, observed the pained uneasiness of her manner, and bitterly repented his share in the transaction.

Next morning Dr Rowlands, in full academicals, sailed into the fourth-form room. His entrance was the signal for every boy to rise, and after a word or two to Mr Gordon, he motioned them to be seated.

Eric's heart sank within him.

"Williams, Duncan, and LLewellyn, stand out!" said the Doctor. The boys, with downcast eyes and burning cheeks, stood before him.

"I was sorry to notice," said he, "your shameful conduct in chapel yesterday afternoon. As far as I could observe, you were making yourselves merry in that sacred place with the personal defects of others. The lessons you receive here must be futile indeed if they do not teach you the duty of reverence to G.o.d, and courtesy to man. It gives me special pain, Williams, to have observed that you, too, a boy high in your remove, were guilty of this most culpable levity. You will all come to me at twelve o'clock in the library."

At twelve o'clock they each received a flogging.

The pain inflicted was not great, and Duncan and Llewellyn, who had got into similar trouble before, cared very little for it, and went out laughing to tell the number of swishes they had received to a little crowd of boys who were lingering outside the library door. But not so Eric. It was his _first_ flogging, and he felt it deeply. To his proud spirit the disgrace was intolerable. At that moment he hated Dr Rowlands, he hated Mr Gordon, he hated his school-fellows, he hated everybody. He had been flogged; the thought haunted him; he, Eric Williams, had been forced to receive this most degrading corporal punishment. He pushed fiercely through the knot of boys, and strode as quickly as he could along the playground, angry and impenitent.

At the gate Russell met him. Eric felt the meeting inopportune; he was ashamed to meet his friend, ashamed to speak to him, envious of him, and jealous of his better reputation. He wanted to pa.s.s him by without notice, but Russell would not suffer this. He came up to him and took his arm affectionately. The slightest allusion to his late disgrace would have made Eric flame out into a pa.s.sion; but Russell was too kind to allude to it then. He talked as if nothing had happened, and tried to turn his friend's thoughts to more pleasant subjects. Eric appreciated his kindness, but he was still sullen and fretful, and it was not until they parted that his better feelings won the day. But when Russell said to him, "Good-bye, Eric, and don't be down in the mouth," it was too much for him, and seizing Edwin's hand, he wrung it hard, and exclaimed impetuously--

"How I wish I was like you, Edwin! If all my friends were like you, I should never get into these rows."

"Nay, Eric," said Russell, "it's I who ought to envy you; you are no end cleverer and stronger, and you can't think how glad I am that we are friends."

They parted by Mr Williams's door, and Russell walked home sad and thoughtful; but Eric, barely answering his brother's greeting, rushed up to his room, and, flinging himself on his bed, brooded alone over the remembrance of his disgrace. Still nursing a fierce resentment, he felt something hard at his heart, and, as he prayed neither for help nor forgiveness, it was pride and rebellion, not penitence, that made him miserable.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SIX.

HOME AFFECTIONS.

Keep the spell of home affection Still alive in every heart; May its power, with mild direction, Draw our love from self apart, Till thy children Feel that thou their Father art.

_School Hymn_.

"I have caught such a lot of pretty sea-anemones, Eric," said little Vernon Williams, as his brother strolled in after morning school; "I wish you would come and look at them."

"Oh, I can't come now, Verny; I am going out to play cricket with some fellows directly."

"But it won't take you a minute; do come."

"What a little bore you are. Where are the things?"

"Oh, never mind, Eric, if you don't want to look at them," said Vernon, hurt at his brother's rough manner.

"First, you ask me to look, and then say 'never mind,'" said Eric impatiently; "here, show me them."

The little boy brought a large saucer, round which the crimson sea-flowers were waving their long tentacula in the salt water.

"Oh my; very pretty indeed. But I must be off to cricket."

Vernon looked up at his brother sadly.

"You aren't so kind to me, Eric, as you used to be."

"What nonsense! and all because I don't admire those nasty red-jelly things, which one may see on the sh.o.r.e by thousands any day. What a little goose you are, Vernon."

Vernon made no reply, but was putting away his sea-anemones with a sigh, when in came Russell to fetch Eric to the cricket.

"Well, Verny," he said, "have you been getting those pretty sea-anemones? come here and show me them. Ah, I declare you've got one of those famous white plumosa fellows among them. What a lucky little chap you are!"

Vernon was delighted.

"Mind you take care of them," said Russell. "Where did you find them?"

"I have been down the sh.o.r.e getting them."

"And have you had a pleasant morning?"

"Yes, Russell, thank you. Only it is rather dull being always by myself, and Eric never comes with me now."

"Hang Eric," said Russell playfully. "Never mind, Verny; you and I will cut him, and go by ourselves."

Eric had stood by during the conversation, and the contrast of Russell's unselfish kindness with his own harsh want of sympathy struck him. He threw his arms round his brother's neck, and said, "We will both go with you, Verny, next half-holiday."

"Oh, thank you, Eric," said his brother; and the two schoolboys ran out.

But when the next half-holiday came, warm and bright, with the promise of a good match that afternoon, Eric repented his promise, and left Russell to amuse his little brother, while he went off, as usual, to the playground.

There was one silent witness of scenes like these, who laid them up deeply in her heart. Mrs Williams was not un.o.bservant of the gradual but steady falling off in Eric's character, and the first thing she noticed was the blunting of his home affections. When they first came to Roslyn, the boy used constantly to join his father and mother in their walks; but now he went seldom or never; and even if he did go, he seemed ashamed, while with them, to meet any of his school-fellows. The spirit of false independence was awake and, growing in her darling son.

The bright afternoons they had spent together on the sunny sh.o.r.e, or seeking for sea-flowers among the lonely rocks of the neighbouring headlands--the walks at evening and sunset among the hills, and the sweet counsel they had together, when the boy's character opened like a bud in the light and warmth of his mother's love--the long twilights when he would sit on a stool with his young head resting on her knees, and her loving hand in his fair hair--all these things were becoming to Mrs Williams memories, and nothing more.

It was the trial of her life, and very sad to bear; the more so because they were soon to be parted--certainly for years, perhaps for ever. The time was drawing nearer and nearer; it was now June, and Mr Williams's term of furlough ended in two months. The holidays at Roslyn were the months of July and August, and towards their close Mr and Mrs Williams intended to leave Vernon at Fairholm, and start for India--sending back Eric by himself as a boarder in Dr Rowlands's house.

After morning school, on fine days, the boys used to run straight down to the sh.o.r.e and bathe. A bright and joyous scene it was. They stripped off their clothes on the s.h.i.+ngle that adjoined the beach, and then, running along the sands, would swim out far into the bay till their heads looked like small dots glancing in the suns.h.i.+ne. This year Eric had learned to swim, and he enjoyed the bathing more than any other pleasure.

One day after they had dressed, Russell and he began to amuse themselves on the sea-sh.o.r.e. The little translucent pools left on the sands by the ebbing tide always swarm with life, and the two boys found great fun in hunting audacious little crabs, or catching the shrimps that shuffled about in the shallow water. At last Eric picked up a piece of wood which he found lying on the beach, and said, "What do you say to coming crab-fis.h.i.+ng, Edwin? this bit of stick will do capitally to thrust between the rocks in the holes where they lie?"

Russell agreed, and they started to the rocks of the Ness to seek a likely place for their purpose. The Ness was a mile off, but in the excitement of their pleasure they were oblivious of time.

The Williamses, for the boys' convenience, usually dined at one, but on this day they waited half an hour for Eric. Since, however, he didn't appear, they dined without him, supposing that he was accidentally detained, and expecting him to come in every minute. But two o'clock came, and no Eric; half-past two, and no Eric; three, but still no Eric.

Mrs Williams became seriously alarmed, and even her husband grew uneasy.

Vernon was watching for his brother at the window, and seeing Duncan pa.s.s by, ran down to ask him, "If he knew where Eric was?"

"No," said Duncan; "last time I saw him was on the sh.o.r.e. We bathed together, and I remember his clothes were lying by mine when I dressed.

But I haven't seen him since. If you like, we'll go and look for him.

I daresay he's on the beach somewhere."

But they found no traces of him there; and when they returned with this intelligence, his mother got so agitated that it required all her husband's firm gentleness to support her sinking spirits. There was enough to cause anxiety, for Vernon repeatedly ran out to ask the boys who were pa.s.sing if they had seen his brother, and the answer always was, that they had left him bathing in the sea.

Meanwhile our young friends, having caught several crabs, suddenly noticed by the sun that it was getting late.