XII.
Lewie at School.
“The child is father of the man.”—WORDSWORTH.
Had our friend Lewie heard Mr. Malcolm’s prediction relative to his school experiences, he would have had reason to think him a true prophet. He came into the school and the play-ground with the same ideas which had been predominant with him ever since his baby-hood; and though he did not, as then, continually say the words, his actions proclaimed as loudly, “Lewie must have his own way!—Lewie must not be crossed!” He found his school companions not quite so complying as his indulgent mother, and those over whom she had control; and before he had been long in the school, he was known by the various names of “Dictator-General,” “First Consul,” “Great Mogul,” &c., and with these epithets he was greeted whenever he put on any of his dictatorial airs.
These constant insults and impertinences, as he called them, irritated his ungoverned spirit, and in consequence many a school-mate measured his length upon the ground in the most sudden manner, and innumerable were the fights and “rows” which were the result. The presence of Lewie seemed everywhere the signal of contention and strife, where all had been heretofore, with very few exceptions, harmony and peace; and yet, but for his hasty and impatient temper, Lewie might have been an unparalleled favorite among his schoolmates. In the still summer evenings, when he took his guitar, and sat upon the steps of the portico, the boys would crowd around him, and listen in breathless silence to his sweet music. As long as his own inclinations were not crossed or interfered with, a more agreeable companion could not be found. He had the frank, open manners, which are not seldom joined with a quick temper, and in many things he showed a noble, generous disposition; but as soon as the wishes of others in their sports and recreations came in conflict with his own, his terrible passion was roused at once, and carried all before it. Many were the complaints which he carried to his mother of insult and ill-treatment; and before he had been six months at Dr. Hamilton’s school, he was urging her to allow him to remove to another of which he had heard, and where he fancied he should be more happy. Mrs. Elwyn’s health was not as firm as it once was; she was becoming weak and nervous, and dreaded change, and endeavored to pacify her son, and to persuade him to remain at Dr. Hamilton’s school. No doubt he would have effected his object by teazing, but it was accomplished in another way.
There are boys to be found in every large school who delight in playing practical jokes, and in teazing and tormenting those who are susceptible of annoyance in this way. There was a large, stout boy in Dr. Hamilton’s school, of the name of Colton, a great bully and teaze, whose delight it seemed to be to torment and put into a passion one so fiery as our little hero, feeling safe from the only kind of retaliation which could injure him, as he was so much the stoutest and strongest of the two. This boy soon found that there was one point upon which Lewie was peculiarly sensitive, and the slightest allusion to which would call the red blood to his face. This was the fact of his being accompanied by his mother when he came to the school, and her having taken board in the village, that she might be near him as long as he was there. Lewie had remonstrated with his mother, when she proposed accompanying him, and had urged her to accept his Uncle Wharton’s invitation to make his house her home. He was just at that age when boys love to appear independent and manly, and able to take care of themselves; and he had hoped that he should be allowed to go alone to school, as many of the other boys did, or perhaps to accompany his uncle and cousins. But to be taken there under the care of a woman, and to have her remain near him, as if he could not take care of himself! Lewie thought this a most humiliating state of things. But for once his mother was firm. It would be like severing her heart-strings, to separate her from her darling son; and wherever he went, she must go as long as she lived. This ingratitude on the part of Lewie and evident desire to rid himself of her company, after so many years spent in devotion to his slightest wishes, wore upon her spirits, and was one cause, perhaps the principal one, of her nervous depression, and consequent ill health.
As soon as Colton understood the state of Lewie’s feelings on this tender point, and noticed How his cheeks would flush with passion whenever the subject was mentioned, he took advantage of it to harass and enrage him, renewing the subject most unmercifully at every convenient opportunity. Thus, whenever, in their sports, Lewie took upon himself to dictate, in his authoritative way, Colton would ask the boys if they were going to be governed by a baby who had not yet broken loose from his mother’s apron-strings; and when Lewie could no longer restrain his passion, and began to show signs of becoming pugnacious, Colton would advise him to “run to mother,” to be petted and soothed.
For sometime prudence restrained Lewie from making an attack upon this boy, so much larger and stronger than himself, for he was almost certain that he would get the worst of it in an encounter with him. But one day when Colton was more aggravating than ever, Lewie suddenly lost all command of himself, and flew at him in a most fearful storm of rage, and with all the might of his passion concentrated in one blow, he dashed the great boy against a tree; and after he was down, and lying insensible, with his head cut and bleeding, Lewie could scarcely be restrained, by the united strength of those about him, from rushing upon his senseless body, and by renewed blows continuing to injure him.
His rage was fearful to witness, and his companions stood aghast, for they saw clearly that murder was in his heart, and that nothing but the restraint they exercised upon him, prevented him from carrying his horrible purpose into execution. Colton was borne to the house, and it was long feared that he would never entirely recover from the effects of the severe blow upon his head as he fell. Lewie seemed to feel nothing like remorse; he had always hated Colton, and everything this boy had done had tended to increase and aggravate his feelings of dislike; he thought nothing in his frantic rage of the consequences to himself, but would have rejoiced to see his tormentor dead at his feet.
This last affair decided Dr. Hamilton that it would not do to keep a boy of such fierce, unrestrained temper, longer in the school. Lewie had all this time been progressing rapidly in his studies; a fierce ambition seemed to have seized upon, him, and he applied himself to his books as if he had come to the determination that he would at least rise superior to his school-mates, in his standing in the class, if they would not acknowledge his superiority in anything else.
Dr. Hamilton called soon after Lewie’s attack upon Colton, to see Mrs. Elwyn, and while he spoke of Lewie as one on whom he could justly be proud, as the best and most forward scholar in his classes, he said it was impossible for him to allow him to remain; that the lives of his other pupils were hardly to be considered safe with so passionate a companion, and for the sake of the reputation of his school, he must ask her to save him the necessity of a public dismissal of her son. Sad by this time were the forebodings of Mrs. Elwyn, but they were useless; her remonstrances with her self-willed son were vain. If Lewie was obliged to submit to being accompanied by his mother wherever he went, he seemed determined to show her, that her wishes had not the slightest power over him. The sowing time had passed;—the reaping time had begun.
Lewie no longer urged and entreated, but merely expressed his determination to go to the school to which he had so long been desirous to remove, and his poor mother knowing that henceforth his will must be hers, made her preparations for accompanying him.
Boys are the same everywhere; and unless all are willing in some degree to relinquish their own gratification for the sake of others, there will surely be trouble. So Lewie found at Stanwick; so at the next school, and the next; for as he became dissatisfied with one and unpopular there, he removed to another, his poor mother following his fortunes everywhere. Many were the kind and remonstrating letters which Lewie received during these three years of change, from his lovely sister, but the affectionate advice contained in them as to an endeavor to gain command over his temper, and in regard to his treatment of his mother, seemed to have no permanent effect.
All this time, wherever he went, he ranked’ among the highest as to his scholarship, and at the age of sixteen he entered college at C——, about ten or fifteen miles from Hillsdale. By the time they were fairly established at C——, Mrs. Elwyn’s health completely failed. Lewie’s time much taken up with his college duties, and even if it had not been, he was not one to wait with patience upon the humors of a nervous and fretful invalid; and the greater part of the time was spent by Mrs. Elwyn in loneliness and repining.
And now her thoughts turned often, and rested almost fondly upon the memory of her long neglected daughter. Oh! for such a kind and gentle nurse and companion to be ever near her, to minister to her wants and soothe her lonely hours. The more she thought of her, the more she longed for her presence, and it was soon after Agnes left Mrs. Arlington’s and returned to Brook Farm, that she received with delight a summons to come to her mother at C——. The idea that her mother really wished for her, and that she could be in any degree useful to her, made her heart bound with joy; and then, too, the idea of being so near her brother, to endeavor to exercise a restraining influence upon him, was happiness in itself for Agnes.
She found her mother greatly changed: anxiety of mind and bodily suffering had worn upon her, till her face, which might still have been young and blooming, was faded and wrinkled. She was glad to see Agnes, only because now she could be useful to her; and Agnes often found her whole stock of patience brought into requisition, in endeavoring to gratify the changing whims and fancies of a nervous invalid. Lewie was in ecstasies at his sister’s arrival; for he did dearly love Agnes, and he now passed all his leisure time at his mother’s room. Agnes thought him more gentle and tractable, and hoped that he really exercised some control over his passionate temper; but it was only, for the time, the want of provocation, and the restraining influence of his sister’s presence, which kept him from any serious out-break. The grace of God alone could materially change Lewie Elwyn now.
Agnes remained many months in attendance upon her mother, who failed very gradually. As she grew weaker, she became more exacting; and though never betrayed into any expression of affection for Agnes, yet she was not willing to have her out of her sight for a moment. The consciousness of being useful to her mother, was sufficient reward for sleepless nights and days of close confinement; and Agnes resisted all Lewie’s entreaties that she would leave the sick room for a while each day, and take a stroll with him.
Had Lewie been inclined to dissipation, this would have been a dangerous time for him; for his wonderful musical powers made him such a favorite, that no gathering was thought complete without him. As long as Agnes was at C——, he preferred spending his evenings with her to any party of pleasure; and after he could no longer enjoy her society, and when he began again to mingle in scenes of festivity, though sometimes betrayed into excesses, he never was habitually dissipated.
Mrs. Elwyn lingered on, becoming weaker and weaker, until, after Agnes had been with her about six months, she perceived that she was failing more rapidly, and at length was informed by the physician, that her mother could live but very few days longer. Agnes hastily summoned Mr. and Mrs. Wharton, who arrived only in time to witness the death-bed scene. Just before her death, Mrs. Elwyn seemed to awake to a sudden realization of the great mistakes of her life with regard to her son and daughter. She seemed to see now, as clearly as others had seen all along, the evils of her own management, and to trace the unhappy results to their proper source. It was sad to hear her, when all too late to remedy these evils, lament over “a wasted life—a worse than wasted life;” and so, with words of remorse upon her lips, she, who had had such power for good in her hands, passed away from earth.
And Agnes returned to her uncle’s house, leaving her brother at college. As soon as she had taken a little time to recruit, and to consider, she began to look about for a situation as governess, much against the wishes of every member of her uncle’s family, who would have considered it a privilege to keep her always with them. About this time, a distant relative of Mrs. Wharton’s, a Mr. Fairland, in passing from his Western home to the city, stopped to make them a visit. He was a plain, kind-hearted man, and seemed to take a particular interest in Agnes, with whose father and grandfather he had been intimately acquainted. Mr. Fairland had made quite a fortune by successful speculation, in a large Eastern city; but the extravagance of his wife and daughters, who were not willing to be outdone in dress or establishment by any of their neighbors, made such rapid inroads upon his newly-acquired wealth, that Mr. Fairland soon became convinced that it was leaving him as rapidly as it came. So he thought it the part of prudence to beat a retreat at once; and, in spite of the tears and remonstrances of his wife and eldest daughters, he removed the whole family to the beautiful village of Wilston, near which place he owned some fine and flourishing mills.
It was while speaking of his new home, and its many beauties, at Mr. Wharton’s breakfast table, that Mr. Fairland mentioned the only drawback to his happiness there, which, he said, was the want of the advantages of education for his younger children, who were running wild without any instruction, as their mother was unwilling to allow them to attend the village school. He had long been looking, he said, for a governess for them—one who would bring them up with right habits and principles, at the same time that she was instructing their minds.
Agnes seized the first opportunity in which she could find Mr. Fairland alone, to propose herself as governess to his children. This was more than Mr. Fairland had dared to hope for, and her proposal was hailed by him with gratitude and joy. He wished her to return immediately with him; but Agnes had some preparations to make, and her uncle was not willing to part with her quite yet: he promised, however, to bring her himself in the course of a month. A serious illness, however, deranged all Mr. Wharton’s plans and as soon as he was able to travel, business of the utmost importance called him to the city; so that Agnes, who disliked to keep Mr. Fairland waiting for her any longer, wrote to him when he might expect her, and, much against Mrs. Wharton’s wishes, set out alone in the stage for Wilston.