Chapter Eleven.
Happier Hours.
“Sir, you are one of those that will not serve God if the devil bid you.”
Othello, act 1, scene 1.
When chapel was over, Walter, having brushed his hair, and made himself rather neater and more spruce than a schoolboy usually is at the middle of a long half, went to Mr Percival’s room. Mr Percival, having been detained, had not yet come in; but Henderson, Kenrick, and Power, who had also been asked to tea, were there waiting for him when Walter arrived, and Henderson, as usual, amusing the others and himself with a flood of mimicry and nonsense.
“You know that mischievous little Penkridge,” said Kenrick; “he nearly had an accident this morning. We were in the classroom, and Edwards was complaining of the bad smell of the room—”
“Bad smell!” interrupted Henderson, “I’ll bet you what you like Edwards didn’t say bad smell. He’s not the man to call a spade a spade; he calls it an agricultural implement for the trituration of the soil.”
“Why, what should he say?” asked Kenrick, “if he didn’t say ‘bad smell’?”
“Why, ‘What a malodorous effluvium!’” said Henderson, imitating exactly the master’s somewhat drawling tone; “‘what a con-cen-trra-ted malarious miasma; what an unendurable’—I say Power, give us the Greek, or Hebrew, or Kamschatkan, for ‘smell.’”
“Odwde,” suggested Power.
“That’s it to a T,” said Henderson; “I bet you he observed, ‘What an un-en-duu-rrable osus.’ Now, didn’t he? Confess the truth.”
“Well, I believe he did say something of the kind,” said Kenrick, laughing; “at least I know he called it Stygian and Tartarean. But, as I was saying, he set Penkridge (who happened to be going round with the lists) to examine the cupboards, and see if by chance some inopportune rat had died there; and Penkridge, opening one of them where the floor was very rotten, and poking about with his foot, knocked a great piece of plaster off the great schoolroom ceiling, and was as nearly as possible putting his foot through it.”
“Fancy if he had,” said Walter, “how astonished we should have been down below. I say, Henderson, what would Paton have said?”
“Oh! Paton,” said Henderson, delighted with any opportunity for mimicry, “he’d have whispered quietly, in an emotionless voice, ‘Penkridge, Penkridge, come here—come here, Penkridge. This is a very unusual method, Penkridge, of entering a room—highly irregular. If you haven’t broken your leg or your arm, Penkridge, you must write me two hundred lines.’”
“And Robertson?” asked Kenrick.
“Oh! Robertson—he’d have put up his eye-glass,” said Henderson, again exactly hitting off the master’s attitude, “and he’d have observed, ‘Ah! Penkridge has fallen through the floor; probably fractured some bones. Slippery fellow, he won’t be able to go to the Fighting Cocks this afternoon, at any rate.’ Whereupon Stevens would have gone up to him with the utmost tenderness, and asked him if he was hurt; and Penkridge, getting up, would, by way of gratitude, have grinned in his face.”
“Well, you’d better finish the scene,” said Power; “what would Percival have said?”
“Thunder-and-lightning? Oh! that’s easy to decide; he’d have made two or three quotations; he’d have immediately called the attention of the form to the fact that Penkridge had been:—
“‘Flung by angry Jove
Sheer o’er the crystal battlements; from morn
Till noon he fell, from noon till dewy eve;
A winter’s day, and as the tea-bell rang,
Shot from the ceiling like a falling star
On the great schoolroom floor.’”
“Would he, indeed?” said Mr Percival, pinching Henderson’s ear, as he came in just in time to join in the laugh which this parody occasioned.
Tea at Saint Winifred’s is a regular and recognised institution. There are few nights on which some of the boys do not adjourn after chapel to tea at the masters’ houses, when they have the privilege of sitting up an hour and a half later. The masters generally adopt this method of seeing their pupils and the boys in whom they are interested. The institution works admirably; the first and immediate result of it is, that here boys and masters are more intimately acquainted, and being so, are on warmer and friendlier terms with each other than perhaps at any other school—certainly on warmer terms than if they never met except in the still and punishment-pervaded atmosphere of the schoolrooms; and the second and remoter result is, that not only in the matter of work already alluded to, but also in other and equally important particulars, the tone and character of Saint Winifred’s boys is higher and purer than it would otherwise be. There is a simplicity and manliness there which cannot fail to bring forth its rich fruits of diligence, truthfulness, and honour. Many are the boys who have come from thence, who, in the sweet yet sober dignity of their life and demeanour, go far to realise the beautiful ideal of Christian boyhood. Many are the boys there who are walking, through the gates of humility and diligence, to certain, and merited, and conspicuous honour.
I know that there are many who believe in none of these things, and care not for them; who repudiate the necessity and duty of early godliness; who set up no ideal at all, because to do so would expose them to the charge of sentiment or enthusiasm, a charge which they dread more than that of villainy itself. These men regard the heart as a muscle consisting of four cavities, called respectively the auricles and the ventricles, and useful for no other purpose but to aerate the blood; all other meanings of the word they despise or ignore. They regard the world not as a scene of probation, not as a passage to a newer and higher life, but as a “convenient feeding-trough” for every low passion and unworthy impulse; as a place where they can build on the foundation of universal scepticism a reputation for superior ability. This degradation of spirit, this premature cynicism, this angry sneering at a tone superior to their own, this addiction to a low and lying satire, which is the misbegotten child of envy and disbelief, has infected our literature to a deplorable and almost hopeless extent. It might be sufficient to leave it, in all its rottenness and inflation, to every good man’s silent scorn, if it had not also so largely tainted the intellect of the young. If, in popular papers or magazines, boys are to read that, in a boy, lying is natural and venial; that courtesy to, and love for, a master, is impossible or hypocritical; that swearing and corrupt communication are peccadilloes which none but preachers and pedagogues regard as discreditable—how can we expect success to the labours of those who toil all their lives, amid neglect and ingratitude, to elevate the boys of England to a higher and holier view? I have seen this taint of atheistic disregard for sin poison article after article, and infuse its bitter principle into many a young man’s heart; and worse than this—adopted as it is by writers whom some consider to be mighty in intellect and leaders of opinion, I have seen it corrode the consciences and degrade the philosophy of far better and far worthier men.
It is a solemn duty to protest, with all the force of heart and conscience, against this dangerous gospel of sin, this “giving to manhood’s vices the privilege of boyhood.” It was not the gospel taught at Saint Winifred’s; there we were taught that we were baptised Christian boys, that the seal of God’s covenant was on our foreheads, that the oath of His service was on our consciences, that we were His children, and the members of His Son, and the inheritors of His kingdom; that His laws were our safeguard, and that our bodies were the temples of His Spirit. We were not taught—that was left for the mighty intellects of this age to discover—that as we were boys, a Christian principle and a Christian standard were above our comprehension, and alien from our possible attainments; we did not believe then, nor will I now, that a clear river is likely to flow from a polluted stream, or a good tree grow from bitter fibres and cankered roots.
Walter and the others spent a very happy evening with Mr Percival. When tea was over they talked as freely with him, and with each other in his presence, as they would have done among themselves; and the occasional society of their elders and superiors was in every way good for them. It enlarged their sympathies, widened their knowledge, and raised their moral tone.
Among many other subjects that evening they talked over one which never fails to interest deeply every right-minded boy—I mean their homes. It was no wonder that, as Walter talked of the glories of Semlyn lake and its surrounding hills, his face lighted up, and his eyes shone with pleasant memories. Mr Percival, as he looked at him, felt more puzzled than ever at his having gone wrong, and more confirmed than ever in the opinion that he had been hard and unjust to him of late, and that his original estimate of him was the right one after all.
Power’s home was a statelier one than Walter’s. His father, Sir Lawrence Power, was a baronet, the owner of broad acres, whose large and beautiful mansion stood on one of the undulations in a park shadowed by ancestral trees, under whose boughs the deer fed with their graceful fawns around them. Through the park flowed a famous river, of which the windings were haunted by herons and kingfishers, and the pleasant waters abounded in trout and salmon. And to this estate and title Power was heir; though of course he did not tell them this while he spoke of the lovely scenery around the home where his fathers had so long lived.
Henderson, again, was the son of a rich merchant, who had two houses—one city and one suburban. He was a regular little man of the world. After the holidays he had always seen the last feats of Saltori, and heard the most recent strains of Tiralirini. He always went to a round of entertainments, and would make you laugh by the hour while he sang the songs or imitated the style of the last comic actor or Ethiopian minstrel.
While they were chatting over their holiday amusements and occupations, Kenrick said little; and, wondering at his silence, Mr Percival asked him in what part of the world he lived.
“I, sir?” he said, as though awaked from a reverie; “Oh, I live at Fuzby, a village on the border of the fens, and in the very middle of the heavy clays.” And Kenrick turned away his head.
“Don’t abuse the clay,” said Walter to cheer him up; “I’m very fond of the clay; it produces good roses and good strawberries—and those are the two best things going, in any soil.”
“Half-past ten, youngsters,” said Mr Percival, holding up his watch; “off with you to bed. Let yourselves in through the grounds; here’s the key. Good-night to you. Walter,” he said, calling him back as he was about to leave, “one word with you alone; you three wait for him a moment outside. I wanted to tell you that, although I have seemed harsh to you, I dare say, of late, yet now I hear that you are making the most honourable efforts, and I have quite forgotten the past. My good opinion of you, Walter, is quite restored; and whenever you want to be quiet to learn your lessons, you may always come and sit in my room.”
Mr Percival was not the only Saint Winifred’s master who thus generously abridged his own leisure and privacy to assist the boys in what he felt an interest. Walter thanked him with real gratitude, and rejoined the other three. “He’s let me sit in his room,” said Walter.
“Has he?” said Henderson; “so he has me. How jolly! we shall get on twice as well.”
“What’s that?” said Power, pointing upwards, as they walked through the garden to their house door.
Glancing in the direction, Walter saw a light suddenly go out in his dormitory, and a great bundle (apparently) disappear inside the window, which was then shut down.
“I’ll go and see,” he said. “Good-night, you fellows.”
All was quiet when he reached his room, but one of the candles, ineffectually extinguished, was still smoking, and when he looked to Eden’s bed he saw by the gaslight that shone through the open door, that the child was awake, and crying bitterly.
“What’s the matter, Eden?” he said kindly, sitting down upon his bed.
“If you peach,” said Harpour and Jones together; “you know what you’ll get.”
“Have you fellows been bullying poor little Eden?” asked Walter indignantly.
“I’ve not,” and “I’ve not,” said Anthony and Franklin, who were better than the rest in every way; and “I haven’t touched the fellow, Evson,” said Cradock, who meant no harm, and at Walter’s earnest request had never again annoyed Eden since the first night.
“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 butter, 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 grass 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 assumption, 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 thrashing 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, shivering 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.”
Othello, 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 shiverings 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 passion, caused nothing but low amusement. 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 shingly 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 sunshine 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 assist him to sustain them—might have won, even at that slight cost, the deepest and most passionate love of that trembling young heart. He might have saved him from hours of numbing pain, and won the rich reward of a gratitude 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 God’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 anticipate 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 passed out, and across the court, and under the shadow of the arch towards Walter’s favourite haunt, the seashore. 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 shore 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 naïvely.
“You?”
“Yes; poor me. They let me down by a sheet which they tied round my waist.”
“What, from that high window? I hope they tied you tight.”
“Only one knot; I ever so nearly slipped out of it last night, and that’s what frightened me so, Walter.”
“How horribly dangerous,” said Walter indignantly.
“I know it is horribly dangerous,” said Eden, standing up, and gesticulating violently, in one of those bursts of passion which flashed out of him now and then, and were the chief amusement of his persecutors; “and I dream about it all night,” he said, bursting into tears, “and I know, I know that some day I shall slip, or the knot will come undone, and I shall fall and be smashed to atoms. But what do they care for that? and I sometimes wish I were dead myself, to have it all over.”
“Hush, Arty, don’t talk like that,” said Walter, as he felt the little soiled hand trembling with passion and emotion in his own. “But what on earth do they let you down for?”
“To go to—but you won’t tell?” he said, looking round again. “Oh, I forgot, you didn’t like my saying that. But it’s they who have made me a coward, Walter; indeed it is.”
“And no wonder,” thought Walter to himself. “But you needn’t be afraid any more,” he said aloud; “I promise you that no one shall do anything to you which they’d be afraid to do to me.”
“Then I’m safe,” said Eden, joyfully. “Well, they made me go to—to Dan’s.”
“Dan’s? what, the fisherman’s just near the shore.”
“Yes; ugh!”
“But don’t you know, Arty, that Dan’s a brute, and a regular smuggler, and that if you were caught going there, you’d be sent away?”
“Yes; you can’t think, Walter, how I hate, and how frightened I am to go there. There’s Dan, and there’s that great lout of a wicked son of his, and they’re always drunk, and the hut—ugh! it’s so nasty; and last night Dan seized hold of me with his horrid red hand, and wanted me to drink some gin, and I shrieked.” The very remembrance seemed to make him shudder.
“Well, then, after that I was nearly caught. I think, Walter, that even you would be a coward if you had such long long frights. You know that to get to Dan’s, after the gates are locked, the only way is to go over the railing, and through Dr Lane’s garden, and I’m always frightened to death lest his great dog should be loose, and should catch hold of me. He did growl last night. And then as I was hurrying back—you know it was rather moonlight last night, and not very cold—and who should I see but the Doctor himself walking up and down the garden. I crouched in a minute behind a thick holly-tree, and I suppose I made a rustle, though I held my breath, for the Doctor stopped and shook the tree, and said ‘shoo,’ as though he thought a cat were hidden there. I was half dead with fright, though I did hope, after all, that he would catch me, and that I might be sent away from this horrid place. But when he turned round, I crept away, and made the signal, and they let down the sheet, and then, as they were hauling me up, I heard voices—I suppose they must have been yours and Kenrick’s; but they thought it was some master, and doused the glim, and oh! so nearly let me fall; so, Walter, please don’t despise me, or be angry with me because you found me crying and shivering in bed. The cold made me shiver, and I couldn’t help crying; indeed I couldn’t.”
“Poor Arty, poor Arty,” said Walter, soothingly. “But have they ever done this before?”
“Yes, once, when you were at the choir-supper, one night.”
“They never shall again, I swear,” said Walter, frowning, as he thought how detestably cruel they had been. “But what did they send you for?”
“For no good,” said Eden.
“No; I knew it would be for no good, if it was to Dan’s that they sent you.”
“Well, Walter, the first time it was for some drink; and the second time for some more drink,” he said, after a little hesitation.
Walter looked serious. “But don’t you know, Arty,” he said, “that it’s very wrong to get such things for them? If they want to have any dealings with that beast Dan, who’s not fit to speak to, let them go themselves. Arty, it’s very wrong; you mustn’t do it.”
“But how can I help it?” said the boy, looking frightened and ashamed. “Oh, must I always be blamed by every one,” he said, putting his hands to his eyes. “It isn’t my sin, Walter, it’s theirs. They made me.”
“Nobody can ever make anyone else do what’s wrong, Arty.”
“Oh, yes; it’s all very easy for you to say that, Walter, who can fight anybody, and who are so strong and good, and whom no one dares bully, and who are not laughed at, and made a butt of, as I am.”
“Look at Power,” said Walter, “or look at Dubbs. They came as young as you, Arty, and as weak as you, but no one ever made them do wrong. Power somehow looks too noble to be bullied by anyone; they’re afraid of him, I don’t know why. But what had Dubbs to protect him? Yet not all the Harpours in the world would ever make him go to such a place as Dan’s.”
Poor Eden felt it hard to be blamed for this; he was not yet strong enough to learn that the path of duty, however hard and thorny, however hedged in with difficulties and antagonisms, is always the easiest and the pleasantest in the end.
“But they’d half kill me, Walter,” he said plaintively.
“They’ll have much more chance of doing that as it is,” said Walter. “They’d thrash you a little, no doubt, but respect you more for it. And surely it would be better to bear one thrashing, and not do what’s wrong, than to do it and to go two such journeys out of the window, and get the thrashings into the bargain? So even on that ground you ought to refuse. Eh, Arty?”
“Yes, Walter,” he said, casting down his eyes.
“Well; next time either Harpour, or any one else, tries to make you do what’s wrong, remember they can’t make you, if you don’t choose; and say flatly ‘No!’ and stick to it in spite of everything, like a brave little man, will you?”
“I did say ‘No!’ at first, Walter; but they threatened to frighten me,” he said. “They knew I daren’t hold out.”
Yes; there was the secret of it all. Walter saw that they had played on this child’s natural terrors with such refinement of cruelty, that fear had become the master principle in his mind; they had only to touch that spring and he obeyed them mechanically like a puppet, and because of his very fear, was driven to do things that might well cause genuine fear, till he lived in such a region of increasing fear and dread, that Walter’s only surprise was that he had not been made an idiot already. Poor child! it was no wonder that he was becoming more stupid, cunning, untidy, and uninteresting, every day. And all this was going on under the very eyes of many thoroughly noble boys, and conscientious masters, and yet they never saw or noticed it, and looked on Eden as an idle and unprincipled little sloven. O our harsh human judgments! The Priest and the Levite still pass the wounded man, and the good Samaritans are rare on this world’s highways.
What was Walter to do? He did not know the very name of psychology, but he did know the unhinging, desolating power of an overmastering spirit of fear. He knew that fear hath torment, but he had no conception by what means that demon can be exorcised. Yet he thought, as he raised his eyes for one instant to heaven in silent supplication, that there were few devils who would not go out by prayer, and he made a strong resolve that he would use every endeavour to make up for his past neglectfulness, and to save this poor unhappy child.
“I’m not blaming you, Arthur,” he said, “but I like you, and don’t want to see you go wrong, and be a tool in bad boys’ hands. I hope you ask God to help you, Arthur?”
Eden looked at him, but said nothing. He had been taught but little, and by example he had been taught nothing of the Awful Far-off Friend Who is yet so near to every humble spirit, and Who even now had sent His angel to save this lamb who knew not of His fold.
“Listen to me, Arthur—ah! there I hear the third school-bell, and we must go in—but listen! I’ll be your friend; I want to be your friend. I’ll try and save you from all this persecution. Will you always trust me?”
Eden’s look of gratitude more than repaid him, and Walter added, “And, Arty, you must not give up your prayers. Ask God to help you, and to keep you from going wrong, and to make you brave. Won’t you, Arty?”
The little boy’s heart was full even to breaking with its weight of happy tears; it was too full to speak. He pressed Walter’s hand for one moment, and walked in by his side, without a word.
Chapter Thirteen.
Daubeny.
La Génie c’est la Patience.
Buffon.
I suppose that no days of life are so happy as those in which some great sorrow has been removed. Certainly Walter’s days as his heart grew lighter and lighter with the consciousness that Mr Paton had forgiven him, that all those who once looked on him coldly had come round, that his difficulties were vanishing before steady diligence, and that, young as he was, he was winning for himself a name and a position in the school, were very full of peace. O pleasant days of boyhood! how mercifully they are granted to prepare us, to cheer us, to make us wise for the struggles of future life. To Walter at this time life itself was an exhilarating enjoyment. To get up in the morning bright, cheerful, and refreshed, with thoughts:
“Pleasant as roses in the thickets blown,
And pure as dew bathing their crimson leaves;”
to get over his lessons easily and successfully, and receive Mr Paton’s quiet word of praise; to shake with laughing over the flood of nonsense with which Henderson always deluged everyone who sat near him at breakfast-time; to help little Eden in his morning’s work, and to see with what intense affection and almost adoration the child looked up to him; to stroll with Kenrick under the pine woods, or have a pleasant chat in Power’s pretty little study, or read a book in the luxurious retirement of Mr Percival’s room, or, if it were a half-holiday, to join in the skating, hare and hounds, football, or whatever game might be on hand—all these things were to Walter Evson one long unbroken pleasure. At this time he was the brightest, and pleasantest, and happiest of all light-hearted and happy English boys.
The permission to go whenever he liked to Mr Percival’s room was his most valued privilege. There he could always secure such immunity from disturbance as enabled him to learn his lessons in half the time he would otherwise have been obliged to devote to them; and there too he could always ask the master’s assistance when he came to any insuperable difficulty, and always enjoy the society of Henderson and the one or two other boys who were allowed by Mr Percival’s kindness to use the same retreat. From the bottom of his form he rapidly rose to the top, and at last was actually placed first. A murmur of pleasure ran through the form on the first Sunday when his name was read out in this honourable position, and it gave Walter nearly as much satisfaction to hear Henderson’s name read out sixth on the same day; for before Walter came, Henderson was too volatile ever to care where he stood in form, and usually spent his time in school in drawing caricatures of the masters, and writing parodies of the lesson or epigrams on other boys; up till this time Daubeny had always been first in the form, and he deserved the place if any boy did. He was not a clever boy, but nothing could exceed his well-intentioned industry. Like Sir Walter Raleigh he “toiled terribly.” It was an almost pathetic sight to see Dubbs set about learning his repetitions; it was a noble sight, too. There was a heroism about it which was all the greater from its being unnoticed and unrecorded. Poor Dubbs had no privacy except such as the great schoolroom could afford, and there is not much privacy in a room, however large, which is the common habitation of fifty boys. Nevertheless, the undaunted Daubeny would choose out the quietest and loneliest corner of the room, and with elbows on knees and hands over his ears to shut out the chaotic noises which surrounded him, would stay repeating the lines to himself with attention wholly concentrated and absorbed, until, after perhaps an hour’s work, he knew enough of them to enable him to finish mastering them the next morning. Next morning he would be up with the earliest dawn, and would again set himself to the task with grand determination, content if at the end of the week he gained the distinguished reward of being head in his form, and could allow himself the keen pleasure of writing home to tell his mother of his success.
When Daubeny had first come to Saint Winifred’s, he had been forced to go through very great persecution. As he sat down to do his work he would be pelted with orange peel, kicked, tilted off the form on which he sat, ridiculed, and sometimes chased out of the room. All this he had endured with admirable patience and good humour; in short, so patiently and good-humouredly that all boys who had in them a spark of sense or honour very soon abandoned this system of torment, and made up for it as far as they could by respect and kindness, which always, however, took more or less the form of banter. It is not to be expected that boys will ever be made to see that steady, strenuous industry, even when it fails, is a greater and a better thing than idle cleverness, but those few who were so far in advance of their years as to have some intuition of this fact, felt for the character of Daubeny, a value which gave him an influence of a rare and important kind. For nothing could daunt this young martyr—not even failure itself. If he were too much bullied and annoyed to get up his lesson overnight, he would be up by five in the morning working at it with unremitting assiduity. Very often he overdid it, and knew his lesson all the worse in proportion as he had spent upon it too great an amount of time. Without being positively stupid, his intellect was somewhat dull, and as his manner was shy and awkward he had not been quite understood at first, and no master had taken him specially in hand to lighten his burdens. His bitterest trial, therefore, was to fail completely every now and then, and be reproached for it by some master who little knew the hours of weary work which he had devoted to the unsuccessful attempt. This was particularly the case during his first half-year, during which he had been in Mr Robertson’s form. It happened that, from the very weariness of brain induced by his working too hard, he had failed in several successive lessons, and Mr Robertson, who was a man of quick temper and stinging speech, had made some very cutting remarks upon him, and sent him, moreover, to detention—a punishment which caused to his sensitive mind a pain hardly less acute than the master’s pungent and undeserved sarcasm. This mishap, joined to his low weekly placing, very nearly filled him with despair, and this day might have turned the scale, and fixed him in the position of a heavy and disheartened boy, but for Power, who had come to Saint Winifred’s at the same time with Daubeny, and who, although in his unusually rapid progress he had long left Daubeny behind, was then in the same form and the same dormitory with him, and knew how he worked. Power used always to say to his friends that Dubbs was the worthiest, the bravest, the most upright and conscientious boy in all Saint Winifred’s school. Daubeny, on the other hand, had for Power the kind of adoration of the savage for the sun; he was the boy’s beau-ideal of a perfect scholar and a perfect being.—It was a curious sight to see the two boys together Power with his fine and thoughtful face beaming with intelligence, Dubbs with large, heavy features and awkward gait; Power sitting down with his book and perfectly mastering the lesson in a quarter of an hour, and then turning round to say, with a bright arch look, “Well, Dubbs, I’ve learnt the lesson; how far are you?”
“Learnt the lesson? O, lucky fellow. I only know one stanza and that not perfectly; let me see—‘Nam quid Typhoeus et validus Mimas nam quid’—no; I don’t know even that, I see.”
“Here, let me hear you.”
Whereupon Dubbs would begin again, and flounder hopelessly at the end of the third line, and then Power would continue it all through with him, fix the sense of it in his memory, read it over, suggest little mnemonic dodges and associations of particular words and lines, and not leave him until he knew it by heart, and was ready with gratitude enough to pluck out his right eye and give it to Power, if needed, there and then.
The early failures we have been speaking of took place when Power had been staying out of school with a severe cold, and being in the sickroom had not seen Daubeny at all. He had come out again on the morning when, after Daubeny’s failure, Mr Robertson had called him incorrigibly slothful and incapable, and after muttering some more invectives had said something about his being hopeless. As he listened to the master’s remarks, although he knew that they only arose from misconception, Power’s cheeks flushed up with painful surprise, and his eyes sparkled with indignation for his friend. He wanted Daubeny to tell Mr Robertson how many hours he had spent in being “incorrigibly slothful” over that particular lesson, but this at the time he could not get him to do. “Besides,” said Daubeny, “if he knows me to be quite hopeless”—and here the poor boy grew scarlet as he recalled the undeserved insult—“it’s no disgrace to me to fail.”
When detention was over, Power sought out his friend, and found him sitting on the top of a little hill by the side of the river, alone, and with a most forlornly disconsolate air. Power saw that he had been crying bitterly, but had too much good taste to take any notice of the fact.
“Well, Power, you see what credit I get, and yet you know how I try. I’m a ‘bad, idle boy,’ it seems, and ‘incorrigibly slothful,’ and ‘hardly fit for the school,’ and ‘I must be put down to a lower form if I don’t make more effort’—oh! I forgot though, you heard it all yourself. So you know my character,” he said, with a melancholy smile.
“Never mind, old fellow. You’ve done your best, and none of us can do more. You know the soldier’s epitaph—‘Here lies one who tried to do his duty’—a prince could not have better, and you deserve that if anyone ever did.”
“I wish I were you, Power,” said Daubeny; “you are so clever, you can learn the lessons in no time; everyone likes you, and you get no end of credit, while I’m a mere butt, and when I’ve worked hard it’s a case of Kathedeitai honos, as the lesson-book says.”
“Pooh, Dubbs,” said Power, kindly putting his arm on his shoulder; “you’re just as happy as I am. A fellow with a clear conscience can’t be in low spirits very long. Don’t you remember the pretty verse I read to you the other day, and which made me think of you while I read it—
“‘Days that, in spite
Of darkness, by the light
Of a clear mind are day all night?’”
“Don’t think I envy you, Power—you won’t think that, will you?” said Dubbs with the tears glistening in his eyes.
“No, no, my dear old boy. Such a nature as yours can’t envy, I know; I’m sure you’re as happy when I succeed as when you succeed yourself. I think I’ve got the secret of it, Dubbs. You work too much; you must take more exercise—play games more—give less time to the work. I’m sure you’ll do better then, for half is better than the whole sometimes. And Dubbs, I may say to you what I wouldn’t say to any other boy in the whole school—but I’ve found it so true, and I’m sure you will too, and that is, Bene orasse est bene studuisse.”
Dubbs pressed his hand in silence. The hard thoughts which had been gathering were dissipated in a moment, and as he walked back to the school and to new heroic efforts by Power’s side, he felt that he had learnt a secret full of strength. He did better and better. He broke the neck of his difficulties one by one, and had soon surpassed boys who were far more brilliant, but less industrious, than himself. Thus it was that he fought his way up to the position of one of the steadiest and most influential boys among those of his own standing, because all knew him to be sterling in his virtues, unswerving in his rectitude, most humble, and most sincere. During all his school career he was never once overtaken in a serious fault. It may be that he had fewer temptations than boys more gifted and more mercurial; he was never exposed to the singularly powerful trials which compensated for the superiority of others to him in good looks, and popular manners, and quick passions; but yet his blamelessness had something in it very beautiful, and his noble upward struggles were remembered with fond pleasure in after days.
Walter, like all other sensible boys, felt for Daubeny a very sincere admiration and regard. Daubeny’s fearless rectitude, on the night when his own indulged temper led him into such suffering, had left a deep impression on his mind, and, since then, Dubbs had always been among the number of his more intimate friends. Hence, when Walter wrested from him the head place, he was half sorry that he should cause the boy to lose his well-merited success, and almost wished that he had come out second, and left Daubeny first. He knew that there was not in his rival’s nature a particle of envy, but still he feared that he might suffer some disappointment. But in this he was mistaken; Daubeny was a firm believer in the principle of La carrière ouverte aux talons; he was, under the circumstances, quite as happy to be second as to be first; and among the many who congratulated Walter, none did so with a heartier sincerity than this generous and single-minded boy.
People still retain the notion that boyish emulation is the almost certain cause of hatreds and jealousies. Usually, the fact is the very reverse. An ungenerous rivalry is most unusual, and those schoolfellows who dispute with a boy the prizes of a form are commonly his most intimate associates and his best friends. Certainly, Daubeny liked Walter none the less for his having wrested away from him with so much ease a distinction which had caused himself such strenuous efforts to win.
The pleasant excitement of contending for a weekly position made Daubeny work harder than ever. Indeed, the whole form seemed to have received a new stimulus lately. Henderson was astonishing everybody by a fit of diligence, and even Howard Tracy seemed less totally indifferent to his place than usual. So willingly did the boys work, that Mr Paton had not half the number of punishments to set, and perhaps his late misfortune had infused a little more tenderness and consideration into a character always somewhat stern and unbending. But, instead of rising, Daubeny only lost places by his increased work; he was making himself ill with work. At the end of the next week, instead of being first or second, he was only fifth; and when Mr Percival, who always had been his friend, rallied him on this descent, he sighed deeply, and complained that he had been suffering lately from headaches, and supposed that they had prevented him from doing so well as usual.
This remark rather alarmed the master, and on the Sunday afternoon he asked the boy to come a walk with him, for the express purpose of endeavouring to persuade him to relax efforts which were obviously being made to the injury of his health.
When they had once fairly reached the meadows by the riverside, Mr Percival said to him—
“You are overdoing it, Daubeny. I can see myself that your mind is in a tense, excited, nervous condition from work; you must lie fallow, my dear boy.”
“O! I’m very strong, sir,” said Daubeny; “I’ve a cast-iron constitution, as that amusing plague of mine, Henderson, always tells me.”
“Never mind, you must really work less. I won’t have that getting up at five in the morning. If you don’t take care, I shall forbid you to be higher than twentieth in your form under heavy penalties, or I shall get Dr Keith to send you home altogether, and not let you go in to the examination.”
“O! no, sir, you really mustn’t do that. I assure you that I enjoy work. An illness I had when I was a child hindered and threw me back very much, and you can’t think how eager I am to make up for that lost time.”
“The time is not lost, my dear Daubeny, if God demanded it in illness for His own good purposes. Be persuaded, my boy; abandon, for the present, all struggle to take a high place until you feel quite well again, and then you shall work as hard as you like. Remember, knowledge itself is valueless in comparison with health.”
Daubeny felt the master’s kind intention; but he could not restrain his unconquerable eagerness to get on. He would have succumbed far sooner, if Walter and Power had not constantly dragged him out with them almost by force, and made him take exercise against his will. But, though he was naturally strong and healthy, he began to look very pale, and his best friends urged him to go home and take a holiday.
Would that he had taken that good and kind advice!