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.
Volume One--Chapter Five.
The Second Term.
Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil our vines; for our vines have tender grapes.—Cant. ii. 15.
The