CHILDHOOD.

Ah dear delights, that o'er my soul

On memory's wing like shadows fly!

Ah flowers that Joy from Eden stole,

While Innocence stood laughing by.

_Coleridge_.

"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" cried a young boy, as he capered vigorously

about, and clapped his hands. "Father and mother will be home in a week

now, and then we shall stay here a little time, and _then_, and _then_,

I shall go to school."

The last words were enunciated with immense importance, as he stopped

his impromptu dance before the chair where his sober cousin Fanny was

patiently working at her crochet; but she did not look so much affected

by the announcement as the boy seemed to demand, so he again exclaimed,

"And then, Miss Fanny, I shall go to school."

"Well, Eric," said Fanny, raising her matter-of-fact quiet face from her

endless work, "I doubt, dear, whether you will talk of it with quite as

much joy a year hence."

"Oh ay, Fanny, that's just like you to say so; you're always talking and

prophesying; but never mind, I'm going to school, so, hurrah! hurrah!

hurrah!" and he again began his capering,--jumping over the chairs,

trying to vault the tables, singing and dancing with an exuberance of

delight, till, catching a sudden sight of his little spaniel Flo, he

sprang through the open window into the garden, and disappeared behind

the trees of the shrubbery; but Fanny still heard his clear, ringing,

silvery laughter, as he continued his games in the summer air.

She looked up from her work after he had gone, and sighed. In spite of

the sunshine and balm of the bright weather, a sense of heaviness and

foreboding oppressed her. Everything looked smiling and beautiful, and

there was an almost irresistible contagion in the mirth of her young

cousin, but still she could not help feeling sad. It was not merely

that she would have to part with Eric, "but that bright boy," thought

Fanny, "what will become of him? I have heard strange things of

schools; oh, if he should be spoilt and ruined, what misery it would be.

Those baby lips, that pure young heart, a year may work sad change in

their words and thoughts!" She sighed again, and her eyes glistened as

she raised them upwards, and breathed a silent prayer.

She loved the boy dearly, and had taught him from his earliest years.

In most things she found him an apt pupil. Truthful, ingenuous, quick,

he would acquire almost without effort any subject that interested him,

and a word was often enough to bring the impetuous blood to his cheeks,

in a flush of pride or indignation. He required the gentlest teaching,

and had received it, while his mind seemed cast in such a mould of

stainless honour, that he avoided most of the weaknesses to which

children are prone. But he was far from blameless. He was proud to a

fault; he well knew that few of his fellows had gifts like his, either

of mind or person, and his fair face often showed a clear impression of

his own superiority. His passion, too, was imperious, and though it

always met with prompt correction, his cousin had latterly found it

difficult to subdue. She felt, in a word, that he was outgrowing her

rule. Beyond a certain age no boy of spirit can be safely guided by a

woman's hand alone.

Eric Williams was now twelve years old. His father was a civilian in

India, and was returning on furlough to England, after a long absence.

Eric had been born in India, but had been sent to England by his parents

at an early age, in charge of a lady friend of his mother. The parting,

which had been agony to his father and mother, he was too young to feel;

indeed the moment itself passed by without his being conscious of it.

They took him on board the ship, and, after a time, gave him a hammer

and some nails to play with. These had always been to him a supreme

delight, and while he hammered away, Mr and Mrs Williams, denying

themselves, for the child's sake, even one more tearful embrace, went

ashore in the boat and left him. It was not till the ship sailed that

he was told he would not see them again for a long, long time. Poor

child, his tears and cries were piteous when he first understood it; but

the sorrows of four years old are very transient, and before a week was

over, little Eric felt almost reconciled to his position, and had become

the universal pet and plaything of every one on board, from Captain

Broadland down to the cabin-boy, with whom he very soon struck up an

acquaintance. Yet twice a day at least his mirth would be checked as he

lisped his little prayer, kneeling at Mrs Munro's knee, and asked God

"to bless his dear, dear father and mother, and make him a good boy."

When Eric arrived in England, he was entrusted to the care of a widowed

aunt, whose daughter, Fanny, had the main charge of his early teaching.

At first, the wayward little Indian seemed likely to form no accession

to the quiet household, but he soon became its brightest ornament and

pride. Everything was in his favour at the pleasant home of Mrs

Trevor. He was treated with motherly kindness and tenderness, yet

firmly checked when he went wrong. From the first he had a well-spring

of strength against temptation, in the long letters which every mail

brought from his parents; and all his childish affections were entwined

round the fancied image of a brother born since he had left India. In

his bedroom there hung a cherub's head, drawn in pencil by his mother,

and this winged child was inextricably identified in his imagination

with his "little brother Vernon." He loved it dearly, and whenever he

went astray, nothing weighed on his mind so strongly as the thought,

that if he were naughty he would teach little Vernon to be naughty too

when he came home.

And Nature also--wisest, gentlest, holiest of teachers--was with him in

his childhood. Fairholm Cottage, where his aunt lived, was situated in

the beautiful Vale of Ayrton, and a clear stream ran through the valley

at the bottom of Mrs Trevor's orchard. Eric loved this stream, and was

always happy as he roamed by its side, or over the low green hills and

scattered dingles which lent unusual loveliness to every winding of its

waters. He was allowed to go about a good deal by himself, and it did

him good. He grew up fearless and self-dependent, and never felt the

want of amusement. The garden and orchard supplied him a theatre for

endless games and romps, sometimes with no other companion than his

cousin and his dog, and sometimes with the few children of his own age

whom he knew in the hamlet. Very soon he forgot all about India; it

only hung like a distant golden haze on the horizon of his memory. When

asked if he remembered it, he would say thoughtfully, that in dreams and

at some other times, he saw a little boy, with long curly hair, running

about in a flower-garden, near a great river, in a place where the air

was very bright. But whether the little boy was himself or his brother

Vernon, whom he had never seen, he couldn't quite tell.

But, above all, it was happy for Eric that his training was religious

and enlightened. With Mrs Trevor and her daughter, religion was not a

system but a habit--not a theory but a continued act of life. All was

simple, sweet, and unaffected, about their charity and their devotions.

They loved God, and they did all the good they could to those around

them. The floating gossip and ill-nature of the little village never

affected them; it melted away insensibly in the presence of their

cultivated minds; so that friendship with them was a bond of union among

all, and from the vicar to the dairyman every one loved and respected

them, asked their counsel, and sought their sympathy.

They called themselves by no sectarian name, nor could they have told to

what "party" they belonged. They troubled themselves with no theories

of education, but mingled gentle nurture with "wholesome neglect."

There was nothing exotic or constrained in the growth of Eric's

character. He was not one of the angelically good children at all, and

knew none of the phrases of which infant prodigies are supposed to be so

fond. But to be truthful, to be honest, to be kind, to be brave, these

lessons had been taught him, and he never _quite_ forgot them; nor amid

the sorrows of after life did he ever quite lose the sense--learnt at

dear quiet Fairholm--of a present loving God, of a tender and

long-suffering Father.

As yet he could be hardly said to know what school was. He had been

sent indeed to Mr Lawley's grammar school for the last half-year, and

had learned a few declensions in his Latin grammar. But as Mr Lawley

allowed his upper class to hear the little boys their lessons, Eric had

managed to get on pretty much as he liked. Only _once_ in the entire

half-year had he said a lesson to the dreadful master himself, and of

course it was a ruinous failure, involving some tremendous pulls of

Eric's hair, and making him tremble like a leaf. Several things

combined to make Mr Lawley terrific to his imagination. Ever since he

was quite little, he remembered hearing the howls which proceeded from

the "Latin-school" as he passed by, whilst some luckless youngster was

getting caned; and the reverend pedagogue was notoriously passionate.

Then, again, he spoke so indistinctly with his deep gruff voice, that

Eric never could and never did understand a word he said, and this kept

him in a perpetual terror.

Once Mr Lawley had told him to go out, and see what time it was by the

church clock.

Only hearing that he was to do something, too frightened to ask what it

was, and feeling sure that even if he did, he should not make out what

the master meant, Eric ran out, went straight to Mr Lawley's house,

and, after having managed by strenuous jumps to touch the knocker,

informed the servant "that Mr Lawley wanted his man."

"What man?" said the maid-servant, "the young man? or the butler? or is

it the clerk?"

Here was a puzzler! all Eric knew was, that he was in the habit of

sending sometimes for one or other of these functionaries; but he was in

for it, so with a faltering voice he said "the young man" at hazard, and

went back to the Latin-school.

"Why have you been so long?" roared Mr Lawley, as he timidly entered.

Fear entirely prevented Eric from hearing the exact question, so he

answered at random, "He's coming, sir." The master seeing by his scared

look that something was wrong, waited to see what would turn up.

Soon after in walked "the young man," and coming to the astonished Mr

Lawley, bowed, scraped, and said, "Master Williams said you sent for me,

sir."

"A mistake," growled the schoolmaster, turning on Eric a look which

nearly petrified him; he quite expected a book at his head, or at best a

great whack of the cane; but Mr Lawley had naturally a kind heart,

soured as it was, and pitying perhaps the child's white face, he

contented himself with the effects of his look.

The simple truth was, that poor Mr Lawley was a little wrong in the

head. A scholar and a gentleman, early misfortunes and an imprudent

marriage had driven him to the mastership of the little country grammar

school; and here the perpetual annoyance caused to his refined mind by

the coarseness of clumsy or spiteful boys, had gradually unhinged his

intellect. Often did he tell the boys "that it was an easier life by

far to break stones by the roadside than to teach them;" and at last his

eccentricities became too obvious to be any longer overlooked.

The denouement of his history was a tragic one, and had come a few days

before the time when our narrative opens. It was a common practice

among the Latin-school boys, as I suppose among all boys, to amuse

themselves by putting a heavy book on the top of a door left partially

ajar, and to cry out, "Crown him!" as the first luckless youngster who

happened to come in received the book thundering on his head. One day,

just as the trap had been adroitly laid, Mr Lawley walked in

unexpectedly. The moment he entered the schoolroom, down came an

Ainsworth's Dictionary on the top of his hat, and the boy, concealed

behind the door, unconscious of who the victim was, enunciated with mock

gravity, "Crown him, three cheers!"

It took Mr Lawley a second to raise from his eyebrows the battered hat,

and recover from his confusion; the next instant he was springing after

the boy who had caused the mishap, and who, knowing the effects of the

master's fury, fled with precipitation. In one minute the offender was

caught, and Mr Lawley's heavy hand fell recklessly on his ears and

back, until he screamed with terror. At last, by a tremendous writhe,

wrenching himself free, he darted towards the door, and Mr Lawley, too

much tired to pursue, snatched his large gold watch out of his fob, and

hurled it at the boy's retreating figure. The watch flew through the

air;--crash! it had missed its aim, and, striking the wall above the

lintel, fell smashed into a thousand shivers.

The sound, the violence of the action, the sight of the broken watch,

which was the gift of a cherished friend, instantly awoke the master to

his senses. The whole school had seen it; they sate there pale and

breathless with excitement and awe. The poor man could bear it no

longer. He flung himself into his chair, hid his face with his hands,

and burst into hysterical tears. It was the outbreak of feelings long

pent-up. In that instant all his life passed before him--its hopes, its

failures, its miseries, its madness. "Yes!" he thought, "I am mad."

Raising his head, he cried wildly, "Boys, go, I am mad!" and sank again

into his former position, rocking himself to and fro. One by one the

boys stole out, and he was left alone. The end is soon told. Forced to

leave Ayrton, he had no means of earning his daily bread; and the weight

of this new anxiety hastening the crisis, the handsome proud scholar

became an inmate of the Brerely Lunatic Asylum. A few years afterwards,

Eric heard that he was dead. Poor broken human heart! may he rest in

peace.

Such was Eric's first school and schoolmaster. But although he learnt

little there, and gained no experience of the character of others or of

his own, yet there was one point about Ayrton Latin-School which he

never regretted. It was the mixture there of all classes. On those

benches gentlemen's sons sat side by side with plebeians, and no harm,

but only good, seemed to come from the intercourse. The neighbouring

gentry, most of whom had begun their education there, were drawn into

closer and kindlier union with their neighbours and dependants, from the

fact of having been their associates in the days of their boyhood. Many

a time afterwards, when Eric, as he passed down the streets,

interchanged friendly greetings with some young glazier or tradesman

whom he remembered at school, he felt glad that thus early he had learnt

practically to despise the accidental and nominal differences which

separate man from man.