O far beyond the waters
The fickle feet may roam,
But they find no light so pure and bright
As the one fair star of home;
The star of tender hearts, lady,
That glows in an English home.
That night, when Eric returned to his dormitory, full of grief, and
weighed down with the sense of desolation and mystery, the other boys
were silent from sympathy in his sorrow. Duncan and Llewellyn both knew
and loved Russell themselves, and they were awestruck to hear of his
death; they asked some of the particulars, but Eric was not calm enough
to tell them that evening. The one sense of infinite loss agitated him,
and he indulged his paroxysms of emotion unrestrained, yet silently.
Reader, if ever the life has been cut short which you most dearly loved,
if ever you have been made to feel absolutely lonely in the world, then,
and then only, will you appreciate the depth of his affliction.
But, like all affliction, it purified and sanctified. To Eric, as he
rested his aching head on a pillow wet with tears, and vainly sought for
the sleep whose blessing he had never learned to prize before, how
odious seemed all the vice which he had seen and partaken in since he
became an inmate of that little room. How his soul revolted with
infinite disgust from the language which he had heard, and the open
glorying in sin of which he had so often been a witness. The stain and
the shame of sin fell heavier than ever on his heart; it rode on his
breast like a nightmare; it haunted his fancy with visions of guilty
memory, and shapes of horrible regret. The ghosts of buried misdoings,
which he had thought long-lost in the mists of recollection, started up
menacingly from their forgotten graves, and made him shrink with a sense
of their awful reality. Behind him, like a wilderness, lay years which
the locust had eaten; the entrusted hours which had passed away, and
been reckoned to him as they passed.
And the thought of Russell mingled with all--Russell, as he fondly
imaged him now, glorified with the glory of heaven, crowned, and in
white robes, and with a palm in his hand. Yes, he had walked and talked
with one of the Holy Ones. Had Edwin's death quenched his human
affections, and altered his human heart? If not, might not he be there
even now, leaning over his friend with the beauty of his invisible
presence? The thought startled him, and seemed to give an awful lustre
to the moonbeam which fell into the room. No! he could not endure such
a presence now, with his weak conscience and corrupted heart; and Eric
hid his head under the clothes, and shut his eyes.
Once more the pang of separation entered like iron into his soul.
Should he ever meet Russell again? What if _he_ had died instead of
Edwin, where would he have been? "Oh no! no!" he murmured aloud, as the
terrible thought came over him of his own utter unfitness for death, and
the possibility that he might never never again hear the beloved
accents, or gaze on the cherished countenance of his school friend.
In this tumult of accusing thoughts he fell asleep; but that night the
dew of blessing did not fall for him on the fields of sleep. He was
frightened by unbidden dreams, in all of which his conscience obtruded
on him his sinfulness, and his affection called up the haunting
lineaments of the dear dead face. He was wandering down a path, at the
end of which Russell stood with beckoning hand inviting him earnestly to
join him there; he saw his bright ingenuous smile, and heard, as of old,
his joyous words, and he hastened to meet him; when suddenly the
boy-figure disappeared, and in its place he saw the stern brow, and
gleaming garments, and drawn flaming sword of the Avenger. And then he
was in a great wood alone, and wandering, when the well-known voice
called his name, and entreated him to turn from that evil place; and he
longed to turn,--but, whenever he tried, ghostly hands seemed to wave
him back again, and irresistible cords to drag him into the dark forest,
amid the sound of mocking laughs. Then he was sinking, sinking, sinking
into a gulf, deep and darker even than the inner darkness of a
sin-desolated heart; sinking, helplessly, hopelessly, everlastingly;
while far away, like a star, stood the loved figure in light infinitely
above him, and with pleading hands implored his deliverance, but could
not prevail; and Eric was still sinking, sinking infinitely, when the
agony awoke him with a violent start and stifled scream.
He could sleep no longer. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw the pale,
dead, holy features of Edwin, and at last he fancied that he was praying
beside his corpse, praying to be more like _him_, who lay there so white
and calm; sorrowing beside it, sorrowing that he had so often rejected
his kind warnings, and pained his affectionate heart. So Eric began
again to make good resolutions about all his future life. Ah! how often
he had done so before, and how often they had failed. He had not yet
learned the lessons which David learned by sad experience: "Then I said,
it is mine own infirmity, _but I will remember the years of the right
hand of the Most High_."
That, too, was an eventful night for Montagu. He had grown of late far
more thoughtful than before; under Edwin's influence he had been laying
aside, one by one, the careless sins of school-life, and his tone was
nobler and manlier than it had ever been. Montagu had never known or
heard much about godliness; his father, a gentleman, a scholar, and a
man of the world, had trained him in the principles of refinement and
good taste, and given him a high standard of conventional honour; but he
passed through life lightly, and had taught his son to do the same.
Possessed of an ample fortune, which Montagu was to inherit, he troubled
himself with none of the deep mysteries of life, and:
Pampered the coward heart
With feelings all too delicate for use
Nursing in some delicious solitude
His dainty loves and slothful sympathies.
But Montagu in Edwin's sick-room and by his death-bed; in the terrible
storm at the Stack, and by contact with Dr Rowlands's earnestness, and
Mr Rose's deep, unaffected, sorrow-mingled piety; by witnessing Eric's
failures and recoveries; and by beginning to take in his course the same
heartfelt interest which Edwin taught him--Montagu, in consequence of
these things, had begun to see another side of life, which awoke all his
dormant affections and profoundest reasonings. It seemed as though, for
the first time, he began to catch some of
The still sad music of humanity,
and to listen with deep eagerness to the strain. Hitherto, to be well
dressed, handsome, agreeable, rich, and popular, had been to him a
realised ideal of life; but now he awoke to higher and worthier aims;
and once, when Russell, whose intelligent interest in his work exceeded
that of any other boy, had pointed out to him that solemn
question--[Here appears a three-line Greek quotation] he had entered
into its meaning with wonderful vividness. So that, without losing any
of that winning gracefulness of address which made him so great a
favourite with the school, it became evident to all that he combined
with it a touching earnestness. Sometimes when he read the Bible to
Edwin he began to wonder at his past ignorance and selfishness, and
humbly hope for better things. All that night of death he had truer
comfort than Eric--for he cast his cares on God; more calm than Eric--
for he fixed his hopes on the Son of God; greater strength granted him
than Eric--because he had learned not to rely upon his own; less fear
and torment than Eric--because he laid the burden of his sins before the
cross, and, as a child, believed in their forgiveness for His sake who
died thereon.
The holidays were approaching. Eric, to escape as much as possible from
his sorrow, plunged into the excitement of working for the examination,
and rapidly made up for lost ground. He now spent most of his time with
the best of his friends, particularly Montagu, Owen, and Upton; for
Upton, like himself, had been much sobered by sorrow at their loss.
This time he came out _second_ in his form, and gained more than one
prize. This was his first glimpse of real delight since Russell's
death; and when the prize-day came, and he stood with his companions in
the flower-decorated room, and went up amid universal applause to take
his prize-books, and receive a few words of compliment from the governor
who took the chair, he felt almost happy, and keenly entered into the
pleasure which his success caused, as well as into the honours won by
his friends. One outward sign only remained of his late bereavement--
his mourning dress. All the prize-boys wore rosebuds or lilies of the
valley in their button-holes on the occasion, but on this day Eric would
not wear them. Little Wright, who was a great friend of theirs, had
brought some as a present both to Eric and Montagu, as they stood
together on the prize-day morning; they took them with thanks, and, as
their eyes met, they understood each other's thought.
"No," said Eric to Wright, "we won't wear these to-day, although we have
both got prizes. Come along; I know what we will do with them."
They all three walked together to the little green quiet churchyard,
where, by his own request, Edwin had been buried. Many a silent visit
had the friends paid to that grave, on which the turf was now green
again and the daisies had begun to blossom. A stone had recently been
placed to mark the spot, and they read--