THE SECOND TERM
“Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil our vines; for our
vines have tender grapes.”--CANT. ii. 15.
The second term at school is generally the great test of the strength of
a boy’s principles and resolutions. During the first term the novelty,
the loneliness, the dread of unknown punishments, the respect for
authorities, the desire to measure himself with his companions--all tend
to keep him right and diligent. But many of these incentives are removed
after the first brush of novelty, and many a lad who has given good
promise at first, turns out, after a short probation, idle, or vicious,
or indifferent.
But there was little comparative danger for Eric, so long as he
continued to be a home boarder, which was for another half-year. On the
contrary, he was anxious to support in his new remove the prestige of
having been head boy; and as he still continued under Mr. Gordon, he
really wished to turn over a new leaf in his conduct towards him, and
recover, if possible, his lost esteem.
His popularity was a fatal snare. He enjoyed and was very proud of it,
and was half inclined to be angry with Russell for not fully sharing his
feelings; but Russell had a far larger experience of school life than
his new friend, and dreaded with all his heart lest “he should follow a
multitude to do evil.”
The “cribbing,” which had astonished and pained Eric at first, was more
flagrant than even in the Upper Fourth, and assumed a chronic form. In
all the repetition lessons one of the boys used to write out in a large
hand the passage to be learnt by heart, and dexterously pin it to the
front of Mr. Gordon’s desk. There any boy who chose could read it off
with little danger of detection, and, as before, the only boys who
refused to avail themselves of this trickery were Eric, Russell,
and Owen.
Eric did _not_ yield to it; never once did he suffer his eyes to glance
at the paper when his turn to repeat came round. But although this was
the case, he never spoke against the practice to the other boys, even
when he lost places by it. Nay more, he would laugh when any one told
him how he had escaped “skewing” (_i.e._ being turned) by reading it
off; and he even went so far as to allow them to suppose that he
wouldn’t himself object to take advantage of the master’s unsuspicious
confidence.
“I say, Williams,” said Duncan, one morning as they strolled into the
school-yard, “do you know your Rep.?”
“No,” said Eric, “not very well; I haven’t given more than ten minutes
to it.”
“Oh, well, never mind it now; come and have a game at racquets? Russel
and Montagu have taken the court.”
“But I shall skew.”
“Oh no, you needn’t, you know. I’ll take care to pin it up on the desk
near you.”
“Well, I don’t much care. At any rate I’ll chance it.” And off the boys
ran to the racquet-court, Eric intending to occupy the last quarter of
an hour before school-time in learning his lesson. Russell and he stood
the other two, and they were very well matched. They had finished two
splendid games, and each side had been victorious in turn, when Duncan,
in the highest spirits, shouted, “Now, Russell, for the conqueror.”
“Get some one else in my place,” said Russell; “I don’t know my Rep.,
and must cut and learn it.”
“O bother the Rep.,” said Montagu; “somebody’s sure to write it out in
school, and old Gordon’ll never see.”
“You forget, Montagu, I never condescend to that.”
“O ay, I forgot. Well, after all, you’re quite right; I only wish I was
as good.”
“What a capital fellow he is,” continued Montagu, leaning on his racquet
and looking after him, as Russell left the court; “but I say, Williams,
you’re not going too, are you?”
“I think I must, I don’t know half my lesson.”
“O no! don’t go; there’s Llewellyn; he’ll take Russell’s place, and we
_must_ have the conquering game.”
Again Eric yielded; and when the clock struck he ran into school, hot,
vexed with himself, and certain to break down, just as Russell strolled
in, whispering, “I’ve had lots of time to get up the Horace, and know
it pat.”
Still he clung to the little thistledown of hope that he should have
plenty of time to cram it before the form were called up. But another
temptation awaited him. No sooner was he seated than Graham whispered,
“Williams, it’s your turn to write out the Horace; I did last time,
you know.”
Poor Eric. He was reaping the fruits of his desire to keep up
popularity, by never denying his complicity in the general cheating.
Everybody seemed to assume now that _he_ at any rate didn’t think much
of it, and he had never claimed his real right up to that time of
asserting his innocence. But this was a step further than he had ever
gone before. He drew back--
“My _turn_, what do you mean?”
“Why, you know as well as I do that we all write it out by turns.”
“Do you mean to say that Owen or Russell ever wrote it out?”
“Of course not; you wouldn’t expect the saints to be guilty of such a
thing, would you?”
“I’d rather not, Graham,” he said, getting very red.
“Well, that _is_ cowardly,” answered Graham, angrily; “then I suppose I
must do it myself.”
“Here, I’ll do it,” said Eric suddenly; “shy us the paper.”
His conscience smote him bitterly. In his silly dread of giving
offence, he was doing what he heartily despised, and he felt most
uncomfortable.
“There,” he said, pushing the paper from him in a pet; “I’ve written it,
and I’ll have nothing more to do with it.”
Just as he finished they were called up, and Barker, taking the paper,
succeeded in pinning it as usual on the front of the desk. Eric had
never seen it done so carelessly and clumsily before, and firmly
believed, what was indeed a fact, that Barker had done it badly on
purpose, in the hope that it might be discovered, and so Eric be got
once more into a scrape. He was in an agony of apprehension, and when
put on, was totally unable to say a word of his Rep. But low as he had
fallen, he would not cheat like the rest; he kept his eyes resolutely
turned away from the guilty paper, and even refused to repeat the words
which were prompted in his ear by the boys on each side. Mr. Gordon,
after waiting a moment, said--
“Why, Sir, you know nothing about it; you can’t have looked at it. Go to
the bottom and write it out five times.”
“_Write it out_” thought Eric; “this is retribution, I suppose;” and
covered with shame and vexation, he took his place below the malicious
Barker at the bottom of the form.
It happened that during the lesson the fire began to smoke, and Mr.
Gordon told Owen to open the window for a moment. No sooner was this
done than the mischievous whiff of sea air which entered the room began
to trifle and coquet with the perdulous half sheet pinned in front of
the desk, causing thereby an unwonted little pattering crepitation. In
alarm, Duncan thoughtlessly pulled out the pin, and immediately the
paper floated gracefully over Russell’s head, as he sat at the top of
the form, and, after one or two gyrations, fluttered down in the centre
of the room.
“Bring me that piece of paper,” said Mr. Gordon, full of vague
suspicion.
Several boys moved uneasily, and Eric looked nervously around.
“Did you hear? fetch me that half sheet of paper.”
A boy picked it up and handed it to him. He held it for a full minute in
his hands without a word, while vexation, deep disgust, and rising anger
struggled in his countenance. At last, he suddenly turned full on Eric,
whose writing he recognized, and broke out,
“So, Sir! a second time caught in gross deceit. I should not have
thought it possible. Your face and manners belie you. You have lost my
confidence forever. I _despise_ you.”
“Indeed, Sir,” said the penitent Eric, “I never meant--”
“Silence--you are detected, as cheats always will be. I shall report you
to Dr. Rowlands.”
The next boy was put on, and broke down. The same with the next, and the
next, and the next; Montagu, Graham, Llewellyn, Duncan, Barker, all
hopeless failures; only two boys had said it right--Russell and Owen.
Mr. Gordon’s face grew blacker and blacker. The deep undisguised pain
which the discovery caused him was swallowed up in unbounded
indignation. “False-hearted, dishonorable boys,” he exclaimed,
“henceforth my treatment of you shall be very different. The whole form,
except Russell and Owen, shall have an extra lesson every half-holiday;
not one of the rest of you will I trust again. I took you for gentlemen.
I was mistaken. Go.” And so saying, he waved them to their seats with
imperious disdain.
They went, looking sheepish, and ashamed. Eric, deeply vexed, kept
twisting and untwisting a bit of paper, without raising his eyes, and
even Barker thoroughly repented his short-sighted treachery; the rest
were silent and miserable.
At twelve o’clock two boys lingered in the room to speak to Mr. Gordon;
they were Eric Williams and Edwin Russell, but they were full of very
different feelings.
Eric stepped to the desk first. Mr. Gordon looked up.
“You! Williams, I wonder that you have the audacity to speak to me.
Go--I have nothing to say to you!”
“But, sir, I want to tell you that--”
“Your guilt is only too clear, Williams. You will hear more of this. Go,
I tell you.”
Eric’s passion overcame him; he stamped furiously on the ground, and
burst out, “I _will_ speak, sir; you have been unjust to me for a long
time, but I will _not_ be--”
Mr. Gordon’s cane fell sharply across the boy’s back; he stopped, glared
for a moment; and then saying:
“Very well, sir! I shall tell Dr. Rowlands that you strike before you
hear me,” he angrily left the room, and slammed the door violently
behind him.
Before Mr. Gordon had time to recover from his astonishment, Russell
stood by him.
“Well, my boy,” said the master, softening in a moment, and laying his
hand gently on Russell’s head, “what have you to say? You cannot tell
how I rejoice, amid the deep sorrow that this has caused me, to find
that _you_ at least are uncontaminated. But I _knew_, Edwin, that I
could trust you.”
“O sir, I come to speak for Eric--for Williams.” Mr. Gordon’s brow
darkened again, and the storm gathered, as he interrupted vehemently,
“Not a word, Russell; not a word. This is the _second_ time that he has
wilfully deceived me; and this time he has involved others too in his
base deceit.”
“Indeed, sir, you wrong him. I can’t think how he came to write the
paper, but I _know_ that he did not and would not use it. Didn’t you see
yourself, sir, how he turned his head quite another way when he
broke down.”
“It is very kind of you, Edwin, to defend him,” said Mr. Gordon coldly,
“but at present, at any rate, I must not hear you. Leave me; I feel very
sad, and must have time to think over this disgraceful affair.”
Russell went away disconsolate, and met his friend striding up and down,
the passage, waiting for Dr. Rowlands to come out of the library.
“O Eric,” he said, “how came you to write that paper?”
“Why, Russell, I did feel very much ashamed, and I would have explained
it, and said so; but that Gordon spites me so. It is such a shame; I
don’t feel now as if I cared one bit.”
“I am sorry you don’t get on with him; but remember you have given him
in this case good cause to suspect. You never crib, Eric, I know, but I
can’t help being sorry that you wrote the paper.”
“But then Graham asked me to do it, and called me cowardly because I
refused at first.”
“Ah, Eric,” said Russell, “they will ask you to do worse things if you
yield so easily. I wouldn’t say anything to Dr. Rowlands about it, if I
were you.”
Eric took the advice, and, full of mortification, went home. He gave his
father a true and manly account of the whole occurrence, and that
afternoon Mr. Williams wrote a note of apology and explanation to Mr.
Gordon. Next time the form went up, Mr. Gordon said, in his most
freezing tones, “Williams, at present I shall take no further notice of
your offence beyond including you in the extra lesson every
half-holiday.”
From that day forward Eric felt that he was marked and suspected, and
the feeling worked on him with the worst effects. He grew more careless
in work, and more trifling and indifferent in manner. Several boys now
beat him whom he had easily surpassed before, and his energies were for
a time entirely directed to keeping that supremacy in the games which he
had won by his activity and strength.
It was a Sunday afternoon, towards the end of the summer term, and the
boys were sauntering about in the green playground, or lying on the
banks reading and chatting. Eric was with a little knot of his chief
friends, enjoying the sea breeze as they sat on the grass. At last the
bell of the school chapel began to ring, and they went in to the
afternoon service. Eric usually sat with Duncan and Llewellyn,
immediately behind the benches allotted to chance visitors. The bench in
front of them happened on this afternoon to be occupied by some rather
odd people, viz., an old man with long white hair, and two ladies
remarkably stout, who were dressed with much juvenility, although past
middle age. Their appearance immediately attracted notice, and no sooner
had they taken their seats than Duncan and Llewellyn began to titter.
The ladies’ bonnets, which were of white, trimmed with long green leaves
and flowers, just peered over the top of the boys’ pew, and excited much
amusement. But Eric had not yet learnt to disregard the solemnity of the
place, and the sacred act in which they were engaged. He tried to look
away, and attend to the service, and for a time he partially succeeded,
although, seated as he was between the two triflers, who were
perpetually telegraphing to each other their jokes, he found it a
difficult task, and secretly he began to be much tickled.
At last the sermon commenced, and Llewellyn, who had imprisoned a
grasshopper in a paper cage, suddenly let it hop out. The first hop took
it to the top of the pew; the second perched it on the shoulder of the
stoutest lady. Duncan and Llewellyn tittered louder, and even Eric could
not resist a smile. But when the lady, feeling some irritation on her
shoulder, raised her hand, and the grasshopper took a frightened leap
into the centre of the green foliage which enwreathed her bonnet, none
of the three could stand it, and they burst into fits of laughter, which
they tried in vain to conceal by bending down their heads and cramming
their handkerchiefs into their mouths. Eric, having once given way,
enjoyed the joke uncontrollably, and the lady made matters worse by her
uneasy attempts to dislodge the unknown intruder, and discover the cause
of the tittering, which she could not help hearing. At last all three
began to laugh so violently that several heads were turned in their
direction, and Dr. Rowlands’ stern eye caught sight of their levity. He
stopped short in his sermon, and for one instant transfixed them with
his indignant glance. Quiet was instantly restored, and alarm reduced
them to the most perfect order, although the grasshopper still sat
imperturbable among the artificial flowers. Meanwhile the stout lady had
discovered that for some unknown reason she had been causing
considerable amusement, and, attributing it to intentional ridicule,
looked round, justly hurt. Eric, with real shame, observed the deep
vexation of her manner, and bitterly repented his share in the
transaction.
Next morning Dr. Rowlands, in full academicals, sailed into the
fourth-form room. His entrance was the signal for every boy to rise, and
after a word or two to Mr. Gordon, he motioned them to be seated. Eric’s
heart sank within him.
“Williams, Duncan, and Llewellyn, stand out!” said the Doctor. The boys,
with downcast eyes and burning cheeks, stood before him.
“I was sorry to notice,” said he, “your shameful conduct in chapel
yesterday afternoon. As far as I could observe, you were making
yourselves merry in that sacred place with the personal defects of
others. The lessons you receive here must be futile indeed, if they do
not teach you the duty of reverence to God, and courtesy to man. It
gives me special pain, Williams, to have observed that you, too, a boy
high in your remove, were guilty of this most culpable levity. You will
all come to me at twelve o’clock in the library.”
At twelve o’clock they each received a flogging. The pain inflicted was
not great, and Duncan and Llewellyn, who had got into similar trouble
before, cared very little for it, and went out laughing to tell the
number of swishes they had received, to a little crowd of boys who were
lingering outside the library door. But not so Eric. It was his _first_
flogging, and he felt it deeply. To his proud spirit the disgrace was
intolerable. At that moment he hated Dr. Rowlands, he hated Mr. Gordon,
he hated his schoolfellows, he hated everybody. He had been flogged; the
thought haunted him; he, Eric Williams, had been forced to receive this
most degrading corporal punishment. He pushed fiercely through the knot
of boys, and strode as quick as he could along the playground, angry and
impenitent.
At the gate Russell met him. Eric felt the meeting inopportune; he was
ashamed to meet his friend, ashamed to speak to him, envious of him, and
jealous of his better reputation. He wanted to pass him by without
notice, but Russell would not suffer this. He came up to him and took
his arm affectionately. The slightest allusion to his late disgrace
would have made Eric flame out into passion; but Russell was too kind to
allude to it then. He talked as if nothing had happened, and tried to
turn his friend’s thoughts to more pleasant subjects. Eric appreciated
his kindness, but he was still sullen and fretful, and it was not until
they parted that his better feelings won the day. But when Russell said
to him “Good bye, Eric,” it was too much for him, and seizing Edwin’s
hand, he wrung it hard, and tears rushed to his eyes.
“Dear, good Edwin! how I wish I was like you. If all my friends were
like you, I should never get into these troubles.”
“Nay, Eric,” said Russell, “you may be far better than I. You have far
batter gifts, if you will only do yourself justice.”
They parted by Mr. Williams’ door, and Russell walked home sad and
thoughtful; but Eric, barely answering his brother’s greeting, rushed up
to his room, and, flinging himself on his bed, sobbed like a child at
the remembrance of his disgrace. They were not refreshing tears; he felt
something hard at his heart, and, as he prayed neither for help nor
forgiveness, it was pride and rebellion, not penitence, that made him
miserable.