St. Winifred's Part 14

"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 pa.s.sion which flashed out of him now and then, and were the chief amus.e.m.e.nt 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 pa.s.sion 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 sh.o.r.e."

"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 s.h.i.+vering in bed. The cold made me s.h.i.+ver, 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."

"_n.o.body 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 b.u.t.t 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 n.o.ble 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 th.o.r.n.y, 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 thras.h.i.+ng, and not do what's wrong, than to do it and to go two such journeys out of the window, and get the thras.h.i.+ngs 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 grat.i.tude more than repaid him, and Walter added, "And, Arty, you must not give up your prayers. Ask G.o.d 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 Genie 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 vanis.h.i.+ng 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.