Part 2 (1/2)
Eric, gulping down his fury with a great effort, turned to his opponent, and said coolly, ”Is that what you always do to new fellows?”
”Yes, you b.u.mptious young owl, it is, and that too;” and a tolerably smart slap on the face followed--leaving a red mark on a cheek already aflame with anger and indignation,--”should you like a little more?”
He was hurt and offended, but was too proud to cry. ”What's that for?”
he said, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.
”For your conceit in laughing at me when I was caned.”
Eric stamped. ”I did nothing of the kind, and you know it as well as I do.”
”What? I'm a liar, am I? Oh, we shall take this kind of thing out of you, you young cub; take that;” and a heavier blow followed.
”You brutal cowardly bully,” shouted Eric; and in another moment he would have sprung upon him. It was lucky for him that he did not, for Barker was three years older than he, and very powerful. Such an attack would have been most unfortunate for him in every way. But at this instant some boys hearing the quarrel ran up, and Russell among them.
”Hallo, Barker,” said one; ”what's up?”
”Why, I'm teaching this new fry to be less b.u.mptious, that's all.”
”Shame!” said Russell, as he saw the mark on Eric's cheek; ”what a fellow you are, Barker. Why couldn't you let him alone for the first day at any rate?”
”What's that to you? I'll kick you too if you say much.”
”Cave! cave!” whispered half a dozen voices, and instantly the knot of boys dispersed in every direction, as Mr Gordon was seen approaching.
He had caught a glimpse of the scene without understanding it, and seeing the new boy's red and angry face, he only said, as he pa.s.sed by, ”What, Williams! fighting already? Take care.”
This was the cruellest cut of all. ”So,” thought Eric, ”a nice beginning! it seems both boys and masters are against me,” and very disconsolately he walked to pick up his cap.
The boys were all dispersed on the playground at different games, and as he went home he was stopped perpetually, and had to answer the usual questions, ”What's your name? Are you a boarder or a day scholar? What form are you in?” Eric expected all this, and it therefore did not annoy him. Under any other circ.u.mstances, he would have answered cheerfully and frankly enough; but now he felt miserable at his morning's rencontre, and his answers were short and sheepish, his only desire being to get away as soon as possible. It was an additional vexation to feel sure that his manner did not make a favourable impression.
Before he had got out of the playground, Russell ran up to him. ”I'm afraid you won't like this, or think much of us, Williams,” he said.
”But never mind. It'll only last a day or two, and the fellows are not so bad as they seem; except that Barker. I'm sorry you've come across him, but it can't be helped.”
It was the first kind word he had had since the morning, and after his troubles kindness melted him. He felt half inclined to cry, and for a few moments could say nothing in reply to Russell's soothing words. But the boy's friendliness went far to comfort him, and at last, shaking hands with him, he said--
”Do let me speak to you sometimes, while I am a new boy, Russell.”
”Oh yes,” said Russell, laughing, ”as much as ever you like. And as Barker hates me pretty much as he seems inclined to hate you, we are in the same box. Good-bye.”
So Eric left the field, and wandered home, like Calchas in the Iliad, ”sorrowful by the side of the sounding sea.” Already the purple mantle had fallen from his ideal of schoolboy life. He got home later than they expected, and found his parents waiting for him. It was rather disappointing to them to see his face so melancholy, when they expected him to be full of animation and pleasure. Mrs Williams drew her own conclusions from the red mark on his cheek, as well as the traces of tears welling to his eyes; but, like a wise mother, she asked nothing, and left the boy to tell his own story,--which in time he did, omitting all the painful part, speaking enthusiastically of Russell, and only admitting that he had been a little teased.
VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THREE.
BULLYING.
Give to the morn of life its natural blessedness.
_Wordsworth_.
Why is it that new boys are almost invariably ill-treated? I have often fancied that there must be in boyhood a pseudo-instinctive cruelty, a sort of ”wild trick of the ancestral savage,” which no amount of civilisation can entirely repress. Certain it is, that to most boys the first term is a trying ordeal. They are being tested and weighed.
Their place in the general estimation is not yet fixed, and the slightest circ.u.mstances are seized upon to settle the category, under which the boy is to be cla.s.sed. A few apparently trivial accidents of his first few weeks at school often decide his position in the general regard for the remainder of his boyhood. And yet these are not accidents; they are the slight indications which give an unerring proof of the general tendencies of his character and training. Hence much of the apparent cruelty with which new boys are treated is not exactly intentional. At first, of course, as they can have no friends worth speaking of; there are always plenty of coa.r.s.e and brutal minds that take a pleasure in their torment, particularly if they at once recognise any innate superiority to themselves. Of this cla.s.s was Barker. He hated Eric at first sight, simply because his feeble mind could only realise one idea about him, and that was the new boy's striking contrast with his own imperfections. Hence he left no means untried to vent on Eric his low and mean jealousy. He showed undisguised pleasure when he fell in form, and signs of disgust when he rose; he fomented every little source of disapproval or quarrelling which happened to arise against him; he never looked at him without a frown or a sneer; he waited for him to kick and annoy him as he came out of, or went in to, the schoolroom. In fact, he did his very best to make the boy's life miserable, and the occupation of hating him seemed in some measure to fill up the vacuity of an ill-conditioned and degraded mind.