Part 39 (1/2)

Eric saw it, and flung himself with uncontrollable agony on his brother's corpse. ”O Vernon, Vernon, my own darling brother! O G.o.d, then he is dead!” And, unable to endure the blow, he fainted away.

I cannot dwell on the miserable days that followed when the very sun in heaven seemed dark to poor Eric's wounded and crushed spirit. He hardly knew how they went by. And when they buried Vernon in the little green churchyard by Russell's side, and the patter of the earth upon the coffin--that most terrible of all sounds--struck his ear, the iron entered into his soul, and he had but one wish as he turned away from the open grave, and that was, soon to lie beside his beloved little brother, and to be at rest.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TEN.

THE LAST TEMPTATION.

A quotation from Homer's Iliad, ix. 505.

Time, the great good angel, Time, the merciful healer, a.s.suaged the violence of Eric's grief, which seemed likely to settle down into a sober sadness. At first his letters to his parents and to Fairholm were almost unintelligible in their fierce abandonment of sorrow; but they grew calmer in time,--and while none of his school-fellows ever ventured in his presence to allude to Vernon, because of the emotion which the slightest mention of him excited, yet he rarely wrote any letters to his relations in which he did not refer to his brother's death, in language which grew at length both manly and resigned.

A month after, in the summer term, he was sitting alone in his study in the afternoon (for he could not summon up spirit enough to play regularly at cricket), writing a long letter to his aunt. He spoke freely and unreservedly of his past errors,--more freely than he had ever done before,--and expressed not only deep penitence, but even strong hatred of his previous unworthy courses. ”I can hardly even yet realise,” he added, ”that I am alone here, and that I am writing to my aunt Trevor about the death of my little brother, my n.o.ble, only brother, Vernon. Oh, how my whole soul yearns towards him. I _must_ be a better boy, I _will_ be better than I have been, in the hopes of meeting him again. Indeed, indeed, dear aunt, though I have been so guilty, I am laying aside, with all my might, idleness and all bad habits, and doing my very best to redeem the lost years. I do hope that the rest of my time at Roslyn will be more worthily spent than any of it has been as yet.”

He finished the sentence, and laid his pen down to think, gazing quietly on the blue hills and sunlit sea. A feeling of hope and repose stole over him;--when suddenly he saw at the door, which was ajar, the leering eyes and villainously cunning countenance of Billy.

”What do you want?” he said angrily, casting at the intruder a look of intense disgust.

”Beg pardon, sir,” said the man, pulling his hair. ”Anything in my line, sir, to-day?”

”No!” answered Eric, rising up in a gust of indignation. ”What business have you here? Get away instantly.”

”Not had much custom from you lately, sir,” said the man.

”What do you mean by having the insolence to begin talking to me? If you don't make yourself scarce at once, I'll--”

”Oh well,” said the man; ”if it comes to that, I've business enough.

Perhaps you'll just pay me this debt,” he continued, changing his fawning manner into a bullying swagger. ”I've waited long enough.”

Eric, greatly discomfited, took the dirty bit of paper. It purported to be a bill for various items of drink, all of which Eric _knew_ to have been paid for, and among other things, a charge of 6 pounds for the dinner at ”The Jolly Herring.”

”Why, you scoundrel, these have all been paid. What! six pounds for the dinner! Why, Brigson collected the subscriptions to pay for it before it took place.”

”That's now't to me, sir. He never paid me; and as you was the young gen'leman in the cheer, I comes to you.”

_Now_ Eric knew for the first time what Brigson had meant by his threatened revenge. He saw at once that the man had been put up to act in this way by some one, and had little doubt that Brigson was the instigator. Perhaps it might be even true, as the man said, that he had never received the money. Brigson was quite wicked enough to have embezzled it for his own purposes.

”Go,” he said to the man; ”you shall have the money in a week.”

”And mind it bean't more nor a week. I don't chuse to wait for my money no more,” said Billy impudently, as he retired with an undisguised chuckle, which very nearly made Eric kick him down stairs. With a heart-rending sigh Eric folded and directed his letter to Mrs Trevor, and then ran out into the fresh air to relieve the qualm of sickness which had come over him.

What was to be done? To mention the subject to Owen or Montagu, who were best capable of advising him, would have been to renew the memory of unpleasant incidents, which he was most anxious to obliterate from the memory of all. He had not the moral courage to face the natural consequences of his past misconduct, and was now ashamed to speak of what he had not then been ashamed to do. He told Graham and Wildney, who were the best of his old a.s.sociates, and they at once agreed that they ought to be responsible for at least a share of the debt. Still, between them they could only muster three pounds out of the six which were required, and the week had half elapsed before there seemed any prospect of extrication from the difficulty; so Eric daily grew more miserable and dejected.

A happy thought struck him. He would go and explain the source of his trouble to Mr Rose, his oldest, his kindest, his wisest friend. To him he could speak without scruple and without reserve, and from him he knew that he would receive nothing but the n.o.blest advice and the warmest sympathy.

He went to him after prayers that night, and told his story.

”Ah, Eric, Eric!” said Mr Rose; ”you see, my boy, that sin and punishment are twins.”

”Oh but, sir, I was just striving so hard to amend, and it seems cruel that I should be checked at once.”