Eric; Or, Little by Little

by F. W. Farrar

"Vernon! Vernon!" shouted the terrified Wright, creeping close up to the edge of the precipice. "O Vernon! for heaven's sake speak!"

There was no answer, and leaning over, Wright saw the young boy outstretched on the stones three hundred feet below. For some minutes he was horrorstruck beyond expression, and made wild attempts to descend the cliff and reach him. But he soon gave up the attempt in despair. There was a tradition in the school that the feat had once been accomplished by an adventurous and active boy, but Wright at any rate found it hopeless for himself. The only other way to reach the glen was by a circuitous route which led to the entrance of the narrow gorge, along the sides of which it was possible to make way with difficulty down the bank of the river to the place where it met the sea. But this would have taken him an hour and a half, and was far from easy when the river was swollen with high tide. Nor was there any house within some distance at which assistance could be procured, and Wright, in a tumult of conflicting emotions, determined to wait where he was, on the chance of seeing the boat as it returned from St. Catherine's Head. It was already three o'clock, and he knew that they could not now be longer than an hour at most; so with eager eyes he sat watching the headland, round which he knew they would first come in sight. He watched with wild eager eyes, absorbed in the one longing desire to catch sight of them; but the leaden-footed moments crawled on like hours, and he could not help shivering with agony and fear. At last he caught a glimpse of them, and springing up, began to shout at the top of his voice, and wave his handkerchief and his arms in the hope of attracting their attention. Little thought those blithe merry-hearted boys in the midst of the happy laughter which they sent ringing over the waters, little they thought how terrible a tragedy awaited them.

At last Wright saw that they had perceived him, and were putting inland, and now, in his fright, he hardly knew what to do; but feeling sure that they could not fail to see Vernon, he ran off as fast as he could to Starhaven, where he rapidly told the people at a farm-house what had happened, and asked them to get a cart ready to convey the wounded boy to Roslyn school.

Meanwhile the tide rolled in calmly and quietly in the rosy evening, radiant with the diamond and gold of reflected sunlight and transparent wave. Gradually gently it crept up to the place where Vernon lay; and the little ripples fell over him wonderingly, with the low murmur of their musical laughter, and blurred and dimmed the vivid splashes and crimson streaks upon the white stone on which his head had fallen, and washed away some of the purple bells and green sprigs of heather round which his fingers were closed in the grasp of death, and played softly with his fair hair as it rose, and fell, and floated on their undulations like a leaf of golden-colored weed, until they themselves were faintly discolored by his blood. And then, tired with their new plaything, they passed on, until the swelling of the water was just strong enough to move rudely the boy's light weight, and in a few moments more would have tossed it up and down with every careless wave among the boulders of the glen. And then it was that Montagu's horror-stricken gaze had identified the object at which they had been gazing. In strange foreboding silence they urged on the boat, while Eric at the prow seemed wild with the one intense impulse to verify his horrible suspicion. The suspicion grew and grew:--it was a boy lying in the water;--it was Vernon;--he was motionless;--he must have fallen there from the cliff.

Eric could endure the suspense no longer. The instant that the boat grated on the shingle, he sprang into the water, and rushed to the spot where his brother's body lay. With a burst of passionate affection, he flung himself on his knees beside it, and took the cold hand in his own--the little rigid hand in which the green blades of grass, and fern, and heath, so tightly clutched, were unconscious of the tale they told.

"Oh Verny, Verny, darling Verny, speak to me!" he cried in anguish, as he tenderly lifted up the body, and marked how little blood had flowed. But the child's head fell back heavily, and his arms hung motionless beside him, and with a shriek, Eric suddenly caught the look of dead fixity in his blue open eyes.

The others had come up. "O God, save my brother, save him, save him from death," cried Eric, "I cannot live without him. Oh God! Oh God! Look! look!" he continued, "he has fallen from the cliff with his head on this cursed stone," pointing to the block of quartz, still red with blood-stained hair; "but we must get a doctor. He is not dead! no, no, no, he cannot be dead. Take him quickly, and let us row home. Oh God! why did I ever leave him?"

The boys drew round in a frightened circle, and lifted Vernon's corpse into the boat; and then, while Eric still supported the body, and moaned, and called to him in anguish, and chafed his cold pale brow and white hands, and kept saying that he had fainted and was not dead, the others rowed home with all speed, while a feeling of terrified anxiety lay like frost upon their hearts.

They reached Starhaven, and got into the cart with the lifeless boy, and heard from Wright how the accident had taken place. Few boys were about the play-ground, so they got unnoticed to Roslyn, and Dr. Underhay, who had been summoned, was instantly in attendance. He looked at Vernon for a moment, and then shook his head in a way that could not be mistaken. Eric saw it, and flung himself with uncontrollable agony on his brother's corpse. "O Vernon, Vernon, my own dear brother! oh God, 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.