Volume One--Chapter Eight.
Taking Up.
We are not worst at once; the course of evil
Begins so slowly, and from such slight source,
An infant’s hand might stop the breach with clay;
But let the stream grow wider, and Philosophy,
Ay, and Religion too—may strive in vain
To stem the headlong current!
Anon.
With intense delight Eric heard it announced next morning, when the new school list was read, that he had got his remove into the “Shell,” as the form was called which intervened between the fourth and the fifth. Russell, Owen, and Montagu also got their removes with him, but his other friends were left for the present in the form below.
Mr Rose, his new master, was in every respect a great contrast with Mr Gordon. He was not so brilliant in his acquirements, nor so vigorous in his teaching, and therefore clever boys did not catch fire from him so much as from the fourth-form master. But he was a far truer and deeper Christian; and, with no less scrupulous a sense of honour and detestation of every form of moral obliquity, he never yielded to those storms of passionate indignation which Mr Gordon found it impossible to control. Disappointed in early life, subjected to the deepest and most painful trials, Mr Rose’s fine character had come out like gold from the flame. He now lived in and for the boys alone, and his whole life was one long self-devotion to their service and interests. The boys felt this, and even the worst of them, in their worst moments, loved and honoured Mr Rose. But he was not seeking for gratitude, which he neither expected nor required; he asked no affection in return for his self-denials; he worked with a pure spirit of human and self-sacrificing love, happy beyond all payment if ever he were instrumental in saving one of his charge from evil, or turning one wanderer from the error of his ways.
He was an unmarried man, and therefore took no boarders himself; but lived in the school buildings, and had the care of the boys in Dr Rowlands’s house.
Such was the master under whom Eric was now placed, and the boy was sadly afraid that an evil report would have reached his ears, and given him already an unfavourable impression. But he was soon happily undeceived. Mr Rose at once addressed him with much kindness, and he felt that, however bad he had been before, he would now have an opportunity to turn over a new leaf, and begin again a career of hope. He worked admirably at first, and even beat, for the first week or two, his old competitors, Owen and Russell.
From the beginning, Mr Rose took a deep interest in him. Few could look at the boy’s bright blue eyes and noble face without doing so, and the more when they knew that his father and mother were thousands of miles away, leaving him alone in the midst of so many dangers. Often the master asked him, and Russell and Owen and Montagu, to supper with him in the library, which gave them the privilege of sitting up later than usual, and enjoying a more quiet and pleasant evening than was possible in the noisy rooms. Boys and master were soon quite at home with each other, and in this way Mr Rose had an opportunity of instilling many a useful warning without the formality of regular discipline or stereotyped instruction.
Eric found the life of the “boarders’ room” far rougher than he had expected. Work was out of the question there, except during the hours of preparation, and the long dark winter evenings were often dull enough. Sometimes, indeed, they would all join in some regular indoor boys’ game like “baste the bear,” or “high-cockolorum”; or they would have amusing “ghost-hunts,” as they called them, after some dressed-up boy among the dark corridors and staircases. This was good fun, but at other times they got tired of games, and could not get them up, and then numbers of boys felt the idle time hang heavy on their hands. When this was the case, some of the worst sort, as might have been expected, would fill up their leisure with bullying or mischief.
For some time they had a form of diversion which disgusted and annoyed Eric exceedingly. On each of the long iron-bound deal tables were placed two or three tallow candles in tin candlesticks, and this was the only light the boys had. Of course these candles often wanted snuffing, and as snuffers were sure to be thrown about and broken as soon as they were brought into the room, the only resource was to snuff them with the fingers, at which all the boys became great adepts, from necessity. One evening Barker, having snuffed the candle, suddenly and slyly put the smouldering wick unnoticed on the head of a little quiet inoffensive fellow named Wright, who happened to be sitting next to him. It went on smouldering for some time without Wright’s perceiving it, and at last Barker, highly delighted, exclaimed— “I see a chimney,” and laughed.