Eric, or, Little by Little | Page 9

boys were all dispersed in the play-ground 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 circumstances, 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 favorable
impression.
Before he had got out of the play ground, 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."
"O 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.
CHAPTER III
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
civilization 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
circumstances are seized upon to settle the category under which the
boy is to be classed. 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 coarse and brutal minds that take a pleasure in their
torment, particularly if they at once recognise any innate superiority to
themselves. Of this class 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 into, the school-room.
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.
Hatred is a most mysterious and painful phenomenon to the unhappy
person who is the object of it, and more especially if he have incurred it
by no one assignable reason. To Eric it was peculiarly painful; he was