CHAPTER XIV

CONCLUSION

"And hath that early hope been blessed with truth?
Hath he fulfilled the promise of his youth?
And borne unscathed through danger's stormy field
Honor's white wreath and virtue's stainless shield?"

HARROW. A Prize Poem.

The other day I was staying with Montagu. He has succeeded to his father's estate, and is the best-loved landlord for miles around. He intends to stand for the county at the next general election, and I haven't the shadow of a doubt that he will succeed. If he does, Parliament will have gained a worthy addition. Montagu has the very soul of honor, and he can set off the conclusions of his vigorous judgment, and the treasures of his cultivated taste, with an eloquence that rises to extraordinary grandeur when he is fulminating his scorn at any species of tyranny or meanness.

It was very pleasant to talk with him about our old school days in his charming home. We sate by the open window (which looks over his grounds, and then across one of the richest plains in England) one long summer evening, recalling all the vanished scenes and figures of the past, until we almost felt ourselves boys again.

"I have just been staying at Trinity," said I, "and Owen, as I suppose you know, is doing brilliantly. He has taken a high first class, and they have already elected him fellow and assistant tutor."

"Is he liked?"

"Yes, very much. He always used to strike me at school as one of those fellows who are much more likely to be happy and successful as men, than they had ever any chance of being as boys. I hope the greatest things of him; but have you heard anything of Duncan lately?"

"Yes, he's just been gazetted as lieutenant. I had a letter from him the other day. He's met two old Roslyn fellows, Wildney and Upton, the latter of whom is now Captain Upton; he says that there are not two finer or manlier officers in the whole service, and Wildney, as you may easily guess, is the favorite of the mess-room. You know, I suppose, that Graham is making a great start at the bar."

"Is he? I'm delighted to hear it."

"Yes. He had a 'mauvais sujet' to defend the other day, in the person of our old enemy, Brigson, who, having been at last disowned by his relations, is at present a policeman in London."

"On the principle, I suppose, of 'Set a thief to catch a thief,'" said Montagu, with a smile.

"Yes; but he exemplifies the truth 'chassez le naturel, il revient au galop' for he was charged with abetting a street fight between two boys, which very nearly ended fatally. However, he was penitent, and Graham got him off with wonderful cleverness."

"Ah!" said Montagu, sighing, "there was one who would have been the pride of Roslyn had he lived Poor, poor Eric!"

We talked long of our loved friend; his bright face, his winning words, his merry smile, came back to us with the memory of his melancholy fate, and a deep sadness fell over us.

"Poor boy, he is at peace now," said Montagu; and he told me once more the sorrowful particulars of his death. "Shall I read you some verses?" he asked, "which he must have composed, poor fellow, on board the 'Stormy Petrel,' though he probably wrote them at Fairholm afterwards."

"Yes, do."

And Montagu, in his pleasant musical voice, read me, with much feeling, these lines, written in Eric's boyish hand, and signed with his name.

ALONE, YET NOT ALONE.

Alone, alone! ah, weary soul,
  In all the world alone I stand,
With none to wed their hearts to mine,
  Or link in mine a loving hand.

Ah! I tell me not that I have those
  Who owe the ties of blood and name,
Or pitying friends who love me well,
  And dear returns of friendship claim.

I have, I have! but none can heal,
  And none shall see my inward woe,
And the deep thoughts within me veiled
  No other heart but mine shall know.

And yet amid my sins and shames
  The shield of God is o'er me thrown
And, 'neath its awful shade I feel
  Alone,--yet, ah, not all alone!

Not all alone! and though my life
  Be dragged along the stained earth,
O God! I feel thee near me still,
  And thank thee for my birth!

E.W.

Montagu gave me the paper, and I cherish it as my dearest memorial of my erring but noble schoolboy friend.

Knowing how strong an interest Mr. Rose always took in Eric, I gave him a copy of these verses when last I visited him at his pleasant vicarage of Seaford, to which he was presented a year or two ago by Dr. Rowlands, now Bishop of Roslyn, who has also appointed him examining chaplain. I sat and watched Mr. Rose while he read them. A mournful interest was depicted on his face, his hand trembled a little, and I fancied that he bent his grey hair over the paper to hide a tear. We always knew at school that Eric was one of his greatest favorites, as indeed he and Vernon were with all of us; and when the unhappy boy had run away without even having the opportunity for bidding any one farewell, Mr. Rose displayed such real grief, that for weeks he was like a man who went mourning for a son. After those summer holidays, when we returned to school, Montagu and Wildney brought back with them the intelligence of Eric's return to Fairholm, and of his death. The news plunged many of us in sorrow, and when, on the first Sunday in chapel, Mr. Rose alluded to this sad tale, there were few dry eyes among those who listened to him. I shall never forget that Sunday afternoon. A deep hush brooded over us, and before the sermon was over, many a face was hidden to conceal the emotion which could not be suppressed.

"I speak," said Mr. Rose, "to a congregation of mourners, for one who but a few weeks back was sitting among you as one of yourselves. But, for myself, I do not mourn over his death. Many a time have I mourned for him in past days, when I marked how widely he went astray,--but I do not mourn now; for after his fiery trials he died penitent and happy, and at last his sorrows are over for ever, and the dreams of ambition have vanished, and the fires of passion have been quenched, and for all eternity the young soul is in the presence of its God. Let none of you think that his life has been wasted. Possibly, had it pleased heaven to spare him, he might have found great works to do among his fellow-men, and he would have done them as few else could. But do not let us fancy that our work must cease of necessity with our lives. Not so; far rather must we believe that it will continue for ever; seeing that we are all partakers of God's unspeakable blessing, the common mystery of immortality. Perhaps it may be the glorious destiny of very many here to recognise that truth, more fully when we meet and converse with our dear departed brother in a holier and happier world."

I have preserved some faint echo of the words he used, but I can give no conception of the dignity and earnestness of his manner, or the intense pathos of his tones.

The scene passed before me again as I looked at him, while he lingered over Eric's verses, and seemed lost in a reverie of thought.

At last he looked up and sighed. "Poor Eric!--But no, I will not call him poor; after all he is happier now than we. You loved him well," he continued; "why do you not try and preserve some records of his life?"

The suggestion took me by surprise, but I thought over it, and at once began to accomplish it. My own reminiscences of Eric were numerous and vivid, and several of my old schoolfellows and friends gladly supplied me with other particulars, especially the Bishop of Roslyn, Mr. Rose, Montagu, and Wildney. So the story of Eric's ruin has been told, and told as he would have wished it done, with simple truth. Noble Eric! I do not fear that I have wronged your memory, and you I know would rejoice to think how sorrowful hours have lost something of their sorrow, as I wrote the scenes in so many of which we were engaged together in our school-boy days.

I visited Roslyn a short time ago, and walked for hours along the sands, picturing in my memory the pleasant faces, and recalling the joyous tones of the many whom I had known and loved. Other boys were playing by the sea-side, who were strangers to me and I to them; and as I marked how wave after wave rolled up the shore, with its murmur and its foam, each sweeping farther than the other, each effacing the traces of the last, I saw an emblem of the passing generations, and was content to find that my place knew me no more.

Ah me the golden time!--
  But its hours have passed away,
With the pure and bracing clime,
  And the bright and merry day.

And the sea still laughs to the rosy shells ashore,
  And the shore still shines in the lustre of the wave;
But the joyaunce and the beauty of the boyish days is o'er,
  And many of the beautiful lie quiet in the grave;--
    And he who comes again
    Wears a brow of toil and pain,
And wanders sad and silent by the melancholy main.

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