What was he to do? He durst not disturb them so late at night. He remembered that they would not have heard a syllable of or from him since he had run away from Roslyn, and he feared the effect of so sudden an emotion as his appearance at that hour might excite.
So under the star-light he lay down to sleep on a cold bank beside the gate, determining to enter early in the morning. It was long before he slept, but at last weary nature demanded her privilege with importunity, and gentle sleep floated over him like a dark dewy cloud, and the sun was high in heaven before he woke.
It was about half-past nine in the morning, and Mrs. Trevor, with f.a.n.n.y, was starting to visit some of her poor neighbors, an occupation full of holy pleasure to her kind heart, and in which she had found more than usual consolation during the heavy trials which she had recently suffered; for she had loved Eric and Vernon as a mother does her own children, and now Vernon, the little cherished jewel of her heart, was dead--Vernon was dead, and Eric, she feared, not dead but worse than dead, guilty, stained, dishonored. Often had she thought to herself, in deep anguish of heart, "Our darling little Vernon dead--and Eric fallen and ruined!"
"Look at that poor fellow asleep on the gra.s.s," said f.a.n.n.y, pointing to a sailor boy, who lay coiled up on the bank beside the gate. "He has had a rough bed, mother, if he has spent the night there, as I fear."
Mrs. Trevor had grasped her arm. "What is Flo" doing?" she said, stopping, as the pretty little spaniel trotted up to the boy"s reclining figure, and began snuffing about it, and then broke into a quick short bark of pleasure, and fawned and frisked about him, and leapt upon him, joyously wagging his tail.
The boy rose with the dew wet from the flowers upon his hair; he saw the dog, and at once began playfully to fondle it, and hold its little silken head between his hands; but as yet he had not caught sight of the Trevors.
"It is--oh, good heavens! it is Eric," cried Mrs. Trevor, as she flew towards him. Another moment and he was in her arms, silent, speechless, with long arrears of pent-up emotion.
"O my Eric, our poor, lost, wandering Eric--come home; you are forgiven, more than forgiven, my own darling boy. Yes, I knew that my prayers would be answered; this is as though we received you from the dead." And the n.o.ble lady wept upon his neck, and Eric, his heart shaken with acc.u.mulated feelings, clung to her and wept.
Deeply did that loving household rejoice to receive back their lost child. At once they procured him a proper dress, and a warm bath, and tended him with every gentle office of female ministering hands. And in the evening, when he told them his story in a broken voice of penitence and remorse, their love came to him like a sweet balsam, and he rested by them, "seated, and clothed, and in his right mind."
The pretty little room, fragrant with sweet flowers from the greenhouse, was decorated with all the refinement of womanly taste, and its gla.s.s doors opened on the pleasant garden. It was long, long since Eric had ever seen anything like it, and he had never hoped to see it again. "Oh dearest aunty," he murmured, as he rested his weary head upon her lap, while he sat on a low stool at her feet, "Oh aunty, you will never know how different this is from the foul, horrible hold of the "Stormy Petrel," and its detestable inmates."
When Eric was dressed once more as a gentleman, and once more fed on nourishing and wholesome food, and was able to move once more about the garden by f.a.n.n.y"s side, he began to recover his old appearance, and the soft bloom came back to his cheek again, and the light to his blue eye.
But still his health gave most serious cause for apprehension; weeks of semi-starvation, bad air, sickness, and neglect, followed by two nights of exposure and wet, had at last undermined the remarkable strength of his const.i.tution, and the Trevors soon became aware of the painful fact that he was sinking to the grave, and had come home only to die.
Above all, there seemed to be some great load at his heart which he could not remove; a sense of shame, the memory of his disgrace at Roslyn, and of the dark suspicion that rested on his name. He avoided the subject, and they were too kind to force it on him, especially as he had taken away the bitterest part of their trial in remembering it, by explaining to them that he was far from being so wicked in the matter of the theft as they had at first been (how slowly and reluctantly!) almost forced to believe.
"Have you ever heard--oh, how shall I put it?--have you ever heard, aunty, how things went on at Roslyn after I ran away?" he asked, one evening, with evident effort.
"No, love, I have not. After they had sent home your things, I heard no more; only two most kind and excellent letters--one from Dr. Rowlands, and one from your friend, Mr. Rose--informed me of what had happened about you."
"O, have they sent home my things?" he asked, eagerly. "There are very few among them that I care about, but there is just one----"
"I guessed it, my Eric, and, but that I feared to agitate you, should have given it you before;" and she drew out of a drawer the little likeness of Vernon"s sweet childish face.
Eric gazed at it till the sobs shook him, and tears blinded his eyes.
"Do not weep, my boy," said Mrs. Trevor, kissing his forehead. "Dear little Verny, remember, is in a land where G.o.d himself wipes away all tears from off all eyes."
"Is there anything else you would like?" asked f.a.n.n.y, to divert his painful thoughts. "I will get you anything in a moment."
"Yes, f.a.n.n.y, dear, there is the medal I got for saving Russell"s life, and one or two things which he gave me;--ah, poor Edwin, you never knew him!"
He told her what to fetch, and when she brought them it seemed to give him great pleasure to recall his friends to mind by name, and speak of them--especially of Montagu and Wildney.
"I have a plan to please you, Eric," said Mrs. Tremor. "Shall I ask Montagu and Wildney here? we have plenty of room for them."
"O, thank you," he said, with the utmost eagerness. "Thank you, dearest aunt." Then suddenly his countenance fell. "Stop--shall we?--yes, yes, I am going to die soon, I know; let me see them before I die."
The Trevors did not know that he was aware of the precarious tenure of his life, but they listened to him in silence, and did not contradict him; and Mrs. Trevor wrote to both the boys (whose directions Eric knew), telling them what had happened, and begging them, simply for his sake, to come and stay with her for a time. She hinted clearly that it might be the last opportunity they would ever have of seeing him.
Wildney and Montagu accepted the invitation; and they arrived together at Fairholm on one of the early autumn evenings. They both greeted Eric with the utmost affection; and he seemed never tired of pressing their hands, and looking at them again. Yet every now and then a memory of sadness would pa.s.s over his face, like a dark ripple on the clear surface of a lake.
"Tell me, Monty," he said one evening, "all about what happened after I left Roslyn."
"Gladly, Eric; now that your name is cleared, there is--"
"My name cleared!" said Eric, leaning forward eagerly. "Did you say that?"
"Yes, Eric. Didn"t you know, then, that the thief had been discovered?"
"No," he murmured faintly, leaning back; "O thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d! Do tell me all about it, Monty."
"Well, Eric, I will tell you all from the beginning. You may guess how utterly astonished we were in the morning, when we heard that you had run away. Wildney here was the first to discover it, for he went early to your bed-room----"
"Dear little Sunbeam," interrupted Eric, resting his hand against Wildney"s cheek; but Wildney shook his fist at him when he heard the forbidden name.
"He found the door locked," continued Montagu, "and called to you, but there came no answer; this made us suspect the truth, and we were certain, of it when some one caught sight of the pendent sheet. The masters soon heard the report, and sent Carter to make inquiries, but they did not succeed in discovering anything definite about you. Then, of course, everybody a.s.sumed as a certainty that you were guilty, and I fear that my bare a.s.sertion on the other side had little weight."
Eric"s eyes glistened as he drank in his friend"s story.
"But, about a fortnight after, _more_ money and several other articles disappeared from the studies, and all suspicion as to the perpetrator was baffled; only now the boys began to admit that, after all, they had been premature in condemning you. It was a miserable time; for every one was full of distrust, and the more nervous boys were always afraid lest any one should on some slight grounds suspect _them. Still_, things kept disappearing.
"We found out at length that the time when the robberies were effected must be between twelve and one, and it was secretly agreed that some one should be concealed in the studies for a day or two during those hours.
Carter undertook the office, and was ensconced in one of the big cupboards in a study which had not yet been touched. On the third day he heard some one stealthily mount the stairs. The fellows were more careful now, and used to keep their doors shut, but the person was provided with keys, and opened the study in which Carter was. He moved about for a little time--Carter watching him through the key-hole, and prepared to spring on him before he could make his escape. Not getting much, the man at last opened the cup-board door, where Carter had just time to conceal himself behind a great-coat. The great-coat took the plunderer"s fancy; he took it down off the peg, and there stood Carter before him! Billy--for it was he--stood absolutely confounded, as though a ghost had suddenly appeared; and Carter, after enjoying his unconcealed terror, collared him, and hauled him off to the police station. He was tried soon after, and finally confessed that it was he who had taken the cricket-money too; for which offences he was sentenced to transportation. So Eric, dear Eric, at last your name was cleared."
"As I always knew it would be, dear old boy," said Wildney.
Montagu and Wildney found plenty to make them happy at Fairholm, and were never tired of Eric"s society, and of his stories about all that befell him on board the "Stormy Petrel." They perceived a marvellous change in him. Every trace of recklessness and arrogance had pa.s.sed away; every stain of pa.s.sion had been removed; every particle of hardness had been calcined in the flame of trial. All was gentleness, love, and dependence, in the once bright, impetuous, self-willed boy; it seemed as though the lightning of G.o.d"s anger had shattered and swept away all that was evil in his heart and life, and left all his true excellence, all the royal prerogatives of his character, pure and unscathed Eric, even in his worst days, was, as I well remember, a lovable and n.o.ble boy; but at this period there must have been something about him for which to thank G.o.d, something unspeakably winning, and irresistibly attractive. During the day, as Eric was too weak to walk with them, Montagu and Wildney used to take boating and fishing excursions by themselves, but in the evening the whole party would sit out reading and talking in the garden till twilight fell. The two visitors began to hope that Mrs. Trevor had been mistaken, and that Eric"s health would still recover; but Mrs. Trevor would not deceive herself with a vain hope, and the boy himself shook his head when they called him convalescent.
Their hopes were never higher than one evening about a week after their arrival, when they were all seated, as usual, in the open air, under a lime-tree on the lawn. The sun was beginning to set, and the rain of golden sunlight fell over them through the green ambrosial foliage of the tree whose pale blossoms were still murmurous with bees. Eric was leaning back in an easy chair, with Wildney sitting on the gra.s.s, cross-legged at his feet, while Montagu, resting on one of the mossy roots, read to them the "Midsummer Night"s Dream," and the ladies were busy with their work.
"There--stop now," said Eric, "and let"s sit out and talk until we see some of "the fiery a"es and o"es of light" which he talks of."
"I"d no idea Shakspeare was such immensely jolly reading," remarked Wildney navely. "I shall take to reading him through when I get home."
"Do you remember, Eric," said Montagu, "how Rose used to chaff us in old days for our ignorance of literature, and how indignant we used to be when he asked if we"d ever heard of an obscure person called William Shakspeare?"
"Yes, very well," answered Eric, laughing heartily. And in this strain they continued to chat merrily, while the ladies enjoyed listening to their school-boy mirth.
"What a perfectly delicious evening. It"s almost enough to make me wish to live," said Eric.
He did not often speak thus; and it made them sad. But Eric half sang, half murmured to himself, a hymn with which his mother"s sweet voice had made him familiar in their cottage-home at Ellan:--
"There is a calm for those who weep, A rest for weary pilgrims found; They softly lie, and sweetly sleep, Low in the ground.
"The storm that wrecks the winter sky, No more disturbs their deep repose, Than summer evening"s latest sigh That shuts the rose."
The two last lines lingered pleasantly in his fancy and he murmured to himself again, in low tones--
"Than summer evening"s latest sigh That shuts the rose."