Eric, or Little by Little | Page 3

them. The floating gossip and ill-nature of the little village never
affected them; it melted away insensibly in the presence of their
cultivated minds; so that friendship with them was a bond of union
among all, and from the vicar to the dairyman every one loved and
respected them, asked their counsel, and sought their sympathy.
They called themselves by no sectarian name, nor could they have told

to what "party" they belonged. They troubled themselves with no
theories of education, but mingled gentle nurture with "wholesome
neglect." There was nothing exotic or constrained in the growth of
Eric's character. He was not one of the angelically good children at all,
and knew none of the phrases of which infant prodigies are supposed to
be so fond. But to be truthful, to be honest, to be kind, to be brave,
these lessons had been taught him, and he never quite forgot them; nor
amid the sorrows of after life did he ever quite lose the sense--learnt at
dear quiet Fairholm--of a present loving God, of a tender and
long-suffering Father.
As yet he could be hardly said to know what school was. He had been
sent indeed to Mr Lawley's grammar school for the last half-year, and
had learned a few declensions in his Latin grammar. But as Mr Lawley
allowed his upper class to hear the little boys their lessons, Eric had
managed to get on pretty much as he liked. Only once in the entire
half-year had he said a lesson to the dreadful master himself, and of
course it was a ruinous failure, involving some tremendous pulls of
Eric's hair, and making him tremble like a leaf. Several things
combined to make Mr Lawley terrific to his imagination. Ever since he
was quite little, he remembered hearing the howls which proceeded
from the "Latin-school" as he passed by, whilst some luckless
youngster was getting caned; and the reverend pedagogue was
notoriously passionate. Then, again, he spoke so indistinctly with his
deep gruff voice, that Eric never could and never did understand a word
he said, and this kept him in a perpetual terror.
Once Mr Lawley had told him to go out, and see what time it was by
the church clock.
Only hearing that he was to do something, too frightened to ask what it
was, and feeling sure that even if he did, he should not make out what
the master meant, Eric ran out, went straight to Mr Lawley's house, and,
after having managed by strenuous jumps to touch the knocker,
informed the servant "that Mr Lawley wanted his man."
"What man?" said the maid-servant, "the young man? or the butler? or
is it the clerk?"

Here was a puzzler! all Eric knew was, that he was in the habit of
sending sometimes for one or other of these functionaries; but he was
in for it, so with a faltering voice he said "the young man" at hazard,
and went back to the Latin-school.
"Why have you been so long?" roared Mr Lawley, as he timidly
entered.
Fear entirely prevented Eric from hearing the exact question, so he
answered at random, "He's coming, sir." The master seeing by his
scared look that something was wrong, waited to see what would turn
up.
Soon after in walked "the young man," and coming to the astonished
Mr Lawley, bowed, scraped, and said, "Master Williams said you sent
for me, sir."
"A mistake," growled the schoolmaster, turning on Eric a look which
nearly petrified him; he quite expected a book at his head, or at best a
great whack of the cane; but Mr Lawley had naturally a kind heart,
soured as it was, and pitying perhaps the child's white face, he
contented himself with the effects of his look.
The simple truth was, that poor Mr Lawley was a little wrong in the
head. A scholar and a gentleman, early misfortunes and an imprudent
marriage had driven him to the mastership of the little country grammar
school; and here the perpetual annoyance caused to his refined mind by
the coarseness of clumsy or spiteful boys, had gradually unhinged his
intellect. Often did he tell the boys "that it was an easier life by far to
break stones by the roadside than to teach them;" and at last his
eccentricities became too obvious to be any longer overlooked.
The denouement of his history was a tragic one, and had come a few
days before the time when our narrative opens. It was a common
practice among the Latin-school boys, as I suppose among all boys, to
amuse themselves by putting a heavy book on the top of a door left
partially ajar, and to cry out, "Crown him!" as the first luckless
youngster who happened to come in received