to measure himself with his companions—all tend to keep him right and diligent. But many of these incentives are removed after the first brush of novelty, and many a lad who has given good promise at first, turns out, after a short probation, idle or vicious, or indifferent.
But there was little comparative danger for Eric, so long as he continued to be a home-boarder, which was for another half-year. On the contrary, he was anxious to support in his new remove the prestige of having been head-boy; and as he still continued under Mr. Gordon, he really wished to turn over a new leaf in his conduct towards him, and recover, if possible, his lost esteem.
His popularity was a fatal snare. He enjoyed and was very proud of it, and was half inclined to be angry with Russell for not fully sharing his feelings; but Russell had a far larger experience of school-life than his new friend, and dreaded with all his heart lest “he should follow a multitude to do evil.”
The “cribbing,” which had astonished and pained Eric at first, was more flagrant than even in the Upper-Fourth, and assumed a chronic form. In all the Repetition lessons one of the boys used to write out in a large hand the passage to be learnt by heart, and dexterously pin it to the front of Mr. Gordon’s desk. There any boy who chose could read it off with little danger of detection, and, as before, the only boys who refused to avail themselves of this trickery were Eric, Russell, and Owen.
Eric did not yield to it; never once did he suffer his eyes to glance at the paper when his turn to repeat came round. But although this was the case, he never spoke against the practice to the other boys, even when he lost places by it. Nay more, he would laugh when any one told him how he had escaped “skewing” (i.e. being turned) by reading it off; and he even went so far as to allow them to suppose that he wouldn’t himself object to take advantage of the master’s unsuspicious confidence.
“I say, Williams,” said Duncan, one morning as they strolled into the school-yard, “do you know your Repetition?”
“No,” said Eric, “not very well; I haven’t given more than ten minutes to it.”
“Oh, well, never mind it now; come and have a game at racquets. Russell and Montagu have taken the court.”
“But I shall skew.”
“Oh no, you needn’t, you know. I’ll take care to pin it upon the desk near you.”
“Well, I don’t much care. At any rate I’ll chance it.” And off the boys ran to the racquet-court, Eric intending to occupy the last quarter of an hour before school-time in learning his lesson. Russell and he stood the other two, and they were very well matched. They had finished two splendid games, and each side had been victorious in turn, when Duncan, in the highest spirits, shouted, “Now, Russell, for the conqueror.”
“Get some one else in my place,” said Russell; “I don’t know my Repetition, and must cut and learn it.”
“Oh, bother the Repetition,” said Montagu, “somebody’s sure to write it out in school, and old Gordon’ll never see.”
“You forget, Montagu, I don’t deign to crib. It isn’t fair.”
“Oh ay, I forgot. Well, after all, you’re quite right; I only wish I was as good.”
“What a capital fellow he is,” continued Montagu, leaning on his racquet and looking after him, as Russell left the court. “But I say, Williams, you’re not going too, are you?”
“I think I must, I don’t know half my lesson.”
“Oh no, I don’t go; there’s Llewellyn; he’ll take Russell’s place, and we must have the conquering game.”
Again Eric yielded; and when the clock struck, he ran into school, hot, vexed with himself and certain to break down, just as Russell strolled in, whispering, “I’ve had lots of time to get up the Horace, and know it pat.”
Still he clung to the little thistledown of hope that he should have plenty of time to cram it before the form were called up. But another temptation waited him. No sooner was he seated than Graham whispered, “Williams, it’s your turn to write out the Horace; I did last time, you know.”
Poor Eric! He was reaping the fruits of his desire to keep up popularity, which had prevented him from expressing a manly disapproval of the general cheating. Everybody seemed to assume now that he at any rate didn’t think much of it, and he had never claimed his real right up to that time of asserting his innocence. But this was a step farther than he had ever gone before. He drew back—
“My turn, what do you mean?”
“Why, you know as well as I do that we all write it out by turns.”
“Do you mean to say Owen or Russell ever wrote it out?”
“Of course not; you wouldn’t expect the saints to be guilty of such a thing, would you?”
“I’d rather not, Graham,” he said, getting very red.
“Well, that is cowardly,” answered Graham angrily; “then I suppose I must do it myself.”
“Here, I’ll do it,” said Eric suddenly; “shy us the paper.”
His conscience smote him bitterly. In his silly dread of giving offence, he was doing what he heartily despised, and he felt most uncomfortable.
“There,” he said, pushing the paper from him in a pet; “I’ve written it, and I’ll have nothing more to do with it.”
Just as he finished, they were called up, and Barker, taking the paper, succeeded in pinning it as usual on the front of the desk. Eric had never seen it done so carelessly and clumsily before, and firmly believed, what was indeed a fact, that Barker had done it badly on purpose, in the hope that it might be discovered, and so Eric be got once more into a scrape. He was in an agony of apprehension, and when put on, was totally unable to say a word of his Repetition. But far as he had yielded, he would not cheat like the rest; in this respect, at any rate, he would not give up his claim to chivalrous and stainless honour; he kept his eyes resolutely turned away from the guilty paper, and even refused to repeat the words which were prompted in his ear by the boys on each side. Mr. Gordon, after waiting a moment, said—
“Why, sir, you know nothing about it; you can’t have looked at it. Go to the bottom, and write it out five times.”
“Write it out,” thought Eric; “this is retribution, I suppose,” and, covered with shame and vexation, he took his place below the malicious Barker at the bottom of the form.
It happened that during the lesson the fire began to smoke, and Mr. Gordon told Owen to open the window for a moment. No sooner was this done than the mischievous whiff of sea-air which entered the room began to trifle and coquet with the pendulous half-sheet pinned in front of the desk, causing thereby an unwonted little pattering crepitation. In alarm, Duncan thoughtlessly pulled out the pin, and immediately the paper floated gracefully over Russell’s head, as he sat at the top of the form, and, after one or two gyrations, fluttered down in the centre of the room.
“Bring me that piece of paper,” said Mr. Gordon, full of vague suspicion.
Several boys moved uneasily, and Eric looked nervously round.
“Did you hear? fetch me that half-sheet of paper.”
A boy picked it up, and handed it to him. Mr. Gordon held it for a full minute in his hands without a word, while vexation, deep disgust, and rising anger, struggled in his countenance. At last, he suddenly turned full on Eric, whose writing he recognised, and broke out—
“So, sir! a second time caught in gross deceit. I should not have thought it possible. Your face and manners belie you. You have lost my confidence for ever. I despise you.”
“Indeed, sir,” said the penitent Eric, “I never meant—”
“Silence—you are detected,