"Too true," answered Montagu, with a sigh; "and yet, cool as we now are in our outward intercourse, he little knows how I love him, and yearn for the Eric I once knew. Would to G.o.d poor Russell had lived, and then I believe that Williams wouldn't have gone so for wrong."

"Well, I think there's another chance for him now that--that--what name is bad enough, for that Brigson?--is gone."

"I hope so. But"--he added after a pause--"his works do follow him. Look there!" He took a large stone and threw it into the Silverburn stream; there was a great splash, and then ever-widening circles of blue ripple broke the surface of the water, dying away one by one in the sedges on the bank. "There," he said, "see how long those ripples last, and how numerous they are."

Owen understood him. "Poor Williams! What a gleam of new hope there was in him after Russell's death!"

"Yes, for a time," said Montagu; "heigh ho! I fear we shall never be warm friends again. We can't be while he goes on as he is doing. And yet I love him."

A sudden turn of the stream brought them to the place called Riverbend.

"If you want a practical comment on what we've been talking about, you'll see it there," said Montagu.

He pointed to a party of boys, four or five, all lying on a pleasant gra.s.s bank, smoking pipes. Prominent among them was Eric, stretched at ease, and looking up at the clouds, towards which curled the puffed fumes of his meerschaum--a gift of Wildney's. That worthy was beside him similarly employed.

The two sixth-form boys hoped to pa.s.s by un.o.bserved, as they did not wish for a rencontre with our hero under such circ.u.mstances. But they saw Wildney pointing to them, and, from the fits of laughter which followed his remarks, they had little doubt that they were the subject of the young gentleman's wit. This is never a pleasant sensation; but they observed that Eric made a point of not looking their way, and went on in silence.

"How very sad!" said Montagu.

"How very contemptible!" said Owen.

"Did you observe what they were doing?"

"Smoking?"

"Worse than that a good deal. They were doing something which, if Eric doesn't take care, will one day be his ruin."

"What?"

"I saw them drinking. I have little doubt it was brandy."

"Good heavens!"

"It is getting a common practice with some fellows. One of the ripples, you see, of Brigson's influence."

Before they got home they caught up Wright and Vernon, and walked in together.

"We've been talking," said Wright, "about a bad matter. Vernon here says that there's no good working for a prize in his form, because the cribbing's so atrocious. Indeed, it's very nearly as bad in my form. It always is under Gordon; he _can't_ understand fellows doing dishonorable things."

"It's a great bore in the weekly examinations," said Vernon; "every now and then Gordon will even leave the room for a few minutes, and then out come dozens of books."

"Well, Wright," said Montagu, "if that happens again next examination, I'd speak out about it."

"How?"

"Why, I'd get every fellow who disapproves of it to give me his name, and get up and read the list, and say that you at least have pledged yourselves not to do it."

"Humph! I don't know how that would answer. They'd half kill me for one thing."

"Never mind; do your duty. I wish I'd such an opportunity, if only to show how sorry I am for my own past unfairness."

And so talking, the four went in, and the two elder went to their study.

It was too true that drinking had become a common vice at Roslyn school.

Accordingly, when Eric came in with Wildney about half an hour after, Owen and Montagu heard them talk about ordering some brandy, and then arrange to have a "jollification," that evening.

They got the brandy through "Billy." One of Brigson's most cursed legacies to the school was the introduction of this man to a nefarious intercourse with the boys. His character was so well known that it had long been forbidden, under the strictest penalty, for any boy ever to speak to him; yet, strange to say, they seemed to take a pleasure in doing so, and just now particularly it was thought a fine thing, a sign of "pluck" and "anti-m.u.f.fishness," to be on familiar and intimate terms with that degraded and villainous scoundrel.

Duncan had made friends again with Eric; but he did not join him in his escapades and excesses, and sat much in other studies. He had not been altogether a good boy, but yet there was a sort of rough honesty and good sense about him, which preserved him from the worst and most dangerous failings, and his character had been gradually improving as he mounted higher in the school. He was getting steadier, more diligent, more thoughtful, more manly; he was pa.s.sing through that change so frequent in boys as they grow older, to which Eric was so sad an exception. Accordingly Duncan, though sincerely fond of Eric, had latterly disapproved vehemently of his proceedings, and had therefore taken to snubbing his old friend Wildney, in whose favor Eric seemed to have an infatuation, and who was the means of involving him in every kind of impropriety and mischief. So that night Duncan, hearing of what was intended, sat in the next study, and Eric, with Bull, Wildney, Graham, and Pietrie, had the room to themselves. Several of them were lower boys still, but they came to the studies after bed-time, according to Wildney's almost nightly custom.

A little pebble struck the study window.

"Hurrah!" said Wildney, clapping his hands, "here's the grub."

They opened the window and looked out. Billy was there, and they let down to him a long piece of cord, to which he attached a basket, and, after bidding them "Good night, and a merry drink," retired. No sooner had they shut the window, than he grimaced as usual towards them, and shook his fist in a sort of demoniacal exultation, muttering, "Oh, I'll have you all under my thumb yet, you fine young fools!"

Meanwhile the unconscious boys had opened the basket, and spread its contents on the table. They were, bread, a large dish of sausages, a tart, beer, and, alas! a bottle of brandy.

They soon got very noisy, and at last uproarious. The s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs, peals of laughter, and rattle of plates, at last grew so loud that the other study-boys were afraid lest one of the masters should come up and catch the revellers. All of them heard every word that was spoken by Eric and his party as the walls between the rooms were very thin; and very objectionable much of the conversation was.

"This _won't_ do," said Duncan emphatically, after a louder burst of merriment than usual; "those fellows are getting drunk; I can tell it to a certainty from the confused and random way in which some of them are talking."

"We'd better go in and speak to them," said Montagu; "at any rate, they've no right to disturb us all night. Will you come?"

"I'll join you," said Owen; "though I'm afraid my presence won't do you much good."

The three boys went to the door of Eric's study, and their knock could not at first be heard for the noise. When they went in they found a scene of reckless disorder; books were scattered about, plates and gla.s.ses lay broken on the floor, beer was spilt on all sides, and there was an intolerable smell of brandy.

"If you fellows don't care," said Duncan, sharply, "Rose or somebody'll be coming up and catching you. It's ten now."

"What's that to you?" answered Graham, with an insolent look.

"It's something to me that you nice young men have been making such a row that none of the rest of us can hear our own voices, and that, between you, you've made this study in such a mess that I can't endure it."

"Pooh!" said Pietrie; "we're all getting such saints, that one can't have the least bit of spree now-a-days."

"Spree!" burst in Montagu indignantly; "fine spree, to make sots of yourselves with spirits; fine spree, to----"

"Amen!" said Wildney, who was perched on the back of a chair; and he turned up his eyes and clasped his hands with a mock-heroic air.

"There, Williams," continued Montagu, pointing to the mischievous-looking little boy; "see that spectacle, and be ashamed of yourself, if you can. That's what you lead boys to! Are you anxious to become the teacher of drunkenness?"

In truth, there was good ground for his sorrowful apostrophe, for the scene was very painful to a high-minded witness.

They hardly understood the look on Eric's countenance; he had been taking far more than was good for him; his eyes sparkled fiercely, and though as yet he said nothing, he seemed to be resenting the intrusion in furious silence.

"How much longer is this interesting lecture to last?" asked Bull, with his usual insufferable drawl; "for I want to finish my brandy."