One day as the two were walking together in the green playground, Mr. Gordon passed by; and as the boys touched their caps, he nodded and smiled pleasantly at Russell, but hardly noticed, and did not return Eric’s salute.  He had begun to dislike the latter more and more, and had given him up altogether as one of the reprobates.

“What a surly devil that is,” said Eric, when he had passed; “did you see how he purposely cut me?”

“A surly ...?  Oh Eric, that’s the first time I ever heard you swear.”

Eric blushed.  He hadn’t meant the word to slip out in Russell’s hearing, though similar expressions were common enough in his talk with other boys.  But he didn’t like to be reproved, even by Russell, and in the ready spirit of self-defence, he answered—­

“Pooh, Edwin, you don’t call that swearing, do you?  You’re so strict, so religious, you know.  I love you for it, but then, there are none like you.  Nobody thinks anything of swearing here.”

Russell was silent.

“Besides, what can be the harm of it? it means nothing.  I was thinking the other night, and I concluded that you and Owen are the only two fellows here who don’t swear.”

Russell still said nothing.

“And, after all, I didn’t swear; I only called that fellow a surly devil.”

“O, hush!  Eric, hush!” said Russell sadly.  “You wouldn’t have said so half-a-year ago.”

Eric knew what he meant.  The image of his father and mother rose before him, as they sate far away in their lonely Indian home, thinking of him, praying for him, centring all their hopes in him.  In him!—­and he knew how many things he was daily doing and saying, which would cut them to the heart.  He knew that all his moral consciousness was fast vanishing, and leaving him a bad and reckless boy.

In a moment, all this passed through his mind.  He remembered how shocked he had been at swearing at first; and even when it became too familiar to shock him, how he determined never to fall into the habit himself.  Then he remembered how gradually it had become quite a graceful sound in his ears; a sound of entire freedom and independence of moral restraint; an open casting off, as it were, of all authority, so that he had begun to admire it, particularly in Duncan, and above all, in his new hero, Upton; and he recollected how, at last, an oath had one day slipped out suddenly in his own words, and how strange it sounded to him, and how Upton smiled to hear it, though conscience had reproached him bitterly; but now that he had done it once, it became less dreadful, and gradually grew common enough, till even conscience hardly reminded him that he was doing wrong.

He thought of all this, and hung his head.  Pride struggled with him for a moment, but at length he answered, “O Edwin, I fear I am getting utterly bad; I wish I were more like you,” he added, in a low sad tone.

“Dear Eric, I have no right to say it, full of faults as I am myself; but you will be so much happier, if you try not to yield to all the bad things round us.  Remember, I know more of school than you.”