Every one of the little boys became more or less amenable to his influence, and among them.  Vernon Williams.  Had Eric done his duty this would never have been; but he was half-ashamed to be often with his brother, and disliked to find him so often creeping to his side.  He flattered himself that in this feeling he was only anxious that Vernon should grow spirited and independent; but, had he examined himself, he would have found selfishness at the bottom of it.  Once or twice his manner showed harshness to Vernon, and the little boy both observed and resented it.  Montagu and others noticed him for Eric’s sake; but, being in the same form with Brigson, Vernon was thrown much with him, and feeling, as he did, deserted and lonely, he was easily caught by the ascendancy of his physical strength and reckless daring.  Before three months were over, he became, to Eric’s intolerable disgust, a ringleader in the band of troublesome scapegraces, whose increasing numbers were the despair of all who had the interests of the school at heart.

Unfortunately, Owen was now head of the school, and from his constitutional want of geniality, he was so little of a boy that he had no sympathy from the others, and little authority over them.  He simply kept aloof, holding his own way, and retiring into his own tastes and pursuits, and the society of one or two congenial spirits in the school, so as in no way to come in contact with the spreading corruption.

Montagu, now Owen’s chief friend, was also in the sixth, and fearlessly expressed at once his contempt for Brigson, and his dread of the evil he was effecting.  Had the monitorial system existed, that contagion could have been checked at once; but, as it was, brute force the unlimited authority.  Ill indeed are those informed who raise a cry, and join in the ignorant abuse of that noble safeguard of English schools.  Any who have had personal and intimate experience of how schools work with it and without it, know what a Palladium it is of happiness and morality; how it prevents bullying, upholds manliness, is the bulwark of discipline, and makes boys more earnest and thoughtful, often at the most critical period of their lives, by enlisting all their sympathies and interests on the side of the honorable and the just.

Brigson knew at a glance whom he had most to fear; Bull, Attlay, Llewellyn, Graham, all tolerated or even approved of him.  Owen did not come in his way, so he left him unmolested.  To Eric and Duncan he was scrupulously civil, and by flattery and deference managed to keep apparently on excellent terms with them.  Eric pretended to be ignorant of the harm he was bringing about, and in answer to the indignant and measureless invectives of Montagu and others, professed to see in Brigson a very good fellow; rather wild, perhaps, but still a very good fellow.