everything was ready, and Eric, Attlay, and
Llewellyn were summoned to join the rest.

The fowls, pigeons, and beer had soon vanished, and the boys were in the
highest spirits. Eric's reckless gaiety was kindled by Wildney's
frolicsome vivacity and Graham's sparkling wit; they were all six in a
roar of perpetual laughter at some fresh sally of fun elicited by the
more phlegmatic natures of Attlay or Llewellyn, and the dainties of
Wildney's parcel were accompanied by draughts of brandy and water, which
were sometimes exchanged for potations of the raw liquor. It was not
the first time, be it remembered, that the members of that young party
had been present at similar scenes, and even the scoundrel Billy was
astonished, and occasionally alarmed, at the quantities of spirits and
other inebriating drinks that of late had found their way to the
studies. The disgraceful and deadly habit of tippling had already told
physically on both Eric and Wildney. The former felt painfully that he
was losing his clear-headedness, and that his intellectual tastes were
getting not only blunted but destroyed; and while he perceived in
himself the terrible effects of his sinful indulgence, he saw them still
more indisputably in the gradual coarseness which seemed to be
spreading, like a grey lichen, over the countenance, the mind, and the
manners of his younger companion. Sometimes the vision of a Nemesis
breaking in fire out of his darkened future, terrified his guilty
conscience in the watches of the night; and the conviction of some
fearful Erinnys, some discovery dawning out of the night of his
undetected sins, made his heart beat fast with agony and fear. But he
fancied it too late to repent. He strangled the half-formed resolutions
as they rose, and trusted to the time when, by leaving school, he should
escape, as he idly supposed, the temptations to which he had yielded.
Meanwhile, the friends who would have rescued him had been alienated by
his follies, and the principles which might have preserved him had been
eradicated by his guilt. He had long flung away the shield of prayer
and the helmet of holiness, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the
word of God; and now, unarmed and helpless, Eric stood alone, a mark for
the fiery arrows of his enemies, while, through the weakened inlet of
every corrupted sense, temptation rushed in upon him perpetually and
unawares.

As the classroom they had selected was in a remote part of