st all three
began to laugh so violently that several heads were turned in their
direction, and Dr Rowlands's stern eye caught sight of their levity.
He stopped short in his sermon, and for one instant transfixed them with
his indignant glance. Quiet was instantly restored, and alarm reduced
them to the most perfect order, although the grasshopper still sat
imperturbable among the artificial flowers. Meanwhile the stout lady
had discovered that for some unknown reason she had been causing
considerable amusement, and attributing it to intentional ridicule,
looked round, justly hurt. Eric, with real shame, observed the pained
uneasiness of her manner, and bitterly repented his share in the
transaction.

Next morning Dr Rowlands, in full academicals, sailed into the
fourth-form room. His entrance was the signal for every boy to rise,
and after a word or two to Mr Gordon, he motioned them to be seated.
Eric's heart sank within him.

"Williams, Duncan, and LLewellyn, stand out!" said the Doctor. The
boys, with downcast eyes and burning cheeks, stood before him.

"I was sorry to notice," said he, "your shameful conduct in chapel
yesterday afternoon. As far as I could observe, you were making
yourselves merry in that sacred place with the personal defects of
others. The lessons you receive here must be futile indeed if they do
not teach you the duty of reverence to God, and courtesy to man. It
gives me special pain, Williams, to have observed that you, too, a boy
high in your remove, were guilty of this most culpable levity. You will
all come to me at twelve o'clock in the library."

At twelve o'clock they each received a flogging.

The pain inflicted was not great, and Duncan and Llewellyn, who had got
into similar trouble before, cared very little for it, and went out
laughing to tell the number of swishes they had received to a little
crowd of boys who were lingering outside the library door. But not so
Eric. It was his _first_ flogging, and he felt it deeply. To his proud
spirit the disgrace was intolerable. At that moment he hated Dr
Rowlands, he hated Mr Gordon, he hated his school-fellows, he hated
everybody. He had been flogged; the thought haunted him; he, Eric
Williams, had been forced to receive this most degrading corporal
punishment. He pushed fiercely through the knot of boys, and strode as
quickly as he could along the playground, angry and impenitent.

At the gate Russell met him. Eric fe