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