army of small boys attended him, and were ever
ready for the schemes of mischief to which he deliberately trained them,
until they grew almost as turbulent, as disobedient, and as wicked, as
himself. He taught, both, by precept and example, that towards masters
neither honor was to be recognized, nor respect to be considered due. To
cheat them, to lie to them, to annoy them in every possible way--to
misrepresent their motives, mimic their defects, and calumniate their
actions--was the conduct which he inaugurated towards them; and for the
time that he continued at Roslyn the whole lower school was a
Pandemonium of evil passions and despicable habits.

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, a