innate
superiority to themselves. Of this class was Barker. He hated Eric at
first sight, simply because his feeble mind could only realise one idea
about him, and that was the new boy's striking contrast with his own
imperfections. Hence he left no means untried to vent on Eric his low
and mean jealousy. He showed undisguised pleasure when he fell in form,
and signs of disgust when he rose; he fomented every little source of
disapproval or quarrelling which happened to arise against him; he never
looked at him without a frown or a sneer; he waited for him to kick and
annoy him as he came out of, or went into, the school-room. In fact, he
did his very best to make the boy's life miserable, and the occupation
of hating him seemed in some measure to fill up the vacuity of an
ill-conditioned and degraded mind.

Hatred is a most mysterious and painful phenomenon to the unhappy person
who is the object of it, and more especially if he have incurred it by
no one assignable reason. To Eric it was peculiarly painful; he was
utterly unprepared for it. In his bright joyous life at Fairholm, in the
little he saw of the boys at the Latin school, he had met with nothing
but kindness and caresses, and the generous nobleness of his character
had seemed to claim them as a natural element. "And now, why," he asked
impatiently, "should this bull-dog sort of fellow have set his whole aim
to annoy, vex, and hurt me?" Incapable himself of so mean a spirit of
jealousy at superior excellence, he could not make it out; but such,
was the fact, and the very mysteriousness of it made it more
intolerable to bear.

But it must be admitted that he made matters worse by his own bursts of
passion. His was not the temper to turn the other cheek; but, brave and
spirited as he was, he felt how utterly hopeless would be any attempt on
his part to repel force by force. He would have tried some slight
conciliation, but it was really impossible with such a boy as his enemy.
Barker never gave him even so much as an indifferent look, much less a
civil word. Eric loathed him, and the only good and happy part of the
matter to his own mind was, that conscientiously his only desire was to
get rid of him and be left alone, while he never cherished a particle
of revenge.

While every day Eric was getting on better in form, and winning himself
a very good position with the other boys, who liked his frankness, his
mirth, his spirit, and cleverness, he felt this fe