The consequence was, that any
interference from them would have been of a simply individual nature,
and was exerted very rarely. It would have done Owen no more good to
tell a sixth-form boy, than to tell any other boy; and as he was not a
favorite, he was not likely to find any champion to fight his battles or
maintain his just rights.
All this had happened before Eric's time, and he heard it from his best
friend Russell. His heart clave to that boy. They became friends at once
by a kind of electric sympathy; the first glance of each at the other's
face prepared the friendship, and every day of acquaintance more firmly
cemented it. Eric could not have had a better friend; not so clever as
himself, not so diligent as Owen, not so athletic as Duncan, or so
fascinating as Montagu, Russell combined the best qualities of them all.
And, above all, he acted invariably from the highest principle; he
presented that noblest of all noble spectacles--one so rare that many
think it impossible--the spectacle of an honorable, pure-hearted, happy
boy, who, as his early years speed by, is ever growing in wisdom, and
stature, and favor with God and man.
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