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, and hung his head. Pride struggled with him for a moment, but at length he answered, “O Edwin, I fear I am getting utterly bad; I wish I were more like you,” he added, in a low sad tone. “Dear Eric, I have no right to say it, full of faults as I am myself; but you will be so much happier, if you try not to yield to all the bad things round us. Remember, I know more of school than you.” The two boys strolled on silently. That night Eric knelt at his bedside, and prayed as he had not done for many a long day. CHAPTER IX “DEAD FLIES,” OR “YE SHALL BE AS GODS” “In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night.” PROV. vii. 9.