Now some of the house--and especially Mackworth and Wilton--had determined, by the help of the rest, to crush this opposition, to conquer this obstinacy, as they called it; and, since Charlie's reluctance could not be overcome by persuasion or argument, to break it down by sheer force. So, night after night, a number of them gathered round Charlie, and tried every means which ingenuity or malice could suggest to make him yield on this one point; the more so, because they well knew that to gain one concession was practically to gain all, and Charlie's uprightness contrasted so unpleasantly with their own base compliances, that his mere presence among them became, from this circumstance, a constant annoyance. One boy with a high and firm moral standard, steadily and consistently good, can hardly fail to be most unpopular in a large house full of bad and reckless boys. It was a long and hard struggle; so long that Charlie felt as if it would last for ever, and his strength would give way before he had wearied-out his persecutors. For now it seemed to be a positive amusement, a pleasant occupation to them, night after night, to bully him. He dreaded, he shuddered at the return of evening; he knew well that from the time when Preparation began, till the rest were all asleep, he could look for little peace. Sometimes he was tempted to yield. He knew that at the bottom the fellows did not really hate him, that he might be very popular if he chose, even without going to nearly the same lengths as the others, and that if he would but promise not to tell, his assent would be hailed with acclamations. Besides, said the tempter, the chances are very strongly in favour of your not being asked at all about the matter, so that there is every probability of your not being called upon to tell the "cram;" for by some delicate distinction the falsehood presented itself under the guise of a "cram," and not of a naked lie; _that_ was a word the boys carefully avoided applying to it, and were quite angry if Charlie called it by its right name. One evening the poor little fellow was so weary and hopeless and sad at heart, and he had been thrashed so long and so severely, that he was _very_ near yielding. A paper had been written, the signing of which was tacitly understood to involve a promise to deny that there had been any smoking at night if they were taxed with it; and all the boys except Elgood and Charlie had signed this paper. But the fellows did not care for Elgood; they knew that he dared not oppose them long, and that they could make him do their bidding whenever the time came. Well, one evening, Charlie, in a weak mood, was on the verge of signing the paper, and thus purchasing a cessation of the long series of injuries and taunts from which he had been suffering. He was sitting up in bed, and had taken the pencil in hand to sign his name. The boys, in an eager group round him, were calling him a regular brick, encouraging him,