His friend, Cheviot, and the right-minded set, maintained his authority with all their might; but Harvey Anderson regarded his interference as vexatious, always took the part of the offenders, and opposed him in every possible way, thus gathering as his adherents not only the idle and mischievous, but the weak and mediocre, and, among this set, there was a positive bitterness of feeling to May, and all whom they considered as belonging to him.
In shielding Tom May and leading him to deceive, the younger Anderson had gained a conquest--in him the Mays had fallen from that pinnacle of truth which was a standing reproach to the average Stoneborough code--and, from that time, he was under the especial patronage of his friend.

He was taught the most ingenious arts of saying a lesson without learning it, and of showing up other people's tasks; whispers and signs were directed to him to help him out of difficulties, and he was sought out and put forward whenever a forbidden pleasure was to be enjoyed by stealth.

These were his stimulants under a heavy bondage; he was teased and frightened, bullied and tormented, whenever it was the fancy of Ned Anderson and his associates to make his timidity their sport; he was scorned and ill-treated, and driven, by bodily terror, into acts alarming to his conscience, dangerous in their consequences, and painful in the perpetration; and yet, among all his sufferings, the little coward dreaded nothing so much as truth, though it would have set him free at once from this wretched tyranny.
Excepting on holidays, and at hours when the town-boys were allowed to go home, there were strict rules confining all except the sixth form to their bounds, consisting of two large courts, and an extensive field bordered by the river and the road.

On the opposite side of the bridge was a turnpike gate, where the keeper exposed stalls of various eatables, very popular among the boys, chiefly because they were not allowed to deal there.

Ginger-beer could also be procured, and there were suspicions that the bottles so called contained something contraband.
"August," said Norman, as they were coming home from school one evening, "did I see you coming over the bridge ?" Tom would not answer.
"So you have been at Ballhatchet's gate?
I can't think what could take you there.