"That was it."
"Things are different now, I suppose. But it's a rough walk in winter-time, isn't it?"
"Yes."
He was not ready to tell anyone of his joy in that daily walk, in summer and in winter, when hailstones pounded him in the face, when he was drenched with rain or scorched with sun. Moreover, reserve was not his only reason for silence. It seemed that always his father tried to thwart him, and if he knew how much he loved the hills and the mists and the sunshine, the rare birds and the smell of peat, the getting of knowledge from men who were not afraid of questions and did not roar, then, perhaps, with the perverseness that baffled and angered his son, he would take him from the school. So never a word of pleasure had Alexander let fall, for fear his happiness should be taken from him, and never a word of discontent, because he did not care to lie; but his passion for the hills grew stronger, and his analysis of his father's character became acute.
"He's like a cat with a pet bird," he thought once. "He's watching it all the time, and hoping the cage-door will open. He knows he oughtn't to kill it—he's been told he mustn't—but he can't stop himself wanting to. That's him all through. He can't stop himself."
That lack of self-control and its unpleasant results on himself inspired the boy to practice the virtue with all his might. To exercise it, he would go without food when he was hungry, deliberately sniffing at his mother's hot pastry, and refusing to eat of it.
"If you don't have that, you shall have nothing else. You're getting fussy," his father had said once. His eyes were stormy under brooding brows, but Alexander knew he had the advantage, and he wore his impish look.
"I'm not, then. I'm learning self-control," he said slowly, and saw his father flinch.
His appetite was left uncriticized after that, but the relations of cat and bird continued and Alexander saw to it that the cage-door was not opened, developing an annoying habit of always being in the right, or managing to appear so.
"Don't worry your father, Alec," his mother said.