The Mickle family lived in a high, old-fashioned house in Fore Street. The house itself stood back from the street, and had a trim flower garden before it, and a kitchen garden at the back which reached to the river.
The chief rooms on the ground floor were the lawyer's offices; but the house being three stories high, the family was not cramped for space. The dining-room overlooked the street, and was a pleasant, airy apartment with a comfortable, homely look about it, in spite of its well-worn Brussels carpet, and rather shabby, leather-covered furniture; there were a few good oil-paintings on the walls, some handsome bronze ornaments on the mantel-piece, and a bowl of chrysanthemums in the centre of the table in the middle of the room.
On this particular December afternoon the room had two occupants—Mrs. Mickle, who was seated near the window, bending over some plain needlework, and her elder son, Gilbert, a boy of nearly sixteen, who reclined on a sofa drawn near the fire.
Gilbert Mickle was a cripple, and could only walk with the help of crutches; but he was not in the least an invalid, enjoying really robust health. He was a very handsome boy, though the expression of his face was usually not a pleasant one, for he possessed an obstinate, cantankerous temper, which had already left its traces in two deep lines between his brows. One of his school-fellows had once declared in his hearing that his temper was as crooked as his legs, and he had been stung into a perfect fury of passion by the remark, conscious that every one recognized its truth, and had dealt the offender such a series of vicious blows with one of his crutches that he had cried for mercy and let him alone for the future.
With his brother Tom, who was a year his junior, Gilbert attended the Wreyford Grammar School; but, whereas the younger brother was universally popular, Gilbert was generally disliked, and feared, by reason of the cutting tongue he never hesitated to use at another's expense.
"I suppose Tom will be back from the football match soon," he remarked at length, as he flung aside the book he had been reading, and yawned idly. "I wonder if the Grammar School will be beaten. I don't care if it is."
"Oh, my dear," Mrs. Mickle remonstrated gently, "think how disappointed Tom will be if his side loses."
"It will do Tom good to be on the losing side for once, mother. The Grammar School has had all the luck so far this season, and, really, to hear Tom talk you'd think it was mostly owing to him. Conceited young cub! He wants to be put under a bit!"
Mrs. Mickle laughed, then sighed. Certainly Tom was rather an important individual in his own estimation; but the manner in which his brother remarked the fact was not pleasant.
"You should have gone to watch the football match," she said, "it would have been better for you than lying there all the afternoon."