The second boy, in order of years, was swarthy Roger Camm, the son of the curate of Bradstane. Eleven were the years he counted in actual point of time—thirty, perhaps, and those rough ones, in his knowledge of care and trouble, in his painful, enforced acquaintance with grief, with contrivances and economies, and weary struggles to make both ends meet. For his father was not passing rich on forty pounds a year—he was more than passing poor on something less than a hundred, out of which he had dolefully to ‘keep up the appearance of a gentleman,’ clothe and feed his son and himself, and educate the former. His wife, poor soul, exhausted with the endless and complicated calculations necessitated by this ever-present problem, had some years ago thankfully closed her eyes, and said good-bye to labour and grief. The curate and his lad struggled on without her as best they could. All that Roger learnt, whether of solid instruction or flimsy accomplishment—little enough was there of the latter to gloss his manners or appearance—he was taught by his father, and that with fasting and prayer. Along with his Latin and Greek declensions, he imbibed also the more bitter lesson of declining fortunes; for his father had married late, and was not promoted as he grew older and more careworn. Side by side with the first problem of Euclid, as with the last, there was for ever present another, which it would have required more than a mere mathematical head to answer, and which yet imperiously demanded some sort of a solution; it was the problem which Mrs. Camm had carried with her to her grave, and it ran: ‘Given, not sufficient income to buy a proper supply of butcher’s meat, cakes, and ale, how to make water-porridge twice a day, with skim-milk to wash it down, answer the same purpose as the more liberal diet, save on certain rare and solemn feast-days, not specified in the calendar.’ And along with the invaluable rule, that prepositions govern the objective case (for the Rev. Silas Camm held fast by the Lindley Murray of his boyhood), Roger grasped and held fast the axiom, so that he could and did mould his conduct upon it, that to bear your hardships in silence is necessary—that to utter one word of complaint, to look greedily at occasional dainties, or to gorge in unseemly fashion on the abundance at other men’s tables, no matter what the size of the internal void to be filled; to betray by word, look, or deed that you ever feel the pinch of hunger at home—to do this is disgrace of the deepest dye, second only to lying and stealing. By the time he was eleven years old, Roger had digested these lessons thoroughly, and had, as it were, assimilated them, so that they were in his system. Sometimes, at the abundant ‘spreads’ on the Thorsgarth or Red Gables boards, his sallow young face would take a faint glow, his deep-set black eyes would grow wistfully misty, but never a word betrayed the bareness of the board at home, nor the fact that his father might even then be asking a blessing upon a bowl of oatmeal-porridge, sole reward of a hard day’s work. For the living of Bradstane, although ancient, was not rich, and the parish priest’s own stipend was not a fat one. Judge, therefore, how exceeding short the curate must have come!
Roger was on good terms with all his companions, and if they sometimes wondered why he never used to ask them to go and play with him, or have tea with him, they were quite satisfied with his explanation, that there was no garden to his father’s house, and they agreed with him, that without a garden to play in there could be no fun. He and Michael Langstroth, very dissimilar in almost everything, were fast friends, while Gilbert Langstroth and the fourth and last of this party of boys hung together in a lukewarm manner, the older and calmer of them often quietly instigating the mischief that the younger one performed.
This fourth and youngest was Otho Askam, the only son of the master of Thorsgarth, and heir to the sombre-looking house, and the grand old garden in which they all disported themselves. Otho, like his friends, was tall for his age, and well set-up. One can but guess at the man to come, in the little father of eight years old. But Otho gave strong signs of individuality even at this early age. The other boys, if they had spoken their minds, would have said that he was fitful and moody in temper; that no one could tell what would please, what offend him; that, when he was pleased, it was in a saturnine, mirthless style, strange in so young a child; that when offended, his wrath was more deep than loud, but that his brown eyes glowed, on such occasions, with a dull fire, and his childish face in its anger took an expression of savage fierceness. They could also have related, these other boys, that when angry, Otho never rested till he had revenged himself, either by damaging or mutilating some of their cherished ‘things,’ or by doing them bodily harm, as grievous as his childish brain and small hands could devise and compass. By the end of the summer they had got used to it. They laughed at him, and talked about his ‘little rages.’ They were bigger and stronger than he was. The youngest of them was two years his senior. They used to tease him sometimes, on purpose to have the fun of seeing what shape his vengeance would take, and would shout with laughter at its feebleness when wreaked.
There was on record one great occasion on which Michael Langstroth had failed to see the amusing side of an escapade of Otho’s, and had taken upon himself to give him a sound hiding (with due regard, that is, to the difference in their ages and strengths). It was sound enough, however, for Master Otho to make the welkin ring again with his yells; but the thrashing had been administered in payment, with interest, if possible, of Otho’s wanton cruelty to a wretched, half-starved cat, which he had pursued with the vindictive determination not so much to compass its death, as to secure to it as long a term of torture as possible, before that death should take place.
‘You cowardly little viper, you!’ Michael had shouted, towering over him after the first half of the pummelling had been administered. ‘Don’t you know that it’s nothing but a coward, and a dirty one, that hurts things that can’t fight back? You miserable little beggar, you!’
‘Michael, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you! I hate you! I wish the devil would get hold of you. I’ll kill you some day for this. What do you hit me for? I can’t hit you back, you great coward!’
At which there was a great laugh from the other boys, none the less hilarious when the big lad, looking scornfully down upon the little one, said—
‘I do it for your good, and you ought to be thankful for it.’
Otho snuffled then, but took an early opportunity of laying a crooked root in an unexpected and obscure spot, over which Michael tripped ignominiously, and nearly barked his shins, when the snuffle became a joyful chuckle.
Later in the same afternoon, Michael Langstroth found himself apart from the other boys, in a lonely part of the garden, where a broad terrace ended, and rough, uncut grass, dotted with wild plants, began—the top of the river-bank, in fact. The lad seated himself on this bank, under a tree, just out of the broiling sun, and a silence and quietness fell upon him, while he gazed before him into the gurgling, flowing river. It was a pastime he loved. Shadowy, half-formed thoughts passed through his brain at such times, thoughts as vague as the murmur of the river; intuitions, impulses stirred him, whose nature he did not now understand, but which, for all that, might be not the less blessed and fruitful in years to come, when he should have forgotten these, their first upspringings; for thus it is, as well as in other ways, that ‘the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’