In those days the strong made no pretence to protect the weak, or to abnegate their natural power.  The biggest lad used his thews and sinews to knock over the lesser without mercy, till the lesser by degrees grew strong enough to retaliate.  To be thrashed, beaten, and kicked was so universal an experience that no one ever imagined it was not correct, or thought of complaining.  They accepted it as a matter of course.  As he grew older his work simply grew harder, and in no respect differed from that of the labourers, except that he directed what should be done next, but none the less assisted to do it.

Thus the days went on, the weeks, and months, and years.  He was close upon forty years old before he had his own will for a single day.  Up to almost that age he worked on his father’s farm as a labourer among the labourers, as much under parental authority as when he was a boy of ten.  When the old man died it was not surprising that the son, so long held down in bondage—­bondage from which he had not the spirit to escape—­gave way for a short period to riotous living.  There was hard drinking, horse-racing, and card-playing, and waste of substance generally.

But it was not for long, for several reasons.  In the first place, the lad of forty years, suddenly broken forth as it were from school, had gone past the age when youth plunges beyond recall.  He was a grown man, neither wise nor clever; but with a man’s sedateness of spirit and a man’s hopes.  There was no innate evil in his nature to lead him into unrighteous courses.  Perhaps his fault rather lay in his inoffensive disposition—­he submitted too easily.  Then, in the second place, there was not much money, and what there was had to meet many calls.

The son found that the father, though reputed a substantial man, and a man among farmers of high esteem and good family, had been anything but rich.  First there were secret debts that had run on for fully thirty years—­sums of from fifty to one hundred pounds—­borrowed in the days of his youth, when he, too, had at last been released in a similar manner from similar bondage, to meet the riotous living in which he also had indulged.  In those earlier days there had been more substance in cattle and corn, and he had had no difficulty in borrowing ready money from adjoining farmers, who afterwards helped him to drink it away.  These boon companions had now grown old.  They had never pressed their ancient comrade for the principal, the interest being paid regularly.  But now their ancient comrade was dead they wanted their money, especially when they saw the son indulging himself, and did not know how far he might go.  Their money was paid, and reduced the balance in hand materially.