In the Roaring Fifties | Page 5

preliminaries to a 'flare-up.' He had
learned, too, in the course of his schooling, to simulate an imposing
unconcern under commonplace trials and tribulations, when it so
pleased him, and between the satisfaction to be felt in being able
successfully to assume a given virtue and in having actual possession
of that virtue the distinction is too delicate for unregenerate minds.
The young man did not envelop himself in his spare skin of
imperturbability at this crisis, because he felt that some show of active
resentment was necessary to repel effusive admirers and maintain the
barrier he had set up between himself and his fellow-travellers. When

Jim Done set foot on board the Francis Cadman he was flying from an
intolerable life, seeking to escape from despair. This he did not admit to
himself, for he had the indomitable pride of a lonely man who gave to
thought the time that should have been gloriously wasted on boon
companions and young love.
Done was a sensitive man, who had been some thing of a pariah since
his knickerbocker period, and was first the butt and later the bane of the
narrow, convention-governed public of a small English village. A fierce
defiance of the people amongst whom he had lived his life kept him in
his native place till after his twenty-first birthday. He rebelled with all
his soul against the animal unreason of these men, women, and children,
puzzling over the fanatical stupidity of their prejudice, and, striving to
beat it down, intensified it and kept it active long years after all might
have been forgotten had he bowed meekly to 'the workings of
Providence,' as manifested in the thinkings and doings of the
Godfearing people of Chisley.
When James Done was five years old the only murder that had been
committed in Chisley district within the memory of the oldest
inhabitant was done by a member of little Jim's family. The murderer
was tried, found guilty, and sentenced accordingly.
The murder had a romantic plot and melodramatic tableaux, and was
incorporated in the history of Chisley--in fact, it was the history of
Chisley.
The murderer passed out, but his family remained, and upon them fell
the horror of his deed, the disgrace of his punishment. They became
creatures apart. With all Chisley understood of the terror in those dread
words, 'Thou shalt not kill,' it invested the unhappy family, and they
bowed as if to the will of God.
Jim's mother, a thin, sensitive woman, with a patient face, put on a
black veil, and was never afterwards seen abroad without it. She helped
her boy a few weary miles along the road of life, and then one evening
went quietly to her room and died. Jim's sister, ten years older than
himself, took up the struggle where the mother dropped it, and

sustained it until the boy could go into the fields and earn a mean living
for himself, at which point she drowned herself, leaving a quaint note
in which she stated that life was too dreadful, but she hoped 'God and
Jimmy would forgive her--especially Jimmy.'
At this stage Chisley might have forgiven Jimmy, and condescended to
forget, and even indulge itself in some sentimental compassion for the
poor orphan, had the boy shown any disposition to accept these
advances kindly and with proper gratitude; but for years Jim had been
reasoning things out in a direct, childish way, and in his loneliness he
was filled with an inveterate hatred. He chose to live on as he had lived,
accepting no concessions, disguising nothing, and Chisley quite
conscientiously discovered in his sullen exclusiveness and his vicious
dislike of worthy men the workings of homicidal blood, and accepted
him as an enemy of society.
Early in his teens Jim recognised the value of brute strength and human
guile in his dealings with the youth of Chisley, and set himself to work
to cultivate his physical qualities. All that the pugilists and wrestlers
could teach him he picked up with extraordinary quickness, and to the
arts thus acquired he added cunning tricks of offence and defence of his
own contriving. He had a peculiar aptitude for wrestling and pugilism,
delighted secretly in his strength and swiftness, and would walk five
miles to plunge like a porpoise in the stormy sea.
He had submitted to much in his joyless youth, but now, conscious of
his strength and expertness in battle, he set himself deliberately to defy
his enemies and resent with force of arms every encroachment upon his
liberty, every insolence. There was a sudden epidemic of black eyes
amongst the youth of the village; cut faces, broken ribs, and noses of
abnormal size served the heirs of Chisley as stinging reminders of the
old shame and the new courage and