ow," he said to his exasperated mother. He had
too low an opinion of himself. But he went about at his work on
the farm gladly enough, glad of the active labour and the smell
of the land again, having youth and vigour and humour, and a
comic wit, having the will and the power to forget his own
shortcomings, finding himself violent with occasional rages, but
usually on good terms with everybody and everything.

When he was seventeen, his father fell from a stack and broke
his neck. Then the mother and son and daughter lived on at the
farm, interrupted by occasional loud-mouthed lamenting,
jealous-spirited visitations from the butcher Frank, who had a
grievance against the world, which he felt was always giving him
less than his dues. Frank was particularly against the young
Tom, whom he called a mardy baby, and Tom returned the hatred
violently, his face growing red and his blue eyes staring. Effie
sided with Tom against Frank. But when Alfred came, from
Nottingham, heavy jowled and lowering, speaking very little, but
treating those at home with some contempt, Effie and the mother
sided with him and put Tom into the shade. It irritated the
youth that his elder brother should be made something of a hero
by the women, just because he didn't live at home and was a
lace-designer and almost a gentleman. But Alfred was something
of a Prometheus Bound, so the women loved him. Tom came later to
understand his brother better.

As youngest son, Tom felt some importance when the care of
the farm devolved on to him. He was only eighteen, but he was
quite capable of doing everything his father had done. And of
course, his mother remained as centre to the house.

The young man grew up very fresh and alert, with zest for
every moment of life. He worked and rode and drove to market, he
went out with companions and got tipsy occasionally and played
skittles and went to the little travelling theatres. Once, when
he was drunk at a public house, he went upstairs with a
prostitute who seduced him. He was then nineteen.

The thing was something of a shock to him. In the close
intimacy of the farm kitchen, the woman occupied the supreme
position. The men deferred to her in the house, on all household
points, on all points of morality and behaviour. The woman was
the symbol for that further life which comprised religion and
love and morality. The men placed in her hands their own
conscience, they said to her "Be my conscience-keeper, be