s 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 power of Jim o' Mill End, that being
the name given to the boy in accordance with an awkward provincial custom
of identifying a man with his property, the situation of his residence,
or some peculiarity of manner.

On one occasion the lad fell upon a hobbledehoy who had just given a
highly diverting pantomime representing the hanging of a man, with
realistic details, and, having beaten him in fair fight, broke his
collar-bone with an atrocious fall. For this outrage Jim o' Mill End was
called upon to answer to the law, and, the answer he had to give being
considered wholly unsatisfactory, Jim was sent to gaol for a term of
days.

Chisley, if Slow to discover its mistakes, was not wholly imbecile; it
learned in time to respect the fists of Jim o' Mill End, and now hated
him quite heartily for the restraint imposed. But Jim derives little
satisfaction from his triumph; Chisley conquered him by stupid
submission. His physical superiority won him nothing but immunity from
open insult; the young men and their elders were careful to give him no
reasonable opportunity of asserting the rights of man in their teeth with
a dexterous left, and Jim was now beyond disputing with children. The
unhappy boy was not deceived by the new attitude his neighbours had
assumed towards him. He saw an increased dislike behind the stolid,
animal-like faces that met him everywhere, and felt that silence was
worse than insult, more galling than blows. He detected jeers