In Clives Command | Page 8

in a low tone.
"Everything I do offends him. I went to see General Clive; I wished to;
that is enough for Dick. Mother, I am sick of it all."
"Never mind, dear. A little patience. Dick doesn't understand you. You
should humor him, Desmond."
"Haven't I tried, mother? Haven't I? But what is the use? He treats me
worse than any carter on the farm. I drudge for him, and he bullies me,
miscalls me before the men, thrashes me--oh, mother! I can't endure it
any longer. Let me go away, anywhere; anything would be better than
this!"
Desmond was quivering with pain and indignation; only with difficulty
did he keep back the tears.
"Hush, Desmond!" said his mother. "Dick will hear you. You are tired
out, dear boy; go to bed; things will look brighter in the morning. Only
have patience. Good night, my son."
Desmond kissed his mother and went to his room. But it was long
before he slept. His bruised body found no comfort; his head throbbed;
his soul was filled with resentment and the passionate longing for
release.

His life had not been very happy. He barely remembered his father--a
big, keen-eyed, loud-voiced old man--who died when his younger son
was four years old. Richard Burke had run away from his Irish home to
sea. He served on Admiral Rooke's flagship at the battle of La Hogue,
and, rising in the navy to the rank of warrant officer, bought a ship with
the savings of twenty years and fitted it out for unauthorized trade with
the East Indies. His daring, skill, and success attracted the attention of
the officers of the Company. He was invited to enter the Company's
service. As captain of an Indiaman he sailed backwards and forwards
for ten years; then at the age of fifty retired with a considerable fortune
and married the daughter of a Shropshire farmer. The death of his
wife's relatives led him to settle on the farm their family had tenanted
for generations, and it was at Wilcote Grange that his three children
were born.
Fifteen years separated the elder son from the younger; between them
came a daughter, who married early and left the neighborhood. Four
years after Desmond's birth the old man died, leaving the boy to the
guardianship of his brother.
There lay the seed of trouble. No brothers could have been more unlike
than the two sons of Captain Burke. Richard was made on a large and
powerful scale; he was hard working, methodical, grasping, wholly
unimaginative, and in temper violent and domineering. Slighter and
less robust, though not less healthy, Desmond was a boy of vivid
imagination, high strung, high spirited, his feelings easily moved, his
pride easily wounded. His brother was too dull and stolid to understand
him, taking for deliberate malice what was but boyish mischief, and
regarding him as sullen when he was only dreamily thoughtful.
As a young boy Desmond kept as much as possible out of his brother's
way. But as he grew older he came more directly under Richard's
control, with the result that they were now in a constant state of feud.
Their mother, a woman of sweet temper but weak will, favored her
younger son in secret; she learned by experience that open intervention
on his behalf did more harm than good.
Desmond had two habits which especially moved his brother to anger.

He was fond of roaming the country alone for hours together; he was
fond of reading. To Richard each was a waste of time. He never opened
a book, save a manual of husbandry or a ready reckoner; he could
conceive of no reason for walking, unless it were the business of the
farm. Nothing irritated him more than to see Desmond stretched at
length with his nose in Mr. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, or a volume of
Hakluyt's Voyages, or perhaps Mr. Oldys's Life of Sir Walter Raleigh.
And as he himself never dreamed by day or by night, there was no
chance of his divining the fact that Desmond, on those long solitary
walks of his, was engaged chiefly in dreaming, not idly, for in his
dreams he was always the center of activity, greedy for doing.
These daydreams constituted almost the sole joy of Desmond's life.
When he was only a little fellow he would sprawl on the bank near
Tyrley Castle and weave romances about the Norman barons whose
home it had been--romances in which he bore a strenuous part. He
knew every interesting spot in the neighborhood: Salisbury Hill, where
the Yorkist leader pitched his camp before the battle of Blore Heath;
Audley Brow, where Audley the Lancastrian lay watching his foe;
above all Styche Hall, whence a former Clive had ridden forth to battle
against the king,