That which gained him the imputation was the fact that
his nature was without a particle of the aggressive, and all its
defensive of as purely negative a character as was possible. Had he
been a dog, he would never have thought of doing anything for his
own protection beyond turning up his four legs in silent appeal to
the mercy of the heavens. He was an absolute sepulchre in the
swallowing of oppression and ill-usage. It vanished in him. There
was no echo of complaint, no murmur of resentment from the hollows
of that soul. The blows that fell upon him resounded not, and no
one but God remembered them.
His mother made her living as she herself best knew, with occasional
well-begrudged assistance from the parish. Her chief resource was
no doubt begging from house to house for the handful of oatmeal
which was the recognized, and, in the court of custom-taught
conscience, the legalized dole upon which every beggar had a claim;
and if she picked up at the same time a chicken, or a boy's rabbit,
or any other stray luxury, she was only following the general rule
of society, that your first duty is to take care of yourself. She
was generally regarded as a gipsy, but I doubt if she had any gipsy
blood in her veins. She was simply a tramper, with occasional fits
of localization. Her worst fault was the way she treated her son,
whom she starved apparently that she might continue able to beat
him.
The particular occasion which led to the recognition of the growing
relation between Robert and Shargar was the following.
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