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,