Formerly, his anger had been a thing very easily and frequently aroused.
Since the change of which I speak, I have never known the shade of anger
to cross his face but once. In the course of a walk, one day, we came
upon a young rough terrifying a small child by pretending to set a dog at
her. He seized the boy with a grip that almost choked him, and
administered to him a punishment that seemed to me altogether out of
proportion to the crime, brutal though it was.
"I remonstrated with him when he rejoined me.
"'Yes,' he replied apologetically; 'I suppose I'm a hard judge of some
follies.' And, knowing what his haunted eyes were looking at, I said no
more.
"He was junior partner in a large firm of tea brokers in the City. There
was not much for him to do in the London office, and when, therefore, as
the result of some mortgage transactions, a South Indian tea plantation
fell into the hands of the firm, it was suggested that he should go out
and take the management of it. The plan suited him admirably. He was a
man in every way qualified to lead a rough life; to face a by no means
contemptible amount of difficulty and danger, to govern a small army of
native workers more amenable to fear than to affection. Such a life,
demanding thought and action, would afford his strong nature greater
interest and enjoyment than he could ever hope to obtain amid the cramped
surroundings of civilisation.
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