Early in his teens 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 under the mask of dogged respect, and had passionate impulses to beat and tear, finding himself still powerless against the brutal injustice that had poisoned his life.