Malcolm wasn’t so sure. Far from toughening him up, it had only made Malcolm—the eldest son, the one upon whom everyone’s hopes rested—afraid; he was conscious all the time of his own weakness, flinching every moment at the blow about to fall.

John had often seemed, if not to admire their father, then at least to understand him better. However many times he was clipped hard round the ear or shoved up against the wall (and perhaps, Malcolm thought later, he was exaggerating the frequency of these incidents in his own memory), John was never resentful. It sometimes seemed to be a point of pride with him, how well he could take it, how little he held it against their father. You might think that if their father had loved anyone (and how strange it seemed to use that word in relation to him), it would have been John, who was so silent and stoical, who even as a young boy never seemed to cry, and whose desire to please their father radiated from him. But their father had been impervious to this. He was disappointed with how small John was, how skinny and weak. “Lucky the croft won’t be going to him,” he would say. “He’s scarce stronger than one of the sheep.”

“Leave him be, Jack,” their mother would say mildly. “Give him a chance to grow.” This was the furthest she ever went in defending her younger son, and in any case she didn’t hold much sway over her husband.