As a result, out of the Squire's long and indulgent care of a lad who grew up a very competent carpenter, and gradually more and more an idle drunkard, Peter had come to overestimate the power of his claim on Penhallow.

What share in his evil qualities his father's drunkenness had, is in no man's power to say.

His desire to revenge the slightest ill-treatment or the abuse his evil ways earned had the impelling force of a brute instinct.

What he called "getting even" kept him in difficulties, and when he made things unpleasant or worse for the offenders, his constant state of induced indifference to consequences left him careless and satisfied.

When there was not enough whisky to be had, his wild acts of revengeful malice were succeeded by such childlike terror as Penhallow's words produced.