212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 283
no laughing matter. When we were at Dumdum, in '36, we ate
some colt. Don't you remember Jobber's colt—Jubber of the
Horse Artillery, General? Never tasted anything more tender in
all my life. Charlotte, take Jany's hands out of the marmalade !
We are all ruined, my dears, as sure as our name is Baynes." Thus
did the mother of the family prattle on in the midst of her little
ones, and announce to them the dreadful news of impending starvation.
" General Baynes, by his carelessness, had allowed Dr. Firmin
to make away with the money over which the General had been set
as sentinel. Philip might recover from the trustee, and no doubt
would. Perhaps he would not press his claim ? My dear, what
can you expect from the son of such a father ? Depend on it,
Charlotte, no good fruit can come from a stock like that. The son
is a bad one, the father is a bad one, and your father, poor dear
soul ! is not fit to be trusted to walk the street without some one
to keep him from tumbling. Why did I allow him to go to town
without me ? We were quartered at Colchester then : and I could
not move on account of your brother M'Grigor. ' Baynes,' I said
to your father, ' as sure as I let you go away to town without me,
you will come to mischief.' And go he did, and come to mischief
he did. And through his folly, I and my poor children must go and
beg our bread in the streets—I and my seven poor robbed penniless
little ones. Oh, it's cruel, cruel !"
Indeed, one cannot fancy a more dismal prospect for this worthy
mother and wife than to see her children without provision at the
commencement of their lives, and her luckless husband robbed of
his life's earnings, and ruined just when ho was too old to work.
What was to become of them ? Now poor Charlotte thought,
with pangs of a keen remorse, how idle she had been, and how she
had snubbed her governesses, and how little she knew, and how
badly she played the piano. Oh, neglected opportunities! Oh,
remorse, now the time was past and irrecoverable ! Does any young
lady read this who, perchance, ought to be doing her lessons ? My
dear, lay down the story-book at once. Go up to your schoolroom,
and practise your piano for two hours this moment ; so that you
may be prepared to support your family, should ruin in any case
fall upon you. A great girl of sixteen, I pity Charlotte Baynes's
feelings of anguish. She can't write a very good hand ; she can
scarcely answer any question to speak of in any educational books ;
her pianoforte playing is very very so-so indeed. If she is to go
out and get a living for the family, how, in the name of goodness,
is she to set about it? What are they to do with the boys, and
the money that has been put away for Ochterlony when he goes to
college, and for Moira's commission? "Why, we can't afford to