th a backward kick of his left foot
sent the embryo assassin sprawling on his back on the top of the fire,
whence Tom dragged him by his heels, far more astonished than burnt.
The other two men had, meanwhile, sat taking no notice, or seeming to
take none, of the disturbance. Now, however, one of them spoke, and
said,--

"I'm sure, sir, you didn't hear me say nothing wrong to the young
gent," and so on, in a whining tone, till Tom cut him short by saying
that, "if he had any more nonsense among them, he would send 'em all
three over to Captain Desborough, to the tune of fifty (lashes)
a-piece."

After this little EMEUTE Charles did not dare to go into the huts, and
soon after these three men were exchanged. But there remained one man
whose conversation and teaching, though not, perhaps, so openly
outrageously villanous as that of the worthy Harvey, still had a very
unfortunate effect on his character.

This was a rather small, wiry, active man, by name Jackson, a native,
colonially convicted, very clever among horses, a capital light-weight
boxer, and in running superb, a pupil and PROTEGE of the immortal
"flying pieman," (May his shadow never be less!) a capital cricketer,
and a supreme humbug. This man, by his various accomplishments and
great tact, had won a high place in Tom Troubridge's estimation, and
was put in a place of trust among the horses; consequently having
continual access to Charles, to whom he made himself highly agreeable,
as being heir to the property; giving him such insights into the worst
side of sporting life, and such truthful accounts of low life in
Sydney, as would have gone far to corrupt a lad of far stronger moral
principle than he.

And so, between this teaching of evil and neglect of good, Mary
Hawker's boy did not grow up all that might be desired. And at
seventeen, I am sorry to say, he got into a most disreputable connexion
with a Highland girl, at one of the Donovans' out-station huts; which
caused his kindly guardian, Tom Troubridge, a great deal of vexation,
and his mother the deepest grief, which was much increased at the same
time by something I will relate in the next chapter.

So sixteen years rolled peacefully away, chequered by such trifling
lights and shadows as I have spoken of. The new generation, the
children of those whom we knew at first, are now ready to take their
places, and bear themselves with more or less credit in what may be
going on. And now comes a perio