“... and 'e's taken everything, 'e 'as. All the silver candlesticks and the plate what was give to master by the Temp'rance Society, and Master Jeremy's mug what he 'ad at 'is christening and all the knives and forks--'e 'as--and the gold clock out o' the drorin'-room, and the mess! Why, I says to Cook 'e couldn't 'ave made more mess, I say, not if 'e'd come to do nothin' else. Grease everywhere, you never see nothin' like it, and all the drawers open and the papers scattered about. Thank 'Eaven 'e never found Cook's earrings. Real gold they was, ever so many carat and give to Cook ever so many years ago by 'er John. Poor woman! She'd 'ave been in a terrible takin' if she'd lost 'em... And so quiet too--not a sound and everyone sleepin' all round 'im. Wonderful 'ow they does it! I thank the Lord I didn't 'ear 'im; I'd 'ave died of fright-shouldn't like! Why, Cook says she knew a 'ouse once...” But Jeremy did not listen, he did not care. As Hamlet sprang about him and licked his hand he thought of one thing alone. The Captain was gone! The Captain was gone! He was free! The Captain had not taken him, and he was free at last! CHAPTER VI. FAMILY PRIDE I I am afraid that too great a part of this book is about old maids, but it is hard for anyone who knows only the thriving bustling world of today to realise how largely we children were hemmed in and surrounded by a proper phalanx of elderly single ladies and clergymen. I don't believe that we were any the worse for that, and to such heroines as Miss Jane Maple, Miss Mary Trefusis and old Miss Jessamin Trenchard, I here publicly acknowledge deep and lasting debt-but it did make our life a little monotonous, a little unadventurous, a little circumscribed -and because T am determined to give the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the year of Jeremy's life that I am describing, this book will also, I am afraid, be a little circumscribed, a little unadventurous. The elderly lady who most thoroughly circumscribed Jeremy was, of course--putting Miss Jones, who was a governess and therefore did not count, aside--Aunt Amy. Now Aunt Amy was probably the most conceited woman in Polchester. There is of course ordinary human conceit, of which every living being has his or her share. I am not speaking of that; Miss Amy Trefusis might be said to be fanatically conceited. Although she was now a really plain elderly woman it is possible that when she was a little girl she was pretty. In any case, it is certain that she was spoiled when she was a little girl, and because she was delicate and selfish she received a good deal more attention and obedience from weak and vacillating elders than she deserved.