Both Major Buckley and Captain Brentwood made it a law of the Medes and Persians that neither of their sons should hold any conversation with the convict servants, save in the presence of competent authorities; and, indeed, they both, as soon as increased emigration enabled them, removed their old household servants, and replaced them by free men, newly arrived: a lazy independent class, certainly, with exaggerated notions of their own importance in this new phase of their life, but without the worse vices of the convicts. This rule, even in such well-regulated households, was a very hard one to get observed, even under flogging penalties; and, indeed, formed the staple affliction of poor thoughtless Jim's early life, as this little anecdote will show:-- One day going to see Captain Brentwood, when Jim was about ten years old, I met that young gentleman (looking, I thought, a little out of sorts) about two hundred yards from the house. He turned with me to go back, and, after the first salutations, I said,-- "Well, Jim, my boy, I hope you've been good since I saw you last?" "Oh dear, no," was the answer, with a shake of the head that meant volumes. "I'm sorry to hear that; what is the matter?" "I've been CATCHING it," said Jim, in a whisper, coming close alongside of me. "A tea-stick as thick as my forefinger all over."--Here he entered into particulars, which, however harmless in themselves, were not of a sort usually written in books. "That's a bad job," I said; "what was it for?" "Why, I slipped off with Jerry to look after some colts on the black swamp, and was gone all the afternoon; and so Dad missed me; and when I got home didn't I CATCH IT! Oh lord, I'm all over blue wales; but that ain't the worst." "What's the next misfortune?" I inquired. "Why, when he got hold of me he said, 'Is this the first time you have been away with Jerry, sir?' and I said, 'Yes' (which was the awfullest lie ever you heard, for I went over to Barker's with him two days before); then he said, 'Well, I must believe you if you say so. I shall not disgrace you by making inquiries among the men;' and then he gave it to me for going that time, and since then I've felt like Cain and Abel for telling him such a lie. What would you do,--eh?" "I should tell him all about it," I said. "Ah, but then I shall catch it again, don't you see! Hadn't I better wait till these wales are gone down?" "I wouldn't, if I were you," I answered; "I'd tell him at once." "I wonder why he is so particular," said Jim; "the Delisles and the Donovans spend as much of their time in the huts as they do in the house." "And fine young blackguards they'll turn out," I said; in which I was right in those two instances. And although I have seen young fellows brought up among convicts who have turned out respectable in the end, yet it is not a promising school for good citizens.