Page:Memorials of Capt. Hedley Vicars, Ninety-seventh Regiment by Marsh, Catherine, 1818-1912.djvu/18

12 ley, refusing to enter into the spirit of the little circle, would contribute nothing but "Remember Lot's wife."

On one occasion, being reproved by his mother for light conduct at family worship, he walked off during the prayer, and ensconced himself in a little cave in the garden, barricading it with the determination of spending the night there, by way of punishing his mother for reproving him in the presence of the assembled family. But after a time his better nature was touched by the entreaties and caresses of his little sisters, and he returned, softened and penitent, to ask and obtain forgiveness.

Once, at the end of the holidays, when he was told to pack up his box for school, resolving to put off the evil day as long as possible, he paid no attention to his mother's repeated injunctions until they became positive commands, no longer to be disregarded. Then he walked away to his room, with an air of insulted dignity, and soon called out, "Mother, my box is packed." On opening the door of her room, she found the box placed there, loosely corded and packed, indeed, but with the housemaid's dust-pan and brushes, and a collection of old boots, shells, stones, and all sorts of rubbish, with which a few of Mrs. Vicars's favourite books were irreverently jumbled; the boy, meanwhile, hanging over the bannisters, humming a careless tune, calmly viewed a displeasure, the dignity of which it was not easy to preserve.

Yet in spite of these and similar exhibitions of waywardness, he never caused his mother serious anxiety in his boyhood, or gave lasting pain to that tender heart, ever knit to his own by the fondest affection.

She was for some years the only guardian of his childhood. Loss of health obliged her to return to England with her children, whilst their father was