Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

child so susceptible of flattery as she was. Whatever was wrong, in either her or her brother, he would encourage by laughing at, if not by actually praising; and people little know the injury they do to children by laughing at their faults, and making a pleasant jest of what their true friends have endeavoured to teach them to hold in grave abhorrence.
    Though not a positive drunkard, Mr. Robson habitually swallowed great quantities of wine, and took with relish an occasional glass of brandy and water. He taught his nephew to imitate him in this to the utmost of his ability, 1 and to believe that the more wine and spirits he could take, and the better he liked them, the more he manifested his bold and manly spirit, and rose superior to his sisters. Mr. Bloomfield had not much to say against it, for his favourite beverage was gin and water, of which he took a considerable portion every day, by dint of constant sipping—and to that, I chiefly attributed his dingy complexion and waspish temper.
    Mr. Robson likewise encouraged Tom’s propensity to persecute the lower creation, both by precept and example. As he frequently came to course or shoot over his brother-in-law’s grounds, he would bring his favourite dogs with him, and he treated them so brutally that, poor as I was, I would have given a sovereign any day to see one of them bite him, provided the animal could have done it with impunity. Sometimes, when in a very complacent mood, he would go a bird-nesting with the children, a thing that irritated and annoyed me exceedingly, as, by frequent and persevering attempts, I flattered myself I had partly shown them the evil of this pastime, and hoped, in time, to bring them to some general sense of justice and humanity; but ten minutes’ bird-nesting with uncle Robson, or even a laugh from him at some relation of their former barbarities, was sufficient, at once, to destroy the effect of my whole elaborate course of reasoning and persuasion. Happily, however, during that Spring, they never, but once, got anything but empty nests, or eggs—being too impatient to leave them till the birds were hatched; that once, Tom, who had been with his uncle into the neighbouring plantation, came running in high glee into the garden with a brood of little callow nestlings in his hands.
    Mary Ann and Fanny, whom I was just bringing out, ran to admire his spoils, and to beg each a bird for themselves.
    “No, not one!” cried Tom. “They’re all mine. Uncle Robson gave them to me—one, two, three, four, five—you shan’t touch one of them! no, not one for your lives!” continued he, exultantly, laying the nest on the ground, and standing over it, with his legs wide apart, his hands thrust into his breeches-pockets, his body bent forward, and his face twisted into all manner of contortions in the ecstacy of his delight.
    “But you shall see me fettle ‘em off. r My word, but I will wallop ’em! See if I don’t now! By gum! but there’s rare sport for me in that nest.”
    “But, Tom,” said I. “I shall not allow you to torture those birds. They must either be killed at once, or carried back to the place you took them from, that the old birds may continue to feed them.”
    “But you don’t know where that is, madam. It’s only me and uncle Robson that knows that.”
    “But if you don’t tell me, I shall kill them myself—much as I hate it.”
    “You daren’t. You daren’t touch them for your life! because you know papa and mamma, and uncle Robson would be angry. Ha, hah! I’ve caught you there, Miss!”
    “I shall do what I think right in a case of this sort, without consulting any one. If your papa and mamma don’t happen to approve of it, I shall be sorry to offend them, but your uncle Robson’s opinions, of course, are nothing to me.”
    So saying—urged by a sense of duty—at the risk of both making myself sick, and incurring the wrath of my employers—I got a large flat stone, that had been reared up for a