a small sum of ready money--these things to be his when he
attained his majority. His mother and sister, who lived in a little
country house down in Huntingdonshire, were modestly but securely
provided for, and Will might have gone quietly on with his studies
till he could resolve upon a course in life. But no sooner was he
freed from paternal restraint than the lad grew restive; nothing
would please him but an adventure in foreign lands; and when it
became clear that he was only wasting his time at school, Mrs.
Warburton let him go to the West Indies, where a place was found for
him in the house of Sherwood Brothers. At St. Kitts, Will remained
till he was one-and-twenty. Long before that, he had grown heartily
tired of his work disgusted with the climate, and oppressed with
home sickness, but pride forbade him to return until he could do so
as a free man.

One thing this apprenticeship to life had taught him--that he was
not made for subordination. "I don't care how poor I am," thus he
wrote to his mother, "but I will be my own master. To be at other
people's orders brings out all the bad in me; it makes me sullen and
bearish, and all sorts of ugly things, which I certainly am not when
my true self has play. So, you see, I must find some independent way
of life. If I had to live by carrying round a Punch and Judy show, I
should vastly prefer it to making a large income as somebody's
servant."

Meanwhile, unfortunately for a young man of this temperament, his
prospects had become less assured. There was perturbation in the
sugar world; income from St. Kitts and from Whitechapel had sensibly
diminished, and it seemed but too likely, would continue to do so.
For some half-year Will lived in London, "looking about him," then