Their father, had you asked them they would all have replied with considerable pride, was "a military man," and much from home.

He did not understand children at all, and was always grumbling at the noise they made, and the money they cost.
Still, I think he was rather proud of Pip, and sometimes, if Nellie were prettily dressed, he would take her out with him in his dogcart.
He had offered to send the six of them to boarding school when he brought home his young girl-wife, but she would not hear of it.
At first they had tried living in the barracks, but after a time every one in the officers' quarters rose in revolt at the pranks of those graceless children, so Captain Woolcot took a house some distance up the Parramatta River, and in considerable bitterness of spirit removed his family there.
They liked the change immensely; for there was a big wilderness of a garden, two or three paddocks, numberless sheds for hide-and-seek, and, best of all, the water.

Their father kept three beautiful horses, one at he barracks and a hunter and a good hack at Misrule; so, to make up, the children--not that they cared in the slightest--went about in shabby, out-at-elbow clothes, and much-worn boots.

They were taught--all but Pip, who went to the grammar school--by a very third-class daily governess, who lived in mortal fear of her ignorance being found out by her pupils.

As a matter of fact, they had found her out long ago, as children will, but it suited them very well not to be pushed on and made to work, so they kept the fact religiously to themselves..