“No, not a coward, Oscar—events have proved that not to be correct. For instance, no coward would have saved that child at the fire; yet they told me you fainted as soon as ’twas done. The doctor at Bulverton Hospital wrote me that he thought there was something peculiar in the formation of your brain: what happened at Swallow’s Cliff proves the same thing, and confirms my opinion of you, formed years ago—that your head would never do for climbing giddy heights, nor steer you through dangers in safety to yourself or to others. So, my boy, your sailor dream will have to be set aside.”
“It was more than a dream, it was—it was——” the boy broke down and sobbed, burying his face among the pillows of the couch.
There was silence for a while, and when Oscar looked up he saw a tear trickling down his uncle’s cheek, as he stood with his back to the fire.
“Uncle Jonathan, is that tear for me?” he asked, in wistful surprise.
“Yes, my boy; because I know what you are [p149] feeling. My life has been a silent one—too silent perhaps—but there are things that I, too, have missed in that same life. I doubt if there are many lives without the miss and the loss.”
Something prompted the boy to stretch out his hand toward his uncle, and he took it with such a warm grasp.
“Uncle, I’ll be a farmer; I’ve intended to tell you so for days—only——”
“Well, never mind, we understand each other now; and let me say this much, Oscar: the humdrum farm-life, as I’ve heard you call it behind my back”—Dr. Willett smiled somewhat sadly—“won’t be so humdrum as you think, if you make of it a life work—a something to be handled nobly, and made the most of. A tinker’s life could be hardly humdrum with that end in view.”
“If I were a tinker, no tinker beside
Should mend an old kettle like me;