“It’s going to be his own choice, his profession is,” he went on. “He’s got to settle that for himself. But I know this much—anything he undertakes, he’ll make a success of. He’ll carry it out to the last inch. He’s a wonder, Hal is. Ah, a fellow to warm the heart! He’s none of your mollycoddles, in spite of all the high marks and prizes he’s taken. No, no, nothing at all of the molly-coddle.”
The captain’s face lighted up with pride and joy and a profound eagerness.
“There isn’t anything that boy can’t do, doctor,” he continued. “Athletics and all that; and he’s gone in for some of the hardest studies, too, and beaten men that don’t do anything but get round-shouldered over books. He’s taken work outside the regular course—strange Eastern languages, doctor. I hear there never was a boy like Hal. You don’t wonder I’ve been sitting here all afternoon with my old spy-glass, do you?”
“Indeed I don’t,” Filhiol answered, a note of envy in his feeble voice. “You’ve had your troubles, just as we all have, but you’ve got something still to live for, and that’s more than I can say. You’ve got everything, everything! It never worked out on you, after all, the curse—the black curse that was put on you fifty years ago. It was all nonsense, of course, and I knew it wouldn’t. All that stuff is pure superstition and humbug—”
“Of course! Why, you don’t believe such rubbish! I’ve lived that all down half a lifetime ago. Two or three times, when death took away those I loved, I thought maybe the curse of old Dengan Jouga was really striking me, but it wasn’t. For that curse said everything I loved would be taken away, and there was always something left to live for; and even when I’d been as hard hit as a man ever was, almost, after a while I could get my bearings again and make sail and keep along on my course. Because, you see, I always had Hal to love and pin my hopes to. I’ve got him now. He’s all I’ve got—but, God! how wonderfully much he is!”
“Yes, yes, you’re quite right,” the doctor answered. “He must be a splendid chap, all round. What does he look like?”
“I’m going to answer you in a peculiar way,” said Briggs. “That boy, sir, that grandson of mine, he’s the living spit and image of what I was, fifty-five or sixty years ago!”
“Eh, what? What’s that you say?”
“It’s wonderful, I tell you, to see the resemblance. His father—my son—didn’t show it at all. A fine, handsome man he was, doctor, and a good man, too. Everybody liked him; he never did a bad thing in his life. He sailed a straight course, and went under his own canvas, all the way; and I loved him for an honest, upright man. But he wasn’t brilliant. He never set the world on fire. He was just a plain, good, average man.