'Yes, but he's just like his looks. The first thing he'll do the next morning after I go home, will be to take me into his office, or shop, as he calls it, and get down his books, and show me how many barrels of herring I owe him, with the price of each. To do him justice, he only charges me wholesale.'
'What'll he do that for?'
'To urge on me the necessity of diligence, and the choice of a profession,' answered Ericson, with a smile of mingled sadness and irresolution. 'He will set forth what a loss the interest of the money is, even if I should pay the principal; and remind me that although he has stood my friend, his duty to his own family imposes limits. And he has at least a couple of thousand pounds in the county bank. I don't believe he would do anything for me but for the honour it will be to the family to have a professional man in it. And yet my father was the making of him.'
'Tell me about your father. What was he?'
'A gentle-minded man, who thought much and said little. He farmed the property that had been his father's own, and is now leased by my fishy cousin afore mentioned.'
'And your mother?'
'She died just after I was born, and my father never got over it.'
'And you have no brothers or sisters?'
'No, not one. Thank God for your grandmother, and do all you can to please her.'
A silence followed, during which Robert's heart swelled and heaved with devotion to Ericson; for notwithstanding his openness, there was a certain sad coldness about him that restrained Robert from letting out all the tide of his love. The silence became painful, and he broke it abruptly.