I listened, but I thought with myself a man might do all that, and be no great man. I would do something better—some fine deed or other—I did not know what now, but I should find out by-and-by. My uncle was too easily pleased: I should demand more of a great man. Not so did the knights of old gain their renown. I was silent.
‘I don’t want you to take my opinions as yours, you know, Willie,’ my uncle resumed. ‘But I want you to remember what my opinion is.’
As he spoke, he went to a drawer in the room, and brought out something which he put in my hands. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was the watch grannie had given me.
‘There,’ he said, ‘is your father’s watch. Let it keep you in mind that to be good is to be great.’
‘Oh, thank you, uncle!’ I said, heeding only my recovered treasure. ‘But didn’t it belong to somebody before my father? Grannie gave it me as if it had been hers.’
‘Your grandfather gave it to your father; but when he died, your great-grandmother took it. Did she tell you anything about it?’
‘Nothing particular. She said it was her husband’s.’
‘So it was, I believe.’
‘She used to call him my father.’
‘Ah, you remember that!’