The hermit put his hand on the boy's head, and looked kindly in his sunburnt face.
"Boy," he said, "never be ashamed to shed an honest tear. It is nature's way of showing that the heart is in the right place. As to partings, they are always sad, and one of the joys of heaven will rest on the fact that there won't be any more partings. You mind what the hymn says:[[1]]
"'A few short years of evil past,
We reach the happy shore,
Where death-divided friends at last
Shall meet to part no more'.
[[1]] 1 Thessalonians, iv. 13 to the end.
"But come on, Creggan, and have dinner, I've something very nice, and then I'll tell you stories. Ah, we'll all be happy yet!"
But Creggan had another sad grief to face that evening.
It will be remembered that Nugent had not only promised to get him a cadetship for the Royal Navy—if he could pass the examinations,—but, if appointed to a small ship, work the oracle so that he might take poor Oscar with him.
Well, as the boy and his foster-father sat by the fire with the collie between:
"I'm so pleased you're going to the service, lad," the hermit said. "Oh, there's nothing like a life on the ocean wave, and I've sailed the seas so long that dearly do I love it. I'm gladder still to think that from the pile I made at the gold-diggings and pearl fisheries, I can make you a comfortable allowance. Bah! what is the dross to me, and it will be all yours when I am gone."
"Oh, don't talk of death, Daddy; though you are gray you are not old."