“I’ve been very hard with you. Yes—heavy load, tight rein. I was—was afraid you might slip away. And I want you to start well—to go far. You must be something better than a book-worm, like me—a broken-down surveyor of land. Eh? Yes, better than your father Godfrey, or Christopher; yes, or my brother George, the Admiral himself. Perhaps. Look to it.”
A fit of coughing interrupted him.
“No, sit there. I must talk, anyway,” he continued weakly. “Stand by. Paupers and poorhouses—I’ve always talked those at you, haven’t I? Why, boy? Because I was a miser. We kept lighthouse—for money. That doesn’t matter; but the worst is—” A faint flush had stolen into his hollow cheeks. “The worst is, I even kept this half-breed fellow—God knows who he may be; he’s no friend of Christopher’s—I saw that in the first week, but I took his money. Hard—but I hated—oh yes, disgusting—a shame!”
With a stifled, inarticulate sound, the speaker paused, and closed his eyes for a time, then bent them on Miles in a timid appeal.
“Miser, that’s the word. But—I was saving everything, good and bad—saving for the fund, for your start. I taught you as far as I could. Now promise me you’ll go farther. Out—away from here—the world—study—work. There’s enough for a year, perhaps two. All yours—black and white—my box. You must use it well—came hard. Say you’re not ashamed of me!”
The distance between age and youth, the mist of self, the vague screen dividing their daily lives, were annihilated. In sudden wisdom and contrition, Miles bent his head beside this man whom he had never known before.
“Ashamed?” he cried, dimly measuring the sacrifice. “Ashamed? Oh, grandfather!”
“Come, come, then!” Something of the testy, hard old voice returned for the instant. “Come, then, it’s all right. What did the old preacher say, that they burned? ‘It’s given to no man to choose the time or manner of his death.’ Not a case of Nunc Dimittis, I’m not allowed to see it through. What of that? At least—Call the thing unfinished—a man cut down in hot blood—doesn’t feel it—Only, you must start. Your half begins. I want you—take it all. I never could use fine words!—Go find what you’re good for.”
Miles nodded, but could not speak. Shame and wonder contended in him, at thought of his own blindness all these years: he had considered his grandfather as a grim, silent man, preoccupied with gloomy fear of the future. Revelation had come: the spent runner now resolutely passed on the torch, and Miles trembled at his unworthiness to receive it from such hands.
“One thing more,” continued the old man, stirring uneasily. “What was this Ella said, t’other day, about sweethearts, or some nonsense? Did she mean—Is there—”