This silent rebuke was worth a thousand homilies; it powerfully affected the whole congregation; and from that moment, the minister, though usually cold and reserved, completely won the esteem of my mother. To consult him on my affairs, we repaired to the manse, which was a handsome and comfortable modern villa, separated from the village church by an orchard and the humble burying-ground, in which "the rude forefathers of the hamlet slept." We were speedily ushered into his presence in a snugly-curtained, richly-carpeted, and fashionably-furnished room, which was so large, that our little cottage might have stood within it altogether. He received us rather kindly than politely, as he had a great esteem for my mother, though, since the advent of the felonious appropriation of a dozen of golden pippins and the slaughter of his best-laying hen, none whatever for me; and while he reclined in an easy-chair and played with a large bunch of gold seals in one hand, or polished his bald head impatiently with the other, my mother, in a voice that was rendered tremulous by her maternal love and anxiety, briefly stated her wishes "concerning her boy Oliver."
After letting her relate her own story unaided, he rather sharply asked me what views I had for myself.
I glanced timidly at my mother; for although now nearly sixteen, I felt like a child in her presence; and at that moment, the influences of her faded cheek, her widow's cap, with its modest crimping, and her sweet sad face, were not lost upon me, though my proud spirit writhed under the humiliation of consulting even such a parish potentate as the minister, concerning me or my affairs.
"What views have you for yourself, sir?" reiterated the minister.
"I wish to be—to be——" I stammered and paused.
"What, sir—speak out!" continued the divine, authoritatively.
"Well, then, I wish to be a soldier."
"A soldier—whew!" he reiterated, with a tinge of surprise and contempt in his tone.
"Like my father before me."
"And leave your poor mother alone in her old age, you ungrateful loon! you should add that," he added, bending his stern grey eyes angrily upon me.