Part 13 (1/2)

”Ah! that is a pa.s.sion, not an object. Does your ambition point in one direction? Unless it does, it is objectless.”

The youth was silent. The old man proceeded:--

”I am disposed to be severe with you, my son. There is no surer sign of feebleness than in the constant beginnings and the never performings of a mind. Know thyself, is the first lesson to learn. Is it not very childish to talk of having ambition, without knowing what to do with it?

If we have ambition, it is given to us to work with. You come to me, and declare this ambition! We confer together. Your ambition seeks for utterance. You ask, 'What sort of utterance will suit an ambition such as mine?' To answer this question, we ask, 'What are your qualities?'

Did you think, William, that I disparaged yours when I recommended the law to you as a profession?”

”No, sir! oh, no! Perhaps you overrated them. I am afraid so--I think so.”

”No, William, unfortunately, you do not think about it. If you would suffer yourself to think, you would speak a different language.”

”I can not think--I am too miserable to think!” exclaimed the youth in a burst of pa.s.sion. The old man looked surprised. He gazed with a serious anxiety into the youth's face, and then addressed him:--

”Where have you been, William, for the last three weeks? In all that time I have not seen you.”

A warm blush suffused the cheeks of the pupil. He did not immediately answer.

”Ask ME!” exclaimed a voice from behind them, which they both instantly recognised as that of Ned Hinkley, the cousin of William. He had approached them, in the earnestness of their interview, without having disturbed them. The bold youth was habited in a rough woodman's dress.

He wore a round jacket of homespun, and in his hand he carried a couple of fis.h.i.+ng-rods, which, with certain other implements, betrayed sufficiently the object of his present pursuit.

”Ask me!” said he. ”I can tell you what he's been about better than anybody else.”

”Well, Ned,” said the old man, ”what has it been? I am afraid it is your fiddle that keeps him from his Blackstone.”

”My fiddle, indeed! If he would listen to my fiddle when she speaks out, he'd be wiser and better for it. Look at him, Mr. Calvert, and say whether it's book or fiddle that's likely to make him as lean as a March pickerel in the short s.p.a.ce of three months. Only look at him, I say.”

”Truly, William, I had not observed it before, but, as Ned says, you do look thin, and you tell me you are unhappy. Hard study might make you thin, but can not make you unhappy. What is it?”

The more volatile and freespoken cousin answered for him.

”He's been shot, gran'pa, since you saw him last.”

”Shot?”

”Yes, shot!--He THINKS mortally. I think not. A flesh wound to my thinking, that a few months more will cure.”

”You have some joke at bottom, Edward,” said the old man gravely.

”Joke, sir! It's a tough joke that cudgels a plump lad into a lean one in a single season.”

”What do you mean?”

”I mean to use your own language, gran'pa. Among the lessons I got from you when you undertook to fill our heads with wisdom by applications of smartness to a very different place--among the books we sometimes read from was one of Master Ovid.”

”Ha! ha! I see what you're after. I understand the shooting. So you think that the blind boy has. .h.i.t William, eh?”

”A flesh wound as I tell you; but he thinks the bolt is in his heart.