“No,” the squire replied, “of course you can tell her what’s in it; but I will keep the letter myself.  I would give a good deal if he had not written it.  It is certainly badly worded, though why he should feel any malice, towards the other, is more than I can tell.”

His companion was about to speak, but thought better of it, and, without another word, went to break the news to Mrs. Walsham.

Mrs. Walsham was terribly upset.  After suffering her to cry for some time in silence, Mr. Wilks said: 

“My dear madam, I know that this news must distress you terribly; but it may be that in this, as in all things, a providence has overruled your plans for your son, for his own good.  I will tell you now what you would never have known had this affair never occurred.  Jim, at heart, hates his father’s profession.  He is a dutiful son and, rather than give you pain, he was prepared to sacrifice all his own feelings and wishes.  But the lad is full of life and energy.  The dull existence of a country surgeon, in a little town like this, is the last he would adopt as his own choice; and I own that I am not surprised that a lad of spirit should long for a more adventurous life.  I should have told you this long ago, and advised you that it would be well for you both to put it frankly to him that, although you would naturally like to see him following his father’s profession, still that you felt that he should choose for himself; and that, should he select any other mode of life, you would not set your wishes against his.  But the lad would not hear of my doing so.  He said that, rather than upset your cherished plans, he would gladly consent to settle down in Sidmouth for life.  I honoured him for his filial spirit; but, frankly, I think he was wrong.  An eagle is not made to live in a hen coop, nor a spirited lad to settle down in a humdrum village; and I own that, although I regret the manner of his going, I cannot look upon it as an unmixed evil, that the force of circumstances has taken him out of the course marked out for him, and that he will have an opportunity of seeing life and adventure.”

Mrs. Walsham had listened, with a surprise too great to admit of her interrupting the old soldier’s remarks.

“I never dreamed of this,” she said at last, when he ceased.  “I cannot remember, now, that I ever asked him, but I took it for granted that he would like nothing better than to follow in his father’s steps.  Had I known that he objected to it, I would not for a moment have forced him against his inclinations.  Of course it is natural that, being alone in the world, I should like to have him with me still, but I would never have been so selfish as to have sacrificed his life to mine.  Still, though it would be hard to have parted from him in any way, it is harder still to part like this.  If he was to go, he need not have gone as a common sailor.  The squire, who has done so much for him, would no doubt, instead of sending him to school, have obtained a midshipman’s berth for him, or a commission in the army; but it is dreadful to think of him as a common sailor, liable to be flogged.”