There was a small
vein of obstinacy in my disposition that would have been very likely
to carry me through in such a determination, even had my mother lived,
though deference to her wishes would certainly have carried me as far
as the license. Even now she was no more, I was anxious to ascertain
whether she had left any directions or requests on the subject, either
of which would have been laws to me. I talked with Rupert on this
matter, and was a little shocked with the levity with which he treated
it. "What difference can it make to your parents, _now_," he
said, with an emphasis that grated on my nerves, "whether you become a
lawyer, or a merchant, or a doctor, or stay here on your farm, and be
a farmer, like your father?"
"My father had been a sailor," I answered, quick as lightning.
"True; and a noble, manly, gentleman-like calling it is! I never see
a sailor that I do not envy him his advantages. Why, Miles, neither
of us has ever been in town even, while your mother's boatmen, or your
own, as they are now, go there regularly once a-week. I would give the
world to be a sailor."
"You, Rupert! Why, you know that your father in tends, or, rather,
wishes that you should become a clergyman."
"A pretty appearance a young man of my figure would make in the
pulpit, Miles, or wearing a surplice.
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