e is occupied by teaching, and I cannot
expect, nor do I wish, that he should sit moping indoors all day. He
had far better be out in the boats with the fishermen, than be hanging
about the place doing nothing. If anything happened to me, before he is
started in life, there would be nothing for him but to take to the sea.
I am laying by a little money every month, and if I live for another
year there will be enough to buy him a fishing boat and nets. I trust
that it may not come to that, but I see nothing derogatory in his
earning an honest living with his own hands. He will always be
something better than a common fisherman. The education I have striven
to give him, and his knowledge that he was born a gentleman, will nerve
him to try and rise.

"As to what you say about mischief, so far as I know all boys are
mischievous. I know that my own brothers were always getting into
scrapes, and I have no doubt, Mr. Allanby, that when you look back upon
your own boyhood, you will see that you were not an exception to the
general rule."

Mr. Allanby smiled. He had come rather against his own inclinations;
but his wife had urged him to speak to Mrs. Walsham, her temper being
ruffled by the disappearance of two favourite pigeons, whose loss she,
without a shadow of evidence, most unjustly put down to James Walsham.

The parson was by no means strict with his flock. He was a tall man,
inclined to be portly, a good shot and an ardent fisherman; and
although he did not hunt, he was frequently seen on his brown cob at
the meet, whenever it took place within a reasonable distance of
Sidmouth; and without exactly following the hounds, his knowledge of
the country often enabled him to see more of the hunt than those who
did.

As Mrs. Walsham spoke, the memory of his old school and college days
came across him.

"That is the argumentum ad hominem, Mrs. Walsham, and when a lady takes
to that we can say no more. You know I like your boy. There is much
that is good in him; but it struck me that you were letting him run a
little too wild. However, there is much in what you say, and I don't
believe that he is concerned in half the mischief that he gets credit
for. Still, you must remember that a little of the curb, just a little,
is good for us all. It spoils a horse to be always tugging at his
mouth, but he will go very badly if he does not feel that there is a
hand on the reins.

"I have said the same thing to the squire. He spoils