His disposition was a happy one, and he was a general favourite among the boatmen.  He had not, as yet, made up his mind as to his future.  His mother wanted him to follow his father’s profession.  He himself longed to go to sea, but he had promised his mother that he would never do so without her consent, and that consent he had no hope of obtaining.

The better-class people in the village shook their heads gravely over James Walsham, and prophesied no good things of him.  They considered that he demeaned himself greatly by association with the fisher boys, and more than once he had fallen into disgrace, with the more quiet minded of the inhabitants, by mischievous pranks.  His reputation that way once established, every bit of mischief in the place, which could not be clearly traced to someone else, was put down to him; and as he was not one who would peach upon others to save himself, he was seldom in a position to prove his innocence.

The parson had once called upon Mrs. Walsham, and had talked to her gravely over her son’s delinquencies, but his success had not been equal to his anticipations.  Mrs. Walsham had stood up warmly for her son.

“The boy may get into mischief sometimes, Mr. Allanby, but it is the nature of boys to do so.  James is a good boy, upright and honourable, and would not tell a lie under any consideration.  What is he to do?  If I could afford to send him to a good school it would be a different thing, but that you know I cannot do.  From nine in the morning, until five in the afternoon, my time 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.