"the old sea-king's blood will force its way--a soldier or a rover, there is no other choice for you. We shall mourn and miss you; but who can chain the young eagles to the eyrie?" I had a harder task with my father, who at first seemed to listen to me as if I had been talking of an excursion to the moon. But I threw in a dexterous dose of the old Greek _Cleruchiæ_--cited by Trevanion--which set him off full trot on his hobby, till, after a short excursion to Euboea and the Chersonese, he was fairly lost amidst the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor. I then gradually and artfully decoyed him into his favourite science of Ethnology; and while he was speculating on the origin of the American savages, and considering the rival claims of Cimmerians, Israelites, and Scandinavians, I said quietly,--"And you, sir, who think that all human improvement depends on the mixture of races--you, whose whole theory is an absolute sermon upon emigration, and the transplanting and interpolity of our species--you, sir, should be the last man to chain your son, your elder son, to the soil, while your younger is the very missionary of rovers." "Pisistratus," said my father, "you reason by synecdoche--ornamental, but illogical;" and therewith, resolved to hear no more, my father rose and retreated into his study. But his observation, now quickened, began from that day to follow my moods and humours--then he himself grew silent and thoughtful, and finally he took to long conferences with Roland. The result was that, one evening in spring, as I lay listless amidst the weeds and fern that sprang up through the melancholy ruins, I felt a hand on my shoulder; and my father, seating himself beside me on a fragment of stone, said earnestly--"Pisistratus,--let us talk--I had hoped better things from your study of Robert Hall." "Nay, dear father, the medicine did me great good: I have not repined since, and I look steadfastly and cheerfully on life. But Robert Hall fulfilled his mission, and I would fulfil mine." "Is there no mission in thy native land, O planeticose and exallotriote spirit?[1]" asked my father, with compassionate rebuke. [1] Words coined by Mr Caxton from [Greek: planêtikos], disposed to roaming, and [Greek: exallotrioô], to export, to alienate. "Alas, yes! But what the impulse of genius is to the great, the instinct of vocation is to the mediocre. In every man there is a magnet; in that thing which the man can do best there is a loadstone." "Papæ!" said my father, opening his eyes; "and are no loadstones to be found for you nearer than the great Australasian Bight?" "Ah, sir, if you resort to irony, I can say no more!" My father looked down on me tenderly, as I hung my head moody and abashed. "Son," said he, "do you think that there is any real jest at my heart when the matter discussed is whether you are to put wide seas and long years between us?" I pressed nearer to his side, and made no answer.