Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/64

40 man, sneeringly, "this is my son Guidon, the scapegrace of whom I spoke to you just now." Making the youth turn round, he continued, "This is the companion of the rascals of Klaarvatsch, a hopeless idler, a good-for-nothing, who combines perhaps all the throat-qualities of finches and larks, but who possesses none of those merits which I looked for in a boy of my blood. Ah! day-dreaming, whistling, cooing in the void, gaping at gulls, lying at full length on his back or basking in the sun like seals on a sand bank, that is what suits him! Just imagine, since his birth he has never been of use to us. As he did not help us at all on the farm I thought of making a sailor of him, and I got him enrolled as cabin boy on a fishing smack. In vain! After three days a boat returning to the port brought him back. In the midst of the tacking he would stop short to look at the clouds and the waves. His heedlessness and negligence cost him some severe drubbings, but blows no more got the better of him than remonstrances and exhortations. Weary of the struggle, I was obliged to take him back and put him to half-a-wake work. Now he looks after the cows and sheep on the