"You knew rightly he wouldn't have liked it," John continued,
inexorably.

And then Mrs. MacDermott yielded.

"You're your da over again," she complained. "He always had his way in
the end, whatever was against him. What _do_ you want to be, then,
when you grow up?"

"I don't know yet, ma. I only know the things I don't want to be, and
teaching is one of them. And a minister's another! Mebbe I'll know in a
wee while!"

He did not like to tell her that in his heart he wished to go in search
of adventures. His Uncle Matthew's imaginings had filled his mind with
romantic desires, and he longed to leave Ballyards and go somewhere ...
anywhere, so long as it was a difficult and distant place ... where he
would have to contend with dangers. There were times when he felt that
he must instantly pack a bundle of clothes into a red handkerchief ...
he could buy one at Conn's, the draper's ... and run away from home and
stow himself in the hold of a big ship bound for America or Australia
or some place like that ... and was only prevented from doing so by his
fear that his mother and uncles would be deeply grieved by his flight.
"It would look as if they hadn't been kind to me," he said in
remonstrance to himself, "and that wouldn't be fair to them!" But
although he did not run away from home, he still kept the strong desire
in his heart to go out into a dangerous and bewildering world and seek
fortune and adventures. "I want to fight things," he said to himself.
"I want to fight things and, ... and win!"