"Abroad," says he, defiantly, "in highly respectable company!"
Ah, well! whether rogue or gentleman, upon whom rascality was writ,
the years were to tell. These, at any rate, were the sinister aspects
of Nicholas Top, of Twist Tickle, whose foster-child I was, growing in
such mystery as never was before, I fancy, and thriving in love not of
the blood but rich and anxious as love may be: and who shall say that
the love which is of the blood--a dull thing, foreordained--is more
discerning, more solicitous, more deep and abiding than that which
chances, however strangely, in the turmoil and changes of the life we
live? To restore confidence, the old dog was furnished with an ample,
genial belly; and albeit at times he drank to excess, and despite the
five years' suspicion of the eye in his very own head, his eyes were
blue and clear and clean-edged, with little lights of fun and
tenderness and truth twinkling in their depths. I would have you know
that as a child I loved the scarred and broken old ape: this with a
child's devotion, the beauty of which (for 'tis the way of the heart)
is not to be matched in later years, whatever may be told. Nor in
these days, when I am full-grown and understand, will I have a word
spoken in his dishonor.
Not I, by Heaven!
* * * * *
I came to Twist Tickle, as I am informed, on the wings of a
southeasterly gale: which winds are of mean spirit and sullenly
tenacious--a great rush of ill weather, overflowing the world, blowing
gray and high and cold. At sea 'twas breaking in a geyser of white
water on the Resurrection Rock; and ashore, in the meagre shelter of
Meeting House Hill, the church-bell clanged fearsomely in a swirl of
descending wind: the gloaming of a wild day, indeed! The _Shining
Light_ came lurching through the frothy sea with the wind astern: a
flash of white in the mist, vanishing among the careering waves,
doughtily reappearing--growing the while into the stature of a small
craft of parts, making harbor under a black, tumultuous sky. Beyond
the Toads, where there is a turmoil of breaking water, she made a sad
mess of it, so that the folk of the Tickle, watching the strange
appearance from the heads, made sure she had gone down; but she
struggled out of the spray and tumble, in the end, and came to harbor
unscathed in the place where Nicholas Top, himself the skipper and
crew, was born and fished as a lad.
They boarded him, and (as they tell) he was brisk and grim and
dripping upon the deck--with the lights dancing in his eyes: those
which are lit by the mastery of a ship at sea.
"Ay, mates," says he, "I'm come back. An'," says he, "I'd thank ye t'
tread lightly, for I've a wee passenger below, which I've no wish t'
have woke. He's by way o' bein' a bit of a gentleman," says he, "an'
I'd not have ye take a liberty."
This made them stare.
"An' I'd not," my uncle repeated, steadily, glancing from eye to eye,
"have ye take a liberty."
They wondered the more.
"A bit of a gentleman!" says my uncle, in savage challenge. "A bit of
a gentleman!"
He would tell them no more, nor ever did; but in imperturbable
serenity and certainty of purpose builded a tight little house in a
nook of Old Wives' Cove, within the harbor, where the _Shining Light_
might lie snug; and there he dwelt with the child he had, placidly
fishing the grounds with hook and line, save at such times as he set
out upon some ill-seeming business to the city, whence he returned at
ease, it seemed, with himself and his errand, but something grayer,
they say, than before. The child he reared was in the beginning
conscious of no incongruity, but clothed the old man with every grace
and goodly quality, in faith and understanding, as children will: for
these knowing ones, with clearer sight than we, perceive neither
guile nor weakness nor any lack of beauty in those who foster
them--God be thanked!--whatever the nature and outward show may be.
There is a beauty common to us all, neither greater nor less in any of
us, which these childish hearts discover. Looking upon us, they are
blind or of transcendent vision, as you will: the same in issue--so
what matter?--since they find no ugliness anywhere. 'Tis the way, it
may be, that God looks upon His world: either in the blindness of love
forgiving us or in His greater wisdom knowing that the sins of men do
serve His purpose and are like virtue in His plan.
But this is a mystery....