My uncle would not have speech with me again, lest his rough look and
ways endanger the social advantages he conceived me to enjoy in the
cabin, but from the lower deck would keep sly watch upon me, and,
unobserved of others, would with the red bandanna handkerchief flash
me messages of affection and encouragement, to which I must not for
the life of me respond. Soon, however, 'twas my turn to peer and wish;
for, perceiving at last that I was not ill (the weather being fair),
and that I had engaged the companionship of gentlefolk--they were
quick enough, indeed, these St. John's folk and spying wanderers, to
attach themselves to the mystery of old Nick Top's child--my uncle
would devote himself to his own concerns with unhappy result.
The manner of his days of preparation upon the hills of Twin Islands
would return: the ill temper and cunning and evil secretiveness,
joined now with the hang-dog air he habitually wore in the city. And
these distressful appearances would by day and night increase, as we
passed the Funks, came to Bonavist' Bay, left the Bacalieu light
behind and rounded the Brandy Rocks, until, instead of a rotund,
twinkling old sea-dog, with a gargoylish countenance, with which the
spirit had nothing to do, there landed on the wharf at the city a
swaggering, wrathy pirate, of devilish cast and temper, quick to flush
and bluster, mighty in profanity, far gone in drink.
Thence to the hotel, in this wise: my uncle, being clever with his
staff and wooden leg and vastly strong, would shoulder my box, make
way through the gang-plank idlers and porters with great words, put me
grandly in the lead, come gasping at a respectful distance behind,
modelling his behavior (as he thought) after that of some flunky of
nobility he had once clapped eyes on; and as we thus proceeded up the
hill--a dandy in tartan kilt and velvet and a gray ape in slops--he
would have a quick word of wrath for any passenger that might chance
to jostle me. 'Twas a conspicuous progress, craftily designed, as,
long afterwards, I learned; we were not long landed, you may be sure,
before the town was aware that the mystery of Twist Tickle was once
more come in by the _Lake_: old Skipper Nicholas Top and the lad with
the rings, as they called me!
* * * * *
Having come now to the hotel (this by night), where would be a
cheerful fire awaiting us in my comfortable quarters, my uncle
would unstrap my box and dispose its contents in clean and handy
places, urging me the while, like a mother, to make good use of my
opportunity to observe the ways of gentlefolk, especially as
practised in the dining-room of the hotel, that I might expeditiously
master polite manners, which was a thing Skipper Chesterfield held
most seriously in high opinion. I must thus conduct myself (he
said), rather than idly brood, wishing for his company: for a silk
purse was never yet made of a sow's ear but with pain to all
concerned. "An' Dannie," says he, jovially, when he had clapped the
last drawer shut and put my nightclothes to warm at the fire, "if
you was t' tweak that there bell-pull--"