"Think you, Dannie," my uncle inquired, "that he've the makin's of a
fair rascal?"
"An' who?" says I, the stranger in mind.
"The tutor."
"I'm hopin' _not_!" I cried.
"Ay," says my uncle, an eye half closed; "but think you he _would_
make a rascal--with clever management?"
"'Twould never come t' pass, sir."
My uncle sipped his rum in a muse.
"Uncle Nick," I complained, "leave un be."
"'Tis a hard world, Dannie," he replied.
"Do you leave un be!" I expostulated.
My uncle ignored me. "He've a eye, Dannie," says he, immersed in
villanous calculation; "he've a dark eye. I 'low it _might_ be
managed."
'Twas an uncomfortable suspicion thus implanted; and 'twas an unhappy
outlook disclosed--were my uncle to work his will upon the helpless
fellow.
"Uncle Nick, you'll not mislead un?"
"Bein' under oath," my uncle answered, with the accent and glance of
tenderest affection, "I'll keep on, Dannie, t' the end."
I poured the second dram of rum and pushed it towards him. 'Twas all
hopeless to protest or seek an understanding. I loved the old man, and
forgave the paradox of his rascality and loyal affection. The young
man from London must take his chance, as must we all, in the
fashioning hands of circumstance. 'Twas not to be conceived that his
ruin was here to be wrought. My uncle's face had lost all appearance
of repulsion: scar and color and swollen vein--the last mark of sin
and the sea--had seemed to vanish from it; 'twas as though the finger
of God had in passing touched it into such beauty as the love of
children may create of the meanest features of our kind. His glass was
in his marred, toil-distorted hand; but his eyes, grown clear and
sparkling and crystal-pure--as high of purpose as the eyes of such as
delight in sacrifice--were bent upon the lad he had fostered to my
age. I dared not--not the lad that was I--I dared not accuse him! Let
the young man from London, come for the wage he got, resist, if need
were to resist. I could not credit his danger--not on that night. But
I see better now than then I saw.
"I 'low he'll do," said my uncle, presently, as he set down his glass.
"Ay, lad; he'll do, if I knows a eye from a eye."
"Do what?"
"Yield," he answered.
"T' what?"
"Temptation."
"Uncle Nick," I besought, "leave the man be!"
"What odds?" he answered, the shadow of gloom come upon his face. "I'm
cleared for hell, anyhow."
'Twas a thing beyond me, as many a word and wicked deed had been
before. I was used to the wretched puzzle--calloused and uncaring,
since through all my life I still loved the man who fostered me, and
held him in esteem. We fell silent together, as often happened when my
uncle tippled himself drunk at night; and my mind coursed in free
flight past the seeming peril in which my tutor slept, past the roar
of wind and the clamor of the sea, beyond the woes of the fool who
would be married, to the cabin of the _Shining Light_, where Judith
sat serene in the midst of the order she had accomplished. I
remembered the sunlight and the freshening breeze upon the hills,
the chirp and gentle stirring of the day, the azure sea and the
far-off, tender mist, the playful breakers, flinging spray into the
yellow sunshine. I remembered the companionable presence of the maid,
her slender hands, her tawny hair, her sun-browned cheeks and the
creamy curve of her brow, the blue and flash and fathomless depths
of her eyes. I remembered the sweet, moist touch of her lips: I
remembered--in that period of musing, when my uncle, fallen
disconsolate in his chair, sipped his rum--the kiss that she gave
me in the cabin of the _Shining Light_.
"Dannie," says my uncle, "what you thinkin' about?"