"An' what about Chesterfield?" says he.
"I'll have another bottle, sir," says I.
"Lord love us!" he would complain, in such distress that I wish I had
not troubled him with this passion. "Ye're fair bound t' ruin your
constitution with drink."
Pop went the cork.
"An' here's _me_" says he, in disgusted chagrin, "tryin' t' make a
gentleman out o' ye!"
Ah, well! 'twas now a mean, poor lookout for the cosey conviviality I
had all my life promised myself with my uncle. Since the years when
late o' nights I occupied the arms and broad knee of Cap'n Jack Large
at the Anchor and Chain--with a steaming comfort within and a rainy
wind blowing outside--my uncle and I had dwelt upon the time when I
might drink hard liquor with him like a man. 'Twould be grand, says my
uncle, to sit o' cold nights, when I was got big, with a bottle o'
Long Tom between. A man grown--a man grown able for his bottle! For
him, I fancy, 'twas a vision of successful achievement and the reward
of it. Lord love us! says he, but the talk o' them times would be
lovely. The very thought of it, says he--the thought o' Dannie
Callaway grown big and manly and helpfully companionable--fair warmed
him with delight. But now, at Twist Tickle, with the strong, sly hands
of Judith upon our ways, with her grave eyes watching, now commending,
now reproaching, 'twas a new future that confronted us. Ay, but that
maid, dwelling responsibly with us men, touched us closely with
control! 'Twas a sharp eye here, a sly eye there, a word, a twitch of
her red lips, a lift of the brow and dark lashes--and a new ordering
of our lives. 'Tis marvellous how she did it: but that she managed us
into better habits, by the magic mysteriously natural to a maid, I
have neither the wish nor the will to gainsay. I grieved that she
should deprive my uncle of his comfort; but being a lad, devoted, I
would not add one drop to my uncle's glass, while Judith sat under the
lamp, red-cheeked in the heat of the fire, her great eyes wishful to
approve, her mind most captivatingly engaged, as I knew, with the
will of God, which was her own, dear heart! though she did not know
it.
"Dannie," says she, in private, "God wouldn't 'low un more'n a quarter
of a inch at a time."
"'Twas in the pantry while I got the bottle."
"An' how," quoth I, "is you knowin' that?"
"Why, child," she answered, "God tol' me so."
I writhed. 'Twas a fancy so strange the maid had: but was yet so
true and reverent and usefully efficient--so high in leading to her
who led us with her into pure paths--that I must smile and adore
her for it. 'Twas to no purpose, as I knew, to thresh over the
improbability of the communication: Judith's eyes were round and
clear and unwavering--full of most exalted truth, concern, and
confidence. There was no pretence anywhere to be descried in their
depths: nor evil nor subterfuge of any sort. And it seems to me, now,
grown as I am to sager years, that had the Guide whose hand she held
upon the rough road of her life communed with His sweet companion,
'twould have been no word of reproach or direction he would whisper
for her, who needed none, possessing all the wisdom of virtue,
dear heart! but a warning in my uncle's behalf, as she would have it,
against the bottle he served. The maid's whimsical fancy is not
incomprehensible to me, neither tainted with irreverence nor untruth:
'twas a thing flowering in the eyrie garden of her days at Whisper
Cove--a thing, as I cannot doubt, of highest inspiration.
"But," I protested, glibly, looking away, most wishful, indeed, to
save my uncle pain, "I isn't able t' measure a quarter of a inch."
"_I_ could," says she.
"Not with the naked eye, maid!"
"Well," says she, "you might try, jus' t' please God."
To be sure I might: I might pour at a guess. But, unhappily (and it
may be that there is some philosophy in this for a self-indulgent
world), I was not in awe of Judith's fantastic conception of divinity,
whatever I thought of my own, by whom, however, I was not conjured.
Moreover, I loved my uncle, who had continued to make me happy all my
life, and would venture far in the service of his comfort. The
twinkling, benevolent aspect of the maid's Deity could not compel a
lad to righteousness: I could with perfect complacency conduct myself
perversely before it. And must we then, lads and men, worship a God of
wrath, quick to punish, niggardly in fatherly forgiveness, lest we
stray into evil ways? I do not know. 'Tis beyond me to guess the
change to be worked in the world by a new conception of the eternal
attributes.
"An' will you not?" says she.
It chanced, now, that she held the lamp near her face, so that
her beauty was illumined and transfigured. 'Twas a beauty most
tender--most pure and elfin and religious. 'Tis a mean, poor
justification, I know, to say that I was in some mysterious way--by
the magic resident in the beauty of a maid, and virulently,
wickedly active within its sphere, which is the space the vision
of a lad may carry--that I was by this magic incapacitated and
overcome. 'Tis an excuse made by fallen lads since treason was
writ of; 'tis a mere excuse, ennobling no traitorious act: since
love, to be sure, has no precedence of loyalty in hearts of truth
and manful aspiration. Love? surely it walks with glorious modesty
in the train of honor--or is a brazen baggage. But, as it unhappily
chanced, whatever the academic conception, the maid held the lamp
too close for my salvation: so close that her blue, shadowy eyes
bewildered me, and her lips, red and moist, with a gleam of white
teeth between, I recall, tempted me quite beyond the endurance of
self-respect. I slipped, indeed, most sadly in the path, and came a
shamefaced, ridiculous cropper.
"An' will you not," says she, "pour but a quarter of a inch t' the
glass?"
"I will," I swore, "for a kiss!"
'Twas an outrageous betrayal of my uncle.
"For shame!" cries she.
"I will for a kiss," I repeated, my soul offered on a platter to the
devil, "regardless o' the consequences."
She matched my long words with a great one caught from my tutor. "God
isn't inclined," says she, with a toss, "in favor o' kisses."
And there you had it!
* * * * *
When we sat late, our maid-servant would indignantly whisk Judith off
to bed--crying out upon us for our wickedness.
"Cather," my uncle would drawl, Judith being gone, "ye're all wore out
along o' too much study."
"Not at all, Skipper Nicholas!" cries my tutor.
"Study," says my uncle, in solemn commiseration, "is a bitter thing t'
be cotched by. Ye're all wore out, parson, along o' the day's work."
My tutor laughed.
"Too much study for the brain," says my uncle, sympathetically, his
eye on the bottle. "I 'low, parson, if I was you I'd turn in."
Cather was unfailingly obedient.
"Dannie," says my uncle, with reviving interest, "have he gone
above?"
"He have," says I.
"Take a look," he whispered, "t' see that Judy's stowed away beyond
hearin'."
I would step into the hall--where was no nightgowned figure listening
on the stair--to reassure him.
"Dannie," says he, wickedly gleeful, "how's the bottle?"
I would hold it up to the lamp and rattle its contents. "'Tis still
stout, sir," says I. "'Tis a wonderful bottle."
"Stout!" cries he, delighted. "Very good."
"Still stout," says I; "an' the third night!"
"Then," says he, pushing his glass towards me, "I 'low they's no real
need o' puttin' me on short allowance. Be liberal, Dannie, b'y--be
liberal when ye pours."