"Paid for!" my uncle repeated, in a quivering, indrawn breath, the man
having fallen, all at once, into gloom and terror. "'Tis all paid
for!"
Here again was the disquieting puzzle of my childish years: my uncle,
having now leaned forward to come close to me, was in a spasmodic way
indicating the bowels of the earth with a turned thumb. Down, down: it
seemed he pointed to infinite depths of space and woe. Down,
down--continuing thus, with a slow, grevious wagging of the great,
gray head the sea had in the brutal passion of some wild night
maltreated. The familiar things of the room, the simple, companionable
furniture of that known place, with the geometrically tempestuous
ocean framed beyond, were resolved into a background of mysterious
shadows as I stared; there was nothing left within the circle of my
vision but a scared gargoyle, leaning into the red glow of the fire.
My uncle's round little eyes protruded--started from the bristles and
purpling scars and brown flesh of his broad face--as many a time
before I had in sad bewilderment watched them do. Paid for--all the
pride and comfort and strange advantages of my life! All paid for in
the black heart of this mystery! And John Cather, too! I wondered
again, with an eye upon my uncle's significantly active thumb, having
no courage to meet his poignant glance, how that might be. According
to my catechism, severely taught in other years, I must ask no
questions, but must courteously await enlightenment at my uncle's
pleasure; and 'twas most marvellously hard--this night of all the
nights--to keep my soul unspotted from the sin of inquisitiveness.
"Paid for," my uncle repeated, hoarse with awe, "by poor Tom
Callaway!"
'Twas kind in my father, thinks I, to provide thus bounteously for my
welfare.
"Poor Tom!" my uncle sighed, now recovering his composure. "Poor, poor
ol' Tom--in the place he's to!"
"Still an' all, Uncle Nick," I blundered, "I wisht you'd leave my
tutor be."
"Ye're but a child!" he snapped. "Put the stopper in the bottle. 'Tis
time you was in bed."
'Twas an unexpected rebuke. I was made angry with him, for the only
time in all my life; and to revenge myself I held the bottle to the
lamp, and deliberately measured its contents, before his astonished
eyes, so that, though I left it with him, he could not drink another
drop without my knowing it; and I stoppered the bottle, as tight as I
was able, and left him to get his wooden toe from the stool with the
least agony he could manage, and would not bank the fire or light his
night-lamp. I loved my tutor, and would not have him corrupted; 'twas
a hateful thought to conceive that he might come unwittingly to ruin
at our hands. 'Twas a shame in my old uncle, thinks I, to fetch him to
despair. John Cather's soul bargained for and bought! 'Twas indeed a
shame to say it. There was no evil in him when he came clear-eyed from
the great world beyond us; there should be no evil in him when he left
us, whenever that might be, to renew the life he would not tell us
of. I looked my uncle in the eye in a way that hurt and puzzled him. I
wish I had not; but I did, as I pounded the cork home, and boldly
slipped the screw into my pocket. He would go on short allowance, that
night, thinks I: for his nails, broken by toil, would never pick the
stopper out. And I prepared, in a rage, to fling out of the room,
when--
"Dannie!" he called.