"Here I is, lad," cries my uncle, with an effort at heartiness, which,
indeed, had departed from him, and would not come again. "Here I
is--havin' a little dram o' rum with Nature!"
'Twas a draught of salt air he meant.
"Dannie," says he, in overwhelming uneasiness, his voice become hoarse
and tremulous, "ye got a thing on your mind!"
I found him very old and ill and hopeless; 'twas with a shock that the
thing came home to me: the man was past all labor of the hands, got
beyond all ships and winds and fishing--confronting, now, with an
anxious heart, God knows! a future of dependence, for life and love,
upon the lad he had nourished to the man that was I. I remembered,
again, the warning of that gray personage who had said that my
contempt would gather at this hour; and I thought, as then I had in
boyish faith most truly believed, that I should never treat my uncle
with unkindness. 'Twas very still and glowing and beneficent upon the
sea; 'twas not an hour, thinks I, whatever the prophecy concerning it,
for any pain to come upon us. My uncle was fallen back in a great
chair, on a patch of greensward overlooking the sea, to which he had
turned his face; and 'twas a kindly prospect that lay before his aged
eyes--a sweep of softest ocean, walled with gentle, drifting cloud,
wherein were the fool's great Gates, wide open to the glory beyond.
"I'm wishing, sir," said I, "to wed Judith."
"'Tis a good hope," he answered.
I saw his hand wander over the low table beside him: I knew what it
sought--and that by his will and for my sake it must forever seek
without satisfaction.
"Sir," I implored, "I've no heart to ask her!"
He did not answer.
"And you know why, sir," I accused him. "You know why!"
"Dannie," says he, "ye've wished for this hour."
"And I am ready, sir."
He drew then from his pocket a small Bible, much stained and wrinkled
by water, which he put on the table between us. "Dannie, lad," says
he, "do ye now go t' your own little room, where ye was used t' lyin',
long ago, when ye was a little lad." He lifted himself in the chair,
turned upon me--his eyes frankly wet. "Do ye go there," says he, "an'
kneel, like ye used t' do in the days when ye was but a little child,
an' do ye say, once again, for my sake, Dannie, the twenty-third
psa'm."