The Cruise of the Shining Light Part 31

"Ye're not so wonderful free with the liquor," he pouted, "as ye used t' be."

'Twas Judy who had put me up to it.

"Ye might be a _drop_ more free!" my uncle accused.

'Twas reproachful--and hurt me sore. That I should deny my uncle who had never denied me! I blamed the woman. 'Tis marvellous how this frailty persists. That Judith, Twist Tickle born, should deliberately introduce the antagonism--should cause my uncle to suffer, me to regret! 'Twas hard to forgive the maid her indiscretion. I was hurt: for, being a lad, not a maid of subtle perceptions, I would not have my uncle go lacking that which comforted his distress and melancholy.

Faith! but I had myself been looking forward with a thirsty gullet to the day--drawn near, as I thought--when I should like a man drink hard liquor with him in the glow of our fire: as, indeed, had he, by frank confession, indiscreetly made when he was grown horrified or wroth with my intemperance with ginger-ale.

"G.o.d save ye, Dannie!" he would expostulate, most heartily, most piously; "but I _wisht_ ye'd overcome the bilge-water habit."

I would ignore him.

"'Tis on'y a matter o' _will_," says he. "'Tis nothin' more than that.

An' I'm fair ashamed," he groaned, in sincere emotion, "to think ye're shackled, hand an' foot, to a bottle o' ginger-ale. For shame, lad--t'

come t' such a pa.s.s." He was honest in his expostulation; 'twas no laughing matter--'twas an anxiously grave concern for my welfare. He disapproved of the beverage--having never tasted it. "_You_," cries he, with a pout and puff of scorn, "an' your bilge-water! In irons with a bottle o' ginger-ale! Could ye but see yourself, Dannie, ye'd quit quick enough. 'Tis a ridiculous picture ye make--you an' your bottle. 'Twould not be hard t' give it up, lad," he would plead.

"Ye'll manage it, Dannie, an ye'd but put your mind to it. Ye'd be nervous, I've no doubt, for a spell. But what's that? Eh, what's that--ag'in your health?"

I would sip my ginger-ale unheeding.

"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 pa.s.sion. "Ye're fair bound t' ruin your const.i.tution 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 gla.s.s, 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 G.o.d, which was her own, dear heart! though she did not know it.

"Dannie," says she, in private, "G.o.d 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, "G.o.d 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 G.o.d."

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 G.o.d of wrath, quick to punish, n.i.g.g.ardly 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 s.p.a.ce 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, enn.o.bling 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 gla.s.s?"

"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. "G.o.d 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 rea.s.sure 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."