“There are many excuses to be made for him,” his sister, Mrs. Morris, would often say. “Just think what a rough life he has led, and how much he has had to suffer. If his temper rises sometimes like a gale of wind, like a gale of wind it is soon over!”
“But, like a gale of wind, it leaves its effects behind it!” observed a neighbour, when this remark was repeated to him. “I shan’t care to call often at Mrs. Morris’s house while her bear of a brother makes it his den!”
There were perhaps none on earth whom Jonas loved better than Johnny and Alie, the children of his sister; and yet none suffered more from his fierce and ungoverned temper. They feared him more than they loved him; and notwithstanding the many little presents which he made them, and the many little kindnesses which he showed them, his absence, when he left home, was always felt as a relief. It is impossible to regard with the greatest affection one who puts you in perpetual fear, or to feel quite happy with a companion whose smile may in a moment be changed to a frown, whose pleasant talk to a passionate burst.
Johnny, though considered a courageous boy, was afraid of rousing his uncle; and if to him Jonas was an object of fear, to Alie he was an object of terror. Alie was one of the most timid little creatures in the village. She would go a long way round to avoid passing a large dog, was uneasy at the sight of a turkey-cock, and never dared so much as raise her eyes if a stranger happened to address her. It was not only from the temper of her uncle that poor little Alie now suffered; Johnny, while himself annoyed at the roughness of Jonas, with the imitative disposition of youth, began in a certain degree to copy it. He knew that the old sailor was thought generous and brave, and therefore wished to be like him; but made the very common mistake of imitators—followed him rather in his defects than in those things which were worthy of admiration. Perhaps Johnny also tried to hide from himself and others how much he was cowed by his uncle, by assuming a blustering manner himself. This is so often unconsciously done, that whenever I see a bully I am inclined to suspect that I am looking at a coward.
Alie was fond of listening to her uncle’s sea-stories—“long yarns,” as he called them—but only if she could listen unobserved. Her favourite place was the window-seat, where she could draw the curtain before her to screen her from observation. To be suddenly addressed by her uncle was enough to make the timid child start.
Jonas had many curiosities from foreign parts, which it amused the children to see—dried sea-weed, reptiles in bottles, odd specimens of work done in straw by savages in some distant islands with unpronounceable names. These treasures were never kept under lock and key; it was quite enough that they belonged to the terrible Jonas; no one was likely to meddle much with his goods, lest he should “give ’em a bit of his mind.”
“Alie,” cried Johnny one morning, when the children happened to be alone in their uncle’s little room, “where on earth have you put my ‘Robinson Crusoe?’”
“I?” said the little girl, looking up innocently from her work; “I have not so much as seen it.”
“Look for it, then!” cried the boy, in the loud coarse tone which he had too faithfully copied from his uncle.
Little Alie was plying her needle diligently, and her brother had nothing to do; but she was much too timid to remonstrate. She set down her work, and moved quietly about the room, glancing behind this thing and under that; while Johnny, stretched at full length on the floor, amused himself with chucking up marbles.