’Tis quite beyond me to express my gratification. ’Twas a mysterious business altogether––this whim to make the Shining Light ready for sea. I could make nothing of it at all. And why, thinks I, should the old craft all at once be troubled by all this pother of block and tackle and hammer and saw? ’Twas beyond me to fathom; but I was glad to discover, whatever the puzzle, that my uncle’s faith in the lad he had nourished was got real and large. ’Twas not for that he bred me; but ’twas the only reward––and that a mean, poor one––he might have. And he was now come near, it seemed, to dependence upon me; there was that in his voice to show it––a little trembling, a little hopelessness, a little wistfulness: a little weakening of its quality of wrathful courage.
“You’ll stand by,” he had said; and, ay, but it fair saddened me to feel the appeal of his aging spirit to my growing years! There comes a time, no doubt, in the relationship of old and young, when the guardian is all at once changed into the cherished one. ’Tis a tragical thing––a thing to be resolved, to be made merciful and benign, only by the acquiescence of the failing spirit. There is then no interruption––no ripple upon the flowing river of our lives. As for my uncle, I fancy that he kept watch upon me, in those days, to read his future, to discover his achievement, in my disposition. Stand by? Ay, that I would! And being young I sought a deed to do: I wished the accident might befall to prove me.
“Accident?” cries I. “Never you fear!”
“I’ll not fear,” says he, “that ye’ll not stand by.”
“Ay,” I complained; “but never you fear at all!”
“I’ll not fear,” he repeated, with a little twinkle of amusement, “that ye’ll not stand by, as best ye’re able.”
I felt now my strength––the greatness of my body and the soaring courage of my soul. This in the innocent way of a lad; and by grace of your recollection I shall not be blamed for it. Fourteen and something more? ’Twas a mighty age! What did it lack, thinks I, of power and wisdom? To be sure I strutted the present most haughtily and eyed the future with as saucy a flash as lads may give. The thing delighted my uncle; he would chuckle and clap me on the back and cry, “That’s very good!” until I was wrought into a mood of defiance quite ridiculous. But still ’tis rather grateful to recall: for what’s a lad’s boasting but the honest courage of a man? I would serve my uncle; but ’twas not all: I would serve Judith. She was now come into our care: I would serve her.
“They won’t nothin’ hurt she!” thinks I.