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 207 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 glass, while Judith sat under the lamp, red-cheeked in the heat of the fire, her great eyes wishful to approve, 208 her mind most captivatingly engaged, as I knew, with the will of God, which was her own, dear heart! though she did not know it.
“Dannie,” says she, in private, “God 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, “God 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, 209 indeed, to save my uncle pain, “I isn’t able t’ measure a quarter of a inch.”
“I could,” says she.