I knew then into what service the Shining Light should be commissioned.
“Ay, lad,” says my uncle.
“And will you ship, sir?”
“Why, Lord love us, shipmate!” he roared, indignantly, to the amazement of our folk; “is ye thinkin’ I’m past my labor?”
I nodded towards Whisper Cove.
“The man,” he agreed.
It came about thus that I sought out Moses Shoos, wishing for him upon this high adventure because of his chivalry. Nay, but in Twist Tickle, whatever the strength and courage and kindliness of our folk, there was no man so to be desired in a crucial emergency. 311 The fool of the place was beyond purchase, beyond beseeching: kept apart by his folly from every unworthy motive to action. He was a man of pure leading, following a voice, a vision: I would have him upon this sacred adventure in search of the maid I loved. ’Twas no mean errand, no service to be paid for; ’twas a high calling––a ringing summons, it seemed to me, to perilous undertakings, rewarded by opportunity for peril in service of a fond, righteous cause. Nay, but I would have this unspoiled fool: I would have for companion the man who put his faith in visions, could I but win him. I believed in visions––in the deep, limpid, mysterious springs of conduct. I believed in visions––in the unreasoning progress, an advance in the way of life not calculated, but made in unselfish faith, with eyes lifted up from the vulgar, swarming, assailing advantages of existence. My uncle and the fool and I! there was no peril upon the sea to daunt us: we would find and fetch, to her own place, in perfect honor, the maid I loved. And of all this I thought, whatever the worth of it, as I ran upon the Whisper Cove road, in the evening of that gray, blustering day.
Moses was within.
“Here you is,” he drawled. “I ’lowed you’d come. How’s the weather?”
“’Twill blow big guns, Moses,” I answered; “and I’ll not deceive you.”