“Here I is, lad,” cries my uncle, with an effort at heartiness, which, indeed, had departed from him, and would not come again. “Here I is––havin’ a little dram o’ rum with Nature!”
’Twas a draught of salt air he meant.
“Dannie,” says he, in overwhelming uneasiness, his voice become hoarse and tremulous, “ye got a thing on your mind!”
I found him very old and ill and hopeless; ’twas with a shock that the thing came home to me: the man was past all labor of the hands, got beyond all ships and winds and fishing––confronting, now, with an anxious heart, God knows! a future of dependence, for life and love, upon the lad he had nourished to the man that was I. I remembered, again, the warning of that gray personage who had said that my contempt would gather at this hour; and I thought, as then I had in boyish faith most truly believed, that I should never treat my uncle with unkindness. ’Twas very still and glowing and beneficent upon the sea; ’twas not an hour, thinks I, whatever the prophecy concerning it, for any pain to come upon us. My uncle was fallen back in a great chair, on a patch of greensward overlooking the sea, to which he had turned his face; and ’twas a kindly prospect that lay before his aged eyes––a sweep of softest ocean, walled with gentle, drifting cloud, wherein were the fool’s great Gates, wide open to the glory beyond.
“I’m wishing, sir,” said I, “to wed Judith.”
“’Tis a good hope,” he answered.
I saw his hand wander over the low table beside him: I knew what it sought––and that by his will and for my sake it must forever seek without satisfaction.
“Sir,” I implored, “I’ve no heart to ask her!”
He did not answer.