I marvelled, but could make nothing of it at all. ’Tis strange (I have since thought) that we damn ourselves without hesitation: not one worthy man in all the world counting himself deserving of escape from those dreadful tortures preached for us by such apostles of injustice as find themselves, by the laws they have framed, interpreting without reverence or fear of blunder, free from the common judgment. Ay, we damn ourselves; but no man among us damns his friend, who is as evil as himself. And who damns his own child? ’Tis no doubt foolish to be vexed by any philosophy comprehending what is vulgarly called hell; but still (as I have thought) this is a reasonable view: there is no hell in the philosophy of a mother for her own child; and as by beneficent decree every man is the son of his mother, consequently there is no hell; else ’twould make such unhappiness 65 in heaven. Ah, well! I looked out of the window where were the great works of the Lord: His rock and sea and sky. The moon was there to surprise me––half risen: the sea shot with a glistening pathway to the glory of the night. And in that vast uncertain and inimical place, far out from shore, there rode a schooner of twenty tons, dawdling unafraid, her small sails spread for a breeze, in hope. Whither bound? Northward: an evil coast for sailing-craft––cruel waters: rock and fog and ice and tempestuous winds. Thither bound, undaunted, with wings wide, abroad in the teeth of many perils, come wreck or not. At least (I thought) she had ventured from snug harbor.
“Dannie,” said my uncle, “you’re all alone in the world.”
Alone? Not I! “Why, sir,” said I, “I’ve you!”
He looked away.
“Isn’t I?” I demanded.
“No, lad,” he answered; “you isn’t.”
’Twas the first step he had led me from dependence upon him. ’Twas as though he had loosened my hand a little from its confident clasp of his own. I was alarmed.
“Many’s the lad,” said he, “that thinks he’ve his mother; an’ many’s the mother that thinks she’ve her lad. But yet they is both alone––all alone. ’Tis the queerest thing in the world.”
“But, Uncle Nick, I haves you!”
“No,” he persisted; “you is all alone. Why, Lord! Dannie, you is ’leven. What does I know about you?”