“Now, look you!” says he, being now in his cups and darkly confidential with me, “I’m havin’, as I says, no dealin’ with a glass. An’ why? Accordin’ t’ the water-side widows ’tis not ill-favor o’ face. Then why? I’m tellin’ you: ’Tis just because,” says he, tapping the table with his forefinger, “Nick Top isn’t able t’ look hisself in the eye.... Pass the bottle. Thank ’e, lad.... There you haves it!” says he, with a pitiful little catch of the breath. “Nicholas Top haves a wonderful bad eye!”
I must nod my assent and commiseration.
“In p’int o’ beauty,” says my uncle, “Nicholas Top is perfeckly content with the judgment o’ water-side widows, which can’t be beat; but for these five year, Lord help un! he’ve had no love for the eye in his very own head.”
’Twas said in such chagrin and depth of sadness that I was moved to melancholy.
“His own eye, lad,” he would repeat, “in his very own head!”
My uncle, I confess, had indeed a hint too much of the cunning and furtive about both gait and glance to escape remark in strange places. ’Twas a pity––and a mystery. That he should hang his head who might have held it high! At Twist Tickle, to be sure, he would hop hither and yon in a fashion surprisingly light (and right cheerful); but abroad ’twas either 6 swagger or slink. Upon occasions ’twas manifest to all the world that following evil he walked in shame and terror. These times were periodic, as shall be told: wherein, because of his simplicity, which was unspoiled––whatever the rascality he was in the way of practising––he would betray the features of hang-dog villany, conceiving all the while that he had cleverly masked himself with virtue.
“Child,” says he, in that high gentleness by which he was distinguished, “take the old man’s hand. Never fear t’ clasp it, lad! Ye’re abroad in respectable company.”
I would clasp it in childish faith.
“Abroad,” says he, defiantly, “in highly respectable company!”
Ah, well! whether rogue or gentleman, upon whom rascality was writ, the years were to tell. These, at any rate, were the sinister aspects of Nicholas Top, of Twist Tickle, whose foster-child I was, growing in such mystery as never was before, I fancy, and thriving in love not of the blood but rich and anxious as love may be: and who shall say that the love which is of the blood––a dull thing, foreordained––is more discerning, more solicitous, more deep and abiding than that which chances, however strangely, in the turmoil and changes of the life we live? To restore confidence, the old dog was furnished with an ample, genial belly; and albeit at times he drank to excess, and despite the five years’ suspicion of the eye in his very own head, his eyes were blue and clear and clean-edged, with 7 little lights of fun and tenderness and truth twinkling in their depths. I would have you know that as a child I loved the scarred and broken old ape: this with a child’s devotion, the beauty of which (for ’tis the way of the heart) is not to be matched in later years, whatever may be told. Nor in these days, when I am full-grown and understand, will I have a word spoken in his dishonor.