So I did not have another; but the one, you may believe! had done the mischief.
I am informed that there are strange folk who do not visualize after the manner of Judith and me. ’Tis a wonder how they conceive, at all!
IX
AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART
My uncle’s errand, speedily made known, for Judith’s restoration, was this: to require my presence betimes at tea that evening, since (as he said) there was one coming by the mail-boat whom he would have me favorably impress with my appearance and state of gentility––a thing I was by no means loath to do, having now grown used to the small delights of display. But I was belated, as it chanced, after all: for having walked with Judith, by my uncle’s hint, to the cairn at the crest of Tom Tulk’s Head, upon the return I fell in with Moses Shoos, the fool of Twist Tickle, who would have me bear him company to Eli Flack’s cottage, in a nook beyond the Finger, and lend him comfort thereafter, in good or evil fortune, as might befall. To this I gave a glad assent, surmising from the significant conjunction of smartened attire and doleful countenance that an affair of the heart was forward. And ’twas true; ’twas safely to be predicted, indeed, in season and out, of the fool of our harbor: for what with his own witless conjectures and the reports of his mates, made in 90 unkind banter, his leisure was forever employed in the unhappy business: so that never a strange maid came near but he would go shyly forth upon his quest, persuaded of a grateful issue. ’Twas heroic, I thought, and by this, no less than by his attachment, he was endeared to me.
I sniffed a change of wind as we fell in together. ’Twould presently switch to the south (I fancied); and ’twould blow high from the sou’east before the night was done. The shadows were already long; and in the west––above the hills which shut the sea from sight––the blue of mellow weather and of the day was fading. And by the lengthened shadows I was reminded that ’twas an untimely errand the fool was upon. “’Tis a queer time,” said I, “t’ be goin’ t’ Eli’s. Sure, Moses, they’ll be at the board!”