Not I, by Heaven!
I came to Twist Tickle, as I am informed, on the wings of a southeasterly gale: which winds are of mean spirit and sullenly tenacious––a great rush of ill weather, overflowing the world, blowing gray and high and cold. At sea ’twas breaking in a geyser of white water on the Resurrection Rock; and ashore, in the meagre shelter of Meeting House Hill, the church-bell clanged fearsomely in a swirl of descending wind: the gloaming of a wild day, indeed! The Shining Light came lurching through the frothy sea with the wind astern: a flash of white in the mist, vanishing among the careering waves, doughtily reappearing––growing the while into the stature of a small craft of parts, making harbor under a black, tumultuous sky. Beyond the Toads, where there is a turmoil of breaking water, she made a sad mess of it, so that the folk of the Tickle, watching the strange appearance from the heads, made sure she had gone down; but she struggled out of the spray and tumble, in the end, and came to harbor unscathed in the place where Nicholas Top, himself 8 the skipper and crew, was born and fished as a lad.
They boarded him, and (as they tell) he was brisk and grim and dripping upon the deck––with the lights dancing in his eyes: those which are lit by the mastery of a ship at sea.
“Ay, mates,” says he, “I’m come back. An’,” says he, “I’d thank ye t’ tread lightly, for I’ve a wee passenger below, which I’ve no wish t’ have woke. He’s by way o’ bein’ a bit of a gentleman,” says he, “an’ I’d not have ye take a liberty.”
This made them stare.
“An’ I’d not,” my uncle repeated, steadily, glancing from eye to eye, “have ye take a liberty.”
They wondered the more.
“A bit of a gentleman!” says my uncle, in savage challenge. “A bit of a gentleman!”
He would tell them no more, nor ever did; but in imperturbable serenity and certainty of purpose builded a tight little house in a nook of Old Wives’ Cove, within the harbor, where the Shining Light might lie snug; and there he dwelt with the child he had, placidly fishing the grounds with hook and line, save at such times as he set out upon some ill-seeming business to the city, whence he returned at ease, it seemed, with himself and his errand, but something grayer, they say, than before. The child he reared was in the beginning conscious of no incongruity, but clothed the old man with every grace and goodly quality, in faith and understanding, as children will: for these knowing 9 ones, with clearer sight than we, perceive neither guile nor weakness nor any lack of beauty in those who foster them––God be thanked!––whatever the nature and outward show may be. There is a beauty common to us all, neither greater nor less in any of us, which these childish hearts discover. Looking upon us, they are blind or of transcendent vision, as you will: the same in issue––so what matter?––since they find no ugliness anywhere. ’Tis the way, it may be, that God looks upon His world: either in the blindness of love forgiving us or in His greater wisdom knowing that the sins of men do serve His purpose and are like virtue in His plan.