“Still storming,” the tutor ventured.
“Blowin’ high,” I remarked.
“I ’low I’ll stay ashore, the morrow,” says my uncle, “an’ have a spurt o’ yarnin’ along o’ that there ol’ bully.”
But the gray little man from St. John’s––the gray little red-moled man––was no old shipmate (I knew), nor any friend at all, else my uncle would have had him hospitably housed for the night under our roof.
XI
THE GRAY STRANGER
We sat late by the fire in the best room: into which I must fairly lug my perverse old uncle by the ears––for (says he) the wear an’ tear of a wooden leg was a harsh thing for a carpet to abide, an’ parlor chairs (says he) was never made for the hulks o’ sea-farin’ folk. ’Twas late, indeed, when he sent young Cather off to bed, with a warning to be up betimes, or go hungry, and bade me into the dining-room, as was our custom, to set out his bottle and glass. I turned the lamp high, and threw birch on the fire, and lifted his gouty wooden leg to the stool, and got his bottle and little brown jug, wondering, all the while, that my uncle was downcast neither by the wind nor the singular intrusion of the gray stranger. ’Twas a new thing in my life––a grateful change, for heretofore, in black gales, blowing in the night, with the thunder of waters under the window, it had been my duty to stand by, giving the comfort of my presence to the old man’s melancholy and terror. ’Twas the company of the tutor, thinks I, and I was glad that the congenial fellow was come from a far place, escape cut off.