“’Tis kind o’ you!” my uncle exclaimed, with infinite graciousness and affection. “’Tis wonderful kind! An’ I’m glad ye’re kind t’ me now––with my ol’ shipmate here. But you isn’t needed, lad; so do you go t’ bed like the good b’y that you is. Go t’ bed, Dannie, God bless ye!––go t’ bed, an’ go t’ sleep.”
“Ay,” I complained; “but I’m not wantin’ t’ leave ye with this man.”
“True, an’ I’m proud of it,” says he; “but I’ve no means o’ curin’ the croup. An’ Dannie,” says he, “I’m more feared o’ the croup than o’ the devil. Do you go t’ bed.”
“I’ll go,” I answered, “an you wills it.”
’Twas very dark in the dining-room; there was no sight of the geometrical gentlemen on that geometrically tempestuous sea to stay a lad in his defiance.
“Good lad!” said my uncle. “God bless ye!”
On the landing above I encountered my tutor, half-dressed, a candle in hand. ’Twas a queer figure he cut, thinks I––an odd, inconsequent figure in a mysterious broil of the men of our kind. What was this cockney––this wretched alien––when the passions of our coast were stirring? He would be better in bed. An eye he had––age-wise ways and a glance to overawe my youth––but what was he, after all, in such a case as this? I was his master, however unlearned I 136 might be; his elder and master, to be sure, in a broil of our folk. Though to this day I respect the man for his manifold virtues, forgetting in magnanimity his failings, I cannot forgive his appearance on that night: the candle, the touselled hair, the disarray, the lean legs of him! “What’s all this?” he demanded. “I can’t sleep. What’s all this about? Is it a burglar?”
It made me impatient––and no wonder!
“What’s this, you know?” he repeated. “Eh? What’s all this row?”
“Do you go t’ bed!” I commanded, with a stamp, quite out of temper. “Ye’re but a child! Ye’ve no hand in this!”