"I'm not afeard, Uncle Matthew," he asserted.
"Are you not, son?"
"I'm not afeard of anything. I'd give anybody their cowardy-blow!..."
"There's few people in the world can say that, John!" Uncle Matthew said.
III
People often said of Uncle Matthew that he was "quare in the head," but John had never noticed anything queer about him. Mrs. MacDermott, finding her son in the attic where Uncle Matthew kept his books, reading an old, torn copy of Smollett's translation of Gil Blas, had said to him, "Son, dear, quit reading them oul' books, do, or you'll have your mind moidhered like your Uncle Matthew!"
And Willie Logan, tormenting him once because he had refused to acknowledge his leadership, had called after him that his Uncle Matthew was astray in the mind. It was a very great satisfaction to John that just as Willie Logan uttered his taunt, Uncle William came round McCracken's corner and heard it. Uncle William, a hasty, robust man, had clouted Willie Logon's head for him and sent him home howling.
"Go home and learn your manners," he had shouted at the blubbering boy. "Go home and learn your manners, you ill-bred brat, you!"
Uncle William had spoken very gravely and tenderly to John after that affair, as they walked home together. "Never let anyone make little of your Uncle Matthew!" he had said to his nephew. "He's a well-read man, for all his queer talk, and many's a wise thing he says when you're not expecting it. I never was much of a one for trusting to books myself.... I couldn't give my mind to them somehow ... but I have a great respect for books, all the same. It isn't every man can spare the time for learning or has the inclination for it, but we can all pay respect to them that has, whatever sort of an upbringing we've got!"
It was then that John MacDermott learned to love his Uncle William almost as much as he loved his Uncle Matthew. He had always liked Uncle William ... for he was his uncle, of course, and a kind man in spite of his rough, quick ways and sharp words ... but Uncle Matthew had commanded his love. There had been times when he almost disliked Uncle William ... the times when Uncle William made fun of Uncle Matthew's romantic talk. John would be sitting in front of the kitchen fire, before the lamp was lit, listening while his Uncle Matthew told him stories of high, romantical things, of adventures in aid of beautiful women, and of life freely given for noble purposes, until he was wrought up into an ecstasy of selflessness and longing ... and then Uncle William would come into the kitchen from the shop, stumbling, perhaps, in the dark, and swear because the lamp was not lit.