so with the Master's tongue, that
was so cunning to question; and his eyes, that were so quick to observe.
I seemed to have said nothing, and yet to have let all out. Before I
knew where I was the man was condoling with me on my lord's neglect of
my lady and myself, and his hurtful indulgence to his son. On this last
point I perceived him (with panic fear) to return repeatedly. The boy
had displayed a certain shrinking from his uncle; it was strong in my
mind his father had been fool enough to indoctrinate the same, which was
no wise beginning: and when I looked upon the man before me, still so
handsome, so apt a speaker, with so great a variety of fortunes to
relate, I saw he was the very personage to captivate a boyish fancy.
John Paul had left only that morning; it was not to be supposed he had
been altogether dumb upon his favourite subject: so that here would be
Mr. Alexander in the part of Dido, with a curiosity inflamed to hear;
and there would be the Master, like a diabolical Aeneas, full of matter
the most pleasing in the world to any youthful ear, such as battles,
sea-disasters, flights, the forests of the West, and (since his later
voyage) the ancient cities of the Indies. How cunningly these baits
might be employed, and what an empire might be so founded, little by
little, in the mind of any boy, stood obviously clear to me. There was
no inhibition, so long as the man was in the house, that would be strong
enough to hold these two apart; for if it be hard to charm serpents, it
is no very difficult thing to cast a glamour on a little chip of manhood
not very long in breeches. I recalled an ancient sailor-man who dwelt in
a lone house beyond the Figgate Whins (I believe, he called it after
Portobello), and how the boys would troop out of Leith on a Saturday,
and sit and listen to his swearing tales, as thick as crows about a
carrion: a thing I often remarked as I went by, a young student, on my
own more meditative holiday diversion. Many of these boys went, no
doubt, in the face of an express command; many feared, and even hated,
the old brute of whom they made their hero; and I have seen them flee
from him when he was tipsy, and stone him when he was drunk. And yet
there they came each Saturday! How much more easily would a boy like Mr.
Alexander fall under the influence of a high-looking, high-spoken
gentleman-adventurer, who should conceive the fancy to entrap him; and
the influence gained, how easy to emplo