ortune, could my uncle but
look into the eyes of night without misgiving.

But I must not tell him so....

* * * * *

We left John Cather behind.

"Uncle Nick," says I, "I 'low we'd best have un along."

"An' why?" cries he.

"I don't know," says I, honestly puzzled.

He looked at me quizzically. "Is you sure?" he asked. His eyes
twinkled. "Is you sure you doesn't know?"

"I don't know," I answered, frowning. "I don't know at all."

"Dannie," says he, significantly, "'tisn't time yet for John Cather t'
go t' St. John's. You got t' take your chance."

"What chance?" I demanded.

"I don't know," says he.

I scowled.

"But," says he, "an I was you I wouldn't fear on no account whatever.
No," he repeated, "_I_ wouldn't fear--an I was you."

So John Cather was left with Judy and the watchful maid-servant
who loved her, having no child of her own, when my uncle and I fared
out of the tickle upon the outside boat. I was troubled in the
dark and wash and heave of that night, but could not for the life of
me tell why. John Cather had bade me good-bye with a heartening laugh
and clap on the shoulder. 'Twas with gratitude--and sure persuasion
of unworthiness--that I remembered his affection. And Judy had given
me a sisterly kiss of farewell which yet lingered upon my lips so
warmly that in my perplexity I was conscious of it lying there and
must like a thirsty man feel the place her moist mouth had touched.
'Twas grief, thinks I, because of parting with my friend John Cather;
and I puzzled no longer, but devoted myself to the accomplishment
of manners, as I had been taught, and now attended with interest,
having grown old and wise. 'Twas rainy weather, windy, with the sea
in an ugly pother off the rocks of our hard coast. 'Twas wet,
blustering weather, indeed, all the hapless time we were gone from
Twist Tickle: the tap-rooms of St. John's, I recall, disagreeably
steamed and reeked. My uncle put me to bed that night with a motherly
injunction to recite the twenty-third psalm for safety against the
perils of the sea and the machinations of wicked men, and to regard
the precepts of the noble Lord Chesterfield for guidance in more
difficult waters: the man being quite sober for the first time in all
my life upon these occasions of departure.

"Dannie, lad," says he, "you cling t' that there little anchor I'm
give ye t' hold to."

I asked him mechanically what that was.