ne an' tol' Judy," says he, "lest she learn t' love ye for
what ye was not."

'Twas no matter to me....

* * * * *

This, then, was the heart of my mystery! I had been fed and adorned
and taught and reared in luxury by the murder of seven men and
the merciless blackmail of an ambitious villain. What had fed me,
warmed me, clothed me had been the product of this horrible
rascality. And my father was the murderer, whom I had dreamed a
hero, and my foster-father was the persecutor, whom I had loved
for his kindly virtue. And paid for!--all paid for in my father's
crime and damnation. This--all this--to make a gentleman of the
ill-born, club-footed young whelp of a fishing skipper! I laughed
as I walked away from this old Nick Top: laughed to recall my progress
through these nineteen years--the proud, self-righteous stalking
of my way.

'Twas a pretty figure I had cut, thinks I, with my rings and London
clothes, in the presence of the Honorable, with whom I had dealt in
pride and anger! 'Twas a pretty figure I had cut, all my life--the
whelp of a ruined, prostituted skipper: the issue of a murderous
barratry! What protection had the defenceless child that had been I
against these machinations? What protest the boy, growing in guarded
ignorance? What appeal the man in love, confronted by his origin and
shameful fostering? Enraged by this, what I thought of my uncle's
misguided object and care I may not here set down, because of the
bitterness and injustice of the reflections; nay, but I dare not
recall the mood and wicked resentment of that time.

And presently I came to the shore of the sea, where I sat down on the
rock, staring out upon the waters. 'Twas grown dark then, of a still,
religious night, with the black sea lapping the rocks, infinitely
continuing in restlessness, and a multitude of stars serenely
twinkling in the uttermost depths of the great sky. 'Twas of this I
thought, I recall, but cannot tell why: that the sea was forever
young, unchanging in all the passions of youth, from the beginning of
time to the end of it; that the mountains were lifted high, of old,
passionless, inscrutable, of unfeeling snow and rock, dwelling above
the wish of the world; that the sweep of prairie, knowing no
resentment, was fruitful to the weakest touch; that the forests fell
without complaint; that the desert, hopeless, aged, contemptuous of
the aspirations of this day, was of imm