And now the lower stars were paling in a far-off flush of light. I had been disquieted, but was by this waxing glow made glad that the sea and rock of the world were to lie uncovered of their shadows while yet I was awake. "Twas a childish prayer--too simple in terms and pet.i.tion (as some may think) for the lad that was I to utter, grown tall and broad and l.u.s.ty for my years; but how sufficient (I recall) to still the fears of night! They who are grown lads, like the lad that was I, got somewhat beyond the years of tenderness, cling within their hearts to all the lost privileges of love they must by tradition affect to despise. My prayer for the little lamb that was I presented no aspect of incongruity to my uncle; it left him silent and solemnly abstracted: the man being cast into a heavy muse upon its content, his head fallen over his breast, as was his habit, and his great gray brows drawn down. How still the night--how cold and clear: how unfeeling in this frosty calm and silence, save, afar, where the little stars winked their kindly cognizance of the wakeful dwellers of the earth! I sat up in my bed, peering through the window, to catch the first glint of the moon and to watch her rise dripping, as I used to fancy, from the depths of the sea.
"But they stray!" my uncle complained.
"Twas an utterance most strange. "Uncle Nick," I asked, "what is it that strays?"
"The feet o" children," he answered.
By this I was troubled.
"They stray," he repeated. "Ay; "tis as though the Shepherd minded not at all."
"Will my feet stray?"
He would not answer: and then all at once I was appalled--who had not feared before.
"Tell me!" I demanded.
He reached out and touched my hand--a fleeting, diffident touch--and gently answered, "Ay, lad; your feet will stray."
"No, no!" I cried.
"The feet of all children," said he. ""Tis the way o" the world. They isn"t mothers" prayers enough in all the world t" change the Shepherd"s will. He"s wise--the Shepherd o" the lambs."
""Tis sad, then," I expostulated, "that the Shepherd haves it so."
"Sad?"
"Ay--wondrous sad."
"I"m not able t" think "tis sad," said he. ""Tis wise, Dannie, I"m thinkin", t" have the lads wander in strange paths. I"d not have un suffer fear an" sorrow, G.o.d knows! not one poor lad of all the lads that ever was. I"d suffer for their sins meself an" leave un go scot free. Not one but I"d be glad t" do it for. But still "tis wise, I"m thinkin", that they should wander an" learn for theirselves the trouble o" false ways. I wisht," he added, simply, "that they was another plan--some plan t" save un sorrow while yet it made un men.
But I can"t think o" none."
"But an they"re lost?"
He scratched his head in a rush of anxious bewilderment. "Why, Dannie," cries he, "it cannot be! Lost? Some poor wee lads lost? _You_ lost, Dannie? My G.o.d! _You_, Dannie--you that lies there tender an"
kind an" clean o" soul in your little bed? You that said the little prayer t" the tender Shepherd? _You_ lost! G.o.d! it _could_ not be.
What"s this you"re tellin" me? I"m not able t" blaspheme the Lord G.o.d A"mighty in a way that"s vile as that. Not you, lad--not you! Am I t"
curse the G.o.d that would have it so?" cries he, in wrath. "Am I t"
touch your young body here in the solemn night, am I t" look into your unspoiled eyes by day, an" feel that you fare into the dark alone, a child, an" without hope? _Me_ think that? Ol" Nick Top? Not I! Sin?
Ay; _you"ll_ sin. G.o.d knows so well as I you"ll sin. He made you, lad, an" knows full well. You"ll be sore hurt, child. For all he learns o"
righteousness, Dannie, a man suffers; an" for all he learns o" sin he pays in kind: "tis all the same--he learns o" good an" evil an" pays in the same coin o" sorrow. I"m not wishin" you sorrow: I"m wishin"
you manhood. You"ll wander, like all lads, as G.o.d knows, who made un an" the world they walks in; but the Shepherd will surely follow an"
fetch home all them that stray away upon hurtful roads accordin" t"
the will He works upon the sons o" men. They"s no bog o" sin in all the world He knows not of. He"ll seek the poor lads out, in patience an" love; an" He"ll cure all the wounds the world has dealt un in dark places, however old an" bleared an" foul they"ve growed t" be, an"
He"ll make un clean again, rememberin" they was little lads, once--jus" like you. _Why, by G.o.d! Dannie,_" cried he, "_I"d do as much meself!_"
"Ay," quoth I; "but the parsons says they"re lost for good an" all."
"Does they?" he asked, his eyes blank.
"Deed so--an" often!"
"Ah, well, Dannie!" said he, "bein" cut off from the discussion o"
parsons by misdeeds, I"m not able t" say. But bein" on"y a lost soul I"m "lowed t" think; an" I"ve thunk a idea."
I wondered concerning it.
"Which is, speakin" free an" easy," said he, "that they lie!"
""Twill be hard," I argued, ""t save un all."
""Twould be a mean poor G.o.d," he replied, "that couldn"t manage a little thing like that."
My uncle"s soul, as I had been taught (and but a moment gone informed), was d.a.m.ned.
"Uncle Nick," I inquired, "will the Shepherd find you?"
"Me?" cries he.
"Ay," I persisted; "will he not seek till he finds you, too?"
"Hist!" he whispered. "I"m d.a.m.ned, Dannie, for good an" all."
"You?"
"Good Lord, yes!" said he, under his breath. "Hist! Certain sure, I is--d.a.m.ned t" h.e.l.l for what I"m doin"."
At this distant day I know that what he did was all for me, but not on that moonlit night of my childhood.
"What"s that?" said I.
"I"m d.a.m.ned for it, anyhow," he answered. "Say no more, Dannie."
I marvelled, but could make nothing of it at all. "Tis strange (I have since thought) that we d.a.m.n ourselves without hesitation: not one worthy man in all the world counting himself deserving of escape from those dreadful tortures preached for us by such apostles of injustice as find themselves, by the laws they have framed, interpreting without reverence or fear of blunder, free from the common judgment. Ay, we d.a.m.n ourselves; but no man among us d.a.m.ns his friend, who is as evil as himself. And who d.a.m.ns his own child? "Tis no doubt foolish to be vexed by any philosophy comprehending what is vulgarly called h.e.l.l; but still (as I have thought) this is a reasonable view: there is no h.e.l.l in the philosophy of a mother for her own child; and as by beneficent decree every man is the son of his mother, consequently there is no h.e.l.l; else "twould make such unhappiness in heaven. Ah, well! I looked out of the window where were the great works of the Lord: His rock and sea and sky. The moon was there to surprise me--half risen: the sea shot with a glistening pathway to the glory of the night. And in that vast uncertain and inimical place, far out from sh.o.r.e, there rode a schooner of twenty tons, dawdling unafraid, her small sails spread for a breeze, in hope. Whither bound? Northward: an evil coast for sailing-craft--cruel waters: rock and fog and ice and tempestuous winds. Thither bound, undaunted, with wings wide, abroad in the teeth of many perils, come wreck or not. At least (I thought) she had ventured from snug harbor.
"Dannie," said my uncle, "you"re all alone in the world."
Alone? Not I! "Why, sir," said I, "I"ve _you!_"
He looked away.
"Isn"t I?" I demanded.
"No, lad," he answered; "you isn"t."
"Twas the first step he had led me from dependence upon him. "Twas as though he had loosened my hand a little from its confident clasp of his own. I was alarmed.
"Many"s the lad," said he, "that thinks he"ve his mother; an" many"s the mother that thinks she"ve her lad. But yet they is both alone--all alone. "Tis the queerest thing in the world."