Chapter 1. Nicholas Top

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_ CHAPTER I. NICHOLAS TOP

My uncle, Nicholas Top, of Twist Tickle, was of a cut so grotesque that folk forgot their manners when he stumped abroad. Bowling through the streets of St. John's, which twice a year he tapped with staff and wooden leg, myself in leading--bowling cheerily, with his last rag spread, as he said, and be damned to the chart--he left a swirling wake of amazement: craning necks, open mouths, round eyes, grins so frank, the beholders being taken unaware, that 'twas simple to distinguish hearts of pity from savage ones.

Small wonder they stared; my uncle was a broad, long-bodied, scowling, grim-lipped runt, with the arms and chest of an ape, a leg lacking, three fingers of the left hand gone at the knuckles, an ankle botched in the mending (the surgery his own), a jaw out of place, a round head set low between gigantic shoulders upon a thick neck: the whole forever clad in a fantastic miscellany of water-side slops, wrinkled above, where he was large, flapping below, where he was lean, and chosen with a nautical contempt for fit and fashion, but with a mysteriously perverse regard for the value of a penny.

"An' how much, lad," says he, in the water-side slop-shops, "is a penny saved?"

'Twas strange that of all men he should teach me this old-fashioned maxim as though 'twere meant for my own practice. 'Twas well enough for him, it seemed; but 'twas an incumbrance of wisdom in the singular case of the lad that was I.

"A penny made, sir," says I.

"Co'--rect!" says he, with satisfaction.

There was more to be wondered at: beginning at my uncle's left ear, which was itself sadly puckered and patched, a wide, rough scar, of changing color, as his temper went, cut a great swath in his wiry hair, curving clear over the crown of his head. A second scar, of lesser dimension and ghastly look, lay upon his forehead, over the right eyebrow, to which though by nature drooping to a glower, it gave a sharp upward twist, so that in a way to surprise the stranger he was in good humor or bad, cynical or sullen, according to the point of approach.

There were two rolls of flabby flesh under his chin, and a puff of fat under each of his quick little eyes; and from the puffs to the lower chin, which was half submerged in the folds of a black cravat, the broad, mottled expanse was grown wild with short gray beard, save where, on the left cheek, a ragged scar (the third) kept it bare and livid. 'Twas plain the man had blundered into some quarrel of wind and sea, whence he had been indifferently ejected, in the way of the sea, to live or die, as might chance: whereof--doubtless to account for his possession of me--he would tell that my father had been lost in the adventure.

"Swep' away by the third big sea," says he, his face wan with the terror of that time, his body shrunk in the chair and so uneasy that I was moved against my will to doubt the tale. "May God A'mighty forgive un the deed he done!"

"Was it a sore, wicked thing my father did?"

"God forgive un--an' me!"

"Is you sure, Uncle Nick?"

"God forgive un!"

"You're not likin' my poor father," I complained, "for the sinful thing he done."

"'Tis a sinful wicked world us dwells in," says he. "An' I 'low, b'y," says he, in anxious warning, "that afore you goes t' bed the night.... Pass the bottle. Thank 'e, lad ... that afore you goes t' bed the night you'd best get a new grip on that there little anchor I've give ye t' hang to."

"An' what's that?" says I.

"The twenty-third psa'm," says he, his bottle tipped, "for safety!"

My uncle would have (as he said) no dealings with a glass. There was none in the places familiar to his eyes; and when by chance, in the tap-rooms of the city, he came face to face with himself, he would start away with a fervent malediction upon the rogue in the mirror, consigning him to perdition without hope of passage into some easier state.

'Twas anathema most feeling and complete.

"Hist!" cries I. "You're never so bad as that, Uncle Nick!"

"None worse," says he, "than that there ol' lost rascal!"

I did not believe it.

"I isn't took a steady look at my ol' figger-'ead," he was used to saying, with his little eyes widened to excite wonder, "this five year! In p'int o' looks," says he, smirking, vain as you please, "I'm t' windward o' most o' the bullies when I trims my beard. Ah, lad, they's a raft o' bar-maids an' water-side widows would wed ol' Nicholas Top. An' why? 'Tain't money, God knows! for Nicholas Top haves none. Nar a dollar that a lone water-side widow could nose out! An' if 'tisn't money," says he, "why, Lord love us! 'tis looks. It can't be nothin' else. 'Tis looks or money with the widows; they cares not which. Come, now, lad," says he, "would you 'low it could be otherwise than looks?"

I must wag my head.

"Lord love us, Dannie!" says he, so vain--so innocently vain of the face he would not see--that my lips twitch with laughter to think of it. "You an' them water-side widows is got a wonderful judgment for looks!"

By this I was flattered.

"Now, look you!" says he, being now in his cups and darkly confidential with me, "I'm havin', as I says, no dealin' with a glass. An' why? Accordin' t' the water-side widows 'tis not ill-favor o' face. Then why? I'm tellin' you: 'Tis just because," says he, tapping the table with his forefinger, "Nick Top isn't able t' look hisself in the eye.... Pass the bottle. Thank 'e, lad.... There you haves it!" says he, with a pitiful little catch of the breath. "Nicholas Top haves a wonderful bad eye!"

I must nod my assent and commiseration.

"In p'int o' beauty," says my uncle, "Nicholas Top is perfeckly content with the judgment o' water-side widows, which can't be beat; but for these five year, Lord help un! he've had no love for the eye in his very own head."

'Twas said in such chagrin and depth of sadness that I was moved to melancholy.

"His own eye, lad," he would repeat, "in his very own head!"

My uncle, I confess, had indeed a hint too much of the cunning and furtive about both gait and glance to escape remark in strange places. 'Twas a pity--and a mystery. That he should hang his head who might have held it high! At Twist Tickle, to be sure, he would hop hither and yon in a fashion surprisingly light (and right cheerful); but abroad 'twas either swagger or slink. Upon occasions 'twas manifest to all the world that following evil he walked in shame and terror. These times were periodic, as shall be told: wherein, because of his simplicity, which was unspoiled--whatever the rascality he was in the way of practising--he would betray the features of hang-dog villany, conceiving all the while that he had cleverly masked himself with virtue.

"Child," says he, in that high gentleness by which he was distinguished, "take the old man's hand. Never fear t' clasp it, lad! Ye're abroad in respectable company."

I would clasp it in childish faith.

"Abroad," says he, defiantly, "in highly respectable company!"

Ah, well! whether rogue or gentleman, upon whom rascality was writ, the years were to tell. These, at any rate, were the sinister aspects of Nicholas Top, of Twist Tickle, whose foster-child I was, growing in such mystery as never was before, I fancy, and thriving in love not of the blood but rich and anxious as love may be: and who shall say that the love which is of the blood--a dull thing, foreordained--is more discerning, more solicitous, more deep and abiding than that which chances, however strangely, in the turmoil and changes of the life we live? To restore confidence, the old dog was furnished with an ample, genial belly; and albeit at times he drank to excess, and despite the five years' suspicion of the eye in his very own head, his eyes were blue and clear and clean-edged, with little lights of fun and tenderness and truth twinkling in their depths. I would have you know that as a child I loved the scarred and broken old ape: this with a child's devotion, the beauty of which (for 'tis the way of the heart) is not to be matched in later years, whatever may be told. Nor in these days, when I am full-grown and understand, will I have a word spoken in his dishonor.

Not I, by Heaven!

* * * * *

I came to Twist Tickle, as I am informed, on the wings of a southeasterly gale: which winds are of mean spirit and sullenly tenacious--a great rush of ill weather, overflowing the world, blowing gray and high and cold. At sea 'twas breaking in a geyser of white water on the Resurrection Rock; and ashore, in the meagre shelter of Meeting House Hill, the church-bell clanged fearsomely in a swirl of descending wind: the gloaming of a wild day, indeed! The Shining Light came lurching through the frothy sea with the wind astern: a flash of white in the mist, vanishing among the careering waves, doughtily reappearing--growing the while into the stature of a small craft of parts, making harbor under a black, tumultuous sky. Beyond the Toads, where there is a turmoil of breaking water, she made a sad mess of it, so that the folk of the Tickle, watching the strange appearance from the heads, made sure she had gone down; but she struggled out of the spray and tumble, in the end, and came to harbor unscathed in the place where Nicholas Top, himself the skipper and crew, was born and fished as a lad.

They boarded him, and (as they tell) he was brisk and grim and dripping upon the deck--with the lights dancing in his eyes: those which are lit by the mastery of a ship at sea.

"Ay, mates," says he, "I'm come back. An'," says he, "I'd thank ye t' tread lightly, for I've a wee passenger below, which I've no wish t' have woke. He's by way o' bein' a bit of a gentleman," says he, "an' I'd not have ye take a liberty."

This made them stare.

"An' I'd not," my uncle repeated, steadily, glancing from eye to eye, "have ye take a liberty."

They wondered the more.

"A bit of a gentleman!" says my uncle, in savage challenge. "A bit of a gentleman!"

He would tell them no more, nor ever did; but in imperturbable serenity and certainty of purpose builded a tight little house in a nook of Old Wives' Cove, within the harbor, where the Shining Light might lie snug; and there he dwelt with the child he had, placidly fishing the grounds with hook and line, save at such times as he set out upon some ill-seeming business to the city, whence he returned at ease, it seemed, with himself and his errand, but something grayer, they say, than before. The child he reared was in the beginning conscious of no incongruity, but clothed the old man with every grace and goodly quality, in faith and understanding, as children will: for these knowing ones, with clearer sight than we, perceive neither guile nor weakness nor any lack of beauty in those who foster them--God be thanked!--whatever the nature and outward show may be. There is a beauty common to us all, neither greater nor less in any of us, which these childish hearts discover. Looking upon us, they are blind or of transcendent vision, as you will: the same in issue--so what matter?--since they find no ugliness anywhere. 'Tis the way, it may be, that God looks upon His world: either in the blindness of love forgiving us or in His greater wisdom knowing that the sins of men do serve His purpose and are like virtue in His plan.

But this is a mystery.... _

Read next: Chapter 2. At The Sign Of The Anchor And Chain


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