d," 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; b