Uncle Luke

“ Confused by the accident and the thunderous sound of shrouds and sails, Uncle Luke, who could not at any time get his ideas to work quickly, gazed about him for a few moments in horrified despair—then he saw that the tug, having reversed her engines, was close upon the barge, and that a boat which she had put out was rowing swiftly towards a figure which was floating, apparently lifeless, on the waves—the figure of Uncle Mark. Dead? ”

“ Uncle Luke Turns Prophet.
“Why doesn’t Leslie come?” said Uncle Luke impatiently, as he rose from a nearly untasted breakfast the next morning to go to the window of his private room in the hotel and try to look up and down the street. “It’s too bad of him. Here, what in the world have I done to be condemned to such a life as this?”
“Life?” he exclaimed after a contemptuous stare at the grimy houses across the street. “Life? I don’t call this life! What, an existence! Prison would be preferable.”
He winced as the word prison occurred to him, and began to think of Harry. ”

“ The result was, that before they sat down to their meal at the quiet hotel, Uncle Luke wrote a letter, which was dispatched by special messenger, after which he ate heartily; while Leslie played with a cup of tea and a piece of dry toast.
“Not the way to do work,” said Uncle Luke grimly. “Eat, man; eat. Coal and coke to make the human engine get up steam.” ”

“ Look at it how you like, you must admit that it is not impossible. Uncle Arthur may have married in Martinique; he was out there in 1881; he may have had a son; his telling no one about his marriage is not to be wondered at; he was always reticent and queer about his own affairs. This Philip may possibly be Uncle Rad's sole and rightful heir, and I may possibly be a beggar."
She uttered an exclamation of incredulity. Luke, a beggar! Luke the one man in all the world, different from every other man! Luke ousted by that stranger upstart! ”

“ What a splendid chap he was, Canon. I’ve sometimes thought Uncle Luke was a bit hard on him that time.”
“You’re quite wrong, Percy. Hard is the one thing your uncle could not be. Why, he’s the softest hearted man in existence.”
“Yes, I know. But, does he really want me to go out there and hunt up Hilary?” ”

“ Not you, Uncle Rad?"
"Philip is your uncle Arthur's son," rejoined Lord Radclyffe, speaking like a fretful child in a thin voice that cracked now and again. "He will be the head of the family presently——"
"Not," interposed Luke earnestly, "before many years are past, I trust and pray for all our sakes, Uncle Rad——"
"The sooner," continued the old man, not heeding the interruption, "those young jackanapes learn to respect him, the better it will be for them."
"Jim and Edie have been a little spoiled by your kindness, sir. They are finding the lesson a little hard to learn. ”

“ Then trouble came, and Uncle Mark died, and I was brought to Mr. White. Uncle Luke brought me. After he went away he used to write me, but at last all letters ceased. Mr. White made inquiries, but he had disappeared, and no one knew where he had gone. Dear Uncle Luke!’
Her voice was broken, and her eyes were full of tears.
‘What made you think of going upon the stage?’
‘I used to go to the theatre with Mademoiselle de Berny, and she used to make me hear her go through her parts. I always loved acting, Mr. Forster, and at Mr. White’s there were so many professional people. ”

“ Mother wouldn't make a fuss about my enlisting and going to France to fight in the trenches, and maybe never set eyes on me again, and yet she could—Lord! Uncle Luke, women are queer! Well, she's made it impossible for me to do anything but go back to that beastly show. ”

“ He can't be a bad man."
"Oh! can't he?" was Colonel Harris's muttered comment.
"At any rate, if I have no influence, he has, and he must exert it and get Uncle Rad down to Algeciras or anywhere he likes so long as it is well south."
Luke paused awhile, his face flushed with this expression of determination which must have caused his pride many a bitter pang. Then he resumed more quietly:
"It's rather humiliating, isn't it, to go to that man as a suppliant?"
[Pg 89] "Don't go as a suppliant, my boy. You must insist on your uncle being properly looked after." ”

“ Why their beauty is their good. They are gifts from God just as everything else is that is lovely, and of good report. Don't despise them. Besides," she said, feeling a little sore, "Uncle Joe gave them to me, and I loved him." Then she added, determined not to give way to any feeling of disappointment, "and now we can think about our holiday. Where shall we go?"
She was folding the cheque up and putting it again in the envelope of her letter. But on noticing that Luke did not answer her question, she glanced up and found him looking out of the window with a dreamy happy smile on his face. ”

“ Is that all that your uncle left?”
“I think so. He said nothing about having more.”
“It isn’t much to begin the world with. I wish for your sake, boy, that I had some to give you, but I never knew how to get together money.”
“I guess it will do, Luke. I have health and strength. I think I can make my way.”
“But you have no trade.”
“Have you?”
“No, Ernest. You’ve got me there. I am only a hunter, but I don’t make much of a living. I don’t recommend you to follow in my steps.”
“One thing is certain, Luke. I must get away from here. There is nothing I can do in Oak Forks.” ”

“ Upon one of the gates now leaned Uncle Mark, clad, too, in his Sunday best, but much less gaudily than Luke, and looking down the road with impatience marked on every lineament of his face.
‘Here you be at last,’ he said, when the vagrant pair came up. ‘Why, mate alive, can’t you be home at meal times? Mother’s in a powerful rage. Brother Brown be coming this afternoon, and he’ll be here afore we can get our wittles done!’
At this speech the smile faded from Luke’s face ”

“ Luke did not urge him to remount his horse. He kept his arm, and helped him along, as though he were conducting a sick man on his walk, till he had conveyed him some distance from the saw-pit. As the Squire's step became firmer, he said,
"A hard trial is laid on you, dear uncle, but you must bear up under it as a man. Do not let folk think that it has broken you down. They will respect you when they see your courage and steadfastness. Put your trust in God, and He will give you in place of Hall something better than that—better a thousand times, which hitherto you have not esteemed." ”

“ And Nat lived it all! But people—dull stodgy people like Uncle Clem and Aunt Mollie, and old Beckonridge down at the store, and a dozen others—these criticized him for not "workin' reg'lar" and giving a full account of himself.
Luke, thinking of all this, would flush with impotent anger.
"Oh, let 'em talk, though! He'll show 'em some day! They dunno Nat. He'll do somethin' big fur us all some day."
III
Midsummer came to trim the old farm with her wreaths. It was the time Luke loved best of all—the long, sweet, loam-scented evenings with Maw and Tom on the old porch ”

“ Luke looked a little surprised.
"A gentleman was speaking to me on that subject this morning," he said.
"What did he say to you?" asked Stephen, curiously.
"He recommended me to go West, but did not seem to approve of California."
"Why not. Had he ever been there?"
"He said he had visited San Francisco, but had never been in the interior."
"What a whopper that was!" thought Stephen Webb. "Why should Uncle Thomas say that?"
"What sort of a looking man was he? Had you ever seen him before?" he inquired.
"He is a peculiar-looking man—has a wart on his right cheek." ”

“ Sir, I can hardly realize I went into that country a lad of fifteen, like your nephew, and here I am, out of it, an old man."
"Pah, Eric man," says my uncle, "you'll be finding a wife one of these days and renewing your youth."
"Uncle," I broke out when the Hudson's Bay man had gone home, "how old is Mr. Hamilton?"
"Fifteen years older than you are, boy, and I pray Heaven you may have half as much of the man in you at thirty as he has," returns my uncle mentally measuring me with that stern eye of his. At that information, my heart gave a curious, jubilant thud. ”

“ Over and over again I caught my aunt watching me, with a most melancholy expression in her eyes, as if she witnessed in my undissembled enjoyment of Theresa’s society, the dissolution [139] of the last fragment that remained of her pretty hopes.
“Tom,” said uncle Dick, when the dessert was upon the table, and the servants had left the room, “I should like to see Conny. She would take it ill were I to go away without wishing her joy.”
“We’ll walk to Updown after dinner,” replied uncle Tom. “A kindly word is a great help to a young heart, isn’t it, Dick? ”

“ Gray?" interposed Grace.
"I hope so, my dear," sighed the old lady. "If he has inherited the beautiful traits of his uncle, his wholesome tastes for the outdoors and nature, he can't help being a fine fellow. But I have not seen my nephew since he was a child. He has been living here and there all these years, sometimes in America and sometimes in England. His mother and father are both dead, and he has been brought up by his mother's unmarried sisters, who are half English themselves. But he must be a nice boy, even if he has only one drop of his uncle's blood in his veins." ”

“ Luke passed his hands over his brow, and then said, "I will see your father again, Anthony."
"That will avail nothing; you have spoken with him already. I tell you he will not alter till he sees that his present conduct does not affect me. What can he say or do after I am married? He may, indeed, cut me off with a shilling; but he will not do that. He loves me too well. He is too proud of having founded a family to slay his firstborn. Whom could he make his heir but me? You do not suppose he would leave all to you?" ”

“ The children were busy with Fido, and breakfast went on, but I watched my uncle's face. I had never seen it look just as it looked then. What could that old yellow letter have been? My magnetic sympathy with my uncle told me that he was deeply moved.
At dinner-time my uncle was late, and Aunt Sarah said, with a little less than her usual dignity, "I never did see such a man as Mr. Norton, when he takes a notion in his head. He's been all the morning rummaging in clouds of dust in the garret, to find more of those old letters." ”

“ There is plenty of time. He has behaved ill, though I am willing to forgive him for my girl’s sake; but there would be a want [221] of moral propriety in my heaping benefits upon him too suddenly.”
“Perhaps so,” said uncle Dick. “But Charlie grows uneasy and pines for his sweetheart.”
“Quite true,” I answered, and without ceremony left the room.
Theresa received a letter next morning from my father, and a very gorgeous epistle it was—a series of dignified and embroidered congratulations and loftily-expressed good wishes. ”

“ I’ll live in lodgings. I suppose I shall be fearfully hardworked: but what time I have to myself, I mean to be free in. For anything I can tell, my aunt may hate the smell of tobacco. Perhaps uncle Tom is a one-pipe man, who blows his cloud up the kitchen-chimney. A pleasant look-out for a fellow like me, to find himself in a house, where, after tea, the wife pulls out ‘Emma,’ or ‘Cecilia,’ and reads aloud, whilst the husband snorts in an arm-chair, and the daughter works at an altar cloth! ”

“ He is not to blame, therefore, for what has occurred now. It is not for us, dear child, to find fault with him because he is silent and reserved with us; the only feeling we ought to have towards him is one of deep gratitude for his great kindness to us. You don't forget our sad condition, my darling, on the morning we received your uncle's letter.'
'No, mother, I don't forget,' I said, somewhat softened towards uncle Bryan. ”

“ Your uncle is expecting you. God has kept him alive in order that he may see your face again. To him your face is as that of an angel. To him those blue eyes of yours are as innocent as those of a little child. To him you are the spotless darling, undefiled, uninjured by the world, whom he has nurtured and loved for your father’s sake and for your own. You must on no account, Annie, open his eyes to the truth with regard to you now. It is your duty to keep up the illusion as far as he is concerned. ”

“ I sometimes think we remember our life in pictures: certainly the very frontispiece of my acquaintance with my cousin Aleck always is, and will be, a distinct mind's eye picture of that party in the carriage, with myself in their midst.
Uncle Gordon sitting in the right hand corner with his arm round me, keeping me very close to himself, so that I might not crowd my aunt, who was leaning back on the other side of me, as though weary with the long journey. ”

“ And presently I heard it too, a rustle of leaves, crackling of twigs, voices and jingling spurs, coming nearer. Then as I rose with a premonition of approaching fate, forth into the clearing stepped my uncle George, my uncle Jervas and my aunt Julia. She was dressed for riding and carried the skirt of her close-fitting habit across her arm, and never had she looked handsomer nor more magnificently statuesque as she stood, her noble figure proudly erect, all potent femininity from feathered hat to dainty, firm-planted riding boots. ”

“ The dusk drove me away at last, and being very weary, I called a coach and went to my aunt’s, that I might get the latest news of Tom. My uncle had had a long interview with my sweetheart in the morning.
[130] ‘He is fairly cheerful and hopeful,’ said he. ‘You will scarcely know him, though. His anxiety during the long voyage home in the man-of-war has pinched and wrinkled and shrunk him. You’ll see him to-morrow. We will go together.’
‘Uncle, you will employ the very best people on his side.’ He named a well-known Old Bailey pleader of those days. ‘Do not stint in money, uncle. ”