The Foolish Lovers | Page 4

and the Little Marchioness.
"You'd meet the like of them any minute of the day in London," said Uncle Matthew. "You'd mebbe be walking up a street, the Strand, mebbe, or in Hyde Park or Whitechapel, and in next to no time at all, you'd run into the whole jam-boiling of them. London's the queer place for seeing queer people. Never be content, John, when you're a man, to stay on in this place where nothing ever happens to anyone, but quit off out of it and see the world. There's all sorts in London, black men and yellow men, and I wouldn't be surprised but there's a wheen of Red Indians, too, with, feathers in their head!...."
"I'd be afeard of them fellows," said John. "They'd scalp you, mebbe!"
"Ah, sure, the peelers wouldn't let them," said Uncle Matthew. "And anyway you needn't go near them. They keep that sort down by the Docks and never let them near the places where the fine, lovely women live. London's the place to see the lovely women, John, all dressed up in silk dresses, for that's where the high-up women go ... in the Season, they call it ... and they take their young, lovely daughters with them, grand wee girls with nice hair and fine complexions and a grand way of talking ... to get them married, of course. I read in a book one time, there was a young fellow, come of a poor family, was walking in one of the parks where the quality-women take their horses every day, and a young and lovely girl was riding up and down as nice as you like, when all of a sudden her horse ran away with her. The young fellow never hesitated for a minute, but jumped over the railings and stopped the horse, and the girl was that thankful and pleased, him and her was married after. And she was a lord's daughter, John! A very high-up lord! She belonged to a queer proud family, but she wasn't too proud to fall in love with him, and they had a grand time together!"
"Were they rich?" said John.
Uncle Matthew nodded his head. "It would be a great thing now," he said, "if a lord's daughter was to take a fancy to you!..."
"I'd have to be queer and adventurous for the like of that to happen to me, Uncle Matthew," John exclaimed. He had never seen a lord's daughter, but he had seen Lady Castlederry, a proud and beautiful woman, who seemed to be totally unaware of his existence when he passed by her on the road.
"Well, and aren't you as fond of adventure as anybody in the wide world?" Uncle Matthew retorted.
"Indeed, that's true," John admitted, "but then I never had any adventures in my born days, and you yourself would like to have one, but you've never had any!"
Uncle Matthew sat quietly in his chair for a few moments. Then he drew his nephew close to him and stroked his hair.
"Come here 'til I whisper to you," he said. "D'you know why I never had any adventures, John?"
"No, Uncle Matthew, I do not!'
"Well, I'll tell you then, though I never admitted it to anyone else in the world, and I'll mebbe never admit it again. I never had any because I was afraid to have them!"
"Afeard, Uncle Matthew?" John exclaimed. He had net yet trimmed his tongue to say "afraid."
"Aye, son, heart-afraid. There's many a fine woman I'd have run away with, only I was afraid mebbe I'd be caught. You'll never have no adventures if you're afraid to have them, that's a sure and certain thing!"
John struggled out of his Uncle's embrace and turned squarely to face him.
"I'm not afeard, Uncle Matthew," he asserted.
"Are you not, son?"
"I'm not afeard of anything. I'd give anybody their cowardy-blow!..."
"There's few people in the world can say that, John!" Uncle Matthew said.

III
People often said of Uncle Matthew that he was "quare in the head," but John had never noticed anything queer about him. Mrs. MacDermott, finding her son in the attic where Uncle Matthew kept his books, reading an old, torn copy of Smollett's translation of Gil Blas, had said to him, "Son, dear, quit reading them oul' books, do, or you'll have your mind moidhered like your Uncle Matthew!"
And Willie Logan, tormenting him once because he had refused to acknowledge his leadership, had called after him that his Uncle Matthew was astray in the mind. It was a very great satisfaction to John that just as Willie Logan uttered his taunt, Uncle William came round McCracken's corner and heard it. Uncle William, a hasty, robust man, had clouted Willie Logon's head for him and sent him home howling.
"Go home and learn your manners," he had shouted at the blubbering boy. "Go home and