The Foolish Lovers | Page 4

Fagan and Bill Sykes and Uriah Heap and Squeers and Mr. Murdstone
and that fearful man who drank so much that he died of spontaneous
combustion; and pathetic figures: Sidney Carton and Little Nell and
Oliver Twist and Nancy and Dora and Little Dorritt 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