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?"
"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.
"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.
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.