In fact, these ministrations,
if suspected, were winked at by Mrs. Marvyn, for two reasons: first,
that mothers are generally glad of any loving-kindness to an erring boy,
which they are not responsible for; and second, that Candace was so set
in her ways and opinions that one might as well come in front of a ship
under full sail as endeavor to stop her in a matter where her heart was
engaged.
To be sure, she had her own private and special quarrels with "Massa
James" when he disputed any of her sovereign orders in the kitchen, and
would sometimes pursue him with uplifted rolling-pin and floury hands
when he had snatched a gingernut or cooky without suitable deference or
supplication, and would declare, roundly, that there "never was sich an
aggravatin' young un." But if, on the strength of this, any one
else ventured a reproof, Candace was immediately round on the other
side:--"Dat ar' chile gwin' to be spiled, 'cause dey's allers a-pickin'
on him;--he's well enough, on'y let him alone."
Well, under this miscellaneous assortment of influences,--through
the order and gravity and solemn monotone of life at home, with the
unceasing tick-tack of the clock forever resounding through clean,
empty-seeming rooms,--through the sea, ever shining, ever smiling,
dimpling, soliciting, like a magical charger who comes saddled and
bridled and offers to take you to fairyland,--through acquaintance with
all sorts of foreign, outlandish ragamuffins among the ships in the
harbor,--from disgust of slow-moving oxen, and long-drawn, endless
furrows round the fifteen-acre lot,--from misunderstandings with grave
elder brothers, and feeling somehow as if, he knew not why, he grieved
his mother all the time just by being what he was and couldn't help
being,--and, finally, by a bitter break with his father, in which came
that last wrench for an individual existence which some time or other
the young growing mind will give to old authority,--by all these united,
was the lot at length cast; for one evening James was missing at
supper, missing by the fireside, gone all night, not at home to
breakfast,--till, finally, a strange, weird, most heathenish-looking
cabin-boy, who had often been forbidden the premises by Mr.
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