Fiction > Book editions > London, 1886 - Kidnapped

I   MAKE  ACQUAINTANCE   OP   MY   UNCLE.               19
of hospitable duties; for his next speech ran thus: "If
ye're dry, ye'll find water behind the door."
To this I returned no answer, standing stiffly on my
two feet, and looking down upon my uncle with a
mighty angry heart. He, on his part, continued to eat
like a man under some pressure of time, and to throw
out little darting glances now at my shoes and now at
my home-spun stockings. Once only, when he had
ventured to look a little higher, our eyes met; and no
thief taken with a hand in a man's pocket could have
shown more lively signals of distress. This set me in a
muse, whether his timidity arose from too long a disuse
of any human company; and whether perhaps, upon a
little trial, it might pass off, and my uncle change into
an altogether different man. From this I was awakened
by his sharp voice.
"Your father's been long dead?" he asked.
"Three weeks, sir," said I.
"He was a secret man, Alexander-a secret, silent
man," he continued. "He never said muckle when
he was young. He'll never have spoken muckle of
me?"
"I never knew, sir, till you told it me yourself, that
he had any brother."
"Dear me, dear me!" said Ebenezer. "Nor yet of
Shaws, I daresay?"
"Not so much as the name, sir," said I.
"To think o' that!" said he. "A strange nature
of a man!" For all that, he seemed singularly
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