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He listened quite quietly till my mother came in, and got fidgetty, and told me not to argue with my uncle. Then he said–

“Ah! let the boy talk, Geraldine, and let me hear what he has to say for himself. There’s a sublime audacity about his notions, I tell ye. Upon me conscience, I believe he thinks his grandmother was created for his particular convenience.”

That’s how he mocks, and I suppose he meant my Irish grandmother. He thinks there’s nobody like her in the wide world, and my father says she is the handsomest and wittiest old lady in the British Isles. But I did not mind. I said,

“Well, Uncle Patrick, you’re a man, and I believe you agree with me, though you mock me.”

“Agree with ye?” He started up, and pegged about the room. “Faith! if the life we live is like the globe we inhabit–if it revolves on its own axis, and you’re that axis–there’s not a flaw in your philosophy; but IF–Now perish my impetuosity! I’ve frightened your dear mother away. May I ask, by the bye, if she has the good fortune to please ye, since the Maker of all souls made her, for all eternity, with the particular object of mothering you in this brief patch of time?”

He had stopped under the portrait–my godfather’s portrait. All his Irish rhodomontade went straight out of my head, and I ran to him.

“Uncle, you know I adore her! But there’s one thing she won’t do, and, oh, I wish you would! It’s years since she told me never to ask, and I’ve been on honour, and I’ve never even asked nurse; but I don’t think it’s wrong to ask you. Who is that man behind you, who looks such a wonderfully fine fellow? My Godfather Bayard.”

I had experienced a shock the night before, but nothing to the shock of seeing Uncle Patrick’s face then, and hearing him sob out his words, instead of their flowing like a stream.

“Is it possible? Ye don’t know? She can’t speak of him yet? Poor Geraldine!”

He controlled himself, and turned to the picture, leaning on his crutch. I stood by him and gazed too, and I do not think, to save my life, I could have helped asking–

“Who is he?”

“Your uncle. Our only brother. Oh, Bayard, Bayard!”

“Is he dead?”

He nodded, speechless; but somehow I could not forbear.

“What did he die of?”

“Of unselfishness. He died–for others.”

“Then he was a hero? That’s what he looks like. I am glad he is my godfather. Dear Uncle Pat, do tell me all about it.”

“Not now–hereafter. Nephew, any man–with the heart of man and not of a mouse–is more likely than not to behave well at a pinch; but no man who is habitually selfish can be sure that he will, when the choice comes sharp between his own life and the lives of others. The impulse of a supreme moment only focusses the habits and customs of a man’s soul. The supreme moment may never come, but habits and customs mould us from the cradle to the grave. His were early disciplined by our dear mother, and he bettered her teaching. Strong for the weak, wise for the foolish–tender for the hard–gracious for the surly–good for the evil. Oh, my brother, without fear and without reproach! Speak across the grave, and tell your sister’s son that vice and cowardice become alike impossible to a man who has never–cradled in selfishness, and made callous by custom–learned to pamper himself at the expense of others!”

I waited a little before I asked–

“Were you with him when he died?”

“I was.”

“Poor Uncle Patrick! What did you do?”

He pegged away to the sofa, and threw himself on it.

“Played the fool. Broke an arm and a thigh, and damaged my spine, and–lived. Here rest the mortal remains.”

And for the next ten minutes, he mocked himself, as he only can.

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