"Go home and learn your manners," he had shouted at the blubbering boy. "Go home and learn your manners, you ill-bred brat, you!"
Uncle William had spoken very gravely and tenderly to John after that affair, as they walked home together. "Never let anyone make little of your Uncle Matthew!" he had said to his nephew. "He's a well-read man, for all his queer talk, and many's a wise thing he says when you're not expecting it. I never was much of a one for trusting to books myself.... I couldn't give my mind to them somehow ... but I have a great respect for books, all the same. It isn't every man can spare the time for learning or has the inclination for it, but we can all pay respect to them that has, whatever sort of an upbringing we've got!"
It was then that John MacDermott learned to love his Uncle William almost as much as he loved his Uncle Matthew. He had always liked Uncle William ... for he was his uncle, of course, and a kind man in spite of his rough, quick ways and sharp words ... but Uncle Matthew had commanded his love. There had been times when he almost disliked Uncle William ... the times when Uncle William made fun of Uncle Matthew's romantic talk. John would be sitting in front of the kitchen fire, before the lamp was lit, listening while his Uncle Matthew told him stories of high, romantical things, of adventures in aid of beautiful women, and of life freely given for noble purposes, until he was wrought up into an ecstasy of selflessness and longing ... and then Uncle William would come into the kitchen from the shop, stumbling, perhaps, in the dark, and swear because the lamp was not lit.
Once, after he had listened for a few moments to one of Uncle Matthew's tales, he had laughed bitterly and said, "I declare to my good God, but you'd be in a queer way, the whole pack of you, if I was to quit the shop and run up and down the world looking for adventures and women in distress. I tell you, the pair of you, it's a queer adventure taking care of a shop and making it prosper and earning the keep of the house. There's no lovely woman hiding behind the counter 'til the young lord comes and delivers her, but by the Holy Smoke, there's a terrible lot of hard work!"