"Because in your eyes only, it is a misadventure," he continued rapidly, with growing excitement. "You came to this miserable hole--this Wallencamp--resolved to view everything in a new light--the light of unselfish devotion to great ends, and exalted aspiration, and ideal perfection, and all that. Well, how has the wretched, giggling, conniving little community shown out in that light? I suppose there's one--that larking Cradlebow--who has stood the test and come out creditably, by reason of an uncommonly artistic shock of hair and a Raphaelite countenance. As for me, taken in the ordinary sense, I'm no worse than a thousand others, but I say that it was a decidedly unfortunate light to put me in! It was a decidedly unfair light!" "I have no wish to judge you in any light," I said, and explaining briefly my errand to the school-house, I expressed regret at having interrupted the fisherman's meditations, and turned to go. "Miss Hungerford!" he exclaimed, with a gesture of whimsical force and impatience; "it's my last chance for an explanation. Don't, for God's sake, cut it short at this point. You might know--you might _know_, that I'm not a bad fellow at heart. But you will never see the best side of me--there's fate in it. I never wanted to seem specially contrite but I must set myself jumping like a jack-in-the box for your infernally cold amusement! I had an explanation at my tongue's end. D--n it! I don't remember a word of it." "I don't think it is necessary," I said. "Oh, no!" he continued in a deeply aggrieved, almost a whining tone; "nothing's necessary that would set me out in a little better shape! Anything will do for these grovelling Wallencampers, but just as soon as it comes to me, all the extenuating circumstances of my life--that I was left so early orphaned, sisterless, brotherless, my nearest of kin a wicked, carousing old uncle; taken to see the world here, and to see the world there; homeless, if ever one was homeless; never trained to any correct way of thinking, or settled manner of life, but just to spend my money and aim at enjoying myself--they all amount to nothing in my case. "Well, I used to come to Wallencamp just for that same purpose--to have a good time; it was such a jolly wild place to let the Old Nick loose in; and now it seems that's to be taken for a man's natural level, and the best that he's capable of! Then I met you. You would voluntarily give up ease and luxury, for a time, for the sake of an abstract idea--whether misguided or not, I will not say, the fact remains the same--and I swear it was a new revelation to me. It was strange and perverse, and it was deuced taking! Then I tried to get you to include _me_ among the objects of your mission, to accept _me_ as a candidate for temporal leniency and final salvation, and you wouldn't. It is only the happy, ragged, unconscious heathen that are looked out for in this world; the real ones don't get any sympathy." The fisherman paused.