Dan Baldromma also had made an engagement for that day, handbills
having been distributed in Ramsey during the morning saying that "Mr.
Daniel Collister of Baldromma" would deliver an address in the
market-place at seven o'clock in the evening.
At five Dan had strapped down the lever which stopped the flow of
water on to his overshot wheel and stepped into the dwelling-house,
where Liza, his wife, had laid tea for two and was blowing up a fire
of dry gorse to boil the kettle.
"Tell your girl to put a lil rub on my Sunday boots," he said.
"But she's upstairs dressing for Douglas," said Mrs. Collister.
"You don't say?" said Dan. "So that's the way she's earning her
living?"
"Chut, man," said Mrs. Collister. "If a girl's in life she wants
aisement sometimes, doesn't she? And her ragging and tearing to keep
the farm going, and a big wash coming on next week, too."
"Well, that's good! That's rich! I thought it was myself that was
keeping the farm going. Douglas, you say? Well, well! I wonder at
you, encouraging your girl to go to such places, and you a bound
Methodist. Tell her to put a rub on my boots, ma'am."
"I'll do it myself, Dan," said Mrs. Collister. "It's little enough
time the girl will have to catch the train, and her fixing on her new
hat, too."
"New hat, eh?"
"Aw, yes, man, the one she bought at Miss Corkill's yesterday."
"What a woman! And you telling me, when you got five goolden
sovereigns out of me on Monday that she was for wearing it at the
Sulby Anniversary. I wonder you are not afraid for your quarterly
ticket."
"But it was only the girl's half year's wages, and the labourer is
worthy of his hire. Thou art always saying so at the Cross anyway."
"Hould thy tongue, woman, and don't be milking that ould cow any
more--it's dry, I tell thee."
It was at this moment that Bessie came downstairs, and Dan, who was
on the three-legged stool before the fire, making wry faces as he
dragged off his mill-boots with a boot-jack, fell on her at first
with his favourite weapon, irony.
"Aw, the smart you are in your new hat, girl--smart tremenjous!"
"I didn't think you'd have the taste to like it," said Bessie,
sitting at the table.
"Taste, is it?" said Dan. "Aw, the grand we are! The pride that's
in some ones is extraordinary though. There'll be no holding you!
You'll be going up and up! Your mother has always been used of a
poor man's house and the wind above the thatch. But you'll be
wanting feather beds and marble halls, I'm thinking."
"They won't be yours to find then, so you needn't worry," said Bessie.
"You think not? I'm not so sure of that. Man is born to trouble as
the sparks fly upwards .... So you're for Douglas, are you?"
"Yes, I am, if you'll let me take my tea in time for the train."
"Aisy, bogh, aisy!" said Mrs. Collister.
"Well, you're your own woman now, so I suppose you've got lave to
go," said Dan.
And then rising to his stockinged feet, his face hard and all his
irony gone, he added, "But I'm my own man, too, and this is my own
house, I'm thinking, and if you're not home for eleven o'clock
to-night, my door will be shut on you."
Bessie leapt up from the table.
"Shut your door if you like. There'll be lots of ones to open
theirs," she cried, and swept out of the house.
"There you are, woman!" said Dan. "What did I say? Imperent
uncommon and dirty with the tongue! She'll have to clane it this
time though. If she's not back for eleven she'll take the road and
no more two words about it."
Mrs. Collister struggled to her feet and followed Bessie, pretending
she had forgotten something.
"Bessie! Bessie!"
Bessie stopped at the end of the "street" and her mother hobbled up
to her.
"Be home for eleven, bogh," she whispered. "It's freckened mortal I
am that himself has some bad schame on."
"What schame?" asked Bessie.
"I don't know what, but something, so give him no chance."
"What do I care about his chance?"
"Aw, bolla veen, bolla veen, haven't I enough to bear with thy father
and thee? Catch the ten train back--promise me, promise me."
"Very well, I promise," said Bessie, and at the next moment she was
gone.
Five minutes later, arm-in-arm with Susie, she was swinging down the
road to the railway station for Douglas.
The little gay town, when they reached it, was at full tide, with
pianos banging in the open-windowed houses, guitars twanging in the
streets, and lines of young men marching along the pavements and
singing in chorus. The girls, fresh from their twinkling village by
the lonely hills, with the river burrowing under the darkness of the
bridge, were almost dizzy with the sights and sounds.
When they came skipping down the steep streets to the front, and
plunged into the electric light which illuminated the bay, they could
scarcely restrain themselves from running. And when, bubbling with
the animal life which had been suppressed, famished and starved in
them, they passed through the turn-stile to the dancing-palace and
hurried down the tunnel of trees, lit by coloured lamps, and saw the
stream of white light which came from the open door, and heard the
crash of the band and the drumming of the dancers within, their feet
were scarcely touching the ground and they felt as if they wanted to
fly. And when at last, having entered the hall, the whole blazing
scene burst on them in a blinding flash, they drew up with a
breathless gasp.
"Oh! Oh!"
One moment they stood by the door with blinking and sparkling eyes,
their linked arms quivering in close grip. Then Bessie, who was the
first to recover from the intoxicating shock, looked up and around,
and saw Stowell and Gell sitting in the gallery.
"Good sakes alive," she whispered, "they're there!"
"Who? The gentlemen?"
"Yes, in the front row. Be quiet, girl. They see us. Don't look
up. They might come down."
And then the girls laughed with glee at their conscious make-believe,
and their arms quivered again to the rush of their warm blood.