"Ah, here you are at last! Just in time! A breeze sprang up an hour
ago, and the Captain would have gone without you but for me. The
herring fleet have gone already. Look, there they are, sailing into
the sunset."
Fenella was in high spirits. Having prevailed upon the Governor to
let them have a real night with the herrings (turning the yacht into
a fishing boat) she had borrowed a net and hired fishermen's
clothes--oilskins and a sou'-wester for herself and a "ganzy" and big
boots for Stowell.
It was impossible to resist the contagion of Fenella's gaiety. "Why
try?" thought Stowell. It would be his last night of happiness.
To-morrow he would have to bury it for ever.
In a few minutes, having cleared the harbour, they had opened the
land on either side and were standing out for the fishing ground.
Within two hours, in the midst of the fleet, they were sailing over
the Carlingford sands, midway between the island and Ireland, and the
sea-birds skimming above the water were showing them the shoal.
Dinner was over, and Stowell, in jersey and big boots up to his
thighs, saw Fenella come on deck in her oilskin coat and
sou'-wester--with the new and surprising beauty which fresh garments,
whatever they are, give to every woman in the eyes of the man who
loves her.
What shouts! What laughter! Stowell kept saying to himself:
"Why not? It will soon be over."
They slackened sail and waited for the sun to go down before shooting
their nets. Presently the great ball of flame descended into the
sea, the admiral of the fleet ran his flag to his masthead, and the
Captain cried, "Shoot!"
Then the brown net, with its floats, was dropped over the stern
(Fenella taking a hand and shouting with the men), the foresail was
hauled down, and the mizzen set to keep the ship head to the wind.
And then, all being snug for the night, came the fisherman's prayer:
"_Dy hannie Patrick Noo shin as nyn maaty_" (May St. Patrick bless us
and our boat) with something about the living and the dead--the crew
and the fish.
After that came the throwing of the salt, a more robustious and less
religious ceremony, which threw Fenella into fits of laughter.
"What does it mean?" she asked.
"Goodness knows!"
"How delightful!"
The grey twilight came down from the northern heavens, and then night
fell--a dark night without moon but with a world of stars. Stowell
and Fenella were leaning over the side to watch the phosphorescent
gleams which, like flashes of light under the surface, came from the
fish that were darting away from the prow.
"Isn't it wonderful--the fish going on and on to the goal of their
perpetual travels?" said Fenella.
"They always come back to the place they were spawned, though," said
Stowell.
"Like humans, are they? You remember--'Back to the heart's place
here I keep for thee.'"
Stowell felt as if a hand were at his throat again. "Bye and bye,"
he thought. Before they turned in for the night he would tell her
everything.
Suddenly there was a crash at the stern--the anchor had been lifted
up and then banged down on the deck.
"What's that?" cried Fenella.
"They're proving the nets to see if the fish are coming," said
Stowell, and hurrying aft together they found the water milky white
and full of irridescent rays.
A couple of warps of the net were hauled aboard, and twelve or
fifteen herring fell on to the deck. Fenella picked them up,
wriggling, cheeping and twisting in her hands and threw them into a
basket--she was in a fever of excitement.
After that several of the boats that were fishing alongside called
across to know the result of the proving, and the Captain answered
them in Manx, with the crude symbolism of the sea.
"Let me do it next time," said Fenella.
"Do you think you can, miss?" asked the Captain.
"She can do anything," said Stowell, and when the next boat called,
Fenella (with Stowell to prompt her) stood ready to reply.
"_R'ou promal, bhoy?_" cried the voice out of the darkness.
"What's he saying? Quick!"
"He's asking were you proving, boy. Say '_Va_--I was.'"
Fenella put her open palms at each side of her mouth, under her
sou'-wester, and cried, "_Va!_"
"_Quoid oo er y piyr?_"
"He asks what you found in your net. Say '_Pohnnar_--a child.'"
"Oh my goodness! _Pohnnar_," cried Fenella.
"_Cre'n eash dy pohnnar?_"
"He asks what is the age of your child. Say '_Dussan ny
quieg-yeig_--twelve to fifteen.'"
"My goodness gracious! _Dussan ny quieg-yeig_," cried Fenella.
By this time everybody was in convulsions of laughter, and Stowell
could scarcely resist the impulse to throw his arms about Fenella and
kiss her. "Soon! Soon! I must tell her soon!" he thought.
The wind had dropped and a great stillness had fallen on the sea.
The glow from the lights of the Dublin was in the western sky; the
revolving light of the Chicken Rock (the most southerly point of Man)
was in the east; and for two miles round lay the herring boats, with
their watch-lights burning on the roofs of their net houses, and
looking like stars which had fallen from the darkening sky on to the
bosom of the sea.
Fenella began to sing, and before Stowell knew what he was doing he
was singing with her:
She: _Oh Molla-caraine, where got you your gold?_
He: _Lone, lone, you have left me here._
It was entrancing--the hour, the surroundings, the charm and sonority
of the sea! "But this is madness," thought Stowell. It would only
make it the harder to do--what he had to do.
Nevertheless he went on, and when they came to the end of another
Manx ballad _Kiree fo naightey_ (the sheep under the snow) he said:
"Would you like to know where that old song was written?"
"Where?"
"In Castle Rushen--by a poor wretch whose life had been sworn away by
a vindictive woman."
"And what had he done to her? Betrayed her, and then deserted her
for another woman, I suppose. That's the one thing a woman can never
forgive--never should, perhaps."
"I must tell her soon," thought Stowell. But he could think of no
way to begin--no natural way to lead up to what he had to say.
The night was now very dark and silent. The majesty and solemnity
around were grand and moving. Fenella, who had been laughing all the
evening, was serious enough at last.
"It's almost as if the sea, grown old, had gone to sleep with the
going down of the sun, isn't it?" she said.
"The sea isn't always like this, though," said Stowell.
"No, it can be very cruel, can't it? Rolling on and on, with its
incessant, monotonous roar through the ages! What heartless things
it has done! Millions and millions of women have prayed and it has
no heed to them."
"How can I do it? How can I do it?" Stowell was asking himself.
"Oh, what a thing it is to be a sailor's wife!" said Fenella. "Only
think of her with her little brood, in her cottage at Peel, perhaps,
when a sudden storm comes on! Giving the children their supper and
washing them and undressing them, and hearing them say their prayers
and hushing them to sleep, and then going downstairs to the kitchen,
and listening to the roar of the sea on the castle rocks, and
thinking of her man out here in the darkness, struggling between life
and death."
Stowell knew, though he dare not look, that she was brushing her
handkerchief over her eyes.
"Victor," she said, "don't you think women are rather brave
creatures?"
"The bravest creatures in the world!" he answered.
"I knew you would say that," said Fenella, in a low voice. "And
that's why I always think of you as their champion, fighting their
battles for them when they are wronged and helpless."
Stowell felt as if he were choking. He could not go on with this
hypocrisy any longer. He must tell her now. It would be like
committing suicide, but what must be, must be.
"Fenella...."
But just then the loud voice of the Captain cried "Strike!" and at
the next moment Fenella was flying aft, to tug at the net and shake
out the herrings that came up with it.
What shouts! What screams! What peals of laughter!
It was midnight before the joy and bustle of the catch were over, and
the net was shot again. The Governor was then smoking his last pipe
in the Captain's cabin, and Stowell, with Fenella on his arm, was
walking to and fro on the deck.
"Need I tell her at all?" he was thinking.
He felt as if he were being swept along by an irresistible flood. He
could not doom himself to death. With Fenella by his side he could
think of nobody and nothing but her. Sometimes, when they crossed
the light from the skylight, they turned their faces towards each
other and smiled.
After a while Stowell found himself bantering Fenella. Catching a
flash of her ring (his mother's ring) on the hand that was on his
arm, he pretended it was gone and asked if it had fallen off while
she was pulling at the net.
"Gone! The ring you ga-- .... I mean the Deemster gave me! No, here
it is! What a shock! I should have died if I had lost it."
She was radiant; he was reckless; the little trick had uncovered
their hearts to each other.
They heard a step on the other side of the deck.
"Fenella!"
It was the Governor going down the companion. "Time to turn in,
girl! We are to breakfast at Port St. Mary at nine in the morning,
you know."
"I'm coming, father."
"Good-night, Stowell!"
"Good-night, Sir!"
But he could not let Fenella go. It was a sin to go to bed at all on
such a heavenly night. At last, at the top of the companion, he
loosed her arm, with a slow asundering, and said,
"The Governor says we are to breakfast at Port St. Mary--do you think
we shall if this calm continues?"
She laughed (her laugh seemed to come up from her heart) and said,
"I'm not worrying about that."
"No?"
"When a woman has all she wants in the world in one place why should
she wish to go to another?"
"And have you?"
"Good-night!" she said, holding out both hands.
He caught them, and the touch communicated fire. At the next moment
he had lifted her hands to his lips.
She drew them down, and his hands with them, pressed them to her
breast and then broke away, and was gone in an instant.