While Jenny Crow was doing her easy duty at Castle Mona, Lovibond was
engaged in a task of yet more simplicity at Fort Ann. On returning
from Laxey he found Captain Davey occupied with Willie Quarrie in
preparations for a farewell supper to be given that night to the cronies
who had helped him to spend his fortune. These worthies had deserted
his company since Lovibond had begun to take all the winnings, including
some of their own earlier ones; and hence the necessity to invite them.
“There’s ould Billy, the carrier--ask him,” Davy was saying, as he lay
stretched on the sofa, puffing whorls of gray smoke from a pipe of thick
twist. “And then there’s Kerruish, the churchwarden, and Kewley, the
crier, and Hugh Corlett, the blacksmith, and Tommy Tubman, the brewer,
and Willie Qualtrough, that keeps the lodging-house contagious, and the
fat man that bosses the Sick and Indignant society, and the long,
lanky shanks that is the headpiece of the Friendly and Malevolent
Association--got them all down, boy?”
“They’re all through there in my head already, Capt’n,” groaned Willie
Quarrie in despair, as he struggled at the table to keep pace with his
slow pen to Davy’s impetuous tongue.
“Then ask whosomever you plaze, boy,” said Davy. “What’s it saying in
the ould Book: ‘Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to
come in.’ Only it’s the back-courts and the public-houses this time, and
you’ll be wanting no grappling hooks to fetch them. Just whip a whisky
bottle under your arm, and they’ll be asking for no other invitation.
Reminds me, sir,” he added, looking up as Lovibond entered, “reminds me
of little Jimmy Quayle’s aisy way of fetching poor Hughie Collister
from the bottom of Ramsey harbor. Himself and Hughie were same as
brothers--that thick--and they’d been middling hard on the drink
together, and one night Hughie, going home to Andreas, tumbled over the
bridge by the sandy road and got hisself washed away and drowned. So the
boys fetched grapplings and went out immadient to drag for the body,
but Jimmy took another notion. He rigged up a tremenjous long pole, like
your mawther’s clothes’ prop on washing day and tied a string to the
top of it, and baited the end of the string with an empty bottle of Ould
Tom, and then sat hisself down on the end of the jetty, same as a man
that’s going fishing. ‘Lord-a-massy, Jemmy,’ says the boys, looking up
out of the boat; ‘whatever in the name of goodness are you doing there?’
‘They’re telling me,’ says Jemmy, bobbing the gin-bottle up and down
constant, flip-a-flop, flip-a-flop atop of the water; ‘they’re telling
me,’ says he, ‘that poor ould Hughie is down yonder, and I’m thinking
there isn’t nothing in the island that’ll fetch him up quicker till
this.’”
“But what is going on here, Capt’n?” said Lovibond, with an inclination
of his head toward the table where Willie Quarrie was still laboring
with his invitations.
“It’s railly wuss till ever, sir,” groaned Willie from behind his pen.
“What does it mean?” said Lovibond.
“It manes that I’m sailing to-morrow,” said Davy.
“Sailing!” cried Lovibond.
“That’s so,” said Davy. “Back to the ould oven we came from. Pacific
steamer laves Liverpool by the afternoon tide, and we’ll catch her aisy
if we take the ‘Snaefell’ in the morning. Fixed a couple of berths
by telegraph, and paid through Dumbell’s. Only ninety pounds the
two--for’ard passage--but nearly claned out at that. What’s the odds
though? Enough left to give the boys a blow-out to-night, and then,
heigho! stone broke, cut your stick and get out of it.”
“A couple of berths? Did you say two?” said Lovibond.
“I’m taking Willie along with me,” said Davy; “and he’s that joyful at
the thought of it that you can’t get a word out of him for hallelujahs.”
Willie’s joy expressed itself at that moment in a moan, as he rose from
the table with a woe-begone countenance, and went out on his errand of
invitation.
“But you’ll stay on,” said Davy, “Eh?”
“No,” said Lovibond, in a melancholy voice.
“Why not, then?” said Davy.
Lovibond did not answer at once, and Davy heaved up to a sitting posture
that he might look into his face.
“Why, man; what’s this--what’s this?” said Davy. “You’re looking as down
as ould Kinvig at the camp meeting, when the preacher afore him had used
up all his tex’es. What’s going doing?”
Lovibond settled himself on the sofa beside Davy, and drew a deep
breath. “I’ve seen her again, Capt’n,” he said, solemnly.
“The sweet little lily in the church, sir?” said Davy.
“Yes,” said Lovibond; and, after another deep breath, “I’ve spoken to
her.”
“Out with it, sir; out with it,” said Davy, and then, putting one hand
on Lovibond’s knee caressingly, “I’ve seen trouble in my time, mate; you
may trust me--go on, what is it?”
“She’s married,” said Lovibond.
Davy gave a prolonged whistle. “That’s bad,” he said. “I’m symperthizing
with you. You’ve been fishing with another man’s floats and losing your
labor. I’m feeling for you. ‘Deed I am.”
“It’s not myself I’m thinking of,” said Lovibond. “It’s that angel of a
woman. She’s not only married, but married to a brute.”
“That’s wuss still,” said Davy.
“And not only married to a brute,” said Lovibond, “but parted from him.”
Davy gave a yet longer whistle. “O-ho, O-ho! A quarrel is it?” he cried.
“Husband and wife, eh? Aw, take care, sir, take care. Women is ‘cute.
Extraordinary wayses they’ve at them of touching a man up under the
watch-pocket of the weskit till you’d never think nothing but they’re
angels fresh down from heaven, and you could work at the docks to keep
them; but maybe cunning as ould Harry all the time, and playing the
divil with some poor man. It’s me for knowing them. Husband and wife?
That’ll do, that’ll do. Lave them alone, mate, lave them alone.”
“Ah, the sweet creature has had a terrible time of it!” said Lovibond,
lying back and looking up at the ceiling.
“I lave it with you,” said Davy, charging his pipe afresh as a signal of
his neutrality.
“He must have led her a fearful life,” continued Lovibond.
Davy lit up, and puffed vigorously.
“It would appear,” said Lovibond, “that though she is so like a lady,
she is entirely dependent upon her husband.”
“Well, well,” said Davy, between puff and puff.
“He didn’t forget that either, for he seems to have taunted her with her
poverty.”
A growl, like an oath half smothered by smoke, came from Davy.
“Indeed, that was the cause of quarrel.”
“She did well to lave him,” said Davy, watching the coils of his smoke
going upward.
“Nay, it was he who left her.”
“The villain!” said Davy. But after Davy had delivered himself so there
was nothing to be heard for the next ten seconds but the sucking of lips
over the pipe.
“And now,” said Lovibond, “she can not stir out of doors but she finds
herself the gossip of the island, and the gaze of every passer-by.”
“Poor thing, poor thing!” said Davy.
“He must be a low, vulgar fellow,” said Lovibond; “and yet--would you
believe it?--she wouldn’t hear a word against him.”
“The sweet woman!” said Davy.
“It’s my firm belief that she loves the fellow still,” said Lovibond.
“I wouldn’t trust,” said Davy. “That’s the ways of women, sir; I’ve seen
it myself. Aw, women is quare, sir, wonderful quare.”
“And yet,” said Lovibond, “while she is sitting pining to death indoors
he is enjoying himself night and day with his coarse companions.”
Davy put up his pipe on the mantelpiece. “Now the man that does the like
of that is a scoundrel,” he said, warmly.
“I agree with you, Capt’n,” said Lovibond.
“He’s a brute!” said Davy, more loudly.
“Of course we’ve only heard one side of the story,” said Lovibond.
“No matter; he’s a brute and a scoundrel,” said Davy. “Dont you hould
with me there, mate?”
“I do,” said Lovibond. “But still--who knows? She may--I say she may--be
one of those women who want their own way.”
“All women wants it,” said Davy. “It’s mawther’s milk to them--Mawther
Eve’s milk, as you might say.”
“True, true!” said Lovibond; “but though she looks so sweet she may have
a temper.”
“And what for shouldn’t she?” said Davy, “D’ye think God A’mighty meant
it all for the men?”
“Perhaps,” said Lovibond, “she turned up her nose at his coarse ways and
rough comrades.”
“And right, too,” said Davy. “Let him keep his dirty trousses to
hisself. Who is he?”
“She didn’t tell me that,” said Lovibond.
“Whoever he is he’s a wastrel,” said Davy.
“I’m afraid you’re right, Capt’n,” said Lovibond.
“Women is priv’leged where money goes,” said Davy. “If they haven’t got
it by heirship they can’t make it by industry, and to accuse them of
being without it is taking a mane advantage. It’s hitting below the
belt, sir. Accuse a man if you like--ten to one he’s lazy--but a
woman--never, sir, never, never!”
Davy was tramping the room by this time, and making it ring with the
voice as of a lion, and the foot as of an elephant.
“More till that, sir,” he said. “A good girl with nothing at her who
takes a bad man with a million cries talley with the crayther the day
she marries him. What has he brought her? His dirty, mucky, measley
money, come from the Lord knows where. What has _she_ brought him?
Herself, and everything she is and will be, stand or fall, sink or swim,
blow high, blow low--to sail by his side till they cast anchor together
at last Don’t you hould with me there, sir?”
“I do, Capt’n, I do,” said Lovibond.
“And the ruch man that goes bearing up alongside a girl that’s sweet and
honest, and then twitting her with being poorer till hisself, is a dirt
and divil, and ought to be walloped out of the company of dacent men.”
“But, Capt’n,” said Lovibond, falteringly! “Capt’n....”
“What?”
“Wasn’t Mrs. Quiggin a poor girl when you married her?”
At that word Davy looked like a man newly awakened from a trance. His
voice, which had rung out like a horn, seemed to wheeze back like a
whistle; his eyes, which had begun to blaze, took a fixed and stupid
look; his lips parted; his head dropped forward; his chest fell inward;
and his big shoulders seemed to shrink. He looked about him vacantly,
put one hand up to his forehead and said in a broken underbreath,
“Lord-a-massy! What am I doing? What am I saying?”
The painful moment was broken by the arrival of the first of the guests.
It was Keruish, the churchwarden, a very-secular person, deep in the
dumps over a horse which he had bought at Castletown fair the week
before (with money cheated out of Davy), and lost by an attack of the
worms that morning. “Butts in the stomach, sir,” he moaned; “they’re
bad, sir, aw, they’re bad.”
“Nothing wuss,” said Davy. “I know them. Ate all the goodness out of
you and lave you without bowels. Men has them as well as horses--only we
call (them) friends instead.”
The other guests arrived one by one--the blacksmith, the crier, the
brewer, the lodging-house keeper, and the two secretaries of the
charitable societies (whose names were “spells” too big for Davy), and
the keeper of a home for lost dogs.
They were a various and motley company of the riff-raff and raggabash of
the island,--young and elderly, silent and glib--rough as a pigskin, and
smooth as their sleeves at the elbow; with just one feature common to
the whole pack of pick-thanks, and that was a look of shallow cunning.
Davy received them with noisy welcomes and equal cheer, but he had
the measure of every man of them all, down to the bottom of their fob
pockets. The cloth was laid, the supper was served, and down they sat at
the table.
“Anywhere, anywhere!” cried Davy, as they took their places. “The mate
is the same at every seat.”
“Ay, ay,” they laughed, and then fell to without ceremony.
“Only wait till I’ve done the carving, and we’ll all start fair,” said
Davy.
“Coorse, coorse,” they answered, from mouths half full already.
“That’s what Kinvig said when he was cutting up his sermon into firstly,
secondly, thirdly, and fourteenthly.”
“Ha, ha! Kinvig! I’d drink the ould man’s health if I had anything,”
cried the blacksmith, with a wink at his opposite neighbor.
“No liquor?” said Davy, looking up to sharpen the carving knife on the
steel. “Am I laving you dry like herrings in the hould?”
“Season us, capt’n,” cried the black-smith, amid general laughter from
the rest.
“Aw, lave you alone for that,” said Davy. “If you’re like myself you’re
in pickle enough already.”
Then there were more winks and louder laughter.
“Mate!” shouted Davy over his shoulder to the waiter behind him, “a
gallon to every gentleman.”
“Ay, ay,” from all sides of the table in various tones of satisfaction.
“Yes, sir--of course, sir; beg pardon, sir, here, sir,” said the waiter.
“Boys, healths apiece!” cried Davy.
“Healths apiece, Capt’n!” answered numerous thick voices, and up leaped
a line of yellow glasses.
“Ate, drink--there’s plenty, boys; there’s plenty,” said Davy.
“Aw, plenty, capt’n--plenty.”
“Come again, boys, come again,” said Davy, from time to time; “but clane
plates--aw, clane plates--I hould with being nice at your males for all,
and no pigging.”
Thus the supper went on for an hour, and then Davy by way of grace said,
“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, praise His holy
name.”
“A ‘propriate tex’, too,” said the church-warden. “Aw, it’s wonderful
the scriptural the Captn’s getting when he’s a bit crooked,” he
whispered behind the back of his hand.
After that Davy stretched back in his chair and cried, “Your pipes
in your faces, boys. Smook up, smook up; chimleys everywhere, same as
Douglas at breakfast time.”
For Davy’s sake Lovibond had sat at table with the guests, though their
voracity had almost turned his stomach. At sight of the green light of
greed in their eyes he had said to himself, “Davy is a rough fellow, but
a born Christian. These creatures are hogs. Why doesn’t his gorge
rise at them?” When the supper was done, and while the cloth was being
removed, amid the clatter of dishes and the striking of lights, Lovibond
rose and slipped out of the room.
Davy saw him go, and from that moment he became constrained and silent.
Sucking at his pipe and devoting himself steadily to the drink, he
answered in _hum’s and ha’s and that’ll do’s_ to the questions put to
him, and his laughter came out of him at intervals in jumps and jerks
like water from the neck of a bottle.
“What’s agate of the Capt’n?” the men whispered. “He’s quiet
to-night--quiet uncommon.”
After a while Davy heaved up and followed Lovibond. He found him walking
too and fro in the soft turf outside the window. The night was calm and
beautiful. In the sky a sea of stars and a great full moon; on the
land a line of gas jets, and on the dark bay a point here and there of
rolling light. No sound but the distant hum of traffic in the town,
the inarticulate shout of a sailor on one of the ships outside, and
the rock-row rock-row of the oars in the rol-locks of some unseen boat
gliding into the harbor below.
Davy drew a long breath. “So you think,” said he, “that the sweet woman
in the church is loving her husband in spite of all?”
“Fear she is, poor fool,” said Lovibond.
“Bless her!” said Davy, beneath his breath. “D’ye think, now,” said he,
“that all women are like that?”
“Many are--too many,” said Lovibond.
“Equal to forgiving and forgetting, eh?” said Davy.
“Yes--the sweet simpletons--and taking the men back as well,” said
Lovibond.
“Extraordinary!” said Davy. “Aw, matey, matey, men’s only muck where
women comes. Women is reg’lar eight-teen-carat goold. It’s me to know
it too. There was the mawther herself now. My father was a bit of a
rip--God forgive his son for saying it--and once he went trapsing after
a girl and got her into trouble. An imperent young hussy anyway, but no
matter. Coorse the mawther wouldn’t have no truck with her; but one day
she died sudden, and then the child hadn’t nobody but the neighbors to
look to it. ‘Go for it, Davy,’ says the mawther to me. It was evening,
middling late after the herrings, and when I got to the kitchen windey
there was the little one atop of the bed in her nightdress saying her
bits of prayers; ‘God bless mawther, and everybody,’ and all to that.
She couldn’t get out of the ‘mawther’ yet, being always used of it, and
there never was no ‘father’ in her little tex’es. Poor thing! she come
along with me, bless you, like a lammie that you’d pick out of the snow.
Just hitched her hands round my neck and fell asleep in my arms
going back, with her putty face looking up at the stars same as an
angel’s--soft and woolly to your lips like milk straight from the cow,
and her little body smelling sweet and damp, same as the breath of a
calf. And when the mawther saw me she smoothed her brat and dried her
hands, and catched at the little one, and chuckled over her, and clucked
at her and kissed her, with her own face slushed like rain, till yer’d
have thought nothing but it was one of her own that had been lost and
was found agen. Aw, women for your life, mate, for forgiveness.’”
Lovibond did not speak, and Davy began to laugh in a husky voice.
“Bless me, the talk a man will put out when he’s a bit over the rope and
thinking of ould times,” he said.
“Sign that I’m thirsty,” he added; and then walked toward the window.
“But the father could never forgive hisself,” he said, as he was
stepping through, “and if I done wrong to a woman neither could I--I’ve
that much of the ould man in me anyway.”
When he got back to the room the air was dense with tobacco-smoke, and
his guests were shouting for his company. “Capt’n Davy!” “Where’s Capt’n
Davy?” “Aw, here’s the man himself?” “Been studying the stars, Capt’n?”
“Well, that’s a bit of navigation.” “Navigation by starlight--I know the
sort. Navigating up alongside a pretty girl, eh, Capt’n?”
There were rough jokes, and strange stories, and more liquor and loud
laughter, and for a time Davy took his part in everything. But after a
while he grew quiet again, and absent in manner, and he glanced up at
intervals in the direction of the window, A new thought had come to him.
It made the sweat to break out at the top of his forehead, and then he
heard no more of the clatter around him than the rum-humdrum as of
a train in a tunnel, pierced sometimes by the shrill scream as of an
occasional whistle. Presently he rolled up again, and went out once more
to Lovibond.
The thought that had seized him was agony, and he could not broach it at
once. So he beat about it for a moment, and then came down on it with a
crash.
“Sitting alone, is she, poor thing?” he said.
“Alone,” said Lovibond.
“I know, I know,” said Davy. “Like a bird on a bough calling mournful
for her mate; but he’s gone, he’s down, maybe worse, but lost anyway.
Yet if he should ever come back now--eh?”
“He’ll have to be quick then,” said Lovibond; “for she intends to go
home to her people soon.”
“Did you say she was for going home?” said Davy, eagerly. “Home
where--where to--to England?”
“No,” said Lovibond. “Havn’t I told you she’s a Manx woman?”
“A Manx woman, is she?” said Davy. “What’s her name?”
“I didn’t ask her that,” said Lovibond.
“Then where’s her home?” said Davy.
“I forget the name of the place,” said Lovibond. “Balla--something.”
“Is it---- is it----” Davy was speaking very quickly--“is it Ballaugh,
sir?”
“That’s it,” and Lovibond. “And her father’s farm--I heard the name of
the farm as well--Balla--balla--something else--oh, Ballavalley.”
“Ballavolly?” said Davy.
“Exactly,” said Lovibond.
Davy breathed heavily, swayed slightly, and rolled against Lovibond as
they walked side by side.
“Then you know the place, Capt’n,” said Lovibond.
Davy laughed noisily. “Ay, I know it,” he said.
“And the girl’s father, too, I suppose?” said Lovibond.
Davy laughed bitterly. “Ay, and the girl’s father too,” he said.
“And the girl herself perhaps?” said Lovibond.
Davy laughed almost fiercely, “Ay, and the girl herself,” he said.
Lovibond did not spare him. “Then,” said he, in an innocent way, “you
must know her husband also.”
Davy laughed wildly. “I wouldn’t trust,” he said.
“He’s a brute--isn’t he?” said Lovibond.
“Ugh!” Davy’s laughter stopped very suddenly.
“A fool, too--is he not?” said Lovibond.
“Ay--a damned fool!” said Davy out of the depths of his throat, and then
he laughed and reeled again, and gripped at Lovibond’s sleeve to keep
himself erect.
“Helloa!” he cried, in another voice; “I’m rocking full like a ship with
a rolling cargo and my head is as thick as Taubman’s brewery on boiling
day.”
He was a changed man from that instant onward. An angel of God that had
been breathing on his soul was driven out by a devil of despair. The
conviction had settled on him that he was a dastard. Lovibond remembered
the story of his father? and trembled for what he had done.
Davy stumbled back through the window into the room, singing lustily--
O, Molla Char--aine, where got you your gold?
Lone, lone, you have le--eft me here,
O, not in the Curragh, deep under the mo--old,
Lone, lo--one, and void of cheer,
Lone, lo--one, and void of cheer.
His cronies received him with shouts of welcome. “You’ll be walking
the crank yet, Capt’n,” said they, in mockery of his unsteady gait. His
altered humor suited them. “Cards,” they cried; “cards--a game for good
luck.”
“Hould hard,” said Davy. “Fair do’s. Send for the landlord first.”
“What for?” they asked. “To stop us? He’ll do that quick enough.”
“You’ll see,” said Davy. “Willie,” he shouted, “bring up the skipper.”
Willie Quarrie went out on his errand, and Davy called for a song. The
Crier gave one line three times, and broke down as often. “I linger
round this very spot--I linger round this ve--ery spot--I linger round
this very--”
“Don’t do it any longer, mate,” cried Davy. “Your song is like Kinvig’s
first sermon. The ould man couldn’t get no farther till his tex’, so he
gave it out three times--‘I am the Light of the World--I am the Light of
the World--I am the Light--’ ‘Maybe so, brother,’ says ould Kennish, in
the pew below; ‘but you want snuffing. Come down out of that.’”--
Loud peals of wild laughter followed, and Davy’s own laughter rang out
wildest and maddest of all. Then up came the landlord with his round
face smiling. What was the Captain’s pleasure?
“Landlord,” cried Davy, “tell your men to fill up these glasses, and
then send me your bill for all I owe you, and make it cover everything
I’ll want till to-morrow morning.”
“To-morrow will do for the bill, Captain,” said the landlord. “I’m not
afraid that you’ll cut your country.”
“Aren’t you, though? Then the more fool you,” said Davy. “Send it up, my
shining sunflower; send it up.”
“Very well, Captain, just to humor you,” said the landlord, backing
himself out with his head in his chest.
“Why, where are you going to, Capt’n?” cried many voices at once.
“Wherever there’s a big cabbage growing, boys,” said Davy.
The bill came up, and Willie Quarrie examined it. “Shocking!” cried
Willie; “it’s really shocking! Shillings apiece for my breakfas’es--now
that’s what I call a reg’lar piece of ambition.”
Davy turned out his pockets on to the table. The pockets were many,
and were hidden away, back and front and side, in every slack and tight
place in his clothes. Gold, silver, and copper came mixed and loose from
all of them, and he piled up the money in a little heap before him. When
all was out he picked five sovereigns from the haggis of coin and put
them back into his waistcoat pocket, while he screwed up one eye into
the semblance of a wink, and said to Willie, “That’ll see us over.” Then
he called for a sight of the bill, glanced at the total and proceeded to
count out the amount of it. This being done, he rolled the money in the
paper, screwed it up like a penny worth of lozenges, and sent it down
to the landlord with his bes’ respec’s. After that he straightened his
chest, stuck his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, nodded his
head downward at the money remaining on the table and said, “Men, see
that? It’s every ha’penny I’m worth in the world, A month ago I came
home with a nice warm fortune at me. That’s what’s left, and when it’s
gone I’m up the spout.”
The men looked at each other in blank surprise, and began to mutter
among themselves, “What game is he agate of now?” “Aw, it’s true.” “True
enough, you go bail.” “I wouldn’t trust, he’s been so reckless.” “Twenty
thousands, they’re saying.” “Aw, he’s been helped--there’s that Mister
Loviboy, a power of money the craythur must have had out of him.” “Well,
sarve him right; fools and their money is rightly parted.”
Thus they croaked and crowed, and though Davy was devoting himself to
the drink he heard them.
A wild light shot into his eyes, but he only laughed more noisily and
talked more incessantly.
“Come, lay down, d’ye hear,” he cried. “Do you think I care for the
fortune? I care nothing, not I. I’ve had a bigger loss till that in my
time.”
“Lord save us, Capt’n--when?” cried one.
“Never mind when--not long ago, any way,” said Davy.
“And you had heart to start afresh, Cap’n, eh?” cried another.
“Heart, you say? Maybe so, maybe no,” said Davy. “But stow this jaw.
Here’s my harvest home, boys, my Melliah, only I am bringing back the
tares--who’s game to toss for it? Equal stakes, sudden death!”
The brewer tossed with him and won. Davy brushed the money across the
table, and laughed more madly than ever. “I care nothing, not I, say
what you like,” he cried again and again, though no one disputed his
protestation.
But the manner of the cronies changed toward him nevertheless. Some fell
to patronizing him, some to advising him, and some to sneering at the
hubbub he was making.
“Well, well,” he cried, “One glass and a toast, anyway, and part friends
for all.” “Aisy there! silence! Hush? Chink up! (Hear, hear?) Are
you ready? Here goes, boys? The biggest blockit in the island, bar
none--Capt’n Davy Quiggin.”
At that the raggabash who had been clinking glasses pretended to be
mightily offended in their dignity. They looked about for their hats,
and began to shuffle out.
“Lave me, then; lave me,” cried Davy. “Lave me, now, you Noah’s ark of
creeping things. Lave me, I’m stone broke. Ay, lave me, you dogs with
your noses in the snow. I’m done, I’m done.”
As the rascals who had cheated and robbed him trooped out like men
aggrieved, Davy broke out into a stave of another wild song:
“I’m hunting the wren,” said Bobbin to Bobbin,
“I’m hunting the wren,” said Richard to Rob-bin,
“I’m hunting the wren,” said Jack of the Lhen,
“I’m hunting the wren,” said every one.
When the men were gone Lovibond came back by the window. The room was
dense with the fumes of dead smoke, and foul with the smell of stale
liquor. Broken pipes lay on the table amid the refuse of spilled beer,
and a candle, at which the pipes had been lighted, still stood there
burning.
Davy was reeling about madly, and singing and laughing in gust on gust.
His face was afire with the drink that he had taken, and his throat was
guggling and sputtering.
“I care nothing, not I--say what you like; I’ve had worse losses in my
time,” he cried.
He plunged his right hand into his breast and drew out something.
“See, that, mate?” he said, and held it up under the glass chandelier.
It was a little curl of brown hair, tied across the middle with a piece
of faded blue ribbon.
“See it?” he cried in a husky gurgle. “It’s all I’ve got left in the
world.”
He held it up to the light and looked at it, and laughed until the glass
pendants of the chandelier swung and jingled with the vibration of his
voice.
“The gorse under the ling, eh? There you are then! _She_ gave it me.
Yes, though, on the night I sailed. My gough! The ruch and proud I was
that night anyway! I was a homeless beggar, but I might have owned the
stars, for, by God, I was walking on them going away.”
He reeled again, and laughed as if in mockery of himself, and then said,
“That’s ten year ago, mate, and I’ve kep’ it ever since. I have though,
here in my breast, and it’s druv out wuss things. When I’ve been far
away foreign, and losing heart a bit, and down with the fever, maybe, in
that ould hell, and never looking to see herself again, no, never, I’ve
been touching it gentle and saying to myself, soft and low, like a sort
of an angel’s whisper, ‘Nelly is with you, Davy. She isn’t so very far
away, boy; she’s here for all.’ And when I’ve been going into some dirt
of a place that a dacent man shouldn’t, it’s been cutting at my ribs,
same as a knife, and crying like mad, ‘Hould hard, Davy; you can’t take
Nelly in theer?’ When I’ve been hot it’s been keeping me cool, and when
I’ve been cold it’s been keeping me warm, better till any comforter.
D’ye see it, sir? We’re ould comrades, it and me, the best that’s going,
and never no quarreling and no words neither. Ten years together, sir;
blow high, blow low. But we’re going to part at last.”
Then he picked up the candle in his left hand, still holding the lock of
hair in his right.
“Good-by, ould friend!” he cried, in a shrill voice, rolling his head to
look at the curl, and holding it over the candle. “We’re parting company
to-night. I’m going where I can’t take you along with me--I’m going to
the divil. So long! S’long! I’ll never strook you, nor smooth you, nor
kiss you no more! S’long!”
He put the curl to his lips, holding it tremblingly between his great
fingers and thumb. Then he clutched it in his palm, reeled a step
backward, swung the candle about and dashed it on to the floor.
“I can’t, I can’t,” he cried, “God A’mighty, I can’t. It’s
Nelly--Nelly--my Nelly--my little Nell!”
The curl went back into his breast. He sank into a chair, covered his
face with his hands, and wept aloud as little children do.