had tried to keep her eyes away, but could not. “My goodness grayshers!”
she cried. “Did you ever see the like, though? Screwing like the
windmill on the schoolhouse! Well, well, Kitty, woman! Aw, Kirry, Kirry!
Wherever did she get it, then? Goodsakes, the girl's twisting herself
into knots!”
Pete was pulling away at the fiddle with both hands, like a bottom
sawyer, his eyes dancing, his lips quivering, the whole soul of the lad
lifted out of himself in an instant.
“Hould on still, Kate, hould on, girl!” he shouted. “Ma-chree! Machree!
The darling's dancing like a drumstick!”
“Faster!” cried Kate. “Faster!”
The red ribbon had fallen from her head, and the wavy black hair was
tumbling about her face. She was holding up her skirt with one hand,
and the other arm was akimbo at her waist. Guggling, chuckling, crowing,
panting, boiling, and bubbling with the animal life which all her days
had been suppressed, and famished and starved into moans and groans, she
was carried away by her own fire, gave herself up to it, and danced
on the flags of the kitchen which had served Cæsar for his practical
typology, like a creature intoxicated with new breath.
Meantime Cæsar himself, coming home in his chapel hat (his tall black
beaver) from Peel, where he had been buying the year's stock of herrings
at the boat's side, had overtaken, on the road, the venerable parson of
his parish, Parson Quiggin of Lezayre. Drawing up the gig with a “Woa!”
he had invited the old clergyman to a lift by his side on the gig's
seat, which was cushioned with a sack of hay. The parson had accepted
the invitation, and with a preliminary “Aisy! Your legs a taste higher,
sir, just to keep the pickle off your trousers,” a “Gee up!” and a touch
of the whip, they were away together, with the light of the gig-lamp on
the hind-quarters of the mare, as they bobbed and screwed like a
mill-race under the splash-hoard.
It was Cæsar's chance, and he took it. Having pinned one of the heads
of the Church, he gave him his views on the Romans, and on the general
encroachment of Popery. The parson listened complacently. He was a
tolerant old soul, with a round face, expressive of perpetual happiness,
though he was always blinking his little eyes and declaring, with the
Preacher, that all earthly things were vain. Hence he was nicknamed Old
Vanity of Vanities.
The gig had swept past Sulby Chapel when Cæsar began to ask for the
parson's opinion of certain texts.
“And may I presume, Pazon Quiggin, what d'ye think of the text--'Praise
the Lord. O my soul, and all that is within me praise His Holy Name?'”
“A very good text after meat, Mr. Cregeen,” said the parson, blinking
his little eyes in the dark.
It was Cæsar's favourite text, and his fire was kindled at the parson's
praise. “Man alive,” he cried, his hot breath tickling the parson's
neck, “I've praiched on that text, pazon, till it's wet me through to
the waistcoat.”
They were near to “The Manx Fairy” by this time.
“And talking of praise,” said Cæsar, “I hear them there at their
practices. Asking pardon now--it's proud I'd be, sir--perhaps you'd not
be thinking mane to come in and hear the way we do 'Crown Him!'”
“So the saints use the fiddle,” said the parson, as the gig drew up at
the porch of the inn.
Half a minute afterwards the door of the parlour flew open with a bang,
and Cæsar stood and glared on the threshold with the parson's ruddy face
behind him. There was a moment's silence. The uplifted toe of Katherine
trailed back to the ground, the fiddle of Pete slithered to his farther
side, and the smacking lips of Niplightly transfixed themselves agape.
Then the voice of the parson was heard to say, “Vanity, vanity, all is
vanity!” and suddenly Cæsar, still on the threshold, went down on his
knees to pray.
Cæsar's prayer was only a short one. His mortified pride called for
quicker solace. Rising to his feet with as much dignity as he could
command under the twinkling eyes of the parson, he stuttered, “The
capers! Making a dacent house into a theaytre! Respectable person,
too--one of the first that's going! So,” facing the spectators, “just
help yourselves home the pack of you! As for these ones,” turning on
Kate, Pete, and the constable, “there'll be no more of your practices.
I'll do without the music of three saints like you. In future I'll have
three sinners to raise my singing. These polices, too!” he said with
a withering smile. (Niplightly was worming his way out at the back of
Parson Quiggin.)
“Who began it?” shouted Cæsar, looking at Katherine.
From the moment that Cæsar dropped on his knees at the door, Pete had
been well-nigh choked by an impulse to laugh aloud. But now he bit his
lip and said, “I did!”
“Behould ye now, as imperent as a goat!” said Cæsar, working his
eyebrows vigorously. “You've mistaken your profession, boy. It's a
play-actorer they ought to be making of you. You're wasting your time
with a plain, respectable man like me. You must lave me. Away to the
loft for your chiss, boy! And just give sheet, my lad, and don't lay to
till you've fetched up at another lodgings.”
Pete, with his eye on the parson's face, could control himself no
longer, and he laughed so loud that the room rang.
“Right's the word, ould Nebucannezzar,” he cried, and heaved up to his
feet. “So long, Kitty, woman! S'long! We'll finish it another night
though, and then the ould man himself will be houlding the candle.”
Outside in the road somebody touched him on the shoulder. It was the
young man in the Alpine hat.
“My gough! What? Phil!” cried Pete, and he laid hold of him with both
hands at once.
“I've just finished at King William's and bought a boat,” said Philip,
“and I came up to ask you to join me--congers and cods, you know--good
fun anyway. Are you willing?”
“Willing!” cried Pete. “Am I jumping for joy?”
And away they went down the road, swinging their legs together with a
lively step.
“That's a nice girl, though--Kitty, Kate, what do you call her?” said
Phil.
“Were you in then? So you saw her dancing?” said Pete eagerly. “Aw, yes,
nice,” he said warmly, “nice uncommon,” he added absently, and then with
a touch of sadness, “shocking nice!”
Presently they heard the pattering of light feet in the darkness behind
them, and a voice like a broken cry calling “Pete!”
It was Kate. She came up panting and catching her breath in hiccoughs,
took Pete's face in both her hands, drew it down to her own face, kissed
it on the mouth, and was gone again without a word.
VI.
Philip had not been a success at school; he had narrowly escaped being
a failure. During his earlier years he had shown industry without gifts;
during his later years he had shown gifts without industry. His childish
saying became his by-word, and half in sport, half in earnest, with a
smile on his lips, and a shuddering sense of fascination, he would say
when the wind freshened, “The sea's calling me, I must be off.” The
blood of the old sea-dog, his mother's father, was strong in him.
Idleness led to disaster, and disaster to some disgrace. He was
indifferent to both while at school, but shame found him out at home.
“You'll be sixteen for spring,” said Auntie Nan, “and what would your
poor father say if he were alive? He thought worlds of his boy, and
always said what a man he would be some day.”
That was the shaft that found Philip. The one passion that burned in his
heart like a fire was reverence for the name and the will of his dead
father. The big hopes of the broken man had sometimes come as a torture
to the boy when the blood of the old salt was rioting within him. But
now they came as a spur.
Philip went back to school and worked like a slave. There were only
three terms left, and it was too late for high honours, but the boy did
wonders. He came out well, and the masters were astonished. “After all,”
they said, “there's no denying it, the boy Christian must have the gift
of genius. There's nothing he might not do.”
If Phil had much of the blood of Captain Billy, Pete had much of the
blood of Black Tom. After leaving the mill at Sulby, Pete made his home
in the cabin of the smack. What he was to eat, and how he was to be
clothed, and where he was to be lodged when the cold nights came, never
troubled his mind for an instant. He had fine times with his partner.
The terms of their partnership were simple. Phil took the fun and made
Pete take the fish. They were a pair of happy-go-lucky lads, and they
looked to the future with cheerful faces.
There was one shadow over their content, and that was the ghost of a
gleam of sunshine. It made daylight between them, though, day by day
as they ran together like two that run a race. The prize was Katherine
Cregeen. Pete talked of her till Phil's heart awoke and trembled; but
Phil hardly knew it was so, and Pete never once suspected it. Neither
confessed to the other, and the shifts of both to hide the secret of
each were boyish and beautiful.
There is a river famous for trout that rises in Sulby glen and flows
into Ramsey harbour. One of the little attempts of the two lads to
deceive each other was to make believe that it was their duty to fish
this river with the rod, and so wander away singly up the banks of the
stream until they came to “The Manx Fairy,” and then drop in casually
to quench the thirst of so much angling. Towards the dusk of evening
Philip, in a tall silk hat over a jacket and knickerbockers, would come
upon Pete by the Sulby bridge, washed, combed, and in a collar. Then
there would be looks of great surprise on both sides. “What, Phil! Is
it yourself, though? Just thought I'd see if the trouts were biting
to-night. Dear me, this is Sulby too! And bless my soul, 'The Fairy'
again I Well, a drop of drink will do no harm. Shall we put a sight
on them inside, eh?” After that prelude they would go into the house
together.
This little comedy was acted every night for weeks. It was acted on
Hollantide Eve six months after Pete had been turned out by Cæsar.
Grannie was sitting by the glass partition, knitting at intervals,
serving at the counter occasionally and scoring up on a black board that
was a mass of chalk hieroglyphics. Cæsar himself in ponderous spectacles
and with a big book in his hands was sitting in the kitchen behind with
his back to the glass, so as to make the lamp of the business serve also
for his studies. On a bench in the bar sat Black Tom, smoking, spitting,
scraping his feet on the sanded floor, and looking like a gigantic
spider with enormous bald head. At his side was a thin man with a face
pitted by smallpox, and a forehead covered with strange protuberances.
This was Jonaique Jelly, barber, clock-mender, and Manx patriot. The
postman was there, too, Kelly the Thief, a tiny creature with twinkling
ferret eyes, and a face that had a settled look of age, as of one born
old, being wrinkled in squares like the pointing of a cobble wall.
At sight of Pete, Grannie made way, and he pushed through to the
kitchen, where he seated himself in a seat in the fireplace just in
front of the peat closet, and under the fish hanging to smoke. At sight
of Phil she dropped her needles, smoothed her front hair, rose in spite
of protest, and wiped down a chair by the ingle. Cæsar eyed Pete in
silence from between the top rim of his spectacles and the bottom edge
of the big book; but as Philip entered he lowered the book and welcomed
him. Nancy Joe was coming and going in her clogs like a rip-rap let
loose between the dairy and a pot of potatoes in their jackets which
swung from the slowrie, the hook over the fire. A moment later Kate came
flitting through the half-lit kitchen, her black eyes dancing and her
mouth rippling in smiles. She courtesied to Philip, grimaced at Pete,
and disappeared.
Then from the other side of the glass partition came the husky voice
of the postman, saying, “Well, I must be taking the road, gentlemen.
There's Manx ones starting for Kim-berley by the early sailing to-morrow
morning.”
And then came the voice of the barber in a hoarse falsetto: “Kimberley!
That's the place for good men I'm always saying. There's Billy the Red
back home with a fortune. And ould Corlett--look at ould Corlett, the
Ballabeg! Five years away at the diggings, and left a house worth twenty
pounds per year per annum, not to spake of other hereditaments.”
After that the rasping voice of Black Tom, in a tone of irony and
contempt: “Of coorse, aw, yes, of coorse, there's goold on the cushags
there, they're telling me. But I thought you were a man that's all for
the island, Mr. Jelly.”
“Lave me alone for that,” said the voice of the barber. “Manx-land for
the Manx-man--that's the text I'm houlding to. But what's it saying,
'Custom must be indulged with custom, or custom will die?' And with
these English scouring over it like puffins on the Calf, it isn't much
that's left of the ould island but the name. The best of the Manx boys
are going away foreign, same as these ones.”
“Well, I've letters for them to the packet-office anyway,” said the
postman.
“Who are they, Mr. Kelly?” called Philip, through the doorway.
“Some of the Quarks ones from Glen Rushen, sir, and the Gills boys from
Castletown over. Good-night all, goodnight!”
The door closed behind the postman, and Black Tom growled, “Slips of
lads--I know them.”
“Smart though, smart uncommon,” said the barber; “that's the only sort
they're wanting out yonder.”
There was a contemptuous snort. “So? You'd better go to Kimberley
yourself, then.”
“Turn the clock back a piece and I'll start before you've time to curl
your hair,” said the barber.
Black Tom was lifting his pot. “That's the one thing,” said he, “the
Almighty Himself” (gulp, gulp) “can't do.”
“Which?” tittered the barber.
“Both,” said Black Tom, scratching his big head, as bald as a bladder.
Cæsar flashed about with his face to the glass partition. “You're like
the rest of the infidels, sir,” said he, “only spaking to contradick
yourself--calling God the Almighty, and telling in the same breath of
something He can't do.”
Meanwhile an encounter of another sort was going on at the ingle. Kate
had re-appeared with a table fork which she used at intervals to test
the boiling of the potatoes. At each approach to the fire she passed
close to where Pete sat, never looking at Phil above the level of his
boots. And as often as she bent over the pot, Pete put his arm round her
waist, being so near and so tempting. For thus pestering her she beat
her foot like a goat, and screwed on a look of anger which broke down in
a stifled laugh; but she always took care to come again to Pete's side
rather than to Phil's, until at last the nudging and shoving ended in a
pinch and a little squeal, and a quick cry of “What's that?” from Cæsar.
Kate vanished like a flash, the dim room began to frown again, and Phil
to draw his breath heavily, when the girl came back as suddenly bringing
an apple and a length of string. Mounting a chair, she fixed one end of
the string to the lath of the ceiling by the peck, the parchment oatcake
pan, and the other end she tied to the stalk of the apple.
“What's the jeel now?” said Pete.
“Fancy! Don't you know? Not heard f'Hop-tu-naa'? It's Hollantide Eve,
man,” said Kate.
Then setting the string going like a pendulum, she stood back a pace
with hands clasped behind her, and snapped at the apple as it swung,
sometimes catching it, sometimes missing it, sometimes marking it,
sometimes biting it, her body bending and rising with its waggle, and
nod, and bob, her mouth opening and closing, her white teeth gleaming,
and her whole face bubbling over with delight. At every touch the
speed increased, and the laughter grew louder as the apple went faster.
Everybody, except the miller, joined in the fun. Phil cried out on the
girl to look to her teeth, but Pete egged her on to test the strength of
them.
“Snap at it, Kitty!” cried Pete. “Aw, lost! Lost again! Ow! One in the
cheek! No matter! Done!”
And Black Tom and Mr. Jelly stood up to watch through the doorway.
“My goodness grayshers!” cried one. “What a mouthful!” said the other.
“Share it, Kitty, woman; aw, share and share alike, you know.”
But then came the thunderous tones of Cæsar. “Drop it, drop it! Such
practices is nothing but Popery.”
“Popery!” cried Black Tom from over the counter. “Chut! nonsense, man!
The like of it was going before St. Patrick was born.”
Kate was puffing and panting and taking down the pendulum.
“What does it mean then, Tom?” she said; “it's you for knowing things.”
“Mane? It manes fairies!”
“Fairies!”
Black Tom sat down with a complacent air, and his rasping voice came
from the other side of the glass. “In the ould times gone by, girl,
before Manxmen got too big for their breeches, they'd be off to bed by
ten o'clock on Hollantide Eve to lave room for the little people that's
outside to come in. And the big woman of the house would be filling the
crocks for the fairies to drink, and the big man himself would be raking
the ashes so they might bake their cakes, and a girl, same as you, would
be going to bed backwards----”
“I know! I know!” cried Kate, near to the ceiling, and clapping her
hands. “She eats a roasted apple, and goes to bed thirsty, and then
dreams that somebody brings her a drink of water, and that's the one
that's to be her husband, eh?”
“You've got it, girl.”
Cæsar had been listening with his eyes turned sideways off his book,
and now he cried, “Then drop it, I'm telling you. It's nothing but
instruments of Satan, and the ones that's telling it are just flying in
the face of faith from superstition and contrariety. It isn't dacent in
a Christian public-house, and I'm for having no more of it.”
Grannie paused in her knitting, fixed her cap with one of her needles
and said, “Dear heart, father! Tom meant no harm.” Then, glancing at
the clock and rising, “But it's time to shut up the house, anyway. Good
night, Tom! Good night all! Good night!”
Phil and Pete rose also. Pete went to the door and pretended to look
out, then came back to Kate's side and whispered, “Come, give them the
slip--there's somebody outside that's waiting for you.”
“Let them wait,” said the girl, but she laughed, and Pete knew she would
come. Then he turned to Philip, “A word in your ear, Phil,” he said, and
took him by the arm and drew him out of the house and round to the yard
of the stable.
“Well, good night, Grannie,” said Mr. Jelly, going out behind them.
“But if I were as young as your grandson there, Mr. Quilliam, I would be
making a start for somewhere.”
“Grandson!” grunted Tom, heaving up, “I've got no grandson, or he
wouldn't be laving me to smoke a dry pipe. But he's making an Almighty
of this Phil Christian--that's it.”
After they were gone, Grannie began counting the till and saying, “As
for fairies--one, two, three--it may be, as Cæsar says--four--five--the
like isn't in, but it's safer to be civil to them anyway.”
“Aw, yes,” said Nancy Joe, “a crock of fresh water and a few good words
going to bed on Hollantide Eve does no harm at all, at all.”
Outside in the stable-yard the feet of Black Tom and Jonaique Jelly
were heard going off on the road. The late moon was hanging low, red as
an evening sun, over the hill to the south-east. Pete was puffing and
blowing as if he had been running a race. “Quick, boy, quick!” he was
whispering, “Kate's coming. A word in your ear first. Will you do me a
turn, Phil?”
“What is it?” said Philip.
“Spake to the ould man for me while I spake to the girl!”
“What about?” said Philip.
But Pete could hear, nothing except his own voice. “The ould angel
herself, she's all right, but the ould man's hard. Spake for me, Phil;
you've got the fine English tongue at you.”
“But what about?” Philip said again.
“Say I may be a bit of a rip, but I'm not such a bad sort anyway. Make
me out a taste, Phil, and praise me up. Say I'll be as good as goold;
yes, will I though. Tell him he has only to say yes, and I'll be that
studdy and willing and hardworking and persevering you never seen.”
“But, Pete, Pete, Pete, whatever am I to say all this about?”
Pete's puffing and panting ceased. “What about? Why, about the girl for
sure.”
“The girl!” said Philip.
“What else?” said Pete.
“Kate? Am I to speak for you to the father for Kate?”
Philip's voice seemed to come up from the bottom depths of his throat.
“Are you thinking hard of the job, Phil?”
There was a moment's silence. The blood had rushed to Philip's face,
which was full of strange matter, but the darkness concealed it.
“I didn't say that,” he faltered.
Pete mistook Philip's hesitation for a silent commentary on his own
unworthiness. “I know I'm only a sort of a waistrel,” he said, “but,
Phil, the way I'm loving that girl it's shocking. I can never take rest
for thinking of her. No, I'm not sleeping at night nor working reg'lar
in the day neither. Everything is telling of her, and everything is
shouting her name. It's 'Kate' in the sea, and 'Kate' in the river, and
the trees and the gorse. 'Kate,' 'Kate,' 'Kate,' it's Kate constant, and
I can't stand much more of it. I'm loving the girl scandalous, that's
the truth, Phil.”
Pete paused, but Philip gave no sign.
“It's hard to praise me, that's sarten sure,” said Pete, “but I've known
her since she was a little small thing in pinafores, and I was a slip
of a big boy, and went into trousers, and we played Blondin in the glen
together.”
Still Philip did not speak. He was gripping the stable-wall with his
trembling fingers, and struggling for composure. Pete scraped the
paving-stones at his feet, and mumbled again in a voice that was near
to breaking. “Spake for me, Phil. It's you to do it. You've the way of
saying things, and making them out to look something. It would be clane
ruined in a jiffy if I did it for myself. Spake for me, boy, now won't
you, now?”
Still Philip was silent. He was doing his best to swallow a lump in
his throat. His heart had begun to know itself. In the light of Pete's
confession he had read his own secret. To give the girl up was one
thing; it was another to plead for her for Pete. But Pete's trouble
touched him. The lump at his throat went down, and the fingers on the
wall slacked away. “I'll do it,” he said, only his voice was like a sob.
Then he tried to go off hastily that he might hide the emotion that came
over him like a flood that had broken its dam. But Pete gripped him by
the shoulder, and peered into his face in the dark. “You will, though,”
said Pete, with a little shout of joy; “then it's as good as done; God
bless you, old fellow.”
Philip began to roll about. “Tut, it's nothing,” he said, with a stout
heart, and then he laughed a laugh with a cry in it. He could have said
no more without breaking down; but just then a flash of light fell on
them from the house, and a hushed voice cried, “Pete!”
“It's herself,” whispered Pete. “She's coming! She's here!”
Philip turned, and saw Kate in the doorway of the dairy, the sweet young
figure framed like a silhouette by the light behind.
“I'm going!” said Philip, and he edged up to the house as the girl
stepped out.
Pete followed him a step or two in approaching Kate. “Whist, man!” he
whispered. “Tell the old geezer I'll be going to chapel reglar early
tides and late shifts, and Sunday-school constant. And, whist! tell him
I'm larning myself to play on the harmonia.”
Then Philip slithered softly through the dairy door, and shut it after
him, leaving Kate and Pete together.
VII.
The kitchen of “The Manx Fairy” was now savoury with the odour of
herrings roasting in their own brine, and musical with the crackling and
frizzling of the oil as it dropped into the fire.
“It's a long way back to Ballure, Mrs. Cregeen,” said Philip, popping
his head in at the door jamb. “May I stay to a bite of supper?”
“Aw, stay and welcome,” said Cæsar, putting down the big book, and Nancy
Joe said the same, dropping her high-pitched voice perceptibly, and
Grannie said, also, “Right welcome, sir, if you'll not be thinking mane
to take pot luck with us. Potatoes and herrings, Mr. Christian; just a
Manxman's supper. Lift the pot off the slowrie, Nancy.”
“Well, and isn't he a Manxman himself, mother?” said Cæsar.
“Of course I am, Mr. Cregeen,” said Philip, laughing noisily. “If I'm
not, who should be, eh?'”
“And Manxman or no Manxman, what for should he turn up his nose at
herrings same as these?” said Nancy Joe. She was dishing up a bowlful.
“Where'll he get the like of them? Not in England over, I'll go bail.”
“Indeed, no, Nancy,” said Philip, still laughing needlessly.
“And if they had them there, the poor, useless creatures would be lost
to cook them.”
“'Deed, would they, Nancy,” said Grannie. She was rolling the potatoes
into a heap on to the bare table. “And we've much to be thankful for,
with potatoes and herrings three times a day; but we shouldn't be
thinking proud of our-selves for that.”
“Ask the gentleman to draw up, mother,” said Cæsar.
“Draw up, sir, draw up. Here's your bowl of butter-milk. A knife and
fork, Nancy. We're no people for knife and fork to a herring, sir. And
a plate for Mr. Christian, woman; a gentleman usually likes a plate. Now
ate, sir, ate and welcome--but where's your friend, though?”
“Pete! oh! he's not far off.” Saying this, Philip interrupted his
laughter to distribute sage winks between Nancy Joe and Grannie.
Cæsar looked around with a potato half peeled in his fingers. “And the
girl--where's Kate?” he asked.
“She's not far off neither,” said Philip, still winking vigorously. “But
don't trouble about them, Mr. Cregeen. They'll want no supper. They're
feeding on sweeter things than herrings even.” Saying this he swallowed
a gulp with another laugh.
Cæsar lifted his head with a pinch of his herring between finger and
thumb half way to his open mouth. “Were you spaking, sir?” he said.
At that Philip laughed immoderately. It was a relief to drown with
laughter the riot going on within.
“Aw, dear, what's agate of the boy?” thought Grannie.
“Is it a dog bite that's working on him?” thought Nancy.
“Speaking!” cried Philip, “of course I'm speaking. I've come in to
do it, Mr. Cregeen--I've come in to speak for Pete. He's fond of your
daughter, Cæsar, and wants your good-will to marry her.”
“Lord-a-massy!” cried Nancy Joe.
“Dear heart alive!” muttered Grannie.
“Peter Quilliam!” said Cæsar, “did you say Peter?”
“I did, Mr. Cregeen, Peter Quilliam,” said Philip stoutly, “my friend
Pete, a rough fellow, perhaps, and without much education, but the
best-hearted lad in the island. Come now, Cæsar, say the word, sir, and
make the young people happy.”
He almost foundered over that last word, but Cæsar kept him up with a
searching look.
“Why, I picked him out of the streets, as you might say,” said Cæsar.
“So you did, Mr. Cregeen, so you did. I always thought you were a
discerning man, Cæsar. What do you say, Grannie? It's Cæsar for knowing
a deserving lad when he sees one, eh?”
He gave another round of his cunning winks, and Grannie replied, “Aw,
well, it's nothing against either of them anyway.”
Cæsar was gitting as straight as a crowbar and as grim as a gannet. “And
when he left me, he gave me imperence and disrespeck.”
“But the lad meant no harm, father,” said Grannie; “and hadn't you told
him to take to the road?”
“Let every bird hatch its own eggs, mother; it'll become you better,”
said Cæsar. “Yes, sir, the lip of Satan and the imperence of sin.”
“Pete!” cried Philip, in a tone of incredulity; “why, he hasn't a
thought about you that isn't out of the Prayer-book.”
Cæsar snorted. “No? Then maybe that's where he's going for his curses.”
“No curses at all,” said Nancy Joe, from the side of the table, “but a
right good lad though, and you've never had another that's been a patch
on him.”
Cæsar screwed round to her and said severely, “Where there's geese
there's dirt, and where there's women there's talking.” Then turning
back to Philip, he said in a tone of mock deference, “And may I
presume, sir--a little question--being a thing like that's general
understood--what's his fortune?”
Philip fell back in his chair. “Fortune? Well, I didn't think that you
now----”
“No?” said Cæsar. “We're not children of Israel in the wilderness
getting manna dropped from heaven twice a day. If it's only potatoes and
herrings itself, we're wanting it three times, you see.”
Do what he would to crush it, Philip could not help feeling a sense of
relief. Fate was interfering; the girl was not for Pete. For the first
moment since he returned to the kitchen he breathed freely and fully.
But then came the prick of conscience: he had come to plead for Pete,
and he must be loyal; he must not yield; he must exhaust all his
resources of argument and persuasion. The wild idea occurred to him to
take Cæsar by force of the Bible.
“But think what the old book says, Mr. Cregeen, 'take no thought for the
morrow'----”
“That's what Johnny Niplightly said, Mr. Christian, when he lit my kiln
overnight and burnt my oats before morning.”.
“'But consider the lilies'----”
“I have considered them, sir; but I'm foiling still and mother has to
spin.”
“And isn't Pete able to toil, too,” said Philip boldly. “Nobody better
in the island; there's not a lazy bone in his body, and he'll earn his
living anywhere.”
“What _is_ his living, sir?” said Cæsar.
Philip halted for an answer, and then said, “Well, he's only with me in
the boat at present, Mr. Cregeen.”
“And what's he getting? His meat and drink and a bit of pence, eh? And
you'll be selling up some day, it's like, and going away to England
over, and then where is he? Let the girl marry a mother-naked man at
once.”
“But you're wanting help yourself, father,” said Grannie. “Yes, you are
though, and time for chapel too and aisément in your old days----”
“Give the lad my mill as well as my daughter, is that it, eh?” said
Cæsar. “No, I'm not such a goose as yonder, either. I could get heirs,
sir, heirs, bless ye--fifty acres and better, not to spake of the
bas'es. But I can do without them. The Lord's blest me with enough. I'm
not for daubing grease on the tail of the fat pig.”
“Just so, Cæsar,” said Philip, “just so; you can afford to take a poor
man for your son-in-law, and there's Pete----”
“I'd be badly in want of a bird, though, to give a groat for an owl,”
said Cæsar.
“The lad means well, anyway,” said Grannie; “and he was that good to his
mother, poor thing--it was wonderful.”
“I knew the woman,” said Cæsar; “I broke a sod of her grave myself. A
brand plucked from the burning, but not a straight walker in this
life. And what is the lad himself? A monument of sin without a name. A
bastard, what else? And that's not the port I'm sailing for.”
Down to this point Philip had been torn by conflicting feelings. He
was no match for Cæsar in worldly logic, or at fencing with texts of
Scripture. The devil had been whispering at his ear, “Let it alone,
you'd better.” But his time had come at length to conquer both himself
and Cæsar. Rising to his feet at Cæsar's last word, he cried in a voice
of wrath, “What? You call yourself a Christian man, and punish the child
for the sin of the parent! No name, indeed! Let me tell you, Mr. Cæsar
Cregeen, it's possible to have one name in heaven that's worse than none
at all on earth, and that's the name of a hypocrite.”
So saying he threw back his chair, and was making for the door, when
Cæsar rose and said softly, “Come into the bar and have something.”
Then, looking back at Philip's plate, he forced a laugh, and said, “But
you've turned over your herring, sir--that's bad luck.” And, putting a
hand on Philip's shoulder, he added, in a lower tone, “No disrespeck
to you, sir; and no harm to the lad, but take my word for it, Mr.
Christian, if there's an amble in the mare it'll be in the colt.”
Philip went off without another word. The moon was rising and whitening
as he stepped from the door. Outside the porch a figure flitted past him
in the uncertain shadows with a merry trill of mischievous laughter.
He found Pete in the road, puffing and blowing as before, but from a
different cause.
“The living devil's in the girl for sartin,” said Pete; “I can't get my
answer out of her either way.” He had been chasing her for his answer,
and she had escaped him through a gate. “But what luck with the ould
man, Phil?”
Then Phil told him of the failure of his mission--told him plainly and
fully but tenderly, softening the hard sayings but revealing the whole
truth. As he did so he was conscious that he was not feeling like one
who brings bad news. He knew that his mouth in the darkness was screwed
up into an ugly smile, and, do what he would; he could not make it
straight and sorrowful.
The happy laughter died off Pete's, lips, and he listened at first in
silence, and afterwards with low growls. When Phil showed him how his
poverty was his calamity he said, “Ay, ay, I'm only a wooden-spoon man.”
When Phil told him how Cæsar had ripped up their old dead quarrel he
muttered, “I'm on the ebby tide, Phil, that's it.” And when Phil hinted
at what Cæsar had said of his mother and of the impediment of his own
birth, a growl came up from the very depths of him, and he scraped the
stones under his feet and said, “He shall repent it yet; yes, shall he.”
“Come, don't take it so much to heart--it's miserable to bring you
such bad news,” said Phil; but he knew the sickly smile was on his lips
still, and he hated himself for the sound of his own voice.
Pete found no hollow ring in it. “God bless you, Phil,” he said; “you've
done the best for me, I know that. My pocket's as low as my heart, and
it isn't fair to the girl, or I shouldn't be asking the ould man's lave
anyway.”
He stood a moment in silence, crunching the wooden laths of the
garden fence like matchwood in his fingers, and then said, with sudden
resolution, “I know what I'll do.”
“What's that?” said Philip.. “I'll go abroad; I'll go to Kimberley.”
“Never!”
“Yes, will I though, and quick too. You heard what the men were saying
in the evening--there's Manx ones going by the boat in the morning?
Well, I'll go with them.”
“And you talk of being low in your pocket,” said Phil. “Why, it will
take all you've got, man.”
“And more, too,” said Pete, “but you'll lend me the lave of the
passage-money. That's getting into debt, but no matter. When a man
falls into the water he needn't mind the rain. I'll make good money out
yonder.”
A light had appeared at the window of an upper room, and Pete shook
his clenched fist at it and cried, “Good-bye, Master Cregeen. I'll
put worlds between us. You were my master once, but nobody made you my
master for ever--neither you nor no man.”
All this time Philip knew that hell was in his heart. The hand that
had let him loose when his anger got the better of him with Cæsar was
clutching at him again. Some evil voice at his ear was whispering, “Let
him go; lend him the money.”
“Come on, Pete,” he faltered, “and don't talk nonsense!”
But Pete heard nothing. He had taken a few steps forward, as far as to
the stable-yard, and was watching the light in the house. It was moving
from window to window of the dark wall. “She's taking the father's
candle,” he muttered. “She's there,” he said softly. “No, she has gone.
She's coming back though.” He lifted the stocking cap from his head and
fumbled it in his hands. “God bless her,” he murmured. He sank to his
knees on the ground. “And take care of her while I'm away.”
The moon had come up in her whiteness behind, and all was quiet and
solemn around. Philip fell back and turned away his face.
VIII.
When Cæsar came in after seeing Philip to the door, he said, “Not a word
of this to the girl. You that are women are like pigs--we've got to pull
the way we don't want you.”
On that Kate herself came in, blushing a good deal, and fussing about
with great vigour. “Are you talking of the piggies, father?” she said
artfully. “How tiresome they are, to be sure! They came out into the
yard when the moon rose and I had such work to get them back.”
Cæsar snorted a little, and gave the signal for bed. “Fairies indeed!”
he said, in a tone of vast contempt, going to the corner to wind the
clock. “Just wakeness of faith,” he said over the clank of the chain as
the weights rose; “and no trust in God neither,” he added, and then the
clock struck ten.
Grannie had lit two candles--one for herself and her husband, the other
for Nancy Joe. Nancy had slyly filled three earthenware crocks with
water from the well, and had set them on the table, mumbling something
about the kettle and the morning. And Cæsar himself, pretending not to
see anything, and muttering dark words about waste, went from the clock
to the hearth, and raked out the hot ashes to a flat surface, on which
you might have laid a girdle for baking cakes.
“Good-night, Nancy,” called Grannie, from half-way up the stairs, and
Cæsar, with his head down, followed grumbling. Nancy went off next, and
then Kate was left alone. She had to put out the lamp and wait for her
father's candle.
When the lamp was gone the girl was in the dark, save for the dim light
of the smouldering fire. She began to tremble and to laugh in a whisper.
Her eyes danced in the red glow of the dying turf. She slipped off her
shoes and went to a closet in the wall. There she picked an apple out of
a barrel, and brought it to the fire and roasted it. Then, down on her
knees before the hearth, she took took two pinches of the apple and
swallowed them. After that and a little shudder she rose again, and
turned about to go to bed, backwards, slowly, tremblingly, with measured
steps, feeling her way past the furniture, having a shock when
she touched anything, and laughing to herself, nervously, when she
remembered what it was.
At the door of her father's room and Grannie's she called, with a quaver
in her voice, and a sleepy grunt came out to her. She reached one hand
through the door, which was ajar, and took the burning candle. Then she
blew out the light with a trembling puff, that had to be twice repeated,
and made for her own bedroom, still going backwards.
It was a sweet little chamber over the dairy, smelling of new milk and
ripe apples, and very dainty in dimity and muslin. Two tiny windows
looked out from it, one on to the stable-yard and the other on to the
orchard. The late moon came through the orchard window, over the heads
of the dwarf trees, and the little white place was lit up from the floor
to the sloping thatch.
Kate went backwards as far as to the bed, and sat down on it She fancied
she heard a step in the yard, but the yard window was at her back, and
she would not look behind. She listened, but heard nothing more except a
see-sawing noise from the stable, where the mare was running her rope
in the manger ring. Nothing but this and the cheep-cheep of a mouse that
was gnawing the wood somewhere in the floor.
“Will he come?” she asked herself.
She rose and loosened her gown, and as it fell to her feet she laughed.
“Which will it be, I wonder--which?” she whispered.
The moonlight had crept up to the foot of the bed, and now lay on
it like a broad blue sword speckled as with rust by the patchwork
counterpane.
She freed her hair from its red ribbon, and it fell in a shower about
her face. All around her seemed hushed and awful. She shuddered again,
and with a back ward hand drew down the sheets. Then she took a long,
deep breath, like a sigh that is half a smile, and lay down to sleep.
IX.
Somewhere towards the dawn, in the vague shadow-land between a dream and
the awakening, Kate thought she was startled by a handful of rice thrown
at her carriage on her marriage morning. The rattle came again, and
then she knew it was from gravel dashed at her bedroom window. As she
recognised the sound, a voice came as through a cavern, crying, “Kate!”
She was fully awake by this time. “Then it's to be Pete,” she thought.
“It's bound to be Pete, it's like,” she told herself. “It's himself
outside, anyway.”
It was Pete indeed. He was standing in the thin darkness under the
window, calling the girl's name out of the back of his throat, and
whistling to her in a sort of whisper. Presently he heard a movement
inside the room, and he said over his shoulder, “She's coming.”
There was the click of a latch and the slithering of a sash, and then
out through the little dark frame came a head like a picture, with a
face all laughter, crowned by a cataract of streaming black hair, and
rounded off at the throat by a shadowy hint of the white frills of a
night-dress.
“Kate,” said Pete again.
She pretended to have come to the window merely to look out, and, like
a true woman, she made a little start at the sound of his voice, and a
little cry of dismay at the idea that he was so close beneath and had
taken her unawares. Then she peered down into the gloom and said, in a
tone of wondrous surprise, “It must be Pete, surely.”
“And so it is, Kate,” said Pete, “and he couldn't take rest without
spaking to you once again.”
“Ah!” she said, looking back and covering her eyes, and thinking of
Black Tom and the fairies. But suddenly the mischief of her sex came
dancing into her blood, and she could not help but plague the lad. “Have
you lost your way, Pete?” she asked, with an air of innocence.
“Not my way, but myself, woman,” said Pete.
“Lost yourself! Have the lad's wits gone moon-raking, I wonder? Are you
witched then, Pete?” she inquired, with vast solemnity.
“Aw, witched enough. Kate----”
“Poor fellow!” sighed Kate. “Did she strike you unknown and sudden?”
“Unknown it was, Kirry, and sudden, too. Listen, though----”
“Aw dear, aw dear! Was it old Mrs. Cowley of the Curragh? Did she turn
into a hare? Is it bitten you've been, Pete?”
“Aw, yes, bitten enough. But, Kate----”
“Then it was a dog, it's like. Is it flying from the water you are,
Pete?”
“No, but flying _to_ the water, woman. Kate, I say----”
“Is it burning they're doing for it?”
“Burning and freezing both. Will you hear me, though? I'm going
away--hundreds and thousands of miles away.”
Then from the window came a tone of great awe, uttered with face turned
upward as if to the last remaining star.
“Poor boy! Poor boy! it's bitten he is, for sure.”
“Then it's yourself that's bitten me. Kirry----”
There was a little crow of gaiety. “Me? Am I the witch? You called me a
fairy in the road this evening.”
“A fairy you are, girl, and a witch too; but listen, now----”
“You said I was an angel, though, at the cowhouse gable; and an angel
doesn't bite.”
Then she barked like a dog, and laughed a shrill laugh like a witch, and
barked again.
But Pete could bear no more. “Go on, then; go on with your capers! Go
on!” he cried, in a voice of reproach. “It's not a heart that's at
you at all, girl, but only a stone. You see a man going away from the
island----”
“From the island?” Kate gasped.
“Middling down in the mouth, too, and plagued out of his life between
the ruck of you,” continued Pete; “but God forgive you all, you can't
help it.”
“Did you say you were going out of the island, Pete?”
“Coorse I did; but what's the odds? Africa, Kimberley, the Lord knows
where----”
“Kimberley! Not Kimberley, Pete!”
“Kimberley or Timbuctoo, what's it matter to the like of you? A man's
coming up in the morning to bid you good-bye before an early sailing,
and you're thinking of nothing but your capers and divilments.”
“It's you to know what a girl's thinking, isn't it, Mr. Pete? And why
are you flying in my face for a word?”
“Flying? I'm not flying. It's driven I am.”
“Driven, Pete?”
“Driven away by them that's thinking I'm not fit for you. Well, that's
true enough, but they shan't be telling me twice.”
“They? Who are they, Pete?”
“What's the odds? Flinging my mother at me, too--poor little mother!
And putting the bastard on me, it's like. A respectable man's girl isn't
going begging that she need marry a lad without a name.”
There was a sudden ejaculation from the window-sash. “Who dared to say
that?”
“No matter.”
“Whoever they are, you can tell them, if it's me they mean, that, name
or no name, when I want to marry I'll marry the man I like.”
“If I thought that now, Kitty----”
“As for you, Mr. Pete, that's so ready with your cross words, you can
go to your Kimberley. Yes, go, and welcome; and what's more--what's
more----”
But the voice of anger, in the half light overhead, broke down suddenly
into an inarticulate gurgle.
“Why, what's this?” said Pete in a flurry. “You're not crying though,
Kate? Whatever am I saying to you, Kitty, woman? Here, here--bash me on
the head for a blockhead and an omathaun.”
And Pete was clambering up the wall by the side of the dairy window.
“Get down, then,” whispered Kate.
Her wrath was gone in a moment, and Pete, being nearer to her now, could
see tears of laughter dancing in her eyes.
“Get down, Pete, or I'll shut the window, I will--yes, I will.” And, to
show how much she was in earnest in getting out of his reach, she shut
up the higher sash and opened the lower one.
“Darling!” cried Pete.
“Hush! What's that?” Kate whispered, and drew back on her knees.
“Is the door of the pig-sty open again?” said Pete.
Kate drew a breath of relief. “It's only somebody snoring,” she said.
“The ould man,” said Pete. “That's all serene! A good ould sheepdog,
that snaps more than, he bites, but he's best when he's sleeping--more
safer, anyway.”
“What's the good of going away, Pete?” said Kate. “You'd have to make a
fortune to satisfy father.”
“Others have done it, Kitty--why shouldn't I? Manx ones too--silver
kings and diamond kings, and the Lord knows what. No fear of me! When I
come back it's a queen you'll be, woman--my queen, anyway, with pigs and
cattle and a girl to wash and do for you.”
“So that's how you'd bribe a poor girl is it? But you'd have to turn
religious, or father would never consent.”
“When I come home again, Kitty, I'll be that religious you never seen.
I'll be just rolling in it. You'll hear me spaking like the Book of
Genesis and Abraham, and his sons, and his cousins; I'll be coming up
at night making love to you at the cowhouse door like the Acts of the
Apostles.”
“Well, that will be some sort of courting, anyway. But who says I'll
be wanting it? Who says I'm willing for you to go away at all with the
notion that I must be bound to marry you when you come back?”
“I do,” said Pete stoutly.
“Oh, indeed, sir.”
“Listen. I'll be working like a nigger out yonder, and making my pile,
and banking it up, and never seeing nothing but the goold and the
girls----”
“My goodness! What do you say?”
“Aw, never fear! I'm a one-woman man, Kate; but loving one is giving me
eyes for all. And you'll be waiting for me constant, and never giving a
skute of your little eye to them drapers and druggists from Ramsey----”
“Not one of them? Not Jamesie Corrin, even--he's a nice boy, is
Jamesie.”
“That dandy-divil with the collar? Hould your capers, woman!”
“Nor young Ballawhaine--Ross Christian, you know?”
“Ross Christian be--well, no; but, honour bright, you'll be saying,
'Peter's coming; I must be thrue!'”
“So I've got my orders, sir, eh? It's all settled then, is it? Hadn't
you better fix the wedding-day and take out the banns, now that your
hand is in? I have got nothing to do with it, seemingly. Nobody asks
me.”
“Whist, woman!” cried Pete. “Don't you hear it?”
A cuckoo was passing over the house and calling.
“It's over the thatch, Kate. 'Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!' Three times!
Bravo! Three times is a good Amen. Omen is it? Have it as you like,
love.”
The stars had paled out by this time, and the dawn was coming up like a
grey vapour from the sea.
“Ugh! the air feels late; I must be going in,” said Kate.
“Only a bit of a draught from the mountains--it's not morning yet,” said
Pete.
A bird called from out of the mist somewhat far away.
“It is, though. That's the throstle up the glen,” said Kate.
Another bird answered from the eaves of the house.
“And what's that?” said Pete. “Was it yourself, Kitty? How straight your
voice is like the throstle's!”
She hung her head at the sweet praise, but answered tartly, “How people
will be talking!”
A dead white light came sweeping over the front of the house, and the
trees and the hedges, all quiet until then, began to shudder. Kate
shuddered too, and drew the frills closer about her throat. “I'm going,
Pete,” she whispered.
“Not yet. It's only a taste of the salt from the sea,” said Pete. “The
moon's not out many minutes.”
“Why, you goose, it's been gone these two hours. This isn't Jupiter,
where it's moonlight always.”
“Always moonlight in Jubiter, is it?” said Pete. “My goodness! What
coorting there must be there!”
A cock crowed from under the hen-roost, the dog barked indoors, and the
mare began to stamp in her stall.
“When do you sail, Pete?”
“First tide--seven o'clock.”
“Time to be off, then. Good-bye!”
“Hould hard--a word first.”
“Not a word. I'm going back to bed. See, there's the sun coming up over
the mountains.”
“Only a touch of red on the tip of ould Cronky's nose. Listen! Just to
keep them dandy-divils from plaguing you, I'll tell Phil to have an eye
on you while I'm away.”
“Mr. Christian?”
“Call him Philip, Kate. He's as free as free. No pride at all. Let him
take care of you till I come back.”
“I'm shutting the window, Pete!”
“Wait! Something else. Bend down so the ould man won't hear.”
“I can't reach--what is it?”
“Your hand, then; I'll tell it to your hand.”
She hesitated a moment, and then dropped her hand over the window-sill,
and he clutched at it and kissed it, and pushed back the white sleeve
and ran up the arm with his lips as far as he could climb.
“Another, my girl; take your time, one more--half a one, then.”
She drew her arm back until her hand got up to his hand, and then she
said, “What's this? The mole on your finger still, Pete? You called me
a witch--now see me charm it away. Listen!--'Ping, ping, prash, Cur yn
cadley-jiargan ass my chass.'”
She was uttering the Manx charm in a mock-solemn ululation when a bough
snapped in the orchard, and she cried, “What's that?”
“It's Philip. He's waiting under the apple-tree,” said Pete.
“My goodness me!” said Kate, and down went the window-sash.
A moment later it rose again, and there was the beautiful young face in
its frame as before, but with the rosy light of the dawn on it.
“Has he been there all the while?” she whispered.
“What matter? It's only Phil.”
“Good-bye! Good luck!” and then the window went down for good.
“Time to go,” said Philip, still in his tall silk hat and his
knickerbockers. He had been standing alone among the dead brown fern,
the withering gorse, and the hanging brambles, gripping the apple-tree
and swallowing the cry that was bubbling up to his throat, but forcing
himself to look upon Pete's happiness, which was his own calamity,
though it was tearing his heart out, and he could hardly bear it.
The birds were singing by this time, and Pete, going back, sang and
whistled with the best of them.
X.
In the mists of morning, Grannie had awakened in her bed with the turfy
scraas of the thatch just visible above her, and the window-blind like
a hazy moon floating on the wall at her side. And, fixing her nightcap,
she had sighed and said, “I can't close my eyes for dreaming that the
poor lad has come to his end untimeously.”
Cæsar yawned, and asked, “What lad?”
“Young Pete, of course,” said Grannie.
Cæsar _umpht_ and grunted.
“We were poor ourselves when we began, father.”
Grannie felt the glare of the old man's eye on her in the darkness.
“'Deed, we were; but people forget things. We had to borrow to buy our
big overshot wheel; we had, though. And when ould Parson Harrison sent
us the first boll of oats, we couldn't grind it for want of----”
Cæsar tugged at the counterpane and said, “Will you lie quiet, woman,
and let a hard-working man sleep?”
“Then don't be the young man's destruction, Cæsar.”
Cæsar made a contemptuous snort, and pulled the bedclothes about his
head.
“Aw, 'deed, father, but the girl might do worse. A fine, strapping lad.
And, dear heart, the cheerful face _at_ him! It's taking joy to
look at--like drawing water from a well! And the laugh _at_ the boy,
too--that joyful, it's as good to hear in the morning as six pigs at a
lit----”
“Then marry the lad yourself, woman, and have done with it,” cried
Cæsar, and, so saying, he kicked out his leg, turned over to the wall,
and began to snore with great vigour.
XI.
The tide was up in Ramsey Harbour, and rolling heavily on the shore
before a fresh sea-breeze with a cold taste of the salt in it. A steamer
lying by the quay was getting up steam; trucks were running on her
gangways, the clanking crane over her hold was working, and there was
much shouting of name, and ordering and protesting, and general tumult.
On the after-deck stood the emigrants for Kimberley, the Quarks from
Glen Rushen, and some of the young Gills from Castletown--stalwart lads,
bearing themselves bravely in the midst of a circle of their friends,
who talked and laughed to make them forget they were on the point of
going.
Pete and Phil came up the quay, and were received by a shout of
incredulity from Quayle, the harbour-master. “What, are you going, too,
Mr. Philip?” Philip answered him “No,” and passed on to the ship.
Pete was still in his stocking cap and Wellington boots, but he had a
monkey-jacket over his blue guernsey. Except for a parcel in a red print
handkerchief, this was all his kit and luggage. He felt a little
lost amid all the bustle, and looked helpless and unhappy. The busy
preparations on land and shipboard had another effect on Philip. He
sniffed the breeze off the bay and laughed, and said, “The sea's calling
me, Pete; I've half a mind to go with you.”
Pete answered with a watery smile. His high spirits were failing him
at last. Five years were a long time to be away, if one built all one's
hopes on coming back. So many things might happen, so many chances might
befall. Pete had no heart for laughter.
Philip had small mind for it, either, after the first rush of the salt
in his blood was over. He felt at some moments as if hell itself were
inside of him. What troubled him most was that he could not, for the
life of him, be sorry that Pete was leaving the island. Once or twice
since they left Sulby he had been startled by the thought that he hated
Pete. He knew that his lip curled down hard at sight of Pete's solemn
face. But Pete never suspected this, and the innocent tenderness of the
rough fellow was every moment beating it down with blows that cut like
ice and burnt like fire.
They were standing by the forecastle head, and talking above the loud
throbbing of the funnel.
“Good-bye, Phil; you've been wonderful good to me--better nor anybody in
the world. I've not been much of a chum for the like of you, either--you
that's college bred and ought to be the first gentry in the island if
everybody had his own. But you shan't be ashamed for me, neither--no you
shan't, so help me God! I won't be long away, Phil--maybe five years,
maybe less, and when I come back you'll be the first Manxman living.
No? But you will, though; you will, I'm telling you. No nonsense at all,
man. Lave it to me to know.”
Philip's frosty blue eyes began to melt.
“And if I come back rich, I'll be your ould friend again as much as a
common man may; and if I come back poor and disappointed and done for,
I'll not claim you to disgrace you; and if I never come back at all,
I'll be saying to myself in my dark hour somewhere, 'He'll spake up for
you at home, boy; _he'll_ not forget you.'”
Philip could hear no more for the puffing of the steam and the clanking
of the chains.
“Chut! the talk a man will put out when he's thinking of ould times gone
by!”
The first bell rang on the bridge, and the harbour-master shouted, “All
ashore, there!”
“Phil, there's one turn more I'll ask of you, and, if it's the last,
it's the biggest.”
“What is it?”
“There's Kate, you know. Keep an eye on the girl while I'm away. Take
a slieu round now and then, and put a sight on her. She'll not give a
skute at the heirs the ould man's telling of; but them young drapers and
druggists, they'll plague the life out of the girl. Bate them off, Phil.
They're not worth a fudge with their fists. But don't use no violence.
Just duck the dandy-divils in the harbour--that'll do.”
“No harm shall come to her while you are away.”
“Swear to it, Phil. Your word's your bond, I know that; but give me your
hand and swear to it--it'll be more surer.”
Philip gave his hand and his oath, and then tried to turn away, for he
knew that his face was reddening.
“Wait! There's another while your hand's in, Phil. Swear that nothing
and nobody shall ever come between us two.”
“You know nothing ever will.”
“But swear to it, Phil. There's bad tongues going, and it'll make me
more aisier. Whatever they do, whatever they say, friends and brothers
to the last?”
Philip felt a buzzing in his head, and he was so dizzy that he could
hardly stand, but he took the second oath also. Then the bell rang
again, and there was a great hubbub. Gangways were drawn up, ropes
were let go, the captain called to the shore from the bridge, and the
blustering harbour-master called to the bridge from the shore.
“Go and stand on the end of the pier, Phil--just aback of the
lighthouse--and I'll put myself at the stern. I want a friend's face to
be the last thing I see when I'm going away from the old home.”?
Philip could bear no more. The hate in his heart was mastered. It was
under his feet. His flushed face was wet.
The throbbing of the funnels ceased, and all that could be heard was
the running of the tide in the harbour and the wash of the waves on the
shore. Across the sea the sun came up boldly, “like a guest expected,”
and down its dancing water-path the steamer moved away. Over the land
old Bar-rule rose up like a sea king with hoar-frost on his forehead,
and the smoke began to lift from the chimneys of the town at his feet.
“Good-bye, little island, good-bye! I'll not forget you. I'm getting
kicked out of you, but you've been a good ould mother to me, and, God
help me, I'll come back to you yet. So long, little Mona, s'long? I'm
laving you, but I'm a Manxman still.”
Pete had meant to take off his stocking cap as they passed the
lighthouse, and to dash the tears from his eyes like a man. But all that
Philip could see from the end of the pier was a figure huddled up at the
stern on a coil of rope.