PART IV. MAN AND WIFE.

I.

Next morning Kate said to herself, “My life must begin again from

to-day.” She had a secret that Pete did not share, but she was not the

first woman who had kept something from her husband. When people had

secrets which it would hurt others to reveal, they ought to keep them

close. Honour demanded that she should be as firm as a rock in blotting

Philip from her soul. Remembering the promise which Pete had demanded of

Philip at the wedding to make their house his home in Ramsey, and seeing

that Philip must come, if only to save appearances, she asked herself

if she ought to prevent him. But no! She resolved to conquer the passion

that made his presence a danger. There was no safety in separation. In

her relation to Philip she was like the convict who is beginning his

life again--the only place where he can build up a sure career is

precisely there where his crime is known. “Let Philip come,” she

thought. She made his room ready.

She was married. It was her duty to be a good wife. Pete loved

her--his love would make it easy. They were sitting at breakfast in the

hall-parlour, and she said, “I should like to be my own housekeeper,

Pete.”

“And right, too,” said Pete. “Be your own woman, darling--not your

woman's woman--and have Mrs. Gorry for your housemaid.”

To turn her mind from evil thoughts, she set to work immediately, and

busied herself with little duties, little economies, little cares,

little troubles. But the virtues of housekeeping were just those for

which she had not prepared herself. Her first leg of mutton was roasted

down to the proportions of a frizzled shank, and her first pudding was

baked to the colour and consistency of a badly burnt brick. She did not

mend rapidly as a cook, but Pete ate of all that his faultless teeth

could grind through, and laid the blame on his appetite when his

digestion failed.

She strove by other industries to keep alive a sense of her duty as a

wife. Buying rolls of paper at the paperhanger's, she set about papering

every closet in the house. The patterns did not join and the paste did

not adhere. She initialled in worsted the new blankets sent by Grannie,

with a P and a Q and a K intertwined. Than she overhauled the linen;

turned out every room twice a week; painted every available wooden

fixture with paint which would not dry because she had mixed it herself

to save a sixpence a stone and forgotten the turpentine. Pete held up

his hands in admiration at all her failures. She had thought it would be

easy to be a good wife to a good husband. It was hard--hard for any

one, hardest of all for her. There are the ruins of a happy woman in the

bosom of every over-indulged wife.

She could not keep to anything long, but every night for a week she

gave Pete lessons in reading, writing, and arithmetic. His reading was

laborious, his spelling was eccentric, his figuring he did on the tips

of his heavy fingers, and his writing he executed with his tongue in his

cheek and his ponderous thumb down on the pen nib.

“What letter is that, Pete?” she said, pointing with her knitting needle

to the page of a book of poems before them.

Pete looked up in astonishment. “Is it _me_ you're asking, Kitty? If

_you_ don't know, _I_ don't know.”

“That's a capital M, Pete.”

“Is it, now?” said Pete, looking at the letter with a searching eye.

“Goodness me, the straight it's like the gate of the long meadow.”

“And that's a capital A.”

“Sakes alive, the straight it's like the coupling of the cart-house.”

“And that's a B.”

“Gough bless me, d'ye say so? But the straight it's like the hoof of a

bull, though.”

“And M A B spells Mab--Queen Mab,” said Kate, going on with her

knitting.

Pete looked up at her with eyes wide open. “I suppose, now,” he said, in

a voice of pride, “I suppose you're knowing all the big spells yourself,

Kitty?”

“Not all. Sometimes I have to look in the dictionary,” said Kate.

She showed him the book and explained its uses.

“And is it taiching you to spell every word, Kitty?” he asked.

“Every ordinary word,” said Kate.

“My gough!” said Pete, touching the book with awe.

Next day he pored over the dictionary for an hour, but when he raised

his face it wore a look of scepticism and scorn. “This spelling-book

isn't taiching you nothing, darling,” he said.

“Isn't it. Pete?”

“No, nothing,” said Pete. “Here I've been looking for an ordinary

word--a _very_ ordinary word--and it isn't in.”

“What word is it?” said Elate, leaning over his shoulder.

“_Love_,” said Pete. “See,” pointing his big forefinger, “that's where

it ought to be, and where is it?”

“But _love_ begins _lo_,” said Kate, “and you're looking at _lu_. Here

it is--love.”

Pete gave a prolonged whistle, then fell back in his chair, looked

slowly up and said, “So you must first know how the word begins; is that

it, Kitty?”

“Why, yes,” said Kate.

“Then it's you that's taiching the spelling-book, darling; so we'll put

it back on the shelf.”

For a fortnight Kate read and replied to Pete's correspondence. It was

plentiful and various. Letters from heirs to lost fortunes offering

shares in return for money to buy them out of Chancery; from promoters

of companies proposing dancing palaces to meet the needs of English

visitors; from parsons begging subscriptions to new organs; from

fashionable ladies asking Pete to open bazaars; from preachers inviting

him to anniversary tea-meetings, and saying Methodism was proud of him.

If anybody wanted money, he kissed the Blarney Stone and applied to

Pete. Kate stood between him and the worst of the leeches. The best of

them he contrived to deal with himself, secretly and surreptitiously.

Sometimes there came acknowledgments of charities of which Kate knew

nothing. Then he would shuffle them away and she would try not to see

them. “If I stop him altogether, I will spoil him,” she thought.

One day the post brought a large envelope with a great seal at the

back of it, and Kate drew out a parchment deed and began to read the

indorsement--“'Memorandum of loan to Cæsar Cre-----'”

“That's nothing,” said Pete, snatching the document and stuffing it into

his jacket-pocket.

Kate lifted her eyes with a look of pain and shame and humiliation, and

that was the end of her secretaryship.

II.

A month after their marriage a man came through the gate with the air of

one who was doing a degrading thing. The dog, which had been spread out

lazily in the sun before the porch, leapt up and barked furiously.

“Who's this coming up the path with his eyes all round him like a

scallop?” said Pete.

Kate looked. “It's Ross Christian,” she said, with a catch in her

breathing.

Ross came up, and Pete met him at the door. His face was puffy and pale,

his speech was soft and lisping, yet there lurked about the man an air

of levity and irony.

“Your dog doesn't easily make friends, Peter,” he said.

“He's like his master, sir; it's against the principles of his life,”

said Pete.

Ross laughed a little. “Wants to be approached with consideration, does

he, Capt'n?”

“You see, he's lived such a long time in the world and seen such a

dale,” said Pete.

Ross looked up sharply and said in another tone, “I've just dropped

in to congratulate you on your return home in safety and health and

prosperity, Mr. Quilliam.”

“You're welcome, sir,” said Pete.

Pete led the way indoors. Ross followed, bowed distantly to Kate, who

was unpicking a dress, and took a chair.

“I must not conceal from you, however, that I have another object--in

fact, a private matter,” said Ross, glancing at Kate.

The dress rustled in Kate's fingers, her scissors dropped on to the

table, and she rose to go.

Pete raised his hand. “My wife knows all my business,” he said.

Ross gave out another little chirp of laughter. “You'll remember what

they say of a secret, Captain--too big for one, right for two, tight for

three.”

“A man and his wife are one, sir--so that's two altogether,” said Pete.

Kate took up the scissors and went on with her work uneasily. Ross

twisted on his seat and said, “Well, I feel I _must_ tell you, Peter.”

“Quilliam, sir,” said Pete, charging a pipe; but Ross pretended not to

hear.

“Only natural, perhaps, for it--in fact, it's about our father.”

“Tongue with me, tongue with thee,” thought Pete, lighting up.

“Five years ago he made me an allowance, and sent me up to London to

study law. He believes I've been called to the English bar, and, in view

of this vacant Deemstership, he wants me admitted to the Manx one.”

Pete's pipe stopped in its puffing. “Well?”

“That's impossible,” said Ross.

“Things haven't come with you, eh?”

“To tell you the truth, Captain, on first going up I fell into

extravagant company. I thought my friends were rich men, and I was never

a niggard. There was Monty, the patron of the Fancy”--the scissors in

Kate's hand clicked and stopped--and Ross blurted out, “In fact, I've

_not_ been called, and I've never studied at all.”

Ross squirmed in his chair, glancing under his brows at Kate. Pete

leaned forward and puffed up the chimney without speaking.

“You see I speak freely, Peter--something compels me. Well, if a man

can't reveal his little failings to his own brother, Peter----”

“Don't let's talk about brothers,” said Pete. “What am I to do for you?”

“Lend me enough to help me to do what our father thinks I've done

already,” said Ross, and then he added, hastily, “Oh, I'll give you my

note of hand for it.”

“They're telling me, sir,” said Pete, “your notes of hand are as cheap

as cowries.”

“Some one has belied me to you, Captain. But for our father's sake--he

has set his heart on this Deemstership--there may still be time for it.”

“Yes,” said Pete, striking his open hand on the table, “and better men

to fill it.”

Ross glanced at Kate, and a smile that was half a sneer crossed his evil

face. “How nice,” he said, “when the great friends of the wife are also

the great friends of the husband.”

“Just so,” said Pete, and then Ross laughed a little, and the clicking

of Kate's scissors stopped again. “As to you, sir,” said Pete, rising,

“if it's no disrespect, you're like the cormorant that chokes itself

swallowing its fish head-ways up. The gills are sticking in your

gizzard, sir, only,” touching Ross's shoulder with something between a

pat and push, “you shouldn't be coming to your father's son to help you

to ram it down.”

As Ross went out Cæsar came in. “That wastrel's been wanting something,”

said Cæsar.

“The tide's down on him,” said Pete.

“Always was, and always will be. He was born at low water, and he'll die

on the rocks. Borrowing money, eh?” said Cæsar, with a searching glance.

“Trying to,” said Pete indifferently.

“Then lend it, sir,” said Cæsar promptly. “He's not to trust, but lend

it on his heirship. Or lend it the ould man at mortgage on Ballawhaine.

He's the besom of fire--it'll come to you, sir, at the father's death,

and who has more right?”

The shank of Pete's pipe came down from his mouth as he sat for some

moments beating out the ash on the jockey bar. “Something in that,

though,” he said mechanically. “But there's another has first claim for

all. He'd be having the place now if every one had his own. I must be

thinking of it--I must be thinking of it.”

III.

Philip had left the island on the morning after the marriage. He had

gone abroad, and when they heard from him first he was at Cairo. The

voyage out had done him good--the long, steady nights going down

the Mediterranean--walking the deck alone--the soft air--the far-off

lights--thought he was feeling better--calmer anyway. He hoped they were

settled in their new home, and well--and happy. Kate had to read the

letter aloud. It was like a throb of Philip's heart made faint, feeble,

and hardly to be felt by the great distance. Then she had to reply to it

on behalf of Pete.

“Tell him to be quick and come out of the land of Egypt and the house of

bondage,” said Pete. “Say there's no manner of sense of a handsome young

man living in a country where there isn't a pretty face to be seen on

the sunny side of a blanket. Write that Kirry joins with her love and

best respects and she's busy whitewashing, and he'd better have no truck

with Pharaoh's daughters.”

The next time they heard from Philip he was at Rome. He had suffered

from sleeplessness, but was not otherwise unwell. Living in that city

was like an existence after death--all the real life was behind you. But

it was not unpleasant to walk under the big moon amid the wrecks of the

past. He congratulated Mrs. Quilliam on her active occupation--work was

the same as suffering--it was strength and power. Kate had to read this

letter also. It was like a sob coming over the sea.

“Give him a merry touch to keep up his pecker,” said Pete. “Tell him the

Romans are ter'ble jealous chaps, and, if he gets into a public house

for a cup of tay, he's to mind and not take the girls on his knee--the

Romans don't like it.”

The last time they heard from Philip he was in London. His old pain had

given way; he thought he was nearly well again, but he had come

through a sharp fire. The Governor had been very good--kept open the

Deemstership by some means--also surrounded him with London friends--he

was out every night. Nevertheless, an unseen force was drawing him

home--they might see him soon, or it might be later he had been

six months away, but he felt that it had not been all waste and

interruption--he would return with a new sustaining power.

This letter could not be answered, for it bore no address. It came by

the night-mail with the same day's steamer from England. Two hours later

Mrs. Gorry ran in from an errand to the town saying--

“I believe in my heart I saw Mr. Philip Christian going by on the road.”

“When?” said Pete.

“This minute,” she answered.

“Chut! woman,” said Pete; “the man's in London. Look, here's his

letter”--running his forefinger along the headline--'“London, January

21st--that's yesterday. See!”

Mrs. Gorry was perplexed. But the next night she was out at the same

hour on the same errand, and came flying into the house with a scared

look, making the same announcement.

“See for yourself, then,” she cried, “he's going up the lane by the

garden.”

“Nonsense! it's browning you're ateing with your barley,” said Pete; and

then to Kate, behind his hand, he whispered, “Whisht! It's sights

she's seeing, poor thing--and no wonder, with her husband laving her so

lately.”

But the third night also Mrs. Gorry returned from a similar errand, at

the same hour, with the same statement.

“I'm sure of it,” she panted. She was now in terror. An idea of the

supernatural had taken hold of her.

“The woman manes it,” said Pete, and he began to cross-question her. How

was Mr. Christian dressed? She hadn't noticed that night, but the first

night he had worn a coat like an old Manx cape. Which way was he going?

She couldn't be certain which way to-night but the night before he had

gone up the lane between the chapel and the garden. Had she seen his

face at all? The first time she had seen it, and it was very thin and

pale.

“Oh, I wouldn't deceave you, sir,” said Mrs. Gorry, and she fell to

crying.

“Gough bless me, but this is mortal strange, though,” said Pete.

“What time was it exactly, Jane?” asked Kate.

“On the minute of ten every night,” answered Mrs. Gorry.

“Is there any difference in time, now,” said Pete, “between the Isle of

Man and London, Kitty?”

“Nothing to speak of,” said Kate.

Pete scratched his head. “I must be putting a sight up on Black Tom. A

dirty old trouss, God forgive me, if he is my grandfather, but he knows

the Manx yarns about right. If it had been Midsummer day now, and Philip

had been in bed somewhere, it might have been his spirit coming home

while he was sleeping to where his heart is--they're telling of the

like, anyway.”

Kate read the mystery after her own manner, and on the following night,

at the approach of ten o'clock, she went into the parlour of the hall,

whence a window looked out on to the road. The day had been dull and the

night was misty. A heavy white hand seemed to have come down on to the

face of sea and land. Everything lay still and dead and ghostly. Kate

was in the dark room, trembling, but not with fear. Presently a form

that was like a shadow passed under a lamp that glimmered opposite. She

could see only the outlines of a Spanish cape. But she listened for

the footsteps, and she knew them. They came on and paused, came up and

paused again, and then they went past and deadened off and died in the

dense night-air.

Kate's eyes were red and swollen when she came back to supper. She

had promised herself enjoyment of Philip's sufferings. There was no

enjoyment, but only a cry of yearning from the deep place where love

calls to love. She tried afresh to make the thought of Philip sink to

the lowest depth of her being. It was hard--it was impossible; Pete was

for ever strengthening the recollection of him--of his ways, his

look, his voice, his laugh. What he said was only the echo of her own

thoughts; but it was pain and torment, nevertheless. She felt like

crying, “Let me alone--let me alone!”

People in the town began to talk of Mrs. Gorry's mysterious stories.

“Philip will be forced to come now,” thought Kate; and he came. Kate was

alone. It was afternoon; dinner was over, the hearth was swept, the

fire was heaped up, and the rug was down. He entered the porch quietly,

tapped lightly at the door, and stepped into the house. He hoped she

was well. She answered mechanically. He asked after Pete. She replied

vacantly that he had been gone since morning on some fishing business to

Peel. It was a commonplace conversation--brief, cold, almost trivial.

He spoke softly, and stood in the middle of the floor, swinging his soft

hat against his leg. She was standing by the fire, with one hand on the

mantelpiece and her head half aside, looking sideways towards his feet;

but she noticed that his eyes looked larger than before, and that his

voice, though so soft, had a deeper tone. At first she did not remember

to ask him to sit, and when she thought of it she could not do so. The

poor little words would have been a formal recognition of all that had

happened so terribly--that she was mistress in that house, and the wife

of Pete.

IV.

They were standing so, in a silence hard to break, harder still to

keep up, when Pete himself came back, like a rush of wind, and welcomed

Philip with both hands.

“Sit, boy, sit,” he cried; “not that one--this aisy one. Mine? Well,

if it's mine, it's yours. Not had dinner, have you? Neither have I. Any

cold mate left, Kitty? No? Fry us a chop, then, darling.”

Kate had recovered herself by this time, and she went out on this

errand. While she was away, Pete rattled on like a mill-race--asked

about the travels, laughed about the girls, and roared about Mrs. Gorry

and her ghost of Philip.

“Been buying a Nickey at Peel to-day, Phil,” he said; “good little

boat--a reg'lar clipper. Aw, I'm going to start on the herrings myself

next sayson sir, and what for shouldn't I? Too many of the Manx ones

are giving the fishing the goby. There's life in the ould dog yet,

though. Would be, anyway, if them rusty Kays would be doing anything for

the industry. They're building piers enough for the trippers, but

never a breakwater the size of a tooth-brush for the fishermen. That's

reminding me, Phil--the boys are at me to get you to petition the

Tynwald Court for better harbours. They're losing many a pound by not

getting out all weathers. But if the child doesn't cry, the mother will

be giving it no breast. So we mane to squall till they think in Douglas

we've got spavined wind or population of the heart, or something. The

men are looking to you, Phil. 'That's the boy for us,' says they. 'He's

stood our friend before, and he'll do it again,' they're saying.”

Philip promised to draw up the petition, and then Mrs. Gorry came in and

laid the cloth.

Kate, meanwhile, had been telling herself that she had not done well.

Where was the satisfaction she had promised herself on the night of

her wedding-day, when she had seen Philip from the height of a great

revenge, if she allowed him to think that she also was suffering? She

must be bright, she must be gay, she must seem to be happy and in love

with her husband.

She returned to the hall-parlour with a smoking dish, and a face all

sunshine.

“I'm afraid they're not very good, dear,” she said.

“Chut!” said Pete; “we're not particular. Phil and I have roughed it

before to-day.”

She laughed merrily, and, under pretext of giving orders, disappeared

again. But she had not belied the food she had set on the table. The

mutton was badly fed, badly killed, badly cut, and, above all, badly

cooked. To eat it was an ordeal. Philip tried hard not to let Pete see

how he struggled. Pete fought valiantly to conceal his own efforts. The

perspiration began to break out on their foreheads. Pete stopped in the

midst of some wild talk to glance up at Philip. Philip tore away with

knife and fork and answered vaguely. Then Pete looked searchingly

around, rose on tiptoe, went stealthily to the kitchen door, came back,

caught up a piece of yellow paper from the sideboard, whipped the chops

into it from his own plate and then from Philip's, and crammed them into

his jacket pocket.

“No good hurting anybody's feelings,” said he; and then Kate reappeared

smiling.

“Finished already?” she said with an elevation of pitch.

“Ha! ha!” laughed Pete. “Two hungry men, Kate! You'd rather keep us a

week than a fortnight, eh?”

Kate stood over the empty dish with a look of surprise. Pete winked

furiously at Philip. Philip's eyes wandered about the tablecloth.

“_She_ isn't knowing much about a hungry man's appetite, is she, Phil?”

“But,” said Kate--“but,” she stammered--“what's become of the bones?”

Pete scratched his chin through his beard. “The bones? Oh, the bones?

Aw, no, we're not ateing the bones, at all.” Then with a rush, as his

eyes kindled, “But the dog, you see--coorse we always give the bones to

the dog--Dempster's dead on bones.”

Dempster was lying at the moment full length under the table, snoring

audibly. Mrs. Gorry cleared the cloth, and Kate took up her sewing and

turned towards the sideboard.

“Has any one seen my pattern?” she asked.

“Pattern?” said Pete, diving into his jacket-pocket. “D'ye say

pattern,” he muttered, rummaging at his side. “Is this it?” and out

came the yellow paper, crumpled and greasy, which had gone in with the

chops. “Bless me, the stupid a man is now--I took it for a pipe-light.”

Kate's smile vanished, and she fled out to hide her face. Then Pete

whispered to Philip, “Let's take a slieu round to the 'Plough.'”

They were leaving the house on that errand when Kate came back to the

hall. “Just taking a lil walk, Kirry,” said Pete. “They're telling me

it's good wonderful after dinner for a wake digestion of the chest,” and

he coughed repeatedly and smote his resounding breast.

“Wait a moment and I'll go with you,” said Kate.

There was no help for it. Kate's shopping took them in the direction of

the “Plough.” Old Mrs. Beatty, the innkeeper, was at the door as they

passed, and when she saw Pete approaching on the inside of the three,

she said aloud--meaning no mischief--“Your bread and cheese and porter

are ready, as usual, Capt'n.”

V.

The man was killing her. To be his spoiled and adored wife, knowing

she was unworthy of his love and tenderness, was not happiness--it was

grinding misery, bringing death into her soul. If he had blamed her for

her incompetence; if he had scolded her for making his home cheerless;

nay, if he had beaten her, she could have borne with life, and taken her

outward sufferings for her inward punishment.

She fell into fits of hysteria, sat whole hours listless, with her

feet on the fender. Pete's conduct exasperated her. As time went on and

developed the sweetness of Pete, the man grew more and more distasteful

to her, and she broke into fits of shrewishness. Pete hung his head and

reproached himself. She wasn't to mind if he said things--he was only

a rough fellow. Then she burst into tears and asked him to forgive her,

and he was all cock-a-hoop in a moment, like a dog that is coaxed after

it has been beaten.

Her sufferings reached a climax--she became conscious that she was about

to become a mother. This affected her with terrible fears. She went

back to that thought of a possible contingency which had torn her with

conflicting feelings on the eve of her marriage. It was impossible to

be sure. The idea might be no more than a morbid fancy, born of her

un-happiness, of her secret love for Philip, of her secret repugnance

for Pete (the inadequate, the uncouth, the uncongenial) but nevertheless

it possessed her with the force of an overpowering conviction, it grew

upon her day by day, it sat on her heart like a nightmare--the child

that was to be born to her was not the child of her husband.

VI.

In spite of Pete's invitations, Philip came rarely. He was full

of excuses--work--fresh studies--the Governor--his aunt. Pete said

“Coorse,” and “Sartenly,” and “Wouldn't trust,” until Philip began to

be ashamed, and one evening he came, looking stronger than usual, with a

more sustaining cheerfulness, and plumped into the house with the words,

“I've come at last!”

“To stay the night?” said Pete.

“Well, yes,” said Philip.

“That's lucky and unlucky too, for I'm this minute for Peel with two of

the boys to fetch round my Nickey by the night-tide. But youll stay

and keep the wife company, and I'll be back first tide in the morning.

You'll be obliged to him, won't you, Kate?” he cried, pitching his voice

over his shoulder; and then, in a whisper, “She's a bit down at whiles,

and what wonder, and her so near--but you'll see, you'll see,” and he

winked and nodded knowingly.

There was no harking back, no sheering off on the score of modesty

before Pete's large faith. Kate looked as if she would cry “Mercy,

mercy!” but when she saw the same appeal on Philip's face she was stung.

Pete went off, and then Kate and Philip sat down to tea. While tea

lasted it was not hard to fill the silences with commonplaces. After it

was over she brought him a pipe, and they lapsed into difficult pauses.

Philip puffed vigorously and tried to look happy. Kate struggled not to

let Philip see that she was ill at ease. Every moment their imagination

took a new turn. He began to read a book, and while they sat without

speaking she thought it was hardly nice of him to treat her with

indifference. When he spoke she thought he was behaving with less

politeness than before. He went over to the piano and they sang a part

song, “Oh, who will o'er the downs so free?” Their voices went well

enough together, but they broke down. The more they tried to forget

the past the more they remembered it. He twiddled the backs of his

fingertips over the keyboard; she swung on one foot and held to the

candle-bracket while they talked of Pete. That name seemed to fortify

them against the scouts of passion. Pete was their bulwark. It was the

old theme, but played as a tragedy, not as a comedy, now.

“It is delightful to see you settled in this beautiful home,” he said.

“_Isn't_ it beautiful?” she answered.

“You ought to be very happy.”

“Why should I not be happy?” with a little laugh.

“Why, indeed? A home like a nest and a husband that worships you-----”

She laughed again because she could not speak. Speech was thin gauze,

laughter was rolling smoke; so she laughed and laughed.

“What a fine hearty creature he is!” said Philip.

“Isn't he?” said Kate.

“Education and intellect don't always go together.”

“Any wife might love such a husband,” said Kate.

“So simple, so natural, so unsuspicious-----”

But that was coming to quarters too close, so they fell back on silence.

The silence was awful; the power of it was pitiless. If they could have

spoken the poorest commonplaces, the spell might have dissolved. Philip

thought he would rise, but he could not do so. Kate tried to turn away,

but felt herself rooted to the spot. With faces aside, they remained

some moments where they were, as if a spirit had passed between them.

Mrs. Gorry came in to lay the supper, and then Kate recovered herself.

She got back her power of laughter, and laughed at everything. He was

not deceived. “She loves me still,” said the voice of his heart. He

hated himself for the thought, but it haunted him with a merciless

persistence. He remembered the evening of the wedding-day, and the

imploring look she gave him on going away with Pete; and he returned to

the idea that she had been married under the compulsion of her father,

Cæsar, the avaricious hypocrite. He told himself it would be easy to

kindle a new fire on the warm hearth. As she laughed and he looked into

her beautiful eyes and caught the nervous twitch of her mouth, he felt

something of the old thrill, the old passion, the old unconditioned love

of her who loved him in spite of all, and merely because she must. But

no! Had he spent six months abroad for nothing? He would be strong; he

would be loyal. If need be he would save this woman from herself.

At last Kate lit a candle and said, “I must show you to your room.”

She talked cheerily going upstairs. On the landing she opened the door

of the room above the hall, and went into it, and drew down the blind.

She was still full of good spirits, said perhaps he had no night-shirt,

so she had left out one of Pete's, hoped he would find it big enough,

and laughed again. He took the candle from her at the threshold, and

kissed the hand that had held it. She stood a moment quivering like a

colt, then she bounded away; there was the clash of a door somewhere

beyond, and Kate was in her own room, kneeling before the bed with

her face buried in the counterpane to stifle the sobs that might break

through the walls.

Under all her lightness, in spite of all her laughter, the old

tormenting thought had been with her still. Should she tell him? Could

he understand? Would he believe? If he realised the gravity of the awful

position in which she was soon to be placed, would he make an effort to

extricate her? And if he did not, would not, could not, should not she

hate him for ever after? Then the old simple love, the pure passion,

came hack upon her at the sight of his face, at the touch of his hand,

at the sound of his voice? Oh, for what might have been--what might have

been!

Pete's Nickey came into harbour with the morning tide, and the three

breakfasted together. As Kate moved heavily in front of the fire, Pete

crowed, cooed, and scattered wise winks round the table.

“More milk, mammy,” he whimpered, and then he imitated all kinds of baby

prattle.

After breakfast the men smoked, and Kate took up her sewing. She

was occupying herself with the little labours, so pretty, so full of

delicate humour and delicious joy, which usually open a new avenue for

a woman's tenderness. Philip's eyes fell on her, and she dropped below

into her lap the tiny piece of white linen she was working on. Pete

saw this, stole to the back of her chair, reached over her shoulder,

snatched the white thing out of her fingers, held it outstretched in

his ponderous hands, and roared like a smithy bellows. It was a baby's

shirt.

“Never mind, darling,” he coaxed, as the colour leapt to Kate's face.

“Philip must be a sort of a father to the boy some day--a godfather,

anyway--so he won't mind seeing his lil shiff. We must be calling him

Philip, too. What do you say, Kirry--Philip, is it agreed?”

VII.

As her time drew near, the conviction deepened upon her that she could

not be confined in her husband's house. Being there at such a crisis was

like living in a volcanic land. One false step, one passionate impulse,

and the very earth under her feet would split. “I must go home for

awhile, Pete,” she said.

“Coorse you must,” said Pete. “Nobody like the ould angel when a girl's

that way.”

Pete took her back to her mother's in the gig, driving very slowly,

and lifting her up and down as tenderly as if she had been a child. She

breathed freely when she left Elm Cottage, but when she was settled

in her own bedroom at “The Manx Fairy” she realised that she had only

stepped from misery to misery. So many memories lived like ghosts

there--memories of innocent slumbers, and of gleeful awakenings amid the

twittering of birds and the rattling of gravel. The old familiar place,

the little room with the poor little window looking out on the orchard,

the poor little bed with its pink curtains like a tent, the sweet

old blankets, the wash-basin, the press, the blind with the same

old pattern, the sheepskin rug underfoot, the whitewashed scraas

overhead--everything the same, but, O God! how different!

“Let me look at myself in the glass, Nancy,” she said, and Nancy gave

her the handglass which had been cracked the morning after the Melliah.

She pushed it away peevishly. “What's the use of a thing like that?” she

said.

Pete haunted the house day and night. There was no bed for him there,

and he was supposed to go home to sleep. But he wandered away in the

darkness over the Curragh to the shore, and in the grey of morning he

was at the door again, bringing the cold breath of the dawn into the

house with the long whisper round the door ajar. “How's she going on

now?”

The women bundled him out bodily, and then he hung about the roads like

a dog disowned. If he heard a sigh from the dairy loft, he sat down

against the gable and groaned. Grannie tried to comfort him. “Don't

be taking on so, boy. It'll be all joy soon,” said she, “and you'll be

having the child to shew for it.”

But Pete was bitter and rebellious. “Who's wanting the child anyway?”

said he. “It's only herself I'm wanting; and she's laving me; O Lord,

she's laving me. God forgive me!” he muttered. “O good God, forgive

me!” he groaned: “It isn't fair, though. Lord knows it isn't fair,” he

mumbled hoarsely.

At last Nancy Joe came out and took him in hand in earnest.

“Look here, Pete,” she said. “If you're wanting to kill the woman, and

middling quick too, you'll go on the way you're going. But if you don't,

you'll be taking to the road, and you won't be coming back till you're

wanted.”

This settled Pete's restlessness. The fishing had begun early that

season, and he went off for a night to the herrings.

Kate waited long, and the women watched her with trembling. “It's a week

or two early,” said one. “The weather's warm,” said another. “The boghee

millish! She's a bit soon,” said Grannie.

There was less of fear in Kate's own feelings.

“Do women often die?” she asked.

“The proportion is small,” said the doctor.

Half an hour afterwards she spoke again.

“Does the child sometimes die?”

“Well, I've known it to happen, but only when the mother has had a

shock--lost her husband, for example.”

She lay tossing on the bed, wishing for her own death, hoping for the

death of the unborn child, dreading its coming lest she should hate and

loathe it. At last came the child's first cry--that cry out of silence

that had never broken on the air before, but was henceforth to be one of

the world's voices for laughter and for weeping, for joy and for sorrow,

to her who had borne it into life. Then she called to them to show her

the baby, and when they did so, bringing it up with soft cooings and

foolish words, she searched the little wrinkled face with a frightened

look, then put up her arms to shut out the sight, and cried “Take it

away,” and turned to the wall. Her vague fear was a certainty now; the

child was the child of her sin--she was a bad woman.

Yet there is no shame, no fear, no horror, but the pleading of a

new-born babe can drown its clamour. The child cried again, and the

cruel battle of love and dread was won for motherhood. The mother heart

awoke and swelled. She had got her baby, at all events. It was all she

had for all she had suffered; but it was enough, and a dear and precious

prize.

“Are you sure it is well?” she asked. “Quite, quite well? Doesn't its

little face look as if its mammy had been crying--no?”

“'Deed no,” said Grannie, “but as bonny a baby as ever was born.”

The women were scurrying up and down, giggling on the landings, laughing

on the stairs, and saying _hush_ at their own noises as they crept into

the room. In a fretful whimper the child was still crying, and Grannie

was telling it, with many wags of the head and in a mighty stern voice,

that they were going to have none of its complaining now that it _had_

come at last; and Kate Herself, with hands clasped together, was saying

in a soft murmur like a prayer, “God is very good, and the doctor is

good too. God is good to give us doctors.”

“Lie quiet, and I'll come back in an hour or two,” said Dr. Mylechreest

from half-way through the door.

“Dear heart alive, what will the father say?” cried Grannie, and then

the whole place broke into that smile of surprise which comes to every

house after the twin angels of Life and Death have brooded long over its

roof-tree, and are gone at length before the face of a little child.

VIII.

When Pete came up to the quay in the raw sunshine of early morning, John

the Clerk, mounted on a barrel, was selling by auction the night's take

of the boats.

“I've news for you, Mr. Quilliam,” he cried, as Pete's boat, with half

sail set, dropped down the harbour. Pete brought to, leapt ashore, and

went up to where John, at the end of the jetty, surrounded by a crowd of

buyers in little spring-carts, was taking bids for the fish.

“One moment, Capt'n,” he cried, across his outstretched arm, at the end

whereof was a herring with gills still opening and closing. “Ten maise

of this sort for the last lot, well fed, alive and kicking--how much for

them? Five shillings? Thank you--and three, Five and three. It's in it

yet, boys--only five and three--and six, thank _you_. It'll do no harm

at five and six--six shillings? All done at six--_and six?_ All done at

six and six?” “Seven shillings,” shouted somebody with a voice like

a foghorn. “They're Annie the Cadger's,” said John, dropping to the

ground. “And now, Capt'n Quilliam, we'll go and wet the youngster's

head.”

Pete went up to Sulby like an avalanche, shouting his greetings to

everybody on the way. But when he got near to the “Fairy,” he wiped his

steaming forehead and held his panting breath, and pretended not to have

heard the news.

“How's the poor girl now?” he said in a meek voice, trying to look

powerfully miserable, and playing his part splendidly for thirty

seconds.

Then the women made eyes at each other and looked wondrous knowing,

and nodded sideways at Pete, and clucked and chuckled, saying, “Look at

him,--_he_ doesn't know anything, does he?” “Coorse not, woman--these

men creatures are no use for nothing.”

“Out of a man's way,” cried Pete, with a roar, and he made a rush for

the stairs.

Nancy blocked him at the foot of them with both hands on his shoulders.

“You'll be quiet, then,” she whispered. “You were always a rasonable

man, Pete, and she's wonderful wake--promise you'll be quiet.”

“TO be like a mouse,” said Pete, and he whipped off his long sea-boots

and crept on tiptoe into the room.

There she lay with the morning light on her, and a face as white as the

quilt that she was plucking with her long fingers.

“Thank God for a living mother and a living child,” said Pete, in a

broken gurgle, and then he drew down the bedclothes a very little, and

there, too, was the child on the pillow of her other arm.

Then do what he would to be quiet, he could not help but make a shout.

“He's there! Yes, he is! He is, though! Joy! Joy!”

The women were down on him like a flock of geese. “Out of this, sir, if

you can't behave better!'

“Excuse me, ladies,” said Pete humbly, “I'm not in the habit of babies.

A bit excited, you see, Mistress Nancy, ma'am. Couldn't help putting a

bull of a roar out, not being used of the like.” Then, turning back to

the bed, “Aw, Kitty, the beauty it is, though! And the big! As big as

my fist already. And the fat! It's as fat as a bluebottle. And the

straight! Well, not so _very_ straight, neither, but the complexion at

him now! Give him to me, Kitty I give him to me, the young rascal. Let

me have a hould of him, anyway.”

“_Him_, indeed! Listen to the man,” said Nancy.

“It's a girl, Pete,” said Grannie, lifting the child out of the bed.

“A girl, is it?” said Pete doubtfully. “Well,” he said, with a wag of

the head, “thank God for a girl.” Then, with another and more resolute

wag, “Yes, thank God for a living mother and a living child, if it is a

girl,” and he stretched out his arms to take the baby.

“Aisy, now, Pete--aisy,” said Grannie, holding it out to him.

“Is it aisy broke they are, Grannie?” said Pete. A good spirit looked

out of his great boyish face. “Come to your ould daddie, you lil

sandpiper. Gough bless me, Kitty, the weight of him, though! This

child's a quarter of a hundred if he's an ounce. He is, I'll go bail he

is. Look at him! Guy heng, Grannie, did ye ever see the like, now! It's

absolute perfection. Kitty, I couldn't have had a better one if I'd

chiced it. Where's that Tom Hommy now? The bleating little billygoat, he

was bragging outrageous about his new baby--saying he wouldn't part with

it for two of the best cows in his cow-house. This'll floor him, I'm

thinking. What's that you're saying, Mistress Nancy, ma'am? No good for

nothing, am I? You were right, Grannie. 'It'll be all joy soon,' you

were saying, and haven't we the child to show for it? I put on my

stocking inside out on Monday, ma'am. 'I'm in luck,' says I, and so I

was. Look at that, now! He's shaking his lil fist at his father. He is,

though. This child knows me. Aw, you're clever, Nancy, but--no nonsense

at all, Mistress Nancy, ma'am. Nothing will persuade me but this child

knows me.”

“Do you hear the man?” said Nancy. “_He_ and _he_, and _he_ and _he!_

It's a girl, I'm telling you; a girl--a girl--a girl.”

“Well, well, a girl, then--a girl we'll make it,” said Pete, with

determined resignation.

“He's deceaved,” said Grannie. “It was a boy he was wanting, poor

fellow!”

But Pete scoffed at the idea. “A boy? Never! No, no--a girl for your

life. I'm all for girls myself, eh, Kitty? Always was, and now I've got

two of them.”

The child began to cry, and Grannie took it back and rocked it, face

downwards, across her knees.

“Goodness me, the voice at him!” said Pete. “It's a skipper he's born

for--a harbour-master, anyway.”

The child slept, and Grannie put it on the pillow turned lengthwise at

Kate's side.

“Quiet as a Jenny Wren, now,” said Pete. “Look at the bogh smiling in

his sleep. Just like a baby mermaid on the egg of a dogfish. But where's

the ould man at all? Has he seen it? We must have it in the papers. The

_Times?_Yes, and the 'Tiser too. 'The beloved wife of Mr. Capt'n Peter

Quilliam, of a boy--a girl,' I mane. Aw, the wonder there'll be all

the island over--everybody getting to know. Newspapers are like

women--ter'ble bad for keeping sacrets. What'll Philip say? But haven't

you a toothful of anything, Grannie? Gin for the ladies, Nancy. Goodness

me, the house is handy. What time was it? Wait, don't tell me! It was

five o'clock this morning, wasn't it? Yes? Gough bless me, I knew it!

High water to the very minute--aw, he'll rise in the world, and die at

the top of the tide. How did I know when the child was born, ma'am? As

aisy as aisy. We were lying adrift of Cronk ny Irrey Lhaa, looking up

for daylight by the fisherman's clock. Only light enough to see the

black of your nail, ma'am. All at once I heard a baby's cry on the

waters. 'It's the nameless child of Earey Cushin,' sings out one of the

boys. 'Up with the clout,' says I. And when we were hauling the nets

and down on our knees saying a bit of a prayer, as usual, 'God bless my

new-born child,' says I, 'and God bless my child's mother, too,' I says,

and God love and protect them always, and keep and presarve myself as

well.'” There was a low moaning from the bed.

“Air! Give me air! Open the door!” Kate gasped.

“The room is getting too hot for her,” said Grannie.

“Come, there's one too many of us here,” said Nancy. “Out of it,” and

she swept Pete from the bedroom with her apron as if he had been a drove

of ducks.

Pete glanced backward from the door, and a cloak that was hanging on the

inside of it brushed his face.

“God bless her!” he said in a low tone. “God bless and reward her for

going through this for me!”

Then he touched the cloak with his lips and disappeared. A moment later

his curly black poll came stealing round the door jamb, half-way down,

like the head of a big boy.

“Nancy,” in a whisper, “put the tongs over the cradle; it's a pity to

tempt the fairies. And, Grannie, I wouldn't lave it alone to go out to

the cow-house--the lil people are shocking bad for changing.”

Kate, with her face to the wall, listened to him with an aching heart.

As Pete went down the doctor returned.

“She's hardly so well,” said the doctor. “Better not let her nurse the

child. Bring it up by hand. It will be best for both.”

So it was arranged that Nancy should be made nurse and go to Elm

Cottage, and that Mrs. Gorry should come in her place to Sulby.

Throughout four-and-twenty hours thereafter, Kate tried her utmost to

shut her heart to the child. At the end of that time, being left some

minutes alone with the little one, she was heard singing to it in a

sweet, low tone. Nancy paused with the long brush in her hand in the

kitchen, and Granny stopped at her knitting in the bar.

“That's something like, now,” said Nancy.

“Poor thing, poor Kirry! What wonder if she was a bit out of her head,

the bogh, and her not well since her wedding?”

They crept upstairs together at the unaccustomed sounds, and found Pete,

whom they had missed, outside the bedroom door, half doubled up and

holding his breath to listen.

“Hush!” said he, less with his tongue than with his mouth, which he

pursed out to represent the sound. Then he whispered, “She's filling all

the room with music. Listen! It's as good as fairy music in Glentrammon.

And it's the little fairy itself that's 'ticing it out of her.”

Next day Philip came, and nothing would serve for Pete but that he

should go up to see the child.

“It's only Phil,” he said, through the doorway, dragging Philip into

Kate's room after him, for the familiarity that a great joy permits

breaks down conventions. Kate did not look up, and Philip tried to

escape.

“He's got good news for himself, too” said Pete. “They're to be making

him Dempster a month to-morrow.”

Then Kate lifted her eyes to Philip's face, and all the glory of success

withered under her gaze. He stumbled downstairs, and hurried away. There

was the old persistent thought, “She loves me still,” but it was working

now, in the presence of the child, with how great a difference! When he

looked at the little, downy face, a new feeling took possession of him.

Her child--hers--that might have been his also! Had his bargain been

worth having? Was any promotion in the world to be set against one throb

of Pete's simple joy, one gleam of the auroral radiance that lights up

a poor man's home when he is first a father, one moment of divine

partnership in the babe that is fresh from God?

Three weeks later, Pete took his wife home in Cæsar's gig. Everything

was the same, as when he brought her, save that within the shawls with

which she was wrapped about the child now lay with its pink eyelids

to the sky, and its fiat white bottle against her breast. It was a

beautiful spring morning, and the young sunlight was on the sallies of

the Curragh and the gold of the roadside gorse. Pete was as silly as

a boy, and he chirped and croaked all the way home like every bird and

beast of heaven and earth. When they got to Elm Cottage, he lifted his

wife down as tenderly as if she had been the babe she had in her arms.

He was strong and she was light, and he half helped, half carried her to

the porch door. Nancy was there to take the child out of her hands, and,

as she did so, Pete, back at the horse's head, cried, “That's the

last bit of furniture the house was waiting for, Nancy. What's a house

without a child? Just a room without a clock.”

“Clock, indeed,” said Nancy; “clocks are stopping, but this one's for

going like a mill.”

“Don't be tempting the Nightman, Nancy,” cried Pete; but he was full of

childlike delight.

Kate stepped inside. The fire burned in the hall parlour, the fire-irons

shone like glass, there were sprigs of fuchsia-bud in the ornaments on

the chimneypiece--everything was warm and cheerful and homelike. She sat

down without taking off her hat. “Why can't I be quiet and happy?” she

thought. “Why can't I make myself love him and forget?”

But she was like one who traversed a desert under the sea--a vast

submerged Sahara. Over her head was all her life, with all her love

and all her happiness, and the things around her were only the ghostly

shadows cast by them.

IX.

The more Kate realised that she was in the position of a bad woman, the

more she struggled to be a good one. She flew to religion as a refuge.

There was no belief in her religion, no faith, no creed, no mystical

transports, but only fear, and shame, and contrition. It was fervent

enough, nevertheless. On Sunday morning she went to The Christians, on

Sunday afternoon to church, on Sunday evening to the Wesleyan chapel,

and on Wednesday night to the mission-house of the Primitives. Her

catholicity did not please her father. He looked into her quivering

face, and asked if she had broken any commandment in secret. She turned

pale, and answered “No.”

Pete followed her wherever she went, and, seeing this, some of the baser

sort among the religious people began to follow him. They abused each

other badly in their efforts to lay hold of his money-bags. “You'll

never go over to yonder lot,” said one. “They're holding to election--a

soul-destroying doctrine.” “A respectable man can't join himself to

Cowley's gang,” said another. “They're denying original sin, and aren't

a ha'p'orth better than infidels.”

Pete took the measure of them all, down to the watch-pockets of their

waistcoats.

“You remind me,” said he, “when you're a-gate on your doctrines, of

the Kaffirs out at Kimberley. If one of them found an ould hat in the

compound that some white man had thrown away, they'd light a camp-fire

after dark, and hould a reg'lar Tynwald Coort on it. There they'd be

squatting round on their haunches, with nothing to be seen of them but

their eyes and their teeth, and there'd be as many questions as the

Catechism. '_Who_ found it!' says one. '_Where_ did he find it?' says

another. 'If _he_ hadn't found it, who else would have found it?' That's

how they'd be going till two in the morning, and the fire dead out,

and the lot of them squealing away same as monkeys in the dark. And all

about an ould hat with a hole in it, not worth a ha'penny piece.”

“Blasphemy,” they cried. “But still and for all, you give to the widow

and lend to the Lord--you practise the religion you don't believe in,

Cap'n Quilliam.”

“There's a pair of us, then.” said Pete, “for you believe in the

religion you don't practise.”

But Cæsar got Pete at last, in spite of his scepticism. The time came

for the annual camp-meeting. Kate went off to it, and Pete followed

like a big dog at her heels. The company assembled at Sulby Bridge, and

marched through the village to a revival chorus. They stopped at a field

of Cæsar's in the glen--it was last year's Melliah field--and Cæsar

mounted a cart which had been left there to serve as a pulpit. Then they

sang again, and, breaking up into many companies, went off into little

circles that were like gorse rings on the mountains. After that they

reassembled to the strains of another chorus, and gathered afresh about

the cart for Cæsar's sermon.

It dealt with the duty of sinless perfection. There were evil men and

happy sinners in the island these days, who were telling them it was not

good to be faultless in this life, because virtue begot pride, and pride

was a deadly sin. There were others who were saying that because a man

must repent in order to be saved, to repent he had to sin. Doctrines of

the devil--don't listen to them. Could a man in the household of faith

live one second without committing sin? Of course he could. One minute?

Certainly. One hour? No doubt of it. Then, if a man could live one hour

without sin, he could live one day, one week, one month, one year--nay,

a whole lifetime.

In getting thus far, Cæsar had worked himself into a perspiration, and

he took off his coat, hung it over the cartwheel, and went on in his

shirt-sleeves. Let them make no excuses for backsliders. It was a trick

of the devil to deal with you, and forget to pay strap (the price). It

was an old rule and a good one that, if any were guilty of the sins of

the flesh, they should be openly punished in this world, that their sins

might not be counted against them in the day of the Lord.

Cæsar threw off his waistcoat and finished with a passionate

exhortation, calling upon his hearers to deliver themselves of secret

sins. If oratory is to be judged of by its effects, Cæsar's sermon was

a great oration. It began amid the silence of his own followers, and the

_tschts_ and _pshaws_ of a little group of his enemies, who lounged on

the outside of the crowd to cast ridicule on the “swaddler” and the

“publican preacher.” But it ended amid loud exclamations of praise and

supplications from all his hearers, sighing and groaning, and the bodily

clutching of one another by the arm in paroxysms of fear and rapture.

When Cæsar's voice died down like a wave of the sea, somebody leapt up

from the grass to pray. And before the first prayer had ended, a second

was begun. Meantime the penitents had begun to move inward through the

throng, and they fell weeping and moaning on their knees about the cart.

Kate was among them, and, when she took her place, Pete still held by

her side A strong shuddering passed over her shoulders, and her wet eyes

were on the grass. Pete took her hand, and feeling how it trembled, his

own eyes also filled. Above their heads Cæsar was towering with fiery

eyes and face aflame. In a momentary pause between two prayers, he

tossed his voice up in a hymn. The people joined him at the second bar,

and then the wailing of the penitents was drowned in a general shout of

the revival tune--

“If some poor wandering child of Thine

Have spurned to-day the voice divine,

Now, Lord, the gracious work begin,

Let him no more lie down in sin.”

Kate sobbed aloud--poor vessel of human passions tossed about, tormented

by the fire that was consuming her.

As the penitents grew calmer, they rose one by one to give their

experience of Satan and salvation. At length Cæsar seized his

opportunity and said, “And now Brother Quilliam will give us his

experience.”

Pete rose from Kate's side with tearful eyes amid a babel of jubilation,

most of it facetious. “Be of good cheer, Peter, be not afraid.”

“I've not much to tell,” said Pete--“only a story of backsliding.

Before I earned enough to carry me up country, I worked a month at Cape

Town with the boats. My master was a pious old Dutchman getting the name

of Jan. One Saturday night a big ship lost her anchor outside, and on

Sunday morning forty pounds was offered for finding it. All the boatmen

went out except Jan. 'Six days shalt thou labour,' says he, 'but the

seventh is the Sabbath.'”

Pete's address was here punctuated by loud cries of thanksgiving.

“All day long he was seeing the boats beating up the bay, so, to keep

out of temptation, he was going up to the bedroom and pulling the blind

and getting down on his knees and wrastling like mad. And something out

of heaven was saying to him, 'It's the Lord's day, Jannie; they'll not

get a ha'p'orth.' Neither did they; but when Jan's watch said twelve

o'clock midnight the pair of us were going off like rockets. Well, we

hadn't been ten minutes on the water before our grapplings had hould of

that anchor.”

There were loud cries of “Glory!”

“Jan was shouting, 'The Lord has put us atop of it as straight as the

lid of a taypot!'”

Great cries of “Hallelujah!”

“But when we came ashore we found Jan's watch was twenty minutes fast,

and that was the end of the ould man's religion.”

That day the word went round that both Pete and Kate had been converted.

Their names were entered in Class, and they received their quarterly

tickets.

X.

Next morning Kate set out to church for her churching. Her household

duties had lost their interest by this time, and she left Nancy to cook

the dinner. Pete had volunteered to take charge of the child. This he

began to do by establishing himself with his pipe in an armchair by the

cradle, and looking steadfastly down into it until the little one awoke.

Then he rocked it, rummaged his memory for a nursery song to quiet it,

and smoked and sang together.

“A frog he would a-wooing go,

_Kitty alone, Kitty alone_,

(Puff, puff.)

A wonderful likely sort of a beau,

_Kitty alone and I!_”

(_Puff, puff, puff_.)

The sun was shining in at the doorway, and a man's shadow fell across

the cradle-head. It was Philip. Pete put his mouth out into the form of

an unspoken “Hush,” and Philip sat down in silence, while Pete went on

with his smoke and his song.

“But when her husband rat came home,

_Kitty alone, Kitty alone_,

Pray who's been here since I've been gone?

_Kitty alone and I!_” _(Puff, Puff)_

Pete had got to the middle of the verse about “the worthy gentleman,”

when the low whine in the cradle lengthened to a long breath and

stopped.

“Gone off at last, God bless it,” said Pete. “And how's yourself,

Philip? And how goes the petition?”

With his head on his hand, Philip was gazing absently into the fire, and

he did not hear.

“How goes the petition?” said Pete.

“It was that I came to speak of,” said Philip. “Sorry to say it has had

no effect but a bad one. It has only drawn attention to the fact that

Manx fishermen pay no harbour dues.”

“And right too,” said Pete. “The harbours are our fathers' harbours, and

were freed to us forty years ago.”

“Nevertheless,” said Philip, “the dues are to be demanded. The Governor

has issued an order.”

“Then we'll rise against it--every fisherman in the island,” said Pete.

“And when they're making you Dempster, you'll back us up in the Tynwald

Coort.”

“Take care, Pete, take care,” said Philip.

Then Kate came in from church, and Pete welcomed her with a shout.

Philip rose and bowed in silence. The marks of the prayers of the week

were on her face, but they had brought her no comfort. She had been

constantly promising herself consolation from religion, but every fresh

exercise of devotion had seemed to tear open the wound from which she

bled to death.

She removed her cloak and stepped to the cradle. The child was sleeping

peacefully, but she convinced herself that it must be unwell. Her own

hands were cold and moist, and when she touched the child she thought

its skin was clammy. Presently her hands became hot and dry, and when

she touched the child again she thought its forehead was feverish.

“I'm sure she's ill,” she said.

“Chut! love,” said Pete; “no more ill than I am.”

But, to calm her fears, he went off for the doctor. The doctor was away

in the country, and was not likely to be back for hours. Kate's fears

increased. Every time she looked at the child she applied to it the

symptoms of her own condition.

“My child is dying--I'm sure it is,” she cried.

“Nonsense, darling,” said Pete. “Only an hour ago it was looking up as

imperent as a tomtit.”

At last a new terror seized her, and she cried, “My child is dying

unbaptized.”

“Well, we'll soon mend that, love,” said Pete. “I'll be going off for

the parson.” And he caught up his hat and went out.

He called on Parson Quiggin, who promised to follow immediately. Then he

went on to Sulby to fetch Cæsar and Grannie and some others, having no

fear for the child's life, but some hope of banishing Kate's melancholy

by the merriment of a christening feast.

Meanwhile, Philip and Kate were alone with the little one, save in the

intervals of Nancy's coming and going between the hall and the kitchen.

She was restless, and full of expectation, starting at every sound and

every step. He could see that she had gone whole nights without sleep,

and was passing through an existence that was burning itself away.

Do what he would to explain her sufferings as the common results of

childbirth, he could not help resolving them in the old flattering

solution. She was paying the penalty of having married the wrong man.

And she was to blame. Whatever the compulsion put upon her, she ought to

have withstood it. There was no situation in life from which it was

not possible to escape. Had _he_ not found a way out of a situation

essentially the same? Thus a certain high pride in his own conduct took

possession of him even in the presence of Kate's pain.

But his tenderness fought with his self-righteousness. He looked at her

piteous face and his strength almost ebbed away. She looked up into his

eyes and affectionate pity almost overwhelmed him. Once or twice she

seemed about to say something, but she did not speak, and he said

little. Yet it wanted all his resolution not to take her in his arms and

comfort her, not to mingle his tears with hers, not to tell her of six

months spent in vain in the effort to wipe her out of his heart, not

to whisper of cheerless days and of nights made desolate with the

repetition of her name. But no, he would be stronger than that. It was

not yet too late to walk the path of honour. He would stand no longer

between husband and wife.

Pete came back, bringing Grannie and Cæsar. The parson arrived soon

after them. Kate was sitting with the child in her lap, and brooding

over it like a bird above its nest. The child was still sleeping the

sleep of health and innocence, but the mother's eyes were wild.

“Bogh, bogh!” said Grannie, and she kissed her daughter. Kate made no

response. Nancy Joe grew red about the eyelids and began to blow her

nose.

“Here's the prazon, darling,” whispered Pete, and Kate rose to her feet.

The company rose with her, and stood in a half-circle before the fire.

It was now between daylight and dark, and the firelight flashed in their

faces.

“Are the godfather and godmothers present?” the parson asked.

“Mr. Christian will stand godfather, parzon; and Nancy and Grannie will

be godmothers.”

Nancy took the child out of Kate's arms, and the service for private

baptism began with the tremendous words, “Dearly beloved, forasmuch as

all men are conceived and born in si----”

The parson stopped. Kate had staggered and almost fallen. Pete put his

arm around her to keep her up, and then the service went on.

Presently the parson turned to Philip with a softening voice and an

inclination of the head.

“Dost thou, in the name of this child, renounce the devil and all his

works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires

of 'the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not

follow nor be led by them?”

And Philip answered, in a firm, low voice, “I renounce them all.”

The parson took the child from Nancy. “Name this child.”

Nancy looked at Kate, but Kate, who was breathing violently, gave no

sign.

“Kate,” whispered Pete; “Kate, of coorse.”

“Katherine,” said Nancy, and in that name the child was baptized.

Dr. Mylechreest came in as the service ended. Grannie held little

Katherine up to him, and he controlled his face and looked at her.

“There's not much amiss with the child,” he said.

“I knew it,” shouted Pete.

“But perhaps the mother is a little weak and nervous,” he added quietly.

“Coorse she is, the bogh,” cried Pete.

“Let her see more company,” said the doctor.

“She shall,” said Pete.

“If that doesn't do, send her away for awhile.”

“I will.”

“Fresh scenes, fresh society; out of the island, by preference.”

“I'm willing.”

“She'll come back another woman.”

“I'll put up with the same one,” said Pete; and, while the company

laughed, he flung open the door, and cried “Come in!” and half a dozen

men who had been waiting outside trooped into the hall. They entered

with shy looks because of the presence of great people.

“Now for a pull of jough, Nancy,” cried Pete.

“Not too much excitement either,” said the doctor, and with that warning

he departed. The parson went with him. Philip had slipped out first,

unawares to anybody. Grannie carried little Katherine to the kitchen,

and bathed her before the fire. Kate was propped up with pillows in the

armchair in the corner. Then Nancy brought the ale, and Pete welcomed it

with a shout. Cæsar looked alarmed and rose to go.

“The drink's your own, sir,” said Pete; “stop and taste it.”

But Cæsar couldn't stay; it would scarcely be proper.

“You don't christen your first granddaughter every day,” said Pete.

“Enjoy yourself while you're alive, sir; you'll be a long time dead.”

Cæsar disappeared, but the rest of the company took Pete's counsel, and

began to make themselves comfortable.

“The last christening I was at was yesterday,” said John the Clerk. “It

was Christian Killip's little one, before she was married, and it took

the water same as any other child.”

“The last christening I was at was my own,” said Black Tom, “when I was

made an in inheriter, but I've never inherited yet.”

“That's truth enough,” said an asthmatic voice from the backstairs.

“Well, the last christening I was at was at Kimberley,” said Pete,

“and I was the parzon myself that day. Yes, though, Parzon Pete. And

godfather and godmother as well, and the baby was Peter Quilliam, too.

Aw, it was no laughing matter at all. There's always a truck of women

about a compound, hanging on to the boys like burrs. Dirty little

trousses of a rule, but human creatures for all. One of them had a child

by somebody, and then she came to die, and couldn't take rest because it

hadn't been christened. There wasn't a pazon for fifty miles, anywhere,

and it was night-time, too, and the woman was stretched by the camp-fire

and sinking. 'What's to be done?' says the men. _I'll_ do it,' says I,

and I did. One of the fellows got a breakfast can of water out of the

river, and I dipped my hand in it. 'What's the name,' says I; but the

poor soul was too far gone for spaking. So I gave the child my own name,

though I didn't know the mother from Noah's aunt, and the big chaps

standing round bareheaded began to blubber like babies. 'I baptize thee,

Peter Quilliam, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the

Holy Ghost, Amen.' Then the girl died happy and aisy, and what for

shouldn't she? The words were the same, and the water was the same, and

if the hand wasn't as clane as usual, maybe Him that's above wouldn't

bother about the diff'rance.”

Kate got up with a flush on her cheeks. The room had become too close.

Pete helped her into the parlour, where a bright fire was burning, then

propped and wrapped her up afresh, and, at her own entreaty, returned to

his guests. The company had increased by this time, and there were women

and girls among them. They went on to sing and to playt and at last to

dance.

Kate heard them. Through the closed door between the hall and the

parlour their merriment came to her. At intervals Pete put in his head,

brimming over with laughter, and cried in a loud whisper, “Did you hear

that, Kate? It's rich!”

At length Philip came, too, with his hat in one hand and a cardboard box

in the other. “The godfather's present to little Katherine,” he said.

Kate opened the lid, and drew out a child's hood in scarlet plush.

“You are very good,” she said vacantly.

“Don't let us talk of goodness,” he answered; and he turned to go.

“Wait,” she faltered. “I have something to say to you. Shut the door.”

XI.

Philip turned pale. “What is it?” he asked.

She tried to speak, but at first she could not.

“Are you unhappy, Kate?” he faltered.

“Can't you see?” she answered.

He sat down by the fire, and leaned his face on his hands. “Yes, we have

both suffered,” he said, in a low tone.

“Why did you let me marry him?”

Philip raised his head. “How could I have hindered you?”

“How? Do you ask me how?” She spoke with some bitterness, but he

answered quietly.

“I tried, Kate, but I could do nothing. You seemed determined. Do what

I would to prevent, to delay, to stop your marriage altogether, the more

you hastened and hurried it. Then I thought to myself, Well, perhaps

it is best. She is trying to forget and forgive, and begin again. What

right have I to stand in her way? Haven't I wronged her enough already?

A good man offers her his love, and she is taking it. Let her do so, if

she can, God help her! I may suffer, but I am nothing to her now. Let me

go my way.”

She put her arms on the table, and hid her face in them. “Oh, I cannot

bear it,” she said.

He rose to his feet slowly. “If it is my presence here that hurts you,

Kate, I will go away. It has been but a painful pleasure to come, and

I have been forced to take it. You will acquit me of coming of my own

choice, Kate. But I will not torment you. I will go away, and never come

again.”

She lifted her face, and said in a passionate whisper, “Take me with

you.”

He shook his head. “That's impossible, Kate. You are married now. Your

husband loves you dearly. He is a better man than I am, a thousand,

thousand times.”

“Do you think I don't know what he is?” she cried, throwing herself

back. “That's why I can't live with him. It's killing me. I tell you I

can't bear it,” she cried, rising to her feet. “Love me! Haven't I tried

to make myself love _him_. Haven't I tried to be a good wife! I can't--I

can't. He never speaks but he torments me. Nothing can happen but it

cuts me through and through. I can't live in this house. The walls are

crushing me, the ceiling is falling on me, the air is stifling me. I

tell you I shall die if you do not take me out of it. Take me, Philip,

take me, take me!”

She caught him by the arm imploringly, but he only dropped his head down

between both hands, saying in a deep thick voice, “Hush, Kate, hush! I

cannot and I will not. You are mad to think of it.”

Then she sank down into the chair again, breathless and inert, and

sobbing deep, low sobs. The sound of dancing came from the hall, with

cries of “Hooch!” and the voice of Pete shouting--

“Hit the floor with heel and toe

'Till heaven help the boords below.”

“Yes, I am mad, or soon will be,” she said in a hard way. “I thought of

that this morning when I crossed the river coming home from church. It

would soon be over _there_, I thought. No more trouble, no more dreams,

no more waking in the night to hear the breathing of the one beside me,

and the voice out of the darkness crying----”

“Kate, what are you saying?” interrupted Philip.

“Oh, you needn't think I'm a bad woman because I ask you take me away

from my husband. If I were that, I could brazen it out perhaps, and live

on here, and pretend to forget; many a woman does, they say. And I'm

not afraid that he will ever find me out either. I have only to close my

lips, and he will never know. But _I_ shall know, Philip Christian,” she

said, with a defiant look into his eyes as he raised them.

Her reproaches hurt him less than her piteous entreaties, and in a

moment she was sobbing again. “Oh, what can God do but let me die! I

thought He would when the child came; but He did not, and then--am I a

wicked woman, after all?--I prayed that He would take my innocent baby,

anyway.”

But she dashed the tears away in anger at her weakness, and said, “I'm

not a bad woman, Philip Christian; and that's why I won't live here any

longer. There is something you have never guessed, and I have never told

you; but I must tell you now, for I can keep my secret no longer.”

He raised his head with a noise in his ears that was like the flapping

of wings in the dark.

“Your secret, Kate?”

“How happy I was,” she said. “Perhaps I was to blame--I loved you so,

and was so fearful of losing you. Perhaps you thought of all that had

passed between us as something that would go back and back as time went

on and on. But it has been coming the other way ever since. Yes, and as

long as I live and as long as the child lives----”

Her voice quivered like the string of a bow and stopped. He rose to his

feet.

“The child, Kate? Did you say the child?”

She did not answer at once, and then she muttered, with her head down,

“Didn't I tell you there was something you had never guessed?”

“And is it that?” he said in a fearful whisper.

“Yes.”

“You are sure? You are not deceiving yourself? This is not hysteria?”

“No.”

“You mean that the child----”

“Yes.”

His questions had come in gasps, like short breakers out of a rising

sea; her answers had fallen like the minute-gun above it. Then, in the

silence, Pete's voice came through the wall. He was singing a rough old

ditty--

“It was to Covent Gardens I chanced for to go,

To see some of the prettiest flowers which in the gardens grow.”

Nancy came in with a scuttle of coals. “The lil one's asleep,” she said,

going down on her knees at the fire. She had left the door ajar, and

Pete's song was rolling into the room--

“The first was lovely Nancy, so delicate and fair,

The other was a vargin, and she did laurels wear.”

“Grannie bathed her, and she's like a lil angel in the cot there,” said

Nancy. “And, 'Dear heart alive, Grannie,' says I,' the straight she's

like her father when she's sleeping.'”

Nancy brushed the hearth and went off. As she closed the door, Pete's

voice ebbed out.

Philip's lips trembled, his eyes wandered over the floor, he grew very

pale, he tried to speak and could not. All his self-pride was overthrown

in a moment The honour in which he had tried to stand erect as in a

suit of armour was stripped away. Unwittingly he had been laying up

an account with Nature. He had forgotten that a sin has consequences.

Nature did not forget. She had kept her own reckoning. He had struggled

to believe that after all he was a moral man, a free man; but Nature was

a sterner moralist; she had chained him to the past, she had held him to

himself.

He was still by the fire with his head down. “Did you know this before

you were married to Pete?” he asked, without looking up.

“Hadn't I wronged him enough without that?” she answered.

“But did you think of it as something that might perhaps occur?”

“And if I did, what then?”

“If you had told me, Kate, nothing and nobody should have come between

us--no,” he said in a decisive voice, “not Pete nor all the world.”

“And wasn't it your own duty to remember? Was it for me to come to you

and say, 'Philip, something may happen, I am frightened.'”

Was this the compulsion that had driven her into marriage with the wrong

man? Was it all hysteria? Could she be sure? In any case she could not

think this awful thought and continue to live with her husband.

“You are right,” he said, with his head still down. “You cannot live

here any longer. This life of deception must end.”

“Then you will take me away, Philip?”

“I must, God forgive me, I must. I thought it would be sin. But _that_

was long ago. It will be punishment. If I had known before--and I have

been coming here time and again--looking on his happiness--but if I had

once dreamt--and then only an hour ago--the oath at its baptism--O God!”

Her tears were flowing again, but a sort of serenity had fallen on her

now.

“Forgive me,” she whispered. “I tried to keep it to myself------”

“You could not keep it; you ought never to have kept it so long; the

finger of God Himself ought to have burnt it out of you.”

He spoke harshly, and she felt pain; but there was a secret joy as well.

“I am ruining you, Philip,” she said, leaning over him.

“We are both drifting to ruin, Katherine,” he answered hoarsely. He was

an abandoned hulk, with anchorage gone and no hand at the helm--broken,

blind, rolling to destruction.

“I can offer you nothing, Kate, nothing but a hidden life, a life in the

dark. If you come to me you will leave a husband who worships you for

one to whom your life can never be joined. You will exchange a life of

respect by the side of a good man for a life of humiliation, a life of

shame. How can it be otherwise now? It is too late, too late!”

“Don't think of that, Philip. If you love me there can be no humiliation

and no shame for me in anything. I love you, dear, I cannot help but

love you. Only love me a little, Philip, just a little, dearest, and I

will never care--no, I will never, never care whatever happens.”

Her passionate devotion swept down all his scruples. His throat

thickened, his eyes grew dim. She put one arm tenderly on his shoulder.

“I will follow you wherever you must go,” she said. “You are my real

husband, Philip, and always have been. We will love one another, and

that will make up for everything. There is nothing I will not do to make

you forget. If you must go away--far away--no matter where--I will go

with you--and the child as well--and if we must be poor, I'll work with

you.”

But he did not seem to hear her as he crouched with buried face by the

fire. And, in the silence, Pete's muffled voice came again through the

wall, singing his rugged ditty--

“I'm not engaged to any young man, I solemnly do swear,

For I mane to be a vargin and still the laurels wear.”

Unconsciously their hands touched and their fingers intertwined.

“It will break his heart,” he muttered.

She only grasped his hand the closer, and crouched beside him. They were

like two guilty souls at the altar steps, listening to the cheerful bell

that swings in the tower for the happy world outside.

The door opened with a bang, and Pete rolled in, heaving with laughter.

“Did you think it was an earth wake, Philip?” he shouted, “or a

blackbird a bit tipsy, eh? Bless me, man, it's good of you, though,

sitting up in the chimney there same as a good ould jackdaw, keeping

the poor wife company when her selfish ould husband is flirting his

tail like a stonechat. The company's going now, Kitty. Will they say

good-night to you? No? Have it as you like, bogh. You're looking tired,

anyway. Dempster, the boys are asking when the ceremony is coming off,

and will you come home to Ramsey that night? But, sakes alive, man, your

eye is splashed with blood as bad as the egg of a robin.”

In his suffering and degradation, Philip felt as if he wished the earth

to open and swallow him.

“Bloodshot, is it?” he said. “It's nothing. The ceremony? I'm to take

the oath to-morrow at three o'clock at the Special Council in Douglas.

Yes, I'll come back to Ballure for the night?”

“Driving, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Six o'clock, maybe?”

“Perhaps seven to eight.”

“That's all right. Mortal inquisitive the boys are, though. It's in the

breed of these Manx ones, you know. Laxey way, now?”

“I'll drive by St. John's,” said Philip.

With a look of wondrous wisdom, and a knowing wink at Kate across

Philip's back, Pete went out. Then there was much talking in low tones

in the hall, and on the paths outside the house.

Philip understood what it meant. He glanced back at the door, leaned

over to Kate, and said in a whisper, without looking into her eyes--

“The carriage shall come at half-past seven. It will stand for a moment

in the Parsonage Lane, and then drive back to Douglas by way of Laxey.”

His face was broken and ugly with shame and humiliation. As she saw

this she thought of her confession, and it seemed odious to her now; but

there was an immense relief in the feeling that the crisis was over.

Pete was shouting at the porch, “Good-night, all! Goodnight!”

“Good-night!” came back in many voices.

Grannie came in muffled up to the throat. “However am I to get back to

Sulby, and your father gone these two hours?” she said.

“Not him,” said Pete, coming behind with one eye screwed up and a

finger to his nose. “The ould man's been on the back-stairs all night,

listening and watching wonderful. His bark's tremenjous, but his bite

isn't worth mentioning.”

And then a plaintive voice came from the hall, saying, “Are you _never_

coming home, mother? I'm worn out waiting for you.”

A little patch of youth had blossomed in Grannie since the baby came.

“Good-night, Pete,” she cried from the gate, “and many happy returns of

the christening-day.”

“One was enough for yourself, mother,” said Cæsar, and then his voice

went rumbling down the street.

Philip had come out into the hall. “You're time enough yet,” said Pete.

“A glass first? No? I've sent over to the 'Mitre' for your mare. There

she is; that's her foot on the path. I must be seeing you off, anyway.

Where's that lantern, at all?”

They stepped out. Pete held the light while Philip mounted, and then he

guided him, under the deep shadow of the old tree, to the road.

“Fine night for a ride, Phil. Listen! That's the churning of the

nightjar going up to Ballure glen. Well, good-night! Good-night, and God

bless you, old fellow!”

Kate inside heard the deadened sound of Philip's “Goodnight,” the crunch

of the mare's hoofs on the gravel and the clink of the bit in her teeth.

Then the porch door closed with a hollow vibration like that of a vault,

the chain rattled across it, and Pete was back in the room.

“_What_ a night we've had of it! And now to bed.”

XII.

Kate was up early the next morning, but Pete was stirring before her. As

soon as he had heard the news of Philip's appointment he had organised

a drum and brass band to honour the day of the ceremony. The brass had

been borrowed from Laxey, but the drum had been bought by Pete.

“Let's have a good sizable drum,” said he; “something with a voice in

it, not a bit of a toot, going off with a pop like bladder-wrack.”

The parchment was three feet across, the steel rings round it were like

the hoops of a dog-cart, and the black drumsticks, according to Pete,

were like the bullet heads of two niggers. Jonaique Jelly played the

clarionet, and John the Widow played the trombone, but the drum was the

leading instrument. Pete himself played it. He pounded it, boomed it,

thundered it. While he did so, his eyes blazed with rapture. A big

heroic soul spoke out of the drum for Pete. With the strap over his

shoulders, he did not trouble much about the tune. When the heart

Leapt inside his breast, down came the nigger heads on to the mighty

protuberance in front of it; and surely that was the end and aim of all

music.

The band practised in the cabin which Pete had set up for a summer-house

in the middle of his garden. They met at daybreak that morning for the

last of their rehearsals. And, being up before their morning meal, they

were constrained to smoke and drink as well as play. This they did out

of a single pipe and a single pot, which each took up from the table in

turn as it fell to his part to have a few bars' rest.

While their muffled melody came to the house through the wooden walls

and the dense smoke, Kate was cooking breakfast. She did everything

carefully, for she was calmer than usual, and felt relieved of the load

that had oppressed her. But once she leaned her head on the mantelshelf

while stooping over the frying-pan, and looked vacantly into the fire;

and once she raised herself up from the table-cloth at the sound of the

drum, and pressed her hand hard on her brow.

The child awoke in the bedroom above and cried. Nancy Joe went

flip-flapping upstairs, and brought her down with much clucking and

cackling. Kate took the child and fed her from a feeding-bottle which

had been warming on the oven top. She was very tender with the little

one, kissing all its extremities in the way that women have, worrying

its legs, and putting its feet into her mouth.

Pete came in, hot and perspiring, and Kate handed the child back to

Nancy.

“Hould hard,” cried Pete; “don't take her off yet. Give me a hould of

her, the lil rogue. My sailor! What a child it is, though! Look at that,

now. She's got a grip of my thumb. What a fist, to be sure! It's lying

in my hand like a meg. Did you stick a piece of dough on the wall

at your last baking, Nancy? Just as well to keep the evil eye off.

Coo--oo--oo! She's going it reg'lar, same as the tide of a summer's day.

By jing, Kitty, I didn't think there was so much fun in babies.”

Kate, seated at the table, was pouring out the tea, and a sudden impulse

seized her.