The Manxman

"Hop over the sticks and lie crossed on the floor, And you're man and wife for nevermore."

There was some laughter at this, but Kate sat in the fire-seat and sipped her tea in silence, and Pete said quietly, "Nothing to laugh at, though. I remember a girl over Foxal way that was married to a man like that, and then he went off to Kinsale, and got kept for the herring riots--d'ye mind them? She was a strapping girl, though, and when the man was gone the boys came bothering her, first one and then another, and good ones among them too. And honour bright for all, they were for taking her to the parzon about right But no! Did they think she was for committing beggamy? She was married to one man, and wasn't that enough for a dacent girl anyway. And so she wouldn't and she didn't, and last of all her own boy came back, and they lived together man and wife, and what for shouldn't they?"

This question from the man who was on the point of going to church was received with shouts of laughter, through which the voice of Grannie rose in affectionate remonstrance, saying, "Aw, Pete, it's ter'ble to hear you, bogh."

"What's there ter'ble about that, Grannie?" said Pete. "Isn't it the Almighty and not the parzon that makes the marriage?"

"Aw, boy veen, boy veen," cried Grannie, "you was used to be a good man, but you have fell off very bad."

Kate was in a fever of eagerness. She wanted to open her heart to Pete, to beg him to spare her, to tell him that it was impossible that they should ever marry. Pete would see that Philip was her husband by every true law, human and divine. In this mood she lived through much of the following day, Friday, tossing and turning in bed, for the exhaustion of the day in Douglas had confined her to her room again.

In the evening she came downstairs, and was established in the fire-seat as before. There were four or five old women in the kitchen spinning yarn for a set of blankets which Grannie intended for a wedding present.

"When the day's work was nearly done, two or three old men, the old husbands of the old women, came to carry their wheels home again. Then, as the wheels whirred for the last of the twist, Pete set the old crones to tell stories of old times.

"Tell us of the days when you were young, Anne," said Pete to an ancient dame of eighty. Her husband of eighty-four sat sucking his pipe by her side.

"Well," said old Anne, stretching her arms to the yarn, "I was as near going foreign, same as yourself, sir, just as near, now, as makes no matter. It was the very day I married this man, and his brother was making a start for Austrillya. Jemmy was my ould sweetheart, only I had given him up because he was always stealing my pocket-handkerchers. But he came that morning and tapped at my window, and 'Will you come, Anne?'

says he, and I whipped on my perricut and stole out and down to the quay with him. But my heart was losing me when I saw the white horses on the water, and home I came and went to church with this one instead."

While old Anne told her story her old husband opened his mouth wider and wider, until the pipe-shank dropped out of his toothless gums on to his waistcoat. Then he stretched his left arm and brought down his clenched hand with a bang on to her shoulder.

"And have you been living with me better than sixty years," said he, "and never telling me that before?"

Pete tried to pacify his ancient jealousy, but it was not to be appeased, and he shouldered the wheel and hobbled off, saying, "And I sent out two pound five to put a stone on the man's grave!"

There was loud laughter when the old couple were gone, but Pete said, nevertheless, "A sacret's a sacret, though, and the ould lady had no right to tell it. It was the dead man's sacret too, and she's fouled the ould man's memory. If a person's done wrong, the best thing he can do next

Kate rose and went off to bed. Another door had been barred to her, and she felt sick and faint.

XVIII.

The next day was Sat.u.r.day. Kate remembered that Philip came to Ballure on Sat.u.r.days. She felt sure that he would come to Sulby also. Let him only set eyes on her, and he would divine the trouble that had taken the colour out of her cheeks. Then he would speak to Pete and to her father; he would deliver her; he would take everything upon himself. Thus all day long, like a white-eyed gambler who has staked his last, she waited and listened and watched. At breakfast she said to herself, "He will come this morning." At dinner, "He will come this evening." At supper, "He will come tonight."

But Philip did not come, and she grew hysterical as well as restless.

She watched the clock; the minutes pa.s.sed with feet of lead, but the hours with wings of fire. She was now like a criminal looking for a reprieve. Every time the clock warned to strike, she felt one hour nearer her doom.

The strain was wearing her out. She reproached Philip for leaving her to this cruel uncertainty, and she suffered the pangs of one who tries at the same time to love and to hate. Then she reproached herself with altering the date of the marriage, and excused Philip on the grounds of her haste. She felt like a witch who was burning by her own spell. Hope was failing her, and Will was breaking down as well. Nevertheless, she determined that the wedding should be postponed.

That was on Sat.u.r.day night. On Sunday morning she had gone one step farther. The last pitiful shred of expectation that Philip would intervene seemed then to be lost, and she had resolved that, come what would, she should not marry at all. No need to appeal to Pete; no necessity to betray the secret of Philip. All she had to do was to say she would not go on with the wedding, and no power on earth should compel her.

With this determination, and a feeling of immense relief, she went downstairs. Caesar was coming in from the preaching-room, and Pete from the new house at Ramsey. They sat down to dinner. After dinner she would speak out. Caesar sharpened the carving-knife on the steel, and said, "We've taken the girl Christian Killip back to communion to-day."

"Poor thing," said Grannie, "pity she was ever put out of it, though."

"Maybe so,--maybe no," said Caesar. "Necessary anyway; one scabby sheep infects the flock."

"And has marriage daubed grace on the poor sheep's sore then, Caesar?"

said Pete.

"She's Mistress Robbie Teare and a dacent woman, sir," said Caesar, digging into the beef, "and that's all the truck a Christian church has got with it."

Kate did not eat her dinner that day, and neither did she speak out as she had intended. A supernatural power seemed to have come down at the last moment and barred up the one remaining pathway of escape. She was in the track of the storm. The tempest was ready to fall on her. Where could she fly for shelter?

What her father had said of the girl had revealed her life to her in the light of her relation to Philip. The thought of the possible contingency which she had foreseen with so much joy, as so much power, had awakened the consciousness of her moral position. She was a fallen woman! What else was she? And if the contingency befell, what would become of her?

In the intensity of her father's pietistic views the very shadow of shame would overwhelm his household, overthrow his sect, and uproot his religious pretensions. Kate trembled at the possibility of such a disaster coming through her. She saw herself being driven from house and home. Where could she fly? And though she fled away, would she not still be the cause of sorrow and disgrace to all whom she left behind--her mother, her father, Pete, everybody?

If she could only tear out the past, at least she could stop this marriage. Or if she had been a man she could stop it, for a man may sin and still look to the future with a firm face. But she was a woman, and a woman's acts may be her own, but their consequences are beyond her.

Oh, the misery of being a woman! She asked herself what she could do, and there was no answer. She could not break the web of circ.u.mstances.

Her situation might be false, it might be dishonourable, but there was no escape from it. There was no gleam of hope anywhere.

Late that night--Sunday night--they were sitting together in the kitchen, Kate in the fire-seat as usual, Pete on the stool by the turf closet, smoking up the chimney, Caesar reading aloud, Grannie listening, and Nancy cooking the supper, when the porch door burst open and somebody entered. Kate rose to her feet with a startled cry of joy, looked round eagerly, and then sat down again covered with confusion.

It was the girl Christian Killip, a pale, weak, frightened creature, with the mouth and eyes of a hare.

"Is Mr. Quilliam here?" she asked.

"Here's the man himself, Christian," said Grannie. "What do you want with him?"

"Oh, G.o.d bless you, sir," said the girl to Pete, "G.o.d bless you for ever and ever."

Then turning back to Grannie, she explained in woman's fas.h.i.+on, with many words, that somebody unknown had sent her twenty pounds, for the child, by post, the day before, and she had only now guessed who it must be when John the Clerk had told her what Pete had said a week before.

Pete grunted and glimed, smoked up the chimney, and said, "That'll do, ma'am, that'll do. Don't believe all you hear. John says more than his Amens, anyway."

"I'm axing your pardon, miss," said the girl to Kate, "but I couldn't help coming--I couldn't really--no, I couldn't," and then she began to cry.

"Where's that child?" said Pete, heaving up to his feet with a ferocious look. "What! you mane to say you've left the lil thing alone, asleep? Go back to it then immajent. Good night!"

"Good night, sir, and G.o.d bless you, and when you're married to-morrow, G.o.d bless your wife as well!"

"That'll do--that'll do," said Pete, backing her to the porch.

"You desarve a good woman, sir, and may the Lord be good to you both."

"Tut! tut!" said Pete, and he tut-tutted her out of the house.

She smoothed her baby's hair more tenderly than ever that night, and kissed it again and again.

Kate could scarcely breathe, she could barely see. Her pride and her will had broken down utterly. This greathearted man loved her. He would lay down his life if need be to save her. To morrow he would marry her.

Here, then, was her rock of refuge--this strong man by her side.

She could struggle against fate no longer. It's invisible hand was pus.h.i.+ng her on. It's blind power was dragging her. If Philip would not come to claim her she must marry Pete.

And Pete? She meant no harm to Pete. She had not yet thought of things from Pete's point of view. He was like the camel-bag in the desert to the terrified wayfarer when the sand-cloud breaks oyer him. He flies to it. It shelters him. But what of the camel itself, with its head in the storm? Until the storm is over he does not think of that.