The Manxman

"--'from this day forward.... till death do us part-----'"

"--'death do us part------'"

"--'therefore I give thee my troth------'"

"--'troth------'"

The last word fell like a broken echo, and then there was a rustle in the church, and much audible breathing. Some of the school-girls in the gallery were reaching over the pews with parted lips and dancing eyes.

Pete had taken her left hand, and was putting the ring on her finger.

She was conscious of his warm breath and of the words--

"With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee wors.h.i.+p, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow, Amen."

Again she left her cold hand in Pete's warm hand. He was stroking it on the outside with his other one.

It was all a dream. She seemed to rally from it as she moved down the aisle. Ghostly faces were smiling at her out of the air on either side, and the choir in the gallery behind the school-girls were singing the psalm, with John the Clerk's husky voice drawling out the first word of each new verse as his companions were singing the last word of the preceding one--

"Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine upon the walls of thine house; Thy children like the olive branches round about thy table.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be; World without end, A--men."

They were all in the vestry now, standing together in a group. Her mother was wiping her eyes, Pete was laughing, and Nancy Joe was nudging him and saying in an audible whisper, "Kiss her, man--it's only respectable."

The parson was leaning over the table. He spoke to Pete, and then said, "A substantial mark, too. The lady's turn next."

The open book was before her, and the pen was put into her hand. When she laid it down, the parson returned his spectacles to their sheath, and a nervous voice, which thrilled and frightened her, said from behind, "Let me be the first to wish you happiness, Mrs. Quilliam."

It was Philip. She turned towards him, and their eyes met for a moment.

But she was only conscious of his prominent nose, his clear-cut chin, his rapid smile like suns.h.i.+ne, disappearing as before a cloud. He said something else--something about a new life and a new beginning--but she could not gather its meaning, her mind would not take it in. At the next moment they were all in the open air.

XXII.

Philip had been in torment--first the torment of an irresistible hatred of Kate. He knew that this hatred was illogical, that it was monstrous; but it supported his pride, it held him safe above self-contempt in being present at the wedding. When the carriage drew up at the church gate, and he helped Kate to alight, he thought she looked up at him as one who says, "You see, things are not so bad after all!" And when she turned her face to him at the beginning of the service, he thought it wore a look of fierce triumph, of victory, of disdain. But as the ceremony proceeded and he observed her absent-ness, her vacancy, her pathetic imbecility, he began to be oppressed by an awful sense of her consciousness of error. Was she taking this step out of pique? Was she thinking to punish him, forgetting the price she would have to pay?

Would she awake to-morrow morning with her vexation and vanity gone, face to face with a hideous future--the worst and most terrible that is possible to any woman--that of being married to one man and loving another?

Faugh! Would his own vanity haunt him even there? Shame, shame! He forced himself to do the duty of a best man. In the vestry he approached the bride and muttered the conventional wishes. His heart was devouring itself like a rapid fire, and it was as much as he could do to look into her piteous eyes and speak. Struggle as he might at that moment, he could not put out of his heart a pa.s.sionate tenderness. This frightened him, and straightway he resolved to see no more of Kate. He must be fair to her, he must be true to himself. But walking behind her up the path strewn with flowers from the church door to the gate, the gnawings of the worm of buried love came on him again, and he felt like a man who was being dragged through the dirt.

XXIII.

Four saddle-horses, each with its rider seated and ready, had been waiting at the churchyard gate, pawing up the gravel. The instant the bride and bridegroom came out of the church the horses set off for Caesar's

At the turn of the road the way was blocked by a group of stalwart girls out of the last of the year's cornfields. With the straw rope of the stackyard stretched across, they demanded toll before the carriage would be allowed to pa.s.s. Pete, who sat by the door, put his head out and inquired solemnly if the highway women would take their charge in silver or in kind--half-a-crown apiece or a kiss all round. They laughed, and answered that they saw no objection to taking both. Whereupon Pete, whispering behind his hand that the mistress was looking, tossed into the air a paper bag, which rose like a cannon-ball, broke in the air like a sh.e.l.l, and fell over their white sun-bonnets like a shower.

At the door of "The Manx Fairy" the four riders were waiting with smoking horses. The first to arrive had been rewarded already with a bottle of rum. He had one other ancient privilege. As the coach drove up to the door, he stepped up to the bride with the wedding-cake and broke it over her head. Then there was a scramble for the pieces among the girls who gathered round her, that they might take them to bed and dream of a day to come when they should themselves be as proud and happy.

The wedding-breakfast (a wedding-dinner) was laid in the loft of the mill, the chapel of The Christians. Caesar sat at the head of the table, with Grannie on one side and Kate on the other. Pete sat next to Kate, and Philip next to Grannie. The parson sat at the foot with Nancy Joe, a lady of consequence, receiving much consideration, at his reverent right hand. Jonaique Jelly sat midway down the table, with a fine scorn on his features, for John the Clerk sat opposite with a fiddle gripped between his knees.

The neighbours brought in the joints of beef and mutton, the chickens and the ducks. Caesar and the parson carved. Black Tom, who had been invited by way of truce, served out the liquor from an eighteen-gallon cask, and sucked it up himself like the sole of an old shoe. Then Caesar said grace, and the company fell to. Such noise, such sport, such chaff, such laughter! Everything was a jest--every word had wit in it. "How are you doing, John?"--"Haven't done as well for a month, sir; but what's it saying, two hungry meals make the third a glutton."--"How are _you_ doing, Tom?"--"No time to get a right mouthful for myself Caesar; kept so busy with the drink."--"Aw, there'll be some with their top works hampered soon."--"Got plenty, Jonaique?"--"Plenty, sir, plenty. Enough down here to victual a menagerie. It'll be Sunday every day of the week with the man that's getting the lavings."--"Take a taste of this beef before it goes, Mr. Thomas Quilliam, or do you prefer the mutton?"--"I'm not partic'lar, Mr. Cregeen. Ateing's nothing to me but filling a sack that's empty."

Grannie praised the wedding service--it was lovely--it was beautiful--she didn't think the ould parzon could have made the like; but Caesar criticised both church and clergy--couldn't see what for the cross on the pulpit and the petticoat on the parson. "Popery, sir, clane Popery," he whispered across Grannie to Philip.

Away went the shanks of mutton, the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of birds, and the slabs of beef, and up came an apple-pudding as round as a well-fed salmon, and as long as a twenty-pound cod. There was a shout of welcome. "None of your dynamite pudding that,--as green as gra.s.s and as sour as vinegar."

Kate was called on to make the first cut of the monster. A faint colour had returned to her cheeks since she had come home. She was talking a little, and even laughing sometimes, as if the weight on her heart was lightening every moment. She rose at the call, took, with the hand nearest to the dish, the knife that her father held out, and plunged it into the pudding. As she did so, with all eyes upon her, the wedding-ring on her finger flashed in the light and was seen by everybody.

"Look at that, though," cried Black Tom. "There's the wife for a husband, if you plaze. Ashamed of showing it, is she? Not she, the bogh."

Then there was much giggling among the younger women, and cries of "Aw, the poor girl! Going to church has been making her left-handed!"

"Time enough, my beauties," cried Pete; "and mind you're not struck that way yourselves one of these days."

Away went the dishes, and the parson rose to return thanks.

"Never heard that grace but once before, Parson Quiggin," said Pete, "and then"--lighting his pipe--"then it was a burial sarvice."

"A _burial_ sarvice!"

A dozen voices echoed the words together, and in a moment the table was quiet.

"Yes, though," said Pete. "It was up at Johannesburg. Two chums settled there, and one married a girl. Nice lil thing, too; some of the Boer girls, you know; but not much ballast at her at all. The husband went up country for the Consolidated Co., and when he came back there was trouble. Chum had been sweethearting the wife a bit!"

"Aw, dear!"--"Aw, well, well!"

"Do? The husband? He went after the chum with a repeater, and took him.

Bath-chair sort of a chap--no fight in him at all. 'Mercy!' he cries. 'I can't,' says the husband. 'Forgive him this once,' says the wife. 'It's only once a woman loses herself,' says the man. 'Mercy, mercy!' 'Say your prayers.' 'Mercy, mercy, mercy!' 'Too late!' and the husband shot him dead. The woman dropped in a faint, but the man said, 'He didn't say his prayers, though--I must be doing it for him.' Then down he went on his knees by the body, but the prayers were all forgot at him--all but the bit of a grace, so he said that instead."

Loud breathings on every side followed Pete's story, and Caesar, leaning over towards Philip, whose face had grown ashy, said, "Terrible, sir, terrible! But still and for all, right enough, though, eh! What's it saying, Better an enemy than a bad friend."

Philip answered absently; his eyes were on the opposite side of the table. There was a sudden rising of the people about Kate.

"Water, there," shouted Pete. "It's a thundering blockhead I am for sure--frightning the life out of people with stories fit for a funeral."

"No, no," said Kate; "I'm not faint Why should you think so?"

"Of coorse, not, bogh," said Nancy, who was behind her in a twinkling.

"White is she? Well, what of it, man? It's only becoming on a girl's wedding-day. Take a lil sup, though, woman--there, there!"

Kate drank the water, with the gla.s.s jingling against her teeth, and then began to laugh. The parson's ruddy face rose at the end of the table. "Friends," he said, "after that tragic story, let us indulge in a little vanity. Fill up your gla.s.ses to the brim, and drink with me to the health of the happy couple. We all know both of them. We know the bride for a good daughter and a sweet girl--one so naturally pure that n.o.body can ever say an evil word or think an evil thought when she is near. We know the bridegroom for a real Manxman, simple and rugged and true, who says all he thinks and thinks all he says. G.o.d has been very good to them. Such virginal and transparent souls have much to be thankful for. It is not for them to struggle with that worst enemy of man, the enemy that is within, the enemy of bad pa.s.sions. So we can wish them joy on their union with a full heart and a sure hope that, whatever chance befall them on the ways of this world, they will be happy and content."

"Aw, the beautiful advice," said Grannie, wiping her eyes.

"Popery, just Popery," muttered Caesar. "What about original sin?"