The Manxman

He got up, with head aside, took a candle from Nancy's hand, excused himself to Pete--he was tired, sleepy, had a heavy day to-morrow--said "Good-night," and went upstairs--stumbling and floundering--tore open his bedroom door, and clashed it back like a man flying from an enemy.

Pete thought he had succeeded to admiration, but he looked after Philip, and was not at ease. He had no misgivings. Writing was writing to him, and it was nothing more. But in the deep midnight, Philip, who had not slept, heard a thick voice that was like a sob coming from somewhere downstairs. He opened his door, crept out on to the stairhead, and listened. The house was dark. In some unseen place the voice was saying--

"Lord, forgive me for deceaving Philip. I couldn't help it, though; Thou knows, Thyself, I couldn't. A lie's a dirty thing, Lord. It's like chewing dough--it sticks in your throat and chokes you. But I had to do it to save my poor lost lamb, and if I didn't I should go mad myself--Thou knows I should. So forgive me, Lord, for Kirry's sake.

Amen."

The thick voice stopped, the house lay still, then the child awoke in a room beyond, and its thin cry came through the darkness. Philip crept back in terror.

"This is what _she_ had to go through! O G.o.d! My G.o.d!"

V.

Caesar called next day and took Pete to the office of the High Bailiff, where the business of the mortgage was completed. The deeds of Ballawhaine were then committed to Caesar's care for custody and safe keeping, and he carried them off to his safe at the mill with a long stride and a face of fierce triumph.

"The ould Ballawhaine is dying," he thought; "and if we kick out the young one some day, it'll only be the Lord's hand on a rascal."

On drawing his big cheque, Pete had realised that, with reckless spending, and more reckless giving, he had less than a hundred pounds to his credit. "No matter," he thought; "Philip will pay me back when he comes in to his own."

Grannie was with Nancy at Elm Cottage when Pete returned home. The child was having its morning bath, and the two women were on their knees at either side of the tub, cackling and crowing like two old hens over one egg.

"Aw, did you _ever_, now, Nancy? 'Deed, no; you never _did_ see such a lil angel. Up-a-daisy!"

"Cry I must, Grannie, when I see it looking so beautiful. Warm towels, you say? I'm a girl of this sort--when I get my heart down, I can never get it up again. Fuller's earth, is it? Here, then."

"Boo--loo--loo! the bog millis.h.!.+ Nancy, we must be shortening her soon."

And with that they fell to an earnest council on frocks and petticoats, and other mysteries unread by man. Pete sat and watched and listened.

"People will be crying shame on her if they see the Grannie doing everything," he thought.

That night he lounged through the town and examined the shop windows out of the corner of his eye. He was trying to bear himself like a workman enjoying his Sat.u.r.day night's ramble in clean clothes, but the streets were thronged, and he found himself observed. "Not here," he told himself. "I can buy nothing here. Doesn't do to be asleep at all, and a man isn't always in bed when he's sleeping."

Some hours later, Nancy and the child being upstairs, Pete bethought himself of something that was kept at the bottom of a drawer. Going to the drawer to open it, he found it stiff to his tugging, and it came back with a jerk, which showed it had not lately been disturbed. Pete found what he looked for, and came upon something beside. It was a cardboard box, tied about with a string, which was knotted in a peculiar way. "Kate's knot," thought Pete with a sigh. He slipped it, and opened the lid and took out a baby's hood of scarlet plush. "The very thing,"

he thought. He held it, mouth open, over his big brown hand, and laughed with delight. "She's been buying it for the child and never using it."

His eyes glistened. "The _very_ thing," he thought,

This is what he wrote--

"For lil Katerin from her Luvin mother"

Then he held it at arm's length and looked at it. The subscription crossed the whole face of a half-sheet of paper. But the triumphant success of his former effort had made him bold. He could not resist the temptation to write more. So he turned the paper over and wrote on the back--

"tell pa pa not to wurry about me i aspect to be home sune but dont no ezactly"

His eyes were swimming by the time he got that down, but they brightened again as he remembered something.

"Weve had grate times ear uncle Jo--"

"Must go on milking that ould cow," he thought

"tuk me to sea the prins of Wales yesterda"

He could not help it--he began to take a wild joy in his own inventions.

"flags and banns of musick all day and luminerashuns all night it was grand we were top of an umnibuss goin down lord strete and saw him as plane as plane"

"Bless me," said Pete, dropping his pen, and rubbing his hands in ravis.h.i.+ng contemplation of his own fiction; "the next thing we hear she'll be riding in her carriage and' pair."

He was sobbing a little, for all that, in a low, smothered way, but he could not deny himself one word more--

"luv to all enquirin frens and bess respecs to the Dempster if im not forgot at him."

This second forgery of love being finished, he went about the house on tiptoe, found brown paper and twine, put the hood back into the box with his half-sheet peeping from between the frills where the little face would go, and made it up, with his undeft fingers, into an ungainly parcel, which he addressed to himself as before. After that he did his accustomed duty with the lamp and the door, and lay down in the parlour to sleep.

On Monday, at dinner, he broke out peevishly with "Ter'ble botheration, Nancy--I must be going to Port St. Mary about that thundering demonstration."

Then from underneath the sofa in the parlour he rooted up a brown paper parcel, stuffed it under his coat, b.u.t.toned it up, and so smuggled it out of the house.

VI.

They set sail early in the afternoon, and ran down the coast under a fair breeze that made the canvas play until the sea hissed. The day was wet and cheerless; a thick mist enshrouded the land, and going by Laxey they could just descry the top arc of the great wheel like a dun-coloured ghost of a rainbow in a grey sky. As they came to Douglas the mist was lifting, but the rain was coming down in a soaking drizzle.

A band was playing dance tunes on the iron pier, which shot like a serpent's tongue out of the mouth of the bay. The steamer from England was coming round the head, and her sea-sick pa.s.sengers were dense as a crowd on her forward deck, the men with print handkerchiefs tied over their caps, the women with their skirts over their drooping feathers. A harp and a violin were sc.r.a.ping lively airs amids.h.i.+ps. The town was like a c.o.c.k with his tail down crowing furiously in the wet.

When they came to Port St. Mary the mist had risen and the rain was gone, but the fis.h.i.+ng-town looked black and sullen under a lowering cloud. The tide was down, and many boats lay on the beach and in the shallow water within the rocks.

Pete was put ash.o.r.e; his Nickey went round the Calf to the herring ground beyond the shoulder; a number of fishermen were waiting for him on the quay, with heavy looks and hands deep in their trousers-pockets.

"No need for much praiching at all," said Pete, pointing to the boats lying aground. "There you are, boys, fifty of you at the least, with no room to warp for the rocks. Yet they're for taxing you for dues for a harbour."

"Go ahead, Capt'n," said one of the fishermen; "there's five hundred men here to back you up through thick and thin."

Pete posted his brown paper parcel as stealthily as he had posted his letter, and left Port St. Mary the same night for Douglas. The roads were thick with coaches, choked full with pleasure-seekers from Port Erin. These cheerful souls were still wearing the clothes which had been drenched through in the morning; their boots were damp and cold; they were chill with the night-air, but they did not repine. They sang and laughed and ate oranges, drew up frequently at wayside houses, and handed round bottles of beer with the corks drawn. In their own way they were bright and cheerful company. Sometimes "Hold the Fort," sung in a brake going ahead, mingled with "Molly and I and the Baby," from l.u.s.ty throats coming behind. Battling through Castletown, they shouted wild chaff at the redcoats lounging by the Castle, and when the darkness fell they dropped asleep--the men usually on the women's shoulders; and then the horses' hoofs were heard splas.h.i.+ng along the muddy road, and every rider cracked his whip over a chorus of stertorous snores.

Douglas was ablaze with light as they dipped down to it from the dark country. Long sinuous tails of light where the busy streets were, running in and out, this way and that, and belching into the wide squares and market-places like the race of a Curragh fire. The sleepers awoke and shook themselves. "Going to the Castle to-night?" said one.

"What do you think?" said another, and they all laughed at the foolish question.

"I'll sleep here," thought Pete. "I've not searched Douglas yet."

The driver found him a bed at his mother's house. It was a lodging-house in Church Street, overlooking the churchyard. Finding himself so near to Athol Street, Pete thought he would look at the outside of Philip's chambers. He lit on the house easily, though the street was dark. It was one of a line of houses having bra.s.s plates, each with its name, and always the word _Advocate_. Philip's house bore one plate only, a small one, with the name hardly legible in the uneertain light. It ran--_The Deemster Christian_.

Having spelt out this inscription, Pete crept away. That was the last house in the island at which he wished to call. He was almost afraid of being seen in the same town. Philip might think he was in Douglas to look for Kate.

Pete rambled through the narrow thoroughfares of Post-Office Place, Heywood Lane, and Fancy Street, until he came to the sea front. It was now full tide of busy night, and the holiday town seemed to be given over to enjoyment. The steps of the terraces were thronged; itinerant photographers pitched their cameras on the curb-stones; every open window had its dark heads with the light behind; pianos were clas.h.i.+ng in the houses, harps were tw.a.n.ging in the street, tinkling tram-cars, like toast-racks, were sweeping the curve of the bay; there was a steady flow of people on the pavement, and from water's edge to cliff top, three parts round like a horse's shoe, the town flashed and fizzed and sparkled and blazed under its thousand lights with the splendour of a forest fire.