The Manxman

"And isn't Pete able to toil, too," said Philip boldly. "n.o.body better in the island; there's not a lazy bone in his body, and he'll earn his living anywhere."

"What _is_ his living, sir?" said Caesar.

Philip halted for an answer, and then said, "Well, he's only with me in the boat at present, Mr. Cregeen."

"And what's he getting? His meat and drink and a bit of pence, eh? And you'll be selling up some day, it's like, and going away to England over, and then where is he? Let the girl marry a mother-naked man at once."

"But you're wanting help yourself, father," said Grannie. "Yes, you are though, and time for chapel too and ais.e.m.e.nt in your old days----"

"Give the lad my mill as well as my daughter, is that it, eh?" said Caesar. "No, I'm not such a goose as yonder, either. I could get heirs, sir, heirs, bless ye--fifty acres and better, not to spake of the bas'es. But I can do without them. The Lord's blest me with enough. I'm not for daubing grease on the tail of the fat pig."

"Just so, Caesar," said Philip, "just so; you can afford to take a poor man for your son-in-law, and there's Pete----"

"I'd be badly in want of a bird, though, to give a groat for an owl,"

said Caesar.

"The lad means well, anyway," said Grannie; "and he was that good to his mother, poor thing--it was wonderful."

"I knew the woman," said Caesar; "I broke a sod of her grave myself. A brand plucked from the burning, but not a straight walker in this life. And what is the lad himself? A monument of sin without a name. A b.a.s.t.a.r.d, what else? And that's not the port I'm sailing for."

Down to this point Philip had been torn by conflicting feelings. He was no match for Caesar in worldly logic, or at fencing with texts of Scripture. The devil had been whispering at his ear, "Let it alone, you'd better." But his time had come at length to conquer both himself and Caesar. Rising to his feet at Caesar's last word, he cried in a voice of wrath, "What? You call yourself a Christian man, and punish the child for the sin of the parent! No name, indeed! Let me tell you, Mr. Caesar Cregeen, it's possible to have one name in heaven that's worse than none at all on earth, and that's the name of a hypocrite."

So saying he threw back his chair, and was making for the door, when Caesar rose and said softly, "Come into the bar and have something."

Then, looking back at Philip's plate, he forced a laugh, and said, "But you've turned over your herring, sir--that's bad luck." And, putting a hand on Philip's shoulder, he added, in a lower tone, "No disrespeck to you, sir; and no harm to the lad, but take my word for it, Mr.

Christian, if there's an amble in the mare it'll be in the colt."

Philip went off without another word. The moon was rising and whitening as he stepped from the door. Outside the porch a figure flitted past him in the uncertain shadows with a merry trill of mischievous laughter.

He found Pete in the road, puffing and blowing as before, but from a different cause.

"The living devil's in the girl for sartin," said Pete; "I can't get my answer out of her either way." He had been chasing her for his answer, and she had escaped him through a gate. "But what luck with the ould man, Phil?"

Then Phil told him of the failure of his mission--told him plainly and fully but tenderly, softening the hard sayings but revealing the whole truth. As he did so he was conscious that he was not feeling like one who brings bad news. He knew that his mouth in the darkness was screwed up into an ugly smile, and, do what he would; he could not make it straight and sorrowful.

The happy laughter died off Pete's, lips, and he listened at first in silence, and afterwards with low growls. When Phil showed him how his poverty was his calamity he said, "Ay, ay, I'm only a wooden-spoon man."

When Phil told him

"Come, don't take it so much to heart--it's miserable to bring you such bad news," said Phil; but he knew the sickly smile was on his lips still, and he hated himself for the sound of his own voice.

Pete found no hollow ring in it. "G.o.d bless you, Phil," he said; "you've done the best for me, I know that. My pocket's as low as my heart, and it isn't fair to the girl, or I shouldn't be asking the ould man's lave anyway."

He stood a moment in silence, crunching the wooden laths of the garden fence like matchwood in his fingers, and then said, with sudden resolution, "I know what I'll do."

"What's that?" said Philip.. "I'll go abroad; I'll go to Kimberley."

"Never!"

"Yes, will I though, and quick too. You heard what the men were saying in the evening--there's Manx ones going by the boat in the morning?

Well, I'll go with them."

"And you talk of being low in your pocket," said Phil. "Why, it will take all you've got, man."

"And more, too," said Pete, "but you'll lend me the lave of the pa.s.sage-money. That's getting into debt, but no matter. When a man falls into the water he needn't mind the rain. I'll make good money out yonder."

A light had appeared at the window of an upper room, and Pete shook his clenched fist at it and cried, "Good-bye, Master Cregeen. I'll put worlds between us. You were my master once, but n.o.body made you my master for ever--neither you nor no man."

All this time Philip knew that h.e.l.l was in his heart. The hand that had let him loose when his anger got the better of him with Caesar was clutching at him again. Some evil voice at his ear was whispering, "Let him go; lend him the money."

"Come on, Pete," he faltered, "and don't talk nonsense!"

But Pete heard nothing. He had taken a few steps forward, as far as to the stable-yard, and was watching the light in the house. It was moving from window to window of the dark wall. "She's taking the father's candle," he muttered. "She's there," he said softly. "No, she has gone.

She's coming back though." He lifted the stocking cap from his head and fumbled it in his hands. "G.o.d bless her," he murmured. He sank to his knees on the ground. "And take care of her while I'm away."

The moon had come up in her whiteness behind, and all was quiet and solemn around. Philip fell back and turned away his face.

VIII.

When Caesar came in after seeing Philip to the door, he said, "Not a word of this to the girl. You that are women are like pigs--we've got to pull the way we don't want you."

On that Kate herself came in, blus.h.i.+ng a good deal, and fussing about with great vigour. "Are you talking of the piggies, father?" she said artfully. "How tiresome they are, to be sure! They came out into the yard when the moon rose and I had such work to get them back."

Caesar snorted a little, and gave the signal for bed. "Fairies indeed!"

he said, in a tone of vast contempt, going to the corner to wind the clock. "Just wakeness of faith," he said over the clank of the chain as the weights rose; "and no trust in G.o.d neither," he added, and then the clock struck ten.

Grannie had lit two candles--one for herself and her husband, the other for Nancy Joe. Nancy had slyly filled three earthenware crocks with water from the well, and had set them on the table, mumbling something about the kettle and the morning. And Caesar himself, pretending not to see anything, and muttering dark words about waste, went from the clock to the hearth, and raked out the hot ashes to a flat surface, on which you might have laid a girdle for baking cakes.

"Good-night, Nancy," called Grannie, from half-way up the stairs, and Caesar, with his head down, followed grumbling. Nancy went off next, and then Kate was left alone. She had to put out the lamp and wait for her father's candle.

When the lamp was gone the girl was in the dark, save for the dim light of the smouldering fire. She began to tremble and to laugh in a whisper.

Her eyes danced in the red glow of the dying turf. She slipped off her shoes and went to a closet in the wall. There she picked an apple out of a barrel, and brought it to the fire and roasted it. Then, down on her knees before the hearth, she took took two pinches of the apple and swallowed them. After that and a little shudder she rose again, and turned about to go to bed, backwards, slowly, tremblingly, with measured steps, feeling her way past the furniture, having a shock when she touched anything, and laughing to herself, nervously, when she remembered what it was.

At the door of her father's room and Grannie's she called, with a quaver in her voice, and a sleepy grunt came out to her. She reached one hand through the door, which was ajar, and took the burning candle. Then she blew out the light with a trembling puff, that had to be twice repeated, and made for her own bedroom, still going backwards.

It was a sweet little chamber over the dairy, smelling of new milk and ripe apples, and very dainty in dimity and muslin. Two tiny windows looked out from it, one on to the stable-yard and the other on to the orchard. The late moon came through the orchard window, over the heads of the dwarf trees, and the little white place was lit up from the floor to the sloping thatch.

Kate went backwards as far as to the bed, and sat down on it She fancied she heard a step in the yard, but the yard window was at her back, and she would not look behind. She listened, but heard nothing more except a see-sawing noise from the stable, where the mare was running her rope in the manger ring. Nothing but this and the cheep-cheep of a mouse that was gnawing the wood somewhere in the floor.

"Will he come?" she asked herself.

She rose and loosened her gown, and as it fell to her feet she laughed.

"Which will it be, I wonder--which?" she whispered.

The moonlight had crept up to the foot of the bed, and now lay on it like a broad blue sword speckled as with rust by the patchwork counterpane.

She freed her hair from its red ribbon, and it fell in a shower about her face. All around her seemed hushed and awful. She shuddered again, and with a back ward hand drew down the sheets. Then she took a long, deep breath, like a sigh that is half a smile, and lay down to sleep.