The Manxman

"Unsearchable?" said Pete. "It's all that. But I don't know if you're calling it justice. I'm not myself. It isn't my tally. Blasphemy? I lave it with you. A scoffer, am I? So be it. The Lord's licked me, and I've had enough. But I'm not going down on my knees for it, anyway. The Almighty and me is about quits."

With that word on his lips he strode out of the place, grim, implacable, almost savage, a fierce smile fluttering on his ashy face.

XXI.

Grannie came to Elm Cottage next morning with two duck eggs for Pete's breakfast. She was boiling them in a saucepan when Pete came downstairs.

"Come now," she said coaxingly, as she laid them on the table, with the water smoking off the sh.e.l.ls. But Pete could not eat.

"He hasn't destroyed any food these days," said Nancy. A little before she had rolled her ap.r.o.n, slipped out into the street, and brought back a tiny packet screwed up in a bit of newspaper.

"Perhaps he'll ate them on the road," said Grannie. "I'll put them in the hankerchief in his hat anyway."

"My faith, no, woman!" cried Nancy. "He's the mischief for sweating.

He'll be mopping his forehead and forgetting the eggs. But here--where's your waistcoat pocket, Pete? Have you room for a hayseed anywhere?

There!... It's a quarter of twist, poor boy," she whispered behind her hand to Grannie.

Thus they vied with each other in little attentions to the down-hearted man. Meantime Crow, the driver of the Douglas coach, a merry old sinner with a bulbous nose and short hair, standing erect like the steel pins of an electric brush, was whistling as he put his horses to in the marketplace. Presently he swirled round the corner and drew up at the gate. The women then became suddenly quiet, and put their ap.r.o.ns to their mouths, as if a hea.r.s.e had stopped at the door; but Pete bustled about and shouted boisterously to cover the emotion of his farewell.

"Good-bye, Grannie; I'll say a word for you when I get there. Good-bye, Nancy; I'll not be forgetting yourself neither. Good bye, lil bogh,"

dropping on one knee at the side of the cradle. "What right has a man's heart to be going losing him while he has a lil innocent like this to live for? Good-bye!"

There was a throng of women at the gate talking of Kate. "Aw, a civil person, very--a civiller person never was."--"It's me that'll be missing her too. I served her eggs to the day of her death, as you might say.

'Good morning, Christian Anne,' says she--just like that. Welcome, you say? I was at home at the woman's door."--"And the beautiful she came home in the gig with the baby! Only yesterday you might say. And now, Lord-a-ma.s.sy!"--"Hus.h.!.+ it's himself! I'm fit enough to cry when I look at the man. The cheerful heart is broke at him."--"Hus.h.!.+"

They dropped their heads so that Pete might avoid their gaze, and held the coach-door open for him, expecting that he would go inside, as to a funeral. But he saluted them with "Good morning all," and leapt to the box-seat with Crow.

The coach stopped to take up the Deemster at the gate of Ballure House.

Philip looked thin and emaciated, and walked with a death-like weakness, but also a feverish resolution. Behind him, carrying a rag, came Aunty Nan in her white cap, with little nervous attentions, and a face full of anxiety.

"Drive inside to-day, Philip," she said.

"No, no," he answered, and kissed her, pushed her to the other side of the gate with gentle protestation, and climbed to Pete's side. Then the old lady said--

"Good-morning, Peter. I'm so sorry for your great trouble, and trust...

But you'll not let the Deemster ride

He's had a sleepless night and----"

"Go on, Crow," said Philip, in a decisive voice.

"I'll see to that, Miss Christian, ma'am," shouted Crow over his shoulder. "His honour's studdying a bit too hard--that's what _he_ is. But a gentleman's not much use if his wife's a widow, as the man said--eh? Looking well enough yourself, though, Miss Christian, ma'am.

Getting younger every day, in fact. I'll have to be fetching that East Indee capt'n up yet. I will that. Ha! ha! Get on, Boxer!" Then, with a flick of the whip, they were off on their journey.

The day was calm and beautiful. Old Barrule wore his yellow skull-cap of flowering gorse, the birds sang on the trees, and the sea on the sh.o.r.e sang also with the sound of far-off joy-bells. It was a heart-breaking day to Pete, but he tried to bear himself bravely.

He was seated between Philip and the driver. On the farther side of Crow there were two other pa.s.sengers, a farmer and a fisherman. The farmer, a foul-mouthed fellow with a long staff and two dogs racing and barking on the road, was returning from Midsummer fair, at which he had sold his sheep; the fisherman, a simple creature, was coming home from the mackerel-fis.h.i.+ng at Kinsale, with a box of the fish between his legs.

"The wife's been having a lil one since I was laving in March," said the fisherman, laughing all over his bronzed face. "A boy, d'ye say?

Aw, another boy, of coorse. Three of them now--all men. Got a letter at Ramsey post-office coming through. She's getting on as nice as nice, and the ould woman's busy doing for her."

"Gee up, Boxer--we'll wet its head at the Hibernian," said Crow.

"I'm not partic'lar at all," said the fisherman cheerily. "The mack'rel's been doing middling this season, anyway."

And then in his simple way he went on to paint home, and the joy of coming back to it, with the new baby, and the mother in child-bed, and the grandmother as housekeeper, and the other children waiting for new frocks and new jackets out of the earnings of the fis.h.i.+ng, and himself going round to pay the grocer what had been put on "strap" while he was at Kin-sale, till Pete was melted, and could listen no longer.

"I'm persuaded still she wasn't well when she went away," he whispered, turning his shoulder to the men and his face to Philip. He talked in a low voice, just above the rumble of the wheels, trying to extenuate Kate's fault and to excuse her to Philip.

"It's no use thinking hard of anybody, is it, sir?" he said. "We can't crawl into another person's soul, as the saying is."

After that he asked many questions--about Kate's illness, about the doctor, about the funeral, about everything except the man--of him he asked nothing. Philip was compelled to answer. He was like a prisoner chained at the galleys--he was forced to go on. They crossed the bridge over the top of Ballagla.s.s, which goes down to the mill at Cornaa.

"There's the glen, sir," said Pete. "Aw, the dear ould days! Wading in the water, leaping over the stones, clambering on the trunks--aw, dear!

aw, dear! Bareheaded and barefooted in those times, sir; but smart extraordinary, and a terble notion of being dressy, too. Twisting ferns about her lil neck for lace, sticking a mountain thistle, sparkling with dew, on her breast for a diamond, twining a trail of fuchsia round her head for a crown--aw, dear! aw, dear! And now--well, well, to think! to think!"

There was laughter on the other side of the coach.

"What do _you_ say, Capt'n Pete?" shouted Crow.

"What's that?" asked Pete.

The fisherman had treated the driver and the farmer at the Hibernian, and was being rewarded with robustious chaff.

"I'm telling Dan Johnny here these childers that's coming when a man's away from home isn't much to trust. Best put a sight up with the lil one to the wise woman of Glen Aldyn, eh? A man doesn't like to bring up a cuckoo in the nest--what d'ye say, Capt'n?"

"I say you're a dirty ould divil, Crow; and I don't want to be chucking you off your seat," said Pete; and with that he turned back to Philip. *

The driver was affronted, but the farmer pacified him by an appeal to his fear. "He'd be coa.r.s.e to tackle, the same fellow--I saw him clane out a tent with one hand at Tyn-wald."

"It's a wonder she didn't come home for all," said Pete at Philip's ear--"at the end, you know. Couldn't face it out, I suppose? Nothing to be afraid of, though, if she'd only known. I had kept things middling straight up to then. And I'd have broke the head of the first man that'd wagged a tongue. But maybe it was myself she was freckened of! Freckened of me! Poor thing! poor thing!"

Philip was in torment. To witness Pete's simple grief, to hear him breathe a forgiveness for the erring woman, and to be trusted with the thoughts of his heart as a father might be trusted by a young child--it was anguish, it was agony, it was horror. More than once he felt an impulse to cast off his load, to confess, to tell everything. But he reflected that he had no right to do this--that the secret was not his own to give away. His fear restrained him also. He looked into Pete's face, so full of manly sorrow, and shuddered to think of it transformed by rage.

"Sit hard, gentlemen. Breeches' work here," shouted Crow.

They were at the top of the steep descent going down to Laxey. The white town lay sprinkled over the green banks of the glen, and the great water-wheel stood in the depths of the mountain gill behind it.

"She's there! She's yonder! It's herself at the door. She's up. She's looking out for the coach," cried the fisherman, clambering up on to the seat.

"Aisy all," shouted Crow.

"No use, Mr. Crow. Nothing will persuade me but that's herself with the lil one in a blanket at the door."

Before the coach had drawn up at the bridge, the fisherman had leapt to the ground, shouldered his keg, shouted "Good everin' all," and disappeared down an alley of the town.