Chapter XI: Part III: Man and Woman (4)

Next day she persuaded her father to take her to Douglas. She had little errands there that could not be done in Ramsey. The morning was fine but cold. Pete helped her up in the gig, and they drove away. If only she could see Philip, if only Philip could see her, he would know by the look of her face that the marriage was not of her making--that compulsion of some sort was being put on her. She spent four hours going from shop to shop, lingering in the streets, but seeing nothing of Philip. Her step was slow and weary, her features were pinched and starved, but Cæsar could scarcely get her out of the town. At length the daylight began to fail, and then she yielded to his importunities.

“How short the days are now,” she said with a sigh, as they ran into the country.

“Yes, they are a cock's stride shorter in September,” said Cæsar; “but when a woman once gets shopping, Midsummer day itself won't do--she's wanting the land of the midnight sun.”

Pete lifted her out of the gig in darkness at the door of the “Fairy,” and, his great arms being about her, he carried her into the house and set her down in the fire-seat. She would have struggled to her feet if she had been able; she felt something like repulsion at his touch; but he looked at her with the mute eloquence of love, and she was ashamed.

The house was full of gossips that night. They talked of the marriage customs of old times. One described the “pay-weddings,” where the hat went round, and every guest gave something towards the cost of the breakfast and the expenses of beginning housekeeping--rude forefather of the practice of the modern wedding present. Another pictured the irregular marriages made in public-houses in the days when the island had three breweries and thirty drinking shops to every thousand of its inhabitants. The publican laid two sticks crosswise on the floor, and said to the bride and bridegroom--

“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 is to say darned little about it.”

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 Saturday. Kate remembered that Philip came to Ballure on Saturdays. 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 passed 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 Saturday 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. Cæsar 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. Cæsar 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 Cæsar. “Necessary anyway; one scabby sheep infects the flock.”

“And has marriage daubed grace on the poor sheep's sore then, Cæsar?” said Pete.

“She's Mistress Robbie Teare and a dacent woman, sir,” said Cæsar, 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 circumstances. 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, Cæsar 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, God bless you, sir,” said the girl to Pete, “God bless you for ever and ever.”

Then turning back to Grannie, she explained in woman's fashion, 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 God bless you, and when you're married to-morrow, God 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 pushing 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.

XIX.

Meantime Philip himself was in the throes of his own agony. At the news of Kate's illness he was overwhelmed with remorse, and when he inquired if she had been delirious, he was oppressed with a sense of meanness never felt before. At his meeting with Pete he realised for the first time to what depths his duplicity had degraded him. He had prided himself on being a man of honour, and he was suddenly thrown out of the paths in which he could walk honourably.

When the first shock of Kate's disaster was over, he remembered the interview with the Governor. The Deemstership burnt in his mind with a growing fever of desire, but he did not apply for it. He did not even mention it to Auntie Nan. She heard of his prospects from Peter Christian Balla-whaine, who first set foot in her house on this errand of congratulation. The sweet old soul was wildly excited. All the hopes of her life were about to be realised, the visions and the dreams were coming true. Philip was going to regain what his father had lost. Had he made his application yet? No? He would, though; it was his duty.

But Philip could not apply for the Deemstership. To sit down in cold blood and write to the Home Secretary while Kate was lying sick in bed would be too much like asking the devil's wages for sacrificing her. Then came Pete with his talk of the wedding. That did not really alarm him. It was only the last revolution of the old wheel that had been set spinning before Pete went away. Kate would not consent. They had taken her consent for granted. He felt easy, calm, and secure.

Next came his old master, the college friend of his father, now promoted to the position of Clerk of the Polls. He was proud of his pupil, and had learnt that Philip was first favourite with the Governor.

“I always knew it,” he said. “I did, ma'am, I did. The first time I set eyes on him, thinks I, 'Here comes the makings of the best lawyer in the island,' and by ------ he's not going to disappoint me either.”

The good fellow was a noisy, hearty, robustious creature, a bachelor, and when talking of the late Deemster, he said women were usually the chief obstacles in a man's career. Then he begged Auntie Nan's pardon, but the old lady showed no anger. She agreed that it had been so in some cases. Young men should be careful what stumbling-blocks they set up in the way of their own progress.

Philip listened in silence, and was conscious, through all the unselfish counselling, of a certain cynical bitterness. Still he did not make application for the Deemstership. Then came Cæsar's letter announcing the marriage, and even fixing a date for it. This threw him into a fit of towering indignation. He was certain of undue pressure. They were forcing the girl. It was his duty to stop the marriage. But how? There was one clear course, but that course he could not take. He could not go back on his settled determination that he must not, should not marry the girl himself. Only one thing was left--to rely on Kate. She would never consent. Not being able to marry _him_, she would marry no man. She would do as he was doing--she would suffer and stand alone.

By this time Philip's love, which, in spite of himself, had grown cool since the Melliah, and in his fierce battle with his worldly aims, suddenly awakened to fresh violence at the approach of another man. But his ambition fought with his love, and he began to ask himself if it made, any difference after all in this matter of Kate whether he took the Deemstership or left it. Kate was recovering; he had nothing to reproach himself with, and it would be folly to sacrifice the ambition of a lifetime to the love of a woman who could never be his, a woman he could never marry. At that he wrote his letter to the Home Secretary. It was a brilliant letter of its kind, simple, natural, strong, and judicious. He had a calm assurance that nothing so good would leave the island, yet he could not bring himself to post it. Some quiverings of the old tenderness came back as he held it in his hand, some visions of Kate, with her twitching lips, her passionate eyes, some whisperings of their smothered love.

Then came Pete again with the decisive blow. Kate _had_ consented. There was no longer any room for doubt. His former indignation seemed almost comic, his confidence absurd. Kate was willing to marry Pete, and after all, what right had he to blame her? What right had he to stop the marriage? He had wronged the girl enough already. A good man came and offered her his love. She was going to take it. How should he dare to stop her from marrying another, being unable to marry her himself?

That night he posted his letter to the Home Secretary, and calmed the gnawings of his love with dreams of ambition. He would regain the place of his father; he would revive the traditions of his grandfather; the Christians should resume their ancient standing in the Isle of Man; the last of their race should be a strong man and a just one. No, he would never marry; he would live alone, a quiet life, a peaceful one, slightly tinged with melancholy, yet not altogether unhappy, not without cheer.

Under all other emotions, strengthening and supporting him, was a secret bitterness towards Kate--a certain contempt of her fickleness, her lightness, her shallow love, her readiness to be off with the old love and on with the new. There was a sort of pride in his own higher type of devotion, his sterner passion. Pete invited him to the wedding, but he would not go, he would invent some excuse.

Then came the change of the day to suit his supposed convenience, and also Kate's own invitation. Very well, be it so. Kate was defying him. Her invitation was a challenge. He would take it; he would go to the wedding. And if their eyes should meet, he knew whose eyes must fall.

XX.

Early next day the sleeping morning was awakened by the sound of a horn. It began somewhere in the village, wandered down the glen, crossed the bridge, plodded over the fields, and finally coiled round the house of the bride in thickening groans of discord. This restless spirit in the grey light was meant as herald of the approaching wedding. It came from the husky lungs of Mr. Jonaique Jelly.

Before daylight “The Manx Fairy” was already astir. Somewhere in the early reaches of the dawn the house had its last dusting down at the hands of Nancy Joe. Then Grannie finished, on hearth and griddle, the baking of her cakes. After that, some of the neighbours came and carried off to their own fires the beef, mutton, chickens, and ducks intended for the day's dinner. It was woman's work that was to the fore, and all idle men were hustled out of the way.

Towards nine o'clock breakfast was swallowed standing. Then everybody began to think of dressing. In this matter the men had to be finished off before the women could begin. Already they were heard bellowing for help from unseen regions upstairs. Grannie took Cæsar in hand. Pete was in charge of Nancy Joe.

It was found at the last moment that Pete had forgotten to provide himself with a white shirt. He had nothing to be married in except the flannel one in which he came home from Africa. This would never do. It wasn't proper, it wasn't respectable. There was no choice but to borrow a shirt of Cæsar's. Cæsar's shirt was of ancient pattern, and Pete was shy of taking it. “Take it, or you'll have none,” said Nancy, and she pushed him back into his room. When he emerged from it he walked with a stiff neck down the stairs in a collar that reached to his ears at either side, and stood out at his cheeks like the wings of a white bat, with two long sharp points on the level of his eyes, which he seemed to be watching warily to avoid the stab of their ironed starch. At the same moment Cæsar appeared in duck trousers, a flowered waistcoat, a swallow-tail coat, and a tall hat of rough black beaver.

The kitchen was full of men and women by this time, and groups of young fellows were gathered on the road outside, some with horses, saddled and bridled for the bride's race home after the ceremony; others with guns ready loaded for firing as the procession appeared; and others again with lines of print handkerchiefs, which, as substitutes for flags, they were hanging from tree to tree.

At every moment the crowd became greater outside, and the company inside more dense. John the Clerk called on his way to church, and whispered Pete that everything was ready, and they were going to sing a beautiful psalm.

“It isn't many a man's wedding I would be taking the same trouble with,” said John. “When you are coming down the alley give a sight up, sir, and you'll see me.”

“He's only a poor thing,” said Mr. Jelly in Pete's ear as John the Clerk went off. “No more music in the man than my ould sow. Did you hear the horn this morning, sir? Never got up so early for a wedding before. I'll be giving you 'the Black and the Grey' going into the church.”

Grannie came down in a gigantic bonnet like a half-moon, with her white cap visible beneath it; and Nancy Joe appeared behind her, be-ribboned out of all recognition, and taller by many inches for the turret of feathers and flowers on the head that was usually bare.

Then the church bells began to peal, and Cæsar made a prolonged A--hm! and said in a large way, “Has the carriage arrived?”

“It's coming over by the bridge now,” said somebody at the door, and at the next moment a covered wagonette drew up at the porch.

“All ready?” asked Cæsar.

“Stop, sir,” said Pete, and then, turning to Nancy Joe, “Is it glad a man should be on his wedding-day, Nancy?”

“Why, of coorse, you goose. What else?” she answered.

“Well, no man can be glad in a shirt like this,” said Pete; “I'm going back to take it off.”

Two minutes afterwards he reappeared in his flannel one, under his suit of blue pilot, looking simple and natural, and a man every inch of him.

“Now call the bride,” said Cæsar.

XXI.

Kate had been kept awake during the dark hours with a sound in her ears that was like the measured ringing of far-off bells. When the daylight came she slept a troubled sleep, and when she awoke she had a sense of stupefaction, as if she had taken a drug, and was not yet recovered from the effects of it. Nancy came bouncing into her room and crying, “It's your wedding-day, Kitty!” She answered by repeating mechanically, “It's your wedding day, Kitty.”

There was an expression of serenity on her face; she even smiled a little. A sort of vague gaiety came over her, such as comes to one who has watched long in agony and suspense by the bed of a sick person and the person is dead. Nancy drew the little window curtain aside, stooped down, and looked out and said, “'Happy the bride the sun shines on' they're saying, and look! the sun is shining.”

“Oh, but the sun is an old sly-boots,” she answered.

They came up to dress her. She kept stumbling against things, and then laughing in a faint way. The dress was the new one, and when they had put it on they stood back from her and shouted with delight. She took up the little broken hand-glass to look at herself. Her great eyes sparkled piteously.

The church bells began to ring her wedding-peal. She had to listen hard to hear it. All sounds seemed to be very far away; everything looked a long way off. She was living in a sort of dead white dawn of thought and feeling.

At last they came to say the coach was ready and everything was waiting for the bride. She repeated their message like a machine, made a slow gesture, and followed them downstairs. When she got near to the bottom, she looked around on the faces below as if expecting to see somebody. Just then her father was saying, “Mr. Christian is to meet us at the church.”

She smiled faintly and answered the people's greetings in an indistinct tone. There was some indulgent whispering at sight of her pale face. “Pale but genteel,” said some one, and then Nancy reached over and drew the bride's veil down over her face.

At the next minute she was outside the house, standing at the back of the wagonette. The coachman, with his white rosette, was holding the door open on one side, and her father was elevating her hand on the other.

“Am I to go, then?” she asked in a helpless voice.

“Well, what do _you_ think?” said Cæsar. “Shall the man slip off and get married to himself, think you?”

There was laughter among the people standing round, and she laughed also and stepped into the coach. Her mother followed her, crinkling in noisy old silk, and Nancy Joe came next, smelling of lavender and hair-oil. Then her father got in, and then Pete, with his great warm presence.

A salute of six guns was fired straight up by the coach-windows. The horses pranced, Nancy screamed, and Grannie started, but Kate gave no sign. People were closing round the coach-door and shouting altogether as at a fair. “Good luck to you, boy. Good luck! Good luck!” Pete was answering in a rolling voice that seemed to be lifting the low roof off, and at the same time flinging money out in handfuls as the horses moved away.

They were going slowly down the road. From somewhere in front came the sound of a clarionet. It was playing “the Black and the Grey.” Immediately behind there was the tramp of people walking with an even step, and on either side the rustle of an irregular crowd. The morning was warm and beautiful. Here and there the last of the golden cushag glistened on the hedges with the first of the autumn gorse. They passed two or three houses that had been made roofless by the recent storm, and once or twice they came on a fallen tree-trunk with its thin leaves yellowing on the fading grass.

Kate was floating vaguely through these sights and sounds. It was all like a dream to her--a waking dream in shadow-land. She knew where she was and where she was going. Some glimmering of hope was left yet. She was half expecting a miracle of some sort. Philip would be at the church. Something supernatural would occur.

They drew up sharply, the glass of the windows rattled, and the talk that had been going on in the carriage ceased. “Here we are,” cried Cæsar; there were voices outside, and then the others inside stepped down. She saw a hand held out to her and knew whose it was before her eyes had risen to the face. Philip was there. He was helping her to alight.

“Am I to get down too?” she asked in a helpless way.

Cæsar said something that made the people laugh again, and then she smiled like faded sunshine and took the hand of Philip. She held it a moment as if expecting him to say something, but he only raised his hat. His face was white as marble. He will speak yet, she thought.

Over the gateway to the churchyard there was an arch of flowers and evergreens, with an inscription in coloured letters: “God bless the happy pair.” The sloping path going down as to a dell was strewn with gilvers and slips of fuchsia.

At the bottom stood the old church mantled in ivy, like a rock of the sea covered by green moss.

Leaning on her father's arm she walked in at the porch. The church was full of people. As they passed under the gallery there was a twittering as of birds. The Sunday-school girls were up there, looking down and talking eagerly. Then the coughing and hemming ceased; there was a sort of deep inspiration; the church seemed to hold its breath for a moment. After that there were broken exclamations, and the coughing and hemming began again. “How pale!”--“Not fit, poor thing.” Everybody was pitying her starved features.

“Stand here,” said somebody in a soft voice.

“Must I?” she said quite loudly.

All at once she was aware that she was alone before the communion rail, with the parson--old ruddy-faced Parson Quiggin--in his white surplice facing her. Some one came and stood beside her. It was Pete. She did not look at him, but she felt his warm presence again, and was relieved. It was like shelter from the eyes around. After a moment she turned about Philip was one step behind Pete. His head was bent.

Then the service began. The voice of the parson muttered words in a low voice, but she did not listen. She found herself trying to spell out the Manx text printed over the chancel arch: “Bannet T'eshyn Ta Cheet ayns Ennyn y Chearn” (“Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord”).

Suddenly the words the parson was speaking leapt into meaning and made her quiver.

“.... is commended of Saint Paul to be honourable among all men, and therefore not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly----”

She seemed to know that Philip's eyes were on her. They were on the back of her head, and the veil over her face began to shake.

The voice of the parson was going on again--

“Therefore if any man can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.”

She turned half around. Her eyes fell on Philip. His face was colourless, almost fierce; his forehead was deathly white. She was sure that something was about to happen.

Now was the moment for the miracle. It seemed to her as if the whole congregation were beginning to divine what tie there was between him and her. She did not care, for he would soon declare it. He was going to do so now; he had raised his head, he was about to speak.

No, there was no miracle. Philip's eyes fell before her eyes, and his head went down. He was only digging at the red baize with one of his feet. She felt tired, so very tired, and oh! so cold. The parson had gone on with his reading. When she caught up with him he was saying--

“--as ye shall, answer at the great day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it.”

The parson paused. He had always paused at that point. The pause had no meaning for him, but for Kate how much! Impediment! There was indeed an impediment. Confess? How could she ever confess? The warning terrified her. It seemed to have been made for her alone. She had heard it before, and thought nothing of it. Now it seemed to scorch her very soul. She began to tremble violently.

There was an indistinct murmur which she did not catch. The parson seemed to be speaking to Pete--

“--love her, comfort her, honour and keep her... so long as ye both shall live.”

And then came Pete's voice, full and strong from his great chest, but far off, and going by her ear like a voice in a shell--“I will.”

After that the parson's words seemed to be falling on her face.

“Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him and serve him, love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and forsaking all other, keep thee unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”

Kate was far away. She was spelling out the Manx text, “Bannet T'eshyn Ta Cheet,” but the letters were dancing in and out of each other, and yellow lights were darting from her eyes. Suddenly she was aware that the parson's voice had stopped. There was blank silence, then an uneasy rustle, and then somebody was saying something in a soft tone.

“Eh?” she said aloud.

The parson's voice came now in a whisper at her breast--“Say, 'I will.'”

“Ah I,” she murmured.

“I-will! That's all, my dear. Say it with me, 'I--will.'”

She framed her lips to speak, but the words were half uttered by the parson. The next thing she knew was that a stray hand was holding her hand. She felt more safe now that her poor cold fingers lay in that big warm palm.

It was Pete, and he was speaking again. She did not so much hear him as feel his voice tingling through her veins.

“I, Peter Quilliam, take thee, Katherine Cregeen----'”

But it was all a vague murmur, fraying off into nothing, ending like a wave with a long upward plash of low sound.

The parson was speaking to her again, softly, gently, caressingly, almost as if she were a frightened child. “Don't be afraid, my dear! try to speak after me. Take your time.”

Then, aloud, “'I, Katherine Cregeen.'”

Her throat gurgled; she faltered, but she spoke at length in the toneless voice of one who speaks in sleep.

“'I, Katherine Cregeen---'”

“'Take thee, Peter Quilliam----'”

The toneless voice broke---- “take thee, Peter Quilliam------'”

And then all came in a rush, with some of the words distinctly repeated, and some of them droned and dropped--

“--'to my wedded husband, to have and to hold-----'”

“--'have and to hold-----'”

“--'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 worship, 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 sunshine, 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 passionate 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 Cæsar's house at a furious gallop. Kate and Pete, Cæsar, Grannie, and Nancy, with the addition of Philip and Parson Quiggin, returned in the covered carriage.

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 pass. 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 shell, 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. Cæsar 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. Cæsar 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 Cæsar 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 Cæsar; 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 Cæsar 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 breasts 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 grass 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 Cæsar, 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 glass 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 glasses 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 nobody 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. God 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 passions. 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 Cæsar. “What about original sin?”

There was a chorus of applause. Kate was still laughing. Philip's head was down.

“And now, friends,” continued the parson, “Captain Quilliam has been a successful man abroad, but he has had to come home to do the best piece of work he ever did.” (A voice--“Do it yourself, parzon.”) “It is true I've never done it myself. Vanity of vanities, love is not for me. It's been the Lord's will to put me here to do the marrying and leave my people to do the loving. But there is a young man present who has all the world before him and everything this life can promise except one thing, and that's the best thing of all--a wife.” (Kate's laughter grew boisterous.) “This morning he helped his friend to marry a pure and beautiful maiden. Now let me remind him of the text which says, 'Go thou and do likewise.'”

The toast was drunk standing, with shouts of “Cap'n Pete,” and, amid much hammering on the table, stamping on the floor, and other thunderings of applause, Cap'n Pete rolled up to reply. After a moment's pause, in which he distributed sage winks and nods on every side, he said: “I'm not much for public spaking myself. I made my best speech and my shortest in church this morning--_I will_. The parzon has has been telling my _dooiney molla_ to do as I have done today. He can't. Begging pardon of the ladies, there's only one woman on the island fit for him, and I've got her.” (Kate's laughter grew shrill.) “My wife----”

At this word, uttered with an air of life-long familiarity, twenty clay pipes lost their heads by collision with the table, and Pete was interrupted by roars of laughter.

“Gough bless me, can't a married man mention his wife in company? Well then. Mistress Cap'n Peter Quilliam----”

This mouthful was the signal for another riotous interruption, and a general call for more to drink.

“Won't that do for you neither? I'm not going back on it, though. 'Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder'--isn't that it, Parzon Quiggin? What's it you're saying--no man but the Dempster? Well, the Dempster's here that is to be--I'll clear him of _that_, anyway.”

Kate's laughter became explosive and uncontrollable. Pete nodded sideways to fill up the gap in his eloquence, and then went on. “But if my _dooiney molla_ can't marry my wife, there's one thing he can do for her--he can make her house his home in Ramsey when he goes to Douglas for good and comes down here to the coorts once a fortnight.”

Kate laughed more immoderately than ever; but Philip, with a look of alarm, half rose from his seat, and said across the table, “There's my aunt at Ballure, Pete.”

“She'll be following after you,” said Pete.

“There are hotels enough for travellers,” said Philip.

“Too many by half, and that's why I asked in public,” said Pete.

“I know the brotherly feeling----” began Philip.

“Is it a promise?” demanded Pete.

“If I can't escape your kindness----”

“No, you can't; so there's an end of it.”

“It will kill me yet----”

“May you never die till it polishes you off.”.