Chapter II: Part I: Boys Together (2)

The Ballawhaine came crunching the sand on the hall-floor. He looked old, and had now a pent-house of bristly eyebrows of a different colour from his hair. Pete had often seen him on the road riding by.

“Well, my lad, what can I do for _you?_” he said. He spoke in a jerky voice, as if he thought to overawe the boy.

Pete fumbled his stocking cap. “Mothers dead,” he answered vacantly.

The Ballawhaine knew that already. Kelly the Thief had run hot-foot to inform him. He thought Pete had come to claim maintenance now that his mother was gone.

“So she's been telling you the same old story?” he said briskly. •

At that Pete's face stiffened all at once. “She's been telling me that you're my father, sir.”

The Ballawhaine tried to laugh. “Indeed!” he replied; “it's a wise child, now, that knows its own father.”

“I'm not rightly knowing what you mane, sir,” said Pete.

Then the Ballawhaine fell to slandering the poor woman in her grave, declaring that she could not know who was the father of her child, and protesting that no son of hers should ever see the colour of money of his. Saying this with a snarl, he brought down his right hand with a thump on to the table. There was a big hairy mole near the joint of the first finger.

“Aisy, sir, if you plaze,” said Pete; “she was telling me you gave her this.”

He turned up the corner of his jersey, tugged out of his pocket, from behind his flaps, the eighty Manx bank-notes, and held them in his right hand on the table. There was a mole at the joint of Pete's first finger also.

The Ballawhaine saw it. He drew back his hand and slid it behind him. Then in another voice he said, “Well, my lad, isn't it enough? What are you wanting with more?”

“I'm not wanting more,” said Pete; “I'm not wanting this. Take it back,” and he put down the roll of notes between them.

The Ballawhaine sank into the chair, took a handkerchief out of his tails with the hand that had been lurking there, and began to mop his forehead. “Eh? How? What d'ye mean, boy?” he stammered.

“I mane,” said Pete, “that if I kept that money there is people would say my mother was a bad woman, and you bought her and paid her--I'm hearing the like at some of them.”

He took a step nearer. “And I mane, too, that you did wrong by my mother long ago, and now that she's dead you're blackening her; and you're a bad heart, and a low tongue, and if I was only a man, and didn't _know_ you were my father, I'd break every bone in your skin.”

Then Pete twisted about and shouted into the dark part of the hall, “Come along, there, my ould cockatoo! It's time to be putting me to the door.”

The English footman in the scarlet breeches had been peeping from under the stairs.

That was Pete's first and last interview with his father. Peter Christian Ballawhaine was a terror in the Keys by this time, but he had trembled before his son like a whipped cur.

V.

Katherine Cregeen, Pete's champion at school, had been his companion at home as well. She was two years younger than Pete. Her hair was a black as a gipsy's, and her face as brown as a berry. In summer she liked best to wear a red frock without sleeves, no boots and no stockings, no collar and no bonnet, not even a sun-bonnet. From constant exposure to the sun and rain her arms and legs were as ruddy as her cheeks, and covered with a soft silken down. So often did you see her teeth that you would have said she was always laughing. Her laugh was a little saucy trill given out with head aside and eyes aslant, like that of a squirrel when he is at a safe height above your head, and has a nut in his open jaws.

Pete had seen her first at school, and there he had tried to draw the eyes of the maiden upon himself by methods known only to heroes, to savages, and to boys. He had prowled around her in the playground with the wild vigour of a young colt, tossing his head, swinging his arms, screwing his body, kicking up his legs, walking on his hands, lunging out at every lad that was twice as big as himself, and then bringing himself down at length with a whoop and a crash on his hindmost parts just in front of where she stood. For these tremendous efforts to show what a fellow he could be if he tried, he had won no applause from the boys, and Katherine herself had given no sign, though Pete had watched her out of the corners of his eyes. But in other scenes the children came together.

After Philip had gone to King William's, Pete and Katherine had become bosom friends. Instead of going home after school to cool his heels in the road until his mother came from the fields, he found it neighbourly to go up to Ballajora and round by the network of paths to Cornaa. That was a long detour, but Cæsar's mill stood there. It nestled down in the low bed of the river that runs through the glen called Ballaglass.

Song-birds built about it in the spring of the year, and Cæsar's little human songster sang there always.

When Pete went that way home, what times the girl had of it! Wading up the river, clambering over the stones, playing female Blondin on the fallen tree-trunks that spanned the chasm, slipping, falling, holding on any way up (legs or arms) by the rotten branches below, then calling for Pete's help in a voice between a laugh and a cry, flinging chips into the foaming back-wash of the mill-wheel, and chasing them down stream, racing among the gorse, and then lying full length like a lamb, without a thought of shame, while Pete took the thorns out of her bleeding feet. She was a wild duck in the glen where she lived, and Pete was a great lumbering tame duck waddling behind her.

But the glorious, happy, make-believe days too soon came to an end. The swinging cane of the great John Thomas Corlett, and the rod of a yet more relentless tyrant, darkened the sunshine of both the children. Pete was banished from school, and Catherine's father removed from Cornaa.

When Cæsar had taken a wife, he had married Betsy, the daughter of the owner of the inn at Sulby. After that he had “got religion,” and he held that persons in the household of faith were not to drink, or to buy or to sell drink. But Grannie's father died and left his house, “The Manx Fairy,” and his farm, Glenmooar, to her and her husband. About the same time the miller at Sulby also died, and the best mill in the island cried out for a tenant. Cæsar took the mill and the farm, and Grannie took the inn, being brought up to such profanities and no way bound by principle. From that time forward, Cæsar pinned all envious cavillers with the text which says, “Not that which goeth into the mouth of a man defileth him, but that which cometh out.”

Nevertheless, Cæsar's principles grew more and more puritanical year by year. There were no half measures with Cæsar. Either a man was a saved soul, or he was in the very belly of hell, though the pit might not have shut its mouth on him. If a man was saved he knew it, and if he felt the manifestations of the Spirit he could live without sin. His cardinal principles were three--instantaneous regeneration, assurance, and sinless perfection. He always said--he had said it a thousand times--that he was converted in Douglas marketplace, a piece off the west door of ould St. Matthew's, at five-and-twenty minutes past six on a Sabbath evening in July, when he was two-and-twenty for harvest.

While at Cornaa, Cæsar had been a “local” on the preachers' plan, a class leader, and a chapel steward; but at Sulby he outgrew the Union and set up a “body” of his own. He called them “The Christians.” a title that was at once a name, a challenge, and a protest. They worshipped in the long barn over Cæsar's mill, and held strong views on conduct. A saved soul must not wear gold or costly apparel, or give way to softness or bodily indulgence, or go to fairs for sake of sport, or appear in the show-tents of play-actors, or sing songs, or read books, or take any diversion that did not tend to the knowledge of God. As for carnal transgression, if any were guilty of it, they were to be cut off from the body of believers, for the souls of the righteous must be delivered.

“The religion that's going among the Primitives these days is just Popery,” said Cæsar. “Let's go back to the warm ould Methodism and put out the Romans.”

When Pete turned his face from Ballawhaine, he thought first of Cæsar and his mill. It would be more exact to say he thought of Katherine and Grannie. He was homeless as well as penniless. The cottage by the water-trough was no longer possible to him, now that the mother was gone who had stood between his threatened shoulders and Black Tom. Philip was at home for a few weeks only in the year, and Ballure had lost its attraction. So Pete made his way to Sulby, offered himself to Cæsar for service at the mill, and was taken on straightway at eighteenpence a week and his board.

It was a curious household he entered into. First there was Cæsar himself, in a moleskin waistcoat with sleeves open three buttons up, knee-breeches usually unlaced, stockings of undyed wool, and slippers with the tongues hanging out--a grim soul, with whiskers like a hoop about his face, and a shaven upper lip as heavy as a moustache, for, when religion like Cæsar's lays hold of a man, it takes him first by the mouth. Then Grannie, a comfortable body in a cap, with an outlook on life that was all motherhood, a simple, tender, peaceable soul, agreeing with everybody and everything, and seeming to say nothing but “Poor thing! Poor thing!” and “Dear heart! Dear heart!” Then there was Nancy Cain, getting the name of Nancy Joe, the servant in name but the mistress in fact, a niece of Grannie's, a bit of a Pagan, an early riser, a tireless worker, with a plain face, a rooted disbelief in all men, a good heart, an ugly tongue, and a vixenish temper. Last of all, there was Katherine, now grown to be a great girl, with her gipsy hair done up in a red ribbon and wearing a black pinafore bordered with white braid.

Pete got on steadily at the mill. He began by lighting the kiln fire and cleaning out the pit-wheel, and then on to the opening the flood-gates in the morning and regulating the action of the water-wheel according to the work of the day. In two years' time he was a sound miller, safe to trust with rough stuff for cattle or fine flour for white loaf-bread. Cæsar trusted him. He would take evangelising journeys to Peel or Douglas and leave Pete in charge.

That led to the end of the beginning. Pete could grind the farmers' corn, but he could not make their reckonings. He kept his counts in chalk on the back of the mill-house door, a down line for every stone weight up to eight stones, and a line across for every hundredweight. Then, once a day, while the father was abroad, Katherine came over from the inn to the desk at the little window of the mill, and turned Pete's lines into ledger accounts. These financial councils were full of delicious discomfiture. Pete always enjoyed them--after they were over.

“John Robert--Molleycarane--did you say Molleycarane, Pete? Oh, Mylecharane--Myle-c-h-a-r-a-i-n-e, Molleycarane; ten stones--did you say ten? Oh, eight--e-i-g-h-t--no, eight; oatmeal, Pete? Oh, barley-male--meal, I mean--m-e-a-l.”

In the middle of the night Pete remembered all these entries. They were very precious to his memory after Katherine had spoken them. They sang in his heart the same as song-birds then. They were like hymns and tunes and pieces of poetry.

Cæsar returned home from a preaching tour with a great and sudden thought. He had been calling on strangers to flee from the wrath to come, and yet there were those of his own house whose faces were not turned Zionwards. That evening he held an all-night prayer-meeting for the conversion of Katherine and Pete. Through six long hours he called on God in lusty tones, until his throat cracked and his forehead streamed. The young were thoughtless, they had the root of evil in them, they flew into frivolity from contrariness. Draw the harrow over their souls, plough the fallows of their hearts, grind the chaff out of their household, let not the sweet apple and the crabs grow on the same bough together, give them a Melliah, let not a sheaf be forgotten, grant them the soul of this girl for a harvest-home, and of this boy for a last stook.

Cæsar was dissatisfied with the results. He was used to groaning and trembling and fainting fits.

“Don't you feel the love?” he cried. “I do--here, under the watch-pocket of my waistcoat.”

Towards midnight Katherine began to fail. “Chain the devil,”, cried Cæsar. “Once I was down in the pit with the devil myself, but now I'm up in the loft, seeing angels through the thatch. Can't you feel the workings of the Spirit?”

As the clock was warning to strike two Katherine thought she could, and from that day forward she led the singing of the women in the choir among “The Christians.”

Pete remained among the unregenerate; but nevertheless “The Christians” saw him constantly. He sat on the back form and kept his eyes fixed on the “singing seat.” Observing his regularity, Cæsar laid a hand on his head and told him the Spirit was working in his soul at last. Sometimes Pete thought it was, and that was when he shut his eyes and listened to Katherine's voice floating up, up, up, like an angel's, into the sky. But sometimes he knew it was not; and that was when he caught himself in the middle of Cæsar's mightiest prayers crooking his neck past the pitching bald pate of Johnny Niplightly, the constable, that he might get a glimpse of the top of Katherine's bonnet when her eyes were down.

Pete fell into a melancholy, and once more took to music as a comforter. It was not a home-made whistle now, but a fiddle bought out of his wages. On this he played in the cowhouse on winter evenings, and from the top of the midden outside in summer. When Cæsar heard of it his wrath was fearful. What was a fiddler? He was a servant of corruption, holding a candle to disorderly walkers and happy sinners on their way into the devil's pinfold. And what for was fiddles? Fiddles was for play-actors and theaytres. “And theaytres is _there_,” said Cæsar, indicating with his foot one flag on the kitchen-floor, “and hell flames is _there_,” he added, rolling his toe over to the joint of the next one.

Grannie began to plead. What was a fiddle if you played the right tunes on it? Didn't they read in the ould Book of King David himself playing on harps and timbrels and such things? And what was harps but fiddles in a way of spak-ing? Then warn't they all looking to be playing harps in heaven? 'Deed, yes, though the Lord would have to be teaching her how to play hers!

Cæsar was shaken. “Well, of course, certainly,” he said, “if there's a power in fiddling to bring souls out of bondage, and if there's going to be fiddling and the like in Abraham's bosom--why, then, of course--well, why not?--let's have the lad's fiddle up at 'The Christians.'”

Nothing could have suited Pete so well. From that time forward he went out no more at nights to the cowhouse, but stayed indoors to practise hymns with Katherine. Oh, the terrible rapture of those nightly “practices!” They brought people to the inn to hear them, and so Cæsar found them good for profit both ways.

There was something in Cæsar's definition, nevertheless. It was found that among the saints there were certain weaker brethren who did not want a hymn to their ale. One of these was Johnny Niplightly, the rural constable, who was the complement of Katherine in the choir, being leader of the singing among the men. He was a tall man with a long nose, which seemed to have a perpetual cold. Making his rounds one night, he turned in at “The Manx Fairy,” when Cæsar and Grannie were both from home, and Nancy Joe was in charge, and Pete and Katherine were practising a revival chorus.

“Where's Cæsar, dough?” he snuffled.

“At Peel, buying the stock,” snapped Nancy.

“Dank de Lord! I mean--where's Grannie?”

“Nursing Mistress Quiggin.”

Niplightly eased the strap of his beaver, liberated his lips, took a deep draught of ale, and then turned to Pete, with apologetic smiles, and suggested a change in the music.

At that Katherine leapt up as light as laughter. “A dance,” she cried, “a dance!”

“Good sakes alive?” said Nancy Joe. “Listen to the girl? Is it the moon, Kitty, or what is it that's doing on you?”

“Shut your eyes, Nancy,” said Katherine, “just for once, now won't you?”

“You can do what you like with me, with your coaxing and woaxing,” said Nancy. “Enjoy yourself to the full, girl, but don't make a noise above the singing of the kettle.”

Pete tuned his strings, and Katherine pinned up the tail of her skirt, and threw herself into position.

At the sound of the livelier preludings there came thronging out of the road into the parlour certain fellows of the baser sort, and behind them came one who was not of that denomination--a fair young man with a fine face under an Alpine hat. Heeding nothing of this audience, the girl gave a little rakish toss of her head and called on Pete to strike up.

Then Pete plunged into one of the profaner tunes which he had practised in the days of the cowhouse, and off went Katherine with a whoop. The boys stood back for her, bending down on their haunches as at a fight of gamecocks, and encouraging her with shouts of applause.

“Beautiful! Look at that now! Fine, though, fine! Clane done, aw, clane! Done to a dot! There's leaping for you, boys! Guy heng, did you ever see the like? Hommer the floor, girl--higher a piece! higher, then! Whoop, did ye ever see such a nate pair of ankles?”

“Hould your dirty tongue, you gobmouthed omathaun!” cried Nancy Joe. She had tried to keep her eyes away, but could not. “My goodness grayshers!” she cried. “Did you ever see the like, though? Screwing like the windmill on the schoolhouse! Well, well, Kitty, woman! Aw, Kirry, Kirry! Wherever did she get it, then? Goodsakes, the girl's twisting herself into knots!”

Pete was pulling away at the fiddle with both hands, like a bottom sawyer, his eyes dancing, his lips quivering, the whole soul of the lad lifted out of himself in an instant.

“Hould on still, Kate, hould on, girl!” he shouted. “Ma-chree! Machree! The darling's dancing like a drumstick!”

“Faster!” cried Kate. “Faster!”

The red ribbon had fallen from her head, and the wavy black hair was tumbling about her face. She was holding up her skirt with one hand, and the other arm was akimbo at her waist. Guggling, chuckling, crowing, panting, boiling, and bubbling with the animal life which all her days had been suppressed, and famished and starved into moans and groans, she was carried away by her own fire, gave herself up to it, and danced on the flags of the kitchen which had served Cæsar for his practical typology, like a creature intoxicated with new breath.

Meantime Cæsar himself, coming home in his chapel hat (his tall black beaver) from Peel, where he had been buying the year's stock of herrings at the boat's side, had overtaken, on the road, the venerable parson of his parish, Parson Quiggin of Lezayre. Drawing up the gig with a “Woa!” he had invited the old clergyman to a lift by his side on the gig's seat, which was cushioned with a sack of hay. The parson had accepted the invitation, and with a preliminary “Aisy! Your legs a taste higher, sir, just to keep the pickle off your trousers,” a “Gee up!” and a touch of the whip, they were away together, with the light of the gig-lamp on the hind-quarters of the mare, as they bobbed and screwed like a mill-race under the splash-hoard.

It was Cæsar's chance, and he took it. Having pinned one of the heads of the Church, he gave him his views on the Romans, and on the general encroachment of Popery. The parson listened complacently. He was a tolerant old soul, with a round face, expressive of perpetual happiness, though he was always blinking his little eyes and declaring, with the Preacher, that all earthly things were vain. Hence he was nicknamed Old Vanity of Vanities.

The gig had swept past Sulby Chapel when Cæsar began to ask for the parson's opinion of certain texts.

“And may I presume, Pazon Quiggin, what d'ye think of the text--'Praise the Lord. O my soul, and all that is within me praise His Holy Name?'”

“A very good text after meat, Mr. Cregeen,” said the parson, blinking his little eyes in the dark.

It was Cæsar's favourite text, and his fire was kindled at the parson's praise. “Man alive,” he cried, his hot breath tickling the parson's neck, “I've praiched on that text, pazon, till it's wet me through to the waistcoat.”

They were near to “The Manx Fairy” by this time.

“And talking of praise,” said Cæsar, “I hear them there at their practices. Asking pardon now--it's proud I'd be, sir--perhaps you'd not be thinking mane to come in and hear the way we do 'Crown Him!'”

“So the saints use the fiddle,” said the parson, as the gig drew up at the porch of the inn.

Half a minute afterwards the door of the parlour flew open with a bang, and Cæsar stood and glared on the threshold with the parson's ruddy face behind him. There was a moment's silence. The uplifted toe of Katherine trailed back to the ground, the fiddle of Pete slithered to his farther side, and the smacking lips of Niplightly transfixed themselves agape. Then the voice of the parson was heard to say, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!” and suddenly Cæsar, still on the threshold, went down on his knees to pray.

Cæsar's prayer was only a short one. His mortified pride called for quicker solace. Rising to his feet with as much dignity as he could command under the twinkling eyes of the parson, he stuttered, “The capers! Making a dacent house into a theaytre! Respectable person, too--one of the first that's going! So,” facing the spectators, “just help yourselves home the pack of you! As for these ones,” turning on Kate, Pete, and the constable, “there'll be no more of your practices. I'll do without the music of three saints like you. In future I'll have three sinners to raise my singing. These polices, too!” he said with a withering smile. (Niplightly was worming his way out at the back of Parson Quiggin.)

“Who began it?” shouted Cæsar, looking at Katherine.

From the moment that Cæsar dropped on his knees at the door, Pete had been well-nigh choked by an impulse to laugh aloud. But now he bit his lip and said, “I did!”

“Behould ye now, as imperent as a goat!” said Cæsar, working his eyebrows vigorously. “You've mistaken your profession, boy. It's a play-actorer they ought to be making of you. You're wasting your time with a plain, respectable man like me. You must lave me. Away to the loft for your chiss, boy! And just give sheet, my lad, and don't lay to till you've fetched up at another lodgings.”

Pete, with his eye on the parson's face, could control himself no longer, and he laughed so loud that the room rang.

“Right's the word, ould Nebucannezzar,” he cried, and heaved up to his feet. “So long, Kitty, woman! S'long! We'll finish it another night though, and then the ould man himself will be houlding the candle.”

Outside in the road somebody touched him on the shoulder. It was the young man in the Alpine hat.

“My gough! What? Phil!” cried Pete, and he laid hold of him with both hands at once.

“I've just finished at King William's and bought a boat,” said Philip, “and I came up to ask you to join me--congers and cods, you know--good fun anyway. Are you willing?”

“Willing!” cried Pete. “Am I jumping for joy?”

And away they went down the road, swinging their legs together with a lively step.

“That's a nice girl, though--Kitty, Kate, what do you call her?” said Phil.

“Were you in then? So you saw her dancing?” said Pete eagerly. “Aw, yes, nice,” he said warmly, “nice uncommon,” he added absently, and then with a touch of sadness, “shocking nice!”

Presently they heard the pattering of light feet in the darkness behind them, and a voice like a broken cry calling “Pete!”

It was Kate. She came up panting and catching her breath in hiccoughs, took Pete's face in both her hands, drew it down to her own face, kissed it on the mouth, and was gone again without a word.

VI.

Philip had not been a success at school; he had narrowly escaped being a failure. During his earlier years he had shown industry without gifts; during his later years he had shown gifts without industry. His childish saying became his by-word, and half in sport, half in earnest, with a smile on his lips, and a shuddering sense of fascination, he would say when the wind freshened, “The sea's calling me, I must be off.” The blood of the old sea-dog, his mother's father, was strong in him. Idleness led to disaster, and disaster to some disgrace. He was indifferent to both while at school, but shame found him out at home.

“You'll be sixteen for spring,” said Auntie Nan, “and what would your poor father say if he were alive? He thought worlds of his boy, and always said what a man he would be some day.”

That was the shaft that found Philip. The one passion that burned in his heart like a fire was reverence for the name and the will of his dead father. The big hopes of the broken man had sometimes come as a torture to the boy when the blood of the old salt was rioting within him. But now they came as a spur.

Philip went back to school and worked like a slave. There were only three terms left, and it was too late for high honours, but the boy did wonders. He came out well, and the masters were astonished. “After all,” they said, “there's no denying it, the boy Christian must have the gift of genius. There's nothing he might not do.”

If Phil had much of the blood of Captain Billy, Pete had much of the blood of Black Tom. After leaving the mill at Sulby, Pete made his home in the cabin of the smack. What he was to eat, and how he was to be clothed, and where he was to be lodged when the cold nights came, never troubled his mind for an instant. He had fine times with his partner. The terms of their partnership were simple. Phil took the fun and made Pete take the fish. They were a pair of happy-go-lucky lads, and they looked to the future with cheerful faces.

There was one shadow over their content, and that was the ghost of a gleam of sunshine. It made daylight between them, though, day by day as they ran together like two that run a race. The prize was Katherine Cregeen. Pete talked of her till Phil's heart awoke and trembled; but Phil hardly knew it was so, and Pete never once suspected it. Neither confessed to the other, and the shifts of both to hide the secret of each were boyish and beautiful.

There is a river famous for trout that rises in Sulby glen and flows into Ramsey harbour. One of the little attempts of the two lads to deceive each other was to make believe that it was their duty to fish this river with the rod, and so wander away singly up the banks of the stream until they came to “The Manx Fairy,” and then drop in casually to quench the thirst of so much angling. Towards the dusk of evening Philip, in a tall silk hat over a jacket and knickerbockers, would come upon Pete by the Sulby bridge, washed, combed, and in a collar. Then there would be looks of great surprise on both sides. “What, Phil! Is it yourself, though? Just thought I'd see if the trouts were biting to-night. Dear me, this is Sulby too! And bless my soul, 'The Fairy' again I Well, a drop of drink will do no harm. Shall we put a sight on them inside, eh?” After that prelude they would go into the house together.

This little comedy was acted every night for weeks. It was acted on Hollantide Eve six months after Pete had been turned out by Cæsar. Grannie was sitting by the glass partition, knitting at intervals, serving at the counter occasionally and scoring up on a black board that was a mass of chalk hieroglyphics. Cæsar himself in ponderous spectacles and with a big book in his hands was sitting in the kitchen behind with his back to the glass, so as to make the lamp of the business serve also for his studies. On a bench in the bar sat Black Tom, smoking, spitting, scraping his feet on the sanded floor, and looking like a gigantic spider with enormous bald head. At his side was a thin man with a face pitted by smallpox, and a forehead covered with strange protuberances. This was Jonaique Jelly, barber, clock-mender, and Manx patriot. The postman was there, too, Kelly the Thief, a tiny creature with twinkling ferret eyes, and a face that had a settled look of age, as of one born old, being wrinkled in squares like the pointing of a cobble wall.

At sight of Pete, Grannie made way, and he pushed through to the kitchen, where he seated himself in a seat in the fireplace just in front of the peat closet, and under the fish hanging to smoke. At sight of Phil she dropped her needles, smoothed her front hair, rose in spite of protest, and wiped down a chair by the ingle. Cæsar eyed Pete in silence from between the top rim of his spectacles and the bottom edge of the big book; but as Philip entered he lowered the book and welcomed him. Nancy Joe was coming and going in her clogs like a rip-rap let loose between the dairy and a pot of potatoes in their jackets which swung from the slowrie, the hook over the fire. A moment later Kate came flitting through the half-lit kitchen, her black eyes dancing and her mouth rippling in smiles. She courtesied to Philip, grimaced at Pete, and disappeared.

Then from the other side of the glass partition came the husky voice of the postman, saying, “Well, I must be taking the road, gentlemen. There's Manx ones starting for Kim-berley by the early sailing to-morrow morning.”

And then came the voice of the barber in a hoarse falsetto: “Kimberley! That's the place for good men I'm always saying. There's Billy the Red back home with a fortune. And ould Corlett--look at ould Corlett, the Ballabeg! Five years away at the diggings, and left a house worth twenty pounds per year per annum, not to spake of other hereditaments.”

After that the rasping voice of Black Tom, in a tone of irony and contempt: “Of coorse, aw, yes, of coorse, there's goold on the cushags there, they're telling me. But I thought you were a man that's all for the island, Mr. Jelly.”

“Lave me alone for that,” said the voice of the barber. “Manx-land for the Manx-man--that's the text I'm houlding to. But what's it saying, 'Custom must be indulged with custom, or custom will die?' And with these English scouring over it like puffins on the Calf, it isn't much that's left of the ould island but the name. The best of the Manx boys are going away foreign, same as these ones.”

“Well, I've letters for them to the packet-office anyway,” said the postman.

“Who are they, Mr. Kelly?” called Philip, through the doorway.

“Some of the Quarks ones from Glen Rushen, sir, and the Gills boys from Castletown over. Good-night all, goodnight!”

The door closed behind the postman, and Black Tom growled, “Slips of lads--I know them.”

“Smart though, smart uncommon,” said the barber; “that's the only sort they're wanting out yonder.”

There was a contemptuous snort. “So? You'd better go to Kimberley yourself, then.”

“Turn the clock back a piece and I'll start before you've time to curl your hair,” said the barber.

Black Tom was lifting his pot. “That's the one thing,” said he, “the Almighty Himself” (gulp, gulp) “can't do.”

“Which?” tittered the barber.

“Both,” said Black Tom, scratching his big head, as bald as a bladder.

Cæsar flashed about with his face to the glass partition. “You're like the rest of the infidels, sir,” said he, “only spaking to contradick yourself--calling God the Almighty, and telling in the same breath of something He can't do.”

Meanwhile an encounter of another sort was going on at the ingle. Kate had re-appeared with a table fork which she used at intervals to test the boiling of the potatoes. At each approach to the fire she passed close to where Pete sat, never looking at Phil above the level of his boots. And as often as she bent over the pot, Pete put his arm round her waist, being so near and so tempting. For thus pestering her she beat her foot like a goat, and screwed on a look of anger which broke down in a stifled laugh; but she always took care to come again to Pete's side rather than to Phil's, until at last the nudging and shoving ended in a pinch and a little squeal, and a quick cry of “What's that?” from Cæsar.

Kate vanished like a flash, the dim room began to frown again, and Phil to draw his breath heavily, when the girl came back as suddenly bringing an apple and a length of string. Mounting a chair, she fixed one end of the string to the lath of the ceiling by the peck, the parchment oatcake pan, and the other end she tied to the stalk of the apple.

“What's the jeel now?” said Pete.

“Fancy! Don't you know? Not heard f'Hop-tu-naa'? It's Hollantide Eve, man,” said Kate.

Then setting the string going like a pendulum, she stood back a pace with hands clasped behind her, and snapped at the apple as it swung, sometimes catching it, sometimes missing it, sometimes marking it, sometimes biting it, her body bending and rising with its waggle, and nod, and bob, her mouth opening and closing, her white teeth gleaming, and her whole face bubbling over with delight. At every touch the speed increased, and the laughter grew louder as the apple went faster. Everybody, except the miller, joined in the fun. Phil cried out on the girl to look to her teeth, but Pete egged her on to test the strength of them.

“Snap at it, Kitty!” cried Pete. “Aw, lost! Lost again! Ow! One in the cheek! No matter! Done!”

And Black Tom and Mr. Jelly stood up to watch through the doorway. “My goodness grayshers!” cried one. “What a mouthful!” said the other. “Share it, Kitty, woman; aw, share and share alike, you know.”

But then came the thunderous tones of Cæsar. “Drop it, drop it! Such practices is nothing but Popery.”

“Popery!” cried Black Tom from over the counter. “Chut! nonsense, man! The like of it was going before St. Patrick was born.”

Kate was puffing and panting and taking down the pendulum.

“What does it mean then, Tom?” she said; “it's you for knowing things.”

“Mane? It manes fairies!”

“Fairies!”

Black Tom sat down with a complacent air, and his rasping voice came from the other side of the glass. “In the ould times gone by, girl, before Manxmen got too big for their breeches, they'd be off to bed by ten o'clock on Hollantide Eve to lave room for the little people that's outside to come in. And the big woman of the house would be filling the crocks for the fairies to drink, and the big man himself would be raking the ashes so they might bake their cakes, and a girl, same as you, would be going to bed backwards----”

“I know! I know!” cried Kate, near to the ceiling, and clapping her hands. “She eats a roasted apple, and goes to bed thirsty, and then dreams that somebody brings her a drink of water, and that's the one that's to be her husband, eh?”

“You've got it, girl.”

Cæsar had been listening with his eyes turned sideways off his book, and now he cried, “Then drop it, I'm telling you. It's nothing but instruments of Satan, and the ones that's telling it are just flying in the face of faith from superstition and contrariety. It isn't dacent in a Christian public-house, and I'm for having no more of it.”

Grannie paused in her knitting, fixed her cap with one of her needles and said, “Dear heart, father! Tom meant no harm.” Then, glancing at the clock and rising, “But it's time to shut up the house, anyway. Good night, Tom! Good night all! Good night!”

Phil and Pete rose also. Pete went to the door and pretended to look out, then came back to Kate's side and whispered, “Come, give them the slip--there's somebody outside that's waiting for you.”

“Let them wait,” said the girl, but she laughed, and Pete knew she would come. Then he turned to Philip, “A word in your ear, Phil,” he said, and took him by the arm and drew him out of the house and round to the yard of the stable.

“Well, good night, Grannie,” said Mr. Jelly, going out behind them. “But if I were as young as your grandson there, Mr. Quilliam, I would be making a start for somewhere.”

“Grandson!” grunted Tom, heaving up, “I've got no grandson, or he wouldn't be laving me to smoke a dry pipe. But he's making an Almighty of this Phil Christian--that's it.”

After they were gone, Grannie began counting the till and saying, “As for fairies--one, two, three--it may be, as Cæsar says--four--five--the like isn't in, but it's safer to be civil to them anyway.”

“Aw, yes,” said Nancy Joe, “a crock of fresh water and a few good words going to bed on Hollantide Eve does no harm at all, at all.”

Outside in the stable-yard the feet of Black Tom and Jonaique Jelly were heard going off on the road. The late moon was hanging low, red as an evening sun, over the hill to the south-east. Pete was puffing and blowing as if he had been running a race. “Quick, boy, quick!” he was whispering, “Kate's coming. A word in your ear first. Will you do me a turn, Phil?”

“What is it?” said Philip.

“Spake to the ould man for me while I spake to the girl!”

“What about?” said Philip.

But Pete could hear, nothing except his own voice. “The ould angel herself, she's all right, but the ould man's hard. Spake for me, Phil; you've got the fine English tongue at you.”

“But what about?” Philip said again.

“Say I may be a bit of a rip, but I'm not such a bad sort anyway. Make me out a taste, Phil, and praise me up. Say I'll be as good as goold; yes, will I though. Tell him he has only to say yes, and I'll be that studdy and willing and hardworking and persevering you never seen.”

“But, Pete, Pete, Pete, whatever am I to say all this about?”

Pete's puffing and panting ceased. “What about? Why, about the girl for sure.”

“The girl!” said Philip.

“What else?” said Pete.

“Kate? Am I to speak for you to the father for Kate?”

Philip's voice seemed to come up from the bottom depths of his throat.

“Are you thinking hard of the job, Phil?”

There was a moment's silence. The blood had rushed to Philip's face, which was full of strange matter, but the darkness concealed it.

“I didn't say that,” he faltered.

Pete mistook Philip's hesitation for a silent commentary on his own unworthiness. “I know I'm only a sort of a waistrel,” he said, “but, Phil, the way I'm loving that girl it's shocking. I can never take rest for thinking of her. No, I'm not sleeping at night nor working reg'lar in the day neither. Everything is telling of her, and everything is shouting her name. It's 'Kate' in the sea, and 'Kate' in the river, and the trees and the gorse. 'Kate,' 'Kate,' 'Kate,' it's Kate constant, and I can't stand much more of it. I'm loving the girl scandalous, that's the truth, Phil.”

Pete paused, but Philip gave no sign.

“It's hard to praise me, that's sarten sure,” said Pete, “but I've known her since she was a little small thing in pinafores, and I was a slip of a big boy, and went into trousers, and we played Blondin in the glen together.”

Still Philip did not speak. He was gripping the stable-wall with his trembling fingers, and struggling for composure. Pete scraped the paving-stones at his feet, and mumbled again in a voice that was near to breaking. “Spake for me, Phil. It's you to do it. You've the way of saying things, and making them out to look something. It would be clane ruined in a jiffy if I did it for myself. Spake for me, boy, now won't you, now?”

Still Philip was silent. He was doing his best to swallow a lump in his throat. His heart had begun to know itself. In the light of Pete's confession he had read his own secret. To give the girl up was one thing; it was another to plead for her for Pete. But Pete's trouble touched him. The lump at his throat went down, and the fingers on the wall slacked away. “I'll do it,” he said, only his voice was like a sob.

Then he tried to go off hastily that he might hide the emotion that came over him like a flood that had broken its dam. But Pete gripped him by the shoulder, and peered into his face in the dark. “You will, though,” said Pete, with a little shout of joy; “then it's as good as done; God bless you, old fellow.”

Philip began to roll about. “Tut, it's nothing,” he said, with a stout heart, and then he laughed a laugh with a cry in it. He could have said no more without breaking down; but just then a flash of light fell on them from the house, and a hushed voice cried, “Pete!”

“It's herself,” whispered Pete. “She's coming! She's here!”

Philip turned, and saw Kate in the doorway of the dairy, the sweet young figure framed like a silhouette by the light behind.

“I'm going!” said Philip, and he edged up to the house as the girl stepped out.

Pete followed him a step or two in approaching Kate. “Whist, man!” he whispered. “Tell the old geezer I'll be going to chapel reglar early tides and late shifts, and Sunday-school constant. And, whist! tell him I'm larning myself to play on the harmonia.”

Then Philip slithered softly through the dairy door, and shut it after him, leaving Kate and Pete together.

VII.

The kitchen of “The Manx Fairy” was now savoury with the odour of herrings roasting in their own brine, and musical with the crackling and frizzling of the oil as it dropped into the fire.

“It's a long way back to Ballure, Mrs. Cregeen,” said Philip, popping his head in at the door jamb. “May I stay to a bite of supper?”

“Aw, stay and welcome,” said Cæsar, putting down the big book, and Nancy Joe said the same, dropping her high-pitched voice perceptibly, and Grannie said, also, “Right welcome, sir, if you'll not be thinking mane to take pot luck with us. Potatoes and herrings, Mr. Christian; just a Manxman's supper. Lift the pot off the slowrie, Nancy.”

“Well, and isn't he a Manxman himself, mother?” said Cæsar.

“Of course I am, Mr. Cregeen,” said Philip, laughing noisily. “If I'm not, who should be, eh?'”

“And Manxman or no Manxman, what for should he turn up his nose at herrings same as these?” said Nancy Joe. She was dishing up a bowlful. “Where'll he get the like of them? Not in England over, I'll go bail.”

“Indeed, no, Nancy,” said Philip, still laughing needlessly.

“And if they had them there, the poor, useless creatures would be lost to cook them.”

“'Deed, would they, Nancy,” said Grannie. She was rolling the potatoes into a heap on to the bare table. “And we've much to be thankful for, with potatoes and herrings three times a day; but we shouldn't be thinking proud of our-selves for that.”

“Ask the gentleman to draw up, mother,” said Cæsar.

“Draw up, sir, draw up. Here's your bowl of butter-milk. A knife and fork, Nancy. We're no people for knife and fork to a herring, sir. And a plate for Mr. Christian, woman; a gentleman usually likes a plate. Now ate, sir, ate and welcome--but where's your friend, though?”

“Pete! oh! he's not far off.” Saying this, Philip interrupted his laughter to distribute sage winks between Nancy Joe and Grannie.

Cæsar looked around with a potato half peeled in his fingers. “And the girl--where's Kate?” he asked.

“She's not far off neither,” said Philip, still winking vigorously. “But don't trouble about them, Mr. Cregeen. They'll want no supper. They're feeding on sweeter things than herrings even.” Saying this he swallowed a gulp with another laugh.

Cæsar lifted his head with a pinch of his herring between finger and thumb half way to his open mouth. “Were you spaking, sir?” he said.

At that Philip laughed immoderately. It was a relief to drown with laughter the riot going on within.

“Aw, dear, what's agate of the boy?” thought Grannie.

“Is it a dog bite that's working on him?” thought Nancy.

“Speaking!” cried Philip, “of course I'm speaking. I've come in to do it, Mr. Cregeen--I've come in to speak for Pete. He's fond of your daughter, Cæsar, and wants your good-will to marry her.”

“Lord-a-massy!” cried Nancy Joe.

“Dear heart alive!” muttered Grannie.

“Peter Quilliam!” said Cæsar, “did you say Peter?”

“I did, Mr. Cregeen, Peter Quilliam,” said Philip stoutly, “my friend Pete, a rough fellow, perhaps, and without much education, but the best-hearted lad in the island. Come now, Cæsar, say the word, sir, and make the young people happy.”

He almost foundered over that last word, but Cæsar kept him up with a searching look.

“Why, I picked him out of the streets, as you might say,” said Cæsar.

“So you did, Mr. Cregeen, so you did. I always thought you were a discerning man, Cæsar. What do you say, Grannie? It's Cæsar for knowing a deserving lad when he sees one, eh?”

He gave another round of his cunning winks, and Grannie replied, “Aw, well, it's nothing against either of them anyway.”

Cæsar was gitting as straight as a crowbar and as grim as a gannet. “And when he left me, he gave me imperence and disrespeck.”

“But the lad meant no harm, father,” said Grannie; “and hadn't you told him to take to the road?”

“Let every bird hatch its own eggs, mother; it'll become you better,” said Cæsar. “Yes, sir, the lip of Satan and the imperence of sin.”

“Pete!” cried Philip, in a tone of incredulity; “why, he hasn't a thought about you that isn't out of the Prayer-book.”

Cæsar snorted. “No? Then maybe that's where he's going for his curses.”

“No curses at all,” said Nancy Joe, from the side of the table, “but a right good lad though, and you've never had another that's been a patch on him.”

Cæsar screwed round to her and said severely, “Where there's geese there's dirt, and where there's women there's talking.” Then turning back to Philip, he said in a tone of mock deference, “And may I presume, sir--a little question--being a thing like that's general understood--what's his fortune?”

Philip fell back in his chair. “Fortune? Well, I didn't think that you now----”

“No?” said Cæsar. “We're not children of Israel in the wilderness getting manna dropped from heaven twice a day. If it's only potatoes and herrings itself, we're wanting it three times, you see.”

Do what he would to crush it, Philip could not help feeling a sense of relief. Fate was interfering; the girl was not for Pete. For the first moment since he returned to the kitchen he breathed freely and fully. But then came the prick of conscience: he had come to plead for Pete, and he must be loyal; he must not yield; he must exhaust all his resources of argument and persuasion. The wild idea occurred to him to take Cæsar by force of the Bible.

“But think what the old book says, Mr. Cregeen, 'take no thought for the morrow'----”

“That's what Johnny Niplightly said, Mr. Christian, when he lit my kiln overnight and burnt my oats before morning.”.

“'But consider the lilies'----”

“I have considered them, sir; but I'm foiling still and mother has to spin.”

“And isn't Pete able to toil, too,” said Philip boldly. “Nobody 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 Cæsar.

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 aisément in your old days----”

“Give the lad my mill as well as my daughter, is that it, eh?” said Cæsar. “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, Cæsar,” 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 Cæsar.

“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 Cæsar; “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 bastard, 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 Cæsar 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 Cæsar. Rising to his feet at Cæsar'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. Cæsar 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.”