The following evening found Philip at “The Manx Fairy” again. Ross was there as usual, and he was laughing and talking in a low tone with Kate. This made Philip squirm on his chair, but Kate's behaviour tortured him. Her enjoyment of the man's jests was almost uproarious. She was signalling to him and peering up at him gaily. Her conduct disgusted Philip. It seemed to him an aggravation of her offence that as often as he caught the look of her face there was a roguish twinkle in the eye on his side, and a deliberate cast in his direction. This open disregard of the sanctity of a pledged word, this barefaced indifference to the presence of him who stood to represent it, was positively indecent. This was what women were! Deceit was bred in their bones.
It added to Philip's gathering wrath that Cæsar, who sat in shirt-sleeves making up his milling accounts from slates ciphered with crosses, and triangles, and circles, and half circles, was lifting his eyes from time to time to look first at them and then at him, with an expression of contempt.
At a burst of fresh laughter and a shot of the bright eyes, Philip surged up to his feet, thrust himself between Ross and Kate, turned his back on him and his face to her, and said in a peremptory voice, “Come into the parlour instantly—I have something to say to you.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Kate.
But she came, looking mischievous and yet demure, with her head down but her eyes peering under their long upper lashes.
“Why don't you send this fellow about his business?” said Philip.
Kate looked up in blank surprise. “What fellow?” she said.
“What fellow?” said Philip, “why, this one that is shillyshallying with you night after night.”
“You can never mean your own cousin, Philip?” said Kate.
“More's the pity if he is my cousin, but he's no fit company for you.”
“I'm sure the gentleman is polite enough.”
“So's the devil himself.”
“He can behave and keep his temper, anyway.”
“Then it's the only thing he can keep. He can't keep his character or his credit or his honor, and you should not encourage him.”
Kate's under lip began to show the inner half. “Who says I encourage him?”
“I do.”
“What right have you?”
“Haven't I seen you with my own eyes?”
Kate grew defiant. “Well, and what if you have?”
“Then you are a jade and a coquette.”
The word hissed out like steam from a kettle. Kate saw it coming and took it full in the face. She felt an impulse to scream with laughter, so she seized her opportunity and cried.
Philip's temper began to ebb. “That man would be a poor bargain, Kate, if he were twenty times the heir of Ballawhaine. Can't you gather from his conversation what his life and companions are? Of course it's nothing to me, Kate——”
“No, it's nothing to you,” whimpered Kate, from behind both hands.
“I've no right——”
“Of course not; you've no right,” said Kate, and she stole a look sideways.
“Only——”
Philip did not see the glance that came from the corner of Kate's eye.
“When a girl forgets a manly fellow, who happens to be abroad, for the first rascal that comes along with his dirty lands—”
Down went the hands with an impatient fling. “What are his lands to me?”
“Then it's my duty as a friend——”
“Duty indeed! Just what every old busybody says.”
Philip gripped her wrist. “Listen to me. If you don't send this man packing——”
“You are hurting me. Let go my arm.”
Philip flung it aside and said, “What do I care?”
“Then why do you call me a coquette?”
“Do as you like.”
“So I will. Philip! Philip! Phil! He's gone.”
It was twenty miles by coach and rail from Douglas to Sulby, but Philip was back at “The Manx Fairy” the next evening also. He found a saddle-horse linked to the gate-post and Ross inside the house with a riding-whip in his hand, beating the leg of his riding-breeches.
When Philip appeared, Kate began to look alarmed, and Ross to look ugly. Cæsar, who was taking his tea in the ingle, was having an unpleasant passage with Grannie in side-breaths by the fire.
“Bad, bad, a notorious bad liver and dirty with the tongue,” said Cæsar.
“Chut, father!” said Grannie. “The young man's civil enough, and girls will be girls. What's a word or a look or a laugh when you're young and have a face that's fit for anything.”
“Better her face should be pitted with smallpox than bring her to the pit of hell,” said Cæsar. “All flesh is grass: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth.”
Nancy Joe came from the dairy at that moment. “Gracious me I did you see that now?” she said. “I wonder at Kitty. But it's the way of the men, smiling and smiling and maning nothing.”
“Hm! They mane a dale,” growled Cæsar.
Ross had recovered from his uneasiness at Philip's entrance, and was engaged in some narration whereof the only words that reached the kitchen wereI knowandI knowrepeated frequently.
“You seem to know a dale, sir,” shouted Cæsar; “do you know what it is to be saved?”
There was silence for a moment, and then Ross, polishing his massive signet ring on his corduroy waistcoat, said, “Is that the old gentleman's complaint, I wonder?”
“My husband is a local preacher and always strong for salvation,” said Grannie by way of peace.
“Is that all?” said Ross. “I thought perhaps he had taken more wine than the sacrament.”
“You're my cross, woman,” muttered Cæsar, “but no cross no crown.”
“Lave women's matters alone, father; it'll become you better,” said Grannie.
“Laugh as you like, Mistress Cregeen; there's One above, there's One above.”
Ross had resumed his conversation with Kate, who was looking frightened. And listening with all his ears, Philip caught the substance of what was said.
“I'm due back by this time. There's the supper at Handsome Honey's, not to speak of the everlasting examinations. But somehow I can't tear myself away. Why not? Can't you guess? No? Not a notion? I would go to-morrow—Kitty, a word in your ear——”
“I believe in my heart that man is for kissing her,” said Cæsar. “If he does, then by—he's done it! Hould, sir.”
Cæsar had risen to his feet, and in a moment the house was in an uproar. Ross lifted his head like a cock. “Were you speaking to me, mister?” he asked.
“I was, and don't demane yourself like that again,” said Cæsar.
“Like what?” said Ross.
“Paying coort to a girl that isn't fit for you.”
Ross lifted his hat, “Do you mean this young lady?”
“No young lady at all, sir, but the daughter of a plain, respectable man that isn't going to see her fooled. Your hat to your head, sir. You'll be wanting it for the road.”
“Father!” cried Kate, in a voice of fear.
Cæsar turned his rough shoulder and said, “Go to your room, ma'am, and keep it for a week.”
“You may go,” said Ross. “I'll spare the old simpleton for your sake, Kate.”
“You'll spare me, sir?” cried Cæsar. “I've seen the day—but thank the Lord for restraining grace! Spare me? If you had said as much five-and-twenty years ago, sir, your head would have gone ringing against the wall.”
“I'll spare you no more, then,” said Ross. “Take that—and that.”
Amid screams from the women, two sounding blows fell on Cæsar's face. At the next instant Philip was standing between the two men.
“Come this way,” he said, addressing Ross.
“If I like,” Ross answered.
“This way, I tell you,” said Philip.
Ross snapped his fingers. “As you please,” he said, and then followed Philip out of the house.
Kate had run upstairs in terror, but five minutes afterwards she was on the road, with a face full of distress, and a shawl over head and shoulders. At the bridge she met Kelly, the postman.
“Which way have they gone,” she panted, “the young Ballawhaine and Philip Christian?”
“I saw them heading down to the Curragh,” said Kelly, and Kate in the shawl, flew like a bird over the ground in that direction.
The two young men went on without a word. Philip walked with long strides three paces in front, with head thrown back, pallid face and contracted features, mouth firmly shut, arms stiff by his side, and difficult and audible breathing. Ross slouched behind with an air of elaborate carelessness, his horse beside him, the reins over its head and round his arm, the riding-whip under his other arm-pit, and both his hands deep in the breeches pockets. There was no road the way they went, but only a cart track, interrupted here and there by a gate, and bordered by square turf pits half full of water.
The days were long and the light was not yet failing. Beyond the gorse, the willows, the reeds, the rushes and the sally bushes of the flat land, the sun was setting over a streak of gold on the sea. They had left behind them the smell of burning turf, of crackling sticks, of fish, and of the cowhouse, and were come into the atmosphere of flowering gorse and damp scraa soil and brine.
“Far enough, aren't we?” shouted Ross, but Philip pushed on. He drew up at last in an open space, where the gorse had been burnt away and its black remains desolated the surface and killed the odours of life. There was not a house near, not a landmark in sight, except a windmill on the sea's verge, and the ugly tower of a church, like the funnel of a steamship between sea and sky.
“We're alone at last,” he said hoarsely.
“We are,” said Ross, interrupting the whistling of a tune, “and now that you've got me here, perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me what we've come for.”
Philip made no more answer than to strip himself of his coat and waistcoat.
“You're never going to make a serious business of this stupid affair?” said Ross, leaning against the horse and slapping the sole of one foot with the whip.
“Take off your coat,” said Philip in a thick voice.
“Can I help it if a pretty girl——” began Ross.
“Will you strip?” cried Philip.
Ross laughed. “Ah! now I remember our talk of the other night. But you don't mean to say,” he said, flipping at the flies at the horse's head, “that because the little woman is forgetting the curmudgeon that's abroad——”
Philip strode up to him with clenched hands and quivering lips and said, “Will you fight?”
Ross laughed again, but the blood was in his face, and he said tauntingly, “I wouldn't distress myself, man. Daresay I'll be done with the girl before the fellow——”
“You're a scoundrel,” cried Philip, “and if you won't stand up to me——”
Ross flung away his whip. “If I must, I must,” he said, and then threw the horse's reins round the charred arm of a half-destroyed gorse tree.
A minute afterwards the young men stood face to face.
“Stop,” said Ross, “let me tell you first; it's only fair. Since I went up to London I've learnt a thing or two. I've stood up before men that can strip a picture; I've been opposite talent and I can peck a bit, but I've never heard that you can stop a blow.”
“Are you ready?” cried Philip.
“As you will. You shall have one round, you'll want no more.”
The young men looked badly matched. Ross, in riding-breeches and shirt, with red bullet head and sprawling feet, arms like an oak and veins like willow boughs. Philip in shirt and knickerbockers, with long fair hair, quivering face, and delicate figure. It was strength and some skill against nerve alone.
Like a rush of wind Philip came on, striking right and left, and was driven back by a left-hand body-blow.
“There, you've got it,” said Ross, smiling benignly. “Didn't I tell you? That's old Bristol Bull to begin with.”
Philip rushed on again, and came back with a smashing blow that cut his nether lip.
“You've got a second,” said Ross. “Have you had enough?”
Philip did not hear, but sprang fiercely at Ross once more. The next instant he was on the ground. Then Ross took on a manner of utter contempt. “I can't keep on flipping at you all night.”
“Mock me when you've beaten me,” said Philip, and he was on his feet again, somewhat blown, but fresh as to spirit and doggedly resolute.
“Toe the scratch, then,” said Ross. “I must say you're good at your gruel.”
Philip flung himself on his man a third time, and fell more heavily than before, under a flush hit that seemed to bury itself in his chest.
“I can't go on fighting a man that's as good for nothing as my old grandmother,” said Ross.
But his contempt was abating; he was growing uneasy; Philip was before him as fierce as ever.
“Fight your equal,” he cried.
“I'll fight you,” growled Philip.
“You're not fit. Give it up. And look, the dark is falling.”
“There's enough daylight yet. Come on.”
“Nobody is here to shame you.”
“Come on, I say.”
Philip did not wait, but sprang on his man like a tiger. Ross met his blow, dodged, feinted; they gripped, swinging to and fro; there was a struggle, and Philip fell again with a dull thud against the ground.
“Will you stop now?” said Ross.
“No, no, no,” cried Philip, leaping to his feet.
“I'll eat you up. I'm a glutton, I can tell you.” But his voice trembled, and Philip, blind with passion, laughed.
“You'll be hurt,” said Ross.
“What of that?” said Philip.
“You'll be killed.”
“I'm willing.”
Ross tried to laugh mockingly, but the hoarse gurgle choked in his throat. He began to tremble. “This man doesn't know when he's mauled,” he muttered, and after a loud curse he stood up afresh, with a craven and shifty look. His blows fell like scorching missiles, but Philip took them like a rock scoured with shingle, raining blood like water, but standing firm.
“What's the use?” cried Ross; “drop it.”
“I'll drop myself first,” said Philip.
“If you won't give it up, I will,” said Ross.
“You shan't,” said Philip.
“Take your victory if you like.”
“I won't.”
“Say you've licked me.”
“I'll do it first,” said Philip.
Ross laughed long and riotously, but he was trembling like a whipped cur. With a blob of foam on his lips he came up, collecting all his strength, and struck Philip a blow on the forehead that fell with the sound of a hammer on a coffin.
“Are you done?” he snuffled.
“No, by God,” cried Philip, black as ink with the burnt gorse from the ground, except where the blood ran red on him.
“This man means to kill me,” mumbled Ross. He looked round shiftily, and said, “I mean no harm by the girl.”
“You're a liar!” cried Philip.
With a glance of deep malignity, Ross closed with Philip again. It was now a struggle of right with wrong as well as nerve with strength. The sun had set under the sea, the sally bushes were shivering in the twilight, a flight of rooks were screaming overhead. Blows were no more heard. Ross gripped Philip in a venomous embrace, and dragged him on to one knee. Philip rose, Ross doubled round his waist, pushing him backward, and fell heavily on his breast, shouting with the growl of a beast, “You'll fight me, will you? Get up, get up!”
Philip did not rise, and Ross began dragging and lunging at him with brutal ferocity, when suddenly, where he bent double, a blow fell on his ear from behind, another and another, a hand gripped his shirt collar and choked him, and a voice cried, “Let go, you brute, let go, let go.”
Ross dropped Philip and swung himself round to return the attack.
It was the girl. “Oh, it's you, is it?” he panted. She was like a fury. “You brute, you beast, you toad,” she cried, and then threw herself over Philip.
He was unconscious. She lifted his head on to her lap, and, lost to all shame, to all caution, to all thought but one thought, she kissed him on the cheek, on the lips, on the eyes, on the forehead, crying, “Philip! oh, Philip, Philip!”
Ross was shuddering beside them. “Let me look at him,” he faltered, but Kate fired back with a glance like an arrow, and said, screaming like a sea-gull, “If you touch him again I'll strangle you.”
Ross caught a glimpse of Philip's face, and he was terrified. Going to a turf pit, he dipped both hands in the dub, and brought some water. “Take this,” he said, “for Heaven's sake let me bathe his head.”
He dashed the water on the pallid forehead, and then withdrew his eyes, while the girl coaxed Philip back to consciousness with fresh kisses and pleading words.
“Is he breathing? Feel his heart. Any pulsation? Oh, God!” said Ross, “it wasn't my fault.” He looked round with wild eyes; he meditated flight.
“Is he better yet?”
“What's it to you, you coward?” said Kate, with a burning glance. She went on with her work: “Come then, dear, come, come now.”
Philip opened his eyes in a vacant stare, and rose on his elbow. Then Kate fell back from him immediately, and began to cry quietly, being all woman now, and her moral courage gone again in an instant.
But the moral courage of Mr. Ross came back as quickly. He began to sneer and to laugh lightly, picked up his riding-whip and strode over to his horse.
“Are you hurt?” asked Kate, in a low tone.
“Is it Kate?” said Philip.
At the sound of his voice, in that low whisper, Kate's tears came streaming down.
“I hope youll forgive me,” she said. “I should have taken your warning.”
She wiped his face with the loose sleeve of her dress, and then he struggled to his feet.
“Lean on me, Philip.”
“No, no, I can walk.”
“Do take my arm.”
“Oh no, Kate, I'm strong enough.”
“Just to please me.”
“Well—very well.”
Ross looked on with jealous rage. His horse, frightened by the fight, had twirled round and round till the reins were twisted into a knot about the gorse stump, and as he liberated the beast he flogged it back till it flew around him. Then he vaulted to the saddle, tugged at the curb, and the horse reared. “Down,” he cried with an oath, and lashed brutally at the horse's head.
Meantime Kate, going past him with Philip on her arm, was saying softly, “Are you feeling better, Philip?”
And Ross, looking on in sulky meditation, sent a harsh laugh out of his hot throat, and said, “Oh, you can make your mind easy abouthim, if your other man fights for you like that you'll do. Thought you'd have three of them, did you? Or perhaps you only wanted me for your decoy? Why don't you kiss him now, when he can know it? But he's a beauty to take care of you for somebody else. Fighting for the other one, eh? Stuff and humbug! Take him home, and the curse of Judas on the brace of you.”
So saying, he burst into wild, derisive laughter, flogged his horse on the ears and the nose, shouted “Down, you brute, down!” and shot off at a gallop across the open Curragh.
Philip and Kate stood where he had left them till he had disappeared in the mist rising off the marshy land, and the hud of his horse's hoofs could be no more heard. Their heads were down, and though their arms were locked, their faces were turned half aside. There was silence for some time. The girl's eyelids quivered; her look was anxious and helpless. Then Philip said, “Let us go home,” and they began to walk together.
Not another word did they speak. Neither looked into the other's eyes. Their entwined arms slackened a little in a passionless asundering, yet both felt that they must hold tight or they would fall. It was almost as if Ross's parting taunt had uncovered their hearts to each other, and revealed to themselves their secret. They were like other children of the garden of Eden, driven out and stripped naked.
At the bridge they met Cæsar, Grannie, Nancy Joe, and half the inhabitants of Sulby, abroad with lanterns in search of them.
“They're here,” cried Cæsar. “You've chastised him, then! You'd bait his head off, I'll go bail. And I believe enough you'll be forgiven, sir. Yonder blow was almost bitterer than flesh can bear. Before my days of grace—but, praise the Lord for His restraining hand, the very minute my anger was up He crippled me in the hip with rheumatics. But what's this?” holding the lantern over his head; “there's blood on your face, sir?”
“A scratch—it's nothing,” said Philip.
“It's the women that's in every mischief,” said Cæsar.
“Lord bless me, aren't the women as good as the men?” said Nancy.
“H'm,” said Cæsar. “We're told that man was made a little lower than the angels, but about women we're just left to our own conclusions.”
“Scripture has nothing to do with Ross Christian, father,” said Grannie.
“The Lord forbid it,” said Cæsar. “What can you get from a cat but his skin? And doesn't the man come from Christian Ballawhaine!”
“If it comes to that, though, haven't we all come from Adam?” said Grannie.
“Yes; and from Eve too, more's the pity,” said Cæsar.
For some time thereafter Philip went no more to Sulby. He had a sufficient excuse. His profession made demand of all his energies. When he was not at work in Douglas he was expected to be at home with his aunt at Ballure. But neither absence nor the lapse of years served to lift him out of the reach of temptation. He had one besetting provocation to remembrance—one duty which forbade him to forget Kate—his pledge to Pete, his office asDooiney Molla. Had he not vowed to keep guard over the girl? He must do it. The trust was a sacred one.
Philip found a way out of his difficulty. The post was an impersonal and incorruptible go-between, so he wrote frequently. Sometimes he had news to send, for, to avoid the espionage of Cæsar, intelligence of Pete came through him; occasionally he had love-letters to enclose; now and then he had presents to pass on. When such necessity did not arise, he found it agreeable to keep up the current of correspondence. At Christmas he sent Christmas cards, on Midsummer Day a bunch of moss roses, and even on St. Valentine's Day a valentine. All this was in discharge of his duty, and everything he did was done in the name of Pete. He persuaded himself that he sank his own self absolutely. Having denied his eyes the very sight of the girl's face, he stood erect in the belief that he was a true and loyal friend.
Kate was less afraid and less ashamed. She took the presents from Pete and wore them for Philip. In her secret heart she thought no shame of this. The years gave her a larger flow of life, and made out of the bewitching girl a splendid woman, brought up to the full estate of maidenly beauty.
This change wrought by time on her bodily form caused the past to seem to her a very long way off. Something had occurred that made her a different being. She was like the elder sister of that laughing girl who had known Pete. To think of that little sister as having a kind of control over her was impossible. Kate never did think of it.
Nevertheless, she held her tongue. Her people were taken in by the episode of Ross Christian. According to their view, Kate loved the man and still longed for him, and that was why she never talked of Pete. Philip was disgusted with her unfaithfulness to his friend, and that was the reason of his absence. She never talked of Philip either, but they, on their part, talked of him perpetually, and fed her secret passion with his praises. Thus for three years these two were like two prisoners in neighbouring cells, very close and yet very far apart, able to hear each other's voices, yet never to see each other's faces, yearning to come together and to touch, but unable to do so because of the wall that stood between.
Since the fight, Cæsar had removed her from all duties of the inn, and one day in the spring she was in the gable house peeling rushes to make tallow candles when Kelly, the postman, passed by the porch, where Nancy Joe was cleaning the candle-irons.
“Heard the newses, Nancy?” said Kelly. “Mr. Philip Christian is let off two years' time and called to the bar.”
Nancy looked grave. “I'm sure the young gentleman is that quiet and studdy,” she said. “What are they doing on him?”
“Only making him a full advocate, woman,” said Kelly.
“You don't say?” said Nancy.
“He passed his examination before the Govenar's man yesterday.”
“Aw, there now!”
“I took the letter to Ballure this evening.”
“It's like you would, Mr. Kelly. That's the boy for you. I'm always saying it. 'Deed I am, though, but there's ones here that won't have it at all, at all.”
“Miss Kate, you mane? We know the raison. He's lumps in her porridge, woman. Good-day to you, Nancy.”
“Yes, it's doing a nice day enough, Mr. Kelly,” said Nancy, and the postman passed on.
Kate came gliding out with a brush in her hand. “What was the postman saying?”
“That—Mr.—Philip—Christian—has been passing—for an advocate,” said Nancy deliberately.
Kate's eyes glistened, and her lips quivered with delight; but she only said, with an air of indifference, “Was that all his news, then?”
“All? D'ye say all?” said Nancy, digging away at the candle-irons. “Listen to the girl! And him that good to her while her promist man's away!”
Kate shelled her rush, and said, with a sigh and a sly look, “I'm afraid you think a deal too much of him, Nancy.”
“Then I'll be making mends,” said Nancy, “for some that's thinking a dale too little.”
“I'm quite at a loss to know what you see in him,” said Kate.
“Now, you don't say!” said Nancy with scorching irony. Then, banging her irons, she added, “I'm not much of a woman for a man myself. They're only poor helpless creatures anyway, and I don't approve of them. But if I was for putting up with one of the sort, he wouldn't have legs and arms like a dolly, and a face like curds and whey, and coat and trousers that loud you can hear them coming up the street.”
With this parting shot at Ross Christian, Nancy flung into the house, thinking she had given Kate a dressing that she would never forget. Kate was radiant. Such abuse was honey on her lips, such scoldings were joy-bells in her ears. She took silent delight in provoking these attacks. They served her turn both ways, bringing her delicious joy at the praise of Philip, and at the same time preserving her secret.
Latter that day Cæsar came in from the mill with the startling intelligence that Philip was riding up on the highroad.
“Goodness mercy!” cried Nancy, and she fled away to wash her face. Grannie with a turn of the hand settled her cap, and smoothed her grey hair under it. Kate herself had disappeared like a flash of light; but as Philip dismounted at the gate, looking taller, and older, and paler, and more serious, but raising his cap from his fair head and smiling a smile like sunshine, she was coming leisurely out of the porch with a bewitching hat over her wavy black hair and a hand-basket over her arm.
Then there was a little start of surprise and recognition, a short catch of quick breath and nervous salutations.
“I'm going round to the nests,” she said. “I suppose you'll step in to see mother.”
“Time enough for that,” said Philip. “May I help you with the eggs first? Besides, I've something to tell you.”
“Is it that you're 'admitted?'” said Kate.
“That's nothing,” said Philip. “Only the A B C, you know. Getting ready to begin, so to speak.”
They walked round to the stackyard, and he tied up his horse and gave it hay. Then, while they poked about for eggs on hands and knees among the straw, under the stacks and between the bushes, she said she hoped he would have success, and he answered that success was more than a hope to him now—it was a sort of superstition. She did not understand this, but looked up at him from all fours with brightening eyes, and said, “What a glorious thing it is to be a man!”
“Is it?” said Philip. “And yet I remember somebody who said she wasn't sorry to be a girl.”
“Did I?” said Kate. “But that was long ago. AndIremember somebody else who pretended he was glad I was.”
“That was long ago too,” said Philip, and both laughed nervously.
“What strange things girls are—and boys!” said Kate with a matronly sigh, burying her face in a nest where a hen was clucking and two downy chicks were peeping from her wing.
They went through to the orchard, where the trees were breaking into eager blossoms.
“I've another letter for you from Pete,” said Philip.
“So?” said Kate.
“Here it is,” said Philip.
“Won't you read it?” said Kate.
“But it's yours; surely a girl doesn't want anybody else——”
“Ah! but you're different, though; you know everything—and besides—read it aloud, Philip.”
With her basket of eggs on one arm, and the other hand on the outstretched arm of an apple-tree, she waited while he read:
“Dearest Kitty,—How's yourself, darling, and how's Philip, and how's Grannie? I'm getting on tremendous. They're calling me Captain now—Capt'n Pete. Sort of overseer at the Diamond Mines outside Kimberley. Regular gentleman's life and no mistake. Nothing to do but sit under a monstrous big umbrella, with a paper in your fist, like a chairman, while twenty Kaffirs do the work. Just a bit of a tussle now and then to keep you from dropping off. When a Kaffir turns up a diamond, you grab it, and mark it on the time-sheet against his name. They've got their own outlandish ones, but we always christen them ourselves—Sixpence, Seven Waistcoats, Shoulder-of-Mutton, Twopenny Trotter—anything you like. When a Kaffir strikes a diamond, he gets a commission, and so does his overseer. I'm afraid I'm going to be getting terrible rich soon. Tell the old man I'll be buying that har-monia yet. They are a knowing lot, though, and if they can get up a dust to smuggle a stone when you're not looking, they will. Then they sell it to the blackleg Boers, and you've got to raise your voice like an advocate to get it back somehow. But the Boers can't do no harm to you with their fists at all—it's playing. They're a dirty lot, wonderful straight like some of the lazy Manx ones, especially Black Tom. When they see us down at the river washing, they say, 'What dirty people the English must be if they have to wash themselves three times a day—we only do it once a week.' When a Kaffir steals a stone we usually court-martial him, but I don't hold with it, as the floggers on the compound can't be trusted; so I always lick my own niggers, being more kinder, and if anybody does anything against me, they lynch him.”
Kate made a little patient sigh and turned away her head, while Philip, in a halting voice, went on—
“Darling Kitty, I am longing mortal for a sight of your sweet face. When the night comes, and I'll be lying in the huts—boards on the ground, and good canvas, and everything comfortable—says I to the boys, 'Shut your faces, men, and let a poor chap sleep;' but they never twig the darkness of my meaning. I'll only be wanting a bit of quiet for thinking of.... with the stars atwinkling down.... She's looking at that one.... Shine on my angel....”
“Really, Kate,” faltered Philip, “I can't——”
“Give it to me, then,” said Kate.
She was tugging with her trembling hand at the arm of the apple-tree, and the white blossom was raining over her from the rowels of the thin boughs overhead, like silver fish falling from the herring-net. Taking the letter, she glanced over the close—
“darlin Kirry how is the mackral this saison and is the millin doing middling and I wonder is the hens all layin and is the grace gone out of the mares leg yet and how is the owl man and is he still playin hang with the texes. Theer is a big chap heer that is strait like him he hath swallowed the owl Book and cant help bring it up agen but dear Kirry no more at present i axpect to be Home sune bogh, to see u all tho I dont no azactly With luv your luving swateart peat.”
When she had finished the letter, she turned it over in her fingers, and gave another patient little sigh. “You didn't read it as it was spelled, Philip,” she said.
“What odds if the spelling is uncertain when the love is as sure as that?” said Philip.
“Did he write it himself, think you?” said Kate.
“He signed it, anyway, and no doubt indited it too; but perhaps one of the Gills boys held the pen.”
She coloured a little, slipped the letter down her dress into her pocket, and looked ashamed.
This shame at Pete's letter tormented Philip, and he stayed away again. His absence stimulated Kate and made Philip himself ashamed. She was vexed with him that he did not see that all this matter of Pete was foolishness. It was absurd to think of a girl marrying a man whom she had known when he was a boy. But Philip was trying to keep the bond sacred, and so she made her terms with it. She used Pete as a link to hold Philip.
After the lapse of some months, in which Philip had not been seen at Sulby, she wrote him a letter. It was to say how anxious she had been at the length of time since she had last heard from Pete, and to ask if he had any news to relieve her fears. The poor little lie was written in a trembling hand which shook honestly enough, but from the torment of other feelings.
Philip answered the letter in person. Something had been speaking to him day and night, like the humming of a top, finding him pretexts on which to go; but now he had to make excuses for staying so long away. It was evening. Kate was milking, and he went out to her in the cowhouse.
“We began to think we were to see no more of you,” she said, over the rattle of the milk in the pail.
“I've—I've been ill,” said Philip.
The rattle died to a thin hiss. “Very ill?” she asked.
“Well, no—not seriously,” he answered.
“I never once thought of that,” she said. “Something ought to have told me. I've been reproaching you, too.”
Philip felt shame of his subterfuge, but yet more ashamed of the truth; so he leaned against the door and watched in silence. The smell of hay floated down from the loft, and the odour of the cow's breath came in gusts as she turned her face about. Kate sat on the milking-stool close by the ewer, and her head, on which she wore a sun-bonnet, she leaned against the cow's side.
“No news of Pete, then? No?” she said.
“No,” said Philip.
Kate dug her head deeper in the cow, and muttered, “Dear Pete! So simple, so natural.”
“He is,” said Philip.
“So good-hearted, too.”
“Yes.”
“And such a manly fellow—any girl might like him,” said Kate.
“Indeed, yes,” said Philip.
There was silence again, and two pigs which had been snoring on the manure heap outside began to snort their way home. Kate turned her head so that the crown of the sun-bonnet was toward Phillip, and said—
“Oh, dear! Can there be anything so terrible as marrying somebody you don't care for?”
“Nothing so bad,” said Philip.
The mouth of the sun-bonnet came round. “Yes, there's one thing worse, Philip.”
“No?”
“Not having married somebody you do,” said Kate, and the milk rattled like hail.
In the straw behind. Kate there was a tailless Manx cat with three tailed kittens, and Philip began to play with them. Being back to back with Kate, he could keep his countenance.
“This old Horney is terrible for switching,” said Kate, over her shoulder. “Don't you think you could hold her tail?”
That brought them face to face again. “It's so sweet to have some one to talk to about Pete,” said Kate.
“Yes?”
“I don't know how I could bear his long absence but for that.”
“Are you longing so much, Kate?”
“Oh, no, not longing—not to say longing. Only you can't think what it is to be... have you never been yourself, Philip?”
“What?” “Hold it tight... in love? No?”
“Well,” said Philip, speaking at the crown of the sun-bonnet. “Ha! ha! well, not properly perhaps—I don't—I can hardly say, Kate.”
“There! You've let it go, after all, and she's covered me with the milk! But I'm finished, anyway.”
Kate was suddenly radiant. She kissed Horney, and hugged her calf in the adjoining stall; and as they crossed the haggard, Philip carrying the pail, she scattered great handfuls of oats to a cock and his two hens as they cackled their way to roost.
“You'll be sure to come again soon, Philip, eh? It's so sweet to have some one to remind me of——” but Pete's name choked her now. “Not that I'm likely to forget him—now is that likely? But it's such a weary time to be left alone, and a girl gets longing. Did I now? Give me the milk, then. Did I say I wasn't? Well, you can't expect a girl to bealwaysreasonable.”
“Good-bye, Kate.”
“Yes, you had better go now—good-bye.”
Philip went away in pain, yet in delight, with a delicious thrill, and a sense of stifling hypocrisy. He had felt like a fool. Kate must have thought him one. But better she should think him a fool than a traitor. It was all his fault. Only for him the girl would have been walled round by her love for Pete. He would come no more.