The more Kate realised that she was in the position of a bad woman, the more she struggled to be a good one. She flew to religion as a refuge. There was no belief in her religion, no faith, no creed, no mystical transports, but only fear, and shame, and contrition. It was fervent enough, nevertheless. On Sunday morning she went to The Christians, on Sunday afternoon to church, on Sunday evening to the Wesleyan chapel, and on Wednesday night to the mission-house of the Primitives. Her catholicity did not please her father. He looked into her quivering face, and asked if she had broken any commandment in secret. She turned pale, and answered “No.”
Pete followed her wherever she went, and, seeing this, some of the baser sort among the religious people began to follow him. They abused each other badly in their efforts to lay hold of his money-bags. “You'll never go over to yonder lot,” said one. “They're holding to election—a soul-destroying doctrine.” “A respectable man can't join himself to Cowley's gang,” said another. “They're denying original sin, and aren't a ha'p'orth better than infidels.”
Pete took the measure of them all, down to the watch-pockets of their waistcoats.
“You remind me,” said he, “when you're a-gate on your doctrines, of the Kaffirs out at Kimberley. If one of them found an ould hat in the compound that some white man had thrown away, they'd light a camp-fire after dark, and hould a reg'lar Tynwald Coort on it. There they'd be squatting round on their haunches, with nothing to be seen of them but their eyes and their teeth, and there'd be as many questions as the Catechism. 'Whofound it!' says one. 'Wheredid he find it?' says another. 'Ifhehadn't found it, who else would have found it?' That's how they'd be going till two in the morning, and the fire dead out, and the lot of them squealing away same as monkeys in the dark. And all about an ould hat with a hole in it, not worth a ha'penny piece.”
“Blasphemy,” they cried. “But still and for all, you give to the widow and lend to the Lord—you practise the religion you don't believe in, Cap'n Quilliam.”
“There's a pair of us, then.” said Pete, “for you believe in the religion you don't practise.”
But Cæsar got Pete at last, in spite of his scepticism. The time came for the annual camp-meeting. Kate went off to it, and Pete followed like a big dog at her heels. The company assembled at Sulby Bridge, and marched through the village to a revival chorus. They stopped at a field of Cæsar's in the glen—it was last year's Melliah field—and Cæsar mounted a cart which had been left there to serve as a pulpit. Then they sang again, and, breaking up into many companies, went off into little circles that were like gorse rings on the mountains. After that they reassembled to the strains of another chorus, and gathered afresh about the cart for Cæsar's sermon.
It dealt with the duty of sinless perfection. There were evil men and happy sinners in the island these days, who were telling them it was not good to be faultless in this life, because virtue begot pride, and pride was a deadly sin. There were others who were saying that because a man must repent in order to be saved, to repent he had to sin. Doctrines of the devil—don't listen to them. Could a man in the household of faith live one second without committing sin? Of course he could. One minute? Certainly. One hour? No doubt of it. Then, if a man could live one hour without sin, he could live one day, one week, one month, one year—nay, a whole lifetime.
In getting thus far, Cæsar had worked himself into a perspiration, and he took off his coat, hung it over the cartwheel, and went on in his shirt-sleeves. Let them make no excuses for backsliders. It was a trick of the devil to deal with you, and forget to pay strap (the price). It was an old rule and a good one that, if any were guilty of the sins of the flesh, they should be openly punished in this world, that their sins might not be counted against them in the day of the Lord.
Cæsar threw off his waistcoat and finished with a passionate exhortation, calling upon his hearers to deliver themselves of secret sins. If oratory is to be judged of by its effects, Cæsar's sermon was a great oration. It began amid the silence of his own followers, and thetschtsandpshawsof a little group of his enemies, who lounged on the outside of the crowd to cast ridicule on the “swaddler” and the “publican preacher.” But it ended amid loud exclamations of praise and supplications from all his hearers, sighing and groaning, and the bodily clutching of one another by the arm in paroxysms of fear and rapture.
When Cæsar's voice died down like a wave of the sea, somebody leapt up from the grass to pray. And before the first prayer had ended, a second was begun. Meantime the penitents had begun to move inward through the throng, and they fell weeping and moaning on their knees about the cart. Kate was among them, and, when she took her place, Pete still held by her side A strong shuddering passed over her shoulders, and her wet eyes were on the grass. Pete took her hand, and feeling how it trembled, his own eyes also filled. Above their heads Cæsar was towering with fiery eyes and face aflame. In a momentary pause between two prayers, he tossed his voice up in a hymn. The people joined him at the second bar, and then the wailing of the penitents was drowned in a general shout of the revival tune—
“If some poor wandering child of ThineHave spurned to-day the voice divine,Now, Lord, the gracious work begin,Let him no more lie down in sin.”
Kate sobbed aloud—poor vessel of human passions tossed about, tormented by the fire that was consuming her.
As the penitents grew calmer, they rose one by one to give their experience of Satan and salvation. At length Cæsar seized his opportunity and said, “And now Brother Quilliam will give us his experience.”
Pete rose from Kate's side with tearful eyes amid a babel of jubilation, most of it facetious. “Be of good cheer, Peter, be not afraid.”
“I've not much to tell,” said Pete—“only a story of backsliding. Before I earned enough to carry me up country, I worked a month at Cape Town with the boats. My master was a pious old Dutchman getting the name of Jan. One Saturday night a big ship lost her anchor outside, and on Sunday morning forty pounds was offered for finding it. All the boatmen went out except Jan. 'Six days shalt thou labour,' says he, 'but the seventh is the Sabbath.'”
Pete's address was here punctuated by loud cries of thanksgiving.
“All day long he was seeing the boats beating up the bay, so, to keep out of temptation, he was going up to the bedroom and pulling the blind and getting down on his knees and wrastling like mad. And something out of heaven was saying to him, 'It's the Lord's day, Jannie; they'll not get a ha'p'orth.' Neither did they; but when Jan's watch said twelve o'clock midnight the pair of us were going off like rockets. Well, we hadn't been ten minutes on the water before our grapplings had hould of that anchor.”
There were loud cries of “Glory!”
“Jan was shouting, 'The Lord has put us atop of it as straight as the lid of a taypot!'”
Great cries of “Hallelujah!”
“But when we came ashore we found Jan's watch was twenty minutes fast, and that was the end of the ould man's religion.”
That day the word went round that both Pete and Kate had been converted. Their names were entered in Class, and they received their quarterly tickets.
Next morning Kate set out to church for her churching. Her household duties had lost their interest by this time, and she left Nancy to cook the dinner. Pete had volunteered to take charge of the child. This he began to do by establishing himself with his pipe in an armchair by the cradle, and looking steadfastly down into it until the little one awoke. Then he rocked it, rummaged his memory for a nursery song to quiet it, and smoked and sang together.
“A frog he would a-wooing go,Kitty alone, Kitty alone,(Puff, puff.)A wonderful likely sort of a beau,Kitty alone and I!”(Puff, puff, puff.)
The sun was shining in at the doorway, and a man's shadow fell across the cradle-head. It was Philip. Pete put his mouth out into the form of an unspoken “Hush,” and Philip sat down in silence, while Pete went on with his smoke and his song.
“But when her husband rat came home,Kitty alone, Kitty alone,Pray who's been here since I've been gone?Kitty alone and I!”(Puff, Puff)
Pete had got to the middle of the verse about “the worthy gentleman,” when the low whine in the cradle lengthened to a long breath and stopped.
“Gone off at last, God bless it,” said Pete. “And how's yourself, Philip? And how goes the petition?”
With his head on his hand, Philip was gazing absently into the fire, and he did not hear.
“How goes the petition?” said Pete.
“It was that I came to speak of,” said Philip. “Sorry to say it has had no effect but a bad one. It has only drawn attention to the fact that Manx fishermen pay no harbour dues.”
“And right too,” said Pete. “The harbours are our fathers' harbours, and were freed to us forty years ago.”
“Nevertheless,” said Philip, “the dues are to be demanded. The Governor has issued an order.”
“Then we'll rise against it—every fisherman in the island,” said Pete. “And when they're making you Dempster, you'll back us up in the Tynwald Coort.”
“Take care, Pete, take care,” said Philip.
Then Kate came in from church, and Pete welcomed her with a shout. Philip rose and bowed in silence. The marks of the prayers of the week were on her face, but they had brought her no comfort. She had been constantly promising herself consolation from religion, but every fresh exercise of devotion had seemed to tear open the wound from which she bled to death.
She removed her cloak and stepped to the cradle. The child was sleeping peacefully, but she convinced herself that it must be unwell. Her own hands were cold and moist, and when she touched the child she thought its skin was clammy. Presently her hands became hot and dry, and when she touched the child again she thought its forehead was feverish.
“I'm sure she's ill,” she said.
“Chut! love,” said Pete; “no more ill than I am.”
But, to calm her fears, he went off for the doctor. The doctor was away in the country, and was not likely to be back for hours. Kate's fears increased. Every time she looked at the child she applied to it the symptoms of her own condition.
“My child is dying—I'm sure it is,” she cried.
“Nonsense, darling,” said Pete. “Only an hour ago it was looking up as imperent as a tomtit.”
At last a new terror seized her, and she cried, “My child is dying unbaptized.”
“Well, we'll soon mend that, love,” said Pete. “I'll be going off for the parson.” And he caught up his hat and went out.
He called on Parson Quiggin, who promised to follow immediately. Then he went on to Sulby to fetch Cæsar and Grannie and some others, having no fear for the child's life, but some hope of banishing Kate's melancholy by the merriment of a christening feast.
Meanwhile, Philip and Kate were alone with the little one, save in the intervals of Nancy's coming and going between the hall and the kitchen. She was restless, and full of expectation, starting at every sound and every step. He could see that she had gone whole nights without sleep, and was passing through an existence that was burning itself away.
Do what he would to explain her sufferings as the common results of childbirth, he could not help resolving them in the old flattering solution. She was paying the penalty of having married the wrong man. And she was to blame. Whatever the compulsion put upon her, she ought to have withstood it. There was no situation in life from which it was not possible to escape. Hadhenot found a way out of a situation essentially the same? Thus a certain high pride in his own conduct took possession of him even in the presence of Kate's pain.
But his tenderness fought with his self-righteousness. He looked at her piteous face and his strength almost ebbed away. She looked up into his eyes and affectionate pity almost overwhelmed him. Once or twice she seemed about to say something, but she did not speak, and he said little. Yet it wanted all his resolution not to take her in his arms and comfort her, not to mingle his tears with hers, not to tell her of six months spent in vain in the effort to wipe her out of his heart, not to whisper of cheerless days and of nights made desolate with the repetition of her name. But no, he would be stronger than that. It was not yet too late to walk the path of honour. He would stand no longer between husband and wife.
Pete came back, bringing Grannie and Cæsar. The parson arrived soon after them. Kate was sitting with the child in her lap, and brooding over it like a bird above its nest. The child was still sleeping the sleep of health and innocence, but the mother's eyes were wild.
“Bogh, bogh!” said Grannie, and she kissed her daughter. Kate made no response. Nancy Joe grew red about the eyelids and began to blow her nose.
“Here's the prazon, darling,” whispered Pete, and Kate rose to her feet. The company rose with her, and stood in a half-circle before the fire. It was now between daylight and dark, and the firelight flashed in their faces.
“Are the godfather and godmothers present?” the parson asked.
“Mr. Christian will stand godfather, parzon; and Nancy and Grannie will be godmothers.”
Nancy took the child out of Kate's arms, and the service for private baptism began with the tremendous words, “Dearly beloved, forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in si——”
The parson stopped. Kate had staggered and almost fallen. Pete put his arm around her to keep her up, and then the service went on.
Presently the parson turned to Philip with a softening voice and an inclination of the head.
“Dost thou, in the name of this child, renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of 'the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow nor be led by them?”
And Philip answered, in a firm, low voice, “I renounce them all.”
The parson took the child from Nancy. “Name this child.”
Nancy looked at Kate, but Kate, who was breathing violently, gave no sign.
“Kate,” whispered Pete; “Kate, of coorse.”
“Katherine,” said Nancy, and in that name the child was baptized.
Dr. Mylechreest came in as the service ended. Grannie held little Katherine up to him, and he controlled his face and looked at her.
“There's not much amiss with the child,” he said.
“I knew it,” shouted Pete.
“But perhaps the mother is a little weak and nervous,” he added quietly.
“Coorse she is, the bogh,” cried Pete.
“Let her see more company,” said the doctor.
“She shall,” said Pete.
“If that doesn't do, send her away for awhile.”
“I will.”
“Fresh scenes, fresh society; out of the island, by preference.”
“I'm willing.”
“She'll come back another woman.”
“I'll put up with the same one,” said Pete; and, while the company laughed, he flung open the door, and cried “Come in!” and half a dozen men who had been waiting outside trooped into the hall. They entered with shy looks because of the presence of great people.
“Now for a pull of jough, Nancy,” cried Pete.
“Not too much excitement either,” said the doctor, and with that warning he departed. The parson went with him. Philip had slipped out first, unawares to anybody. Grannie carried little Katherine to the kitchen, and bathed her before the fire. Kate was propped up with pillows in the armchair in the corner. Then Nancy brought the ale, and Pete welcomed it with a shout. Cæsar looked alarmed and rose to go.
“The drink's your own, sir,” said Pete; “stop and taste it.”
But Cæsar couldn't stay; it would scarcely be proper.
“You don't christen your first granddaughter every day,” said Pete. “Enjoy yourself while you're alive, sir; you'll be a long time dead.”
Cæsar disappeared, but the rest of the company took Pete's counsel, and began to make themselves comfortable.
“The last christening I was at was yesterday,” said John the Clerk. “It was Christian Killip's little one, before she was married, and it took the water same as any other child.”
“The last christening I was at was my own,” said Black Tom, “when I was made an in inheriter, but I've never inherited yet.”
“That's truth enough,” said an asthmatic voice from the backstairs.
“Well, the last christening I was at was at Kimberley,” said Pete, “and I was the parzon myself that day. Yes, though, Parzon Pete. And godfather and godmother as well, and the baby was Peter Quilliam, too. Aw, it was no laughing matter at all. There's always a truck of women about a compound, hanging on to the boys like burrs. Dirty little trousses of a rule, but human creatures for all. One of them had a child by somebody, and then she came to die, and couldn't take rest because it hadn't been christened. There wasn't a pazon for fifty miles, anywhere, and it was night-time, too, and the woman was stretched by the camp-fire and sinking. 'What's to be done?' says the men.I'lldo it,' says I, and I did. One of the fellows got a breakfast can of water out of the river, and I dipped my hand in it. 'What's the name,' says I; but the poor soul was too far gone for spaking. So I gave the child my own name, though I didn't know the mother from Noah's aunt, and the big chaps standing round bareheaded began to blubber like babies. 'I baptize thee, Peter Quilliam, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.' Then the girl died happy and aisy, and what for shouldn't she? The words were the same, and the water was the same, and if the hand wasn't as clane as usual, maybe Him that's above wouldn't bother about the diff'rance.”
Kate got up with a flush on her cheeks. The room had become too close. Pete helped her into the parlour, where a bright fire was burning, then propped and wrapped her up afresh, and, at her own entreaty, returned to his guests. The company had increased by this time, and there were women and girls among them. They went on to sing and to playt and at last to dance.
Kate heard them. Through the closed door between the hall and the parlour their merriment came to her. At intervals Pete put in his head, brimming over with laughter, and cried in a loud whisper, “Did you hear that, Kate? It's rich!”
At length Philip came, too, with his hat in one hand and a cardboard box in the other. “The godfather's present to little Katherine,” he said.
Kate opened the lid, and drew out a child's hood in scarlet plush.
“You are very good,” she said vacantly.
“Don't let us talk of goodness,” he answered; and he turned to go.
“Wait,” she faltered. “I have something to say to you. Shut the door.”
She tried to speak, but at first she could not.
“Are you unhappy, Kate?” he faltered.
“Can't you see?” she answered.
He sat down by the fire, and leaned his face on his hands. “Yes, we have both suffered,” he said, in a low tone.
“Why did you let me marry him?”
Philip raised his head. “How could I have hindered you?”
“How? Do you ask me how?” She spoke with some bitterness, but he answered quietly.
“I tried, Kate, but I could do nothing. You seemed determined. Do what I would to prevent, to delay, to stop your marriage altogether, the more you hastened and hurried it. Then I thought to myself, Well, perhaps it is best. She is trying to forget and forgive, and begin again. What right have I to stand in her way? Haven't I wronged her enough already? A good man offers her his love, and she is taking it. Let her do so, if she can, God help her! I may suffer, but I am nothing to her now. Let me go my way.”
She put her arms on the table, and hid her face in them. “Oh, I cannot bear it,” she said.
He rose to his feet slowly. “If it is my presence here that hurts you, Kate, I will go away. It has been but a painful pleasure to come, and I have been forced to take it. You will acquit me of coming of my own choice, Kate. But I will not torment you. I will go away, and never come again.”
She lifted her face, and said in a passionate whisper, “Take me with you.”
He shook his head. “That's impossible, Kate. You are married now. Your husband loves you dearly. He is a better man than I am, a thousand, thousand times.”
“Do you think I don't know what he is?” she cried, throwing herself back. “That's why I can't live with him. It's killing me. I tell you I can't bear it,” she cried, rising to her feet. “Love me! Haven't I tried to make myself lovehim. Haven't I tried to be a good wife! I can't—I can't. He never speaks but he torments me. Nothing can happen but it cuts me through and through. I can't live in this house. The walls are crushing me, the ceiling is falling on me, the air is stifling me. I tell you I shall die if you do not take me out of it. Take me, Philip, take me, take me!”
She caught him by the arm imploringly, but he only dropped his head down between both hands, saying in a deep thick voice, “Hush, Kate, hush! I cannot and I will not. You are mad to think of it.”
Then she sank down into the chair again, breathless and inert, and sobbing deep, low sobs. The sound of dancing came from the hall, with cries of “Hooch!” and the voice of Pete shouting—
“Hit the floor with heel and toe'Till heaven help the boords below.”
“Yes, I am mad, or soon will be,” she said in a hard way. “I thought of that this morning when I crossed the river coming home from church. It would soon be overthere, I thought. No more trouble, no more dreams, no more waking in the night to hear the breathing of the one beside me, and the voice out of the darkness crying——”
“Kate, what are you saying?” interrupted Philip.
“Oh, you needn't think I'm a bad woman because I ask you take me away from my husband. If I were that, I could brazen it out perhaps, and live on here, and pretend to forget; many a woman does, they say. And I'm not afraid that he will ever find me out either. I have only to close my lips, and he will never know. ButIshall know, Philip Christian,” she said, with a defiant look into his eyes as he raised them.
Her reproaches hurt him less than her piteous entreaties, and in a moment she was sobbing again. “Oh, what can God do but let me die! I thought He would when the child came; but He did not, and then—am I a wicked woman, after all?—I prayed that He would take my innocent baby, anyway.”
But she dashed the tears away in anger at her weakness, and said, “I'm not a bad woman, Philip Christian; and that's why I won't live here any longer. There is something you have never guessed, and I have never told you; but I must tell you now, for I can keep my secret no longer.”
He raised his head with a noise in his ears that was like the flapping of wings in the dark.
“Your secret, Kate?”
“How happy I was,” she said. “Perhaps I was to blame—I loved you so, and was so fearful of losing you. Perhaps you thought of all that had passed between us as something that would go back and back as time went on and on. But it has been coming the other way ever since. Yes, and as long as I live and as long as the child lives——”
Her voice quivered like the string of a bow and stopped. He rose to his feet.
“The child, Kate? Did you say the child?”
She did not answer at once, and then she muttered, with her head down, “Didn't I tell you there was something you had never guessed?”
“And is it that?” he said in a fearful whisper.
“Yes.”
“You are sure? You are not deceiving yourself? This is not hysteria?”
“No.”
“You mean that the child——”
“Yes.”
His questions had come in gasps, like short breakers out of a rising sea; her answers had fallen like the minute-gun above it. Then, in the silence, Pete's voice came through the wall. He was singing a rough old ditty—
“It was to Covent Gardens I chanced for to go,To see some of the prettiest flowers which in the gardens grow.”
Nancy came in with a scuttle of coals. “The lil one's asleep,” she said, going down on her knees at the fire. She had left the door ajar, and Pete's song was rolling into the room—
“The first was lovely Nancy, so delicate and fair,The other was a vargin, and she did laurels wear.”
“Grannie bathed her, and she's like a lil angel in the cot there,” said Nancy. “And, 'Dear heart alive, Grannie,' says I,' the straight she's like her father when she's sleeping.'”
Nancy brushed the hearth and went off. As she closed the door, Pete's voice ebbed out.
Philip's lips trembled, his eyes wandered over the floor, he grew very pale, he tried to speak and could not. All his self-pride was overthrown in a moment The honour in which he had tried to stand erect as in a suit of armour was stripped away. Unwittingly he had been laying up an account with Nature. He had forgotten that a sin has consequences. Nature did not forget. She had kept her own reckoning. He had struggled to believe that after all he was a moral man, a free man; but Nature was a sterner moralist; she had chained him to the past, she had held him to himself.
He was still by the fire with his head down. “Did you know this before you were married to Pete?” he asked, without looking up.
“Hadn't I wronged him enough without that?” she answered.
“But did you think of it as something that might perhaps occur?”
“And if I did, what then?”
“If you had told me, Kate, nothing and nobody should have come between us—no,” he said in a decisive voice, “not Pete nor all the world.”
“And wasn't it your own duty to remember? Was it for me to come to you and say, 'Philip, something may happen, I am frightened.'”
Was this the compulsion that had driven her into marriage with the wrong man? Was it all hysteria? Could she be sure? In any case she could not think this awful thought and continue to live with her husband.
“You are right,” he said, with his head still down. “You cannot live here any longer. This life of deception must end.”
“Then you will take me away, Philip?”
“I must, God forgive me, I must. I thought it would be sin. Butthatwas long ago. It will be punishment. If I had known before—and I have been coming here time and again—looking on his happiness—but if I had once dreamt—and then only an hour ago—the oath at its baptism—O God!”
Her tears were flowing again, but a sort of serenity had fallen on her now.
“Forgive me,” she whispered. “I tried to keep it to myself———”
“You could not keep it; you ought never to have kept it so long; the finger of God Himself ought to have burnt it out of you.”
He spoke harshly, and she felt pain; but there was a secret joy as well.
“I am ruining you, Philip,” she said, leaning over him.
“We are both drifting to ruin, Katherine,” he answered hoarsely. He was an abandoned hulk, with anchorage gone and no hand at the helm—broken, blind, rolling to destruction.
“I can offer you nothing, Kate, nothing but a hidden life, a life in the dark. If you come to me you will leave a husband who worships you for one to whom your life can never be joined. You will exchange a life of respect by the side of a good man for a life of humiliation, a life of shame. How can it be otherwise now? It is too late, too late!”
“Don't think of that, Philip. If you love me there can be no humiliation and no shame for me in anything. I love you, dear, I cannot help but love you. Only love me a little, Philip, just a little, dearest, and I will never care—no, I will never, never care whatever happens.”
Her passionate devotion swept down all his scruples. His throat thickened, his eyes grew dim. She put one arm tenderly on his shoulder.
“I will follow you wherever you must go,” she said. “You are my real husband, Philip, and always have been. We will love one another, and that will make up for everything. There is nothing I will not do to make you forget. If you must go away—far away—no matter where—I will go with you—and the child as well—and if we must be poor, I'll work with you.”
But he did not seem to hear her as he crouched with buried face by the fire. And, in the silence, Pete's muffled voice came again through the wall, singing his rugged ditty—
“I'm not engaged to any young man, I solemnly do swear,For I mane to be a vargin and still the laurels wear.”
Unconsciously their hands touched and their fingers intertwined.
“It will break his heart,” he muttered.
She only grasped his hand the closer, and crouched beside him. They were like two guilty souls at the altar steps, listening to the cheerful bell that swings in the tower for the happy world outside.
The door opened with a bang, and Pete rolled in, heaving with laughter.
“Did you think it was an earth wake, Philip?” he shouted, “or a blackbird a bit tipsy, eh? Bless me, man, it's good of you, though, sitting up in the chimney there same as a good ould jackdaw, keeping the poor wife company when her selfish ould husband is flirting his tail like a stonechat. The company's going now, Kitty. Will they say good-night to you? No? Have it as you like, bogh. You're looking tired, anyway. Dempster, the boys are asking when the ceremony is coming off, and will you come home to Ramsey that night? But, sakes alive, man, your eye is splashed with blood as bad as the egg of a robin.”
In his suffering and degradation, Philip felt as if he wished the earth to open and swallow him.
“Bloodshot, is it?” he said. “It's nothing. The ceremony? I'm to take the oath to-morrow at three o'clock at the Special Council in Douglas. Yes, I'll come back to Ballure for the night?”
“Driving, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Six o'clock, maybe?”
“Perhaps seven to eight.”
“That's all right. Mortal inquisitive the boys are, though. It's in the breed of these Manx ones, you know. Laxey way, now?”
“I'll drive by St. John's,” said Philip.
With a look of wondrous wisdom, and a knowing wink at Kate across Philip's back, Pete went out. Then there was much talking in low tones in the hall, and on the paths outside the house.
Philip understood what it meant. He glanced back at the door, leaned over to Kate, and said in a whisper, without looking into her eyes—
“The carriage shall come at half-past seven. It will stand for a moment in the Parsonage Lane, and then drive back to Douglas by way of Laxey.”
His face was broken and ugly with shame and humiliation. As she saw this she thought of her confession, and it seemed odious to her now; but there was an immense relief in the feeling that the crisis was over.
Pete was shouting at the porch, “Good-night, all! Goodnight!”
“Good-night!” came back in many voices.
Grannie came in muffled up to the throat. “However am I to get back to Sulby, and your father gone these two hours?” she said.
“Not him,” said Pete, coming behind with one eye screwed up and a finger to his nose. “The ould man's been on the back-stairs all night, listening and watching wonderful. His bark's tremenjous, but his bite isn't worth mentioning.”
And then a plaintive voice came from the hall, saying, “Are younevercoming home, mother? I'm worn out waiting for you.”
A little patch of youth had blossomed in Grannie since the baby came.
“Good-night, Pete,” she cried from the gate, “and many happy returns of the christening-day.”
“One was enough for yourself, mother,” said Cæsar, and then his voice went rumbling down the street.
Philip had come out into the hall. “You're time enough yet,” said Pete. “A glass first? No? I've sent over to the 'Mitre' for your mare. There she is; that's her foot on the path. I must be seeing you off, anyway. Where's that lantern, at all?”
They stepped out. Pete held the light while Philip mounted, and then he guided him, under the deep shadow of the old tree, to the road.
“Fine night for a ride, Phil. Listen! That's the churning of the nightjar going up to Ballure glen. Well, good-night! Good-night, and God bless you, old fellow!”
Kate inside heard the deadened sound of Philip's “Goodnight,” the crunch of the mare's hoofs on the gravel and the clink of the bit in her teeth. Then the porch door closed with a hollow vibration like that of a vault, the chain rattled across it, and Pete was back in the room.
“Whata night we've had of it! And now to bed.”
Kate was up early the next morning, but Pete was stirring before her. As soon as he had heard the news of Philip's appointment he had organised a drum and brass band to honour the day of the ceremony. The brass had been borrowed from Laxey, but the drum had been bought by Pete.
“Let's have a good sizable drum,” said he; “something with a voice in it, not a bit of a toot, going off with a pop like bladder-wrack.”
The parchment was three feet across, the steel rings round it were like the hoops of a dog-cart, and the black drumsticks, according to Pete, were like the bullet heads of two niggers. Jonaique Jelly played the clarionet, and John the Widow played the trombone, but the drum was the leading instrument. Pete himself played it. He pounded it, boomed it, thundered it. While he did so, his eyes blazed with rapture. A big heroic soul spoke out of the drum for Pete. With the strap over his shoulders, he did not trouble much about the tune. When the heart Leapt inside his breast, down came the nigger heads on to the mighty protuberance in front of it; and surely that was the end and aim of all music.
The band practised in the cabin which Pete had set up for a summer-house in the middle of his garden. They met at daybreak that morning for the last of their rehearsals. And, being up before their morning meal, they were constrained to smoke and drink as well as play. This they did out of a single pipe and a single pot, which each took up from the table in turn as it fell to his part to have a few bars' rest.
While their muffled melody came to the house through the wooden walls and the dense smoke, Kate was cooking breakfast. She did everything carefully, for she was calmer than usual, and felt relieved of the load that had oppressed her. But once she leaned her head on the mantelshelf while stooping over the frying-pan, and looked vacantly into the fire; and once she raised herself up from the table-cloth at the sound of the drum, and pressed her hand hard on her brow.
The child awoke in the bedroom above and cried. Nancy Joe went flip-flapping upstairs, and brought her down with much clucking and cackling. Kate took the child and fed her from a feeding-bottle which had been warming on the oven top. She was very tender with the little one, kissing all its extremities in the way that women have, worrying its legs, and putting its feet into her mouth.
Pete came in, hot and perspiring, and Kate handed the child back to Nancy.
“Hould hard,” cried Pete; “don't take her off yet. Give me a hould of her, the lil rogue. My sailor! What a child it is, though! Look at that, now. She's got a grip of my thumb. What a fist, to be sure! It's lying in my hand like a meg. Did you stick a piece of dough on the wall at your last baking, Nancy? Just as well to keep the evil eye off. Coo—oo—oo! She's going it reg'lar, same as the tide of a summer's day. By jing, Kitty, I didn't think there was so much fun in babies.”
Kate, seated at the table, was pouring out the tea, and a sudden impulse seized her.
“That's the way,” she said. “First the wife is everything; but the child comes, and then good-bye to the mother who brought it.”
“No, by gough!” said Pete. “The child is eighteen carat goold for the mother's sake, but the mother is di'monds for sake of the child. If I lost that little one, Kitty, it would be like losing the half of you.”
“Losing, indeed!” said Nancy. “Who's talking about losing? Does she look like it, bless her lil heart!”
“Take her into the kitchen, Nancy,” said Kate.
“Going to have a rare do to-day,” said Pete, over a mouthful. “I'm off for Douglas, to see Philip made Dempster. Coming home with himself by way of St. John's. It's all arranged, woman. Boys to meet the carriage by Kirk Christ Lezayre at seven o'clock smart. Then out I'm getting, laying hould of the drum, the band is striking up, and we're bringing him into Ramsey triumphant. Oh, we'll be doing it grand,” said Pete, blowing over the rim of his saucer. “John the Clerk is tremenjous on the trombones, and there's no bating Jonaique with the clar'net—the man is music to his little backbone. The town will be coming out too, and the fishermen shouting like one man. We're bound to let the Governor see we mane it. A friend's a friend, say I, and we're for bucking up for the man that's bucking up for us. And when he goes to the Tynwald Coort there, it'll be lockjaw and the measles with some of them. If the ould Governor's got a tongue like a file, Philip's got a tongue like a scythe—he'll mow them down. 'No harbour-dues,' says he, 'till we've a raisonable hope of harbour improvements. Build your embankments for your trippers in Douglas if you like, but don't ask the fisher-, men to pay for them.'”
Pete wiped his mouth and charged his pipe. “It'll be a rare ould dust, but we're not thinking of ourselves only, though. Aw, no, no. If there wasn't nothing doing we would be giving him a little tune for all, coming home Dempster.”
Pete lit up. “My sailor! It'll be a proud man I'll be this day, Kitty. Didn't I always say it? 'He'll be the first Manxman living,' says I times and times, and he's not going to de-ceave me neither.”
Kate was in fear lest Pete should look up into her face. Catching sight of a rent in the cloth of his coat, she whipped out her needle and began to stitch it up, bending closely over it.
“What an eye a woman's got now,” said Pete. “That was the steel of the drum ragging me sideways when I was a bit excited. Bless me, Kitty, there won't be a rag left at me when I get through this everin'. They're ter'ble on clothes is drums.”
He was puffing the smoke through her hair as she knelt below him. “Well, he deserves it all. My sakes, the years I've known him! Him and me have been same as brothers. Yes, have we, ever since I was a slip of a boy in jackets, and we went nesting on Maughold Head together. And getting married hasn't been making no difference. When a man marries he shortens sail usually, and pitches out some ballast, but not me at all. You're taking a chill, Kitty. No? Shuddering any way. Chut! This dress is like paper; you should be having warmer things under it. Don't be going out to-day, darling, but to-night, about twenty-five minutes better than seven, just open the door and listen. We'll be agate of it then like mad, and when you're hearing the drum booming you'll be saying to yourself, 'Pete's there, and going it for all he knows.'”
“Oh, Pete, Pete!” cried Kate, and she dropped back at his feet
“Why, what's this at all?” said Pete.
“You've been very, very good to me, Pete, and if I never see you again you'll think the best of me, will you not?”
She had an impulse to tell all—she could hardly resist it.
He smoothed the black ripples of her hair back from her forehead, and said, tenderly, “She's not so well to-day, that's it. Her eyes are bubbling like the laver.” Then aloud, with a laugh, “Never see me again, eh? I'm not willing to share you with heaven yet, though. But I'll have to be doing as the doctor was saying—sending you to England aver. I will now, I will,” he said, lifting his big finger threateningly.
She slid backwards to the ground, but at the next moment was landed on Pete's breast. “My poor lil Kirry! Not willing to stay with me, eh? Tut, tut! She'll be as smart as ever, soon.”
She drew away from him with shame and self-reproach, mingled with that old feeling of personal repulsion which she could not conquer.
Then the gate of the garden clicked, and Ross Christian came up the path. “He's sticking to me as tight as a limpet,” said Pete.
“Mr. Quilliam,” said Ross, “I come from my father this time.”
“'Deed, man,” said Pete.
“He is a little pressed for money.”
“And Mr. Peter Christian sends to me?”
“He thought you might like to lend on mortgage.”
“On Ballawhaine?”
Ross stammered and stuttered, “Well, yes, certainly, as you say, on Balla——”
“To think, to think,” muttered Pete. He gazed vacantly before him for a moment, and then said, sharply, “I've no time to talk of it now, sir. I'm off to Douglas, but if you like to stop awhile and talk of it with Mrs. Quilliam, I'll be hearing everything when I come back. Good-day, Kate. Take care of my wife. Good-day, Nancy; look after my two girls while I'm away. And Kitty, bogh” (whispering), “mind you send to Robbie Clucas, the draper, for some nice warm underclothing. Good-bye! Another! Just one more” (then aloud) “Good-day to you, sir, good-day.”