Next morning the Deemster was still sleeping while the sun was shining into his room. He was awakened by a thunderous clamour, which came as from a nail driven into the back of his head. Opening his eyes, he realised that somebody was knocking at his door, and shouting in a robustious bass—
“Christian, I say! Ever going to get up at all?”
It was the Clerk of the Rolls. Under one of his heavy poundings the catch of the door gave way, and he stepped into the room.
“Degenerate Manxman!” he roared. “In bed on Tynwald morning. Pooh! this room smells of dead sleep, dead spirits, and dead everything. Let me get at that window—you pitch your clothes all over the floor. Ah! that's fresher! Headache? I should think so. Get up, then, and I'll drive you to St. John's.”
“Don't think I'll go to-day, sir,” said Philip in a feeble whimper.
“Not go? Holy saints! Judge of his island and not go to Tynwald! What will the Governor say?”
“He said last night he would excuse my absence.”
“Excuse your fiddlesticks! The air will do you good. I've got the carriage below. Listen! it's striking ten by the church. I'll give you fifteen minutes, and step into your breakfast-room and look over theTimes.”
The Clerk rolled out, and then Philip heard his loud voice through the door in conversation with Jem-y-Lord.
“And how's Mrs. Cottier to-day?”
“Middling, sir, thank you, sir.''
“You don't let us see too much of her, Jemmy.”
“Not been well since coming to Douglas, sir.”
Cups and saucers rattled, the newspaper creaked, the Clerk cleared his throat, and there was silence.
Philip rose with a heavy heart, still in the torment of his great temptation. He remembered the vision of the night before, and, broad morning as it was, he trembled. In the Isle of Man such visions are understood to foretell death, and the man who sees them is said to “see his soul.” But Philip had no superstitions. He knew what the vision was: he knew what the vision meant.
Jem-y-Lord came in with hot water, and Philip, without looking round, said in a low tone as the door closed, “How now, my lad?”
“Fretting again, your Honour,” said the man, in a half whisper. He busied himself in the room a moment, and then added, “Somehow she gets to know things. Yesterday evening now—I was taking down some of the bottles, and I met her on the stairs. Next time I saw her she was crying.”
Philip said in a confused way, fumbling the razor. “Tell her I intend to see her after Tynwald.”
“I have, your Honour. 'It's not that, Mr. Cottier,' she answered me.”
“My wig and gown to-day, Jemmy,” said Philip, and he went out in his robes as Deemster.
The day was bright, and the streets were thronged with vehicles. Brakes, wagonettes, omnibuses, private carriages, and cadger's carts all loaded to their utmost, were climbing out of Douglas by way of the road to Peel. The town seemed to shout; the old island rock itself seemed to laugh.
“Bless me, Christian,” said the Clerk of the Rolls, looking at his watch, “do you know it's half-past ten? Service begins at eleven. Drive on, coachman. You've eight miles to do in half an hour.”
“Can't go any faster with this traffic on the road, sir,” said the coachman over his shoulder.
“I got so absorbed in the newspaper,” said the Clerk, “that—— Well, if we're late, we're late, that's all.”
Philip folded his arms across his breast and hung his head. He was fighting a great battle.
“No idea that the fisherman affair was going to be so serious,” said the Clerk. “It seems the Governor has ordered out every soldier and pensioner. If I know my countrymen, they'll not stand much of that.”
Philip drew a long breath: there was a cloud of dust; the women in the brakes were laughing.
“I hear a whisper that the ringleader is a friend of yours, Christian—'an irregular relative of a high official,' as the reporter says.”
“He is my cousin, sir,” said Philip.
“What? The big, curly-pated fellow you took home in the carriage?... I say, coachman, no need to drivequiteso fast.”
Philip's head was still down. The Clerk of the Rolls sat watching him with an anxious face.
“Christian, I am not so sure the Governor wasn't right after all. Is this what's been troubling you for a month? You're the deuce for a secret. If there's anything good to tell, you're up like the sun; but if there's bad news going, an owl is a poll-parrot compared with you for talking.”
Philip made some feeble effort to laugh, and to say his head was still aching. They were on the breast of the steep hill going up to Greeba. The road ahead was like a funnel of dust; the road behind was like the tail of a comet.
“Pity a fine lad like that should get into trouble,” said the Clerk. “I like the rascal. He got round an old man's heart like a rope round a capstan. One of the big, hearty dogs that make you say, 'By Jove, and I'm a Manxman, too.' He's in the right in this affair, whatever the Governor may say. And the Governor knows it, Christian—that's why he's so anxious to excuse you. He can overawe the Keys; and as for the Council, we're paid our wages, God bless us, and are so many stuffed snipes on his stick. But you—you're different. Then the man is your kinsman, and blood is thicker than water, if it's only—— Why, what's this?”
There was some whooping behind; the line of carriages swirled like a long serpent half a yard near the hedge, and through the grey dust a large covered car shot by at the gallop of a fire-engine. The Clerk-sat bolt upright.
“Now, what in the name of——”
“It's an ambulance waggon,” said Philip between his set teeth.
A moment later a second waggon went galloping past, then a third, and finally a fourth.
“Well, upon my—— Ah! good day. Doctor! Good day, good day!”
The Clerk had recognised friends on the waggons, and was returning their salutations. When they were gone, he first looked at Philip, and then shouted, “Coachman, right about face. We're going home again—and chance it.”
“We can't be turning here, sir,” said the coachman. “The vehicles are coming up like bees going a-swarming. We'll have to go as far as Tynwald, anyway.”
“Go on,” said Philip in a determined voice.
After a while the Clerk said, “Christian, it isn't worth while getting into trouble over this affair. After all, the Governor is the Governor. Besides, he's been a good friend to you.”
Philip was passing through a purgatorial fire, and his old master was feeding it with fuel on every side. They were nearing Tynwald, and could see the flags, the tents, and the crowd as of a vast encampment, and hear the deep hum of a multitude, like the murmur of a distant sea.
Tynwald Hill is the ancient Parliament ground of Man. It is an open green in the midst of the island, with hills on three of its sides, and on the fourth a broad plain dipping to the coast. This green is of the shape of a guitar. Down the middle of the guitar there is a walled enclosure of the shape of a banjo. At the end stands a church. The round drum is the mount, which has four circles, the topmost being some six paces across.
The carriage containing the Deemster and the Clerk of the Bolls had drawn up at the west gate of the church, and a policeman had opened the door. There came the sound of singing from the porch.
“A quarter late,” said the Clerk of the Rolls, consulting his watch. “Shall we go in, your Honor?”
“Let us take a turn round the fair instead,” said Philip.
The carriage door was shut back, and they began to move over the green. The open part of it was covered with booths, barrows, stands, and show-tents. There were cheap jacks with shoddy watches, phrenologists with two chairs, fat women, dwarfs, wandering minstrels, itinerant hawkers of toffee in tin hat-boxes, and other shiny and slimy creatures with the air and grease of the towns. There were a few oxen and horses also, tethered and lanketted, and kicking up the dust under the dry turf.
The crowd was dense already, and increasing at every moment. As the brakes arrived, they drove up with a swing that sent the people surging on either side. Some brought well-behaved visitors, others brought an eruption of ruffians.
Down the neck of the enclosure, and round the circular end of it, stood a regiment of soldiers with rifles and bayonets. The steps to the mount were laid down with rushes. Two armchairs were on the top, under a canopy hung from a flagstaff that stood in the centre. These chairs were still empty, and the mount and its approaches were kept clear.
The sun was overhead, the heat was great, the odour was oppressive. Now and again the sound of the service within the church mingled with the crack of the toy rifle-ranges and the jabber of the cheap jacks. At length there was another sound—a more portentous sound—the sound of bands playing in the distance. It came from both south and west, from the direction of Peel, and from that of Port St. Mary.
“They're coming,” said the Clerk, and Philip's face, when he turned his head to listen, quivered and grew yet more pale.
As the bands approached they ceased to play. Presently a vast procession of men from the west came up in silence to the skirt of the hill, and turned off in the direction from which the men from the south were seen to be coming. They were in jerseys and sea-boots, marching four deep, and carrying nothing in their brawny hands. One stalwart fellow walked firmly at the head of them.. It was Pete.
Philip could support the strain no longer. He got out of the carriage. The Clerk of the Rolls got out also, and followed him as he walked with wavering, irregular steps.
Under a great tree at the junction of three roads, the two companies of fishermen met and fell into a general throng. There was a low wall around the tree-trunk, and, standing on this, Pete's head was clear above the rest.
“Boys,” he was saying, “there's three hundred armed soldiers on the hill yonder, with twenty rounds of ball-cartridge apiece. You're going to the Coort because you've a right to go. You're going up peaceable, and, when you're getting there, you're going to mix among the soldiers, three to every man, two on either side and one behind. Then your spokesmen are going to spake out your complaint. If they're listened to, you're wanting no better. But if they're not, and if the word is given to fire on them, then, before there's time to do it, you're going to stretch every man of the three hundred on his back and take his weapon. Don't hurt the soldiers—the poor soldiers are only doing what they're tould. But don't let the soldiers hurt you neither. You're going there for justice. You're not going there to fight. But if anybody fights you, let him never forget the day he done it. Break up every taffy stand in the fair, if you can't find anything better. And if blood is shed, lave the man that orders it to me. And now go up, boys, like men and like Manxmen.”
There was no cheering, no shouting, no clapping of hands. Only broken exclamations and a sort of confused murmur. “Come,” whispered the Clerk of the Rolls, putting his hand through Philip's quivering arm. “Little does the poor devil think that, if blood is shed, he will be the first to fall.” “God in heaven!” muttered Philip.
The crowd on Tynwald had now gathered thick down the neck of the enclosure and dense round the mount. To the strains of the National Anthem, played by the band of the regiment, the Governor had come out of the church. He was in cocked hat and with sword, and the sword of state was carried upright before him. With his Keys, Council, and clergy, he walked to the hill-top. There he took one of the two chairs under the canopy; the other, was taken by the Bishop in his lawn. Their followers came behind, and broke up on the hill into an indiscriminate mass. A number of ladies were admitted to the space on the topmost round. They stood behind the chairs, with their parasols still open.
There are men that the densest crowd will part and make way for. The crowd had parted and made way for Philip. As the court was being “fenced,” he appeared with his companion at the foot of the mount. There he was recognised by many, but he scarcely answered their salutations. The Governor made a deferential bow, smiled, and beckoned to him to come up to his side. He went up slowly, pausing at every other step, like a man who was in doubt if he ought to go higher. At length he stood at the Governor's right hand, with all eyes upon him, for the favourite of the great is favoured. He was then the highest figure on the mount, the Governor and the Bishop being seated. The people could see him from end to side of the Tynwald, and he could see the people as they stood closely packed on the green below.
The business of the Court began. It was that of promulgating the laws. Philip's senior colleague, the old Deemster of the happy face, read the titles of the laws in English.
Then the Coroner of the premier sheading began to recite the same titles in Manx. Nobody heard them; hardly anybody listened. The ladies on the mount chatted among themselves, the Keys and the clergy intermingled and talked, the officials of the Council looked at the crowd, and the crowd itself, having nothing to hear, no more to see, indifferent to doings they could not understand, resumed their amusements among the frivolities of the fair.
There were three persons in that assembly of fifteen thousand who were following the course of events with feverish interest. The first of these was the Governor, whose restless eyes were rolling from side to side with almost savage light; the second was the captain of the regiment, who was watching the Governor's face for a signal; the third was Philip, who was looking down at the crowd and seeing something that had meaning for himself alone.
The fishermen came up quietly, three thousand strong. Half a hundred of them lounged around the magazine—the ammunition was at their command. The rest pushed, edged, and elbowed their way through the people until they came to the line of the guard. Wherever there was a red coat, behind it there were three jerseys and stocking-caps, Philip saw it all from his elevation on the mount. His face was deadly pale, his eyelids wavered, his lower lip trembled, his hand twitched; when he was spoken to, he hardly answered; he was like a man holding counsel with himself, and half in fear that everybody could read his hidden thoughts. He was in the last throes of his temptation. The decisive moment was near. It was heavy with the fate of his after life. He thought of Pete and the torture of his company; of Kate and the unending misery of her existence; of himself and the deep duplicity to which he was committed. From all this he could be freed for ever—by what? By doing nothing, having already done his duty? Only let him command himself, and then—relief from an existence enthralled by torment—from constant alarm and watchfulness—peace—sleep—love—Kate!
Somebody was speaking to him over his shoulder. It was nothing—only the quip of a witty fellow, descendant of a Spanish freebooter. Ladies caught his eye, smiled and bowed to him. A little man, whose swarthy face showed African blood, reached up and quoted something about the bounds of freedom wide and wider.
The Coroner had finished, the proceedings were at an end—there was a movement—something had happened—the Governor had half risen from his chair. Twelve men in sea-boots and blue jerseys had passed the line of the guard, and were standing midway across the steps of the mount. One of them was beginning to speak. It was Pete.
“Governor,” he said; but the captain of the regiment was abreast of him in a moment, and a score of the soldiers were about his companions at the next breath. The fishermen stood their ground like a wall, and the soldiers fell back. There was hardly any scuffle.
“Governor,” said Pete again, touching his cap.
The Governor was twisting in his seat. Looking first at Pete, and then at the captain, he was in the act of lifting his hand when suddenly it was held by another hand at his side, and a low voice whispered at his ear, “No, sir; for God's sake, no!”
It was Philip. The Governor looked at him with amazement. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” said Philip, still whispering over him hotly and impetuously, “that there's only one way back to Government House, but if you lift your hand it will be one too many; I mean that if blood is shed you'll never live to leave this mount; I mean that your three hundred soldiers are only as three hundred rabbits in the claws of three thousand crows.”
At the next instant he had left the Governor, and was face to face with the fishermen.
“Fishermen,” he cried, lifting both hands before him, “let there be no trouble here to-day, no riot, for God's sake, no bloodshed. Listen to me. I am the grandson of a fisherman; I have been a fisherman myself; I love the fishermen. As long as I live I will stand by you. Your rights shall be my rights, your sins my sins, and where you go I will go too.”
Then, swinging back to the Governor, he bowed low, and said in a deferential voice—
“Your Excellency, these men mean no harm; they wish to speak to you; they have a petition to make; they will be loyal and peaceable.”
But the Governor, having recovered from his first fear, was now in a flame of anger.
“No,” he said, with the accent of authority; “this is no time and no place for petitions.”
“Forgive me, your Excellency,” said Philip, with a deeper bow; “this is the time of all times, the place of all places.”
There had been a general surging of the Keys and clergy towards the steps, and now one of them cried out of their group, “Is Tynwald Court to be turned into a bear-garden?” And another said in a cynical voice, “Perhaps your Excellency has taken somebody else's seat.”
Philip raised himself to his full height, and answered, with his eyes on the speakers, “We are free-born men on this island, your Excellency. We did not come to Tynwald to learn order from the grandson of a Spanish pirate, or freedom from the son of a black chief.”
“Hould hard, boys!” cried Pete, lifting one hand against his followers, as if to keep them quiet. He was boiling with a desire to shout till his throat should crack.
The Governor had exchanged rapid looks and low whispers with the captain. He saw that he was outwitted, that he was helpless, that he was even in personal danger. The captain was biting his leg with vexation that he had not reckoned more seriously with this rising—that he had not drawn up his men in column.
“Your Excellency will hear the fishermen?” said Philip.
“No, no, no,” said the Governor. He was at least a brave man, if a vain and foolish one.
There was silence for a moment. Then, standing erect, and making an effort to control himself, Philip said, “May it please your Excellency, you fill a proud position here; you are the ruler of this island under your sovereign lady our Queen. But we, your subjects, your servants, are in a prouder position still. We are Manxmen. This is the Court of our country.”
“Hould hard,” cried Pete again.
“For a thousand years men with our blood and our names have stood on this hill to hear the voice of the people, and to do justice between man and man. That's what the place was meant for. If it has lost that meaning, root it up—it is a show and a sham.”
“Bravo!” cried Pete; he could hold himself in no longer, and his word was taken up with a shout, both on the hill and on the green beneath.
Philip's voice had risen to a shrill cry, but it was low and meek as he added, bowing yet lower while he spoke—
“Your Excellency will hear the fishermen?”
The Governor rolled in his seat. “Go on,” he said impatiently.
The men made their petition. Three or four of them spoke briefly and to the point. They had had harbours, their fathers' harbours, which had been freed to them forty years before; don't ask them to pay harbour dues until proper harbours were provided:
The Governor gave his promise. Then he rose, the band struck up “God save the Queen,” and the Legislature filed back to the chapel.
Philip went with them. He had fought a great battle, and he had prevailed. Through purging fires the real man had emerged, but he had paid the price of his victory. His eye burned like live coal, his cheek-bones seemed to have upheaved. He walked alone; his ancient colleague had stepped ahead of him. But now and again, as he passed down the long path to the church-door, fishermen and farmers pushed between the rifles of the guards, and said in husky voices, “Let me shake you by the hand, Dempster.”
The scene was repeated with added emotion half an hour afterwards, when, the court being adjourned and the Governor gone in ominous silence, Philip came out, white and smiling, and leaning on the arm of his old master, the Clerk of the Rolls. He could scarcely tear himself through the thick-set hedge of people that lined the path to the gate. As he got into the carriage his smile disappeared. Sinking into the seat, he buried himself in the corner and dropped his head on his breast. The people began to cheer.
“Drive on,” he cried.
The cheering became loud.
“Drive, drive,” he cried.
The people cheered yet louder. They thought that they had seen a grand triumph that day—a man triumphing over the Governor. But there had been a grander triumph which they had not seen—a man triumphing over himself. Only one saw that, and it was God.
Pete seemed to be beside himself. He laughed until he cried; he cried until he laughed. His resonant voice rang out everywhere.
“Hear him? My gough, it was like a bugle spaking. There's nobody can spake but himself. When the others are toot-tooting, it's just 'Polly, put the kettle on' (mimicking a mincing treble). See the lil Puffin on his throne of turf there? Looked as if Ould Nick had been thrashing peas on his face for a week.”
Pete's enthusiasm rose to frenzy, and he began to sweep through the fair, bemoaning his country and pouring mouth-fuls of anathema on his countrymen.
“Mannin veg villish(sweet little Isle of Man), with your English Governors and your English Bishops, and boys of your own worth ten of them.Manninee graihagh(beloved Manxmen), you're driving them away to be Bishops for others and Governors abroad—and yourselves going to the dogs and the divil, and d——— you.”
Pete's prophetic mood dropped to a jovial one. He bought the remaining stock-in-trade of an itinerant toffee-seller, and hammered the lid of the tin hat-box to beat up the children. They followed him like hares hopping in the snow; and he distributed his bounty in inverse relation to size, a short stick to a big lad, a long stick to a little one, and two sticks to a girl. The results were an infantile war. Here, a damsel of ten squaring her lists to fight a hulking fellow of twelve for her sister of six; and there, a mother wiping the eyes of her boy of five, and whispering “Hush, bogh; hush! You shall have the bladder when we kill the pig.”
Pete began to drink. “How do, Faddy? Taking joy of you, Juan. Are you in life, Thom! Half a glass of rum will do no harm, boys. Not the drink at all—just the good company, you know.”
He hailed the women also, but they were less willing to be treated. “I'd have more respect for my quarterly ticket, sir,” said Betsy—she was a Primitive, with her husband on the “Planbeg.” “There's a hole in your pocket, Capt'n; stop it up with your fist, man,” said Liza—she was a gombeen woman, and when she got a penny in her hand it was a prisoner for life. “Chut! woman,” said Pete, “what's the good book say ing? 'Riches have wings;' let the birds fly then,” and off he went, reeling and tottering, and laughing his formidable laugh.
Pete grew merry. Rooting up the remains of the fishermen's band, he hired them to accompany him through the fair. They were three little musicians, now exceedingly drunk, and their duty was to play “Hail, Isle of Man,” as he went swaggering along in front of them.
“Hail, Isle of Man,Swate ocean lan',I love thy sea-girt border.”
“Play up, Jackie.”
“The barley sown,Potatoes down,We'll get our boats in order.”
Thus he forged through the fair, capering, laughing, shouting protests over his shoulder when the tipsy music failed, pretending to be very drunk, trying to show that he was carrying on, that he was going it, that he hadn't a second thought, but watching everything for all that, studying every face, and listening to the talk of everybody.
“Whips of money at him, Liza—whips of it—millions, they're saying.”—“He's spending it like flitters then. The Manx chaps isn't fit for fortunes—no, they aren't. I wonder in the world what sort of wife there's at him.Idon't 'low my husband the purse. Three ha'pence is enough to be giving any man at once.”—“Wife, you're saying? Don't you know, woman?” Then some whispering.
“Bass, boy—more bass, I tell thee.”
“We then sought nex'The soothing sex,Our swatearts at Port Erin.”
“Whoisthe man at all?”—“Why, Capt'n Quilliam from Kimberley.”—“'Deed, man! Him that married with some of the Cæsar Glenmooar's ones?”—“She's left him, though, and gone off with a wastrel.”—“You don't say?”—“Well, I saw the young woman myself——”
“At Quiggin's HallThere's enough for all,Good beer, and all things proper.”
“Hould,boys!”
Pete had drawn up suddenly, and stopped his musicians with a sweep of the arm.
“Were you spaking, Mr. Corteen?”
“Nothing, Capt'n. No need to stare at all. I was only saying I was at the camp-meeting at Sulby, and I saw——”
“Go on, Jackie.”
“A pleasant place,With beds of aise,When we are done our supper.”
The unhappy man was deceiving himself at least as much as anybody else. After looking for the light of intelligence in every face, waiting for a word, watching for a glance, expecting every moment that some one from south or north, or east or west, would say, “I've seen her;” yet, covering up the burning coal of his anxiety with the ashes of mock merriment, he tried to persuade himself that Kate was not on the island if nobody at Tynwald had seen her; that he had told the truth unwittingly, and that he was as happy as the day was long.
A man in a gig came driving a long-horned cow in front of him. Driver, horse, gig, and cow were like animated shapes of dust, but Pete recognised them.
“Is it yourself, Cæsar? So you're for selling ould Horney?”
“Grieved in my heart I am to do it, sir. Many a good glass of milk she has given to me and mine,” and Cæsar was ready to weep.
“Going falling in fits, isn't she, Cæsar?”
“Hush, man! hush, man!” said Cæsar, looking about. “A good cow, very; but down twice since I left home this morning.”
“I'd give a bad sixpence to see Cæsar selling that cow,” thought Pete.
Three men were bargaining over a horse. Two were selling, the third (it was Black Tom) was buying.
“Rising five years, sir. Sired by Mahomet. Oh, I've got the papers to prove it,” said one of the two.
“What, man? Five?” shouted Black Tom down the horse's open mouth. “She'll never see eight the longest day she lives.”
“No use decaiving the man,” said the other dealer, speaking in Manx. “She's sixteen—'low she's nine, anyway.”
“Fair play, boys; spake English before a poor fellow,” said Black Tom, with a snort.
“This brother of mine lows she's seven,” said the first of the two.
“You thundering liar,” said Black Tom in Manx. “He says she's sixteen.”
“Dealing ponies then?” asked Pete.
“Anything, sir; anything. Buying for farmers up Lonan way,” said Black Tom.
“Come on,” said Pete; “here's Cæsar with a long-horned cow.”
They found the good man tethering a white, long-horned cow to the wheel of the tipped-up gig.
“How do, Cæsar? And how much for the long-horn?” said Black Tom.
“Aw, look at the base (beast), Mr. Quilliam. Examine her for yourself,” said Cæsar.
“Middling fair ewer, good quarter, five calves—is it five, Cæsar?” said Black Tom, holding one of the long horns.
“Three, sir, and calving again for February.”
“No milk fever? No? Kicks a bit at milking? Never? Fits? Ever had fits, Cæsar?” opening wide one of the cow's eyes.
“Have you known me these years for a dacent man, Mr. Quilliam——” began Cæsar in an injured tone.
“Well, what's the figure?”
“Fourteen pound, sir! and she'll take the road before I'll go home with a pound less!”
“Fourteen—what! Ten; I'll give you ten—not a penny more.”
“Good day toyou, Mr. Quilliam,” said Cæsar. Then, as if by an afterthought, “You're an ould friend of mine, Thomas; a very ould friend, Tom—I'll split you the diff'rance.”
“Break a straw on it,” said Black Tom; and the transaction was complete.
“I've had a clane strike here—the base is worth fifteen,” chuckled Black Tom in Pete's ear as he drove the cow in to a shed beyond.
“I must be buying another cow in place of poor ould Horney,” whispered Cæsar as he dived into the cattle stand.
“Strike up, Jackie,” shouted Pete.
“West of the mine,The day being fine.The tide against us veering.”
Ten minutes later Pete heard a fearful clamour, which drowned the noise that he himself was making. Within the shed the confusion of tongues was terrific.
“What's this at all?” he asked, crushing through with an innocent face.
“The man's cow has fits,” cried Black Tom. “I'll have my money back. The ould psalm-singing Tommy Noddy! did he think he was lifting the collection? My money! My twelve goolden pounds!”
If Black Tom had not been as bald as a bladder, he would have torn his hair in his mortification. But Pete pacified him.
“Cæsar is looking for another cow—sell him his own back again. Impozz'ble? Who says it's impozz'ble? Cut off her long horns, and he'll never be knowing her from her grandmother.”
Then Pete made up to Cæsar and said, “Tom's got a mailie (hornless) cow to sell, and it's the very thing you're wanting.”
“Is she a good mailie?” asked Cæsar.
“Ten quarts either end of the day, Cæsar, and fifteen pounds of butter a week,” said Pete.
“Where's the base, sir?” said Cæsar.
They met Black Tom leading a hornless, white cow from the shed to the green.
“Are you coming together, Peter?” he said cheerfully.
Cæsar eyed the cow doubtfully for a moment, and then said briskly, “What's the price of the mailie, Mr. Quilliam?”
“Aw, look at the base first, Mr. Cregeen. Examine her for yourself, sir.”
“Yes—yes—well, yes; a middling good base enough. Four calves, Thomas?”
“Two, sir, and calves again for January. Twenty-four quarts of new milk every day of life, and butter fit to burst the churn for you.”
“No fever at all? No fits? No?”
“Aw, have you known me these teens of years, Mr. Cregeen——”
“Well, what d'ye say—eleven pounds for the cow, Tom!”
“Thirteen, Cæsar; and if you warn an ould friend——”
“Hould your hand, Mr. Quilliam; I'm not a man when I've got a bargain.... Manx notes or the dust, Thomas? Goold? Here you are, then—one—two—three—four...” (giving the cow another searching glance across his shoulder). “It's wonderful, though, the straight she's like ould Horney... five—six—seven... in colour and size, I mane... eight—nine—ten... and if she warn a mailie cow, now... eleven—twelve—” (the money hanging from his thumb). “Will that be enough, Mr. Quilliam? No? Half a one, then? Aw, you're hard, Tom... thirteen.”
Having paid the last pound, Cæsar stood a moment contemplating his purchase, and then said doubtfully, “Well, if I hadn't... Grannie will be saying it's the same base back——-” (the cow began to reel). “Yes, and it—no, surely—a mailie for all——-” (the cow fell). “It's got the same fits, anyway,” cried Cæsar; and then he rushed to the cow's head. “Itisthe same base. The horns are going cutting off at her. My money back! Give me my money back—my thirteen yellow sovereigns—the sweat of my brow!” he cried.
“Aw, no,” said Black Tom. “There's no money giving back at all. If the cow was good enough for you to sell, she's good enough for you to buy,” and he turned on his heel with a laugh of triumph.
Cæsar was choking with vexation.
“Never mind, sir,” said Pete. “If Tom has taken a mane advantage of you, it'll be all set right at the Judgment. You've that satisfaction, anyway.”
“Have I? No, I haven't,” said Cæsar from between his teeth. “The man's clever. He'll get himself converted before he comes to die, and then there'll not be a word about cutting the horns off my cow.”
“Strike up, Jackie,” shouted Pete.
“Hail, Isle of Man,Swate ocean làn',I love thy sea-girt border.”
The sky became overcast, rain began to fall, and there was a rush for the carts. In half an hour Tynwald Hill was empty, and the people were splashing off on every side like the big drops of rain that were pelting down.
Pete hired a brake that was going back to the north, and gathered up his friends from Ramsey. When these were seated, there was a rush of helpless and abandoned ones who were going in the same direction—young mothers with children, old men and old women. Pete hauled them up till the seats and the floor were choked, and the brake could hold no more. He got small thanks. “Such crushing and scrooging! I declare my black merino frock, that I've only had on once, will be teetotal spoilt.”—“If they don't start soon I'll be taking the neuralgy dreadful.”
They got started at length, and, at the tail of a line of stiff carts, they went rattling over the mountain-road. The harebells nodded their washed faces from the hedge, and the talk was brisk and cheerful.
“Our Thorn's sowl a hafer, and got a good price.”—“What for didn't you buy the mare of Corlett Beldroma, Juan?”—“Did I want to be killed as dead as a herring?”—“Kicks, does she? Bate her, man; bate her. A horse is like a woman. If you aren't bating her now and then——”
They stopped at every half-way houses—it was always halfway to somewhere. The men got exceedingly drunk and began to sing. At that the women grew very angry.
“Sakes alive! you're no better than a lot of Cottonies.”—“Deed, but they're worse than any Cottonies, ma'am. Some excuse for the like ofthem. In their cotton-mills all the year, and nothing at home but a piece of grass the size of your hand in the backyard, and going hopping on it like a lark in a cage.”
The rain came down in torrents, the mountain-path grew steep and desolate, the few houses passed were empty and boarded up, gorse bushes hissed to the rising breeze, geese scuttled and screamed across the untilled land, a solitary black crow flew across the leaden sky, and on the sea outside a tall pillar of smoke went stalking on and on, where the pleasure-steamer carried her freight of tourists round the island. Then songs gave way to sighs, some of the men began to pick quarrels, and some to break into fits of drunken sobbing.
Pete kept them all up. He chaffed and laughed and told funny stories. Choking, stifling, wounded to the heart as he was, still he was carrying on, struggling to convince everybody and himself as well, that nothing was amiss, that he was a jolly fellow, and had not a second thought.
He was glad to get home, nevertheless, where he need play the hypocrite no longer. Going through Sulby, he dropped out of the brake and looked in at the “Fairy.” The house was shut. Grannie was sitting up for Cæsar, and listening for the sound of wheels. There was something unusual and mysterious about her. Cruddled over the fire, she was smoking, a long clay in little puffs of blue smoke that could barely be seen. The sweet old soul in her troubles had taken to the pipe as a comforter. Pete could see that something had happened since morning, but she looked at him with damp eyes, and he was afraid to ask questions. He began to talk of the great doings of the day at Tynwald, then of Philip, and finally of Kate, apologising a little wildly for the mother not coming home sooner to the child, but protesting that she had sent the little one no end of presents.
“Presents, bless ye,” he began rapturously——
“You don't ate enough, Pete, 'deed you don't,” said Grannie.
“Ate? Did you say ate?” cried Pete. “If you'd seen me at the fair you'd have said, 'That man's got the inside of a limekiln!' Aw, no, Grannie, I'm not letting my jaws travel far. When I've got anything before me it's—down—same as an ostrich.”
Going away in the darkness, he heard Cæsar creaking up in the gig with old Horney, now old Mailie, diving along in front of him.
Nancy was waiting for Pete at Elm Cottage. She tried to bustle him upstairs.
“Come, man, come,” she said; “get yourself off to bed and I'll bring your clothes down to the fire.”
He had never slept in the bedroom since Kate had left. “Chut! I've lost the habit of beds,” he answered. “Always used of the gable loft, you know, and the wind above the thatch.”
Not to be thought to behave otherwise than usual, he went upstairs that night. But—