The Manxman Part 101

PART VI. MAN AND G.o.d.

I.

The summer had gone, the gorse had dried up, the herring-fishing had ended, and Pete had become poor. His Nickey had done nothing, his last hundred pounds had been spent, and his creditors in scores, quiet as mice until then, were baying about him like bloodhounds. He sold his boat and satisfied everybody, but fell, nevertheless, to the position of a person of no credit and little consequence. On the lips of the people he descended from "Capt'n Pete" to Peter Bridget. When he saluted the rich with "How do!" they replied with a stare, a lift of the chin, and "You've the odds of me, my good man." To this he replied, with a roll of the head and a peal of laughter, "Have I now? But you'll die for all."

Ballajora Chapel had been three months rehearsing a children's cantata ent.i.tled "Under the Palms," and building an arbour of palm branches on a platform for Pete's rugged form to figure in; but Caesar sat there instead.

Still, Pete had his six thousand pounds in mortgage on Ballawhaine.

Only three other persons knew anything of that--Caesar, who had his own reasons for saying nothing; Peter Christian himself, who was hardly likely to tell; and the High Bailiff, who was a bachelor and a miser, and kept all business revelations as sacred as are the secrets of another kind of confessional. When Pete's evil day came and the world showed no pity, Caesar became afraid.

"I wouldn't sell out, sir," said he. "Hould on till Martinmas, anyway.

The first half year's interest is due then. There's no knowing what'll happen before that. What's it saying, 'He shall give His angels charge concerning thee.' The ould man has had a polatic stroke, they're telling me. Aw, the Lord's mercy endureth for ever."

Pete began to sell his furniture. He cleared out the parlour as bare as a vault. "Time for it, too," he said. "I've been wanting the room for a workshop."

Martinmas came, and Caesar returned in high feather. "No interest," he said. "Give him the month's grace, and hould hard till it's over.

The Lord will provide. Isn't it written, 'In the world ye shall have tribulation'? Things are doing wonderful, though. Last night going home from Ballajora, I saw the corpse-lights coming from the big house to Kirk Christ's Churchyard, with the parson psalming in front of them. The ould man's dying---I've seen his soul. To thy name, O Lord, be all the glory."

Pete sold out a second room, and turned the key on it. "Mortal cosy and small this big, ugly mansion is getting, Nancy," he said.

The month's grace allowed by the deed of mortgage expired, and Caesar came to Elm Cottage rubbing both hands. "Turn him out, neck and crop, sir. Not a penny left to the man, and six thousand goolden pounds paid into his hands seven months ago. But who's wondering at that? There's Ross back again, carrying half a ton of his friends over the island, and lashing out the silver like dust. _Your_ silver, sir, _yours_. And here's yourself, with the world darkening round you terrible. But no fear of you now. The meek shall inherit the earth. Aw, G.o.d is opening His word more and more, sir, more and more. There's that Black Tom too.

He was talking big a piece back, but this morning he was up before the High Bailiff for charming and cheating, and was put away for the Dempster. Lord keep him from the gallows and h.e.l.l-fire! Oh, it's a refreshing saison. It was G.o.d spaking to me by Providence when I tould you to put money on that mortgage. What's the Scripture saying, 'For bra.s.s I bring thee goold'? Turn him out, sir, turn him out."

"Didn't you tell me that ould Ballawhaine had a polatic stroke?" said Pete.

"I did; but he's a big man; let him pay his way," said Caesar.

"Samson was a strong man, and Solomon was a wise one, but they couldn't pay money when they hadn't got it," said Pete.

"Let him look to his son then," said Caesar".

"That's just what he's going to do," said Pete. "I'll let him die in his bed, G.o.d forgive him."

The winter came, and Pete began to think of buying a Dandie, which being smaller than a Nickey, and of yawl rig, he could sail of himself, and so earn a living by fishing the cod. To do this he had a further clearing of furniture, thereby reducing the size of the house to three rooms. The featherbed left his own bedstead, the watch came out of his pocket, and the walls of the hall-kitchen gaped and yawned in the places where the pictures had been.

"The bog-bane to the rushy curragh, say I, Nancy," said Pete. "Not being used of such grandeur, I was taking it hard. Never could remember to wind that watch. And feathers, bless you! Don't I remember the lil mother, with a sickle and a bag, going cutting the long gra.s.s on the steep brews for the cow, and drying a handful for myself for a bed.

Sleeping on it? Never slept the like since at all."

The result of Pete's first week's fishing was twenty cod and a gigantic ling. He packed the cod in boxes and sent them by Crow and the steam-packet to the market in Liverpool. The ling he swung on his back over his oilskin jacket and carried it home, the head at his shoulder and the tail dangling at his legs.

"There!" he cried, dropping it on the floor, "split it and salt it, and you've breakfas'es for a month."

When the remittance came from Liverpool it was a postal order for seven-and-sixpence.

"Never mind," said Pete; "we're bating Dan Hommy anyway--the ould m.u.f.f has only made seven-and-a-penny."

The weather was rough, the fishing was bad, the tackle got broken, and Pete began to extol plain living.

"Gough bless me," he said, "I don't know in the world what's coming to the ould island at all. When I was for a man-servant with Caesar the farming boys were ateing potatoes and herrings three times a day. But now! butcher's mate every dinner-time, if you plaze. And tay! the girls must be having it reg'lar--and taking no shame with them neither. My sake, I remember when the mother would be whispering, 'Keep an eye on the road, boy, while I'm brewing myself a cup of tay.' Truth enough, Nancy. An ounce a week and a pound of sugar, and people wondering at the woman for that."

The mountains were taken from the people, and they were no longer allowed "to cut turf for fuel; coals were dear, the winter was cold, and Pete began to complain of a loss of appet.i.te.

"My teeth must be getting bad, Nancy," he whined. They were white as milk and faultless as a negro's. "Don't domesticate my food somehow.

What's the odds, though I Can't ate suppers at all, and that's some constilation. Nothing like going to bed hungry, Nancy, if you're wanting to get up with an appet.i.te for breakfast. Then the beautiful drames, woman! Gough bless me, the dinners and the feasts and the bankets you're ateing in your sleep! Now, if you filled your skin like a High Bailiff afore going to bed, ten to one you'd have a buggane riding on your breast the night through and drame of dying for a drink of water. Aw, sleep's a reg'lar Radical Good for levelling up, anyway."

Christmas approached, servants boasted of the Christmas boxes they got from their masters, and Pete remembered Nancy.

"Nancy," said he, "they're telling me Liza Billy-ny-Clae is getting twenty pound per year per annum at her new situation in Douglas. She isn't nothing to yourself at cooking. Mustn't let the lil one stand in your way, woman. She's getting a big girl now, and I'll be taking her out in the Dandie with me and tying her down on the low deck there and giving her a pig's bladder, and she'll be playing away as nice as nice.

See?"

Nancy looked at him, and he dropped his eyes before her.

"Is it wanting to get done with me, you are, Pete?" she said in a quavering voice. "There's my black--I can sell it for something--it's never been wore at me since I sat through the sarvice with Grannie the Sunday after we got news of Kirry. And I'm not a big eater, Pete--never was--you can clear me of that anyway. A bit of bread and cheese for my dinner when you are out at the fishing, and I'm asking no better----"

"Hould your tongue, woman," cried Pete. "Hould your tongue afore you break my heart I've seen my rich days and I've seen my poor days. I've tried both, and I'm content."

II.

Meantime, Philip in Douglas was going from success to success, from rank to rank, from fame to fame. Everything he put his hand to counted to him for righteousness. When he came to himself after the disappearance of Kate, his heart was a wasted field of volcanic action, with ashes and scoriae of infernal blackness on the surface, but the wholesome soil beneath. In spite of her injunction, he set himself to look for her.

More than love, more than pity, more than remorse prompted and supported him. She was necessary to his resurrection, to his new birth. So he scoured every poor quarter of the town, every rookery of old Douglas, and this was set down to an interest in the poor.

An epidemic broke out on the island, and during the scare that followed, wherein some of the wealthy left their homes for England, and many of the poor betook themselves to the mountains, and even certain of the doctors found refuge in flight, Philip won golden opinions for presence of mind and personal courage. He organised a system of registration, regulated quarantine, and caused the examination of everybody coming to the island or leaving it. From day to day he went from house to house, from hospital to hospital, from ward to ward. No dangers terrified him; he seemed to keep his eye on each case. He was only looking for Kate, only a.s.suring himself that she had not fallen victim to the pest, only making certain that she had not come or gone. But the divine madness which seizes upon a crowd when its heart is touched laid hold of the island at the sight of Philip's activities. He was worshipped, he was beloved, he was the idol of the poor, almost everybody else was forgotten in the splendour of his fame; no committee could proceed without him; no list was complete until it included his name.

Philip was ashamed of his glories, but he had no heart to repudiate them. When the epidemic subsided, he had convinced himself that Kate must be gone, that she must be dead. Gone, therefore, was his only hold on life, and dead was his hope of a moral resurrection. He could do nothing without her but go on as he was going. To pretend to a new birth now would be like a death-bed conversion; it would be like renouncing the joys of life after they have renounced the renouncer.

His colleague, the old Deemster, was stricken down by paralysis, and he was required to attend to both their duties. This made it necessary at first that all Deemster's Courts should be held in Castletown, and hence Ramsey saw him rarely. He spent his days in the Court-house of the Castle and his nights at home. His fair hair became prematurely white, and his face grew more than ever like that of a man newly risen from a fever.

"Study," said the world, and it bowed its head the lower.

Yet he was seen to be not only a studious man, but a melancholy one.

To defeat curiosity, he began to enter a little into the life of the island, and, as time went on, to engage in some of the social duties of his official position. On Christmas Eve he gave a reception at his house in Athol Street. He had hardly realised how it would tear at the tenderest fibres of memory. The very rooms that had been Kate's were given over to the ladies who were his guests. All afternoon the crush was great, and the host was the attraction. He was a fascinating figure--so young, yet already so high; so silent, yet able to speak so splendidly; and then so handsome with that whitening head, and that smile like vanishing sunshine.

In the midst of the reception, Philip received a letter from Ramsey that was like the cry of a bleeding heart:--

"My lil one is ill theyr sayin shes Diein c.u.m to me for G.o.ds.

sake.--Peat."

The snow was beginning to fall as the guests departed. When the last of them was gone, the clock on the bureau was striking six, and the night was closing in. By eight o'clock Philip was at Elm Cottage.