The Manxman Part 104

Philip's answer was broken and confused. His eyes had begun to fill, and to hide them he turned his head aside. Thinking he was looking at the empty places about the walls, Pete began to enlarge on his prosperity, and to talk as if he were driving all the trade of the island before him.

"Wonderful fishing now, Phil. I'm exporting a power of cod. Gretting postal orders and stamps, and I don't know what. Seven-and-sixpence in a single post from Liverpool--that's nothing, sir, nothing at all."

Nancy brought back the child, whose silvery curls were now damp.

"What! a young lady coming in her night-dress!" cried Pete.

"Work enough! had to get it over her head, too," said Nancy. "She wouldn't, no, she wouldn't. Here, take and dry her hair by the fire while I warm up her supper."

Pete rolled the sleeves of his jersey above his elbows, took the child on his knee, and rubbed her hair between his hands, singing--

"Come, Bridget, Saint Bridget, come in at my door."

Nancy clattered about in her clogs, filled a saucepan with bread and milk, and brought it to the fire.

"Give it to me, Nancy," said Philip, and he leaned over and held the saucepan above the bar. The child watched him intently.

"Well, did you ever?" said Pete. "The strange she's making of you, Philip? Don't you know the gentleman, darling? Aw, but he's knowing you, though."

The saucepan boiled, and Philip handed it back to Nancy.

"Go to him then--away with you," said Pete. "Gro to your G.o.dfather. He'd have been your name-father too if it had been a boy you'd been. Off you go!" and he stretched out his hairy arms until the child touched the floor.

Philip stooped to take the little one, who first pranced and beat the rushes with its feet as with two drumsticks, then trod on its own legs, swirled about to Pete's arms, dropped its lower lip, and set up a terrified outcry.

"Ah! she knows her own father, bless her," cried Pete, plucking the child back to his breast.

Philip dropped his head and laughed. A sort of creeping fear had taken possession of him, as if he felt remotely that the child was to be the channel of his retribution.

"Will you feed her yourself, Pete?" said Nancy. She was coming up with a saucer, of which she was tasting the contents. "He's that handy with a child, sir, you wouldn't think 'Deed you wouldn't." Then, stooping to the baby as it ate its supper, "But I'm saying, young woman, is there no sleep in your eyes to-night?"

"No, but nodding away here like a wood-thrush in a tree," said Pete. He was ladling the pobs into the child's mouth, and scooping the overflow from her chin. "Sleep's a terrible enemy of this one, sir. She's having a battle with it every night of life, anyway. G.o.d help her, she'll have luck better than some of us, or she'll be fighting it the other way about one of these days."

"She's us'ally going off with the spoon in her mouth, sir, for all the world like a lil cherub," said Nancy.

"Too busy looking at her G.o.dfather to-night, though," said Pete. "Well, look at him. You owe him your life, you lil sandpiper. And, my sakes, the straight like him you are, too!"

"Isn't she?" said Nancy. "If I wasn't thinking the same myself! Couldn't look straighter like him if she'd been his born child; now, could she?

And the curls, too, and the eyes! Well, well!"

"If she'd been a boy, now----" began Pete.

But Philip had risen to return to the Court-house, and Pete said in another tone, "Hould hard a minute, sir--I've something to show you.

Here, take the lil one, Nancy."

Pete lit a candle and led the way into the parlour. The room was empty of furniture; but at one end there was a stool, a stone mason's mallet, a few chisels, and a large stone.

The stone was a gravestone.

Pete approached it solemnly, held up the candle in front of it, and said in a low voice, "It's for her. I've been doing it myself, sir, and it's lasted me all winter, dark nights and bad days. I'll be finishing it to-night, though, G.o.d willing, and to-morrow, maybe, I'll be taking it to Douglas."

"Is it----" began Philip, but he could not finish.

The stone was a plain slab, rounded at the top, bevelled about the edge, smoothed on the face, and chiselled over the back; but there was no sign or symbol on it, and no lettering or inscription.

"Is there to be no name?" asked Philip at last.

"No," said Pete.

"No?"

"Tell you the truth, sir, I've been reading what it's saying in the ould Book about the Recording Angel calling the dead out of their graves."

"Yes?"

"And I've been thinking the way he'll be doing it will be going to the graveyards and seeing the names on the gravestones, and calling them out loud to rise up to judgment; some, as it's saying, to life eternal, and some to everlasting punishment."

"Well?"

"Well, sir, I've been thinking if he comes to this one and sees no name on it"--Pete's voice sank to a whisper--"maybe he'll pa.s.s it by and let the poor sinner sleep on."

Stumbling back to the Court-house through the dark lane Philip thought, "It was a lie _then_, but it's true _now_. It _must_ be true. She must be dead." There was a sort of relief in this certainty. It was an end, at all events; a pitiful end, a cowardly end, a kind of sneaking out of Fate's fingers; it was not what he had looked for and intended, but he struggled to reconcile himself to it.

Then he remembered the child and thought, "Why should I disturb it? Why should I disturb Pete? I will watch over it all its life. I will protect it and find a way to provide for it. I will do my duty by it. The child shall never want."

He was offering the key to the lock of the prisoners' yard when some one pa.s.sed him in the lane, peered into his face, then turned about and spoke.

"Oh, it's you, Deemster Christian?"

"Yes, doctor. Good-night!"

"Have you heard the news from Ballawhaine? The old gentleman had another stroke this morning."

"No, I had not heard it. Another? Dear me, dear me!"

Back in his room, Philip resumed his wig and gown and returned to the Court-house. The place was now lit up by candlelight and densely crowded. Everybody rose to his feet as the Deemster stepped to the dais.

V.

"Come, Bridget, Saint Bridget, come in at my door, The crock's on the bink and the rush----"

"She's fast," said Nancy. "Rocking this one to sleep is like waiting for the kettle to boil. You may try and try, and blow and blow, but never a sound. And no sooner have you forgotten all about her, but she's singing away as steady as a top."

Nancy put the child into the cradle, tucked her about, twisted the head of the little nest so that the warmth of the fire should enter it, and hung a shawl over the hood to protect the little eyelids from the light.

"Will you keep the house till I'm home from Sulby, Pete?"