The Manxman Part 84

Pete called to mind the blinking and groping of the dear old half-lit town to the north; he remembered the dark village at the foot of the lonely hills, with its trout-stream burrowing under the low bridge, and he thought, "She may have tired of it all, poor thing!"

He looked at every woman's face as she went by him, hungering for one glimpse of a face he feared to see. He did not see it, and he wandered like a lost soul through the little gay town until he drifted with the wave that flowed around the bay into the place that was known as the Castle.

It was a dancing palace in a garden, built in the manner of a conservatory, with the ground level for those who came to dance, and the galleries for such as came to see. Seated by the front rail of the gallery, Pete peered down into the faces below. Three thousand young men and young women were dancing, the men in flannels and coloured scarves, the women in light muslins and straw hats. Sometimes the white lights in the gla.s.s roof were coloured with red and blue and yellow. The low buzz of the dancers' feet, the clang and clash of the bra.s.s instruments, the boom of the big drum, the quake of the gla.s.s house itself, and the low rumble of the hollow floor beneath--it was like a battle-field set to music.

"She may have tired, poor thing; G.o.d knows she may," thought Pete.

His eyes were growing hazy and his head dizzy, when he became conscious of a waft of perfume behind him, and a soft voice saying at his ear, "Were you looking for anybody, then?"

He turned with a start, and looked at the speaker. It was a young girl with a pretty face, thick with powder. He could not be angry with the little thing; she was so young, and she was smiling.

"Yes," he said, "I _was_ looking for somebody;" and then he tried to shake her off.

"Is it Maudie, you mane, dear? Are you the young man from Dublin?"

"Lave me, my girl; lave me," said Pete, patting her hand, and twisting about.

The girl looked at him with a sort of pity, and then close at his neck she said, "A fine boy like you shouldn't be going fretting his heart about the best girl that's in."

He looked at the pretty face again, and the little knowing airs began to break down. "You're a Manx girl, aren't you?"

The smile vanished like a flash. "How do you know that? My tongue doesn't tell you, does it?" And the little thing was ashamed.

Pete took the tight-gloved fingers in his big palm. "So you're my lil countrywoman, then?" he said. "How old are you?"

The painted lips began to tremble. "Sixteen for harvest," she answered.

"My G.o.d!" exclaimed Pete.

The darkened eyelids blinked; she was beginning to cry. "It wasn't my fault. He was a visitor with my mother at Ballaugh, and he left me to it."

Pete took a sovereign out of his pocket, and shut it in the girl's hand.

"Go home to-night, my dear," he whispered, and then he clambered out of the place.

"Not there!" cried Pete in his heart; "not there--I swear to G.o.d she is not there."

That ended his search. He resolved to go home the same night, and he went back to his lodgings to pay his bill. Turning out of Athol Street, Pete was almost overrun by a splendid equipage, with two men in buff on the box-seat, and one man behind. "The Governor's carriage," said somebody. At the next moment it drew up at Philip's door, its occupant alighted, and then it swung about and moved away. "It was the young Deemster," said a girl to her companion, as she went skipping past.

Pete had seen the tall, dark figure, bent and feeble, as it walked heavily up the steps. "Truth enough," he thought, "there's nothing got in this world without paying the price of it."

It was three in the morning when Pete reached Ramsey, Elm Cottage was dark and silent. He had to knock again and again before awakening Nancy.

"Now, if this had been Kate!" he thought, and a new fear took hold of him. His poor darling, his wandering lamb, could she have knocked twice?

Where was she to-night? He had been picturing her in happiness and plenty--was she in poverty and distress? All the world was sleeping--was she asleep? His hope was slipping away; his great faith was breaking down. "Lord, do not forsake me! Master, strengthen me! My poor lost love, where is she? What is she? Shall I see her face again?"

Something cold touched his hand. It was the dog. Without a bark he had put his nose into Pete's palm. "What, Dempster, man, Dempster!" The bat's ears were c.o.c.ked--Pete felt them--the scut of a tail was wagged, and Pete got comfort from the battered old friend that had tramped the world at his heels.

Nancy unchained the door, opened it an inch, held a candle over her head, and peered out. "My goodness, is it the man himself? However did you come home?"

"By John the Flayer's pony," said Pete; and he laughed and made light of his night-long walk.

But next morning, when Nancy came downstairs with the child, Pete was busy with a screwdriver taking the chain off the door. "Ter'ble ould-fashioned, these chains--must be moving with the times, you know."

"Then what are you putting in its place?" said Nancy.

"You'll see, you'll see," said Pete.

At seven that night Pete was smoking over the gate when Kelly the Thief came up with a brown paper parcel. "Parcel for you, Mr. Quilliam," said the postman, with the air of a man who knew something he should not know.

Pete blinked and looked bewildered. "You don't say!" he said.

"Well, if that's your name," began the postman, holding the address for Pete to read.

Pete gave it a searching look. "Cap'n Peatr Quilliam, that's it sartenly, _Lm Cottig_--yes, it must be right," he said, taking the parcel gingerly. Then with a prolonged "O----o!" shutting his eyes and nodding his head, "I know--a bit of a present from the mother to the lil one. Wonderful thoughtful a woman is about a baby when she's a mother, Mr. Kelly."

The postman giggled, threw his finger seaward over one shoulder, and said, "Why aren't you writing back to her, then?"

"What's that?" said Pete sharply, making the parcel creak.

"Why aren't you writing to tell her how the lil one is, I'm saying?"

Pete looked at the postman as if the idea had dropped from heaven. "I must have a head as thick as a mooring-post, Mr. Kelly. Do you know, I never once thought of it. I'm like Goliath when he got little David's stone at his forehead--such a thing never entered my head before."

"Do it for all, Mr. Quilliam," said the postman, moving off.

"I will, I will," said Pete; and then he turned into the house.

"Scissors, Nancy," he shouted, throwing the parcel on the table.

"My sakes, a parcel!" cried Nancy.

"Aisy to tell where it comes from, too. See that knot, woman?" said Pete, with a knowing wink.

"What in the world is it, Pete?" said Nancy.

"I wonder!" said Pete. "Papers enough round it, anyway. A letter? We'll look at that after," he said loftily, and then out came the scarlet hood. "Gough bless mee what's this thing at all?" and he held it up by the crown.

Nancy made a cry of alarm, took the hood out of his hand, and scolded him roundly. "These men, they're fit to spoil an angel's wings."

Then she whipped up the baby out of the cradle, tried the hood on the little round head, and shouted with delight.

"Now I was thinking of that, d'ye know?" she said. "I was, yes, I was; believe me or not, I was. 'Kirry will be sending something for the lil one the next time she writes,' I was thinking, and behould ye--here it is."

"Something spakes to us, Nancy," said Pete. "'Deed it does, though."

The child gurgled and purred, and for all her fine headgear she was absorbed in her bare toes.

"And there's yourself, Pete--going to Peel and to Douglas, and I don't know where--and you've never once thought of the lil one--and knowing we were for shortening her, too."