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The Manxman: A Novel, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 3. Man And Woman - Chapter 23 |
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_ PART III. MAN AND WOMAN CHAPTER XXIII Four saddle-horses, each with its rider seated and ready, had been waiting at the churchyard gate, pawing up the gravel. The instant the bride and bridegroom came out of the church the horses set off for Caesar's house at a furious gallop. Kate and Pete, Caesar, Grannie, and Nancy, with the addition of Philip and Parson Quiggin, returned in the covered carriage. At the turn of the road the way was blocked by a group of stalwart girls out of the last of the year's cornfields. With the straw rope of the stackyard stretched across, they demanded toll before the carriage would be allowed to pass. Pete, who sat by the door, put his head out and inquired solemnly if the highway women would take their charge in silver or in kind--half-a-crown apiece or a kiss all round. They laughed, and answered that they saw no objection to taking both. Whereupon Pete, whispering behind his hand that the mistress was looking, tossed into the air a paper bag, which rose like a cannon-ball, broke in the air like a shell, and fell over their white sun-bonnets like a shower. At the door of "The Manx Fairy" the four riders were waiting with smoking horses. The first to arrive had been rewarded already with a bottle of rum. He had one other ancient privilege. As the coach drove up to the door, he stepped up to the bride with the wedding-cake and broke it over her head. Then there was a scramble for the pieces among the girls who gathered round her, that they might take them to bed and dream of a day to come when they should themselves be as proud and happy. The wedding-breakfast (a wedding-dinner) was laid in the loft of the mill, the chapel of The Christians. Caesar sat at the head of the table, with Grannie on one side and Kate on the other. Pete sat next to Kate, and Philip next to Grannie. The parson sat at the foot with Nancy Joe, a lady of consequence, receiving much consideration, at his reverent right hand. Jonaique Jelly sat midway down the table, with a fine scorn on his features, for John the Clerk sat opposite with a fiddle gripped between his knees. The neighbours brought in the joints of beef and mutton, the chickens and the ducks. Caesar and the parson carved. Black Tom, who had been invited by way of truce, served out the liquor from an eighteen-gallon cask, and sucked it up himself like the sole of an old shoe. Then Caesar said grace, and the company fell to. Such noise, such sport, such chaff, such laughter! Everything was a jest--every word had wit in it. "How are you doing, John?"--"Haven't done as well for a month, sir; but what's it saying, two hungry meals make the third a glutton."--"How are _you_ doing, Tom?"--"No time to get a right mouthful for myself Caesar; kept so busy with the drink."--"Aw, there'll be some with their top works hampered soon."--"Got plenty, Jonaique?"--"Plenty, sir, plenty. Enough down here to victual a menagerie. It'll be Sunday every day of the week with the man that's getting the lavings."--"Take a taste of this beef before it goes, Mr. Thomas Quilliam, or do you prefer the mutton?"--"I'm not partic'lar, Mr. Cregeen. Ateing's nothing to me but filling a sack that's empty." Grannie praised the wedding service--it was lovely--it was beautiful--she didn't think the ould parzon could have made the like; but Caesar criticised both church and clergy--couldn't see what for the cross on the pulpit and the petticoat on the parson. "Popery, sir, clane Popery," he whispered across Grannie to Philip. Away went the shanks of mutton, the breasts of birds, and the slabs of beef, and up came an apple-pudding as round as a well-fed salmon, and as long as a twenty-pound cod. There was a shout of welcome. "None of your dynamite pudding that,--as green as grass and as sour as vinegar." Kate was called on to make the first cut of the monster. A faint colour had returned to her cheeks since she had come home. She was talking a little, and even laughing sometimes, as if the weight on her heart was lightening every moment. She rose at the call, took, with the hand nearest to the dish, the knife that her father held out, and plunged it into the pudding. As she did so, with all eyes upon her, the wedding-ring on her finger flashed in the light and was seen by everybody. "Look at that, though," cried Black Tom. "There's the wife for a husband, if you plaze. Ashamed of showing it, is she? Not she, the bogh." Then there was much giggling among the younger women, and cries of "Aw, the poor girl! Going to church has been making her left-handed!" "Time enough, my beauties," cried Pete; "and mind you're not struck that way yourselves one of these days." Away went the dishes, and the parson rose to return thanks. "Never heard that grace but once before, Parson Quiggin," said Pete, "and then"--lighting his pipe--"then it was a burial sarvice." "A _burial_ sarvice!" A dozen voices echoed the words together, and in a moment the table was quiet. "Yes, though," said Pete. "It was up at Johannesburg. Two chums settled there, and one married a girl. Nice lil thing, too; some of the Boer girls, you know; but not much ballast at her at all. The husband went up country for the Consolidated Co., and when he came back there was trouble. Chum had been sweethearting the wife a bit!" "Aw, dear!"--"Aw, well, well!" "Do? The husband? He went after the chum with a repeater, and took him. Bath-chair sort of a chap--no fight in him at all. 'Mercy!' he cries. 'I can't,' says the husband. 'Forgive him this once,' says the wife. 'It's only once a woman loses herself,' says the man. 'Mercy, mercy!' 'Say your prayers.' 'Mercy, mercy, mercy!' 'Too late!' and the husband shot him dead. The woman dropped in a faint, but the man said, 'He didn't say his prayers, though--I must be doing it for him.' Then down he went on his knees by the body, but the prayers were all forgot at him--all but the bit of a grace, so he said that instead." Loud breathings on every side followed Pete's story, and Caesar, leaning over towards Philip, whose face had grown ashy, said, "Terrible, sir, terrible! But still and for all, right enough, though, eh! What's it saying, Better an enemy than a bad friend." Philip answered absently; his eyes were on the opposite side of the table. There was a sudden rising of the people about Kate. "Water, there," shouted Pete. "It's a thundering blockhead I am for sure--frightning the life out of people with stories fit for a funeral." "No, no," said Kate; "I'm not faint Why should you think so?" "Of coorse, not, bogh," said Nancy, who was behind her in a twinkling. "White is she? Well, what of it, man? It's only becoming on a girl's wedding-day. Take a lil sup, though, woman--there, there!" Kate drank the water, with the glass jingling against her teeth, and then began to laugh. The parson's ruddy face rose at the end of the table. "Friends," he said, "after that tragic story, let us indulge in a little vanity. Fill up your glasses to the brim, and drink with me to the health of the happy couple. We all know both of them. We know the bride for a good daughter and a sweet girl--one so naturally pure that nobody can ever say an evil word or think an evil thought when she is near. We know the bridegroom for a real Manxman, simple and rugged and true, who says all he thinks and thinks all he says. God has been very good to them. Such virginal and transparent souls have much to be thankful for. It is not for them to struggle with that worst enemy of man, the enemy that is within, the enemy of bad passions. So we can wish them joy on their union with a full heart and a sure hope that, whatever chance befall them on the ways of this world, they will be happy and content." "Aw, the beautiful advice," said Grannie, wiping her eyes. "Popery, just Popery," muttered Caesar. "What about original sin?" There was a chorus of applause. Kate was still laughing. Philip's head was down. "And now, friends," continued the parson, "Captain Quilliam has been a successful man abroad, but he has had to come home to do the best piece of work he ever did." (A voice--"Do it yourself, parzon.") "It is true I've never done it myself. Vanity of vanities, love is not for me. It's been the Lord's will to put me here to do the marrying and leave my people to do the loving. But there is a young man present who has all the world before him and everything this life can promise except one thing, and that's the best thing of all--a wife." (Kate's laughter grew boisterous.) "This morning he helped his friend to marry a pure and beautiful maiden. Now let me remind him of the text which says, 'Go thou and do likewise.'" The toast was drunk standing, with shouts of "Cap'n Pete," and, amid much hammering on the table, stamping on the floor, and other thunderings of applause, Cap'n Pete rolled up to reply. After a moment's pause, in which he distributed sage winks and nods on every side, he said: "I'm not much for public spaking myself. I made my best speech and my shortest in church this morning--_I will_. The parzon has has been telling my _dooiney molla_ to do as I have done today. He can't. Begging pardon of the ladies, there's only one woman on the island fit for him, and I've got her." (Kate's laughter grew shrill.) "My wife----" At this word, uttered with an air of life-long familiarity, twenty clay pipes lost their heads by collision with the table, and Pete was interrupted by roars of laughter. "Gough bless me, can't a married man mention his wife in company? Well then. Mistress Cap'n Peter Quilliam----" This mouthful was the signal for another riotous interruption, and a general call for more to drink. "Won't that do for you neither? I'm not going back on it, though. 'Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder'--isn't that it, Parzon Quiggin? What's it you're saying--no man but the Dempster? Well, the Dempster's here that is to be--I'll clear him of _that_, anyway." Kate's laughter became explosive and uncontrollable. Pete nodded sideways to fill up the gap in his eloquence, and then went on. "But if my _dooiney molla_ can't marry my wife, there's one thing he can do for her--he can make her house his home in Ramsey when he goes to Douglas for good and comes down here to the coorts once a fortnight." Kate laughed more immoderately than ever; but Philip, with a look of alarm, half rose from his seat, and said across the table, "There's my aunt at Ballure, Pete." "She'll be following after you," said Pete. "There are hotels enough for travellers," said Philip. "Too many by half, and that's why I asked in public," said Pete. "I know the brotherly feeling----" began Philip. "Is it a promise?" demanded Pete. "If I can't escape your kindness----" "No, you can't; so there's an end of it." "It will kill me yet----" "May you never die till it polishes you off.". At Philip's submission to Pete's will, there was a general chorus of cheers, through which Kate's shrill laughter rang like a scream. Pete patted the back of her hand, and continued, "And now, young fellows there, let an ould experienced married man give you a bit of advice--he swore away all his worldly goods this morning, so he hasn't much else to give. I've no belief in bachelors myself. They're like a tub without a handle--nothing to lay hould of them by." (Much nudging and whispering about the bottom of the table.) "What's that down yonder? 'The vicar,' you say? Aw, the vicar's a grand man, but he's only a parzon, you see. Mr. Christian, is it? He's got too much work to do to be thinking about women. We're living on the nineteenth century, boys, and it's middling hard feeding for some of us. If the fishing's going to the dogs and the farming going to the deuce, don't be tossing head over tip at the tail of the tourist. If you've got the pumping engine inside of you, in plain English, if you've got the indomable character of the rael Manxman, do as I done--go foreign. Then watch your opportunity. What's Shake-spar saying?" Pete paused. "What's that he's saying, now?" Pete scratched his forehead. "Something about a flood, anyway." Pete stretched his hand out vigorously. "'Lay hould of it at the flood,' says he, 'that's the way to make your fortune.'" Then Pete melted to sentiment, glanced down at Kate's head, and continued, "And when you come back to the ould island--and there isn't no place like it--you can marry the girl of your heart, God bless her. Work's black, but money's white, and love is as sweet on potatoes and herrings three times a day, as on nothing for dinner, and the same every night of the week for supper. While you're away, you'll be draming of her. 'Is she faithful?' 'Is she thrue?' Coorse she is, and waiting to take you the very minute you come home." Kate was still laughing as if she could not stop. "Look out for the right sort, boys. Plenty of the like in yet. If the young men of these days are more smart and more educated than their fathers, the young women are more handsome and more virtuous than their mothers. So _ben-my-chree_, my hearties, and enough in the locker to drive away the divil and the coroner." Through the volley of cheers which followed Pete's speech came the voice of Black Tom, thick with drink, "Drive off the crow at the wedding-breakfast." Everybody rose and looked. A great crow, black as night, had come in at the open door of the mill, calmly, sedately, as if by habit, for the corn that usually lay there. "It manes divorce," said Black Tom. "Scare it away," cried some one. "It's the new wife must do it," said another. "Where's Kate?" cried Nancy. But Kate only looked and went on laughing as before. The crow turned tail and took flight of itself at finding so eager an audience. Then Pete said, "Whose houlding with such ould wife's wonders?" And Caesar answered, "Coorse not, or fairies either. I've slept out all night on Cronk-ny-airy-Lhaa--before my days of grace, I mane--and I never seen no fairies." "It would be a fool of a fairy, though, that would let _you_ see him, Caesar," said Black Tom. At nine o'clock Caesar's gig was at the door of "The Manx Fairy" to take the bride and bridegroom home. They had sung "Mylecharane," and "Keerie fu Snaighty," and "Hunting the Wren," and "The Win' that Shook the Barley," and then they had cleared away the tables and danced to the fiddle of John the Clerk and the clarionet of Jonaique Jelly. Kate, with wild eyes and flushed cheeks, had taken part in everything, but always fiercely, violently, almost tempestuously, until people lost enjoyment of her heartiness in fear of her hysteria, and Caesar whispered Pete to take her away, and brought round the gig to hasten them. Kate went up for her cloak and hat, and in the interval between her departure and reappearance, Grannie and Nancy Joe, both glorified beings, Nancy with her unaccustomed cap askew, stood in the middle of a group of women, who were deferring, and inquiring, and sympathising. "I don't know in the world how she has kept up so long," said Grannie. "And dear heart knows how _I'm_ to keep up when she's gone," said Nancy, with her apron to her eyes. Kate came down ready. Everybody followed her into the road, and all stood round the gig with flashes from the gig-lamps on their faces, while Pete swung her up into the seat, lifting her bodily in his great arms. "You wouldn't drown yourself to-night for an ould rusty nail, eh, Capt'n?" cried somebody with a laugh. "You go bail," said Pete, and he leapt up to Kate's side, twiddled the reins, cracked the whip, and they drove away. _ |
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