Part 5. Man And Man - Chapter 7

________________________________________________
_ PART V. MAN AND MAN
CHAPTER VII

Pete went out to buy a sheet of notepaper and an envelope, a pen, and a postage stamp. He had abundance of all theso at home, but that did not serve his turn. Going to as many shops as might be, he dropped hints everywhere of the purpose to which his purchases were to be put. Finally, he went to the barber's in the market-place and said, "Will you write an address for me, Jonaique?"

"Coorse I will," said the barber, sweeping a hand of velvet over one cheek of the postman, who was in the chair, leaving the other cheek in lather while he took up the pen.

"Mistress Peter Quilliam, care of Master Joseph Quilliam, Esquire, Scotland Road, Liverpool" dictated Pete.

"What number, Capt'n?" said Jonaique.

"Number?" said Pete, perplexed. "Bless me, what's this the number is now? Oh," by a sudden inspiration, "five hundred and fifteen."

"Five hundred--d'ye say _five_" said the postman from the half of his mouth that was clear.

"Five," said Pete emphatically. "Aw, they're well up."

"If _you_ say so, Capt'n," said the barber, and down went "515."

Pete returned home with the stamped and addressed envelope open in his hands, "Clane the table quick," he shouted; "I must be writing to Kirry. Will I give her your love, Nancy?"

With much hem-ing and ha-ing and clearing of his throat, Pete was settling himself before a sheet of note-paper, when the door opened, and Philip stepped into the house. His face was haggard and emaciated; his eyes burned as with a fire that came up from within.

"I've come to warn you," he said; "you are in great danger. You must stop that demonstration."

"Sit down, sir, sit down," said Pete.

Philip did not seem to hear. He walked to and fro with short, nervous, noiseless steps. "The Governor sent for me last night, and I found him in a frenzy. 'Deemster,' he said, 'they tell me there's to be a disturbance at Tynwald--have you heard of anything?' I said, 'Yes, I had heard of a meeting of fishermen at Peel.' 'They talk of their rights,' said he; 'I'll teach them something of one right they seem to forget--the right of the Governor to shoot down the disturbers of Tynwald, without judge or jury.' 'That's a very old prerogative, your Excellency,' I said; 'it comes down from more lawless days than ours. You will never use it.' 'Will I not?' said he. 'Listen, I'll tell you what I've done already. I've ordered the regiment at Castletown to be on Tynwald Hill on Tynwald day. Every man of these--there are three hundred--shall have twenty rounds of ball-cartridge. Then, if the vagabonds try to interrupt the Court, I've only to lift my hand--so--and they'll be mown down like grass.' 'You can't mean it,' I said, and I tried to take his big talk lightly. 'Judge for yourself--see,' and he showed me a paper. It was an order for the ambulance waggons to be stationed on the ground, and a request to the doctors of Douglas to be present."

"Then we've made the ould boy see that we mane it," said Pete.

"'If you know any one of the ringleaders, Deemster,' he said, with a look into my face--somebody had been with him--there are tell-tales everywhere----"

"It's the way of the world still," said Pete.

"'Tell him,' said he, 'that I don't want to take the life of any man--I don't want to send any one to penal servitude.'" It was useless to protest. The man was mad, but he was in earnest. His plan was folly--frantic folly--but it was based on a sort of legal right. "So, for the Lord's sake, Pete, stop this thing. Stop it at once, and finally. It's life or death. If ever you thought my word worth anything, you'll do as I bid you, now. God knows where I should be myself if the Governor were to do what he threatens. Stop it, stop it; I haven't slept for thinking of it."

Pete had been sitting at the table, chewing the tip of the pen, and now he lifted to the paleness and wildness of Philip's face a cool, bold smile.

"It's good of you, Phil.... We've a right to be there, though, haven't we?"

"You've a right, certainly, but----"

"Then, by gough, we'll go," said Pete, dropping the pen, and bringing his fist down on the table.

"The penalty will be yours, Pete--yours. You are the man who will suffer--you first--you alone."

Pete smiled again. "No use--I'm incorr'ible. I'm like Dan-ny-Clae, the sheep-stealer, when he came to die. 'I'm going to eternal judgment--what'll I do?' says Dan. 'Give back all you've stolen,' says the parzon. 'I'll chance it first,' says the ould rascal. It's the other fellow that's for stealing this time; but I'll chance it, Philip. Death it may be, and judgment too, but I'll chance it, boy."

Philip's eyes wandered over the floor. "Then you'll not change your plan for anything I've told you?"

"I will, though," said Pete, "for one thing, anyway. _You_ shan't be getting into trouble--I'll be spokesman for the fishermen myself. Oh, I'll spake enough if they get my dander up. I'll just square my arms acrost my chest and I'll say, 'Your Excellency,' I'll say, 'you can't do it, and you shan't do it--_because it isn't_ right.' But chut! botheration to all such bobbery! Look here--man alive, look here! She's not forgetting the lil one, you see," and, making a proud sweep of the hand, Pete pointed to the scarlet hood. It had been put to sit across the back of a china dog on the mantelpiece, with Pete's half sheet of paper pinned to the strings.

Philip recognised it. The hood was the present he had made as godfather. His eyes blinked, his mouth twitched, the cords of his forehead moved.

"So she--she sent that," he stammered.

"Listen here," said Pete, and he unpinned the paper and read the message aloud, with flourishes of voice and gesture--"For lil Katherine from her loving mother... papa not to worry... love to all inquiring friends... best respects to the Dempster if Im not forgot at him." Then in an off-hand way he tossed the paper into the fire. "Aw, what's a bit of a letter," he said largely, as it took flame and burned.

Philip's bloodshot eyes seemed to be starting from his head.

"Nancy's right--a man would never have thought of the like of that--now, would he?" said Pete, looking proudly from Philip to the hood, and from the hood back to Philip.

Philip did not answer. Something seemed to be throttling him.

"But when a woman goes away she leaves her eyes behind her, as you might say. 'What'll I be getting for them that's at home?' she's thinking, and up comes a nice warm lil thing for the baby. Aw, the women's good, Philip. They're what they make the sovereigns of, God bless them!"

Philip felt as if he must rush out of the house shrieking. One moment he stood up before Pete, as though he meant to say something, and then he turned to go.

"Not sleeping to-night, no? Have to get back to Douglas? Then maybe you'll write me a letter first?"

Philip nodded his head and returned, his mouth tightly closed, sat down at the table, and took up the pen.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Am I to give you the words, Phil? Yes? Well, if you won't be thinking mane----"

Pete charged His pipe out of his waistcoat pocket, and began to dictate:

"Dear wife.'"

At that Philip gave an involuntary cry.

"Aw, best to begin proper, you know. 'Dear wife,'" said Pete again.

Philip made a call on his resolution, and put the words down. His hand felt cold; his heart felt frozen to the core. Pete lit up, and walked to and fro as he dictated his letter. Nancy sat knitting by the cradle, with one foot on the rocker.

"'Glad to get your welcome letter, darling, and the bonnet for the baby'-----"

"'Go on," said Philip, in an impassive voice.

"Got that down, Philip? Aw, you're smart wonderful with the pen, though....

'When she's got it on her lil head you'd laugh tremenjous. She's straight like a lil John the Baptist in the church window'--"

Pete paused; Philip lifted his pen and waited.

"Done already? Man veen, there's no houlding you....

'Glad to hear you're so happy and comfortable with Uncle Joe and Auntie Joney. Give the pair of them my fond love and best respects. We're getting on beautiful, and I'm as happy as a sandboy. Sometimes Grannie gets a bit down with longing, and so does Nancy, but I tell them you'll be home for their funeral sarmon, anyway, and then they're comforted wonderful.'"

"Don't be writing his rubbage and lies, your Honour," said Nancy.

"Chut! woman; where's the harm at all? A merry touch to keep a person's spirits up when she's away from home--eh, Philip?" and Pete appealed to him with a nudge at his writing elbow.

Philip gave no sign. With a look of stupor he was staring down at the paper as he wrote. Pete puffed and went on--

"'Caesar's at it still, going through the Bible same as a trawl-boat, fishing up the little texes. The Dempster's putting a sight on us reg'lar, and you're not forgot at him neither. 'Deed no, but thinking of you constant, and trusting you're the better for laving home-----'

... Going too fast, am I? So I'm bating you at last, eh?"

A cold perspiration had broken out on Philip's forehead, and he was looking up with the eyes of a hunted dog.

"Am I to--must I write that?" he said in a helpless way.

"Coorse--go ahead," said Pete, puffing clouds of smoke, and laughing.

Philip wrote it. His hand was now stiff. It sprawled and splashed over the paper.

"'As for myself, I'm a sort of a grass-widow, and if you keep me without a wife much longer they'll be taxing me for a bachelor.'"

Pete put his pipe on the mantelpiece, cleared his throat repeatedly, and began to be afflicted with a cough.

"'Glad to hear you're coming home soon, darling (_cough_). Dearest Kirry, I'm missing you mortal (_cough_), worse nor at Kimberley (_cough_). When I'm going to bed, 'Where is she to-night?' I'm saying. And when I'm getting up, 'Where is she now?' I'm thinking. And in the dark midnight I'm asking myself, 'Is she asleep, I wonder?' (_Cough, cough_.) Come home quick, bogh; but not before you're well at all.'

... Never do to fetch her too soon, you know," he said in a whisper over Philip's shoulder, with another nudge at his elbow.

Philip answered incoherently, and shrank under Pete's touch as if he had been burnt. The coughing continued; the dictating began again.

'"I'm keeping a warm nest for you here, love. There'll be a welcome from everybody, and nobody saying anything but the good and the kind. So come home soon, my true lil wife, before the foolish ould heart of your husband is losing him'----"

Pete coughed violently, and stretched his neck and mouth awry. "This cough I've got in my neck is fit to tear me in pieces," he said. "A spoonful of cold pinjane, Nancy--it's ter'ble good to soften the neck."

Nancy was nodding over the cradle--she had fallen asleep.

Philip had turned white and giddy and sick. For one moment an awful impulse seized him. He wanted to fall on Pete; to lay hold of him, to choke him. The consciousness of his own inferiority, his own duplicity, made him hate Pete. The very sweetness of the man sickened him. He could not help it--the last spark of his self-pride was fighting for its life. Then in shame, in remorse, in horror of himself and dread of everything, he threw down the pen, caught up his hat, shouted "Good night" in a voice like the growl of a beast in terror, and ran out of the house.

Nancy started up from a doze. "Goodness grazhers!" she cried, and the cradle rocked violently under her foot.

"He's that tender-hearted and sympathising," whispered Pete as he closed the door. (_Cough, cough_)... "The letter's finished, though--and here's the envelope." _

Read next: Part 5. Man And Man: Chapter 8

Read previous: Part 5. Man And Man: Chapter 6

Table of content of Manxman: A Novel


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book