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The Manxman: A Novel, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 5. Man And Man - Chapter 10 |
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_ PART V. MAN AND MAN CHAPTER X Tynwald Hill is the ancient Parliament ground of Man. It is an open green in the midst of the island, with hills on three of its sides, and on the fourth a broad plain dipping to the coast. This green is of the shape of a guitar. Down the middle of the guitar there is a walled enclosure of the shape of a banjo. At the end stands a church. The round drum is the mount, which has four circles, the topmost being some six paces across. The carriage containing the Deemster and the Clerk of the Bolls had drawn up at the west gate of the church, and a policeman had opened the door. There came the sound of singing from the porch. "A quarter late," said the Clerk of the Rolls, consulting his watch. "Shall we go in, your Honor?" "Let us take a turn round the fair instead," said Philip. The carriage door was shut back, and they began to move over the green. The open part of it was covered with booths, barrows, stands, and show-tents. There were cheap jacks with shoddy watches, phrenologists with two chairs, fat women, dwarfs, wandering minstrels, itinerant hawkers of toffee in tin hat-boxes, and other shiny and slimy creatures with the air and grease of the towns. There were a few oxen and horses also, tethered and lanketted, and kicking up the dust under the dry turf. The crowd was dense already, and increasing at every moment. As the brakes arrived, they drove up with a swing that sent the people surging on either side. Some brought well-behaved visitors, others brought an eruption of ruffians. Down the neck of the enclosure, and round the circular end of it, stood a regiment of soldiers with rifles and bayonets. The steps to the mount were laid down with rushes. Two armchairs were on the top, under a canopy hung from a flagstaff that stood in the centre. These chairs were still empty, and the mount and its approaches were kept clear. The sun was overhead, the heat was great, the odour was oppressive. Now and again the sound of the service within the church mingled with the crack of the toy rifle-ranges and the jabber of the cheap jacks. At length there was another sound--a more portentous sound--the sound of bands playing in the distance. It came from both south and west, from the direction of Peel, and from that of Port St. Mary. "They're coming," said the Clerk, and Philip's face, when he turned his head to listen, quivered and grew yet more pale. As the bands approached they ceased to play. Presently a vast procession of men from the west came up in silence to the skirt of the hill, and turned off in the direction from which the men from the south were seen to be coming. They were in jerseys and sea-boots, marching four deep, and carrying nothing in their brawny hands. One stalwart fellow walked firmly at the head of them.. It was Pete. Philip could support the strain no longer. He got out of the carriage. The Clerk of the Rolls got out also, and followed him as he walked with wavering, irregular steps. Under a great tree at the junction of three roads, the two companies of fishermen met and fell into a general throng. There was a low wall around the tree-trunk, and, standing on this, Pete's head was clear above the rest. "Boys," he was saying, "there's three hundred armed soldiers on the hill yonder, with twenty rounds of ball-cartridge apiece. You're going to the Coort because you've a right to go. You're going up peaceable, and, when you're getting there, you're going to mix among the soldiers, three to every man, two on either side and one behind. Then your spokesmen are going to spake out your complaint. If they're listened to, you're wanting no better. But if they're not, and if the word is given to fire on them, then, before there's time to do it, you're going to stretch every man of the three hundred on his back and take his weapon. Don't hurt the soldiers--the poor soldiers are only doing what they're tould. But don't let the soldiers hurt you neither. You're going there for justice. You're not going there to fight. But if anybody fights you, let him never forget the day he done it. Break up every taffy stand in the fair, if you can't find anything better. And if blood is shed, lave the man that orders it to me. And now go up, boys, like men and like Manxmen." There was no cheering, no shouting, no clapping of hands. Only broken exclamations and a sort of confused murmur. "Come," whispered the Clerk of the Rolls, putting his hand through Philip's quivering arm. "Little does the poor devil think that, if blood is shed, he will be the first to fall." "God in heaven!" muttered Philip. _ |
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