Part 7 (1/2)
”Good-night--or good-morning, Findlayson,” said the Donkey Engine.
”We've had a very pleasant night. I am only sorry, however, we cannot make you laugh.”
”I never laugh,” said Findlayson. ”But tell me, old chap, are you really human? You talk as if you were.”
”No,” returned the Donkey Engine, sadly. ”I am neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. I'm a _bivalve--a c.o.c.kney bivalve_,” he added.
”Oh,” replied Findlayson, with a gesture of deprecation, ”you are not a clam!”
”No,” the Donkey Engine replied, as with a sudden inspiration; ”but I'm a hoister.”
And Findlayson burst into a paroxysm of mirth--it must be remembered that he was English--the like of which the good old liner never heard before.
And later, when Peroo returned, having won at _Pok-Kah_ with the _Drummerz_, he found his master sleeping like the veriest child.
Findlayson was saved.
VI
IN WHICH HARRY Sn.o.bBE RECITES A TALE OF GLOOM
Monty St. Vincent had no sooner seated himself after telling the interesting tale of the Salvation of Findlayson, when Billy Jones, of the _Oracle_, rose up and stated that Mr. Harry Sn.o.bbe, as the holder of the seventh ball, would unfold the truly marvellous story that had come to him after the first dinner of the Dreamers.
”Mr. Sn.o.bbe requests all persons having nerves to be unstrung to unstring them now. His tale, he tells me, is one of intense gloom; but how intense the gloom may be, I know not. I will leave it to him to show. Gentlemen, Mr. Sn.o.bbe.”
Mr. Sn.o.bbe took the floor, and after a few preliminary remarks, read as follows:
THE GLOOMSTER
A TALE OF THE ISLE OF MAN
Old Gloomster Goodheart, of Ballyhack, left the Palace of the Bishop of Man broken-hearted. The Bishop had summoned him a week previous to show cause why he should not be removed from his office of Gloomster, a position that had been held by members of his family for ten generations, aye, since the days of that ancient founder of the family, Cronky Gudehart, of whom tradition states that his mere presence at a wedding turned the marriage feast into a seeming funeral ceremony, making men and women weep, and on two occasions driving the bride to suicide and the groom into the Church. Indeed, Cronky Gudehart was himself the first to occupy the office of Gloomster. The office was created for his especial benefit, as you will see, for it was the mere fact that the two grooms bereft at the altar sought out the consolation of the monastery that called the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities to the desirability of establis.h.i.+ng such a functionary. The two grooms were men of wealth, and, had it not been for Cronky Gudehart's malign influence, neither they nor their wealth would have pa.s.sed into the control of the Church, a fact which Ramsay Ballawhaine, then Bishop of Man, was quick to note and act upon.
”The gloomier the world,” said he, ”the more transcendently bright will Heaven seem; and if we can make Heaven seem bright, the Church will be able to declare dividends. Let us spread misery and sorrow. Let us destroy the suns.h.i.+ne of life that so gilds with glory the flesh and the devil. Let all that is worldly be made to appear mean and vile and sordid.”
”But how?” Ramsay Ballawhaine was asked. ”That is a hard thing to do.”
”For some 'twill doubtless so appear, but I have a plan,” the Bishop had answered. ”We have here living, not far from Jellimacksquizzle, the veriest spoil-sport in the person of Cronky Gudehart. He has a face that would change the August beauties of a sylvan forest into a bleak scene of wintry devastation. I am told that when Cronky Gudehart gazes upon a rose it withers, and children pa.s.sing him in the highways run shrieking to their mothers, as though escaping from the bogie man of Caine Hall--which castle, as you know, has latterly been haunted by horrors that surpa.s.s the imagination. His voice is like the strident cry of doom. Hearing his footsteps, strong men quail and women swoon; and I am told that, dressed as Santa Claus, on last Christmas eve he waked up his sixteen children, and with a hickory stick belabored one and all until they said that mercy was all they wanted for their Yule-tide gifts.”
”'Tis true,” said the a.s.sistant vicar. ”'Tis very true; and I happen to know, through my own ministrations, that when a beggar-woman from Sodor applied to Cronky Gudehart for relief from the sorrows of the world, he gave her a bottle of carbolic acid, saying that therein lay the cure of all her woes. But what of Cronky and your scheme?”
”Let us establish the office of Gloomster,” returned the Bishop. ”Set apart Nightmare Abbey as his official residence, and pay him a salary to go about among the people spreading grief and woe among them until they fly in desperation to us who alone can console.”
”It's out of sight!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the a.s.sistant vicar, ”and Cronky's just the man for the place.”
It was thus that the office of Gloomster was inst.i.tuted. As will be seen, the duties of the Gloomster were simple. He was given liberty of entrance to all joyous functions in the life of the Isle of Man, social or otherwise, and his duties were to ruin pleasure wherever he might find it. Cronky Gudehart was installed in the office, and Nightmare Abbey was set apart as his official residence. He attended all weddings, and spoiled them in so far as he was able. It was his custom, when the vicar asked if there was any just reason why these two should not be joined together in holy wedlock, to rise up and say that, while he had no evidence at hand, he had no doubt there was just cause in great plenty, and to suggest that the ceremony should be put off a week or ten days while he and his a.s.sistants looked into the past records of the princ.i.p.als. At funerals he took the other tack, and laughed joyously at every manifestation of grief. At hangings he would appear, and dilate humorously upon the horrid features thereof; and at afternoon teas he would appear clad in black garments from head to foot, and exhort all present to beware of the future, and to give up the hollowness and vanities of tea and macaroons.
Results were not long in their manifestation. In place of open marriage the young people of the isle, to escape the malignant persecution of the Gloomster, took up the habit of elopement, and as elopements always end in sorrow and regret, the monasteries and nunneries waxed great in the land. To avoid funerals, at which the Gloomster's wit was so fearsome a thing, the sick or the maimed and the halt fled out into the open sea and drowned themselves, and all sociability save that which came from book sales and cake auctions--in their very nature destructive of a love of life--faded out of the land.