Part 6 (1/2)

They were near to ”The Manx Fairy” by this time.

”And talking of praise,” said Caesar, ”I hear them there at their practices. Asking pardon now--it's proud I'd be, sir--perhaps you'd not be thinking mane to come in and hear the way we do 'Crown Him!'”

”So the saints use the fiddle,” said the parson, as the gig drew up at the porch of the inn.

Half a minute afterwards the door of the parlour flew open with a bang, and Caesar stood and glared on the threshold with the parson's ruddy face behind him. There was a moment's silence. The uplifted toe of Katherine trailed back to the ground, the fiddle of Pete slithered to his farther side, and the smacking lips of Niplightly transfixed themselves agape.

Then the voice of the parson was heard to say, ”Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!” and suddenly Caesar, still on the threshold, went down on his knees to pray.

Caesar's prayer was only a short one. His mortified pride called for quicker solace. Rising to his feet with as much dignity as he could command under the twinkling eyes of the parson, he stuttered, ”The capers! Making a dacent house into a theaytre! Respectable person, too--one of the first that's going! So,” facing the spectators, ”just help yourselves home the pack of you! As for these ones,” turning on Kate, Pete, and the constable, ”there'll be no more of your practices.

I'll do without the music of three saints like you. In future I'll have three sinners to raise my singing. These polices, too!” he said with a withering smile. (Niplightly was worming his way out at the back of Parson Quiggin.)

”Who began it?” shouted Caesar, looking at Katherine.

From the moment that Caesar dropped on his knees at the door, Pete had been well-nigh choked by an impulse to laugh aloud. But now he bit his lip and said, ”I did!”

”Behould ye now, as imperent as a goat!” said Caesar, working his eyebrows vigorously. ”You've mistaken your profession, boy. It's a play-actorer they ought to be making of you. You're wasting your time with a plain, respectable man like me. You must lave me. Away to the loft for your chiss, boy! And just give sheet, my lad, and don't lay to till you've fetched up at another lodgings.”

Pete, with his eye on the parson's face, could control himself no longer, and he laughed so loud that the room rang.

”Right's the word, ould Nebucannezzar,” he cried, and heaved up to his feet. ”So long, Kitty, woman! S'long! We'll finish it another night though, and then the ould man himself will be houlding the candle.”

Outside in the road somebody touched him on the shoulder. It was the young man in the Alpine hat.

”My gough! What? Phil!” cried Pete, and he laid hold of him with both hands at once.

”I've just finished at King William's and bought a boat,” said Philip, ”and I came up to ask you to join me--congers and cods, you know--good fun anyway. Are you willing?”

”Willing!” cried Pete. ”Am I jumping for joy?”

And away they went down the road, swinging their legs together with a lively step.

”That's a nice girl, though--Kitty, Kate, what do you call her?” said Phil.

”Were you in then? So you saw her dancing?” said Pete eagerly. ”Aw, yes, nice,” he said warmly, ”nice uncommon,” he added absently, and then with a touch of sadness, ”shocking nice!”

Presently they heard the pattering of light feet in the darkness behind them, and a voice like a broken cry calling ”Pete!”

It was Kate. She came up panting and catching her breath in hiccoughs, took Pete's face in both her hands, drew it down to her own face, kissed it on the mouth, and was gone again without a word.

VI.

Philip had not been a success at school; he had narrowly escaped being a failure. During his earlier years he had shown industry without gifts; during his later years he had shown gifts without industry. His childish saying became his by-word, and half in sport, half in earnest, with a smile on his lips, and a shuddering sense of fascination, he would say when the wind freshened, ”The sea's calling me, I must be off.” The blood of the old sea-dog, his mother's father, was strong in him.

Idleness led to disaster, and disaster to some disgrace. He was indifferent to both while at school, but shame found him out at home.

”You'll be sixteen for spring,” said Auntie Nan, ”and what would your poor father say if he were alive? He thought worlds of his boy, and always said what a man he would be some day.”

That was the shaft that found Philip. The one pa.s.sion that burned in his heart like a fire was reverence for the name and the will of his dead father. The big hopes of the broken man had sometimes come as a torture to the boy when the blood of the old salt was rioting within him. But now they came as a spur.

Philip went back to school and worked like a slave. There were only three terms left, and it was too late for high honours, but the boy did wonders. He came out well, and the masters were astonished. ”After all,”

they said, ”there's no denying it, the boy Christian must have the gift of genius. There's nothing he might not do.”