Part 9 (1/2)

”And isn't Pete able to toil, too,” said Philip boldly. ”n.o.body better in the island; there's not a lazy bone in his body, and he'll earn his living anywhere.”

”What _is_ his living, sir?” said Caesar.

Philip halted for an answer, and then said, ”Well, he's only with me in the boat at present, Mr. Cregeen.”

”And what's he getting? His meat and drink and a bit of pence, eh? And you'll be selling up some day, it's like, and going away to England over, and then where is he? Let the girl marry a mother-naked man at once.”

”But you're wanting help yourself, father,” said Grannie. ”Yes, you are though, and time for chapel too and ais.e.m.e.nt in your old days----”

”Give the lad my mill as well as my daughter, is that it, eh?” said Caesar. ”No, I'm not such a goose as yonder, either. I could get heirs, sir, heirs, bless ye--fifty acres and better, not to spake of the bas'es. But I can do without them. The Lord's blest me with enough. I'm not for daubing grease on the tail of the fat pig.”

”Just so, Caesar,” said Philip, ”just so; you can afford to take a poor man for your son-in-law, and there's Pete----”

”I'd be badly in want of a bird, though, to give a groat for an owl,”

said Caesar.

”The lad means well, anyway,” said Grannie; ”and he was that good to his mother, poor thing--it was wonderful.”

”I knew the woman,” said Caesar; ”I broke a sod of her grave myself. A brand plucked from the burning, but not a straight walker in this life. And what is the lad himself? A monument of sin without a name. A b.a.s.t.a.r.d, what else? And that's not the port I'm sailing for.”

Down to this point Philip had been torn by conflicting feelings. He was no match for Caesar in worldly logic, or at fencing with texts of Scripture. The devil had been whispering at his ear, ”Let it alone, you'd better.” But his time had come at length to conquer both himself and Caesar. Rising to his feet at Caesar's last word, he cried in a voice of wrath, ”What? You call yourself a Christian man, and punish the child for the sin of the parent! No name, indeed! Let me tell you, Mr. Caesar Cregeen, it's possible to have one name in heaven that's worse than none at all on earth, and that's the name of a hypocrite.”

So saying he threw back his chair, and was making for the door, when Caesar rose and said softly, ”Come into the bar and have something.”

Then, looking back at Philip's plate, he forced a laugh, and said, ”But you've turned over your herring, sir--that's bad luck.” And, putting a hand on Philip's shoulder, he added, in a lower tone, ”No disrespeck to you, sir; and no harm to the lad, but take my word for it, Mr.

Christian, if there's an amble in the mare it'll be in the colt.”

Philip went off without another word. The moon was rising and whitening as he stepped from the door. Outside the porch a figure flitted past him in the uncertain shadows with a merry trill of mischievous laughter.

He found Pete in the road, puffing and blowing as before, but from a different cause.

”The living devil's in the girl for sartin,” said Pete; ”I can't get my answer out of her either way.” He had been chasing her for his answer, and she had escaped him through a gate. ”But what luck with the ould man, Phil?”

Then Phil told him of the failure of his mission--told him plainly and fully but tenderly, softening the hard sayings but revealing the whole truth. As he did so he was conscious that he was not feeling like one who brings bad news. He knew that his mouth in the darkness was screwed up into an ugly smile, and, do what he would; he could not make it straight and sorrowful.

The happy laughter died off Pete's, lips, and he listened at first in silence, and afterwards with low growls. When Phil showed him how his poverty was his calamity he said, ”Ay, ay, I'm only a wooden-spoon man.”

When Phil told him how Caesar had ripped up their old dead quarrel he muttered, ”I'm on the ebby tide, Phil, that's it.” And when Phil hinted at what Caesar had said of his mother and of the impediment of his own birth, a growl came up from the very depths of him, and he sc.r.a.ped the stones under his feet and said, ”He shall repent it yet; yes, shall he.”

”Come, don't take it so much to heart--it's miserable to bring you such bad news,” said Phil; but he knew the sickly smile was on his lips still, and he hated himself for the sound of his own voice.

Pete found no hollow ring in it. ”G.o.d bless you, Phil,” he said; ”you've done the best for me, I know that. My pocket's as low as my heart, and it isn't fair to the girl, or I shouldn't be asking the ould man's lave anyway.”

He stood a moment in silence, crunching the wooden laths of the garden fence like matchwood in his fingers, and then said, with sudden resolution, ”I know what I'll do.”

”What's that?” said Philip.. ”I'll go abroad; I'll go to Kimberley.”

”Never!”

”Yes, will I though, and quick too. You heard what the men were saying in the evening--there's Manx ones going by the boat in the morning?