Part 75 (1/2)

There was a rustling within as of autumn leaves, and then a twittering voice cried, ”Is it Capt'n Quilliam, Martha?”

”Yes, ma'am.”

Some whispered conference took place at the dining-room door, and Auntie Nan came hopping through the hall. But Pete was already moving away in the darkness.

”Shall I call the Deemster, Peter?”

”Aw, no, ma'am, no, not worth bothering him. Good everin', Miss Christian, ma'am, good everin' to you.”

Auntie Nan and Martha were standing in the light at the open door when the iron gate of the garden swung to with a click, and Pete swung across the road.

He was making for the lane which goes down to the sh.o.r.e at the foot of Ballure Glen. ”No denying it,” he thought. ”It must be true for all. The trouble in her head has driven her to it. Poor girl, poor darling!”

He had been fighting against an awful idea, and the quagmire of despair had risen to his throat at last. The moon was behind the cliffs, and he groped his way through the shadows at the foot of the rocks like one who looks for something which he dreads to find. He found nothing, and his catchy breathing lengthened to sighs.

”Thank G.o.d, not here, anyway!” he muttered.

Then he walked down the sh.o.r.e towards the harbour. The tide was still high, the wash of the waves touched his feet; on the one hand the dark sea, unbroken by a light, on the other the dull town blinking out and dropping asleep.

He reached the end of the stone pier at the mouth of the harbour, and with his back to the seaward side of the lighthouse he stared down into the grey water that surged and moaned under the rounded wall. A black cloud like a skate was floating across the moon, and a startled gannet scuttled from under the pier steps into the moon's misty waterway. There was nothing else to be seen.

He turned back towards the town, following the line of the quay, and glancing down into the harbour when he came to the steps. Still he saw nothing of the thing he looked for. ”But it was high water then, and now it's the ebby tide,” he told himself.

He had met with n.o.body on the sh.o.r.e or on the pier, but as he pa.s.sed the sheds in front of the berth for the steamers he was joined by the harbour-master, who was swinging home for the night, with his coat across his arm. Then he tried to ask the question that was slipping off his tongue, but dared not, and only stammered awkwardly----

”Any news to-night, Mr. Quay le?”

”Is it yourself, Capt'n? If you've none, I've none. It's independent young rovers like you for newses, not poor ould chaps tied to the harbour-post same as a s.h.i.+p's cable. I was hearing you, though. You'd a power of music in the everin' yonder. Fine doings up at Ballure, seemingly.”

”Nothing fresh with yourself then, Daniel? No?”

”Except that I am middling sick of these late sailings, and the sooner they're building us a breakwater the better. If the young Deemster will get that for us, he'll do.”

They were nearing a lamp at the corner of the marketplace.

”It's like you know the young Ballawhaine crossed with the boat to-night? Something wrong, with the ould man, they're telling me. But boy, veen, what's come of your hat at all?”

”My hat?” said Pete, groping about his head. ”Oh, my hat? Blown off on the pier, of coorse.”

”'Deed, man! Not much wind either. You'll be for home and the young wife, eh, Capt'n?”

”Must be,” said Pete, with an empty laugh. And the harbour-master, who was a bachelor, laughed more heartily, and added----

”You married men are like Adam, you've lost the rib of your liberty, but you've got a warm little woman to your side instead.”

”Ha! ha! ha! Goodnight!”

Pete's laugh echoed through the empty market-place.

The harbour-master had seen nothing. Pete drew a long breath, followed the line of the harbour as far as to the bridge at the end of it, and then turned back through the town. He had forgotten again that he was bareheaded, and he walked down Parliament Street with a tremendous step and the air of a man to whom nothing unusual had occurred. People were standing in groups at the corner of every side street, talking eagerly, with the low hissing sound that women make when they are discussing secrets. So absorbed were they that Pete pa.s.sed some of them un.o.bserved.