Part 79 (1/2)
PART V. MAN AND MAN.
I.
It was Sat.u.r.day, and the market-place was covered with the carts and stalls of the country people. After some feint of eating breakfast, Pete lit his pipe, called for a basket, and announced his intention of doing the marketing.
”Coming for the mistress, are you, Capt'n?”
”I'm a sort of a gra.s.s-widow, ma'am. What's your eggs to-day, Mistress Cowley?”
”Sixteen this morning, sir, and right ones too. They were telling me you've been losing her.”
”Give me a s.h.i.+lling's worth, then. Any news over your side, Mag?”
”Two--four--eight--sixteen--it's every appearance we'll be getting a early harvest, Capt'n.”
”Is it yourself, Liza? And how's your b.u.t.ter to-day?”
”Bad to bate to-day, sir, and only thirteen pence ha'penny. Is the lil one longing for the mistress, Capt'n?”
”I'll take a couple of pounds, then. What for longing at all when it's going bringing up by hand it is? Put it in a cabbage leaf, Liza.”
Thus, with his basket on his arm and his pipe in his mouth, Pete pa.s.sed from stall to stall, chatting, laughing, bargaining, buying, shouting his salutations over the general hum and hubbub, as he ploughed his way through the crowd, but listening intently watching eagerly, casting out grapples to catch the anchor he had lost, and feeling all the time that if any eye showed sign of knowledge, if any one began with ”Capt'n, I can tell you where she is,” he must leap on the man like a tiger, and strangle the revelation in his throat.
Next day, Sunday, his friends from Sulby came to quiz and to question.
He was lounging in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves on a deck-chair in his s.h.i.+p's cabin, smoking a long pipe, and pretending to be at ease and at peace with all the world.
”Fine morning, Capt'n,” said John the Clerk.
”It _is_ doing a fine morning, John,” said Pete.
”Fine on the sea, too,” said Jonaique.
”Wonderful fine on the sea, Mr. Jelly.”
”A nice fair wind, though, if anybody was going by the packet to Liverpool. Was it as good, think you, for the mistress on Friday night, Mr. Quilliam?”
”I'll gallantee,” said Pete.
”Plucky, though--I wouldn't have thought it of the same woman--I wouldn't raelly,” said Jonaique.
”Alone, too, and landing on the other side so early in the morning,”
said John the Clerk.
”Smart, uncommon! It isn't every woman would have done it,” said Kelly the Postman.
”Aw, we've mighty boys of women deese days--we have dough,” snuffled the constable, and then they all laughed together.
Pete watched their wheedling, fawning, and whisking of the tail, and then he said, ”Chut! What's there so wonderful about a woman going by herself to Liverpool when she's got somebody waiting at the stage to meet her?”
The laughing faces lengthened suddenly. ”And had she, then,” said John the Clerk.