Complete works of hall c.., p.153
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 153
Government House, in the south of the island, had yet more applicants; but what the Governor had he gave, and when his money was gone he served out orders on the millers for meal and the weavers for cloth. It soon became known that he kept open house to the poor, and from north and south, east and west, the needy came to him in troops, and with them came the idle and the dissolute. He knew the one class from the other, yet railed at both in threatening words, reproaching their improvidence and predicting his own ruin, but he ended by giving to all alike. They found out his quarter-day and came in throngs to meet it, knowing that, bluster as he would, while the good man had money he was sure to give it to all who asked. The sorry troop, good and bad, worthy and unworthy, soon left him without a pound. He fumed at this when Greeba cast up his reckoning, but comforted himself with the thought that he had still his stipend of five hundred pounds a year coming in to him, however deeply it might be condemned beforehand.
At the first pinch of his necessity his footman deserted him and after the footman went the groom.
“They say the wind is tempered to the shorn sheep, Greeba,” said he, and laughed.
He had always stood somewhat in awe of these great persons, and his spirits rose visibly at the loss of them, for he had never yet reconciled himself to the dignity of his state.
“It’s wonderful how much a man may do for himself when he’s put to it,” he said, as he groomed his own horse next morning. His sons were not so easily appeased, and muttered hard words at his folly, for their own supplies had by this time suffered curtailment. He was ruining himself at a breakneck pace, and if he came to die in the gutter, who should say that it had not served him right? The man who threw away his substance with his eyes open deserved to know by bitter proof that it had gone. Jason heard all this at the fireside at Lague, and though he could not answer it, he felt his palms itch sorely, and his fists tighten like ribs of steel, and his whole body stiffen up and silently measure its weight against that of Thurstan Fairbrother, the biggest and heaviest and hardest-spoken of the brothers. Greeba heard it, too, but took it with a gay lightsomeness, knowing all yet fearing nothing.
“What matter?” she said, and laughed.
But strange and silly enough were some of the shifts that her father’s open-handedness put her to in these bad days of the bitter need of the island’s poor people.
It was the winter season, when things were at their worst, and on Christmas Eve Greeba had a goose killed for their Christmas dinner. The bird was hung in one of the out-houses, to drain and cool before being plucked, and while it was there Greeba went out, leaving her father at home. Then came three of the many who had never yet been turned empty from the Governor’s door. Adam blustered at all of them, but he emptied his pockets to one, gave the goose to another, and smuggled something out of the pantry for the third.
The goose was missed by the maid whose work it was to pluck it, and its disappearance was made known to Greeba on her return. Guessing at the way it had gone, she went into the room where her father sat placidly smoking, and trying to look wondrous, serene and innocent.
“What do you think, father?” she said; “someone has stolen the goose.”
“I’m afraid, my dear,” he answered, meekly, “I gave it away to poor Kinrade, the parish clerk. Would you believe it, he and his good old wife hadn’t a bit or a sup for their Christmas dinner?”
“Well,” said Greeba, “you’ll have to be content with bread and cheese for your own, for we have nothing else in the house now.”
“I’m afraid, my dear,” he stammered, “I gave away the cheese too. Poor daft Gelling, who lives on the mountains, had nothing to eat but a loaf of bread, poor fellow.”
Now the rapid impoverishment of the Governor was forcing Greeba into the arms of Jason, though they had yet no idea that this was so; and when the crisis came that loosened the ties which held Greeba to her father, it came as a surprise to all three of them.
The one man in the island who had thus far shown a complete indifference to the sufferings of the poor in their hour of tribulation was the Bishop of Sodor and Man. This person was a fashionable ecclesiastic — not a Manxman — a Murray, and a near kinsman of the Lord of the Island, who had kept the See four years vacant that the sole place of profit in the island might thereby be retained for his own family. Many years the Bishop had drawn his stipend, tithe and glebe rents, which were very large in proportion to the diocese, and almost equal in amount to the emoluments of the whole body of the native clergy. He held small commerce with his people, and the bad seasons troubled him little until he felt the pinch of them himself. But when he found it hard to gather his tithe he began to realize that the island was passing through sore straits. Then he sold his tithe charges by auction in England, and they were knocked down to a Scotch factor — a hard man, untroubled by sentiment, and not too proud to get his own by means that might be thought to soil the cloth of a Bishop.
When news of this transfer reached the island the Manx clergy looked black, though they dared say nothing; but the poor people grumbled audibly, for they knew what was coming. It soon came, in the shape of writs from the Bishop’s seneschal, served by the Bishop’s sumner. Then the cry of the poor reached the Governor at Castletown. No powers had he to stay the seizure of goods and stock, for arrears that were forfeit to the Church Courts, but he wrote to the Bishop, asking him to stay execution at such a moment of the island’s necessity. The Bishop answered him curtly that the matter was now outside his control. At that the Governor inquired into the legality of the sale, and found good reason to question it. He wrote again to the Bishop, hinting at his doubts, and then the Bishop told him to mind his own business. “My business is the welfare of the people,” the Governor answered, “and be you Bishop or Lord, or both, be sure that while I am here I will see to it.”
“Such is the penalty of setting a beggar on horseback,” the Bishop rejoined.
Meantime the Scotch factor went on with his work, and notices were served that if arrears of tithe rent were not paid by a given date, cattle or crop to the value of them would then be seized in the Bishop’s name. When the word came to Government House, the Governor announced to Greeba his intention to be present at the first seizure. She tried to restrain him, fearing trouble; but he was fully resolved. Then she sent word by old Chalse A’Killey to her brothers at Lague, begging them to go with their father and see him through, but one and all refused. There was mischief brewing, and if the Governor had a right to interfere, he had a right to have the civil forces at the back of him. If he had no right to the help of Castle Rushen he had no right to stop the execution. In any case, they had no wish to meddle.
When old Chalse brought back this answer, Red Jason chanced to be at Castletown. He had been at Government House oftener than usual since the clouds had begun to hang on it. Coming down from the mountains, with his pipe in his mouth, his fowling piece over his shoulder, and his birds hanging from his belt, he would sometimes contrive to get up into the yard at the back, fling down a brace of pheasants on to the kitchen floor, and go off again without speaking to anyone. Greeba had been too smart for him this time, and he was standing before her with a look of guilt when Chalse came up on his errand. Then Jason heard all, and straightway offered to go with the Governor, and never let wit of his intention.
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” said Greeba, and she looked up into his bronzed face and smiled proudly, and her long lashes blinked over her beautiful eyes. Her glance seemed to go through him. It seemed to go through all nature; and fill the whole world with a new, glad light.
The evil day came, and the Governor was as good as his word. He went away to Peel, where the first seizure was to be made. There a great crowd had already gathered, and at sight of Adam’s face a great shout went up. The factor heard it, as he came on from Bishop’s Court with a troop of his people about him. “I’ll mak’ short shrift of a’ that, the noo,” he said. When he came up he ordered that a cow house door should be opened and the cattle brought out for instant sale, for he had an auctioneer by his side. But the door was found to be locked, and he shouted to his men to leap on to the roof and strip off the thatch. Then the Governor cried “Stop,” and called on the factor to desist, for though he might seize the cattle there would be no sale that day, since no man there present would take the bread out of the mouths of the poor.
“Then they shall try the milk,” said the factor, with a hoarse laugh, and at the same moment the Bishop’s seneschal, a briefless advocate, stepped out, pushed his hot face into Adam’s, and said that, Governor as he was, if he encouraged the people to resist, the sumner should there and then summon him to appear before the Church Courts for contempt.
At that insult the crowd surged around, muttering deep oaths, and factor and seneschal were both much hustled. In another moment there was a general struggle; people were shouting, the Governor was on the ground and in danger of being trodden under foot, the factor had drawn a pistol, and some of his men were flourishing hangers.
By this time Red Jason had lounged up, as if by chance, to the outskirts of the crowd, and now he pushed through with great strides, lifted the Governor to his feet, laid the factor on the broad of his back, and clapped his pistol hand under one heavy heel. Then the hangers flashed round Jason’s face, and he stretched his arms and laid out about him. In two minutes he had made a wide circle where he stood, and in two minutes more the factor and his men, with seneschal, sumner, auctioneer, and all the riffraff of the Church Courts, were going off up the road with best foot foremost, and a troop of the people, like a pack of hounds at full cry, behind.
Then the remnant of the crowd compared notes and bruises.
“Man alive, what a boy to fight,” said one.
“Who was it?” said another.
“Och, Jason the Red, of coorse,” said a third.
Jason was the only man badly injured. He had a deep cut over the right brow, and though the wound bled freely he made light of it. But Adam was much troubled at the sight.
“I much misdoubt me but we’ll rue the day,” he said.
Jason laughed at that, and they went back to Castletown together. Greeba saw them coming, and all but fainted at the white bandage that gleamed across Jason’s forehead; but he bade her have no fear, for his wound was nothing. Nevertheless she must needs dress it afresh, though her deft fingers trembled woefully, and, seeing how near the knife had come to the eye, all her heart was in her mouth. But he only laughed at the bad gash, and thought with what cheer he would take such another just to have the same tender hands bathe it, and stitch it, and to see the troubled heaving of the round bosom that was before him while his head was held down.
“Aren’t you very proud of yourself, Jason?” she whispered softly, as she finished.
“Why proud?” said he.
“It’s the second time you have done as I have bidden you, and suffered for doing so,” she said.
He knew not what reply to make, scarcely realizing which way her question tended. So, feeling very stupid, he said again,
“But why proud?”
“Aren’t you, then?” she said. “Because I am proud of you.”
They were alone, and he saw her breast heave and her great eyes gleam, and he felt dizzy. At the next instant their hands touched, and then his blood boiled, and before he knew what he was doing he had clasped the beautiful girl in his arms, and kissed her on the lips and cheek. She sprang away from him, blushing deeply, but he knew that she was not angry, for she smiled through her deep rich color, as she fled out of the room on tiptoe. From that hour he troubled his soul no more with fears that he was unworthy of Greeba’s love, for he looked at his wound in the glass, and remembered her words, and laughed in his heart.
The Governor was right that there would be no sale for arrears of tithe charges. After a scene at Bishop’s Court the factor went back to England, and no more was heard of the writs served by the sumner. But wise folks predicted a storm for Adam Fairbrother, and the great people were agreed that his conduct had been the maddest folly.
“He’ll have to take the horns with the hide,” said Deemster Lace.
“He’s a fool that doesn’t know which side his bread is buttered,” said Mrs. Fairbrother.
The storm came quickly, but not from the quarter expected.
Since the father of the Duke of Athol had sold his fiscal rights to the English Crown the son had rued the bargain. All the interest in the island that remained to him lay in his title, his patronage of the Bishopric, and his Governor-Generalship. His title counted for little, for it was unknown at the English Court, and the salary of his Governor-Generalship counted for less, for, not being resident in the island, he had to pay a local Governor. The patronage of the Bishopric was the one tangible item of his interest, and when the profits of that office were imperilled he determined to part with his truncated honors. Straightway he sold them bag and baggage to the Crown, for nearly six times as much as his father had got for the insular revenues. When this neat act of truck and trade was complete he needed his deputy no more, and sent Adam Fairbrother an instant warning, with half-a-year’s salary for smart money.
The blow came with a shock on Greeba and her father, but there was no leisure to sigh over it. Government House and its furniture belonged to the Government, and the new Governor might take possession of it at any moment. But the stock on its lands was Adam’s and as it was necessary to dispose of it, he called a swift sale. Half the island came to it, and many a brave brag came then from many a vain stomach. Adam was rightly served! What was there to expect when jacks were set in office? With five hundred a year coming in for twenty years he was as poor as a church mouse? Aw, money in the hands of some men was like water in a sieve!
Adam’s six sons were there, looking on with sneering lips, as much as to say, “Let nobody blame us for a mess like this.” Red Jason was there, too, glooming as black as a thundercloud, and itching to do battle with somebody if only a fit case would offer.
Adam himself did not show his face. He was ashamed — he was crushed — he was humiliated — but not for the reason attributed to him by common report. Alone he sat, and smoked and smoked, in the room at the back, from whence he had seen Greeba and Michael Sunlocks that day when they walked side by side into the paved yard, and when he said within himself, “Now, God grant that this may be the end of all parting between them and me.” He was thinking of that day now: that it was very, very far away. He heard the clatter of feet below, and the laughter of the bidders and the wondrous jests of the facetious auctioneer.
When the work was over, and the house felt quiet and so, so empty, Greeba came in to him, with eyes large and red, and kissed him without saying a word. Then he became mighty cheerful all at once, and bade her fetch out her account books, for they had their own reckoning yet to make, and now was the time to make it. She did as she was bidden, and counted up her father’s debts, with many a tear dropping over them as if trying to blot them out forever. And meanwhile he counted up his half-year’s smart money, and the pile of silver and gold that had come of the sale. When all was reckoned, they found they would be just fifteen pounds to the good, and that was now their whole fortune.
Next morning there came a great company of the poor, and stood in silence about the house. They knew that Adam had nothing to give, and they came for nothing; they on their part had nothing to offer, and they had nothing to say; but this was their way of showing sympathy with the good man in his dark hour.
The next morning after that old Adam said to Greeba,
“Come, girl, there is only one place in the island that we have a right to go to, and that’s Lague. Let’s away.”
And towards Lague they set their faces, afoot, all but empty-handed, and with no one but crazy old Chalse A’Killey for company.
CHAPTER II.
How Greeba was Left with Jason.
It was early summer, and the day was hot; there had been three weeks of drought, and the roads were dusty. Adam walked with a stout blackthorn stick, his flaccid figure sometimes swaying for poise and balance, and his snow-white hair rising gently in the soft breeze over his tender old face, now ploughed so deep with labor and sorrow. Chalse was driving his carrier’s cart, whereon lay all that was left of Adam’s belongings, save only what the good man carried in his purse. And seeing how heavy the road was to one of Adam’s years, though his own were hardly fewer, poor old Chalse, recking nothing of dignity lost thereby, would have had him to mount the shafts and perch on the box behind the pony’s tail. But Adam, thinking as little of pride, said No, that every herring should hang by its own gills, and the pony had its full day’s work before it; moreover, that it was his right to walk at his own expense now, having ridden twenty years at the expense of the island. So he kept the good blackthorn moving, and Greeba stepped along nimbly by his side. And when the Castletown coach overtook and passed them on its way to Douglas, and some of the farming folk who rode on it leaned over saucily and hailed Adam by his Christian name, he showed no shame or rancor, until, when the coach was gone, he caught a glimpse of the hot color that had mounted to Greeba’s cheeks. Then, without a word, he turned his mellow old face to his feet, and strode along a good half mile in silence.
And meantime, Chalse, thinking to lighten the burden of the way with cheerful talk, rattled along in his crazy screech on many subjects, but found that all came round, by some strange twist, to the one subject that might not be discussed. Thus, looking at his pony, he told of the donkey he had before it, the same that Michael Sunlocks rode long years ago; how he himself had fallen sick and could not to keep it, and so gave it without a penny to a neighbor for feeding it; and how when he got better he wanted to borrow it, but the neighbor, in base ingratitude and selfishness, would not lend it without pay.
“Faith, it’s alwis lek that,” said Chalse. “Give a man yer shirt, and ye must cut yer lucky or he’ll be after axing ye for yer skin.”
