Complete works of hall c.., p.43
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 43
And Kisseck whispered again in Christian’s ear, but the words escaped Danny.
“No, no, that’ll not do,” said Christian, emphatically.
“Aw, and why not at all?”
“Why not? Why not? Because it’s murder, nothing less.”
“Now, what’s the use of sayin’ the lek o’ that. Aw, the shockin’ notions. Well, well, and do ye raely think a person’s got no feelin’s? Murder? Aw, well now, well now! I didn’t think it of you, Christian, that I didn’t.”
And Kisseck took a step or two up and down the deck with the air of an injured man.
Just then Crennel, the cook, came up to say breakfast was ready. All hands, save the men at the tiller, went below. A huge dish of herrings and a similar dish of potatoes stood on the table. Each man dipped in with his hands, lifted his herrings onto his plate, ran his fingers from tail to head, swept all the flesh off the fresh fish, and threw away the bare backbone. Such was the breakfast; and while it was being eaten there was much chaff among the men at Danny Fayle’s expense. It was —
“Aw, you wouldn’t think it’s true, would ye now?”
“And what’s that?” with a “glime” at Danny.
“Why, that the lek o’ yander is tackin’ round the gels.”
“Do ye raely mane it?”
“Yes, though, and sniffin’ and snuffin’ abaft of them astonishin’.”
“Aw, well, well, well.”
Not a sign from Danny.
“Yes, yes, the craythur’s doin’ somethin’ in the spoony line,” said Kisseck. “Him as hasn’t got the hayseed out of his hair yet.”
“And who’s the lady, Danny?” asked Christian, with a smile.
Danny was silent.
“Why, who else but that gel of Kinvig’s, Mona Cregeen,” said Kisseck.
Christian dropped his herring.
“Aw, well,” said Tommy Tear, “d’ye mane that gal on the brew with the widda, and the wee craythur?”
“Yes, the little skite and the ould sukee, the mawther,” said Kisseck.
Davy Cain pretended to come to Danny’s relief.
“And a raal good gel, anyhow, Danny,” he said in a patronizing way.
“Amazin’ thick they are. Oh, ay, Danny got to the lee of her — takes a cup of tay up there, and the like of that.”
“Aw, well, it isn’t raisonable but the lad should be coortin’ some gel now,” said Davy.
“What’s that?” shouted Kisseck, dropping the banter rather suddenly. “What, and not a farthin’ at him? And owin’ me a fortune for the bringin’ up?”
“No matter, Bill, and don’t ride a man down like a maintack. One of these fine mornings Danny will be payin’ his debt to you with the foretopsail.”
“And look at him there,” said Tommy Tear, reaching round Davy Cain to prod Danny in the ribs— “look at him pretendin’ he never knows nothin’.”
But the big tears were near to toppling out of Danny’s eyes. He got up, and leaving his unfinished breakfast, began to climb the hatchway.
“Aw, now, look at that,” cried Tommy Tear, with affected solemnity.
Davy Cain followed Danny, put an arm round his waist, and tried to draw him back. “Don’t mind the loblolly-boys, Danny veg,” said Davy coaxingly. Danny pushed him away with an angry word.
“What’s that he said?” asked Kisseck.
“Nothin’; he only cussed a bit,” said Davy.
Christian got up too. “I’ll tell you what it is, mates,” he said, “there’s not a man among you. You’re a lot of skulking cowards.”
And Christian jumped on deck.
“What’s agate of the young masther at all, at all?”
Then followed some talk of the herring Meailley (harvest home) which was to be celebrated that night at the “Jolly Herrings.”
When the boats ran into Peel harbor, of course Tommy-Bill-beg was on the quay, shouting at this man and that. As each boat got into its moorings the men set off to their owner’s house for a final squaring up of the season’s accounts. Kerruish and his men, with Christian, walked up to Balladhoo. Danny was sent home by his uncle. The men laughed, but the lad was accustomed to be ignored in these reckonings. His share never yet reached him. The fishermen’s wives had come down on this occasion, and they went off with their husbands — Bridget, Kisseck’s wife, being among them.
When they got to Balladhoo the calculation was made. The boat had earned in all three hundred pounds. Of this the master took four shares for himself and his nets, the owner eight shares, every man two shares, a share for the boy, and a share for the boat. The men grumbled when Christian took up his two shares like another man. He asked if he had not done a man’s work. They answered that he had kept a regular fisherman off the boat. Kisseck grumbled also; said he brought home three hundred pounds and got less than thirty pounds of it. “The provisioning has cost too much,” said Mylrea Balladhoo. “Your tea is at four shillings a pound, besides fresh meat and fine-flour biscuits. What can you expect?” Christian offered to give half his share to the man whose berth he took, and the other half to Danny Fayle. This quieted Kisseck, but the others laughed and muttered among themselves, “Two more shares for Kisseck.”
Then the men, closely encircled by their wives, moved off.
“Remember the Meailley!”
“To-night. Aw, sure, sure!”
CHAPTER VIII
“SEEMS TO ME IT’S ALL NATHUR”
When Danny left the boat he threw his oilskins over his arm and trudged along the quay. Bill Kisseck’s cottage stood alone under the Horse Hill, and to get to it Danny had to walk round by the bridge that crossed the river. On the way thither he met Ruby Cregeen, red with running. She had sighted the boats from the cottage on the hill, and was hurrying down to see them come into the harbor. The little woman was looking this morning like something between a glint of sunshine and a flash of quicksilver. On the way down she had pulled three stalks of the foxglove bell, and stuck them jauntily in her hat, their long swan-like necks drooping over her sunny face. She had come too late for her purpose, but Danny took her hand and said he would see her back before going off home to bed. The little one prattled every inch of the way.
“Did you catch many herrings, Danny?”
“Nine barrels.”
“Isn’t it cruel to catch herrings?”
“Why cruel, Ruby veg?”
“I don’t know. Don’t the herrings want to stay in the water, Danny?”
“Lave them alone for that. You should see the shoals of them lying round the nets, watching the others — their mothers and sisters, as you might say — who’ve got their gills ‘tangled. And when you haul the net up, away they go at a slant in millions and millions — just like lightning firing through the water. Och, ‘deed now, they’ve got their feelings same as anybody else. Yes, yes, yes!”
“What a shame!”
“What’s a shame, Ruby? What a sollum face, though.”
“Why, to catch them.”
Danny looked puzzled. He was obviously reasoning out a great problem.
“Well, woman, that’s the mortal strange part of it. It does look cruel, sarten sure, but then the herrings themselves catch the sand-eels, and the cod catch the herrings, and the porpoises and grampuses catch the cod. Aw, that’s the truth, little big-eyes. It’s wonderful strange, but I suppose it’s all nathur. You see, Ruby veg, we do the same ourselves.”
Ruby looks horrified. “How do you mean, Danny? We don’t eat one another.”
“Oh, don’t we, though? leave us alone for that.”
Ruby is aghast.
“Well, of course, not to say ate, not ‘xactly ate; but the biggest chap allis rigs the rest. And the next biggest chap allis rigs a littler one, you know; and the littlest chap he gets rigged by everybody all round, doesn’t he?”
Danny had clearly got a grip of the problem, but his poor simple face looked sadly burdened.
“Seems to me it must be all nathur somehow, Ruby.”
“Do you think it is, Danny?”
“Well, well — I do, you know,” with a grave shake of the head over this summary of the philosophy of life.
“Then nature is very cruel, and I don’t love it.”
“Cruel? Well, pozzible, pozzible. It does make me fit to cry a bit; but it must be nathur somehow, Ruby.”
Danny’s eyes were looking very hazy, when the little one, who didn’t love nature, caught sight of some corn-poppies and bounded after them. “The darlings! oh the loves!” And one or two were immediately intertwined with the foxgloves in the hat.
Just then Mona came down the hill. Danny saw her at a distance, but gave no sign. He contrived to lead Ruby to the other side of the road from that on which Mona was walking, so that when they came abreast there was a dozen yards between them. Mona stopped. “Good-morning, Danny.”
Danny’s eyes were on his heavy sea-boots, and he did not answer.
“Why, it’s only Mona,” cried Ruby, tugging at Danny’s oil-skins.
Mona crossed the road, and Danny ventured to lift his eyes to the level of her neck. Then she asked about the fishing. Danny answered in monosyllables. She colored slightly, and spoke of Christian being in the boat. “Strange, wasn’t it?”
“Seems to me,” answered Danny, “that there’s somethin’ afoot between Uncle Bill and the young masther.”
Mona’s curiosity was aroused by the reply, and she probed Danny with searching questions. Then he told her of the conversation of the deck that morning. She perceived that mischief was brewing. Yet Danny could give her nothing that served as a clue. If only some one of sharper wit could overhear such a conversation, then perhaps the mischief might be prevented. Suddenly Mona conceived a daring idea, which was partly suggested by the sight of an old disused barn that stood in a field close at hand.
“Everybody is talking of some supper to-night to finish the season. Will Christian be there?”
“I heard him say so,” said Danny.
“And your uncle, Bill Kisseck?”
“Aw, ‘deed, for sure. He’s allis where there’s guzzlin’.”
“Could you lend me your oil-skins, Danny?”
Danny looked puzzled. Mona smiled in his troubled face. “Do, that’s a good Danny,” she said, taking his big rough hand. Danny drew it away.
“Yes,” he said, looking vacantly over the sea.
Then they arranged that the oil-skins and cap with a pair of sea-boots were to be left in the barn, and that not a word was to be said to a living soul about them.
“Good-by,” said Mona, holding out her hand.
It was not at first that Danny realized what he ought to do when a lady offered her hand. Having taken it, he did not quite know what it was right to do next. So he held it a moment and lifted his eyes to hers. “Good-by, Danny,” she said, and there was a tremor in her voice.
She had gone — Danny never knew how. He walked a little farther with Ruby, who pranced and sang. On the way home he stopped and repeated to himself in a whisper, “Mona, Mona, Mona.” He looked at his hand. It was coarse and horny. He lifted it to his lips and kissed it. Then he began to run. Suddenly he stopped, and muttered, “But what for did she want the oil-skins?”
CHAPTER IX
THE HERRING MEAILLEY
There was high sport at the “Jolly Herrings” that night. Christian was there, more than half ashamed of his surroundings, but too amiably irresolute, as usual, to imperil by absence from this annual gathering his old reputation for good-fellowship.
“Aw, the gentleman he is, isn’t he? And him straight from Oxford College, too.”
“What’s that they’re sayin’? Oxford College? Och, no; not that at all.”
“But the fine English tongue at him, anyway. It’s just a pleasure to hear him spake. Smooth as oil, and sweet astonishin’. Bill Kisseck — I say, Bill, there — why didn’t you put up the young masther for the chair?”
“Aw, lave me alone,” answered Kisseck, with a contemptuous toss of the head. “Him an’ me’s same as brothers.”
“Bill’s proud uncommon of the masther, and middlin’ jealous too. Aw, well! who’s wonderin’ at it?”
“It’s a bit free them chaps are making,” whispered Kisseck to Christian. Then rising to his feet with gravity, “Gentlemen,” he said, “what d’ye say to Misther Christian Mylrea Balladhoo for the elber-chair yander?”
“Hooraa! Hooraa!”
Kisseck resumed his seat with a lofty glance of patronage at the men about him, which said, as plainly as words themselves, “I tould ye to lave it all to me.”
“Proud, d’ye say? Look at him,” whispered Davy Cain.
The “Jolly Herrings” was perhaps the most ludicrous and incongruous house of entertainment of which history records any veracious record. It was a very gargoyle on the fair fabric of the earth, except that it served the opposite uses of attracting rather than banishing the evil spirits about it. Thirty-five years ago it was to be found near the bottom of the narrow, crabbed little thoroughfare that winds and twists and descends to that part of the quay which overlooks the ruins of the castle. The gloomy pothouse was entered by a little porch. Two steps down led you into a room that was half parlor and half bar, and where only the fumes of tobacco-smoke were usually visible. Two more steps led you to an inner and much larger room, that was practically kitchen, living room, and room of special entertainment. This was the apartment in which the herring supper was always given. What a paradox the place was! All that belonged to the room itself was of the rudest and meanest kind. The floor was paved with stones, the walls were sparsely plastered, the ceiling was the bare wood hewn straight from the tree. But over these indications of poverty there was an extraordinary display of curious wealth. The little window behind Christian in his “elber-chair” was glazed with a rich piece of stained glass that had the Madonna and child for subject. The elbow-chair itself was of old oak deeply carved and bound with clamps of engraved brass. Bill Kisseck, who by virtue of his office sat at the opposite end of the table, occupied a small settee covered with gorgeous crimson velvet. On the mantelpiece were huddled in luxurious confusion sundry brass censers, medieval lamps, and an ivory crucifix. On the wall, and beside a piece of marble carved with a medallion, hung a skate that had been cut open to dry. A pair of bellows lay on an antique chest in the ingle. Into the mouth of the censers a bundle of pipe-lights had been methodically arranged. A ponderous silver watch hung round the arms of the crucifix, and a frying-pan was suspended in the recess of the window that was consecrated to the Madonna.
Such was the kitchen and stateroom of the “Jolly Herrings”; end no apartment ever spoke more plainly to those who had ears to hear of the character and habits of its owners. The house was kept by a woman who was thin, wrinkled, and blear-eyed; and by a man who was equally thin and no less wrinkled, but had quick, suspicious eyes, and a few spiky gray hairs about the chin that resembled the whiskers of a cat. As husband and wife this couple hold the little pot-house; but long years after the events now being narrated, it was discovered that husband and wife had both been women.
What sport! What noisy laughter! What singing and rollicking cheers! The men stood neither on the order of their coming nor their going, their sitting nor their standing. They wore their caps or not as pleased them, they sang or talked as suited them, they laughed or sneezed, they sulked or snarled, were noisy or silent precisely as the whim of the individual prescribed the Individual rule of manners. The chair at the “Jolly Herrings” was a position of more distinction than duty, and it was numbered among Christian’s virtues that he had never attempted to exercise an arbitrary control over the liberties of free-born Manxmen. Jest or jeer, fun or fight, were alike free of the gathering where he presided; but everything had to be in conscience and reason, for Christian drew the line rigidly at marline-spikes and belaying pins.
Tommy-Bill-beg was there, and a fine scorn sat on his face. The reason of this was that, as a mistaken tribute to music, Jemmy Balladhoo had also been invited, and was sitting with his fiddle directly in front of the harbor-master, though that worthy disdained to take notice of the humiliating proximity. Danny Fayle was there. The lad sat quietly and meekly on a form near the door.
The supper was lifted direct on to the table from the pans and boilers that simmered on the hearth. First came the broth well loaded with barley and cabbage, but not destitute of the flavor of two sheep’s heads. Then the suet pudding, round as a well-fed salmon and as long as a twenty-pound cod. After this came three legs of boiled mutton and a square block of roast beef. Last of all the frying-pan was taken from the niche of the Madonna, and two or three dozen of fresh herrings were made to frizzle and crackle and bark and sputter over the fire.
Away went the dishes, away went the cloth, an oil lamp with its open mouth — a relic, perhaps, of some monkish sanctuary of the Middle Ages — was lifted from the mantelpiece and put on the table for the receipt of customs; the censer with the spills was placed beside it, pipes emerged from the waistcoat pockets, and pots of liquor with glasses and bottles came in from the outer bar.
“Is it heavy on the beer you’re going to be, Bill?” said Davy Cain.
Kisseck replied with a superior smile and the lifting up of a whisky bottle from which he had just drawn the cork.
Then came the toasts. The chairman rose, amid “Hip, hip, hooraa,” to give “Life to man and death to fish.” Kisseck gave “Death to the head that never wore hair,” Tommy-Bill-beg responded to loud requests for “The Ladies.” He reminded the company then, with some pardonable discursiveness, he said he was “terrible glad” to have the fleet around Peel, and not away in those outlandish foreign parts, Kinsale and Scotland; for when they were there he felt like the chairman’s namesake, Christian, in the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” “And what is it he is saying in the good ould Book?” exclaimed Tommy?—”’My occipation’s gone!’”
Then came more liquor and some singing. Christian sang too. He sang “Black-Eyed Sue,” amid audible sobs.
“The voice he has, anyway; and the loud it is, and the tender, and the way he sliddhers up and down, and no squeaks and jumps; no, no, nothin’ lek squeezin’ a tune out of an ould sow by pullin’ the tail at her, and a sorter of a rippin’ up her innards to get the hook out of her gills.”
“No, no, that’ll not do,” said Christian, emphatically.
“Aw, and why not at all?”
“Why not? Why not? Because it’s murder, nothing less.”
“Now, what’s the use of sayin’ the lek o’ that. Aw, the shockin’ notions. Well, well, and do ye raely think a person’s got no feelin’s? Murder? Aw, well now, well now! I didn’t think it of you, Christian, that I didn’t.”
And Kisseck took a step or two up and down the deck with the air of an injured man.
Just then Crennel, the cook, came up to say breakfast was ready. All hands, save the men at the tiller, went below. A huge dish of herrings and a similar dish of potatoes stood on the table. Each man dipped in with his hands, lifted his herrings onto his plate, ran his fingers from tail to head, swept all the flesh off the fresh fish, and threw away the bare backbone. Such was the breakfast; and while it was being eaten there was much chaff among the men at Danny Fayle’s expense. It was —
“Aw, you wouldn’t think it’s true, would ye now?”
“And what’s that?” with a “glime” at Danny.
“Why, that the lek o’ yander is tackin’ round the gels.”
“Do ye raely mane it?”
“Yes, though, and sniffin’ and snuffin’ abaft of them astonishin’.”
“Aw, well, well, well.”
Not a sign from Danny.
“Yes, yes, the craythur’s doin’ somethin’ in the spoony line,” said Kisseck. “Him as hasn’t got the hayseed out of his hair yet.”
“And who’s the lady, Danny?” asked Christian, with a smile.
Danny was silent.
“Why, who else but that gel of Kinvig’s, Mona Cregeen,” said Kisseck.
Christian dropped his herring.
“Aw, well,” said Tommy Tear, “d’ye mane that gal on the brew with the widda, and the wee craythur?”
“Yes, the little skite and the ould sukee, the mawther,” said Kisseck.
Davy Cain pretended to come to Danny’s relief.
“And a raal good gel, anyhow, Danny,” he said in a patronizing way.
“Amazin’ thick they are. Oh, ay, Danny got to the lee of her — takes a cup of tay up there, and the like of that.”
“Aw, well, it isn’t raisonable but the lad should be coortin’ some gel now,” said Davy.
“What’s that?” shouted Kisseck, dropping the banter rather suddenly. “What, and not a farthin’ at him? And owin’ me a fortune for the bringin’ up?”
“No matter, Bill, and don’t ride a man down like a maintack. One of these fine mornings Danny will be payin’ his debt to you with the foretopsail.”
“And look at him there,” said Tommy Tear, reaching round Davy Cain to prod Danny in the ribs— “look at him pretendin’ he never knows nothin’.”
But the big tears were near to toppling out of Danny’s eyes. He got up, and leaving his unfinished breakfast, began to climb the hatchway.
“Aw, now, look at that,” cried Tommy Tear, with affected solemnity.
Davy Cain followed Danny, put an arm round his waist, and tried to draw him back. “Don’t mind the loblolly-boys, Danny veg,” said Davy coaxingly. Danny pushed him away with an angry word.
“What’s that he said?” asked Kisseck.
“Nothin’; he only cussed a bit,” said Davy.
Christian got up too. “I’ll tell you what it is, mates,” he said, “there’s not a man among you. You’re a lot of skulking cowards.”
And Christian jumped on deck.
“What’s agate of the young masther at all, at all?”
Then followed some talk of the herring Meailley (harvest home) which was to be celebrated that night at the “Jolly Herrings.”
When the boats ran into Peel harbor, of course Tommy-Bill-beg was on the quay, shouting at this man and that. As each boat got into its moorings the men set off to their owner’s house for a final squaring up of the season’s accounts. Kerruish and his men, with Christian, walked up to Balladhoo. Danny was sent home by his uncle. The men laughed, but the lad was accustomed to be ignored in these reckonings. His share never yet reached him. The fishermen’s wives had come down on this occasion, and they went off with their husbands — Bridget, Kisseck’s wife, being among them.
When they got to Balladhoo the calculation was made. The boat had earned in all three hundred pounds. Of this the master took four shares for himself and his nets, the owner eight shares, every man two shares, a share for the boy, and a share for the boat. The men grumbled when Christian took up his two shares like another man. He asked if he had not done a man’s work. They answered that he had kept a regular fisherman off the boat. Kisseck grumbled also; said he brought home three hundred pounds and got less than thirty pounds of it. “The provisioning has cost too much,” said Mylrea Balladhoo. “Your tea is at four shillings a pound, besides fresh meat and fine-flour biscuits. What can you expect?” Christian offered to give half his share to the man whose berth he took, and the other half to Danny Fayle. This quieted Kisseck, but the others laughed and muttered among themselves, “Two more shares for Kisseck.”
Then the men, closely encircled by their wives, moved off.
“Remember the Meailley!”
“To-night. Aw, sure, sure!”
CHAPTER VIII
“SEEMS TO ME IT’S ALL NATHUR”
When Danny left the boat he threw his oilskins over his arm and trudged along the quay. Bill Kisseck’s cottage stood alone under the Horse Hill, and to get to it Danny had to walk round by the bridge that crossed the river. On the way thither he met Ruby Cregeen, red with running. She had sighted the boats from the cottage on the hill, and was hurrying down to see them come into the harbor. The little woman was looking this morning like something between a glint of sunshine and a flash of quicksilver. On the way down she had pulled three stalks of the foxglove bell, and stuck them jauntily in her hat, their long swan-like necks drooping over her sunny face. She had come too late for her purpose, but Danny took her hand and said he would see her back before going off home to bed. The little one prattled every inch of the way.
“Did you catch many herrings, Danny?”
“Nine barrels.”
“Isn’t it cruel to catch herrings?”
“Why cruel, Ruby veg?”
“I don’t know. Don’t the herrings want to stay in the water, Danny?”
“Lave them alone for that. You should see the shoals of them lying round the nets, watching the others — their mothers and sisters, as you might say — who’ve got their gills ‘tangled. And when you haul the net up, away they go at a slant in millions and millions — just like lightning firing through the water. Och, ‘deed now, they’ve got their feelings same as anybody else. Yes, yes, yes!”
“What a shame!”
“What’s a shame, Ruby? What a sollum face, though.”
“Why, to catch them.”
Danny looked puzzled. He was obviously reasoning out a great problem.
“Well, woman, that’s the mortal strange part of it. It does look cruel, sarten sure, but then the herrings themselves catch the sand-eels, and the cod catch the herrings, and the porpoises and grampuses catch the cod. Aw, that’s the truth, little big-eyes. It’s wonderful strange, but I suppose it’s all nathur. You see, Ruby veg, we do the same ourselves.”
Ruby looks horrified. “How do you mean, Danny? We don’t eat one another.”
“Oh, don’t we, though? leave us alone for that.”
Ruby is aghast.
“Well, of course, not to say ate, not ‘xactly ate; but the biggest chap allis rigs the rest. And the next biggest chap allis rigs a littler one, you know; and the littlest chap he gets rigged by everybody all round, doesn’t he?”
Danny had clearly got a grip of the problem, but his poor simple face looked sadly burdened.
“Seems to me it must be all nathur somehow, Ruby.”
“Do you think it is, Danny?”
“Well, well — I do, you know,” with a grave shake of the head over this summary of the philosophy of life.
“Then nature is very cruel, and I don’t love it.”
“Cruel? Well, pozzible, pozzible. It does make me fit to cry a bit; but it must be nathur somehow, Ruby.”
Danny’s eyes were looking very hazy, when the little one, who didn’t love nature, caught sight of some corn-poppies and bounded after them. “The darlings! oh the loves!” And one or two were immediately intertwined with the foxgloves in the hat.
Just then Mona came down the hill. Danny saw her at a distance, but gave no sign. He contrived to lead Ruby to the other side of the road from that on which Mona was walking, so that when they came abreast there was a dozen yards between them. Mona stopped. “Good-morning, Danny.”
Danny’s eyes were on his heavy sea-boots, and he did not answer.
“Why, it’s only Mona,” cried Ruby, tugging at Danny’s oil-skins.
Mona crossed the road, and Danny ventured to lift his eyes to the level of her neck. Then she asked about the fishing. Danny answered in monosyllables. She colored slightly, and spoke of Christian being in the boat. “Strange, wasn’t it?”
“Seems to me,” answered Danny, “that there’s somethin’ afoot between Uncle Bill and the young masther.”
Mona’s curiosity was aroused by the reply, and she probed Danny with searching questions. Then he told her of the conversation of the deck that morning. She perceived that mischief was brewing. Yet Danny could give her nothing that served as a clue. If only some one of sharper wit could overhear such a conversation, then perhaps the mischief might be prevented. Suddenly Mona conceived a daring idea, which was partly suggested by the sight of an old disused barn that stood in a field close at hand.
“Everybody is talking of some supper to-night to finish the season. Will Christian be there?”
“I heard him say so,” said Danny.
“And your uncle, Bill Kisseck?”
“Aw, ‘deed, for sure. He’s allis where there’s guzzlin’.”
“Could you lend me your oil-skins, Danny?”
Danny looked puzzled. Mona smiled in his troubled face. “Do, that’s a good Danny,” she said, taking his big rough hand. Danny drew it away.
“Yes,” he said, looking vacantly over the sea.
Then they arranged that the oil-skins and cap with a pair of sea-boots were to be left in the barn, and that not a word was to be said to a living soul about them.
“Good-by,” said Mona, holding out her hand.
It was not at first that Danny realized what he ought to do when a lady offered her hand. Having taken it, he did not quite know what it was right to do next. So he held it a moment and lifted his eyes to hers. “Good-by, Danny,” she said, and there was a tremor in her voice.
She had gone — Danny never knew how. He walked a little farther with Ruby, who pranced and sang. On the way home he stopped and repeated to himself in a whisper, “Mona, Mona, Mona.” He looked at his hand. It was coarse and horny. He lifted it to his lips and kissed it. Then he began to run. Suddenly he stopped, and muttered, “But what for did she want the oil-skins?”
CHAPTER IX
THE HERRING MEAILLEY
There was high sport at the “Jolly Herrings” that night. Christian was there, more than half ashamed of his surroundings, but too amiably irresolute, as usual, to imperil by absence from this annual gathering his old reputation for good-fellowship.
“Aw, the gentleman he is, isn’t he? And him straight from Oxford College, too.”
“What’s that they’re sayin’? Oxford College? Och, no; not that at all.”
“But the fine English tongue at him, anyway. It’s just a pleasure to hear him spake. Smooth as oil, and sweet astonishin’. Bill Kisseck — I say, Bill, there — why didn’t you put up the young masther for the chair?”
“Aw, lave me alone,” answered Kisseck, with a contemptuous toss of the head. “Him an’ me’s same as brothers.”
“Bill’s proud uncommon of the masther, and middlin’ jealous too. Aw, well! who’s wonderin’ at it?”
“It’s a bit free them chaps are making,” whispered Kisseck to Christian. Then rising to his feet with gravity, “Gentlemen,” he said, “what d’ye say to Misther Christian Mylrea Balladhoo for the elber-chair yander?”
“Hooraa! Hooraa!”
Kisseck resumed his seat with a lofty glance of patronage at the men about him, which said, as plainly as words themselves, “I tould ye to lave it all to me.”
“Proud, d’ye say? Look at him,” whispered Davy Cain.
The “Jolly Herrings” was perhaps the most ludicrous and incongruous house of entertainment of which history records any veracious record. It was a very gargoyle on the fair fabric of the earth, except that it served the opposite uses of attracting rather than banishing the evil spirits about it. Thirty-five years ago it was to be found near the bottom of the narrow, crabbed little thoroughfare that winds and twists and descends to that part of the quay which overlooks the ruins of the castle. The gloomy pothouse was entered by a little porch. Two steps down led you into a room that was half parlor and half bar, and where only the fumes of tobacco-smoke were usually visible. Two more steps led you to an inner and much larger room, that was practically kitchen, living room, and room of special entertainment. This was the apartment in which the herring supper was always given. What a paradox the place was! All that belonged to the room itself was of the rudest and meanest kind. The floor was paved with stones, the walls were sparsely plastered, the ceiling was the bare wood hewn straight from the tree. But over these indications of poverty there was an extraordinary display of curious wealth. The little window behind Christian in his “elber-chair” was glazed with a rich piece of stained glass that had the Madonna and child for subject. The elbow-chair itself was of old oak deeply carved and bound with clamps of engraved brass. Bill Kisseck, who by virtue of his office sat at the opposite end of the table, occupied a small settee covered with gorgeous crimson velvet. On the mantelpiece were huddled in luxurious confusion sundry brass censers, medieval lamps, and an ivory crucifix. On the wall, and beside a piece of marble carved with a medallion, hung a skate that had been cut open to dry. A pair of bellows lay on an antique chest in the ingle. Into the mouth of the censers a bundle of pipe-lights had been methodically arranged. A ponderous silver watch hung round the arms of the crucifix, and a frying-pan was suspended in the recess of the window that was consecrated to the Madonna.
Such was the kitchen and stateroom of the “Jolly Herrings”; end no apartment ever spoke more plainly to those who had ears to hear of the character and habits of its owners. The house was kept by a woman who was thin, wrinkled, and blear-eyed; and by a man who was equally thin and no less wrinkled, but had quick, suspicious eyes, and a few spiky gray hairs about the chin that resembled the whiskers of a cat. As husband and wife this couple hold the little pot-house; but long years after the events now being narrated, it was discovered that husband and wife had both been women.
What sport! What noisy laughter! What singing and rollicking cheers! The men stood neither on the order of their coming nor their going, their sitting nor their standing. They wore their caps or not as pleased them, they sang or talked as suited them, they laughed or sneezed, they sulked or snarled, were noisy or silent precisely as the whim of the individual prescribed the Individual rule of manners. The chair at the “Jolly Herrings” was a position of more distinction than duty, and it was numbered among Christian’s virtues that he had never attempted to exercise an arbitrary control over the liberties of free-born Manxmen. Jest or jeer, fun or fight, were alike free of the gathering where he presided; but everything had to be in conscience and reason, for Christian drew the line rigidly at marline-spikes and belaying pins.
Tommy-Bill-beg was there, and a fine scorn sat on his face. The reason of this was that, as a mistaken tribute to music, Jemmy Balladhoo had also been invited, and was sitting with his fiddle directly in front of the harbor-master, though that worthy disdained to take notice of the humiliating proximity. Danny Fayle was there. The lad sat quietly and meekly on a form near the door.
The supper was lifted direct on to the table from the pans and boilers that simmered on the hearth. First came the broth well loaded with barley and cabbage, but not destitute of the flavor of two sheep’s heads. Then the suet pudding, round as a well-fed salmon and as long as a twenty-pound cod. After this came three legs of boiled mutton and a square block of roast beef. Last of all the frying-pan was taken from the niche of the Madonna, and two or three dozen of fresh herrings were made to frizzle and crackle and bark and sputter over the fire.
Away went the dishes, away went the cloth, an oil lamp with its open mouth — a relic, perhaps, of some monkish sanctuary of the Middle Ages — was lifted from the mantelpiece and put on the table for the receipt of customs; the censer with the spills was placed beside it, pipes emerged from the waistcoat pockets, and pots of liquor with glasses and bottles came in from the outer bar.
“Is it heavy on the beer you’re going to be, Bill?” said Davy Cain.
Kisseck replied with a superior smile and the lifting up of a whisky bottle from which he had just drawn the cork.
Then came the toasts. The chairman rose, amid “Hip, hip, hooraa,” to give “Life to man and death to fish.” Kisseck gave “Death to the head that never wore hair,” Tommy-Bill-beg responded to loud requests for “The Ladies.” He reminded the company then, with some pardonable discursiveness, he said he was “terrible glad” to have the fleet around Peel, and not away in those outlandish foreign parts, Kinsale and Scotland; for when they were there he felt like the chairman’s namesake, Christian, in the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” “And what is it he is saying in the good ould Book?” exclaimed Tommy?—”’My occipation’s gone!’”
Then came more liquor and some singing. Christian sang too. He sang “Black-Eyed Sue,” amid audible sobs.
“The voice he has, anyway; and the loud it is, and the tender, and the way he sliddhers up and down, and no squeaks and jumps; no, no, nothin’ lek squeezin’ a tune out of an ould sow by pullin’ the tail at her, and a sorter of a rippin’ up her innards to get the hook out of her gills.”
