 Part 4 Chapter 13 of the Manxman This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings were in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Manxman by Sir Hall Cain. Part 4 Chapter 13 He, the spirit himself, may come when all the nerve of sense is dumb. Philip had not slept at Bellow. The house was in darkness as he passed. He was riding to Douglas. It is sixteen miles between town and town, six of them over the steep headland of Kirk Morgold. Before he reached the top of the ascent, he had been an hour on the road, and the night was near to morning. He had seen no one after leaving Ramsay, except a drunken miner with his bundle on his stick, marching home to a tipsy travesty of some brave song. His self-righteousness was overthrown. His pride was in the dust. Since he returned home, he had struggled to feel strong and easy in the sense of being an honourable man. But now he was thrown violently out of the path in which he had meant to walk rightly. What he was about to do was necessary, was inevitable. Yet in his relation to Kate he was in the position of an immoral man, a betrayer, an adulterer, with a vulgar secret, which he must support by lying and share with servants. And what was the outlook? What would be the end? Here was a situation from which there was no escape. Let there be no false glamour, no disguise, no self-deception. On the eve of his promotion to the dignities and responsibilities of a judge, he was taking the first step down on the course of the criminal. The moon was shining at the full. It was low down in the sky, on his right, and casting his shadow onto the road. He walked his horse up the long hill, the even pace, the quiet of the night, the drowsy sounds of unseen stream and far-off murmuring sea overcame him in spite of himself, and he dozed in the saddle. As he reached the hilltop, the level step of the horse awoke him, and he knew that he was passing that desolate spot on the border of parish and parish, which is known as Tom Alone's. Opening his eyes, without realising that he had slept, he thought he became aware of another horse and another rider walking by his side. They were on the left of him, going pace for pace, stepping along with him like a shadow. It is my shadow, he thought, and he forced up his head to look. Nothing was there but a white-washed wall that fenced a sheepfold. The moon had gone under the mountains on the right, and the night would have been dark but for the stars. With an astonishment near to terror, Philip gripped the saddle with his quaking knees and broke his horse into a trot. When the hard ride had brought warmth to his blood and a glow to his cheeks, he told himself he had been the victim of fancy. It was nothing. It was a delusion of the sight, a mere shadow cast off by his distempered brain. He was passing at a walking pace through Laxie by this time, and as the horse's feet beat up the echoes of the sleeping town, his heart grew brave. Next day at noon he was talking with his servant, Gemma Lord, in his rooms in Athol Street. He had lately become tenant of the entire house. They were in his old chambers on the first floor, looking on to the churchyard. I may rely on you, Gemmy. You may, Deemster. His voice was low and husky. His eyes were down. He was fumbling the papers on the table. Get the carriage a landale from Shimmins, but drive it yourself. Be at government offices at four. We'll go by St. John's. If there is any attempt at Ramsey to take the horse out of the carriage, resist it. I will alight at the head of the town. Then drive on to the lane between the chapel and Elm Cottage. The moment the lady joins you, start away. Return to Laxie. Are the rooms upstairs ready? They will be. The two in front of your own, and the little pile behind this, we shall need no other servants. The lady will be housekeeper. I quite understand, Deemster. Philip turned his face aside and spoke thickly. And you know what name? I know what name, Deemster. You have no objection? None, whatever, Deemster. Philip drew a long breath. I'm not Deemster yet, Gemmy. Perhaps it might have been, but God knows. You're a good fellow. I shall not forget it. He made a motion as if to dismiss the man, but Gemmy did not go. Big pardon, Your Honor. Yes? Your Honor has eaten nothing at breakfast and the bed wasn't slept in last night. I was riding late, then I had work to do. But I heard your foot on the floor. It woke me times. I may have speeches to make today. Fetch me a glass of water. Gemmy brought water bottle and glass. As Philip took the water, an icy numbness seemed to seize his arm. I, well, I declare I can't lift, ah, thanks. The man raised Philip's arm to his mouth. The glass rattled against his teeth while he drank. Pardon, Your Honor. You're looking ten years older lately. The sooner this day is over, the better. Sleep, Gemmy. I only want sleep. I must have a long, long sleep at Balua tonight. He left the house at three minutes to three, carrying his cloak over his arm. It was a hot day at the beginning of June and when he stepped out at the door the air of the street smote his face like a blast from an open furnace. He reeled and almost fell. The sun's heat was like a loan on his head. Its dazzling rays made his sight dim and he had a sound in his ears like running water. As he walked down the street he caught his wandering reflection in the shop windows. Gemmy was right, he thought. My worst enemy would not accuse me of looking too young today. There was a small crowd about the entrance to government offices. Carriages were driving up, discharging their occupants and going on. The bishop, the attorney general, finally the governor with his wife and daughter passed into the house. In the commotion of these arrivals Philip reached the door unobserved. When he was recognised there was a sudden hush of voices and then a low buzz of gossip. He walked through with a firm step going in alone, all eyes upon him. The doorway opens on a narrow passage which is neither wide nor very light and the sunshine without made the gloom within more grey and uncertain. As Philip stepped over the threshold he was conscious that somebody was coming out. When he had taken two paces more he drew up sharply with the sense of walking into a mirror. At the next instant he saw that what he had taken for the reflection of his own face in a glass was the actual face of another man. The man was coming out as he went in. They were approaching each other. At two paces more they were side by side. He looked at the man with creeping horror. The man looked at him with amazement and dread. Thus eye to eye they crossed and passed. Then each turned his head over his shoulder and looked after the other, Philip stepping into the gloom, the stranger striding into the light. At the next moment the narrow doorway was darkened by a ponderous figure rolling through. Then a heavy hand fell on Philip's shoulder and a hearty voice exclaimed, Hello, Christian, proud to see you, boy. You've outstripped all stick in the mud, but I always knew you would lead me the way through. Funking a bit, are you? Hands like ice anyway? Come along, nothing to be nervous about. We're not going to give you the dose of William Doan. Don't martyr the Christians these days, you know? It was Philip's old master, the Clark of the Rolls. Taking Philip's arm, he was for swinging him along. But Philip, still looking towards the street, said falteringly, Did you perhaps see a man, a young man, going out at the door? When? As you came in. Was there, said the Clark dubiously, then as by a sudden light, did he wear a round hat and a monkey jacket? Maybe, I hardly know, I didn't observe. That'll be the man. He's been at me half the morning for admission to the council. Said he'd known you all his life. Boch is a thorn bush, but somehow I couldn't say no to the fellow at last. He ought to be inside though. It's nothing, thought Philip. Only another shadow from a tired brain. Jemmy's talk about my altered looks, the reflection in the shop windows, the sudden gloom after the dazzling sunlight. That's all, that's all. Sleep, I want sleep. When the governor took his seat with the first deemster on his right and motioned Philip to the chair on his left, an involuntary murmur passed over the chamber at the contrast there presented. The one deemster very old with round, russet face, quick, gleaming eyes and a comfortable, youthful, even merry expression. The other very young, with long, pallid, powerful face, large eyes and a tired look of age. Philip presented his commission received from the home secretary and the oath of office was administered to him. Kissing a stained copy of a leather-bound testament, he repeated the words after the governor in a thick croak that seemed to hack the air. By this book and by the holy contents thereof and by the wonderful works that God have miraculously wrought in heaven above and on the earth beneath in six days and seven nights, I, Philip Christian, do swear that I will, without respect of favour or friendship, love or hate, loss or gain, consanguinity or affinity, envy or malice, execute the laws of this isle justly, betwixt our sovereign lady the queen and her subjects within this isle, and betwixt party and party as indifferently as the herring backbone doth lie in the midst of the fish. As Philip pronounced these words, he was conscious of only one face in that assembly. It was not the face of the governor of the bishop of any dignitary of church or state, but a rugged, eager dark face over a black beard in the grip of a great brown hand with sparkling eyes, parted lips, and a look of boyish pride. It was the face of Pete. It only remains for me, said the governor, to congratulate your honour on the high office to which it has pleased Her Majesty to appoint you and to wish you long life and health to fulfil its duties with blameless credit to yourself and distinction to your country. There was some other speaking, and then Philip replied, he spoke clearly, firmly and well, a reference to his grandfather provoked applause. His modesty and natural manner made a strong impression. His excellency is not so far wrong after all was the common whisper. Some further business, and the council broke up for general gossip. There was a statement outside while the carriages were coming in line. There were renewed congratulations, invitations and warnings. The governor invited Philip to dinner. He excused himself, saying he had promised to dine with his aunt at Belour. The ladies warned him to spare himself and recommended a holiday. And then the clerk of the rolls, proud as a peacock, strutting here and there and everywhere and assuming the heirs of a guardian, cried, not yet though, for he holds his first court in Ramsey tomorrow morning. But on the cloak, Christian, it will be cold driving, good men are scarce. An open land hour came up at length with Gemma Lord on the box seat and Pete walking by the horse's head, smoothing its neck and tickling its ears. Why you were talking of the young man, Christian, and behold ye, here's the great fellow himself. Well, young chap, slapping Pete on the back, see your deems to take the oath, eh? He's my cousin, said Philip. Cousin, is he then? Can he perhaps be? Ah, yes, of course, certainly. The good man stammered and stopped, remembering the marriage of Philip's father. He opened the carriage door and stood aside for Philip, but Philip said, Step in, Pete, and with a shame-faced look, Pete rolled into the carriage. Philip took the seat beside him, amid a buzz of voices and people standing about the door. Well, as you like. Good day, then, boy. Good day, said the clerk of the rolls, clashing the door back. The carriage began to move. Good day, your honour, cried several out of the crowd. Philip raised his hat. The hats of the men went up to him. Some of the girls were wiping their eyes. End of Part 4, Chapter 13. Part 4, Chapter 14 of the Manxman. This is the Librivox Recording. All Librivox recordings were in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. The Manxman by Sir Hall Cain. Part 4, Chapter 14. While Pete and Philip were driving over the road from Douglas, Kate was sitting with the child on her lap before the fire in Elm Cottage. Her eyes were restless, her manner agitated. She looked out at the window from time to time. Getting sun behind the house still held the day with horizontal shafts of light in the spring-green of the transparent leaves. Wouldn't you like to see the procession tonight, Nancy, she said? Oh, mortal, said Nancy. But I won't get laid, though. Take care of my two girls, says he. You may go, Nancy. I'll see to, baby, said Kate. But the man himself, woman, he'll be coming home as hungry as a hunter. I'll see to his supper, too, said Kate. Carry the key with you that you may let yourself in and be back at half-past seven. Then Nancy began to fly about the kitchen like sputterings out of the frying pan, filling the kettle, lighting the lamp, and getting together the baby's nightclothes. Kate watched her and glanced at the clock. Was the town quiet when you were out for the bacon, Nancy, she said? Quiet enough, said Nancy. Everybody flying off Los Airway already, except what we're making for the key. Is the steamer sailing tonight, then? Yes, the peverell, but not water enough to float her till half-past seven, they were saying. Here's the little one's nightdress, and here's her binder, bless her, just big enough for a bandage for a person's wrist if she sprang to churning. Lay them on the fender to air, Nancy. I'll not undress, baby, yet a while, and see it's nearly seven. I'll be putting my shawl on and away like the wind, said Nancy. The boch, she said, with the pin between her teeth. She's off again. Do you really think now the angels in heaven are as sweet and innocent, Kiri? I don't. They can't if they're grown up. And having to climb Jacob's ladder, poor things they must be. Then if they're men, but that's ridiculous anyway. The clock is striking, Nancy. No use going when everything's over, said Kate, and the foot with which she rocked the child went faster now that the little one was asleep. Sakes are live, let me tie the strings on my bonnet, woman. Pity you can't come yourself, Kiri, but if they're worth their salt, they'll be whipping round this way and giving you a little tune anyway. Have you got the key, Nancy? Yes, and I'll be back in an hour. And mind you put baby to bed soon, and mind you, and mind you? With as many warnings as if she had been mistress and Kate the servant, Nancy backed herself out of the house. It was now dark outside. Kate rose immediately, put the child in the cradle, and began to lay the table for Pete's supper. The crew at the plates, the teapot on the hob to warm, and then by force of habit, two cups and sauces. But sight of the cups awakened her to painful consciousness. She put one of them back in the cupboard, broke the coal on the fire, settled the kettle up to the blaze, and with three rashes of bacon before the bars, then lit the candle, and with a nervous look around, turned to go upstairs. In the bedroom she drew on her cloak, pinned her hat and veil with trembling fingers, then took her purse from her pocket and emptied its contents onto the dressing table. Not mine, she thought, and standing before the mirror at that moment, she caught sight of her earrings. I must take nothing of his, she told herself, and she raised her hands to her ears. Then her heart smote her, as if Pete would ever think of such things, she thought. No, not if I took everything he has in the world, and must I be thinking of them? Yet I cannot, I will not take them with me. She opened a drawer and hurried everything into it, the money, the earrings, the keeper off her finger, and then she paused at the touch of the wedding ring. Her superstitious instinct restrained her, yet the ring was the badge of her broken covenant. With this ring I thee wed. She tore off the wedding ring also and cast it with the rest. He will find them, she thought. There will be nothing else to tell him what has happened. He will come, and I shall be gone. He will call, and there will be no answer. He will look for me, and I shall be lost to him forever. Not a word left behind, not a line to say, thank you and goodbye, and God bless you, dear Pete, for all your love and goodness to me. It was cruel, very cruel, yet what could she write? What could she say that had not better be left unsaid? The least syllable, no, the uncertainty would be kinder. Perhaps Pete would think she was dead, perhaps that she had destroyed herself. Even that would not be so bitter as the truth. He would get over it, he would become reconciled. No, she thought, I can write nothing, I can leave no message. She cut the draw quickly, and picked up the candle. As she did so, the shadow of herself moved about her. It mounted from the floor to the wall, from the wall to the ceiling. When she walked, it seemed to be on top of her, hanging over her, pressing down on her, crushing her. She grew cold and sick, and hastened to the door. The room was full of other shadows, the memories of sleepless nights and of painful awakenings. Every familiar thing, the watch ticking in its stand on the mantelpiece, the handle of the wardrobe, the pink curtains of the bed, the white pillow beneath them. She felt like a frightened child, with a terrified glance over her shoulder she crept out of the room. Being downstairs again, she breathed more freely. There was light all about her, and the whole parlor was bright and warm. The kettle was now singing in the cheerful blaze. The cat was purring on the rug, and there was a smell of bacon slowly frying. She looked at the clock. It was a quarter after seven. Time to awaken baby, she thought. She took from a chest the child's outdoor clothes, a robe, a police, and a white hood. Her fingers had touched a scarlet hood in a cardboard box, but not that she thought and left it. She spread the clothes about her chair, and then lifted the little one from the cradle to her pillowing arm. The child awoke as she raised it, and made a fretful cry which she smothered in a gurgling kiss. I can love the darling without shame now, she thought. Its sweet face will reproach me no more. With soft cooings of the baby's cheek she was stooping to take this robe that lay at her feet when her eyes fell on the round place in the cradle where the child had been. That made her think again of Pete. He would come home and find the little nest cold and empty. It would kill him. It would be a second bereavement. Was it not enough that she should go away herself? Must she rob him of the child as well? He loved it. He doted on it. It was the light of his eyes, the joy of his life. To lose it would be a blow like the blow of death. It could a mother leave her child behind her? Impossible. The full tide of motherhood came over her, and its tender selfishness swept down everything. I cannot, she thought. Come what may, I cannot and I will not leave her. And then she reached her hand for the child's police. It would be a kind of atonement though, she thought. To leave the little one to Pete would be making amends in some sort for the wrong that she was doing him. To deny herself the sight of the child's sweet face day by day and hour by hour. That would be a punishment also, and she deserved to be punished. She thought, can I? Oh, what mother could bear it. No, no, never, never. And yet I ought. I must. Oh, this is terrible. In the midst of this agony of uncertainty, thinking of Pete and of the wrong she had done him, yet pressing the child to her breast with trembling arms, as if someone were tearing it away, the babe itself settled everything. Making some inarticulate whimper of communication, it nozzled up to her. Its eyes closed but its head working against a bosom with the instinct of suckling, though it had never sucked. I'm only half a mother after all, she thought. The highest joy, the deepest rites of motherhood had been denied to her. The child taking from the mother, the mother giving to the child, the child and the mother one. This had not been hers. My little baby can live without me, she thought. If I leave her, she will never miss me. She nearly broke down at that thought and almost let her purpose slip. It was like God's punishment in advance, God's hand directing her, thus to withdraw the child from dependence on herself. Yes, I must leave her with Pete, she thought. She put the child back into the cradle, half dressed as it was and rocked it until it slept again. Then she hung over the tiny bed as the mother hangs over the little coffin that is soon to be shut up from her eyes forever. Her tears rained down on the small counterpane. My sweet baby, my little Catherine, I may never kiss you again, never see you any more. You may grow up to be a woman and know nothing of your mother. The clock ticked loud in the quiet room. It was twenty-five minutes past seven. One kiss more, my little darling. If they ever tell you, they'll say because your mother left you. Oh, will she think I did not love her? Oh, will she think I did not love her? Oh, will she think I did not love her? Hush! Through the walls of the house there came the sound of a band playing at a distance. She looked at the clock again. It was nearly half past seven. Almost at the same moment there was the rumble of carriage wheels on the road. They stopped in the lane that ran between the chapel and the end of the garden. Kate rose from her knees and opened the door softly. The house had been as a dungeon to her lying from it like a prisoner escaping. A shrill whistle pierced the air. The peverell was leaving the key. Through the streets there was a sound as of water running over stones. It was the scuttling of the feet of the townspeople as they ran to meet the procession. She stepped out. The garden was dark and quiet as a prison yard. Hardly a leaf stirred, but the moon was breaking through the old fir tree as she lifted her troubled face to the untroubled sky. She stood and listened. The band was coming nearer. She could hear the thud of the big drum. Boom, boom, boom. Pete was there. He was helping at Philip's triumph. That was the beat of his great heart made audible. At this her own heart stopped for a moment. She grew chill at the thought of the brave man who asked no better lot than to love and cherish her. And at the memory of the other upon whose mercy she had cast herself, the band stopped. There was a noise like the breaking of a mighty rocket in the sky. The people were cheering and clapping hands. Then a clearer sound struck her ear. It was the clock inside the house chiming the half hour. Nancy would be back soon. Kate listened intently, inclining her head inwards. If the child had awakened at that instant, if it had stirred and cried, she must have gone back for good. She returned for one moment and flung herself over the cradle again. One spasm more of lingering tenderness. Goodbye, my little one. I am leaving you with him, darling, because he loves you dearly. You will grow up and be a good, good girl to him always. Goodbye, my pet, my precious, my precious. You will reward him for all he has done for me. You are half of my self, dearest, the innocent half. Yes, you will wipe out your mother's sin. You will be all he thinks I am but never have been. Farewell, my sweet Catherine, my little darling baby. Goodbye, farewell, goodbye. She leapt up and fled out of the house at last, on tiptoe, like a thief pulling the door after her. When she heard the click of the lock, she felt both wretchedness and exultation, immense agony and immense relief. If little Catherine were to cry now, she could not return to her. The door was closed, the house was shut, the prison was left behind and behind her, too, were the treachery, the duplicity, the deceit of ten stifling months. She hurried through the garden to a side door in the wall leading to the lane. The path was like a wave of the sea to her stumbling feet. Her breathing was short, her sight was weak, her temples were beating audibly. Half across the garden something touched her dress and she made a faint scream. It was Pete's dog, Dempster. He was looking up at her out of the darkness of the bushes. By the light through the blind of the house she could see his bat's ears and watchful eyes. Boom, boom, boom. The band had begun again. It was coming nearer. Philip, Philip, he was her only refuge now. All else was a blank. The side door had been little used. Its hinges and bolt were rusty and stiff. She broke her nails in opening it. From the other side came the light jingle of a curb chain and over the wall hovered a white sheet of smoking light. The carriage was in the lane and the driver, Philip's servant, Gemma Law, stood with the door open. Kate stumbled on the step and fell into the seat. The door was closed. Then a new thought smote her. The child, about Philip, about Pete, and leaving the little one behind her, though she had meant it so unselfishly, she had done the one thing that must be big with consequences. It would bring its penalty, its punishment, its retribution. Stop. She would go back even yet. Her face was against the glass. She was struggling with the strap. But the carriage was moving. She heard the rumble of the wheels. It was like a deafening reverberation from the day of doom. Then her senses dwelled away and the carriage drove on. End of Part 4, Chapter 14 Outside below a house, there was a crowd which covered the garden, the fence, the high road, the stone wall opposite. The band had ceased to play and the people were shouting, clapping hands and cheering. At the door which was open, Philip stood bareheaded and a shaft of the light in the house behind him lit up a hundred of the eager faces gathered in the darkness. He raised his hand for silence but it was long before he was allowed to speak. Salutations rugged, rough, almost rude, but hearty to the point of homeliness and affectionate to the length of familiarity fluid his head from every side. Good luck to you boy. Bravo for Ramsey. The Christians for your life. A chip off the old block. Dems to Christian the sixth. Hush, man, he's spanking. Go out, Phil. Give it fits, boy. Hush, hush! Fellow townsman said Philip. His voice swung like a quivering bell over a sea. You can never know how much your welcome has moved me. I cannot say whether in my heart of hearts I am more proud of it or more ashamed. To be ashamed of it all together would dishonor you and to be too proud of it would dishonor me. I'm not worthy of your faith and good fellowship. Ah, he raised his hand to check a murmur of dissent. The crowd was now hush from end to end. Let me utter the thought of all. In honouring me you are thinking of my fathers also. No, yes. You are thinking of my people above all of one who was laid under the willow's yonder. A wrecked, a broken, a disappointed man. My father. God rest him. I will not conceal it from you. His memory has been my guide. His failures have been my lightship. His hopes my beacon. His love my star. For good or for evil my anchor has been in the depths of his grave. God forbid that I should have lived too long under the grasp of a dead hand. It was my aim to regain what he had lost. And this day has witnessed his partial reclamation. God grant I may not have paid too dear for such success. There were cries of No, sir, no. He smiled faintly and shook his head. Fellow countrymen, you believe I am worthy of the name I bear. There is one among you, an old comrade, a tried and trusted friend whose faith would be a spur if it were not a reproach. His voice was breaking, but still appealed over the sea of heads. Well, I will try to do my duty. From this hour onwards you shall see me try. Fellow mangsmen, you will help me for the honour of the place I fill. For the sake of our little island and, yes, and for my own sake also, I know you will to be a good man and an upright judge. But, he faltered, his voice could barely support itself. But if it should ever appear that your confidence has been misplaced, if in the time to come I should seem to be unworthy of this honour, untrue to the oath I took today to do God's justice between man and man, a wrong doer, not a writer of the wronged, a whited sepulcher where you looked for a tower of refuge. Remember, I pray of you, my countrymen, remember much as you may be suffering then, there will be one who will be suffering more, that one will be myself. The general impression that night was that the deemster's speech had not been a proper one. Breaking up with some damp efforts at the earliest enthusiasm, the people complained that they were like men who had come for a jig and were sent home in a wet blanket. There should have been a joke or two, a hearty word of congratulation, a little natural glorification of Ramsey, an acquired slap at Douglass and Peele in Castle Town, a few fireworks, a ripped wrap of two and some general illumination. But, sakes alive the solemn the young deemster was, and the melancholy and the mysterious. Shoot, said Pete, there's such a tale of comic in you boys, wandering the world to me you're not kidnapped for pantaloons is. Go home for all and wipe your eyes and remember the words he's been spaking. I'm not going to forget them myself anyway. Handing over the big drum to little John Ake, Pete turned to go into the house. Auntie Nan was in the hall, hopping like a canary about Phillip in a brown silk dress that rustle like withered ferns, hugging him, drawing him down to the level of her face and kissing him on the forehead. The tears were raining over the autumn sunshine of her wrinkled cheeks and her voice was cracking between a laugh and a cry. My boy, my dear boy, my boy's boy, my own boy's own boy. Phillip freed himself at length and went upstairs without turning his head and then Auntie Nan saw Pete standing in the hallway. Is it you, Pete? She said with an effort. Won't you come in for a moment? No? A minute only then. Just to wish you joy, Miss Christian, Mom, said Pete. I knew too, Peter. Ah, she said with a bird-like turn of the head. You must be a proud man tonight, Pete. Proud isn't the word for it, Mom. I'm claimed beside myself. He took a fancy to you when you were only a little barefooted boy, Pete. So he did, Mom. And now that he's deemstered self, he owns you still. Oh, leave him alone for that, Mom. Did you hear what he said about you and his speech? It isn't everybody in his place would have done that before all, Pete. Indeed, no, Mom. He's true to his friends, whatever they are. True as steel. The maid was carrying the dishes into the dining room. An Auntie Nan said in a strained way, you won't stay to dinner, Pete, will you? Perhaps you want to get home to the mistress. Well, home is best for all of us, isn't it? Martha, I'll tell the deemster myself that dinner is on the table. Well, good night, Peter. I'm always so glad to see you. She was whisking about to go upstairs. But Pete had taken one step into the dining room and gazing round with looks of awe. Lord alive, Miss Christian, Mom. What feelings now, barefooted boy, you say? You're right there and cold and hungry, too, sleeping in the gable house with the cow, and not getting much, but the milk I was staling from her, and a leathering at the old man for that. Philip fetched me in here one evening. That was the start, Mom. See that pepper and salt egg on the string there? It's a Tommy Noddy's. He's been nesting up gold and agarvane. Nearly cost him his life, though. You see, Mom, Tommy Noddy has only one, and she fights like mad for it. We were up 40 fathom and better, atop of a cave and had two straight rocks below us in the sea, same as an elephant's hoofs, you know, walking out on the blue floor. But Philip was having his little hand on the ledge where the egg was keeping when swoop came the big white wings of the head. If I hadn't had a stick that day, Mom, it would have been heaven to help the pair of us. The next minute Tommy Noddy was going splash down the cliffs, all feathers and blood together, or Philip wouldn't have lived to be denser. Oh, frightened you, have I, Mom, for all it's so long ago. The heart's a queer thing now, isn't it? Got no yesterday nor tomorrow neither. Well, good night, Mom. Pete was making for the door when he looked down and said, what's this at all? Down, Dempster, down. The dog had come trotting into the hall as Pete was going out. He was perking up his big ears and wagging his stump of a tail in front of him. My dog, Mom? Yes, Mom, unlike his master in some ways, not much of itself at all, but it has the blood in it, though, and maybe it'll come out better in the next generation. Looking for me, are you, Dempster? Let's be taking the road, then. Perhaps you're wanted at home, Pete. Wouldn't trust? Good night, Mom. Aunty Nan hopped upstairs in her rustling dress, relieved and glad in the sweet selfishness of her love to get rid of Pete and have Philip to herself. End of Part 4, Chapter 15. Part 4, Chapter 16 of The Manxman. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings were in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Manxman by Sir Hall Cain. Part 4, Chapter 16. Pete went off whistling in the darkness with the dog driving ahead of him. I'm to blame, though, he thought, should have gone home directly. The town was now quiet. The streets were deserted and Pete began to run. She'd be alone, too. That must have been Nancy in the crowd yonder by Mistress Beaties. Loud her out to see the dudes like, ought to be back now, though. As Pete came near the Elm Cottage, the moon over the treetops lit up the panes of the upper windows as were the score of bright lamps. One step more and the house was dark. She'll be waiting for me, listening, too, I'll go bail. He was at the gate by this time and the dog was panting at his feet with his nose close to the lattice. Be quiet, dog, be quiet. Then he raised the latch without a sound, stepped in on tiptoe, and closed the gate as silent as he could. I'll have a game with her. I'll take her by surprise. His eyes began to dance with mischief, like a child's, and he crept along the path with big cat strides, half doubled up and holding his breath, lest he should laugh aloud. The sweet creatures, a man shouldn't frighten them, though, he thought. When he reached the porch, he went down on all fours and began mewing like a mournful Tomcat near to the bottom of the door. Then he listened with his ear to the jam. He expected a faint cry of alarm, the raucous voice of Nancy Jo and the clatter of feet towards the porch. There was not a sound. She's upstairs, he thought, and stepped back to look up at the front of the house. There was no light in the rooms above. I know what it is. Nancy is not home yet and Curie's fallen asleep at the rocking. He stole up to the window and tried to look into the hall, but the blind was down and he could not see much through the narrow openings at the sides of it. She's sleeping, that's it. The house was quiet and she dropped off, rocking the little one, that's all. He scraped a handful of the light gravel and flung a little of it at the window. That'll remind her of something he thought and he laughed under his breath. Then he listened again with his ear at the sill. There was no noise within. He flung more gravel and waited, thinking he might catch a breathing, but he could hear nothing. Then rising hurriedly and throwing off his playfulness, he strode to the door and tried to open it. The door was locked. He returned to the window. Kate, he called softly. Kate, are you there? Do you hear me? It's Pete. Don't be frightened, Kate, boch. There was no response. He could hear the beat of the sea on the shore. The dog had perched himself on one end of the window sill and was beginning to whine. What's this at all? She can't be out. Couldn't take the child anyway. Where's that Nancy? What right had the woman to laze her? She has fainted being left alone. That's what's going doing. He tried to open the window, but the latch was shot. Then he tried the other windows and the back door and the window above the hall, which he reached from the roof of the porch. When he returned to the hall window, the white blind was darker. The lamp inside the room was going out. The moonlight was dripping down on him through the leaves of the trees. He found some matches beside his pipe in his side pocket, struck one, and looked at the sash. Then took out his clasp knife to remove the pain under the latch. His hand trembled and shook and burst through the glass with a jerk. It cut his wrist, but he felt the wound no more than if it had been the glass instead of his arm that bled. He thrust his hand through, shot back the latch, then pushed up the sash and clambered into the room past the blind. The cat sitting on the ledge inside rubbed against his hand and purred. Kiri, Kate, he whispered. The lamp had given up its last gleam with the puff of wind from the window and save for the slumbering fire always dark within the house. He hardly dared to drop to his feet for fear of treading on something. When he was at last in the middle of the floor, he stood with legs apart, struck another match, held the light above his head, and looked down and around like a man in a cave. There was nothing. The child, awakened by the draught of the night air, began to cry from the cradle. He took it up and hushed it with baby words of tenderness and a breaking voice. Hush, boch, hush! Mummy will come to it then. Mummy will come for all. He lit a candle and crept through the house, carrying the light about with him. There was no sign anywhere until he came to the bedroom when he saw that the hat and cloak of Kate's daily wear had gone. Then he knew that he was a broken-hearted man. With a cry of desolation he stopped in his search and came heavily downstairs. He had been warding off the moment of despair, no longer now. The empty house and the child, the child and the empty house leaves a loud of only one interpretation. She's gone, boch! She's left us. She wasn't willing to stay with us. God forgive her. Sitting on a stool with the little one on his knees he sobbed while the child cried, two children crying together. Suddenly he leapt up. I'm not for believing it, he thought. What woman alive could do the like of it? There isn't a mother breathing that hasn't more bowels. And she used to love the little one and me too and does and does. He saw how it was. She was ill, distraught, perhaps even got helper, perhaps even mad. Such things happened to women after childbirth. The doctor himself had said as much. In the toils of her bodily trouble beset by mental terrors she had fled away from her baby, her husband and her home, pursued by God knows what phantoms of disease. But she would get better. She would come back. Hush boch! Hush then! He whimpered tenderly. Mammy will come home again. Still and for all she'll come back. There was the click of a key in the lock and he crept back to the stool. Nancy came in, panting and perspiring. Dear heart alive! What a race I've had to get home! she said, puffing the air of the night. She was throwing off her bonnet and shawl and talking before looking round. Such pushing and scrooging you'd never seen the light, Currie. Oh, my best Sunday bonnet. Only wore at me once. Look at the crunch that is. But what do you think now? Poor Christian Killip's baby is dead for all. Died in the middle of the rejoicings. Oh, dear yes. And the band going by playing the conquering hero the very minute. Poor thing. She was distracted and no wonder. I ran round to put a sight on the poor soul. And why, what's going wrong with the lamp at all? Is that yourself on the stool, Currie? Pete, is it? Then where's the mistress? She plucked up the poker and dug the fire into her blaze. What's doing on you, man? You've skinned your knuckles like potato peel. Man, man! What for are you crying at all? Then Pete said in a thick croak, Hold your bull of a tongue, Nancy, and take the child out of my arms. She took the baby from him and he rose to his feet as feeble as an old man. Lord save us, she cried. The window broke too. What's happened? Nothing growled Pete. Then what's coming of Currie? I left her at home when I went out at seven. I'm choking with thirst, woman. Can't you be giving a man a drink of something? He found a dish of milk on the table where the supper had been laid and he gulped it down at a mouthful. She's gone. That's what it is. I see it in your face. Then going to the foot of the stairs she called Currie, Kate, Catherine Craigine. Stop that, shouted Pete and he drew her back from the stairs. Why aren't you spaking then? She cried. If you're man enough to bear the truth, I'm woman enough to hear it. Listen to me, Nancy, said Pete with uplifted fist. I'm going out for an hour until I'm back, stay you here with the child and say nothing to nobody. I knew it, cried Nancy. That's what she hurried me out for. Oh dear, oh dear, what for did you lave her with that man this morning? Do you hear me, woman, said Pete? Say nothing to nobody. My heart's lying heavy enough already. Open your lips and you'll kill me straight. Then he went out of the house with her ring, stumbling, bent almost double. His hat lay on the floor. He had gone bare-headed. He turned towards Solby. She's there, he thought. Where else should she be? The poor wandering lamb once home. End of Part 4, Chapter 16 Part 4, Chapter 17 of The Manxman. This is LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Manxman by Sir Hall Cain Part 4, Chapter 17 The bar room of The Manx Ferry was full of gossips that night and the puffing of many pipes was suspended at a story that Mr. Jelly was telling. Strange enough, I'm thinking. Indeed, but it's mortal strange. Talk about tale books. There's nothing in the pilgrims progress itself to equal it. The son of one son coming home dempster with processions and bands of music at the very minute the son of the other son is getting kicked out of the house same as a dog. Strange uncommon, said John the Widow. Another voices echoed him. Janak looked round the room expecting someone to question him. As nobody did so except with looks of inquiry he said My old man heard it all. He's been tailor at the big house since the time of Iron Christian himself. Truth enough, said Caesar. And he was sewing a suit for the big man in the kitchen when the bad work was going doing upstairs. You don't say. You've robbed me, says the Ballowane. Dear heart alive, cried Granny. To his own son was it. You've cheated me, says he. You deceived me. You've embezzled my money and broke my heart, says he. I've spent a fortune on you and what have you brought me back, says he. This, says he. And this, and this. Barefaced forgeries, all of them, says he. The Lord help us, muttered Caesar. They're calling me a miser, aren't they, says he? I grind my people to the dust, do I? What for, then? Whom for? I've been a good father to you anyway and a fool, too, if nobody knows it, says he. Nobody. Did he say nobody, Mr. Jelly, says Caesar, screwing up his mouth? If you'd had my father to deal with, says he, he'd have turned you out long ago for a liar and a thief. My Godfather, says Ross, struck silly for the minute. A thief, do you hear me, says the Ballowane? A thief that's taken every penny I have in the world and left me a ruined man. Did he say that, said Caesar? He did, though, said John Ake. The old man was listening from the kitchen stairs, and young Ross snaked out of the house, as soon as a cur. And where's he gone to, said Caesar? Gone to the devil, I'm thinking, said John Ake. Well, he'd be good enough for him with a broken back. Pity the old man didn't break it, said Caesar. But where is the wasteful now? Gone to England over with tonight's packet, they're saying. Praise God from whom all blessings flow, said Caesar. A grunt came out of the corner from behind a cloud of smoke. You've your own raisins for saying so, Caesar? Said the husky voice of Black Tom. People were talking and talking one while there that he'd be bezling somebody's daughter, as well as the old mice's money. Answer a fool according to his folly, muttered Caesar. And then the door jerked open and Pete came staggering into the room. Every pipe shank was lowered in an instant, and Granny's needles ceased to click. Pete was still bare-headed. His face was ghastly white and his eyes wandered, but he tried to bear himself as if nothing had happened. Smiling horribly and nodding all round as a man does sometimes in battle, the moment the bullet strikes him, he turned to Granny and moved his lips a little as if he thought he was saying something, though he uttered no sound. After that he took out his pipe and rammed it with his forefinger, then picked a spill from the table and stooped to the fire for a light. Anybody belonging me here, he said in a voice like a crow's coughing as he spoke, the flame dancing over the pipe mouth. No, Pete, no, said Granny. Who were you looking for at all? Nobody he answered, nobody particular, or no, he said, and he puffed until his lips cracked, though the pipe gave out no smoke. Just come in to get far to my pipe. Must be going now. So long, boys, so long. Bye-bye, Granny. No one answered him. He nodded round the room again and smiled fearfully, crossed to the door with a jaunty roll and thus launched out of the house with a pretense of unconcern, the dead pipe hanging upside down in his mouth and his head aside as if his hat had been tilted rakeishly on his uncovered hair. When he had gone, the company looked into each other's faces in surprise and fear as if a ghost in broad daylight had passed among them. Then Black Tom broke the silence. Men said he? That was a damn lie. Silence began Caesar, but the protest founded in his dry throat. Something going doing in Ramsey, Black Tom, continued, I believe in my heart I'll follow him. I'll be going along with you, Mr. Quilliam, said John Ake, and I, said John McClark, and I, and I, said the others, and in half a minute the room was empty. Father whispered Granny through the glass partition. Hadn't you better saddle the mayor and see if anything's going wrong with Curie? I was thinking the same with my self-mother. Come, then, away with you. The Lord have mercy on all of us. End of Part 4, Chapter 17. Part 4, Chapter 18 of the Manxman. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings were in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Manxman by Sir Hall Cain. Part 4, Chapter 18. As soon as he was out of earshot Pete began to run. Within half an hour he was back at Elm Cottage. She'll be home by this time, he told himself, but he did not learn the truth too suddenly. Creeping up to the hall window he listened at the broken pane. The child was crying, and Nancy Joe was crying. The child was crying, and Nancy Joe was talking to herself and sobbing as she bathed the little one. Bless its precious heart. It's as beautiful as the angels in heaven. I've bathed her mother on the same knee a hundred times. Deed I have, and a thousand times too. Mother, indeed. What sort of mothers are in now at all? She must have a heart as hard as stone to lay the like of it. Can't be a drop of nature in her. Goodness, Nancy, what are you saying for all? Kate is it? Your own little Kirrie. A new blackning her. Oh dear, oh dear, the boch, the boch. Pete could not go in. He crept back to the cabin in the garden and leaned against it to draw his breath and think. Then he noticed that the dog was on the path with its long tongue hanging over its jaw. It stopped his panting to whine woefully, and then it turned towards the darker part of the garden. He's telling me something, thought Pete. A car rattled down the side road at that moment, and the light of its lamp shot through the bushes to his feet. The old gate must be open, he thought. He looked and saw that it was, and then a new light dawned on him. She's gone up to Phillips, he told himself. She's gone by clock bane to Balua to find me. Five minutes afterwards he was knocking at Balua House. His breath was coming in gusts. Perspiration was standing in beads on his feet. And his head was still bare. But he was carrying himself bravely as if nothing were amiss. His knock was answered by the maid, a tall girl of cheerful expression in a black frock, a white apron and a snow-white cap. Pete nodded and smiled at her. Anybody been here for me? No, he asked. No, sir, no. I think not, the girl answered. And as she looked at Pete, her face straightened. There was a rustling within as of autumn leaves, and then a twittering voice cried. Is it Captain 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? Oh, no, ma'am, no. Not worth bothering him. Good-everon, Miss Christian, ma'am. Good-everon to you. Auntie Nan and Martha were standing in the light at the open door when the iron gate of the garden swung two with a click, and Pete swung across the road. He was making for the lane which goes down to the shore at the foot of Ballour 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 broke 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 breath lengthened to size. Thank God, not here anyway, he muttered. Then he walked down the shore towards the harbour. The tide was still high, the wash of the waves touched his feet. On the one hand the dark sea was under 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 scape 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 walked down to the town following the line of the key 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 nobody on the shore or on the pier, but as he passed the sheds in front of the berth for the steamers he was joined by the harbour master then he tried to ask the question that was slipping off his tongue, but dared not, and only stammered awkwardly. Any news tonight, Mr Quayle? Is it yourself, Captain? If you've none, I've none. It's independent young rovers like you for newses, not poor old chaps tied to the harbour post same as a ship's cable. I was hearing you, though. You'd a power of music in the ever and yonder. Fine doings up at Belua, 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 balawain crossed with the boat tonight. Something wrong with the old man they're telling me. But boy, Veen, what's come of your hat at all? Are you talking about his head? Oh, my hat, blown off on the pier, of course. Deed man, not much wind either. You'll be for home and the young wife, eh, Captain? Must be said Pete with an empty laugh. And the harbormaster who was a bachelor laughed more heartily and added, You married men alike, Adam. You've lost the rib of your liberty. But you've got a warm little woman to your side instead. Ha ha ha, good night. Pete's laugh echoed through the empty marketplace. The harbormaster 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 bare-headed, 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 passed some of them and observed. He caught snatches of their conversation. The rascals had won. Clayne ruined the old man anyway, said another. Ross Christian again thought Pete, but a greater secret swamped everything. Still he heard the people as he passed. Sarva right though, whatever she gets, she knew what he was. Leaving the child, too, the unfeeling creature. Then the sharp voices of the women fell on the dull consciousness of Pete like forks of lightning. Wished woman the husband himself, said somebody. There was a noise of feet like the plash of retiring waves, and Pete noticed that one of the groups had broken into a half-circle, facing him as he strode along the street. He nodded cheerfully over both sides, threw back his bare head and plotted on. But his teeth were set hard, and his breathing was quick and audible. I see what they mean, he muttered. Outside his own house he found a crowd. A saddle-horse with a cloud of steam rising from her was standing with the reins over its head linked to the gatepost. It was Caesar's mare, Molly. Every eye was on the house, and no one saw Pete as he came up behind. Black Tom, saying there's not a doubt of it, said a woman. Gone with the young Ballowine, eh? said a man. Shame on her the hussy, said another woman. Pete ploughed his way through with both arms, smiling and nodding furiously. If he plays, ma'am, if he plays, as he pushed on he heard voices behind him. Poor man, he doesn't know yet. I'm taking pity to look at him. The house door was open. On the threshold stood a young man with long hair and a long notebook. He was putting questions. Last seen at seven o'clock, left alone with child, husband out with procession. Any other information? Nancy Joe, with the child on her lap, was answering quarrelously from the stool before the fire, and Caesar, face down, was leaning on the mantelpiece. Pete took in the situation at a glance. Then he laid his big hand on the young man's shoulder and swung him aside as if he had been turning a swivel. What going doing, he asked? The young man faltered something. Sorry to intrude. Captain Quilliam's trouble. What trouble, said Pete? Need I say? The lamented, I mean distressing. In fact, the mysterious disappearance. What disappearance, said Pete, with an air of amazement? Can it be, sir, that you've not yet heard? Heard what? Your tongue's like a turnip watch in a fob pocket. Out with it, man. Your wife, Captain? What? My wife does... What? So this is the jeal. My wife mysteriously disappeared. Oh, my goch. Pete burst into a peel of laughter. He shouted, roared, held his sides, doubled, rocked up and down, and at length flung himself into a chair. Through back his head, heaved out his legs and shook till the house itself seemed to quake. Well, that's good. That's rich. That's all he cried. The child awoke on Nancy's knee and sent its thin pipe through Pete's terrific base. Caesar opened his mouth and gaped, and the young man, now white and afraid, scraped and backed himself to the door, saying, that perhaps it's not true after all, Captain? Of course it's not true, said Pete. Maybe you know where she's gone. Of course I know where she's gone. I sent her there myself. You did, though, said Caesar? Yes, did I, to England, by the night sailing. Deed-man, said Caesar. The doctor ordered it. You heard him yourself, Grandfather. Well, that's true, too, said Caesar. The young man closed his long notebook and backed into a throng of women who had come up to the porch. Of course, if you say so, Captain Quilliam. I do say so, shouted Pete, and the reporter disappeared. The voices of two women came from the gulf of white faces wherein the reporter had been swallowed up. I'm right glad it's lies they've been telling of her, Captain, said the first. Of course you are, Mistress Kinnish, shouted Pete. I could never have believed the like of the same woman, and I always knew the child was brought up by hand, said another. Of course you wouldn't, Mistress Culey, Pete replied. But he swung up and kicked the door, too, in their faces. The strangers being shut out, Caesar said cautiously. Do you mean that, Peter? Molly's smoking at the gate like a brewer's vat father, said Pete. The hearth hasn't been told you, Peter. Listen to me. It's only proper you should hear it. When you were away at Kimberley, this Ross Christian was bothering the girl terrible. She'll be getting cold so long out of the stable, said Pete. I rebuked him myself, sir, and he smote me on the brow. Look, here's the mark of his hand over my temple, here to my grave. Ross Christian. Ross Christian muttered Pete impatiently. By the Lord's restraining grace, sir, I refrained myself, but if Mr. Philip hadn't been there that night, I'm not holding with violence. No, resist not evil. But Mr. Philip fought the loose liver with his fist for me. He chastised him, sir. He, damn, the man, cried Pete leaping to his feet. What's he to me or my wife, either? Caesar went home huffed, angry, and unsatisfied. And then, all being gone and the long strain over, Pete snatched the pooling child out of Nancy's arms, and kissed it and wept over it. Give her to me the boch, he cried, horses are raven, and then sat on the stool before the fire and rocked the little one and himself together. If I hadn't something innocent to lay hold of, I should be going mad, that I should. Oh, Catherine boch, Catherine boch, my little boch, my ill boch, Milish. In the deep hours of the night after Nancy had grumbled and sobbed herself to sleep by the side of the child, Pete got up from the sofa in the parlour and stole out of the house again. She may come up with a morning tide, he told himself. If she does, what matter about a lie, God forgive me? God help me, what matter about anything? If she did not, he would stick to his story so that when she came back, wherever she had been, she would come home as an honest woman. And we'll be too, he thought. Yes, we'll be too, spite of all their dirty tongues, as sure as the Lord's in heaven. The dog trotted on in front of him as he turned up towards Belour. End of Part 4, Chapter 18. Part 4, Chapter 19 of the Manxman. This was a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings were in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. The Manxman by Sir Hall Cain. Part 4, Chapter 19. Philip had not eaten much that night at dinner. He had pecked at the wing of a fowl, being restless, absent, preoccupied and like a man struggling for composure. At intervals, he had listened as for a step or a voice, then recovered himself and laughed a little. Aunty Nan had explained his thoughts and thoughts Aunty Nan had explained his uneasiness on grounds of natural excitement after the doings of the great day. She had loaded his plate with good things and chirped away under the light of the lamp. So sweet of you, Philip, not to forget Pete amid all your success. He's really such a good soul. It would break his heart if you neglected him. Simple as a child, certainly, and of course quite uneducated. But Pete is fit to be the friend yes, but you'll allow not exactly the companion. If he is simple, it is the simplicity of a nature too large for little things. The dear fellow, he's not a bit jealous of you, Philip. Such feelings are far below him, Aunty. He's your first cousin after all, Philip. There's no denying that, as he says, the blood of the Christians is in him. The conversation took a turn. Aunty Nan fell to talking of the other Peter, Uncle Peter Christian of Balawain. This was the day of the big man's humiliation. The son he had doted on was disgraced. She tried, but could not help it. She struggled, but could not resist the impulse. In her secret heart the tender little soul rejoiced. Such a pity, she sighed. So touching when a father, no matter how selfish, is wrecked by love of a thankless son. I'm sorry, indeed I am, but I've warned him six years ago, didn't I now? Philip was far away. He was seeing visions of Pete going home, the deserted house, the empty cradle, the desolate man alone and heartbroken. They rose from the table and went into the little parlour. Aunty Nan on Philip's arm proud and happy. She fluttered down to the piano and sang to cheer him up a little, an old song in a quavering old voice. Of the wandering falcon, the cuckoo complains, he has torn her warm nest, he has scattered her young. Suddenly Philip got up stiffly and said in a husky whisper, isn't that his voice? Who's dear? Pete's. Where, dearest? In the hall. I hear nobody, let me look. No Pete's not here, but how pale you are Philip, what's amiss? No or some brandy. You've overtired yourself today and no wonder. You must have a long, long rest tonight. Yes, I'll go to bed at once. So soon? Well, perhaps it's best. You won't sleep, your eyes show that. Martha, is everything ready in the deemsters room? All but the lamp? Take it up Martha. Philip, you'll drink a little brandy and water first. I'll carry it to your room then. You might need it in the night. Poor me dear, yes, yes you must. Do you think I want you to see how old I am when I'm going upstairs? I hadn't declined by the banisters this way when I came first to Boulogne. On reaching the landing Philip was turning to his old room, the bedroom he had occupied from his boyhood up, the bedroom of his mother's father, old Captain Billy. Not that way tonight Philip, this way, there. What do you say to that? She pushed open the door of the room opposite and the glow of the fire within rushed out on them. My father's room said Philip and he stepped back. Oh, I've aired it and it's not a bit the worse for being so long shut up. See, it's like toast. Oh, not the least sign of my breath. Come. No auntie, no. Are you afraid of ghosts? There's only one ghost lips here Philip, the memory of your dear father and that will never harm you. But this place is too sacred. No one has slept here since. That's why, dearest, but now you have justified your father's hopes and it must be your room for the future. Ah, if he could only see you himself, how proud he would be. Poor father, perhaps he does. Who knows, perhaps. Kiss me Philip. See what an old silly I am after all. So happy that I have to cry. But mind now, you've got to sleep in this room every time you come to hold court in Ramsay. I refuse to share you with Elm Cottage any longer. Talk about jealousy. If Pete isn't jealous, I know somebody who is, or soon will be, but Philip, Philip Christian. Yes? The sweet old face grew solemn. The greatest man has his cares and doubts and divisions. That's only natural out in the open field of life. But don't be ashamed to come here whenever you are in trouble. It's what home is for, Philip. Just a place of peace and shelter from the rough world when it wounds and hurts you. A quiet spot, dear, with memories of father and mother and innocent childhood and with an old goose of an auntie, maybe, who thinks of you all day and every day and is so vain and foolish and who loves you, Philip, better than anybody in the world. Philip's arms were around the old soul, but he had not heard her with a terrified glance towards the window he was saying with a footstep on the gravel. No, no, you're nervous tonight, Philip. Lie and rest. When you're asleep, I'll creep back and look at you. She left him and he looked around. Not in all the world could Philip have found a spot so full of terrors. It was like a sepulchre of dead things, his dead father, his dead mother, his dead youth, his dead innocence, his slaughtered friendship and his outraged conscience. Over the fireplace hung a portrait of his mother. It was the picture of a comely girl, young and soft with full right lips and bright brown eyes. Philip shuddered as he looked at it. The portrait was like the ghost of himself looking through the veil of a woman's face. Facing this and hanging over the side of the bed was a portrait of his father. The eyes were full of light, the lines of the cheek were round, the mouth seemed to quiver with a tender smile, but Philip could not see it as it was. He saw it with straggling hair, damp and long as reeds, the cheeks pallid and drawn, the eyes like lamps in a mist, the throat bare of the shirt and the lips kept apart by laboured breathing. Near the window stood the cot where he had once slept with Pete and leaped up in the morning and laughed. On every hand wherever his eye could rest there rose a phantom of his lost and buried life, and Auntie Nanny's love and pride had brought him to this chamber of torture. The night was calm enough outside, but it seemed to lie dead within that room, so quiet was it and so still. There was a clock, but it did not go, and there was a cage for a bird, but no bird pecked in it. Philip thought he heard him knocking at the door of the house. Nobody answered it, so he rang for the maid. She came upstairs with a smile. Didn't you hear a knock at the front door, Martha? No, sir, said the girl. Strange, very strange. I could have sworn it was the knock of Mr. Quilliam. Perhaps it was, sir. I'll go and look. No matter. I was singing in my ears tonight. It must be that. The girl left him. He threw off his boots and began to creep about the room as if he were doing something in which he feared detection. Every time his eyes fell on the portrait of his father he dropped his head and turned aside. Presently he heard voices in the room below. This time the sound in his ears was no dreaming. He opened the door noiselessly and listened. It was Pete. Martha was answering him. Auntie Nan was calling from the dining room and Pete was saying, No, no, in a light way and moving off. The gate of the garden clicked and the front door was closed quietly. Then Philip shut the door of his own room without a sound. A moment later Auntie Nan reopened it. She was carrying a lighted candle. Such an extraordinary thing, Philip. Martha says you thought you heard Peter knocking and do you know he must have been coming up the hill at that very moment. He was so strange too and looked so wild. I asked if anybody had been here inquiring for him as if anybody should. Wouldn't have me call to you and went off laughing about nothing. Really if I hadn't known him for a sober man. Philip felt sick and chill and he began to shiver. An irresistible impulse took hold of him. It was like the half-smothered fear which makes guilty men go to sit at the inquests of their murdered victims. Something wrong, he said. Where are my boots? Going to Elm Cottage, Philip? Pity the coachman drove back to Douglas. Hadn't you better send Martha? Besides, it may be only my fancy. Why worry in any case? You're too tender-hearted indeed you are. Philip fled downstairs like one who flies from torture. While dragging on his coat in the hall he began to foresee what was before him. He was to go to Pete pretending to know nothing. He was to hear Pete's story and show surprise. He was to comfort Pete, perhaps to help him in his search for he dared not appear not to help. He was to walk by Pete's side for what he knew they should not find. He saw himself crawling along the streets like a snake and the part he had to play revolted him. He went upstairs again. On second thoughts you must be right, auntie. I'm sure I am. If not, you'll come again. I'm sure he will. If there's anything amiss with Pete, you'll come first to me. There can be nothing amiss except what I say. Just a glass too much maybe and no great sin either considering the day and how proud he is for your sake, Philip. I believe in my heart that young man couldn't be prouder and happier if he stood in your own shoes instead. Good night, auntie, said Philip in a thick gurgle. Good night, dear. I'm going to bed. Mind you go yourself. Being alone, Philip found himself leaning against the mantelpiece and looking across at his father's picture. He began to contrast his father with himself. He was a success. His father had been a failure. At seven and twenty he was deemster at all events. At thirty his father had died a broken man. He had got what he had worked for. He had recovered the place of his people and yet how mean a man he was compared to him who had done nothing and lost all. Failure was all that his father had had to reproach himself with. But he had to accuse himself of dishonour as well. His father's offence had been a fault. His own was a crime. If his father had been willing to betray love and friendship he might have succeeded. Because he himself had been true to neither he had not failed. The very excess of his father's virtues had kept him down. Every act of his own selfishness had pushed him up. His father had thought first of love and truth and an upright life and lost of money and rank and applause. The world had renounced his father because his father had first renounced the world. But it had opened its arms to him and followed him with shouts and cheers and loaded him with honours. And yet miserable man better be down in the ooze and slime of a broken life better be dead and in the grave for the dead in his grave must despise him. An awful picture rose before Philip. It was a picture of himself in the time to come. An old man, great, powerful, perhaps even beloved may be worshiped but heart dead tottering on to the grave and the mockery of a gorgeous funeral with crowds and drums and solemn music. Then suddenly a great silence as if the snow had begun to fall and a great white light and an awful voice crying who is this that comes with dust for a bleeding heart and ashes for a living soul. Philip screamed aloud at the vision as piece by piece he put it together. His cry died off with a tingle in the china ornaments of the mantelpiece and he remembered where he was. Then two gentle taps came to the door of his room. He composed himself a little, snatched up a book and cried, Come in! It was Auntie Nan. She was in her nightdress and nightcap. The mantel was in her hand and the flame was shaking. Whatever's to do, my child, she said. Only reading aloud, Auntie, did I awaken you? But you screamed, Philip. Macbeth, Auntie, see the banquet scene. He has become king, you know, but he's conscious. He stopped. The little lady looked at him dubiously and made a pull at the string of her nightcap, causing it to fall aside and give a grotesque appearance to her troubled old face. Take a little brandy, dear. I left it here on the dressing table. Don't trouble about me, Auntie. Good night again. There. Go back to bed. Half coaxing, half forcing her, he drew her to the door and she went out slowly, reluctantly, doubtfully, the wandering strings of her cap trailing on her shoulders and her bare feet nipping up the bottom of the nightdress behind her. Philip looked at the book he had snatched up in his haste. What had put that book of all books into his hand? What had brought him to that room of all rooms? And on that night of all nights, what devil out of hell had tempted Auntie Nan to torture him? He would not stay. He would go back to his own bed. Out on the landing he heard a low voice. It came from Auntie Nan's room. A spear of candlelight shot from her door, which was a jar. He paused and looked in. The white nightdress was by the bedside. The nightcap was buried in the counterpane. A cat had established itself beside it and was purring softly. Auntie Nan was on her knees. Philip heard his own name. God bless my Philip in the great place to which he has been called this day. Give him wisdom and strength and peace. Holy woman, with angels hovering over you, who dared to think of devils tempting your innocence and love? Philip went back to his father's room. He began to reconcile himself to his position. Though he had been extolling his father at his own expense, what had he done but realized his father's hopes? And after all, he could not have acted differently. At no point could he have behaved otherwise than he had. What had he to accuse himself for? If there had been sin, he had been dragged into it by blind powers which he could not command. And what was true of himself was also true of Kate. Ah, he could see her now. She was gone where he had sent her. There were tears in her beautiful eyes, but time would wipe them away. The duplicity of her old life was over. The corroding deceit, the daily torment, the hourly infidelity, all were left behind. If there was remorse, it was the fault of destiny. And if she was suffering the pangs of shame, she was a woman. And she would bear it cheerfully for the sake of the man she loved. She was going through everything for him, heaven bless her. In spite of man and man's law, she was his love, his darling, his wife. Yes, his wife, by right of nature and of God. And come what would, he should cling to her to the last. Suddenly a thick voice cut through the still air of the night. Philip! It was Pete at last. He was calling up at the window from the path below. Philip groaned and covered his face with his hands. Philip! With rigid steps Philip walked to the window and threw up the sash. It was starlight, and the branches were bending in the night air. Is it you, Pete? Yes, it's me. I was seeing the lamp, so I knew you weren't in bed at all. Studying a bit it's like, eh? I thought I wouldn't wake in the house, but just shout up and tell you. What is it, Pete? said Philip. His voice shivered like a sail attacking. Nothing much at all. Only the wife's gone to England over by the night's steamer. To England? Oh, time for it too, I'm thinking. The wake and nervous she's been lately. You remember what the doctor was saying, Yonder Everon, when we christened the child? Send her out of the island, says he, and she'll be coming home another woman. It wasn't for going, though. Crying and shouting she wouldn't be leaving the little one. So I had to put out a bit of authority. Of course the husband's got the right to do that, Philip, eh? Well, I'll be taking the road again. Doing a fine night, isn't it? Makes a man unwilling to go to bed. Philip trembled and felt sick. He tried to speak, but could utter nothing except an inarticulate noise. As Pete went off, an owl screeched in the glen. Philip drew down the sash, pulled the blind, tugged the curtains across, stumbled into the middle of the floor and leaned against the bed. Such is the beginning of the end, he thought. The duplicity, the deceit, the daily torment which Kate had left behind were henceforth to be his own. At one flash, as of lightning, he saw the path before him. It was over cliffs and chasms and quagmires where his foot might slip at any step. His head began to reel. He took the brandy bottle from the dressing table, poured out half a tumbler and drained it at one draught. As he did so, his eyes above the rim of the glass rested on the portrait of his mother over the fireplace. The face as he saw it then was no longer the face of the winsome bride. It was the living face as he remembered it. Bleared, bloated, gross and drunken. She smiled at him, she beckoned to him. It was the beginning of the end indeed. He was his mother's son as well as his father's. The father had ruled down to that day, but it was the turn of the mother now. He could not resist her, she was alive in his blood and he was hers. Never before had he touched raw spirits and the brandy mastered him instantly. Feeling dizzy he made an effort to undress and get into bed. He dragged off his coat and his waistcoat and threw his braces over his shoulders. Then he stumbled and he had to lay hold of the bed post. His hand grew chill and relaxed its hold. Stupa came over him. He slipped, he slid, he fell and rolled with outstretched arms onto the floor. The fire went out and the lamp died down. Then the sun came up over the sea. It was a beautiful morning, the town awoke. People hailed each other cheerfully in the streets and joy bells rang from the big church tower for the first court day of the new deemster. But the deemster himself still lay on the floor with damp forehead and matted hair behind the blind of the darkened room. End of Part 4, Chapter 19 Part 5, Chapter 1 of the Manxman. This is the Librivox Recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. The Manxman by Sir Hall Cain. Part 5, Man and Man, Chapter 1. It was Saturday and the marketplace was covered with the carts and stalls of the country people. After some faint of eating breakfast, Pete Littage's pipe called for a basket and announced his intention of doing the marketing. Coming for the mistress, are you, Captain? I'm a sort of a grass widow, ma'am. What's your eggs today, Mistress Cowley? Sixteen this morning, sir, and right ones too. They were telling me you've been losing her. Give me a shillingsworth, then. Any news over your side, Mag? Two, four, eight, sixteen. It's every appearance we'll be getting an early harvest, Captain. Is it yourself, Lisa, and how's your butter today? Bad debate today, sir, and only thirteen pence, hate me. Is the little one longing for the mistress, Captain? 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, Lisa. Thus, with his basket on his arm and his pipe in his mouth, Pete passed 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, Captain, 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 shirt sleeves on a deck chair in his ship's cabin, smoking a long pipe and pretending to be at ease and at peace with all the world. Fine morning, Captain, said John McClark. It is doing a fine morning, John, said Pete. Fine on the sea, too, said Jeanneke. Wonderful fine on the sea, Mr. Jelly. A nice fair win, though, if anybody was going by the packet to Liverpool. Was it as good, thank you, for the mistress on Friday night, Mr. Quilliam? I'll guarantee, said Pete. Plucky, though, I wouldn't have thought it of the same woman. I wouldn't really, said Jeanneke. Alone, too, and landing on the other side so early in the morning, said John McClark. Smart and common. It isn't every woman would have done it, said Kelly the postman. Or, with mighty boys of women these days, we have Doe snuffle the Constable, and then they all laugh together. Pete watched their weeling, forning, and whisking of the tail, and then he said, "'Tud, 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 McClark? Pete puffed furiously, rolled in his seat, laughed like a man with a mouth full of water, and said, "'Why, certainly. My uncle, of course.'" Jeanneke wrinkled his forehead. "'Uncle,' he said, with a click in his throat. "'Yes, my uncle Joe,' said Pete. Jeanneke looked helplessly across at John McClark. John McClark puckered up his mouth, as if about to whistle, and then said in a faltering way, "'Well, I can't really say I've ever heard tell of your uncle Joe before, Captain.' "'No,' said Pete, with a look of astonishment. "'Not my uncle Joseph, the one that left the island 40 years ago and started in the coach and cab line. "'Well, that's curious. Where's he living? "'Bless me, where's this it is now? "'Tud, it's claim forgot at me. "'But I saw him myself coming home from Kimberley, and since then he's been writing constant. "'Send her across,' says he. "'She'll be her own woman again, like winking. "'And you never heard tell of him? "'Not uncle Joey with the bald head? "'Well, well, a smart old man, though. "'Man alive, the lively he is, too, "'and the laughable and the good company. "'To look at that man's face, "'you'd say the sun was shining regular. "'Or it's fine time she'll be having with uncle Joe. "'No woman could be ill with the old old man about. "'He'd break your face with laughing "'if it was bursting itself with a squintzy. "'And you never heard tell of my uncle Joe "'of Scotland Road down Clarence Dockway "'to think of that now. "'They went off with looks of perplexity, "'and Pete turned into the house. "'They're trying to catch me. "'They're wanting to shame my poor little Kirrie. "'I must keep her name sweet,' he thought. "'The church bells have begun to ring, "'and he was telling himself that heavy though "'his heart might be, he must behave as usual. "'She'll be going walking to church herself this morning, "'Nancy,' he said, putting on his coat. "'So I'll just slip across to chapel. "'He was swinging up the path on his return home to dinner "'when he heard voices inside the house. "'It's shocking to see the man pretending this "'and pretending that. It was Nancy. "'She was laying the table. "'There was a rattle of knives and forks, "'betending to ate but only pecking like a robin, "'betending to sleep but never a wink on the night, "'betending to laugh and to joke and wink "'and a face at him like a ghost's, "'and his hair all through others. "'Walking about from river to quay "'and going on with all that rubbish, "'it's shocking, ma'am, it's shocking. "'Hushabye, hushabye. "'It was the voice of Granny, low and quavery. "'She was rocking the cradle. "'You can't speak to him neither, "'but he's scolding you scandalous. "'I'm not used to being cursed at, I'm saying, "'and is it myself that has to be told "'to respect my own kitty? "'But cry shame on her, I must, "'when I look at the little boch there. "'And it's so helpless and so beautiful. "'Sterics, you say? "'Yes, indeed, ma'am, "'and if I stay here much longer, "'it's losing myself I will be, too, "'with his pretending and pretending. "'Lave him to it, Nancy. "'His poor heads that moided and mixed, "'it's like a black pudding. "'There's no saying what's inside of it. "'But he's good, though. "'Oh, right good he is for all. "'And the world's cold and cruel. "'Lave him alone, woman. "'The child awoke and cried, "'and under cover of this commotion "'and the crowing and cooing of the two women. "'Pete stepped back to the gate, "'clashed it hard, swung noisily up the gravel, "'and rolled into the house "'with a shout and a laugh. "'Well, well, Granny, my goch. "'Who'd have thought of seeing Granny now? "'And how's the old angel today? "'So you've got the little one there. "'Oh, you rogue you. "'You're on Granny's lap, are you? "'How's Caesar? And how's Mrs. Goree doing? "'Look at that now. Did you ever? "'Opening one eye first to make sure "'if the world's all right? "'The child's wise. "'Cool, cool. "'Smart with the dinner, Nancy. "'Wonderful hungry the chapel's making a man. "'Cool, cool. What's she like now, Granny?' "'When I set her to my knee like this, "'I can see my own little Kirrie again,' said Granny, looking down ruefully, "'rocking the child with one knee "'and doubling over it to kiss it. "'So she's like the mammy, "'as she said Pete, blowing at the baby "'and tickling its chin with his broad forefinger? "'Mammy's gone to the old uncles, hasn't she, my lamby?' "'At that, Granny fell to rocking herself "'as well as the child "'and to singing a hymn in a quavery voice. "'Then with a rattle and a rush, "'throwing off his coat and tramping the floor "'in his shirt sleeves while Nancy dished up the dinner, "'Pete began to enlarge on Kate's happiness "'in the place where she had gone. "'Tremendous grand, the old man's health "'and the old man's houses, you wouldn't believe. "'A regular Dempster's palace, "'the grandeur on it is a show and a pattern. "'Plenty to eat, plenty to drink "'and a boy at the door with white buttons "'dotting on his brown coat, bless you like, "'like a turnip field in winter. "'Then the man himself, "'Gunness me, the happy that man is, "'happy Joe, they're calling him, "'wouldn't trust but he'll be taking Kate "'to a theatre. "'Well, and why not, if a person's down a bit? "'The merry touch and go, where's the harm at all? "'Fact is, Granny, that's why we couldn't tell you Kate was going. "'Caesar would have been objecting. "'He's fit enough for it. Ha-ha!' "'Granny looked up at Pete as he laughed "'and the broad rose withered on his face. "'Mmm, hmm,' he said, clearing his throat, "'I'm bad dreadful wanting a smoke. "'And pasted in a table, now smoking and ready, "'he slithered out of the house. "'Caesar was Pete's next visitor. "'He said nothing of Kate, "'and neither did Pete mention Uncle Joe. "'The interview was a brief and grim one. "'It was a lie that Ross Christian had been sent "'by his father to ask for a loan, "'but it was true that Peter Christian "'was in urgent need of money. "'He wanted £6,000 as mortgage on Ballowain. "'Had Pete got so much to lend? "'No need for personal intercourse. "'Caesar would act as intermediary.' "'Pete took only a moment for consideration. "'Yes, he had got the money, and he would lend it. "'Caesar looked at Pete. Pete looked at Caesar. "'He's talking all those rubbish thoughts, Caesar, "'but he knows where the girl has gone to. "'He knows who's taken her. "'He means to kick the rascal out of his own house, "'neck and crop, "'and right enough, too, on the Lord's own vengeance. "'But Pete's thoughts were another matter. "'The old man won't live to redeem it, "'and the young one will never try. "'It'll do for Philip someday.'" End of Part 5, Chapter 1. Part 5, Chapter 2 of The Manxman. This is the LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Manxman by Sir Hall Cain. Part 5, Chapter 2. For three days, Pete bore himself according to his won't, thinking to silence the evil tongues of the little world about him and keep sweet and alive the dear name which they were wanting to befoul and destroy. By Tuesday morning, the strain had become unbearable. On pretenses of business, of pleasure, of God knows what folly and nonsense, he began to scour the island. He visited every parish on the north, passed through every village, climbed every glen, found his way into every out-of-the-way hut and scraped acquaintance with every old woman living alone. Sometimes he was up in the vague fordorn, creeping through the quiet streets like a thief, going silently, stealthily, warily, until he came to the roads or the fields or the open karak and could give swing to his step and breath to his lungs and voice to the cries that burst from him. Two long weeks he spent in this wild quest and meanwhile he was as happy as a boy to all outward seeming, whistling, laughing, chafing, bawling, talking nonsense, any nonsense and kicking up his heels like a kid. But wheresoever he went and howsoever early he started on his errands, he never failed to be back at home at seven o'clock in the evening, washed, combed in his slippers and shirt sleeves, smoking a long clay over the garden gate as the postman went by with the letters. She'll write, he told himself. When she's mending a bit, she'll raise our mind and write. Dear old Pete, excuse me for not writing a four. That'll be the way of it. Oh, trust her, trust her. But day followed day and no letter came from Kate. Ten evenings running he smoked over the gate leisurely, largely, almost languidly but always watching for the peak of the postman's cap as it turned the corner by the courthouse and following the toes of his foot as they stepped off the curb to see if they pointed in his direction and then turning aside with a deep breath and a smothered moan that ended in a rattle of the throat and a pretence at spitting. The postman saw him as he went by and his little eyes twinkled treacherously. Nothing for you yet, Captain, he said at length. Shultz said Pete with a mighty puff of smoke. My business isn't done by correspondence, Mr Kelly. Oh, no, but when a man's wife's away began the postman. Oh, I see, said Pete with a look of intelligence and then with a lofty wave of the hand. She's like her husband, Mr Kelly, not bothering much with letters at all. You'll be longing for a line, though, Captain. That's only natural. No news is good news. I can leave it with her. Of course, that's truth enough, yes. But still, and for all, a taste of a letter. It's doing no harm, Captain. Easy writ, too, and sweet to get sometimes, you know. Shows a woman isn't forgetting a man when she's away. Mr Kelly, Mr Kelly, said Pete with his hand before his face palm outwards. Not necessary? Well, I'll over with you. Good night, Captain. Good night to you, sir, said Pete. He had laughed and tut tutted and lifted his eyebrows and his hands in mock protest and a pretence of indifference. But the postman's talk had cut him to the quick. People are suspecting, he thought. They're saying things. This made him swear, but a thought came behind that made him sweat instead. Philip will be hearing them. They'll be telling him she doesn't write to me that I don't know where she is, that she has left me, and that she's a bad woman. To make Kate stand well with Philip was an aim that had no rival but one in Pete's reckoning. To make Philip stand well with Kate. Out of the shadow land of his memory of the awful night of his bereavement, a recollection which had been lying dead until then came back now in its grave clothes to torture him. It was what Caesar had said of Philip's fight with Ross Christian. Philip himself had never mentioned it. That was like him. But when evil tongues told of Ross and hinted at mischief, Philip would know something already. He would be prepared. Perhaps he would listen and believe. Two days longer, Pete sat in the agony of this new terror and the dogged impatience of his old hope. She'll write. She'll not leave me much longer. But she did not write, and on the second night before returning to the house from the gate he had made his plan. He must silence scandal at all hazards. However his own heart might bleed with doubts and fears and misgivings, Philip must never cease to think that Kate was good and sweet and true. Off to bed Nancy he cried, heaving into the hall like a man in drink. I've worked to do tonight and want the house to myself. Good as me, is it yourself that's talking of bed then? Said Nancy, seven in the everon too, and the child not an hour out of my hands. And dear knows what work it is if you can't be doing it with good people about you. Come get off woman, you're looking tired, mortal. The little one's ragging you terrible. But what's it saying Nancy? Bed is half bread. Truth enough too, the other half is beauty. Get off now, you're spoiling your complexion dreadful. I'll never be getting that husband for you. Thus coaxing her, cajoling her, watching her, dodging her, nagging her, driving her, he got her off to bed at last. Being alone he looked around, listened, shut the doors of the parlour and the kitchen, put the bolt on the door of the stairs, the chain on the door of the porch, took off his boots and went about on tiptoe. Then he blew out the lamp, filled and trimmed and relitted, going down on the hearthrug to catch the light of the fire. After that he settled the table, drew up the armchair, took from a corner cupboard, pens and ink, a blotting pad, a packet of note paper and envelopes, a stick of ceiling wax, a box of matches, a postage stamp, the dictionary and the exercise book in which Kate had taught him to write. As the clock was striking nine, Pete was squaring himself at the table, pen in hand and his tongue and his left cheek. Half an hour later he was startled by an interruption. "'Who's there?' he shouted in a ferocious voice, leaping up with a look of terror, like a man caught in a crime. It was only Nancy who had come creeping down the stairs under pretense of having forgotten the baby's bottle. He made a sort of apologetic growl, handed the flat bottle through an opening like a crack and ordered her back to bed. "'Gonna say,' said Nancy going upstairs. "'Is it coining money the man is? Or is it whiskey itself that's doing on him?' Two hours afterwards, Pete fancied he saw a face at the window and he caught up a stick, unchained the door and rushed into the garden. It was no one. The town lay asleep. The night was all but airless. Only the faintest breeze moved the leaves of the trees. There was no noise anywhere, except the measured beat of the sea in its everlasting coming and going on the shore. Stepping back into the house where the fire chirped and the kettle sang and all else was quiet, he resumed his task and somewhere in the dark hours before the dawn he finished it. The fingers of his right hand were then inky up to the first joint. His collar was open, his neck was bare, his eyes were ablaze, the cords on his face were big and blue. Great beads of cold sweat were standing on his forehead and the carpet around his chair was littered as white as if a snowstorm had fallen on it. He went down on his knees and gathered up these remnants and burnt them with the air of a man destroying the evidences of his guilt. Then he put back the ink and the dictionary, the blotting pad and sealing wax and replaced them with a loaf of bread, a table knife, a bottle of brandy and a drinking glass. After that he made up the fire with a shovel of slack that it might burn until morning, removed the lamp from the table to the window recess that it might cast its light into the darkness outside and unchained the outer door that a wanderer of the night, if any such there were, might enter without knocking. He did all this in the absent manner of a man who did it nightly. Then unbolting the staircase door and listening a moment for the breathing of the sleepers overhead, he crept into the dark parlour overlooking the road and lay down on the sofa to sleep. It was done. Pete's great scheme was afoot. The mighty secret which he had enshrouded with such awful mystery lay in an envelope in the inside breast pocket of his monkey-jacket, sign sealed, stamped and addressed. Pete had written a letter to himself. End of Part 5, Chapter 2. Part 5, Chapter 3 of The Manxman. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings were in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Manxman by Sir Hall Cain. Part 5, Chapter 3. The next day the crier was crying, Great Meeting, Manx Fisherman, on zigzag at Peel when boats come in tomorrow morning, protest again harbour taxes. The thing itself thought Pete, with his hand pressed hard on the outside of his breast pocket. At five o'clock in the afternoon he went down to the harbour where his nicky lay at the key, shouted to the master, Take an odd man to-night, Mr. Chemish, then dropped to the deck and helped to fetch the boat into the bay. They had to haul her out by poles along the key wall, for the tide was low and there was no breakwater. It was still early in the herring season, but fishing was in full swing. Five hundred boats from all parts were making for the fishing ground. It lay off the south-west tail of the island. Before Pete's boat reached it the fleet was sitting together like a flight of seafowl and the sun was almost gone. The sun went down that night over the hills of Morn, very angry and red in its setting. The sky to the north-west was dark and sullen. The round line of the sea was bleared and broken, but little wind and the water was quiet. Bring two and shoot, cried Pete, and they dropped sail to the landward of the fleet off the shoulder of the calf island with its two lights making one. The boat was brought head to the wind with the flowing tide veering against her. The nets were shot over the starboard quarter and they dropped the stern. The bow was swung round to the line of the floating mollags and boat and nets began to drift together. After it was served the pump was worked, the lights were run up, the small boat was sent round with a flare to fright away the evil spirits, and then the night came down, a dark night without moon or stars, shutting out the island though it stood so near and even the rocks of the hen and chicken. The first man for the lookout took up his one hour's watch at the helm and the rest went below. Pete's bunk was under the binocle and the light of its lamp fell on a stamped envelope and he looked out of his breast pocket from time to time that he might read the inscription. It ran, Captain Peter Quilliam, Elm Cottage Ramsey, Arla Mann. He looked at it lovingly, fondly, yearningly, yet with a certain awe too, as if it were the casket of some hidden treasure and he hardly knew what it contained. The dim-lit cabin was quiet, the net boiler sparched drops of hot water at intervals, the fire of the cooking stove slid and fell, the men breathed heavily from unseen beds and the sea washed as the boat rolled. What's she saying, I wonder? I wonder? God bless her, he mumbled, and then he too fell asleep. Two hours before hauling they proved the fishing by taking in a pair of the net, found good herring and blew the hornet's signal that they were doing well. Then out of the black depths around, to be seen, the lights of other boats came floating silently astern until the company about them in the darkness was like a little city of the sea and the night. At the first peep of morning over the round shoulder of the calf, the little city awoke. There were the cliques of a capstan and the shouts of the men as the nets came back to the boats, heavy and white with fish. All being aboard, the men went down on the deck, according to they won't. Every man on his knee with his face in his cap and then leapt up with a shout, perhaps an oath, swung to the wind, hoisted the square sails and made for home. The dark northwest was lowering by this time and the sea was beginning to jump. Breakfast boys sang out peat with his head above the companion and all but the helmsman went below. There was a pot full of the drop fish and every man ate his warp of herring. It had been a great night's fishing. Some of the boats were full to the mouth and all had plenty. We'll do middling if we get a market, said Pete. We've got to get home first, said the master, and at the same moment the sea struck the windward quarter with the force of a sledgehammer and the block of the master began to sing. We'll run for peal this morning, boys, said Pete, smothering his voice in a mouthful. Peal, said the master, shooting out his lip. They've got no harbour there at all with a cat's paw of a breeze, and they've grown a northwester. I'm for going up to the meeting, said Pete in an incoherent way. Then they tacked before the rising gale and went off with the fleet as it swirled like a flight of gulls abreast of the wind. The sea came tumbling down like a shoal of seahogs and washed the faces of the men as they sat in oilskins on the hatch head, shaking the herring out of the nets into the hold. But their work only began when they came into peal. When the harbour was down, there was no breakwater. The neck of the harbour was narrow and 400 boats were coming to take shelter and to land their cargos. It was a scene of tumult and confusion, shouting, swearing, and fighting among the men and crushing and crunching among the boats as they nosed their way to the harbour mouth, threw ropes onto the key where 50 ropes were around one post already or cast anchors up the bank of the castle rock, which was steep and dangerous to lie on. Pete got landed somehow, but his nicky with half the fleet turned tail and went round the island. As he leapt ashore, the helpless harbour master, who had been bellowing over the babble through a cracked trumpet, turned to him and said, For the Lord's sake, Captain Quilliam, if you've got a friend that can lend us a hand, go off to the meeting at seven o'clock. I mained to, said Pete, but he had something else to do first. It was the task that had brought him to Peel, and no eye must see him do it. Slowly and slyly, like one who does a doubtful thing and pretends to be doing nothing, he went stealing through the town, behind the old courthouse and up Castle Street, into the marketplace and across it to the line of shops which make the principal thoroughfare. At one of these shops, a little single room place with its small shutter still up, more half open and the noise of stamping going on inside, he stopped in a lounging way, half twisting on his heel as if idly looking back. It was the post office. With a stealthy look around, he put a trembling hand into his breast pocket, drew out the letter, screened it by the flat of his big palm and posted it. Then he turned hurriedly away and was gone in a moment, like a man who feared pursuit down a steep and tortuous alley to the shore. The morning was early, the shops were not yet open. Only the homes of the fishermen were putting out curling wreaths of smoke. The silent streets echoed to his lightest footstep. But the shore road was busy enough. Fishermen in sea boots and south-westers, with oil skin over one arm and a string of herring in the other hand, were trooping from the harbour up to the zigzag by the rock called the Craig Mullen. It was at the end of the bay where cliff and beach and sea together form a bag like the cod end of the trawl net. It's not the fishermen at all, it's the farmers they're thinking of, said one. Your right, said Pete, and it's some of ourselves that's to blame for it. How's that, said somebody? Is he enough, said Pete? When I came home from Kimberley, I met an old fisherman. You know the man Billy, well you do, Dan Phil Nelly of Ramsey. How's the fishing Phil, says I? He gave me a hum and a heist of his neck and I'm not fishing no more, says he. The wife's keeping a private hotel, says he. And what are you doing yourself, says I? I'm walking about, says he, and God bless me if the man wasn't wearing a collar and carrying a stick and prating about advertising the island, if you please. At the sound of Pete's voice a group of the men gathered about him. That's not the worst neither, said he. The other day I tumbled over Tom Hommie. You know Tom Hommie, yes you do. The little deaf man up by lure. He was lying in the hedge by the public house, three sheets in the wind. Why aren't you out with the boats, Tom, says I? Wash for, shall I, go out with the boats when the children can earn more on the roads, says the drunken Wastrel. And is yonder your boys and girls tossing somersaults at the tail of the tripper's car, says I? Yes, says he, and they'll earn more on a day rather than a week at the herrings. I believe it enough, said one. The man's about right, said another. An aqueriless voice behind said, wonderful the prosperity of the island since the visitors came to it. Get out with you there for a disgrace to the name of Manxman, saying out Pete over the heads of those that stood between. With the farming going to the dogs and the fishing going to the devil, do you know what the old island's coming to? It's coming to an island of lodging housekeepers and hackney car drivers, not the Isle of Man at all, but the Isle of Manchester. There was a tremendous shout at this last word. In another minute, Pete was lifted shoulder high over the crowd onto the highest turn of the zigzag path and bidden to go on. There were five hundred faces below him putting out hot breath in the cool morning air. The sun was shooting over the cliffs, the canopy as of smoke above their heads. On the top of the crag, the seafowl were jabbering and the white sea itself was climbing on the beach. Men said, Pete, there's not much to say. This morning's work said everything. We'd arrived fishing last night, hadn't we? Four hundred boats came up to peal and we hadn't less than ten mace apiece. That's you that's smart at your figuring and ciphering spake out now. That's four thousand mace, isn't it? Shouts of right. Oh, you're quick wonderful. No holding you at all when it's money that's in. Four thousand mace ready and waiting for the steamers to England. But did we land it? No, nor half of it, neither. The other half's gone round to other ports too late for the day's sailing and half of that half will be going rotten and getting chucked back into the sea. That's what the Manx fishermen have lost this morning because they haven't harbours to shelter them and yet they're talking of levying harbours. Man, Veen, he's a boy. He's all that. Go it captain, what are we to do? Do, cried Pete. I'll tell you what you're to do. This is Friday. Next Thursday is old Midsomer Day. That's Tinwall Court Day. Come to St John's on Thursday. Every man of you come. Come in your sea boots and your jerseys. Let the Governor see you main it. Give us reasonable hope of harbour improvement and we'll pay as you. If you don't we won't make us, we're 2,000 strong and we'll rise like one man. Don't be frightened. You've a right to be bold and a good cause. I'll get somebody to spake for you. You know the man I mean. He stood the fisherman's friend before today and he isn't going taking off his cap to the best man that's setting foot on Tinwall Hill. It was agreed. Between that day and Tinwall day Pete was to enlist the sympathy of Phillip and to go to Ports and Mary to get the cooperation of the Southside fisherman. The town was a stir by this time. The sun was on the beach and the fisherman trooped off to bed. End of Part 5, Chapter 3.