 Part 1, Chapter 1 of The Manxman. This is a LibriVox recording. Well, LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tony Ashworth, Brisbane. The Manxman by Sir Hall Kane. Part 1, Boys Together. Chapter 1. Old Deemster Christian of Ballowane was a hard man, hard on the outside at all events. They called him Iron Christian, and people said, Don't turn that iron hand against you. Yet his character was stamped with nobleness as well as strength. He was not a man of icy nature, but he loved to gather icicles about him. There was far enough underneath at which he warmed his old heart when alone, but he liked the air to be congealed about his face. He was a man of a closed soul. One had to wrench open the dark chamber where he kept his feelings, but the man who had done that had uncovered his nakedness, and he cut him off forever. That was how it happened with his son, the father of Philip. He had two sons. The elder was an impetuous creature, a fiery spirit, one of the masterful souls who want the restraint of the Curve if they are not to hurry headlong into the Abyss. Old Deemster Christian had called this boy Thomas Wilson after the serene saint who had once been Bishop of Man. He was intended, however, for the law, not for the church. The office of Deemster never has been and never can be hereditary. Yet the Christians of Balawain had been Deemsters through six generations, and Old Iron Christian expected that Thomas Wilson Christian would succeed him. But there was enough uncertainty about the succession to make merit of more value than precedent in the selection, and so the old man had brought up his son to the English bar and afterwards called him to practice in the Manx one. The young fellow had not altogether rewarded his father's endeavours. During his residence in England he had acquired certain modern doctrines which were highly obnoxious to the Old Deemster. New views on property, new ideas about woman and marriage, new theories concerning religion, always rechristened superstition, the usual barnacles of young vessels fresh from unknown waters. But the old man was no shipwright in Harbour who has learnt the art of removing them without injury to the hull. The Deemster knew these notions when he met with them in the English newspapers. There was something awesome in their effect on his stay-at-home imagination, as of vices confusing and difficult to true men that walk steadily. But above all, very far off, over the mountains and across the sea, like distant cities of Sodom, only waiting for Sodom's doom. And yet low, here they were in a twinkling, shunted and shot into his own house and his own stackyard. I suppose now, he said with a knowing look, you think Jack as good as his master. No sir said his son gravely, generally much better. Iron Christian altered his will. To his elder son he left only a life interest in Ballowayne. That boy will be doing something, he said, and thus he guarded against consequences. He could not help it, he was ashamed, but he could not conquer his shame. The fiery old man began to nurse a grievance against his son. The two sons of the Deemster were like the inside and outside of a bowl, and that bowl was the Deemster himself. If Thomas Wilson the Elder had his father's inside fire and softness, Peter the Younger had his father's outside ice and iron. Peter was little and almost misshapen, with a pair of shoulders that seemed to be trying to meet over a hollow chest and limbs that splayed away into vacancy. And if nature had been grudging with him, his father was not more kind. He had been brought up to no profession and his expectations were limited to a yearly charge out of his brother's property. His talk was bitter, his voice cold, he laughed little, and had never been known to cry. He had many things against him. Besides these sons, Deemster Christian had a girl in his household, but to his own consciousness the fact was only a kind of para-adventure. She was his niece, the child of his only brother who had died in early manhood. Her name was Anne Charlotte de la Tremueil, called after the Lady of Ruchin, for the family of Christian had their share of the heroic that is in all men. She had fine eyes, a weak mouth, and great timidity. Gentle airs floated always about her, and a sort of nervous brightness twinkled over her, as of a glen with the sun flickering through. Her mother died when she was a child of twelve, and in the house of her uncle and her cousins she had been brought up among men and boys. One day Peter drew the deemster aside and told him, with expressions of shame interladed with praises of his own acuteness, a story of his brother. It was about a girl, her name was Mona Crellen. She lived on the hill at Balua House, half a mile south of Ramsey, and was daughter of a man called Billy Balua, a retired sea-captain, and hail-fella well-met with all the jovial spirits of the town. There was much noise and outcry, and old iron sent for his son. What's this I hear he cried, looking him down? A woman? So that's what your fine learning comes to, eh? Take care, sir, take care. No son of mine shall disgrace himself. The day he does that, he will be put to the door. Thomas held himself in with a great effort. Disgrace, he said? What disgrace, sir, if you please? What disgrace, sir? Repeated the deemster mocking his son in a mincing treble. Then he roared, behaving dishonorably to a poor girl. That's what's disgrace, sir. Isn't it enough? Eh? Eh? More than enough, said the young man. But who is doing it? I'm not. Then you're doing worse. Did I say worse? Of course I said worse. Worse, sir, worse. Do you hear me? Worse. You are traipsing around Belour and letting that poor girl take notions. I'll have no more of it. Is this what I sent you to England for? Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Keep your place, sir, keep your place. A poor girl's a poor girl, and a deemster's a deemster. Yes, sir, said Thomas, suddenly firing up. And a man's a man. As for the shame, I need to be ashamed of nothing that is not shameful. And the best proof I can give you that I mean no dishonour by the girl is that I intend to marry her. What? You intend to? What? Did I hear? The old deemster turned his good ear towards his son's face, and the young man repeated his thread. Never fear. No poor girl should be misled by him. He was above all foolish conventions. Old Iron Christian was dumbfounded. He gasped. He stared. He stammered. And then fell on his son with hot reproaches. What? Your wife? Wife? That trollop? That minx? That and daughter of that sot too? That old rip? That rowdy blather sky? That and my own son is to lift his hand to cut his throat? Yes, sir, cut his throat. And I am to stand by? No, no, I say no, sir. No. The young man made some further protest, but it was lost in his father's clamour. You will, though. You will? Then your hat is your house, sir. Take to it. Take to it. No need to tell me twice, father. Away, then. Away to your woman, your jade. God keep my hands off him. The old man lifted his clenched fist, but his son had flung out of the room. It was not the deemster only who feared he might lay hands on his own flesh and blood. Stop. Come back, you dog. Listen. I've not done yet. Stop, you hot-headed rascal. Stop. Can't you hear a man out then? Come back. Thomas Wilson. Come back, sir. Thomas. Thomas. Tom. Where is he? Where's the boy? Old iron Christian had made after his son bare-headed down to the road, shouting his name in a broken roar, but the young man was gone. Then he went back slowly, his grey hair playing in the wind. He was all iron outside, but all father within. That day the deemster altered his will the second time, and his older son was disinherited. End of Part 1, Chapter 1, recording by Tony Ashworth, Brisbane. Part 1, Chapter 2 of The Manxman. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tony Ashworth, Brisbane. The Manxman by Sir Hall Cain. Chapter 2. Peter succeeded in due course to the estate of Balawain, but he was not a lawyer, and the line of the deemsters Christian was broken. Meantime, Thomas Wilson Christian had been married to Mona Crelan without delay. He loved her, but he had been afraid of her ignorance, afraid also notwithstanding his principles of the difference in their social rank, and had half intended to give her up when his father's reproaches had come to fire his anger and to spur his courage. As soon as she became his wife, he realized the price he had paid for her. Happiness could not come of such a beginning. He had broken every tie in making the one which brought him down. The rich disowned him, and the poor lost respect for him. It's positively indecent said one. It's potatoes marrying herrings said another. It was little better than hunger marrying first. In the general downfall of his fame, his profession failed him. He lost heart and ambition. His philosophy did not stand him in good stead, for it had no value in the market to which he brought it. Thus day by day he sank deeper into the use of a wrecked and wasted life. The wife did not turn out well. She was a fretful person, with a good face, a bad shape, a vacant mind, and a great deal of vanity. She had liked her husband a little as a lover, but when she saw that her marriage brought her nobody's envy, she fell into a long fit of the vapors. Eventually she made herself believe that she was an ill-used person. She never ceased to complain of her fate. Everybody treated her as if she had laid plans for her husband's ruin. The husband continued to love her, but little by little he grew to despise her also. When he made his first plunge, he had prided himself on indulging in heroic impulse. He was not going to deliver a good woman to dishonour because she seemed to be an obstacle to his success, but she had never realised his sacrifice. She did not appear to understand that he might have been a great man in the island, but that love and honour had held him back. Her ignorance was pitiful, and he was ashamed of it. In earning the contempt of others, he had not saved himself from self-contempt. The old sailor died suddenly in a fit of drunkenness at a fair, and husband and wife came into possession of his house and property at Ballour. This did not improve the relations between them. The woman perceived that their positions were reversed. She was the bread-bringer now, one day at a slight that her husband's people had put upon her in the street. She reminded him in order to re-establish her wounded vanity that but for her and hers he would not have so much as a roof to cover him. Yet the man continued to love her in spite of all, and she was not at first a degraded being. At times she was bright and cheerful, and except in the worst spells of her vapours, she was a brisk and busy woman. The house was sweet and homely. There was only one thing to drive him away from it, but that was the greatest thing of all. Nevertheless they had their cheerful hours together. A child was born, a boy, and they called him Philip. He was the beginning of the end between them, the iron stay that held them together and yet apart. The father remembered his misfortunes in the presence of his son, and the mother was stung afresh by the recollection of disappointed hopes. The boy was the true heir of Balawain, but the inheritance was lost to him by his father's fault and he had nothing. Philip grew to be a winsome lad. There was something sweet and amiable and big-hearted, and even almost great in him. One day the father sat in the garden by the mighty fuchsia tree that grows on the lawn, watching his little fair-haired son play at marbles on the path with two big lads whom he had enticed out of the road, and another more familiar playmate, the little bare-footed boy Peter from the cottage by the water trough. At first Philip lost, and with grunts of satisfaction the big ones promptly pocketed their gains. Then Philip won, and little curly Peter was stripped naked and his lip began to fall. At that Philip paused, held his head aside, and considered, and then said quite briskly, Peter hadn't a fair chance that time. Here let's give him another go. The father's throat swelled and he went indoors to the mother and said, I think perhaps I'm to blame, but somehow I think our boy isn't like other boys. What do you say, foolish? Maybe so, maybe so. No difference? Well, no, no. But deep down in the secret place of his heart Thomas Wilson Christian, broken man, uprooted tree, wrecked craft in the mud and slime, began to cherish a fond idea. The son would regain all that his father had lost. He had gifts, and he should be brought up to the law. A large nature, and he should be helped to develop it. A fine face, which all must love, a sense of justice, and a great wealth of the power of radiating happiness. Deemster? Why not? Ballowane? Who could tell? The biggest, noblest, greatest of all Manxmen. God knows. Only, only he must be taught to fly from his father's dangers. Love? Then let him love where he can also respect, but never outside his own sphere. The island was too little for that. To love and to despise was to suffer the torments of the damned. Nourishing these dreams, the poor man began to be tortured by every caress the mother gave her son, and irritated by every word she spoke to him. Her grammar was good enough for himself, and the exuberant caresses of her mortal moods were even sometimes pleasant, but the boy must be degraded by neither. The woman did not reach to these high thoughts, but she was not slow to interpret the casual by-play in which they found expression. Her husband was teaching her son to disrespect her. She wouldn't have thought it of him, she wouldn't really, but it was always the way when a plain practical woman married on the quality. Imperance and disrespect, that's the capers. Imperance and disrespect from the ones that's doing nothing and beholden to you for everything. It was shocking. It was distressing. In such outbursts would her jealousy taunt him with her poverty, reviled him for his idleness, and square accounts with him for the manifest preference of the boy. He could bear them with patience when they were alone, but in Philip's presence they were as gall and wormwood and whips and scorpions. Go, my lad, go, he would sometimes whimper and hustle the boy out of the way. No, the woman would cry, stop and see the man your father is. And the father would mutter, he might see the woman his mother is as well. But when she had pinned them together and the boy had to hear her out, the man would drop his forehead on the table and break into groans and tears. Then the woman would change quite suddenly and put her arms about him and kiss him and weep over him. He could defend himself from neither her insults nor her embraces. In spite of everything he loved her. That was where the bitterness of the evil lay. But for the love he bore her, he might have got her off his back and been his own man once more. He would make peace with her and kiss her again, and they would both kiss the boy and be tender and even cheerful. Philip was still a child, but he saw the relations of his parents and in his own way he understood everything. He loved his father best, but he did not hate his mother. She was nearly always affectionate, though often jealous of the father's greater love and care for him, and sometimes irritable from that cause alone. But the frequent broils between them were like blows that left scars on his body. He slept in a cot in the same room, and he would cover up his head in the bedclothes at night with a feeling of fear and physical pain. A man cannot fight against himself for long. That deadly enemy is certain to slay. When Philip was six years old, his father lay sick of his last sickness. The wife had fallen into habits of intemperance by this time, and stage by stage she had descended to the condition of an utterly degraded woman. There was something to excuse her. She had been disappointed in the great stakes of life. She had earned disgrace, where she had looked for admiration. She was vain and could not bear misfortune, and she had no deep well of love from which to drink when the fount of her pride ran dry. If her husband had indulged her with a little pity, everything might have gone along more easily. But he had only loved her and been ashamed. And now that he lay near to his death, the love began to ebb and the shame to deepen into dread. He slept little at night, and as often as he closed his eyes certain voices of mocking and reproach seemed to be constantly humming in his ears. Your son they would cry, what is to become of him? Your dreams, your great dreams, Deemster, Balawain, God knows what. You are leaving the boy, who is to bring him up. His mother, think of it. At last a ray of pale sunshine broke on the sleepless wrestler with the night, and he became almost happy. I'll speak to the boy, he thought. I will tell him my own history, concealing nothing. Yes, I will tell him of my own father also, God rest him, the stern old man, severe yet just. An opportunity soon befell. It was late at night, very late. The woman was sleeping off about of intemperance somewhere below, and the boy with the innocence and ignorance of his years in all that the solemn time foreboded was bustling about the room with mighty eagerness, because he knew that he ought to be in bed. I'm staying up to intend on you, father, said the boy. The father answered with a sigh. Don't you disturb yourself, father, I'll intend on you. The father's sigh deepened to a moan. If you want anything particular, just call me. Do you see, father? And away went the boy like a gleam of light. Presently he came back, leaping like the dawn. He was carrying, insecurely, a jug of poppy head and chamomile described as a lotion. Poppy heads, father. Poppy heads is good, I can tell you. Why aren't you in bed, child, said the father? You must be tired. No, I'm not tired, father. I was just feeling a bit of tired. And then I took a smell of poppy heads and away went the tiredness to Jericho. They is good. The little white head was glinting off again when the father called it back. Come here, my boy. The child went up to the bedside and the father ran his fingers lovingly through the long, fair hair. Do you think, Philip, that twenty, thirty, forty years hence when you are a man, I, a big man? Little one, do you think you will remember what I shall say to you now? Why, yes, father, if it's anything particular and if it isn't you can remind me of it, can't you, father? The father shook his head. I shall not be here then, my boy. I am going away. Going away, father? May I come, too? Ah, I wish you could, little one. Yes, truly, I almost wish you could. Then you'll let me go with you, father? Oh, I am glad, father. And the boy began to caper and dance to go down on all fours and leap about the floor like a frog. The father fell back on his pillow with a heaving breast. Vain, vain. What was the use of speaking? The boy's outlook was life. His own was death. They had no common ground. They spoke different tongues. And after all, how could he suffer the sweet innocence of the child's soul to look down into the stained and scarred chamber of his ruined heart? You don't understand me, Philip. I mean that I am going to die. Yes, darling, and only that I am leaving you behind I should be glad to go. My life has been wasted, Philip, but it's time to come when men speak of your father you will be ashamed. Perhaps you will not remember then that whatever he was, he was a good father to you, for at least he loved you dearly. Well, I must need bow to the will of God, but if I could only hope that you would live to restore my name when I am gone. Philip, are you? Don't cry, my darling. There, there, kiss me. Well, perhaps not. And now undress and slip in the bed before mother comes. See, there's your nightdress at the foot of the crib. Want some buttons, does it? Never mind. In with you. That's a boy. Impossible, impossible. Perhaps unnecessary. Who should say? Young as the child was, he might never forget what he had seen and heard. Someday it must have his meaning for him. Thus the father comforted himself. Those jangling quarrels, which had often scorched his brain like iron, the memory of their abject scenes came to him then with a sort of bleeding solace. Meanwhile, with little catching sobs, which he struggled to repress, the boy lay down in his crib. When halfway gone towards the mists of the land of sleep, he started up suddenly and called, Good night, father. And his father answered him, Good night. Towards three o'clock the next morning, there was great commotion in the house. The servant was scurrying up and downstairs, and the mistress ringing her hands was tramping to and fro in the sick room, crying in a tone of astonishment, as if the thought had stolen upon her unawares. Why, he's going. How didn't somebody tell me before? The eyes of the sinking man were on the crib. Philip, he faltered. They lifted the boy out of his bed and brought him in his nightdress to his father's side. And the father twisted about and took him into his arms, still half asleep and yawning. Then the mother, recovering from the stupidity of her surprise, broke into paroxysms of weeping and fell over her husband's breast and kissed and kissed him. For once her kisses had no response. The man was dying miserably, for he was thinking of her and of the boy. Sometimes he babbled over Philip in a soft, inarticulate gurgle. Sometimes he looked up at his wife's face with a stony stare and then he clung the closer to the boy, as if he would never let him go. The dark hour came and still he held the boy in his arms. They had to release the child at last from his father's dying grip. The dead of the night was gone by this time and the day was at the point of dawn. The sparrows and the eaves were twittering and the tide which was at its lowest ebb was heaving on the sand far out in the bay with the sound as of a rookery awakening. Philip remembered afterwards that his mother cried so much that he was afraid and that when he had been dressed she took him downstairs, where they all ate breakfast together with the sun shining through the blinds. The mother did not live to overshadow her son's life. Sinking yet low in habits of intemperance she stayed indoors from weekend to weekend, seated herself like a weeping willow by the fireside and drank and drank. Her excesses led to delusions. She saw ghosts perpetually. To avoid such of them as haunted the death room of her husband she had a bed made up on a couch in the parlour and one morning she was found face downward stretched out beside it on the floor. Then Philip's father's cousin always called his auntie Nan came to Balua House to bring him up. His father had been her favourite cousin and in spite of all that had happened he had been her lifelong hero also. A deep and secret tenderness too timid to be quite aware of itself had been lying in ambush in her heart through all the years of his miserable life with Mona. At the death of the old deemster her other cousin Peter had married and cast her off. But she was always one of those woodland herbs which are said to give out their sweetest fragrance after they have been trodden on and crushed. Philip's father had been her hero her lost one and her love and Philip was his father's son. Little Curly Pete, with the broad bare feet, the tousled black head, the jacket half way up his back like a waistcoat with sleeves and the hole in his trousers where the tail of his shirt should have been was Peter Quilliam and he was the natural son of Peter Christian. In the days when that punctilious worthy set himself to observe the doings of his elder brother at Balua he was the son of Peter Quilliam. In the days when that punctilious worthy set himself to observe the doings of his elder brother at Balua he found it convenient to make an outwork of the hedge in front of the thatched house that stood nearest. Two persons lived in the cottage father and daughter Tom Quilliam, usually called Black Tom and Bridget Quilliam getting the name of Bridget Black Tom. The man was a short gross creature with an enormous head and a big open mouth showing broken teeth that were black with the juice of tobacco. The girl was by common judgement and rapport a gawk a great, slow-eyed, comely looking comfortable, easy going gawk. Black Tom was a thatcher and with his hair poking its way through the holes in his straw hat he tramped the island in pursuit of his calling. This kept him from home for days together and in that fact Peter Christian while shadowing the morality of his brother found his own opportunity. When the child was born neither the thatcher nor his daughter attempted to father it. Peter Christian paid 20 pounds to the one and 80 to the other in Manx Pound notes. The boys daubed their door to show that the house was dishonoured and that was the end of everything. The girl went through her censures silently all with only one comment. She had borrowed the sheet in which she appeared in church from Miss Christian of Ballowayne and when she took it back the sweet lady thought to improve the occasion. I was wondering Bridget she said gravely what you were thinking of when you stood with Bella and Lisa before the congregation last Sunday morning. Two other Magdalene's had done penance by Bridget's side. Deedmistress said the girl I was thinking there wasn't a sheet at one of them to match mine for whiteness. I'd have been ashamed to be seen in the like of theirs. Bridget may have been a gawk but she did two things which were not gawkish. Putting the 80 greasy notes into the foot of an old stocking she sewed them up in the ticking of her bed and then christened her baby Peter. The money was for the child if she should not live to rear him and the name was her way of saying that a man's son was his son in spite of law or devil. After that she kept both herself and her child by day labour in the fields weeding and sowing potatoes and following at the tail of the reapers for six months a day, dry days and fourpence all weathers. She might have badgered the air of Ballowayne but she never did so. That person came into his inheritance got himself elected member for Ramsey and the House of Keys married Nessie Taubman daughter of the rich brewer and became the father of another son. Such were the doings in the big house down in the valley while up in the thatch cottage behind the water-shof on potatoes and herrings and barley-bonag lived Bridget and her little Pete. Pete's earliest recollections were of a boy who lived at the beautiful White House with the big Fuchsia by the turn of the road over the bridge that crossed the Glen. This was Philip Christian, half a year older than himself although several inches shorter with long yellow hair and rosy cheeks and dressed in a velvet suit of knickerbockers. Pete worshiped him in his simple way hung about him fetched and carried for him and looked up to him as a marvel of wisdom and goodness and pluck. His first memory of Philip was of sleeping with him snuggled up by his side in the dark hushed and still in a narrow bed with iron ends to it and of leaping up in the morning and laughing. Philip's father, a tall white gentleman who never laughed at all and only smiled sometimes had found him in the road in the evening to come home from the fields that he might light the fire in the cottage and running about in the meantime to keep himself warm and not too hungry. His second memory was of Philip guiding him round the drawing room over thick carpets on which his bare feet made no noise and showing him the pictures on the walls and telling him what they meant. One, an engraving of St. John with a death's head and a crucifix was according to this grim and voracious guide a picture of a brigand who killed his victims and always skinned their skulls with a cross-handled dagger. After that his memories of Philip and himself were as two gleams of sunshine which mingle and become one. Philip was a great reader of noble histories. He found them frayed and tattered at the bottom of a trunk that had tin corners and two padlocks and stood in the room looking towards the harbour where his mother's father, the old sailor, had slept. One of them was his special favourite and he used to read it aloud to Pete. He told of the doings of the carousel do men. They were a bold band of desperados the terror of all the island. Sometimes they worked in the fields of plowing and reaping and stacking the same as common practical men and sometimes they lived in houses just like the house by the water trough. But when the wind was rising in the north-northwest and there was a taste of the brine on your lips they would be up and say, the seas calling us we must be going. Then they would live in rocky caves of the coast where nobody could reach them and they would be far as lit at night in tar barrels and shouting and singing and carousing and after that there would be ships rudders and figureheads and masts coming up with the tide and sometimes dead bodies on the beach of sailors they had drowned only foreign ones though hundreds and tons of them but that was long ago the carousel do men were dead and the glory of their day was departed. One quiet evening after an awesome reading of this brave history Philip sitting on his haunches at the gable with Pete like another white frog beside him said quite suddenly Hush, what's that? I wonder said Pete there was never a sound in the air above the rustle of a leaf and Pete's imagination could carry him no further Pete said Philip with awful gravity the sea's calling me and me said Pete solemnly Early that night the two lads were down at the most desolate part of Port Moor in a cave under the scraggly black rocks of Godney Garvein kindling a fire of gorse and turf inside the remains of a broken barrel see that tremendous sharp rock below low water said Philip don't hide though said Pete there was never a rock the size of a curry comb between them and the line of the sky that's what we call a reef said Philip wait a bit and you'll see the ships go splitting on top of it like like a teapot said Pete we'll save the women though said Philip shall we save the women Pete we always do oh yes the women and the boys said Pete thoughtfully Philip had his doubts about the boys but he would not quarrel it was nearly dark and growing very cold the lads crudled down by the crackling blaze and tried to forget that they had forgotten tea time we never has to mind a bit of hungry said Philip stoutly never a hate with said Pete only when the job's done we have hams and flitches and things for supper oh yes, eating and drinking to the fool rum Pete we always drink rum we has to said Pete none of your tea said Philip course not none of your old granny's two penny tea said Pete it was quite dark by this time and the tide was rising rapidly there was not a star in the sky and not a light on the sea except the revolving light of the light ship far away the boys crept closer together and began to think of home Philip remembered Aunty Nan when he had stolen away on hands and knees under the parlour window she had been sowing at his new check night shirt a night shirt for a carousel man had seemed to be ridiculous then but where was Aunty Nanny now Pete remembered his mother she would be racing round the houses and crying and he had visions of black Tom he would be racing round also and swearing shouldn't we sing something Phil said Pete with a gurgle in his throat sing said Philip with as much scorn as he could summon and give them warning we're watching for them well you are a pretty Mr Pete but just you wait till the ships go wrecking on the rocks I mean the reefs and the dead men's coming up like corks hundreds and ninety and dozens of them my jove yes then you'll hear me singing the darkness deepened and the voice of the sea began to moan through the back of the cave the gorse crackled no longer the turf burned in a dull red glow night with its awfulness had come down and the boys were cut off from everything they don't seem to be coming not yet said Philip in a husky whisper maybe it's the same as fishing said Pete sometimes you catch and sometimes you don't that's it said Philip eagerly generally you don't and then you both have to go home and come again he added nervously but neither of the boys stirred the glow of the fire the blackness looked terrible Pete nozzled up to Philip's side and being untroubled by imaginative fears soon began to feel drowsy the sound of his measured breathing startled Philip with the terror of loneliness on a bright Mr Pete he faltered nudging the head on his shoulder and trying to keep his voice from shaking you call yourself a second mate and leaving all the work to me the second mate was penitent but in less than half a minute before he was committing the same offense again it isn't no use he said I'm that sleepy you never seen now let's both take the watch below his stead said Philip and they proceeded to stretch themselves out by the fire together just leave it to me said Pete I'll hear them if they come in the night I'll always does I'm sleeping that light is shocking why sometimes I hear black Tom when he comes home tipsy I've done it times we'll have carpets to lie on tomorrow not stones said Philip wriggling on a rough one rolls of carpets kiddo minstrel ones they settled themselves side by side as close to each other as they could creep and tried not to hear the surging and sighing of the sea then came a tremulous whimper Pete what's that don't you never say your prayers when you take the watch below sometimes we does when mother isn't too tired and the old man's middling drunk and quiet then don't you like to then or yes though I'm liking it scandalous the wreckers agreed to say their prayers and got up again and said them knee to knee with their two little faces to the fire and then stretch themselves out of fresh Pete where's your hand here you are Phil in another minute under the solemn darkness of the night broken only by the smouldering fire amid the thunderous quake of the cavern after every beat of the waves on the beach the carousel men were asleep sometime in the dark reaches before the dawn Pete leapt up to the start what's that he cried in a voice of fear but Philip was still in the mists of sleep and feeling the cold he only whimpered cover me up Pete Phil cried Pete in a frighted whisper cover me up old Philip I thought it was black Tom said Pete I thought it was black Tom said Pete there was some confused bellowing outside the cave my goodness gracious came in a terrible voice it's them though the pair of them impossible who says it's impossible it's themselves I'm telling you man guy hang the woman's mad putting a scream out of self like yonder safe course they're safe bad luck to the young waste rules you're for putting up a prayer for your own one a well I'm for homering mine the dirts weaned only yesterday and fetching a decent man out of his bed to find them a fire at them too while it was the fire that found them pull the boat up boys Philip was half awake by this time they've come he whispered the ships he's come they're on the reef oh dear me best go and meet them perhaps they won't kill us if if we oh dear me then the wreckers hand in hand quaking and whimpering stepped out to the mouth of the cave at the next moment Philip found himself snatched up into the arms of auntie Nan who kissed him and cried over him and rammed a great chunk of sweet cake into his cheek Pete was fearing differently under the leather belt of black Tom who was thrashing him for both of them he was howling like the sea in a storm thus the carers do men came home by the light of early morning Pete skipping before the belt and bellowing and Philip taking a piece of the cake at his teeth to comfort him end of part one chapter three recording by Tony Ashworth part one chapter four of the banksman this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Tony Ashworth the banksman by Sir Hall Kane chapter four Philip left home for school at King Williams by Castle Town and then Pete had a hard upbringing his mother was tender enough and there were good souls like auntie Nan to show pity to both of them but life went like a springless bogey nevertheless sin itself is often easier than simpleness to pardon and condone it takes a soft heart to feel tenderly towards a soft head poor Pete's head seemed soft enough and to spare no power and no persuasion could teach him to read and write he went to school at the old school house by the church in Morgold Village the schoolmaster was a little man called John Thomas Perten Proud with the sharp nose of a pike and the gate of a bantam John Thomas was also a tailor on a cowhouse door laid across two school forms he sat cross-leaded among his cloth his maidens and his smoothing irons with his boys and girls class by class in a big half circle round about him the great little man had one standing ground of daily assault on the dusty jacket of poor Pete and that was that the lad came late to school every morning Pete's welcome from the tailor schoolmaster was a volley of expletives and a swipe of the cane across his shoulders the crater the dunce the dirt teaching him and teaching him and he won't be tached the soul of the schoolmaster had just two human weaknesses one of these was a weakness for drink and as a little vessel he could not take much without being full then he always taught the church catechism and swore at his boys in Manx Peter Quilliam he cried one day who brought you out of the land of Egypt and the house of bondage the master said Pete there are such places for I never had the money nor the clothes for it and that's how stories are getting about the second of the schoolmaster's frailties was love of his daughter a child of four a cripple whom he had blamed in her infancy by letting her fall as he tossed her in his arms while in drink the constant terror of his mind was let some further excellence should befall her between class and class he would go to from which when he had thrown up its lower sash dim with the scratches of names he could see one end of his own white cottage and the little pathway between lines of gilvers coming down from the porch Pete had seen the little one hobbling along this path on her lame leg and giggling with a heart of glee when she had eluded the eyes of her mother and escaped into the road one day it chanced after the heavy spring rains had swollen the watercourse that he came upon the little curly pole tumbling and tossing like a bellboy in a gale down the flood of the river that runs to the sea at Port Moor Pete rescued the child and took her home and then as if he had done nothing unusual he went on to school dripping water from his legs at every step when John Thomas saw him coming in bare feet triddle-traddle, triddle-traddle up the schoolhouse floor vindignation of the boy for being later than usual rose to fiery wroth for being drenched as well waiting for no explanation concluding that Pete had been fishing for crabs among the stones at Port Lewey he burst into a loud volley of his accustomed expletives and timed and punctuated them by a thwack of the cane between every word the wastrel, thwack the dirt, thwack I'm taching him, thwack and he won't be tached thwack, thwack, thwack Pete said never a word boiling his stinging shoulders under his jacket and ramming his smarting hands like wet eels into his breeches' pockets he took his place in silence at the bottom of the class but a girl, a little dark thing and a red frock stepped out from her place beside the boy shot up like a gleam to the schoolmaster as he returned to his seat along the cloth and needles dealt him a smart slap across the face and then burst into a litter of hysterical crying her name was Catherine Craigine she was the daughter of Caesar the Cornet Miller the founder of Balajora Chapel and a mighty man among the Methodists Catherine went unpunished but that was the end of Pete's schooling his learning was not too heavy for a big lad's head to carry a bit of reading if it was all in print and no writing at all except half a dozen capital letters it was not a formidable equipment for the battle of life but Bridget would not hear of more she herself meanwhile had annexed that character which was always the first and easiest to attach itself to a woman with a child but no visible father for it the character of a witch that name for his mother was Pete's earliest recollection and when the consciousness of its meaning came to him he did not rebel but sullenly acquiesced for he had been born to it and knew nothing to the contrary if the boys quarrel with him at play the first word was your mother's a butch then he cried at the reproach or perhaps fought like a vengeance at the insult but he never dreamt of disbelieving the fact or of loving his mother any the less Bridget was accused of the evil eye cattle sickened in the fields and when there was no proof that she had looked over the gate the idea was suggested that she crossed them as a hare one day a neighbour's dog started a hare in a meadow where some cows were grazing this was observed by a gang of boys playing at hockey in the road instantly there was a shout and a whoop and the boys with their sticks were in full chase after the yelping dog crying the butch the butch it's Bridget Tom call its dogs a hunting Bridget Black Tom kill her laddie kill her sailor jump dog jump one of the boys playing at hockey was Pete when his playfellows ran after the dogs in their fanatic thirst he ran too but with a storm of other feelings outstripping all of them very close at the heels of the dogs kicking some striking others with the hockey stick while the tears poured down his cheeks he cried at the top of his voice to the hare leaping in front run mammy run clink dodge mammy clink or mammy mammy run faster run for your life run the hare dodged aside shot into a thicket and escaped its pursuers just as call at the farmer who had heard the outcry came racing up with a gun then Pete swept his coat sleeve across his gleaming eyes and leapt off home when he got there he found his mother sitting on the bank by the door knitting quietly he threw himself into her arms and stroked her cheek with his hand oh mammy boch he cried how well you run if you never run in your life you run then is the boy mad said Bridget but Pete went on stroking her cheek and crying between sobs of joy I heard call it shouting to the house for a gun on a fourpony bit and I thought I was never going to see mammy no more but you did clink mammy you did though the next time Catherine Kregine saw Peter Quilliam he was sitting on the ridge of rock at the mouth of Balua Glen playing doleful strains on a homemade whistle and looking the picture of desolation and despair his mother was lying near to death he had left Mrs. Kregine Catherine's mother a good soul getting the name of Granny to watch and tend her while he came out his simple heart in this lone spot between the land and the sea Catherine's eyes filled at sight of him and when without looking up or speaking he went on to play his crazy tunes something took the girl by the throat and she broke down utterly never mind Pete no I don't mean that but don't cry Pete Pete was not crying at all but only playing away on his whistle and gazing out the sea with a look of dumb vacancy Catherine knelt beside him put her arms around his neck and cried for both of them somebody hailed him from the hedge by the water trough and he rose, took off his cap smoothed his hair with his hand and walked towards the house without a word Bridget was dying of pleurisy brought on by a long day's working at hoeing turnips in a soaking rain Dr. Milcreast had poltest her lungs with mustard and linseed all to no purpose it's feeling the same as the sun on your back at harvest she murmured yet the poltest's brought no heat to her frozen chest Caesar Craigine was at her side John the Clark too called John the Widow Kelly the Rural Postman who went by the name of Kelly the Thief as well as Black Tom her father Caesar was discoursing of sinners and their latter ends John was remembering how at his election to the Clarkship he had rashly promised to bury the poor for nothing Kelly was thinking he would be the first to carry the news to Christian Balawain and Black Tom was verring the exercise of pounding rock sugar for his bees with that of breaking his playful wit on the dying woman No use I'm leaving you I'm going on my long journey said Bridget while Granny used a shovel as a fan to relieve her gusty breathing got anything in your pocket for the road woman said the thatcher it's not houses of bricks and mortal I'm for calling out now she answered Dear heart put up a bit of a prayer whispered Granny to her husband and Caesar took a pinch of snuff out of his waistcoat pocket and fell to wrestling with the Lord Bridget seemed to be comforted I see the Jasper Gate she panted fixing her hazy eyes under the thatch from which broken spider's webs hung down like rat's tails then she called for Pete she had something to give him it was the stocking foot with the 80 greasy Manx banknotes which his father Peter Christian had paid her 15 years before Pete lit the candle and steadied it while Granny cut the stocking from the wall side of the bed ticking Black Tom dropped the sugar pounder and exposed his broken teeth and his surprise at so much wealth John the widow blinked and Kelly the thief poked his head forward until the peak of his postman's cap fell onto the bridge of his nose a sea fog lay over the land that morning and when it lifted Bridget's soul went up as well poor thing, poor thing said Granny the ways were cold for her cold, cold a decent last said John the Clarke and oughtn't to be buried with the common trash seeing she's left money a hardworking woman too and on her feet forever but louanced in her intellects for all said Kelly and Caesar cried a brand pluck from the burning Lord give me more of the like at the judgment when all was over and tears both hot and cold were wiped away Pete shed none of them the neighbors who had stood with the lad in the churchyard had returned to the cottage by the water trough to decide what was to be done with his eighty good bank notes it's a fortune said one let him put it with Mr. Dumbbell said another get the boy a trade first he's a big lump now, sixteen for spring said a third a draper, eh? said a fourth may I presume my nephew Bobby Cluchus of Ramsey now a decent man very said John the widow but if I'm not ambitious there's my son-in-law John Cowley the lads cut to a dot for a grocer and what more nicer than having your own shop and your own name over the door if you please Peter Quilliam, Tay and Sugar Merchant they're telling me John will be riding in his carriage and pair soon shoot your granny and your carriage and pairs shouted a rasping voice at last it was black Tom, who says the fortune is belonging to the lad at all it's mine and if there's a law in the land I'll have it meanwhile Pete with the dull thud in his ears of earth falling on a coffin had made his way down to Balawain he had never been there before and he felt confused but he did not tremble halfway up the carriage drive he passed a sandy haired youth of his own age a slim dandy who hummed the tune and looked at him carelessly over his shoulder Pete knew him, he was boss the boys called him dross son and heir of Christian Balawain at the big house Pete asked for the master the English footman in scarlet knee breeches left him to wait in the stone hall the place was very quiet and rather cold but all as clean as a gullswing there was a dark table in the middle and a high back chair against the ball two oil pictures faced each other from opposite sides one was of an old man without a beard but with a high forehead framed around with short grey hair the other was of a woman with a tired look and a baby on her lap under this there was a little black picture that seemed to Pete to be the likeness of a fancy tombstone and the print on it so far as Pete could spell it out was that of a tombstone too in loving memory of Verbena beloved wife of Peter the Balawain came crunching the sand on the hall floor he looked old and had now a penthouse of bristly eyebrows of a different colour from his hair Pete had often seen him on the road riding by well my lad what can I do for you he said he's spoken a jerky voice as if he thought to over awe the boy Pete thumbled his stocking cap mother's dead he answered vacantly the Balawain knew that already Kelly the thief had run hot foot to inform him he thought Pete had come to claim maintenance now that his mother was gone so she's been telling you the same old story he said briskly at that Pete's face stiffened all at once she's been telling me that you're my father sir the Balawain tried to laugh indeed he replied it's a wise child now that knows his own father I'm not rightly knowing what you mean sir said Pete the Balawain fell to slandering the poor woman in her grave declaring that she could not know who was the father of her child and protesting that no son of hers should ever see the colour of money of his saying this with a snarl he brought down his right hand with a thump onto the table there was a big hairy mole near the joint of the first finger easy sir if you play said Pete she was telling me you gave her this he turned up the corner of his jersey out of his pocket from behind his flaps the eighty manks bank notes and held them in his right hand on the table there was a mole at the joint of Pete's first finger also the Balawain saw it he drew back his hand and slid it behind him then in another voice he said well my lad isn't it enough what are you wanting with more I'm not wanting more said Pete I'm not wanting this take it back and he put the roll of notes between them the Balawain sank into the chair took a handkerchief out of his tails with the hand that had been lurking there and began to mop his forehead hey how what do you mean boy he stammered I mean said Pete that if I kept that money there is people would say my mother was a bad woman and you bought her and paid her I'm hearing the like of some of them he took a step nearer and I mean too that you did wrong by my mother long ago and now that she's dead you're blackening her and you're a bad heart and a low tongue and if I was only a man and didn't know you were my father I'd break every bone in your skin then Pete twisted about and shouted into the dark part of the hall come along there my old cockatoo it's time to be putting me to the door the English footman in the scarlet breeches had been peeping from under the stairs that was Pete's first and last interview with his father Peter Christian Balawain was a terror in the keys by this time but he had trembled before his son like a whipped cur End of Part 1 Chapter 4 Recording by Tony Ashworth Part 1 Chapter 1 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 Recording by Tony Ashworth The Manxman by Sir Hall Cain Chapter 5 Catherine Craigine Pete's champion at school had been his companion at home as well she was two years younger than Pete her hair was as black as a gypsies and her face as brown as a berry in summer she liked best to wear a red frock without sleeves no boots and no stockings no collar and no bonnet not even a sun bonnet from constant exposure to the sun and rain her arms and legs were as ruddy as her cheeks and covered with a soft silken down so often did you see her teeth that you would have said she was always laughing her laugh was a little saucy trill given out with head aside and eyes as slant like that of a squirrel when he is at a safe height above your head and has a nut in his open jaws Pete had seen her first at school and there he had tried to draw the eyes of the maiden upon himself by methods known only to heroes to savages and to boys he had prowled around her in the playground with the wild bigger of a young colt tossing his head swinging his arms screwing his body kicking up his legs walking on his hands lunging out at every lad that was twice as big as himself and then bringing himself down at length with a whoop and a crash on his hind most parts just in front of where she stood for these tremendous efforts to show what a fellow he could be if he tried he had won no applause from the boys and Catherine herself had given no sign though Pete had watched her out of the corners of his eyes but in other scenes the children came together after Philip had gone to King Williams Pete and Catherine had become bosom friends instead of going home after school to cool his heels in the road until his mother came from the fields he found it neighbourly to go up to Balajorra and round by the network of paths to Cornet that was a long detour but Caesar's mill stood there in nestled down in the low bed of the river that runs through the Glen called Balaglass Songbirds built about it in the spring of the year and Caesar's little human songster sang their always when Pete went that way home what times the girl had of it waiting up the river clamouring over the stones playing female blond in on the fallen tree trunks that span the chasm slipping, falling, holding on any way up legs or arms by the rotten branches below then calling for Pete's help in a voice between a laugh and a cry flinging chips into the foaming backwash of the mill wheel and chasing them downstream racing among the gorse and then lying full length like a lamb without a thought of shame like the thorns out of her bleeding feet she was a wild duck in the Glen where she lived and Pete was a great lumbering, tame duck waddling behind her but the glorious happy make-believe days too soon came to an end the swinging cane of the great John Thomas Caulard and the rod of a yet more relentless tyrant darkened the sunshine of both the children Pete was banished from school and Catherine's father removed from Cornet when Caesar had taken a wife he had married Betsy the daughter of the owner of the inn at Solby after that he had got religion and he held that persons in the household of faith were not to drink or to buy or to sell drink but Granny's father died and left his house the Manx Ferry and his farm Glenmore to her and her husband about the same time the miller at Solby also died and the best mill in the island cried out for a tenant Caesar took the mill and the farm and Granny took the inn being brought up to such profanities and no way bound by principle from that time forward Caesar pinned all envious cavalers with the text which says not that which goeth into the mouth of a man defile of him but that which cometh out nevertheless Caesar's principles grew more and more puritanical year by year there were no half measures with Caesar either a man was a saved soul he was in the very belly of hell though the pit might not have shut its mouth on him if a man was saved he knew it and if he felt the manifestations of the spirit he could live without sin his cardinal principles were three instantaneous regeneration assurance and sinless perfection he always said he had said at a thousand times that he was converted in Douglas Marketplace a piece off the west door of Oldton Matthews at five and twenty minutes past six on a Sabbath evening in July when he was two and twenty for harvest while a cornae Caesar had been the local on the preacher's plan a class leader and a chapel steward but at Solby he outgrew the union and set up a body of his own he called them the Christians a title that was at once a name a challenge and a protest they worshipped in the long barn over Caesar's mill they used to use on conduct a saved soul must not wear gold or costly apparel or give way to softness or bodily indulgence or go to fairs for sake of sport or appear in the show tents of play actors or sing songs or read books or take any diversion that did not tend to the knowledge of God as for carnal transgression if any were guilty of it they were to be cut off from the body of believers for the souls of the righteous must be delivered the religion that's going among the primitives these days is just popery said Caesar let's go back to the warm old methodism and put out the Romans when Pete turned his face from Ballowain he thought first of Caesar and his mill it would be more exact to say he thought of Catherine and Granny he was homeless as well as penniless the cottage by the water trough was no longer possible to him now that the mother was gone who had stood between his threatened shoulders and blacked Tom Philip was at home for a few weeks only in the year and Ballowain had lost its attraction so Pete made his way to Salby offered himself to Caesar for service at the mill and was taken on straight way at 18 pence a week and his board it was a curious household he entered into first there was Caesar himself in a moleskin waistcoat with sleeves open three buttons up knee britches usually unlaced stockings of undyed wool and slippers with the tongues hanging out a grim soul with whiskers like a hoop about his face and a shaven upper lip as heavy as a moustache for when religion like Caesar's lays hold of a man it takes him first by the mouth then Granny a comfortable body and a cap with an outlook on life that was all motherhood a simple tender peaceable soul agreeing with everybody and everything and seeming to say nothing but poor thing poor thing and dear heart, dear heart then there was Nancy Cain getting the name of Nancy Joe the servant in name but the mistress in fact a niece of Granny's a bit of a pagan an early riser a tireless worker with a plain face a rooted disbelief in all men a good heart an ugly tongue and a vixenish temper last of all there was Catherine now grown to be a great girl with a gypsy hair done up in a red ribbon and wearing a black uniform bordered with white braid Pete got on steadily at the mill he began by lighting the kiln fire and cleaning out the pit wheel and then on to the opening the floodgates in the morning and regulating the action of the water wheel according to the work of the day in two years time he was a sound miller safe to trust with rough stuff for cattle or fine flour for white loaf bread Caesar trusted him he would take evangelising journeys to Peel or Douglas and leave Pete in charge that led to the end of the beginning Pete could grind the farmers corn but he could not make their reckonings he kept his counts in chalk on the back of the millhouse door a down line for every stone weight up to eight stones and a line across for every hundred weight then once a day while the father was abroad Catherine came over from the inn to the desk at the little window of the mill and turned Pete's lines into ledger accounts these financial councils were full of delicious discomfiture Pete always enjoyed them after they were over John Robert Mollie Carrain did you say Mollie Carrain Pete Hull Myle Carrain Myle C-H-A-R-A-I-N-E Mollie Carrain ten stones did you say ten or eight E-I-G-H-T no eight Oak Mill Pete O' Barley Mail Mele I mean M-E-A-L in the middle of the night Pete remembered all these entries they were very precious to his memory after Catherine had spoken them they sang in his heart the same as songbirds then they were like hymns and tunes and pieces of poetry Caesar returned home from a preaching tour with a great and sudden thought he had been calling on strangers to flee from the wroth to come and yet there were those of his own house whose faces were not turned Zion woods that evening he held an all night prayer meeting for the conversion of Catherine and Pete through six long hours he called on God in lusty tones until his throat cracked and his forehead streamed the young were thoughtless they had the root of evil in them they flew into frivolity from contrariness draw the harrow over their souls plough the fallows of their hearts grind the chaff out of their household let not the sweet apple and the crabs grow on the same bow together give them a melea let not a sheaf be forgotten grant them the soul of this girl for a harvest home and of this boy for a last stook Caesar was dissatisfied with the results he was used to groaning and trembling and fainting fits don't you feel the love he cried I do here under the watch pocket of my waistcoat towards midnight Catherine began to fail chained the devil cried Caesar once I was down in the pit with the devil myself but now I'm up in the loft seeing angels through the thatch can't you feel the workings of the spirit as the clock was warning to strike two Catherine thought she could and from that day forward she led the singing of the women in the choir among the Christians Pete remained among the unregenerate but nevertheless the Christians saw him constantly he sat on the back form and kept his eyes fixed on the singing seat observing his regularity Caesar laid a hand on his head and told him the spirit was working in his soul at last sometimes Pete thought it was and that was when he shut his eyes and listened to Catherine's voice floating up up up like an angels into the sky sometimes he knew it was not and that was when he caught himself in the middle of Caesar's mightiest prayers crooking his neck past the pitching bald-pate of Johnny Nip Blightly the Constable that he might get a glimpse of the top of Catherine's bonnet when her eyes were down Pete fell into a melancholy and once more took to music as a comforter it was not a homemade whistle now but a fiddle bought out of his wages on this he played in the cowhouse on winter evenings all of the midden outside in summer when Caesar heard of it his wrath was fearful what was a fiddler? he was a servant of corruption holding a candle to disorderly walkers and happy sinners on their way into the devil's pinfold and what for was fiddles? fiddles was for play actors and theatres and theatres is there said Caesar indicating with his foot one flag on the kitchen floor and hell flames is there he added rolling his toe over to the joint of the next one Granny began to plead what was a fiddle if you played the right tunes on it didn't they read in the old book of King David himself playing on harps and timbrels and such things and what was harps but fiddles in a way of speaking then weren't they all looking to be playing harps in heaven? did yes though the Lord would have to be teaching her how to play hers Caesar was shaken and suddenly he said if there's a power in fiddling to bring souls out of bondage and if there's going to be fiddling and the like in Abraham's bosom why then of course well why not let's have the lads fiddle up at the Christians nothing could have suited Pete so well from that time forward he went out no more at nights to the cowhouse but stayed indoors to practice hymns with Catherine oh the terrible rapture of those nightly practices they brought people to the inn to hear them and so Caesar found them good for profit both ways there was something in Caesar's definition nevertheless it was found that among the saints there was certain weaker brethren who did not want a hymn to their ale one of these was Johnny Nip Blightly the rural constable who was the compliment of Catherine and the choir being leader of the singing among the men he was a tall man with a long nose which seemed to have a perpetual cold making his rounds one night he turned in at the Manx Ferry when Caesar and Granny were both from home and Nancy Jo was in charge and Pete and Catherine were practicing a revival chorus where's Caesar though he snuffled at Peel buying the stock snapped Nancy thank the Lord I mean where's Granny nursing Mistress Quiggin Nip Blightly eased the strap of his beaver liberated his lips took a deep draft of ale and then turned to Pete with apologetic smiles and suggested a change in the music at that Catherine leapt up as light as laughter a dance she cried a dance good sakes alive said Nancy Jo listen to the girl is it the moon kitty or what is it that's doing on you shut your eyes Nancy said Catherine just for once now won't you you can do what you like with me with your coaxing said Nancy enjoy yourself to the full girl but don't make a noise above the singing of the kettle Pete tuned his strings and Catherine pinned up the tail of her skirt and threw herself into position at the sound of the lively of preludings there came thronging out of the road into the pile of certain fellows of the base of sword and behind them came one who was not of that denomination a fair young man with a fine face under an alpine hat heeding nothing of this audience the girl gave a little rakish toss of her head and called on Pete to strike up then Pete plunged into one of the profaner tunes which he had practiced in the days of the cowhouse and off went Catherine with a whoop the boys stood back for her bending down on their haunches as at a fight of game cocks and encouraging her with shouts of applause beautiful look at that now fine though fine Cledon done or Cledon done to a dot there's leaping for you boys Guy Heng did you ever see the like Homa the floor girl hire a piece hire then whoop did you ever see such an eight pair of ankles hold your dirty tongue you gob mouth domathon cried Nancy Joe she had tried to keep her eyes away but could not my goodness gracious she cried did you ever see the like though screwing like the windmill on the schoolhouse kitty woman or Kiri Kiri wherever did she get it then good sakes the girls twisting herself into knots Pete was pulling away at the fiddle with both hands like a bottom Sawyer his eyes dancing his lips quivering the whole soul of the lad lifted out of himself in an instant hold on still Kate hold on girl he shouted Marie Marie the darlings dancing like a drumstick faster cried Kate faster the red ribbon had fallen from her head and the wavy black hair was tumbling about her face she was holding up her skirt with one hand and the other arm was a kimbo at her waist guggling chuckling crowing panting boiling and bubbling with the animal life which all her days had been suppressed and famished and starved into moans and groans she was carried away by her own fire gave herself up to it and danced on the flags of the kitchen which had served Caesar for his practical typology like a creature intoxicated with new breath meanwhile Caesar himself coming home in his chapel hat his tall black beaver from Peel where he had been buying the years stock of herrings at the boats side had overtaken on the road the venerable parson of his parish parson Quiggin of Lezare drawing up the gig with a wool he had invited the old clergyman to a lift by his side on the gig's seat which was cushioned with a sack of hay the parson had accepted the invitation and with a preliminary easy your legs a taste higher sir just to keep the pickle off your trousers a gee up and a touch of the whip they were away together with the light of the gig lamp on the hind quarters of the mare as they bobbed and screwed like a millrace under the splash board it was Caesar's chance and he took it having pinned one of the heads of the church he gave him his views on the Romans and on the general encroachment of Popery the parson listened complacently he was a tolerant old soul with a round face expressive of perpetual happiness though he was always blinking his little eyes and declaring with the preacher that all earthly things were vain hence he was nicknamed old vanity of vanities the gig had swept past Solby Chapel when Caesar began to ask for the parson's opinion of certain texts and may I presume parson Quiggan what do you think of the text Praise the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me praise his holy name a very good text after meet Mr. Crigine said the parson blinking his little eyes in the dark it was Caesar's favourite text and his fire was kindled at the parson's praise man alive he cried his hot breath tickling the parson's neck I've preached on that text parson till it's wet me through to the waistcoat they were near to the man's fairy by this time and talking of praise said Caesar I hear them there at their practices asking pardon now it's proud I'd be sir perhaps you'd not be thinking main to come in and hear the way we do crown him so the saints used the fiddle said the parson as the gig drew up at the porch of the inn half a minute afterwards the door of the parlour flew open with a bang and Caesar stood and glared on the threshold with the parson's ruddy face behind him there was a moment's silence the uplifted toe of Catherine trailed back to the ground the fiddle of Pete slithered to his father's side and the smacking lips of nip lightly transfixed themselves agape then the voice of the parson was heard to say vanity vanity all is vanity and Caesar still on the threshold went down on his knees to pray Caesar's prayer was only a short one his mortified pride called for quicker solace rising to his feet with as much dignity as he could command under the twinkling eyes of the parson he stuttered the capers making a daison house into a theater respectable person too one of the first that's going so facing the spectators just help yourselves home the pack of you as for these ones turning on Kate, Pete and the Constable there will be no more of your practices I'll do without the music of three saints like you in future I'll have three sinners to raise my singing these polices too he said with a withering smile nip lightly was warming his way out at the back of parson quigging who began it shouted Caesar looking at Catherine from the moment that Caesar stepped on his knees at the door Pete had been well-nigh choked by an impulse to laugh aloud but now he bit his lip and said I did behold ye now as impurent as a goat said Caesar working his eyebrows vigorously you've mistaken your profession boy it's a play actor they ought to be making of you you're wasting your time with a plain respectable man like me you must leave me away to the loft for your chist boy just give sheet my lad and don't lay to till you've fetched up at another lodgings Pete with his eye on the parson's face could control himself no longer and he laughed so loud that the room rang writes the word old Nebuchadnezzar he cried and heaved up to his feet so long kitty woman so long we'll finish it another night though and then the old man himself will be holding the candle outside on the road somebody touched him it was the young man in the alpine hat my God what Phil? cried Pete and he laid hold of him with both hands at once I've just finished at King Williams and bought a boat said Philip and I came up to ask you to join me congas and cods you know good fun anyway are you willing willing cried Pete am I jumping for joy and away they went down the road swinging their legs together with a lively step that's a nice girl though kitty Kate what do you call her said Phil were you in then so you saw her dancing said Pete eagerly oh yes nice he said warmly nice uncommon he added absently and then with a touch of sadness shocking nice presently they heard the pattering of light feet in the darkness behind them and a voice like a broken cry calling Pete it was Kate she came up panting and catching her breath in hiccups took Pete's face in both her hands drew it down to her own face kissed it on the mouth and was gone again without a word end of part one chapter five recording by Tony Ashworth part one chapter six of the Manksman this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings were in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Tony Ashworth the Manksman by Sir Hall Cain chapter six Philip had not been a success at school he had narrowly escaped being a failure during his earlier years he had shown industry without gifts during his later years he had shown gifts without industry his childish saying became his byword and half in sport half in earnest with a smile on his lips and a shuddering sense of fascination he would say when the wind freshened the seas calling me I must be off the blood of the old sea dog his mother's father was strong in him idleness led to disaster and disaster to some disgrace he was indifferent to both while at school but shame found him out at home you'll be sixteen for spring said Aunty Nan and what would your poor father say if he were alive he would be one of the masters of his boy and always said what a man he would be some day that was the shaft that found Philip the one passion that burned in his heart like a fire was reverence for the name and the will of his dead father the big hopes of the broken man had sometimes come as a torture to the boy when the blood of the old salt was rioting within him but now they came as a spur Philip went back to school as a slave there were only three terms left and it was too late for high honours but the boy did wonders he came out well and the masters were astonished after all they said there's no denying it the boy Christian must have the gift of genius there's nothing he might not do if Phil had much of the blood of Captain Billy Pete had much of the blood of Black Tom after leaving the mill at Solby Pete made his home in the cabin what he was to eat and how he was to be clothed and where he was to be lodged when the cold nights came never troubled his mind for an instant he had fine times with his partner the terms of their partnership were simple Phil took the fun and made Pete take the fish they were a pair of happy go lucky lads and they looked for the future with cheerful faces there was one shadow over their content the ghost of a gleam of sunshine it made daylight between them though day by day as they ran together like two that run a race the prize was Catherine Cregine Philip talked of her till Phil's heart awoke and trembled but Phil hardly knew it was so and Pete never once suspected it neither confessed to the other and the shifts of both to hide the secret of each were boyish and beautiful there was a river famous for trout the rises in Solby Glen and flows into Ramsay Harbour one of the little attempts of the two lads to deceive each other was to make believe that it was their duty to fish this river with the rod and so wander away singly up the banks of the stream until they came to the Manx Ferry and then drop in casually to quench the thirst of so much angling towards the dust of evening Philip in a tall silk hat over a jacket and knickerbockers would come upon Pete by the Solby Bridge washed, combed and in a collar then there would be looks of great surprise on both sides what Phil is it yourself though just thought I'd see if the trouts were biting tonight dear me this is Solby too and bless my soul the ferry again I will a drop of drink will do no harm shall we put a sight on them inside eh after that prelude they would go into the house together the little comedy was acted every night for weeks it was acted on hollentide eve six months after Pete had been turned out by Caesar Granny was sitting by the glass partition knitting at intervals serving at the counter occasionally and scoring up on a blackboard that was a mass of chalk hieroglyphics Caesar himself in ponderous spectacles and with a big book in his hands was sitting in the kitchen behind with his back to the glass so as to make the lamp of the business serve also for his studies on a bench in the bar sat black Tom smoking spitting scraping his feet on the sanded floor and looking like a gigantic spider with enormous bald head at his side was a thin man with a face pitted by smallpox and a forehead covered with strange protuberances this was Jeannette Kelly Barbara Clockmender and Manx Patriot the postman was there too Kelly the Thief a tiny creature with twinkling ferret eyes and a face that had a settled look of age as a one born old being wrinkled in squares like the pointing of a cobbled wool at sight of Pete Granny made way and he pushed through to the kitchen where he seated himself in a seat in the fireplace just in front of the Pete closet and under the fish hanging to smoke at sight of Phil she dropped her needles smooth to front hair rose in spite of protest and wiped down a chair by the angle Caesarite Pete in silence from between the top rim of his spectacles and the bottom edge of the big book but as Philip entered he lowered the book and welcomed him Nancy Joe was coming and going in her clogs like a riprap let loose between the dairy and the pot of potatoes in their jackets which swung from the slurry the hook over the fire a moment later Kate came flitting through the half lit kitchen her black eyes dancing and her mouth rippling in smiles she curtsied to Philip grimaced at Pete and disappeared then from the other side of the glass petition came the husky voice of the postman saying well I must be taking the road gentlemen there's Manx ones starting for Kimberley by the early sailing tomorrow morning and then came the voice of the barber and said to Kimberley that's the place for good men I'm always saying there's Billy the red back home with a fortune and old call it look at old call it the balabag five years away at the Diggings and left a house worth twenty pounds per year per annum not to spake of other hereditiments after that the rasping voice of black Tom in a tone of irony and contempt of course oh yes of course there's gold chags there they're telling me but I thought you were a man that's all for the island Mr. Jelly leave me alone for that the voice of the barber Manx land for the Manxman that's the text I'm holding too but what's it saying custom must be indulged with custom or custom will die and with these English scouring over it like puffins on the calf it isn't much that's left of the old island but the name Manx boys are going away foreign same as these ones well I've let us for them to the packet office anyway said the postman who are they Mr. Kelly called Phillip through the doorway some of the quarks ones from Glenrush and sir and the gills boys from castle town over good night all good night the door close behind the postman and black Tom growled slips of lads I know them smart though smart on common said the barber that's the only sort they're wanting out yonder there was a contemptuous snort so you'd better go to Kimberley yourself then turn the clock back a piece and I'll start before you've time to curl your hair said the barber black Tom was lifting his pot that's the one thing said he the almighty himself gulp gulp can't do which to did the barber both said black Tom scratching his big head as bald as a bladder Caesar flashed about with his face to the glass partition you're like the rest of the infidels sir said he only spaking to contradict yourself calling God the almighty and telling him the same breath of something he can't do meanwhile an encounter of another sort was going on at the Engel Kate had reappeared with a table fork which she used at intervals to test the boiling of the potatoes at each approach to the fire she passed close to where Pete sat never looking at Phil above the level of his boots and as often as she bent over the pot Pete put his arm around her waist being so near and so tempting for thus pestering her she beat her foot like a goat and screwed on a look of anger which broke down in the stifled laugh but she always took care to come again to Pete's side rather than to Phil's until last the nudging and shoving ended in a pinch and a little squeal and a quick cry of what's that from Caesar Kate vanished like a flash the dim room began to frown again and Phil to draw his breath heavily when the girl came back as suddenly bringing an apple and a length of string mounting a chair she fixed one end of the string to the laugh of the ceiling by the peck the parchment oak cake pan and the other end she tied to the stalk what's the giel now said Pete fancy don't you know not heard for hop to nay it's hollentide eve man said Kate and setting the string going like a pendulum she stood back a pace with hands clasped behind her and snapped at the apple as it swung sometimes catching it sometimes missing it sometimes marking it sometimes biting it her body bending and rising with its waggle her mouth opening and closing her white teeth gleaming and a whole face bubbling over with delight at every touch the speed increased and the laughter grew louder as the apple went faster everybody except the miller joined in the fun Phil cried out on the girl to look to her teeth but Pete egged her on to test the strength of them snap at it kitty cried Pete or lost lost again ow one in the cheek no matter done and black Tom and Mr. Jelly stood up to watch through the doorway my goodness gracious cried one what a mouthful said the other share it kitty woman or share and share alike you know but then came the thunderous tones of Caesar drop it drop it such practices is nothing but papery papery cried black Tom from over the counter shoot nonsense man the like of it was going for some Patrick was born Kate was puffing and panting and taking down the pendulum what does it mean then Tom she said it's you for knowing things main it mains fairies fairies black Tom sat down with a complacent there and his rasping voice came from the other side of the glass in the old times gone by girl before Manxman got too big for their britches they'd be off to bed by 10 o'clock on the Holland Tide to lay room for the little people that's outside to come in and the big woman of the house would be filling the crocs for the fairies to drink and the big man himself would be raking the ashes so they might bake their cakes and a girl same as you would be going to bed backwards I know I know cried Kate near to the ceiling and clapping her hands she eats a roasted apple goes to bed thirsty and then dreams that somebody brings her a drink of water and that's the one that's to be her husband hey you've got it girl Caesar had been listening with his eyes turned sideways off his book and now he cried then drop it I'm telling you it's nothing but instruments of Satan and the ones that's telling it are just flying in the face of faith from superstition and contrarity it isn't decent in a Christian public house and I'm for having no more of it Granny paused in her knitting fixed her cap with one of her needles and said then glancing at the clock and rising but it's time to shut up the house anyway good night Tom good night all good night Phil and Pete rose also Pete went to the door and pretended to look out then came back to Kate's side and whispered come give them the slip there's somebody outside that's waiting for you let them wait said the girl but she laughed and Pete knew she would come then he turned to Philip a word in your ear Phil he said and took him by the arm and drew him out of the house and round to the yard of the stable well good night Granny said Mr. Jelly going out behind them but if I were as young as your grandson there Mr. Quilliam I would be making a start for somewhere grandson grunted Tom heaving up I've got no grandson or he wouldn't be leaving me to smoke a dry pipe but he's making an almighty of this Phil Christian that's it after they were gone Granny began counting the till and saying as for fairies one two three it may be as Caesar says four five the like isn't in but it's safer to be civil to them anyway oh yes said Nancy Joe a crock of fresh water and a few good words going to bed on hollentide Eve does no harm at all at all in the stable yard the feet of Black Tom and John Ake Jelly were heard going off on the road the late moon was hanging low red as an evening sun over the hill to the southeast Pete was puffing and blowing as if he had been running a race quick boy quick he was whispering Kate's coming a word in your ear first will you do me a turn Phil what is it said Philip speak to the old man for me while I speak to the girl what about said Philip but Pete could hear nothing except his own voice the old angel herself she's all right but the old man's hard speak for me Phil you've got the fine English tongue at you but what about Philip said again say I may be a bit of a rip but I'm not such a bad sort anyway make me out of taste Phil and praise me up say I'll be as good as Gould yes will I though tell him he has only to say yes and I'll be that study and willing and hardworking and persevering you never seen but Pete Pete Pete whatever am I to say all this about Pete's puffing and panting ceased what about why about the girl for sure the girl said Philip what else said Pete Kate am I to speak for you to the father for Kate Philip's voice seemed to come up from the bottom depths of his throat are you thinking hard of the job Phil there was a moment silence the blood had rushed to Philip's face which was full of strange matter but the darkness concealed it I didn't say that he faltered Pete mistook Philip's hesitation for a silent commentary on his own unworthiness I know I'm only a sort of a waste rule he said but Phil the way I'm loving that girl I can never take rest for thinking of her now I'm not sleeping at night nor working regular in the day neither everything is telling of her and everything is shouting her name it's Kate in the sea and Kate in the river and the trees and the gorse Kate Kate Kate it's Kate constant and I can't stand much more of it I'm loving the girl scandalous that's the truth Phil Pete paused but Philip gave no sign it's hard to praise me that satan sure said Pete but I've known her since she was a little small thing in Pinafore's and I was a slip of a big boy and went into trousers and we played Blondin in the Glen together still Philip did not speak he was gripping the stable wall with his trembling fingers and struggling for composure Pete scraped the paving stones at his feet and mumbled again in a voice that was near to breaking speak for me Phil it's you to do it you've the way of saying things and making them out to look something it would be clad and ruined in a jiffy if I did it for myself speak for me boy now won't you now still Philip was silent he was doing his best to swallow a lump in his throat his heart had begun to know itself in the light of Pete's confession he had read his own secret to give the girl up was one thing it was another to plead for her for Pete but Pete's trouble touched him the lump at his throat went down and the fingers on the walls flacked away I'll do it he said only his voice was like a sob then he tried to go off hastily that he might hide the emotion that came over him like a flood that had broken its dam but Pete gripped him by the shoulder and peered into his face in the dark you will though said Pete with a little shout of joy then it's as good as done God bless you old fellow Philip began to roll about tut it's nothing he said with a stout heart and then he laughed a laugh with a cry in it he could have said no more without breaking down but just then a flash of light fell on them from the house and a hushed voice cried Pete she's coming she's here Philip turned and saw Kate in the doorway of the dairy the sweet young figure framed like a silhouette by the light behind I'm going said Philip and he edged up to the house as the girl stepped out Pete followed him a step or two in approaching Kate whist man he whispered tell the old geezer I'll be going to chapel regular early tides and late shifts and Sunday school constant tell him I'm learning myself to play on the harmonia then Philip slithered softly through the dairy door and shut it after him leaving Kate and Pete together end of part one chapter six recording by Tony Ashworth part one chapter seven of the Manksman this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Tony Ashworth the Manksman by Sir Hall Cain part one chapter seven the kitchen of the Manks fairy was now savoury with the odor of herrings roasting in their own brine and musical with the crackling and frizzling of the oil as it dropped into the fire it's a long way back to Belua Mrs. Craigine said Philip popping his head in at the door jam may I stay for a bite of supper or stay and well stay and welcome said Caesar putting down the big book and Nancy Joe said the same dropping her high pitched voice perceptibly and Granny said also right welcome sir if you'll not be thinking Maine to take pot luck with us potatoes and herrings Mr. Christian just a Manksman's supper lift the pot off the slurry Nancy well and isn't he a Manksman himself mother said Caesar of course I am Mr. Craigine said Philip laughing noisily if I'm not who should be a and Manksman or no Manksman what for should he turn up his nose at herrings same as these said Nancy Joe she was dishing up a bowl full will he get the like of them not in England over I'll go bail indeed no Nancy said Philip still laughing needlessly and if they had them there the poor useless creatures would be lost to cook them deed would they Nancy said Granny she was rolling the potatoes into a heap onto the bare table and we've much to be thankful for with potatoes and herrings three times a day but we shouldn't be thinking proud of ourselves for that ask the gentleman to draw up mother said Caesar draw up sir draw up here's your bowl of buttermilk a knife and fork Nancy we're no people for knife and fork to a herring sir a plate for Mr. Christian woman a gentleman usually likes a plate now wait sir eat and welcome but where's your friend though Pete oh he's not far off saying this Philip interrupted his laughter to distribute sage winks between Nancy Joe and Granny Caesar looked around with a potato half peeled in his fingers and the girl where's Kate he asked she's not far off neither said Philip thinking vigorously but don't trouble about them Mr. Craig they'll want no supper they're feeding on sweeter things and herrings even saying this he swallowed a gulp with another laugh Caesar lifted his head with a pinch of his herring between finger and thumb halfway to his open mouth were you spaking sir he said at that Philip laughed immoderately it was a relief to drown with laughter but he's gone within oh dear what's the gate of the boy thought Granny is it a dog bite that's working on him thought Nancy speaking cried Philip of course I'm speaking I've come in to do it Mr. Craigine I've come in to speak for Pete he's fond of your daughter Caesar and wants your goodwill to marry her Lord a mass he cried Nancy Joe dear heart a live muttered Granny Peter Quilliam said Caesar did you say Peter I did Mr. Craigine Peter Quilliam said Philip Stoutly my friend Pete a rough fellow perhaps and without much education but the best hearted lad in the island come now Caesar say the word sir and make the young people happy he almost found it over that last word but Caesar kept him up with a searching look why I picked him out of the streets as you might say said Caesar so you did Mr. Craigine so you did I always thought you were a discerning man Caesar what do you say Granny it's Caesar for knowing a deserving lad when he sees one hey he gave another round of his cunning winks and Granny replied oh well it's nothing against either of them anyway Caesar was getting as straight as a crowbar and as grim as a gannet and when he left me he gave me impurance and disrespect but the lad meant no harm father said Granny and hadn't you told him to take to the road let every bird hatch its own eggs mother it'll become you better said Caesar yes sir the lip of Satan and the impurance of sin Pete cried Philip in a tone of incredulity why he hasn't thought about you that isn't out of the prayer book Caesar snorted no and maybe that's where he's going for his curses at all said Nancy Joe from the side of the table but a right good lad though and you've never had another that's been a patch on him Caesar screwed round to her and said severely where there's geese there's dirt and where there's women there's talking then turning back to Philip he said in a tone of mock deference may I presume sir a little question being a thing like that's general understood what's his fortune Philip fell back in his chair fortune well I didn't think that you now know said Caesar we're not children of Israel and the wilderness getting manner dropped from heaven twice a day if it's only potatoes and herrings itself we're wanting it three times you see do what he could to crush it Philip could not help feeling a sense of relief fate was interfering the girl was not for Pete for the first moment since he returned to the kitchen he breathed freely and fully but then came the prick of conscience he had come to plead for Pete and he must be loyal he must not yield he must exhaust all his resources of argument and persuasion the wild idea occurred to him to take Caesar by force of the Bible but think what the old book says Mr. Greguine take no thought for the morrow as what Johnny nip lightly said Mr. Christian when he lit my kill overnight and burnt my oats before morning but consider the lilies I have considered them sir but I'm toiling still and mother has to spin and isn't Pete able to toil too said Philip boldly nobody better in the island there's not a lazy bone in his body and he'll earn his living anywhere what is his living sir said Caesar Philip halted for an answer and then said well he's only with me in the boat at present Mr. Greguine and what's he getting he's meat and drink and a bit of pence and you'll be sulling up some day it's like and going away to England over and then where is he let the girl marry a mother naked man at once but you're wanting help yourself father said Granny yes you are though and time for chapel too an asement in your old days give the lad my mill as well as my daughter is that it eh said Caesar no I'm not such a goose as yonder either I could get airs sir airs bless ye fifty acres and better not to spake of the bases but I can do without them the lords blessed me with enough I'm not fordorving grease on the tail of the fat pig just so Caesar said Philip just so you can afford to take a poor man for your son-in-law and there's Pete I'd be badly in want of a bird though to give a groat for an owl said Caesar the lad means well anyway said Granny and he was that good to his mother poor thing it was wonderful I knew the woman said Caesar I broke a sod of her grave myself a bran plucked from the burning but not a straight walker in this life and what is the lad himself a monument of sin without a name a bastard what else and that's not the port I'm sailing for down to this point Philip had been torn conflicting feelings he was no match for Caesar in worldly logic or at fencing with texts of scripture the devil had been whispering at his ear let it alone you'd better but his time had come at length to conquer both himself and Caesar rising to his feet at Caesar's last word he cried in a voice of wrath what you call yourself a Christian man and punish the child for the sin of the parent no name indeed I tell you Mr. Caesar Craigine it's possible to have one name in heaven that's worse than none at all on earth and that's the name of a hypocrite so saying he threw back his chair and was making for the door when Caesar rose and said softly come into the bar and have something then looking back at Philip's plate he forced to laugh and said but you've turned over your herring sir that's bad luck in Philip's shoulder he added in a lower tone no disrespect to you sir and no harm to the lad but take my word for it Mr. Christian if there's an amble in the mare it'll be in the cult Philip went off without another word the moon was rising and whitening as he stepped from the door outside the porch a figure flitted past him in the uncertain shadows with a merry trill of mischievous laughter he found Pete in the road puffing and blowing as before but from a different cause the living devils in the girl for Satan said Pete I can't get my answer out of her either way he had been chasing her for his answer and she had escaped him through a gate but what luck with the old man Phil then Phil told him of the failure of his mission told him plainly and fully but tenderly softening the hard sayings but revealing the whole truth as he did so he was conscious that he was not feeling like one who brings bad news he knew that his mouth in the darkness was screwed up into an ugly smile and do what he would he could not make it straight and sorrowful the happy laughter died off Pete's lips and he listened at first in silence and afterwards with low growls when Phil showed him how his poverty was his calamity he said aye aye I'm only a wooden spoon man when Phil told him how Caesar had ripped up their old dead quarrel he muttered I'm on the heavy tide Phil that's it and when Phil hinted at what Caesar had said of his mother and of the impediment of his own birth a growl came up from the very depths of him and he scraped the stones under his feet and said he shall repent it yet yes shall he come don't take it so much to heart it's miserable to bring you such bad news said Phil but he knew the sickly smile was on his lips still and he hated himself for the sound of his own voice Pete found no hollow ring in it God bless you Phil he said you've done the best for me I know that my pockets as low as my heart and it isn't fair to the girl or I shouldn't be asking the old man's lave anyway he stood a moment in silence crunching the wooden laths of the garden fence fingers and then said with sudden resolution I know what I'll do what's that said Philip I'll go abroad I'll go to Kimberley never yes will I though and quick too you heard what the men were saying in the evening there's Manx ones going by the boat in the morning well I'll go with them and you talk of being low and your pockets said Phil why I will take all you've got man and more too said Pete but you'll lend me the lave of the passage money that's getting into debt but no matter when a man falls into the water he needn't mind the rain I'll make good money out yonder a light had appeared at the window of an upper room and Pete shook his clenched fist at it and cried goodbye master craguine I'll put worlds between us you were my master once but nobody made you my master forever neither you nor no man all this time Philip knew that hell was in his heart the hand that had let him loose when his anger got the better of him with Caesar was clutching at him again some evil voice at his ear was whispering let him go lend him the money come on Pete he faltered and don't talk nonsense but Pete heard nothing he had taken a few steps forward as far as to the stable yard and was watching the light in the house moving from window to window of the dark wall she's taking the father's candle he muttered she's there he said softly no she was gone she's coming back though he lifted this stocking cap from his head and fumbled it in his hands God bless her he murmured he sank to his knees on the ground and take care of her while I'm away the moon had come up in her whiteness behind and all was quiet and solemn around Philip fell back and turned away his face end of part one chapter seven recording by Tony Ashworth part one chapter eight of The Manxman this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information all to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Tony Ashworth The Manxman by Sir Hall Cain chapter eight when Caesar came in after seeing Philip to the door he said not a word of this to the girl you that are women are like pigs we've got to pull the way we don't want you on that Kate herself came in blushing a good deal and fussing about with great vigor are you talking of the piggies father she said artfully how tiresome they are to be sure they came out into the yard when the moon rose and I had such work to get them back Caesar snorted a little and gave the signal for bed fairies indeed he said in a tone of vast contempt going to the corner to whine the clock just weakness of faith he said over the clank of the chain as the weights rose no trust in God neither he added and then the clock struck ten Granny had lit two candles one for herself and her husband the other for Nancy Joe Nancy had slightly filled three earthenware crocs with water from the well and had set them on the table mumbling something about the kettle and the morning and Caesar himself pretending not to see anything and muttering dark words about waste went from the clock to the hearth and raked out the hot ashes to a flat surface on which you might have laid a girdle for baking cakes good night Nancy called Granny from halfway up the stairs and Caesar with his head down followed grumbling Nancy went off next and then Kate was left alone she had to put out the lamp and wait for her father's candle when the lamp was gone the girl was in the dark saved for the dim light of the smouldering fire she began to tremble and to laugh in a whisper her eyes danced in the red glow she slipped off her shoes and went to a closet in the wall there she picked an apple out of a barrel and brought it to the fire and roasted it then down on her knees before the hearth she took two pinches of the apple and swallowed them after that in a little shutter she rose again and turned about to go to bed backwards slowly, tremblingly with measured steps feeling her way past the furniture when she touched anything and laughing to herself nervously when she remembered what it was at the door of her father's room and Granny's, she called with a quaver in her voice and a sleepy grunt came out to her she reached one hand through the door which was a jar and took the burning candle then she blew out the light with a trembling puff that had to be twice repeated and made for her own bedroom it was a sweet little chamber over the dairy smelling of new milk and ripe apples and very dainty and dimity in muslin two tiny windows looked out from it one onto the stable yard and the other onto the orchard the late moon came through the orchard window over the heads of the dwarf trees and the little white place was lit up from the floor to the sloping thatch Kate went backwards as far as to the bed and sat down on it she fancied she heard a step in the yard but the yard window was at her back and she would not look behind she listened but heard nothing more except that sea-sawing noise from the stable where the mare was running her rope in the manger ring nothing but this and the cheap-cheap of a mouse that was gnawing the wood somewhere in the floor will he come? she asked herself she rose and loosened her gown and as it fell to her feet she laughed which will it be I wonder which she whispered the moonlight had crept up to the foot of the bed and now lay on it like a broad blue sword speckled as with rust by the patchwork counterpane she freed her hair from its red ribbon and it fell in a shower about her face all around her seemed hushed and awful she shut it again and with a backward hand drew down the sheets then she took a long deep breath like a sigh that is half a smile and lay down to sleep End of Part 1, Chapter 8 Recording by Tony Ashworth