_ PART V. MAN AND MAN
CHAPTER XII
Pete seemed to be beside himself. He laughed until he cried; he cried until he laughed. His resonant voice rang out everywhere.
"Hear him? My gough, it was like a bugle spaking. There's nobody can spake but himself. When the others are toot-tooting, it's just 'Polly, put the kettle on' (mimicking a mincing treble). See the lil Puffin on his throne of turf there? Looked as if Ould Nick had been thrashing peas on his face for a week."
Pete's enthusiasm rose to frenzy, and he began to sweep through the fair, bemoaning his country and pouring mouth-fuls of anathema on his countrymen.
"_Mannin veg villish_ (sweet little Isle of Man), with your English Governors and your English Bishops, and boys of your own worth ten of them. _Manninee graihagh_ (beloved Manxmen), you're driving them away to be Bishops for others and Governors abroad--and yourselves going to the dogs and the divil, and d------ you."
Pete's prophetic mood dropped to a jovial one. He bought the remaining stock-in-trade of an itinerant toffee-seller, and hammered the lid of the tin hat-box to beat up the children. They followed him like hares hopping in the snow; and he distributed his bounty in inverse relation to size, a short stick to a big lad, a long stick to a little one, and two sticks to a girl. The results were an infantile war. Here, a damsel of ten squaring her lists to fight a hulking fellow of twelve for her sister of six; and there, a mother wiping the eyes of her boy of five, and whispering "Hush, bogh; hush! You shall have the bladder when we kill the pig."
Pete began to drink. "How do, Faddy? Taking joy of you, Juan. Are you in life, Thom! Half a glass of rum will do no harm, boys. Not the drink at all--just the good company, you know."
He hailed the women also, but they were less willing to be treated. "I'd have more respect for my quarterly ticket, sir," said Betsy--she was a Primitive, with her husband on the "Planbeg." "There's a hole in your pocket, Capt'n; stop it up with your fist, man," said Liza--she was a gombeen woman, and when she got a penny in her hand it was a prisoner for life. "Chut! woman," said Pete, "what's the good book say ing? 'Riches have wings;' let the birds fly then," and off he went, reeling and tottering, and laughing his formidable laugh.
Pete grew merry. Rooting up the remains of the fishermen's band, he hired them to accompany him through the fair. They were three little musicians, now exceedingly drunk, and their duty was to play "Hail, Isle of Man," as he went swaggering along in front of them.
"Hail, Isle of Man,
Swate ocean lan',
I love thy sea-girt border."
"Play up, Jackie."
"The barley sown,
Potatoes down,
We'll get our boats in order."
Thus he forged through the fair, capering, laughing, shouting protests over his shoulder when the tipsy music failed, pretending to be very drunk, trying to show that he was carrying on, that he was going it, that he hadn't a second thought, but watching everything for all that, studying every face, and listening to the talk of everybody.
"Whips of money at him, Liza--whips of it--millions, they're saying."--"He's spending it like flitters then. The Manx chaps isn't fit for fortunes--no, they aren't. I wonder in the world what sort of wife there's at him. _I_ don't 'low my husband the purse. Three ha'pence is enough to be giving any man at once."--"Wife, you're saying? Don't you know, woman?" Then some whispering.
"Bass, boy--more bass, I tell thee."
"We then sought nex'
The soothing sex,
Our swatearts at Port Erin."
"Who _is_ the man at all?"--"Why, Capt'n Quilliam from Kimberley."--"'Deed, man! Him that married with some of the Caesar Glenmooar's ones?"--"She's left him, though, and gone off with a wastrel."--"You don't say?"--"Well, I saw the young woman myself----"
"At Quiggin's Hall
There's enough for all,
Good beer, and all things proper."
"Hould,boys!"
Pete had drawn up suddenly, and stopped his musicians with a sweep of the arm.
"Were you spaking, Mr. Corteen?"
"Nothing, Capt'n. No need to stare at all. I was only saying I was at the camp-meeting at Sulby, and I saw----"
"Go on, Jackie."
"A pleasant place,
With beds of aise,
When we are done our supper."
The unhappy man was deceiving himself at least as much as anybody else. After looking for the light of intelligence in every face, waiting for a word, watching for a glance, expecting every moment that some one from south or north, or east or west, would say, "I've seen her;" yet, covering up the burning coal of his anxiety with the ashes of mock merriment, he tried to persuade himself that Kate was not on the island if nobody at Tynwald had seen her; that he had told the truth unwittingly, and that he was as happy as the day was long. _