_ PART V. MAN AND MAN
CHAPTER XIV
The sky became overcast, rain began to fall, and there was a rush for the carts. In half an hour Tynwald Hill was empty, and the people were splashing off on every side like the big drops of rain that were pelting down.
Pete hired a brake that was going back to the north, and gathered up his friends from Ramsey. When these were seated, there was a rush of helpless and abandoned ones who were going in the same direction--young mothers with children, old men and old women. Pete hauled them up till the seats and the floor were choked, and the brake could hold no more. He got small thanks. "Such crushing and scrooging! I declare my black merino frock, that I've only had on once, will be teetotal spoilt."--"If they don't start soon I'll be taking the neuralgy dreadful."
They got started at length, and, at the tail of a line of stiff carts, they went rattling over the mountain-road. The harebells nodded their washed faces from the hedge, and the talk was brisk and cheerful.
"Our Thorn's sowl a hafer, and got a good price."--"What for didn't you buy the mare of Corlett Beldroma, Juan?"--"Did I want to be killed as dead as a herring?"--"Kicks, does she? Bate her, man; bate her. A horse is like a woman. If you aren't bating her now and then----"
They stopped at every half-way houses--it was always halfway to somewhere. The men got exceedingly drunk and began to sing. At that the women grew very angry.
"Sakes alive! you're no better than a lot of Cottonies."--"Deed, but they're worse than any Cottonies, ma'am. Some excuse for the like of _them_. In their cotton-mills all the year, and nothing at home but a piece of grass the size of your hand in the backyard, and going hopping on it like a lark in a cage."
The rain came down in torrents, the mountain-path grew steep and desolate, the few houses passed were empty and boarded up, gorse bushes hissed to the rising breeze, geese scuttled and screamed across the untilled land, a solitary black crow flew across the leaden sky, and on the sea outside a tall pillar of smoke went stalking on and on, where the pleasure-steamer carried her freight of tourists round the island. Then songs gave way to sighs, some of the men began to pick quarrels, and some to break into fits of drunken sobbing.
Pete kept them all up. He chaffed and laughed and told funny stories. Choking, stifling, wounded to the heart as he was, still he was carrying on, struggling to convince everybody and himself as well, that nothing was amiss, that he was a jolly fellow, and had not a second thought.
He was glad to get home, nevertheless, where he need play the hypocrite no longer. Going through Sulby, he dropped out of the brake and looked in at the "Fairy." The house was shut. Grannie was sitting up for Caesar, and listening for the sound of wheels. There was something unusual and mysterious about her. Cruddled over the fire, she was smoking, a long clay in little puffs of blue smoke that could barely be seen. The sweet old soul in her troubles had taken to the pipe as a comforter. Pete could see that something had happened since morning, but she looked at him with damp eyes, and he was afraid to ask questions. He began to talk of the great doings of the day at Tynwald, then of Philip, and finally of Kate, apologising a little wildly for the mother not coming home sooner to the child, but protesting that she had sent the little one no end of presents.
"Presents, bless ye," he began rapturously----
"You don't ate enough, Pete, 'deed you don't," said Grannie.
"Ate? Did you say ate?" cried Pete. "If you'd seen me at the fair you'd have said, 'That man's got the inside of a limekiln!' Aw, no, Grannie, I'm not letting my jaws travel far. When I've got anything before me it's--down--same as an ostrich."
Going away in the darkness, he heard Caesar creaking up in the gig with old Horney, now old Mailie, diving along in front of him.
Nancy was waiting for Pete at Elm Cottage. She tried to bustle him upstairs.
"Come, man, come," she said; "get yourself off to bed and I'll bring your clothes down to the fire."
He had never slept in the bedroom since Kate had left. "Chut! I've lost the habit of beds," he answered. "Always used of the gable loft, you know, and the wind above the thatch."
Not to be thought to behave otherwise than usual, he went upstairs that night. But--
"Feather beds are saft,
Pentit rooms are bonnie,
But ae kiss o' my dear love
Better's far than ony."
The rain was still falling, the sea was loud, the mighty breath of night was shaking the walls of the house and rioting through the town. He was wet and tired, longing for a dry skin and a warm bed and rest.
"Yet fain wad I rise and rin
If I tho't I would meet my dearie."
The long-strained rapture of faith and confidence was breaking down. He saw it breaking. He could deceive himself no more. She was gone, she was lost, she would lie on his breast no more.
"God help me! O, Lord, help me," he cried in his crushed and breaking heart. _