"All women wants it," said Davy. "It's mawther's milk to them--Mawther Eve's milk, as you might say."

"True, true!" said Lovibond; "but though she looks so sweet she may have a temper."

"And what for shouldn't she?" said Davy, "D'ye think G.o.d A'mighty meant it all for the men?"

"Perhaps," said Lovibond, "she turned up her nose at his coa.r.s.e ways and rough comrades."

"And right, too," said Davy. "Let him keep his dirty trousses to hisself. Who is he?"

"She didn't tell me that," said Lovibond.

"Whoever he is he's a wastrel," said Davy.

"I'm afraid you're right, Capt'n," said Lovibond.

"Women is priv'leged where money goes," said Davy. "If they haven't got it by heirship they can't make it by industry, and to accuse them of being without it is taking a mane advantage. It's. .h.i.tting below the belt, sir. Accuse a man if you like--ten to one he's lazy--but a woman--never, sir, never, never!"

Davy was tramping the room by this time, and making it ring with the voice as of a lion, and the foot as of an elephant.

"More till that, sir," he said. "A good girl with nothing at her who takes a bad man with a million cries talley with the crayther the day she marries him. What has he brought her? His dirty, mucky, measley money, come from the Lord knows where. What has _she_ brought him?

Herself, and everything she is and will be, stand or fall, sink or swim, blow high, blow low--to sail by his side till they cast anchor together at last Don't you hould with me there, sir?"

"I do, Capt'n, I do," said Lovibond.

"And the ruch man that goes bearing up alongside a girl that's sweet and honest, and then twitting her with being poorer till hisself, is a dirt and divil, and ought to be walloped out of the company of dacent men."

"But, Capt'n," said Lovibond, falteringly! "Capt'n...."

"What?"

"Wasn't Mrs. Quiggin a poor girl when you married her?"

At that word Davy looked like a man newly awakened from a trance. His voice, which had rung out like a horn, seemed to wheeze back like a whistle; his eyes, which had begun to blaze, took a fixed and stupid look; his lips parted; his head dropped forward; his chest fell inward; and his big shoulders seemed to shrink. He looked about him vacantly, put one hand up to his forehead and said in a broken underbreath, "Lord-a-ma.s.sy! What am I doing? What am I saying?"

The painful moment was broken by the arrival of the first of the guests.

It was Keruish, the churchwarden, a very-secular person, deep in the dumps over a horse which he had bought at Castletown fair the week before (with money cheated out of Davy), and lost by an attack of the worms that morning. "b.u.t.ts in the stomach, sir," he moaned; "they're bad, sir, aw, they're bad."

"Nothing wuss," said Davy. "I know them. Ate all the goodness out of you and lave you without bowels. Men has them as well as horses--only we call (them) friends instead."

The other guests arrived one by one--the blacksmith, the crier, the brewer, the lodging-house keeper, and the two secretaries of the charitable societies (whose names were "spells" too big for Davy), and the keeper of a home for lost dogs.

They were a various and motley company of the riff-raff and raggabash of the island,--young and elderly, silent and glib--rough as a pigskin, and smooth as their sleeves at the elbow; with just one feature common to the whole pack of pick-thanks, and that was a look of shallow cunning.

Davy received them with noisy welcomes and equal cheer, but he had the measure of every man of them all, down to the bottom of their fob pockets. The cloth was laid, the supper was served, and down they sat at the table.

"Anywhere, anywhere!" cried Davy, as they took their places. "The mate is the same at every seat."

"Ay, ay," they laughed, and then fell to without ceremony.

"Only wait till I've done the carving, and we'll all start fair," said Davy.

"Coorse, coorse," they answered, from mouths half full already.

"That's what Kinvig said when he was cutting up his sermon into firstly, secondly, thirdly, and fourteenthly."

"Ha, ha! Kinvig! I'd drink the ould man's health if I had anything,"

cried the blacksmith, with a wink at his opposite neighbor.

"No liquor?" said Davy, looking up to sharpen the carving knife on the steel. "Am I laving you dry like herrings in the hould?"

"Season us, capt'n," cried the black-smith, amid general laughter from the rest.

"Aw, lave you alone for that," said Davy. "If you're like myself you're in pickle enough already."

Then there were more winks and louder laughter.

"Mate!" shouted Davy over his shoulder to the waiter behind him, "a gallon to every gentleman."

"Ay, ay," from all sides of the table in various tones of satisfaction.

"Yes, sir--of course, sir; beg pardon, sir, here, sir," said the waiter.

"Boys, healths apiece!" cried Davy.

"Healths apiece, Capt'n!" answered numerous thick voices, and up leaped a line of yellow gla.s.ses.

"Ate, drink--there's plenty, boys; there's plenty," said Davy.

"Aw, plenty, capt'n--plenty."

"Come again, boys, come again," said Davy, from time to time; "but clane plates--aw, clane plates--I hould with being nice at your males for all, and no pigging."

Thus the supper went on for an hour, and then Davy by way of grace said, "Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, praise His holy name."

"A 'propriate tex', too," said the church-warden. "Aw, it's wonderful the scriptural the Captn's getting when he's a bit crooked," he whispered behind the back of his hand.

After that Davy stretched back in his chair and cried, "Your pipes in your faces, boys. Smook up, smook up; chimleys everywhere, same as Douglas at breakfast time."

For Davy's sake Lovibond had sat at table with the guests, though their voracity had almost turned his stomach. At sight of the green light of greed in their eyes he had said to himself, "Davy is a rough fellow, but a born Christian. These creatures are hogs. Why doesn't his gorge rise at them?" When the supper was done, and while the cloth was being removed, amid the clatter of dishes and the striking of lights, Lovibond rose and slipped out of the room.

Davy saw him go, and from that moment he became constrained and silent.

Sucking at his pipe and devoting himself steadily to the drink, he answered in _hum's and ha's and that'll do's_ to the questions put to him, and his laughter came out of him at intervals in jumps and jerks like water from the neck of a bottle.

"What's agate of the Capt'n?" the men whispered. "He's quiet to-night--quiet uncommon."

After a while Davy heaved up and followed Lovibond. He found him walking too and fro in the soft turf outside the window. The night was calm and beautiful. In the sky a sea of stars and a great full moon; on the land a line of gas jets, and on the dark bay a point here and there of rolling light. No sound but the distant hum of traffic in the town, the inarticulate shout of a sailor on one of the ships outside, and the rock-row rock-row of the oars in the rol-locks of some unseen boat gliding into the harbor below.

Davy drew a long breath. "So you think," said he, "that the sweet woman in the church is loving her husband in spite of all?"