"Fear she is, poor fool," said Lovibond.

"Bless her!" said Davy, beneath his breath. "D'ye think, now," said he, "that all women are like that?"

"Many are--too many," said Lovibond.

"Equal to forgiving and forgetting, eh?" said Davy.

"Yes--the sweet simpletons--and taking the men back as well," said Lovibond.

"Extraordinary!" said Davy. "Aw, matey, matey, men's only muck where women comes. Women is reg'lar eight-teen-carat goold. It's me to know it too. There was the mawther herself now. My father was a bit of a rip--G.o.d forgive his son for saying it--and once he went trapsing after a girl and got her into trouble. An imperent young hussy anyway, but no matter. Coorse the mawther wouldn't have no truck with her; but one day she died sudden, and then the child hadn't n.o.body but the neighbors to look to it. 'Go for it, Davy,' says the mawther to me. It was evening, middling late after the herrings, and when I got to the kitchen windey there was the little one atop of the bed in her nightdress saying her bits of prayers; 'G.o.d bless mawther, and everybody,' and all to that.

She couldn't get out of the 'mawther' yet, being always used of it, and there never was no 'father' in her little tex'es. Poor thing! she come along with me, bless you, like a lammie that you'd pick out of the snow.

Just hitched her hands round my neck and fell asleep in my arms going back, with her putty face looking up at the stars same as an angel's--soft and woolly to your lips like milk straight from the cow, and her little body smelling sweet and damp, same as the breath of a calf. And when the mawther saw me she smoothed her brat and dried her hands, and catched at the little one, and chuckled over her, and clucked at her and kissed her, with her own face slushed like rain, till yer'd have thought nothing but it was one of her own that had been lost and was found agen. Aw, women for your life, mate, for forgiveness.'"

Lovibond did not speak, and Davy began to laugh in a husky voice.

"Bless me, the talk a man will put out when he's a bit over the rope and thinking of ould times," he said.

"Sign that I'm thirsty," he added; and then walked toward the window.

"But the father could never forgive hisself," he said, as he was stepping through, "and if I done wrong to a woman neither could I--I've that much of the ould man in me anyway."

When he got back to the room the air was dense with tobacco-smoke, and his guests were shouting for his company. "Capt'n Davy!" "Where's Capt'n Davy?" "Aw, here's the man himself?" "Been studying the stars, Capt'n?"

"Well, that's a bit of navigation." "Navigation by starlight--I know the sort. Navigating up alongside a pretty girl, eh, Capt'n?"

There were rough jokes, and strange stories, and more liquor and loud laughter, and for a time Davy took his part in everything. But after a while he grew quiet again, and absent in manner, and he glanced up at intervals in the direction of the window, A new thought had come to him.

It made the sweat to break out at the top of his forehead, and then he heard no more of the clatter around him than the rum-humdrum as of a train in a tunnel, pierced sometimes by the shrill scream as of an occasional whistle. Presently he rolled up again, and went out once more to Lovibond.

The thought that had seized him was agony, and he could not broach it at once. So he beat about it for a moment, and then came down on it with a crash.

"Sitting alone, is she, poor thing?" he said.

"Alone," said Lovibond.

"I know, I know," said Davy. "Like a bird on a bough calling mournful for her mate; but he's gone, he's down, maybe worse, but lost anyway.

Yet if he should ever come back now--eh?"

"He'll have to be quick then," said Lovibond; "for she intends to go home to her people soon."

"Did you say she was for going home?" said Davy, eagerly. "Home where--where to--to England?"

"No," said Lovibond. "Havn't I told you she's a Manx woman?"

"A Manx woman, is she?" said Davy. "What's her name?"

"I didn't ask her that," said Lovibond.

"Then where's her home?" said Davy.

"I forget the name of the place," said Lovibond. "Balla--something."

"Is it---- is it----" Davy was speaking very quickly--"is it Ballaugh, sir?"

"That's it," and Lovibond. "And her father's farm--I heard the name of the farm as well--Balla--balla--something else--oh, Ballavalley."

"Ballavolly?" said Davy.

"Exactly," said Lovibond.

Davy breathed heavily, swayed slightly, and rolled against Lovibond as they walked side by side.

"Then you know the place, Capt'n," said Lovibond.

Davy laughed noisily. "Ay, I know it," he said.

"And the girl's father, too, I suppose?" said Lovibond.

Davy laughed bitterly. "Ay, and the girl's father too," he said.

"And the girl herself perhaps?" said Lovibond.

Davy laughed almost fiercely, "Ay, and the girl herself," he said.

Lovibond did not spare him. "Then," said he, in an innocent way, "you must know her husband also."

Davy laughed wildly. "I wouldn't trust," he said.

"He's a brute--isn't he?" said Lovibond.

"Ugh!" Davy's laughter stopped very suddenly.

"A fool, too--is he not?" said Lovibond.

"Ay--a d.a.m.ned fool!" said Davy out of the depths of his throat, and then he laughed and reeled again, and gripped at Lovibond's sleeve to keep himself erect.

"h.e.l.loa!" he cried, in another voice; "I'm rocking full like a ship with a rolling cargo and my head is as thick as Taubman's brewery on boiling day."

He was a changed man from that instant onward. An angel of G.o.d that had been breathing on his soul was driven out by a devil of despair. The conviction had settled on him that he was a dastard. Lovibond remembered the story of his father? and trembled for what he had done.

Davy stumbled back through the window into the room, singing l.u.s.tily--

O, Molla Char--aine, where got you your gold?

Lone, lone, you have le--eft me here, O, not in the Curragh, deep under the mo--old, Lone, lo--one, and void of cheer, Lone, lo--one, and void of cheer.

His cronies received him with shouts of welcome. "You'll be walking the crank yet, Capt'n," said they, in mockery of his unsteady gait. His altered humor suited them. "Cards," they cried; "cards--a game for good luck."

"Hould hard," said Davy. "Fair do's. Send for the landlord first."

"What for?" they asked. "To stop us? He'll do that quick enough."

"You'll see," said Davy. "Willie," he shouted, "bring up the skipper."