Willie Quarrie went out on his errand, and Davy called for a song. The Crier gave one line three times, and broke down as often. "I linger round this very spot--I linger round this ve--ery spot--I linger round this very--"

"Don't do it any longer, mate," cried Davy. "Your song is like Kinvig's first sermon. The ould man couldn't get no farther till his tex', so he gave it out three times--'I am the Light of the World--I am the Light of the World--I am the Light--' 'Maybe so, brother,' says ould Kennish, in the pew below; 'but you want snuffing. Come down out of that.'"--

Loud peals of wild laughter followed, and Davy's own laughter rang out wildest and maddest of all. Then up came the landlord with his round face smiling. What was the Captain's pleasure?

"Landlord," cried Davy, "tell your men to fill up these gla.s.ses, and then send me your bill for all I owe you, and make it cover everything I'll want till to-morrow morning."

"To-morrow will do for the bill, Captain," said the landlord. "I'm not afraid that you'll cut your country."

"Aren't you, though? Then the more fool you," said Davy. "Send it up, my shining sunflower; send it up."

"Very well, Captain, just to humor you," said the landlord, backing himself out with his head in his chest.

"Why, where are you going to, Capt'n?" cried many voices at once.

"Wherever there's a big cabbage growing, boys," said Davy.

The bill came up, and Willie Quarrie examined it. "Shocking!" cried Willie; "it's really shocking! Shillings apiece for my breakfas'es--now that's what I call a reg'lar piece of ambition."

Davy turned out his pockets on to the table. The pockets were many, and were hidden away, back and front and side, in every slack and tight place in his clothes. Gold, silver, and copper came mixed and loose from all of them, and he piled up the money in a little heap before him. When all was out he picked five sovereigns from the haggis of coin and put them back into his waistcoat pocket, while he screwed up one eye into the semblance of a wink, and said to Willie, "That'll see us over." Then he called for a sight of the bill, glanced at the total and proceeded to count out the amount of it. This being done, he rolled the money in the paper, screwed it up like a penny worth of lozenges, and sent it down to the landlord with his bes' respec's. After that he straightened his chest, stuck his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, nodded his head downward at the money remaining on the table and said, "Men, see that? It's every ha'penny I'm worth in the world, A month ago I came home with a nice warm fortune at me. That's what's left, and when it's gone I'm up the spout."

The men looked at each other in blank surprise, and began to mutter among themselves, "What game is he agate of now?" "Aw, it's true." "True enough, you go bail." "I wouldn't trust, he's been so reckless." "Twenty thousands, they're saying." "Aw, he's been helped--there's that Mister Loviboy, a power of money the craythur must have had out of him." "Well, sarve him right; fools and their money is rightly parted."

Thus they croaked and crowed, and though Davy was devoting himself to the drink he heard them.

A wild light shot into his eyes, but he only laughed more noisily and talked more incessantly.

"Come, lay down, d'ye hear," he cried. "Do you think I care for the fortune? I care nothing, not I. I've had a bigger loss till that in my time."

"Lord save us, Capt'n--when?" cried one.

"Never mind when--not long ago, any way," said Davy.

"And you had heart to start afresh, Cap'n, eh?" cried another.

"Heart, you say? Maybe so, maybe no," said Davy. "But stow this jaw.

Here's my harvest home, boys, my Melliah, only I am bringing back the tares--who's game to toss for it? Equal stakes, sudden death!"

The brewer tossed with him and won. Davy brushed the money across the table, and laughed more madly than ever. "I care nothing, not I, say what you like," he cried again and again, though no one disputed his protestation.

But the manner of the cronies changed toward him nevertheless. Some fell to patronizing him, some to advising him, and some to sneering at the hubbub he was making.

"Well, well," he cried, "One gla.s.s and a toast, anyway, and part friends for all." "Aisy there! silence! Hush? c.h.i.n.k up! (Hear, hear?) Are you ready? Here goes, boys? The biggest blockit in the island, bar none--Capt'n Davy Quiggin."

At that the raggabash who had been clinking gla.s.ses pretended to be mightily offended in their dignity. They looked about for their hats, and began to shuffle out.

"Lave me, then; lave me," cried Davy. "Lave me, now, you Noah's ark of creeping things. Lave me, I'm stone broke. Ay, lave me, you dogs with your noses in the snow. I'm done, I'm done."

As the rascals who had cheated and robbed him trooped out like men aggrieved, Davy broke out into a stave of another wild song:

"I'm hunting the wren," said Bobbin to Bobbin, "I'm hunting the wren," said Richard to Rob-bin, "I'm hunting the wren," said Jack of the Lhen, "I'm hunting the wren," said every one.

When the men were gone Lovibond came back by the window. The room was dense with the fumes of dead smoke, and foul with the smell of stale liquor. Broken pipes lay on the table amid the refuse of spilled beer, and a candle, at which the pipes had been lighted, still stood there burning.

Davy was reeling about madly, and singing and laughing in gust on gust.

His face was afire with the drink that he had taken, and his throat was guggling and sputtering.

"I care nothing, not I--say what you like; I've had worse losses in my time," he cried.

He plunged his right hand into his breast and drew out something.

"See, that, mate?" he said, and held it up under the gla.s.s chandelier.

It was a little curl of brown hair, tied across the middle with a piece of faded blue ribbon.

"See it?" he cried in a husky gurgle. "It's all I've got left in the world."

He held it up to the light and looked at it, and laughed until the gla.s.s pendants of the chandelier swung and jingled with the vibration of his voice.

"The gorse under the ling, eh? There you are then! _She_ gave it me.

Yes, though, on the night I sailed. My gough! The ruch and proud I was that night anyway! I was a homeless beggar, but I might have owned the stars, for, by G.o.d, I was walking on them going away."

He reeled again, and laughed as if in mockery of himself, and then said, "That's ten year ago, mate, and I've kep' it ever since. I have though, here in my breast, and it's druv out wuss things. When I've been far away foreign, and losing heart a bit, and down with the fever, maybe, in that ould h.e.l.l, and never looking to see herself again, no, never, I've been touching it gentle and saying to myself, soft and low, like a sort of an angel's whisper, 'Nelly is with you, Davy. She isn't so very far away, boy; she's here for all.' And when I've been going into some dirt of a place that a dacent man shouldn't, it's been cutting at my ribs, same as a knife, and crying like mad, 'Hould hard, Davy; you can't take Nelly in theer?' When I've been hot it's been keeping me cool, and when I've been cold it's been keeping me warm, better till any comforter.

D'ye see it, sir? We're ould comrades, it and me, the best that's going, and never no quarreling and no words neither. Ten years together, sir; blow high, blow low. But we're going to part at last."

Then he picked up the candle in his left hand, still holding the lock of hair in his right.

"Good-by, ould friend!" he cried, in a shrill voice, rolling his head to look at the curl, and holding it over the candle. "We're parting company to-night. I'm going where I can't take you along with me--I'm going to the divil. So long! S'long! I'll never strook you, nor smooth you, nor kiss you no more! S'long!"

He put the curl to his lips, holding it tremblingly between his great fingers and thumb. Then he clutched it in his palm, reeled a step backward, swung the candle about and dashed it on to the floor.

"I can't, I can't," he cried, "G.o.d A'mighty, I can't. It's Nelly--Nelly--my Nelly--my little Nell!"

The curl went back into his breast. He sank into a chair, covered his face with his hands, and wept aloud as little children do.

CHAPTER VII.

When Mrs. Quiggin came down to breakfast next morning, a change both in her appearance and in her manner caught the eye and ear of Jenny Crow.

Her fringe was combed back from her forehead, and her speech, even in the first salutation, gave a delicate hint of the broad Manx accent.

"Ho, ho! what's this?" thought Jenny, and she had not long to wait for an answer.

An English waiter, who affected the ways of a French one, was fussing around with needless inquiries--_would Madame have this; would Madame do that?_--and when this person had sc.r.a.ped himself out of the room Mrs.

Quiggin drew a long breath and said, "I don't think I care so very much for this sort of thing after all, Jenny."

"What sort of thing, Nelly?"