There was a chorus of applause. Kate was still laughing. Philip's head was down.

"And now, friends," continued the parson, "Captain Quilliam has been a successful man abroad, but he has had to come home to do the best piece of work he ever did." (A voice--"Do it yourself, parzon.") "It is true I've never done it myself. Vanity of vanities, love is not for me. It's been the Lord's will to put me here to do the marrying and leave my people to do the loving. But there is a young man present who has all the world before him and everything this life can promise except one thing, and that's the best thing of all--a wife." (Kate's laughter grew boisterous.) "This morning he helped his friend to marry a pure and beautiful maiden. Now let me remind him of the text which says, 'Go thou and do likewise.'"

The toast was drunk standing, with shouts of "Cap'n Pete," and, amid much hammering on the table, stamping on the floor, and other thunderings of applause, Cap'n Pete rolled up to reply. After a moment's pause, in which he distributed sage winks and nods on every side, he said: "I'm not much for public spaking myself. I made my best speech and my shortest in church this morning--_I will_. The parzon has has been telling my _dooiney molla_ to do as I have done today. He can't. Begging pardon of the ladies, there's only one woman on the island fit for him, and I've got her." (Kate's laughter grew shrill.) "My wife----"

At this word, uttered with an air of life-long familiarity, twenty clay pipes lost their heads by collision with the table, and Pete was interrupted by roars of laughter.

"Gough bless me, can't a married man mention his wife in company? Well then. Mistress Cap'n Peter Quilliam----"

This mouthful was the signal for another riotous interruption, and a general call for more to drink.

"Won't that do for you neither? I'm not going back on it, though. 'Whom G.o.d hath joined together let no man put asunder'--isn't that it, Parzon Quiggin? What's it you're saying--no man but the Dempster? Well, the Dempster's here that is to be--I'll clear him of _that_, anyway."

Kate's laughter became explosive and uncontrollable. Pete nodded sideways to fill up the gap in his eloquence, and then went on. "But if my _dooiney molla_ can't marry my wife, there's one thing he can do for her--he can make her house his home in Ramsey when he goes to Douglas for good and comes down here to the coorts once a fortnight."

Kate laughed more immoderately than ever; but Philip, with a look of alarm, half rose from his seat, and said across the table, "There's my aunt at Ballure, Pete."

"She'll be following after you," said Pete.

"There are hotels enough for travellers," said Philip.

"Too many by half, and that's why I asked in public," said Pete.

"I know the brotherly feeling----" began Philip.

"Is it a promise?" demanded Pete.

"If I can't escape your kindness----"

"No, you can't; so there's an end of it."

"It will kill me yet----"

"May you never die till it polishes you off.".

At Philip's submission to Pete's will, there was a general chorus of cheers, through which Kate's shrill laughter rang like a scream. Pete patted the back of her hand, and continued, "And now, young fellows there, let an ould experienced married man give you a bit of advice--he swore away all his worldly goods this morning, so he hasn't much else to give. I've no belief in bachelors myself. They're like a tub without a handle--nothing to lay hould of them by." (Much nudging and whispering about the bottom of the table.) "What's that down yonder? 'The vicar,'

you say? Aw, the vicar's a grand man, but he's only a parzon, you see.

Mr. Christian, is it? He's got too much work to do to be thinking about women. We're living on the nineteenth century, boys, and it's middling hard feeding for some of us. If the fishing's going to the dogs and the farming going to the deuce, don't be tossing head over tip at the tail of the tourist. If you've got the pumping engine inside of you, in plain English, if you've got the indomable character of the rael Manxman, do as I done--go foreign. Then watch your opportunity. What's Shake-spar saying?" Pete paused. "What's that he's saying, now?" Pete scratched his forehead. "Something about a flood, anyway." Pete stretched his hand out vigorously. "'Lay hould of it at the flood,' says he, 'that's the way to make your fortune.'"

Then Pete melted to sentiment, glanced down at Kate's head, and continued, "And when you come back to the ould island--and there isn't no place like it--you can marry the girl of your heart, G.o.d bless her.

Work's black, but money's white, and love is as sweet on potatoes and herrings three times a day, as on nothing for dinner, and the same every night of the week for supper. While you're away, you'll be draming of her. 'Is she faithful?' 'Is she thrue?' Coorse she is, and waiting to take you the very minute you come home." Kate was still laughing as if she could not stop. "Look out for the right sort, boys. Plenty of the like in yet. If the young men of these days are more smart and more educated than their fathers, the young women are more handsome and more virtuous than their mothers. So _ben-my-chree_, my hearties, and enough in the locker to drive away the divil and the coroner."

Through the volley of cheers which followed Pete's speech came the voice of Black Tom, thick with drink, "Drive off the crow at the wedding-breakfast."

Everybody rose and looked. A great crow, black as night, had come in at the open door of the mill, calmly, sedately, as if by habit, for the corn that usually lay there.

"It manes divorce," said Black Tom.

"Scare it away," cried some one.

"It's the new wife must do it," said another.

"Where's Kate?" cried Nancy.

But Kate only looked and went on laughing as before.

The crow turned tail and took flight of itself at finding so eager an audience. Then Pete said, "Whose houlding with such ould wife's wonders?"

And Caesar answered, "Coorse not, or fairies either. I've slept out all night on Cronk-ny-airy-Lhaa--before my days of grace, I mane--and I never seen no fairies."

"It would be a fool of a fairy, though, that would let _you_ see him, Caesar," said Black Tom.

At nine o'clock Caesar's gig was at the door of "The Manx Fairy" to take the bride and bridegroom home. They had sung "Mylecharane," and "Keerie fu Snaighty," and "Hunting the Wren," and "The Win' that Shook the Barley," and then they had cleared away the tables and danced to the fiddle of John the Clerk and the clarionet of Jonaique Jelly. Kate, with wild eyes and flushed cheeks, had taken part in everything, but always fiercely, violently, almost tempestuously, until people lost enjoyment of her heartiness in fear of her hysteria, and Caesar whispered Pete to take her away, and brought round the gig to hasten them.

Kate went up for her cloak and hat, and in the interval between her departure and reappearance, Grannie and Nancy Joe, both glorified beings, Nancy with her unaccustomed cap askew, stood in the middle of a group of women, who were deferring, and inquiring, and sympathising.

"I don't know in the world how she has kept up so long," said Grannie.

"And dear heart knows how _I'm_ to keep up when she's gone," said Nancy, with her ap.r.o.n to her eyes.

Kate came down ready. Everybody followed her into the road, and all stood round the gig with flashes from the gig-lamps on their faces, while Pete swung her up into the seat, lifting her bodily in his great arms.

"You wouldn't drown yourself to-night for an ould rusty nail, eh, Capt'n?" cried somebody with a laugh.

"You go bail," said Pete, and he leapt up to Kate's side, twiddled the reins, cracked the whip, and they drove away.

XXIV.

Philip had stood at the door of the porch, struggling to command his soul, and employing all his powers to look cheerful and even gay. But as Kate had pa.s.sed she had looked at him with an imploring look, and then he had seemed to understand everything--that she had made a mistake and that she knew it, that her laughter had been bitterer than tears, that some compulsion had been put upon her, and that she was a wretched and miserable woman. At the next moment she had gone by with an odour of lace and perfume; and then a flood of tenderness, of pity, of mad jealousy had come upon him, and it had been as much as he could do to restrain himself. One instant he held himself in hand, and at the next the wheels of the gig had begun to move, the horse had started, the women had trooped into the house again, and there was nothing before him but the broad back of Caesar, who was looking into the darkness after the vanishing gig-lamps, and breathing asthmatical breath.

"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife," said Caesar. "You're time enough yet, sir; come in, come in."

But the man was odious to Philip at that moment, the house was odious, the people and the talk inside were odious, and he slipped away un.o.bserved.

Too late! From the torment of his own thoughts he could not escape--his lost love, his lost happiness, his memories of the past, his dreams of the future. A voice--it was his own voice--seemed to be taunting him constantly: "You were not worthy of her. You did not know her value. She is gone; and what have you got instead!"

The Deemstership! That was of no consequence now. A name, an idle name!

Love was the only thing worth having, and it was lost. Without it all the rest was nothing, and he had flung it away. He had been a monster, he had been a fool. The thought of his folly was insupportable; the recollection of his selfishness was stifling; the memory of his calculating deliberations was dragging him again in the dust. Thus, with a sense of crushing shame, he plunged down the dark road, trying not to think of the gig that had gone swinging along in front of him.

He would leave the island. To-morrow he would sail for England. No matter if he lost the chance of promotion. To-morrow, to-morrow! But to-night? How could he live through the hours until morning, with the black thoughts which the darkness generated? How could he sleep? How lie awake? What drug would bring forgetfulness? Kate! Pete! To-night! Oh, G.o.d! oh, G.o.d!

XXV.