"They're all through there in my head already, Capt'n," groaned Willie Quarrie in despair, as he struggled at the table to keep pace with his slow pen to Davy's impetuous tongue.

"Then ask whosomever you plaze, boy," said Davy. "What's it saying in the ould Book: 'Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in.' Only it's the back-courts and the public-houses this time, and you'll be wanting no grappling hooks to fetch them. Just whip a whisky bottle under your arm, and they'll be asking for no other invitation. Reminds me, sir," he added, looking up as Lovibond entered, "reminds me of little Jimmy Quayle's aisy way of fetching poor Hughie Collister from the bottom of Ramsey harbor. Himself and Hughie were same as brothers—that thick—and they'd been middling hard on the drink together, and one night Hughie, going home to Andreas, tumbled over the bridge by the sandy road and got hisself washed away and drowned. So the boys fetched grapplings and went out immadient to drag for the body, but Jimmy took another notion. He rigged up a tremenjous long pole, like your mawther's clothes' prop on washing day and tied a string to the top of it, and baited the end of the string with an empty bottle of Ould Tom, and then sat hisself down on the end of the jetty, same as a man that's going fishing. 'Lord-a-massy, Jemmy,' says the boys, looking up out of the boat; 'whatever in the name of goodness are you doing there?' 'They're telling me,' says Jemmy, bobbing the gin-bottle up and down constant, flip-a-flop, flip-a-flop atop of the water; 'they're telling me,' says he, 'that poor ould Hughie is down yonder, and I'm thinking there isn't nothing in the island that'll fetch him up quicker till this.'"

"But what is going on here, Capt'n?" said Lovibond, with an inclination of his head toward the table where Willie Quarrie was still laboring with his invitations.

"It's railly wuss till ever, sir," groaned Willie from behind his pen.

"What does it mean?" said Lovibond.

"It manes that I'm sailing to-morrow," said Davy.

"Sailing!" cried Lovibond.

"That's so," said Davy. "Back to the ould oven we came from. Pacific steamer laves Liverpool by the afternoon tide, and we'll catch her aisy if we take the 'Snaefell' in the morning. Fixed a couple of berths by telegraph, and paid through Dumbell's. Only ninety pounds the two—for'ard passage—but nearly claned out at that. What's the odds though? Enough left to give the boys a blow-out to-night, and then, heigho! stone broke, cut your stick and get out of it."

"A couple of berths? Did you say two?" said Lovibond.

"I'm taking Willie along with me," said Davy; "and he's that joyful at the thought of it that you can't get a word out of him for hallelujahs."

Willie's joy expressed itself at that moment in a moan, as he rose from the table with a woe-begone countenance, and went out on his errand of invitation.

"But you'll stay on," said Davy, "Eh?"

"No," said Lovibond, in a melancholy voice.

"Why not, then?" said Davy.

Lovibond did not answer at once, and Davy heaved up to a sitting posture that he might look into his face.

"Why, man; what's this—what's this?" said Davy. "You're looking as down as ould Kinvig at the camp meeting, when the preacher afore him had used up all his tex'es. What's going doing?"

Lovibond settled himself on the sofa beside Davy, and drew a deep breath. "I've seen her again, Capt'n," he said, solemnly.

"The sweet little lily in the church, sir?" said Davy.

"Yes," said Lovibond; and, after another deep breath, "I've spoken to her."

"Out with it, sir; out with it," said Davy, and then, putting one hand on Lovibond's knee caressingly, "I've seen trouble in my time, mate; you may trust me—go on, what is it?"

"She's married," said Lovibond.

Davy gave a prolonged whistle. "That's bad," he said. "I'm symperthizing with you. You've been fishing with another man's floats and losing your labor. I'm feeling for you. 'Deed I am."

"It's not myself I'm thinking of," said Lovibond. "It's that angel of a woman. She's not only married, but married to a brute."

"That's wuss still," said Davy.

"And not only married to a brute," said Lovibond, "but parted from him."

Davy gave a yet longer whistle. "O-ho, O-ho! A quarrel is it?" he cried. "Husband and wife, eh? Aw, take care, sir, take care. Women is 'cute. Extraordinary wayses they've at them of touching a man up under the watch-pocket of the weskit till you'd never think nothing but they're angels fresh down from heaven, and you could work at the docks to keep them; but maybe cunning as ould Harry all the time, and playing the divil with some poor man. It's me for knowing them. Husband and wife? That'll do, that'll do. Lave them alone, mate, lave them alone."

"Ah, the sweet creature has had a terrible time of it!" said Lovibond, lying back and looking up at the ceiling.

"I lave it with you," said Davy, charging his pipe afresh as a signal of his neutrality.

"He must have led her a fearful life," continued Lovibond.

Davy lit up, and puffed vigorously.

"It would appear," said Lovibond, "that though she is so like a lady, she is entirely dependent upon her husband."

"Well, well," said Davy, between puff and puff.

"He didn't forget that either, for he seems to have taunted her with her poverty."

A growl, like an oath half smothered by smoke, came from Davy.

"Indeed, that was the cause of quarrel."

"She did well to lave him," said Davy, watching the coils of his smoke going upward.

"Nay, it was he who left her."

"The villain!" said Davy. But after Davy had delivered himself so there was nothing to be heard for the next ten seconds but the sucking of lips over the pipe.

"And now," said Lovibond, "she can not stir out of doors but she finds herself the gossip of the island, and the gaze of every passer-by."

"Poor thing, poor thing!" said Davy.

"He must be a low, vulgar fellow," said Lovibond; "and yet—would you believe it?—she wouldn't hear a word against him."

"The sweet woman!" said Davy.

"It's my firm belief that she loves the fellow still," said Lovibond.

"I wouldn't trust," said Davy. "That's the ways of women, sir; I've seen it myself. Aw, women is quare, sir, wonderful quare."

"And yet," said Lovibond, "while she is sitting pining to death indoors he is enjoying himself night and day with his coarse companions."

Davy put up his pipe on the mantelpiece. "Now the man that does the like of that is a scoundrel," he said, warmly.

"I agree with you, Capt'n," said Lovibond.

"He's a brute!" said Davy, more loudly.

"Of course we've only heard one side of the story," said Lovibond.

"No matter; he's a brute and a scoundrel," said Davy. "Dont you hould with me there, mate?"

"I do," said Lovibond. "But still—who knows? She may—I say she may—be one of those women who want their own way."

"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 God A'mighty meant it all for the men?"

"Perhaps," said Lovibond, "she turned up her nose at his coarse 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 hitting 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-massy! 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. "Butts 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 glasses.

"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?"

"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—God 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 nobody 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; 'God 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 damned 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.

"Helloa!" 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 God 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 lustily—

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."

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 glasses, 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 glass and a toast, anyway, and part friends for all." "Aisy there! silence! Hush? Chink 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 glasses 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 glass 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 glass 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 God, 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 hell, 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, "God 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 scraped 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?"

"Waiters and servants, and hotels and things," said Nelly.

"Really!" said Jenny.

"It's wonderful how much happier you are when you can be your own servant, and boil your own kettle and mash your own tea, and lay your own cloth, and clear away and wash up afterward."

"Do you say so, Nelly?"

"Deed I do, though, Jenny. There's some life in the like of that—seeing to yourself and such like. And what are the pleasures of towns and streets and hotels and servants, and such botherations to those of a sweet old farm that is all your own somewhere? And, to think—to think, Jenny, getting up in the summer morning before the sun itself, when the light is that cool dead gray, and the last stars are dying off, and the first birds are calling to their mates that are still asleep, and then going round to the cowhouse in the clear, crisp, ringing air, and startling the rabbits and the hares that are hopping about in the haggard—O! it's delightful!"

"Really now!" said Jenny.

"And then the men coming down stairs, half awake and yawning, in their shirt sleeves and their stocking feet, and pushing on their boots and clattering out to the stable, and shouting to the horses that are stamping in their stalls; and then you yoursef busy as Thop's wife laying the cups and saucers, and sending the boys to the well for water, and filling the big crock to the brim, and hanging the kettle on the hook, and setting somebody to blow the fire while the gorse flames and crackles, and bustling here and bustling there, and stirring yoursef terr'ble, and getting breakfast over, and starting everybody away to his work in the fields—aw, there's nothing like it in the world."

"And do you think that, Nelly?" said Jenny.

"Why, yes; why shouldn't I?" said Nelly.

"Well, well," said Jenny. "'There's nowt so queer as folk,' as they say in Manchester.

"What do you mean, Jenny Crow?"

"I fancy I see you," said Jenny, "bowling off to Balla—what d'ye call it?—and doing all that by yourself."

"Oh!" said Nelly.

Mrs. Quiggin had begun to speak in a voice that was something between a shrill laugh and a cry, and she ended with a smothered gurgle, such as comes from the throat of a pea-hen. After breakfast Peggy Quine came chirping around with a hundred inquiries about the packing of luggage which was then proceeding, with a view to the carriage that had been ordered for eleven o'clock. Mrs. Quiggin betrayed only the most languid interest in these hurrying operations, and settled herself with her needlework in a chair near to Jenny Crow. Jenny watched her, and thought, "Now, wouldn't she jump at a good excuse for not going at all?"

Presently Mrs. Quiggin said, in a tone of well-acted unconcern, "And so you say that the poor man you tell me of is still loving his wife in spite of all she has done to him?"

"Yes, Nelly. All men are like that—more fools they," said Jenny.

Nelly's face brightened over the needles in her hand, and her parted lips seemed to whisper, "Bless them!" But in a note of delicious insincerity she only said aloud, "Not all, Jenny; surely not all."

"Yes, all," said Jenny, with emphasis. "Do you think I don't know the men better than you do?"

Nelly dropped her needles and raised her face. "Why, Jenny," she said, "however can that be?—you've never even been married."

"That's why, my dear," said Jenny.

Nelly laughed; then returning to the attack, she said, with a poor pretense at a yawn, "So you think a man may love a woman even after—after she has turned him out of doors, as you say?"

"Yes, but that isn't to say that he'll ever come back to her," said Jenny.

The needles dropped to the lap again. "No? Why shouldn't he then?"

"Why? Because men are never good at the bended knee business," said Jenny. "A man on his knees is ridiculous. It must be his legs that look so silly. If I had done anything to a man, and he went down on his knees to me, I would——"

"What, Jenny?"

Jenny lifted her skirt an inch or two, and showed a dainty foot swinging to and fro. "Kick him," she answered.

Nelly laughed again, and said, "And if you were a man, and a woman did so, what then?"

"Why lift her up and kiss her, and forgive her, of course," said Jenny.

Nelly tingled with delight, and burned to ask Jenny if she should not at least let Captain Davy know that she was leaving Douglas and going home. But being a true woman, she asked something else instead.

"So you think, Jenny," she said, "that your poor friend will never go back to his wife?"

"I'm sure he won't," said Jenny. "Didn't I tell you?" she added, straightening up.

"What?" said Nelly, with a quiver of alarm.

"That he's going back to sea," said Jenny.

"To sea!" cried Nelly, dropping her needles entirely. "Back to sea?" she said, in a shrill voice. "And without even saying 'good-by!'"

"Good-by to whom, my dear?" said Jenny. "To me?"

"To his wife, of course," said Nelly, huskily.

"Well, we don't know that, do we?" said Jenny. "And, besides, why should he?"

"If he doesn't he's a cruel, heartless, unfeeling, unforgiving monster," said Nelly.

And then Jenny burned in her turn to ask if Nelly herself had not intended to do as much by Captain Davy, but, being a true woman as well as her adversary, she found a crooked way to the plain question. "Is it at eleven," she said, "that the carriage is to come for you?"

Mrs. Quiggin had recovered herself in a moment, and then there was a delicate bout of thrust and parry. "I'm so sorry for your sake, Jenny," she said, in the old tone of delicious insincerity, "that the poor fellow is married."

"Gracious me, for my sake? Why?" said Jenny.

"I thought you were half in love with him, you know," said Nelly.

"Half?" cried Jenny. "I'm over head and ears in love with him."

"That's a pity," said Nelly; "for, of course, you'll give him up now that you know he has a wife."

"What of that? If he has a wife I have no husband—so it's as broad as it's long," said Jenny.

"Jenny!" cried Nelly.

"And, oh!" said Jenny, "there is one thing I didn't tell you. But you'll keep it secret? Promise me you'll keep it secret. I'm to meet him again by appointment this very night."

"But, Jenny!"

"Yes, in the garden of this house—by the waterfall at eight o'clock. I'll slip out after dinner in my cloak with the hood to it."

"Jenny Crow!"

"It's our last chance, it seems. The poor fellow sails at midnight, or tomorrow morning, or to-morrow night, or the next night, or sometime. So you see he's not going away without saying good-by to somebody. I couldn't help telling you, Nelly. It's nice to share a secret with a friend one can trust, and if he is another woman's husband—"

Nell had risen to her feet with her face aflame.

"But you mustn't do it," she cried. "It's shocking, it's horrible—common morality is against it."

Jenny looked wondrous grave. "That's it, you see," she said. "Common morality always is against everything that's nice and agreeable."

"I'm ashamed of you, Jenny Crow. I am; indeed, I am. I could never have believed it of you; indeed, I couldn't. And the man you speak of is no better than you are, and all his talk of loving the wife is hypocrisy and deceit; and the poor woman herself should know of it, and come down on you both and shame you—indeed, she should," cried Nelly, and she flounced out of the room in a fury.

Jenny watched her go and thought to herself. "She'll keep that appointment for me at eight o'clock to-night by the waterfall." Presently she heard Mrs. Quiggin with a servant of the hotel countermanding the order for the carriage at eleven, and engaging it instead for the extraordinary hour of nine at night. "She intends to keep it," thought Jenny.

"And now," she said, settling herself at the writing-table; "now for the other simpleton."

"Tell D. Q.," she wrote, addressing Lovibond; "that E. Q. goes home by carriage at nine o'clock to-night, and that you have appointed to meet her for a last farewell at eight by the waterfall in the gardens of Castle Mona. Then meet me on the pier at seven-thirty."



CHAPTER VIII.

Lovibond received this message while sitting at breakfast, and he caught the idea of it in an instant. Since the supper of the night before he had been pestered by many misgivings, and troubled by some remorse. Capt'n Davy was bent on going away. Overwhelmed by a sense of what he took to be his dastardly conduct he was in that worst position of the man who can forgive neither himself nor the person he has injured. So much had Lovibond done for him by the fine scheme that had brought matters to such a pass. But having gone so far, Lovibond had found himself at a stand. His next step he could not see. Capt'n Davy must not be allowed to leave the island, but how to keep him from going away was a bewildering difficulty. To tell him the truth was impossible, and to concoct a further fable was beyond Lovibond's invention. And so it was that when Lovi-bond received the letter from Jenny Crow, he rose to the cue it offered like a drowning man to a life-buoy.

"Jealousy—the very thing!" he thought; and not until he was already in the thick of his enterprise as wizard of that passion did he realize that if it was an effectual instrument to his end it was also a cruel one.

He found Capt'n Davy in the midst of the final preparations for their journey. These consisted of the packing of clothes into trunks, bags, sacks, and hampers. On the floor of the sitting-room lay a various assortment of coats, waistcoats, trowsers, great-coats, billycock hats and sou'-westers, together with countless shirts and collars, scarfs and handkerchiefs. At Davy's order Willie Quarrie had gathered up the garments in armsful out of drawers and wardrobes, and heaped them at his feet for inspection. This process they were undergoing with a view to the selection of such as were suitable to the climate in which it was intended that they should be worn. The hour was 8.30 a.m., the "Snaefell" was announced to sail for Liverpool at nine.

But, as Lovibond entered the room, a scene of yet more primitive interest was actively proceeding. A waiter of the hotel was strutting across the floor and sputtering out protests against this unseemly use of the sitting-room. The person was the same who the night before had haunted Davy's elbow with his obsequious "Yes, sirs," "No, sirs," and "Beg pardon, sirs"; but the morning had brought him knowledge of Davy's penury, and with that wisdom had come impudence if not dignity.

"The ideal!" he cried. "Turnin' a 'otel drawrin'-room into a charwoman's laundry!"

"Make it a rag shop at once," said Davy, as he went on quietly with his work.

"A rag shop it is, and I'll 'ave no more of it," said the waiter loftily. "Who ever 'eard of such a thing?"

"No?" said Davy. "Well, well, now! Who'd have thought it? You never did? A rael Liverpool gentleman, eh? A reg'lar aristocrack out of Sawney Pope-street!"

"No, sir, but it's easy to see where you came from," said the waiter, with withering scorn.

"You say true, boy," said Davy, "but it's aisier still to see where you are going to. Ever seen the black man on the beach at all? No? Him with the performing birds? You know—jacks and ravens and owls and such like. Well, he's been wanting something like you this long time. Wouldn't trust, but he'd give twopence-halfpenny for you—and drinks all round. You'd make his fortune as a cockatoo."

The waiter in fury called downstairs for assistance, and when two of his fellow servants had arrived in the room they made some poor show of working their will by force. Then Davy paused from his work, scratched the under part of his chin with the nail of his forefinger, and said, "Friends, some of us four is interrupting the play, and they're wanting us at the pay box to give us back the fare. I'm thinking it's you's fellows—what do you say? They're longing for you downstairs—won't you go? No? you'll not though? Then where d'ye keep the slack of your trowsis?"

Saying this Davy rose to his feet, hitched his left hand into the collar of the first waiter, and his right into the depths under his coat tails, and ran him out of the room. Returning for the other two waiters he did much the same by each of them, and then came back with a look of awe, and said—

"My gough! they must have been Manxmen after all—they rowled downstairs as if they'd been all legs together."

Lovibond looked grave. "That's going too far, Capt'n," he said. "For your own sake it's risking too much."

"Risking too much?" said Davy. "There's only three of them."

The first bell rang on the steamer; it was quarter to nine o'clock. Willie Quarrie looked out at the window. The "Snaefell" was lying by the red pier in the harbor, getting up steam, and sending clouds of smoke over the old "Imperial." Cars were rattling up the quay, passengers were making for the gangways, and already the decks, fore and aft, were thronged with people.

"Come along, my lad; look slippy," cried Davy, "only two bells more, and three hampers still to pack. Tumble them in—here goes."

"Capt'n!" said Willie, still looking out.

"What?" said Davy.

"Don't cross by the ferry, Capt'n."

"Why not?"

"They're all waiting for you," said Willie, "every dirt of them all is waiting by the steps—there's Tommy Tubman, and Billy Balla-Slieau, and that wastrel of a churchwarden—yes, and there's ould Kennish—they're all there. Deng my buttons, all of them. They're thinking to crow over us, Capt'n. Don't cross by the ferry. Let me run for a car. Then we'll slip up by the bridge yonder, and down the quay like a mill race, and up to the gangway like smook, and abooard in a jiffy. That's it—yes, I'll be off immadient, and we'll bate the blackguards anyway."

Willie was seizing his cap to carry out his intention of going for a cab in order that his master might be spared the humiliation of passing through the line of false friends who had gathered at the ferry steps to see the last of him; but Davy shouted "Stop," and pointed to the hampers still unpacked.

"I'm broke," said he, "and what matter who knows it? Reminds me, sir," said Davy to Lovibond, "of Parson Cowan. The ould man lived up Andreas way, and after sarvice he'd be saying, 'Boys let's put a sight on the Methodees,' and they'd be taking a slieu round to the chapel door. Then as the people came out he'd be offering his snuff-boxes all about. 'William, how do? have a pinch?' 'Ah, Robbie, fine evening; take a sneeze?' 'Is that you, Tommy? I haven't another box in my clothes, but if you'll put your finger and thumb into my waistcoat pocket here, you'll find some dust.' Aw, yes, a reglar up-and-a-down-er, Parson Cowan, as aisy, as aisy, and no pride at all. But he had his wakeness same as a common man, and it was the Plow Inn at Ramsey. One day he was going out of it middling full—not fit to walk the crank anyway—when who should be coming up the street from the court-house but the Bishop! It was Bishop—Bishop—chut, his name's gone at me—but no matter, glum as a gur-goyle anyway, and straight as a lamppost—a reglar steeple-up-your-back sort of a chap. Ould Mrs. Beatty saw him, and she lays a hould of Parson Cowan and starts awkisking him back into the house, and through into the parlor where the chiney cups is. 'You mustn't go out yet,' the ould woman was whispering. 'It's the Bishop. And him that sevare—it's shocking! He'll surspend you! And think what they'll be saying! A parson, too! Hush, sir hush! Don't spake! You'll be waiting till it's dark, and then going home with John in the bottom of the cart, and nice clane straw to lie on, and nobody knowing nothing.' But the ould man wouldn't listen. He drew hisself up on the ould woman tremenjous, and studdied hisself agen the door, and 'No,' says he; 'I'm drunk,' says he, 'God knows it,' says he, 'and for what man knows I don't care a damn—I'll walk!' Then away he went down the street past the Bishop, with his hat a-one side, and his hair all through-others, tacking a bit with romps in the fetlock joints, but driving on like mad."—

The second bell rang on the steamer. It was seven minutes to nine, and the last of the luggage was packed. On the floor there still lay a pile of clothing, which was to be left as oil for the wounded joints of the gentlemen who had been flung down stairs. Willie Quarrie bustled about to get the trunks and hampers to the ferry steps. Davy, who had been in his shirt-sleeves, drew on his coat, and Lovibond, who had been waiting twenty torturing minutes for some opportunity to begin, plunged into the business of his visit at last.

"So you're determined to go, Capt'n?" he said.

"I am," said Davy.

"No message for Mrs. Quiggin? Dare say I could find her at Castle Mona."

"No! Wait—yes—tell her—say I'm—if ever I—Chut! what's the odds? No, no message."

"Not even good-by, Capt'n?"

"She sent none to me—no."

"Not a word?"

"Not a word."

Davy was pawing up the carpet with the toe of his boot, and filling his pipe from his pouch.

"Going back to Callao, Capt'n?" said Lovibond.

"God knows, mate," said Davy. "I'm like the seeding grass, blown here and there, and the Lord knows where; but maybe I'll find land at last."

"Capt'n, about the money?—dy'e owe me any grudge about that?" said Lovibond.

"Lord-a-massy! Grudge, is it?" said Davy. "Aw, no, man, no. The money was my mischief. It's gone, and good luck to it."

"But if I could show you a way to get it all back again, Capt'n——"

"Chut! I wouldn't have it, and I wouldn't stay. But, matey, if you could show me how to get back... the money isn't the loss I'm... if I was as poor as ould Chalse-a-killey, and had to work my flesh.... I'd stay if I could get back...."

The whistle sounded from the funnel of the "Snaefell," and the loud throbs of escaping steam echoed from the Head. Willie Quarrie ran in to say that the luggage was down at the ferry steps, and the ferryboat was coming over the harbor.

"Capt'n," said Lovibond, "she must have injured you badly——"

"Injured me?" said Davy. "Wish she had! I wouldn't go off to the world's end if that was all betwixt us."

"If she hasn't, Capt'n," said Lovi-bond, "you're putting her in the way of it."

"What?"

Davy was about to light his pipe, but he flung away the match.

"Have you never thought of it?" said Lovibond, "That when a husband deserts his wife like this he throws her in the way of—"

"Not Nelly, no," said Davy, promptly. "I'll lave that with her, anyway. Any other woman perhaps, but Nelly—never! She's as pure as new milk, and no beast milk neither. Nelly going wrong, eh? Well, well! I'd like to see the man that would... I may have treated her bad... but I'd like to see the man, I say..."

Then there was another shrieking whistle from the steamer. Willie Quarrie called up at the window and gesticulated wildly from the lawn outside.

"Coming, boy, coming," Davy shouted back, and looking at his watch, he said, "Four minutes and a half—time enough yet."

Then they left the hotel and moved toward the ferry steps. As they walked Davy begun to laugh. "Well, well!" he said, and he laughed again. "Aw, to think, to think!" he said, and he laughed once more. But with every fresh outbreak of his laughter the note of his voice lost freshness.

Lovibond saw his opportunity, and yet could not lay hold of it, so cruel at that moment seemed the only weapon that would be effectual. But Davy himself thrust in between him and his timid spirit. With another hollow laugh, as if half ashamed of keeping up the deception to the last, yet convinced that he alone could see through it, he said, "No news of the girl in the church, mate, eh? Gone home, I suppose?"

"Not yet," said Lovibond.

"No?" said Davy.

"The fact is—but you'll be secret?"

"Coorse."

"It isn't a thing I'd tell everybody—"

"What?"

"You see, if her husband has treated her like a brute, she's his wife, after all."

Davy drew up on the path. "What is it?" he said.

"I'm to meet her to-night, alone," said Lovibond.

"No!"

"Yes; in the grounds of Castle Mona, by the waterfall, after dark—at eight o'clock, in fact.

"Castle Mona—by the waterfall—eight o'clock—that's a—now, that must be a—"

Davy had lifted his pipe hand to give emphasis to the protest on his lips, when he stopped and laughed, and said, "Amazing thick, eh?"

"Why not," said Lovibond? "Who wouldn't be with a sweet woman like that? If the fool that's left her doesn't know her worth, so much the better for somebody else."

"Then you're for making it up there?" said Davy, clearing his throat.

"It'll not be my fault if I don't," said Lovibond. "I'm not one of the wise asses that talk big about God's law and man's law; and if I were, man's law has tied this sweet little woman to a brute, and God's law draws her to me—that's all."

"And she's willing, eh?" said Davy.

"Give her time, Capt'n," said Lovibond.

"But didn't you say she was loving this—this brute of a husband?" said Davy.

"Time, Capt'n, time," said Lovibond. "That will mend with time."

"And, manewhile, she's tellin' you all her secrets."

"I leave you to judge, Capt'n."

"After dark, you say—that's middling tidy to begin with, eh, mate—eh?"

Lovibond laughed: Capt'n Davy laughed. They laughed together.

Willie Quarrie, standing by the boat at the bottom of the steps, with the luggage piled up at the bow, shouted that there was not a minute to spare. The throbbing of the steam in the funnel had ceased, one of the two gangways had been run ashore, and the captain was on the bridge.

"Now, then, Capt'n," cried Willie.

But Davy did not hear. He was watching Lovibond's face with eyes of suspicion. Was the man fooling him? Did he know the secret?

"Good-by Capt'n," said Lovibond, taking Davy by the hand.

"Good-by, mate," said Davy, absently.

"Good luck to you and a second fortune," said Lovibond.

"Damn the fortune," said Davy, under his breath.

Then there was another whistle from the "Snaefell."

"Capt'n Davy! Capt'n Davy!" cried Willie Quarrie.

"Coming," answered Davy. But still he stood at the top of the ferry steps, holding Lovibond's hand, and looking into his face.

Then there came a loud voice from the bridge of the steamer—"Steam up!"

"Capt'n! Capt'n!" cried Willie from the bottom of the steps.

Davy dropped Lovibond's hand and turned to look across the harbor. "Too late," he said quietly.

"Not if you'll come quick, Capt'n. See, the last gangway is up yet," cried Willie.

"Too late," repeated Davy, more loudly.

"Just time to do it by the skin of your teeth, Capt'n," shouted the ferryman.

"Too late, I tell you," thundered Davy, sternly.

Meanwhile there was a great commotion on the other side of the harbor.

"Out of the way there!" "All ashore!" "Ready?" "Ready!" "Steam up—slow!" The last bell rang. The first stroke of nine was struck by the clock of the tower; one echoing blast came from the steam whistle, and the "Snaefell" began to move slowly from the quay. Then there were shouts from the deck and adieus from the shore. "Good-by!" "Good-by!" "Farewell, little Mona!" "Good-by, dear Elian Vannin!" Handkerchiefs waving on the steamer; handkerchiefs waving on the quay; seagulls wheeling over the stern; white churning water in the wake; flag down; and harbor empty.

"She's gone!"

Lovibond smiled behind a handkerchief, with which he pretended to wipe his big mustache. Willie Quarrie looked helplessly up the ferry steps. Davy gnashed his teeth at the top of them.

After a moment Davy said, "No matter; we can take the Irish packet at nine, and catch the Pacific boat at Belfast. Willie," he shouted, "put the luggage in the shed for the Belfast steamer. We'll sail to-night instead."

Then the three parted company, each with his own reflections.

"The Capt'n done that a-purpose," thought Willie.

"He'll keep my engagement for me at eight o'clock," thought Lovibond.

"I wouldn't have believed it of her if the Dempster himself had swore to it," thought Davy.



CHAPTER IX.

At half-past seven that night the iron pier was a varied and animated scene. A band was playing a waltz on the circle at the end; young people were dancing, other young people of both sexes were promenading, lines of yet younger people, chiefly girls in short frocks, but with the wagging heads and sparkling eyes of one type of budding maidenhood, were skipping along arm-in-arm, singing snatches of the words set to the waltz, and beating a half-dancing time with an alternate scrape and stroke of the soles of their shoes upon the wood floor on which they walked. The odor of the brine came up from below and mingled with the whiffs of Mona Bouquet that swept after the young girls as they passed, and with the puffs of tobacco smoke that enveloped the young men as they dawdled on. Sometimes the revolving light of the lightship in the channel could be seen above the flash and flare of the pier lamps, and sometimes the dark water under foot gleamed and glinted between the open timbers of the pier pavement, and sometimes the deep rumble of the sea could be heard over the clash and clang of the pier band.

Lovibond was there, walking to and fro, feeling himself for the first time to be an old fellow among so many younger folks, watching the clock, counting the minutes, and scanning every female form that came alone with the crink-crank-crick through the round stile of the pay-gate.

Not until five minutes to eight did the right one appear, but she made up for the tardiness of her coming by the animation of her spirits.

"I couldn't get away sooner," whispered Jenny. "She watched me like a cat. She'll be out in the grounds by this time. It's delicious! But is he coming!"

"Trust him," said Lovibond.

"O, dear, what a meeting it will be!" said Jenny.

"I'd love to be there," said Lovibond.

"Umph! Would you? Two's company, three's none—you're just as well where you are," said Jenny.

"Better," said Lovibond.

The clock struck eight in the tower.

"Eight o'clock," said Lovibond, "They'll be flying at each other's eyes by this time."

"Eight o'clock, twenty seconds!" said Jenny. "And they'll be lying in each other's arms by now."

"Did she suspect?" said Lovibond.

"Of course she did!" said Jenny. "Did he?"

"Certainly!" said Lovibond.

"O dear, O dear!" said Jenny. "It's wonderful how far you can fool people when it's to their interest to be fooled."

"Wonderful!" said Lovibond.

They had walked to the end of the pier; the band was playing—

"Ben-my-chree! Sweet Ben-my-chree, I love but thee, sweet Mona."

"So our little drama is over, eh?" said. Jenny.

"Yes; it's over," said Lovibond.

Jenny sighed; Lovibond sighed; they looked at each other and sighed together.

"And these good people have no further use for us," said Jenny.

"None," said Lovibond.

"Then I suppose we've no further use for each other?" moaned Jenny.

"Eh?" said Lovibond.

"Tut!" said Jenny, and she swung aside.

"Mona, sweet Mona, I love but thee, sweet Mona.'

"There's only one thing I regret," said Lovibond, inclining his head toward Jenny's averted face.

"And pray, what's that?" said Jenny, without turning about.

"Didn't I tell you that Capt'n Davy had taken two berths in the Pacific steamer to the west coast?" said Lovibond.

"Well?" said Jenny.

"That's ninety pounds wasted," said Lovibond.

"What a pity!" sighed Jenny.

"Isn't it?" said Lovibond—his left hand was fumbling for her right.

"If she were any other woman, she might be glad to go still," said Jenny.

"And if he were any other man he would be proud to take her," said Lovibond.

"Some woman without kith or kin to miss her—" began Jenny.

"Yes, or some man without anybody in the world—" began Lovibond.

"Now, if it had been my case—" said Jenny, wearily.

"Or mine," said Lovibond, sadly.

Each drew a long breath.

"Do you know, if I disappeared tonight, there's not a soul—" said Jenny, sorrowfully.

"That's just my case, too," interrupted Lovibond.

"Ah!" they said together.

They looked into each other's eyes with a mournful expression, and sighed again. Also their hands touched as their arms hung by their sides.

"Ninety pounds! Did you say ninety? Two berths?" said Jenny. "What a shocking waste! Couldn't somebody else use them?"

"Just what I was thinking," said Lovibond; and he linked the lady's arm through his own.

"Hadn't you better get the tickets from Capt'n Davy, and—and give them to somebody before it is too late?" said Jenny.

"I've got them already—his boy Quarrie was keeping them," said Lovibond.

"How thoughtful of you, Jona—I mean, Mr. Lovi—"

"Je—Jen—"

"Ben-my-chree! Sweet Ben-my-chree, I love but thee—"

"O, Jonathan!" whispered Jenny.

"O, Jenny!" gasped Jonathan.

They were on the dark side of the round house; the band was playing behind them, the sea was rumbling in front; there was a shuffle of feet, a sudden rustle of a dress; the lady glanced to the right, the gentleman looked to the left, and then for a fraction of an instant they were locked in each other's arms.

"Will you go back with me, Jenny?"

"Well," whispered Jenny. "Just to keep the tickets from wasting—"

"Just that," whispered Lovibond.

Three quarters of an hour later they were sailing out of Douglas harbor on board the Irish packet that was to overtake the Pacific steamship next morning at Belfast. The lights of Castle Mona lay low on the water's edge, and from the iron pier as they passed came the faint sound of the music of the band:

"Mona, sweet Mona, Fairest isle beneath the sky, Mona, sweet Mona, We bid thee now good-by."



CHAPTER X.

The life that Davy had led that day-was infernal At the first shaft of Lovi-bond's insinuation against Mrs. Quiggin's fidelity he had turned sick at heart. "When he said it," Davy had thought, "the blood went from me like the tide out of the Ragged Mouth, where the ships lie wrecked and rotten."

He had baffled with his bemuddled brain, to recall the conversation he had held with his wife since his return home to marry her, and every innocent word she had uttered in jest had seemed guilty and foul. "You've been nothing but a fool, Davy," he told himself. "You've been tooken in."

Then he had reproached himself for his hasty judgment. "Hould hard, boy, hould hard; aisy for all, though, aisy, aisy!" He had remembered how modest his wife had been in the old days—how simple and how natural. "She was as pure as the mountain turf," he had thought, "and quiet extraordinary." Yet there was the ugly fact that she had appointed to meet a strange man in the gardens of Castle Mona, that night, alone. "Some charm is put on her—some charm or the like," he had thought again.

That had been the utmost and best he could make of it, and he had suffered the torments of the damned. During the earlier part of the day he had rambled through the town, drinking freely, and his face had been a piteous sight to see. Toward nightfall he had drifted past Castle Mona toward Onchan Head, and stretched himself on the beach before Derby Castle. There he had reviewed the case afresh, and asked himself what he ought to do.

"It's not for me to go sneaking after her," he had thought. "She's true, I'll swear to it. The man's lying... Very well, then, Davy, boy, don't you take rest till you're proving it."

The autumn day had begun to close in, and the first stars to come out. "Other women are like yonder," he had thought; "just common stars in the sky, where there's millions and millions of them. But Nelly is like the moon—the moon, bless her—"

At that thought Davy had leaped to his feet, in disgust of his own simplicity. "I'm a fool," he had muttered, "a reg'lar ould bleating billygoat; talking pieces of poethry to myself, like a stupid, gawky Tommy Big Eyes."

He had looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eight o'clock. Unconsciously he had begun to walk toward Castle Mona. "I'm not for misdoubting my wife, not me; but then a man may be over certain. I'll find out for myself; and if it's true, if she's there, if she meets him.... Well, well, be aisy for all, Davy; be aisy, boy, be aisy! If the worst comes to the worst, and you've got to cut your stick, you'll be doing it without a heart-ache anyway. She'll not be worth it, and you'll be selling yourself to the Divil with a clane conscience. So it's all serene either way, Davy, my man, and here goes for it."

Meanwhile Mrs. Quiggin had been going through similar torments. "I don't blame him," she had thought. "It's that mischief-making huzzy. Why did I ask her? I wonder what in the world I ever saw in her. If I were not going away myself she should pack out of the house in the morning. The sly thing! How clever she thinks herself, too! But she'll be surprised when I come down on her. I'll watch her; she sha'n't escape me. And as for him—well, we'll see, Mr. David, we'll see!"

As the clock in the hall in Castle Mona was striking eight these good souls in these wise humors were making their several ways to the waterfall under the cliff, in the darkest part of the hotel grounds.

Davy got there first, going in by the gate at the Onchan end. It struck him with astonishment that Lovibond was not there already. "The man bragged of coming, but I don't see him," he thought. He felt half inclined to be wroth with Lovibond for daring to run the risk of being late. "I know someone who would have been early enough if he had been coming to meet with somebody," he thought.

Presently he saw a female form approaching from the thick darkness at the Douglas end of the house. It was a tall figure in a long cloak, with the hood drawn over the head. Through the opening of the cloak in front a light dress beneath gleamed and glinted in the brightening starlight. "It's herself," Davy muttered, under his breath. "She's like the silvery fir tree with her little dark head agen the sky. Trust me for knowing her! I'd be doing that if I was blind. Yes, would I though, if I was only the grass under her feet, and she walked on me. She's coming! My God, then, it's true! It's true, Davy! Hould hard, boy! She's a woman for all! She's here! She sees me! She thinks I'm the man?"

In the strange mood of the moment he was half sorry to take her by surprise.

Davy was right that Mrs. Quiggin saw him. While still in the shadow of the house she recognized his dark figure among the trees. "But he's alone," she thought. "Then the huzzy must have gone back to her room when I thought she slipped out at the porch. He's waiting for her. Should I wait, too? No! That he is there is enough. He sees me. He is coming. He thinks I am she. Umph! Now to astonish him!"

Thus thinking, and both trembling with rage and indignation, and both quivering with love and fear, the two came face to face.

But neither betrayed the least surprise.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, if I'm not the man———" faltered Davy.

"It's a pity, sir, if I'm not the woman———" stammered Nelly.

"Hope I don't interrupt any terterta-tie," continued Davy.

"I trust you won't allow me——" began Nelly.

And then, having launched these shafts of impotent irony in vain, they came to a stand with an uneasy feeling that something unlooked for was amiss.

"What d'ye mane, ma'am?" said Davy.

"What do you mean, sir?" said Nelly.

"I mane, that you're here to meet with a man," said Davy.

"I!" cried Nelly. "I? Did you say that I was here to meet——"

"Don't go to deny it, ma'am," said Davy.

"I do deny it," said Nelly. "And what's more, sir, I know why you are here. You are here to meet with a woman."

"Me! To meet with a woman! Me?" cried Davy.

"Oh, you needn't deny it, sir," said Nelly. "Your presence here is proof enough against you."

"And your presence here is proof enough agen you," said Davy.

"You had to meet her at eight," said Nelly.

"That's a reg'lar bluff, ma'am," said Davy, "for it was at eight you had to meet with him?

"How dare you say so?" cried Nelly.

"I had it from the man himself," said Davy.

"It's false, sir, for there is no man; but I had it from the woman," said Nelly.

"And did you believe her?" said Davy.

"Did you believe him?" said Nelly. "Were you simple enough to trust a man who told you that he was going to meet your own wife?"

"He wasn't for knowing it was my own wife," said Davy. "But were you simple enough to trust the woman who was telling you she was going to meet your own husband?"

"She didn't know it was my own husband," said Nelly. "But that wasn't the only thing she told me."

"And it wasn't the only thing he tould me." said Davy. "He tould me all your secrets—that your husband had deserted you because he was a brute and a blackguard."

"I have never said so," cried Nelly. "Who dares to say I have? I have never opened my lips to any living man against you. But you are measuring me by your own yard, sir; for you led her to believe that I was a cat and a shrew and a nagger, and a thankless wretch who ought to be put down by the law just as it puts down biting dogs."

"Now, begging you pardon, ma'am," said Davy; "but that's a damned lie, whoever made it."

After this burst there was a pause and a hush, and then Nelly said, "It's easy to say that when she isn't here to contradict you; but wait, sir, only wait."

"And it's aisy for you to say yonder," said Davy, "when he isn't come to deny it—but take your time, ma'am, take your time."

"Who is it?" said Nelly.

"No matter," said Davy.

"Who is the man," demanded Nelly.

"My friend Lovibond," answered Davy.

"Lovibond!" cried Nelly.

"The same," groaned Davy.

"Mr. Lovibond!" cried Nelly again.

"Aw—keep it up, ma'am; keep it up!" said Davy. "And, manewhile, if you plaze, who is the woman?"

"My friend Jenny Crow," said Nelly.

Then there was another pause.

"And did she tell you that I had agreed to meet her?" said Davy.

"She did," said Nelly. "And did he tell you that I had appointed to meet him?"

"Yes, did he," said Davy. "At eight o'clock, did she say?"

"Yes, eight o'clock," said Nelly. "Did he say eight?"

"He did," said Davy.

The loud voices of a moment before had suddenly dropped to broken whispers. Davy made a prolonged whistle.

"Stop," said he; "haven't you been in the habit of meeting him?"

"I have never seen him but once," said Nelly. "But haven't you been in the habit of meeting her?"

"Never set eyes on the little skute but twice altogether," said Davy. "But didn't he see you first in St. Thomas's, and didn't you speak with him on the shore—"

"I've never been in St. Thomas's in my life!" said Nelly. "But didn't you meet her first on the Head above Port Soderick, and to go to Laxey, and come home with her in the coach?"

"Not I," said Davy.

"Then the stories she told me of the Manx sailor were all imagination, were they?" said Nelly.

"And the yarns he tould me of the girl in the church were all make-ups, eh?" said Davy.

"Dear me, what a pair of deceitful people!" said Nelly.

"My gough! what a couple of cuffers!" said Davy.

There was another pause, and then Davy began to laugh. First came a low gurgle like that of suppressed bubbles in a fountain, then a sharp, crackling breaker of sound, and then a long, deep roar of liberated mirth that seemed to shake and heave the whole man, and to convulse the very air around him.

Davy's laughter was contagious. As the truth began to dawn on her Mrs. Quiggin first chuckled, then tittered, then laughed outright; and at last her voice rose behind her husband's in clear trills of uncontrollable merriment.

Laughter was the good genie that drew their assundered hearts together. It broke down the barrier that divided them; it melted the frozen places where love might not pass. They could not resist it. Their anger fled before it like evil creatures of the night.

At the first sound of Davy's laughter something in Nelly's bosom seemed to whisper "He loves me still;" and at the first note of Nelly's, something clamored in Davy's breast, "She's mine, she's mine!" They turned toward each other in the darkness with a yearning cry.

"Nelly!" cried Davy, and he opened his arms to her.

"Davy!" cried Nelly, and she leaped to his embrace.

And so ended in laughter and kisses their little foolish comedy of love.

As soon as Davy had recovered his breath he said, with what gravity he could command, "Seems to me, Nelly Vauch, begging your pardon, darling, that we've been a couple of fools."

"Whoever could have believed it?" said Nelly.

"What does it mane at all, said Davy.

"It means," said Nelly, "that our good friends knew each other, and that he told her, and she told him, and that to bring us together again they played a trick on our jealousy."

"Then we were jealous?" said Davy.

"Why else are we here?" said Nelly.

"So you did come to see a man, after all?" said Davy.

"And you came to see a woman," said Nelly.

They had began to laugh again, and to walk to and fro about the lawn, arm-inarm and waist-to-waist, vowing that they would never part—no, never, never, never—and that nothing on earth should separate them, when they heard a step on the grass behind.

"Who's there?" said Davy.

And a voice from the darkness answered, "It's Willie Quarrie, Capt'n."

Davy caught his breath. "Lord-a-massy me!" said he. "I'd clane forgotten."

"So had I," said Nelly, with alarm.

"I was to have started back for Cajlao by the Belfast packet."

"And I was to have gone home by carriage."

"If you plaze, Capt'n," said Willie Quarrie, coming up. "I've been looking for you high and low—the pacquet's gone."

Davy drew a long breath of relief. "Good luck to her," said he, with a shout.

"And, if you plaze," said Willie, "Mr. Lovibond is gone with her."

"Good luck to him," said Davy.

"And Miss Crows has gone, too," said Willie.

"Good luck to her as well," said Davy; and Nelly whispered at his side, "There—what did I tell you?"

"And if you plaze, Capt'n," said Willie Quarrie, stammering nervously, "Mr. Lovibond, sir, he has borrowed our—our tickets and—and taken them away with him."

"He's welcome, boy, he's welcome," cried Davy, promptly. "We're going home instead. Home!" he said again—this time to Nelly, and in a tone of delight, as if the word rolled on his tongue like a lozenge—"that sounds better, doesn't it? Middling tidy, isn't it. Not so dusty, eh?"

"We'll never leave it again," said Nelly.

"Never!" said Davy. "Not for a Dempster's palace. Just a piece of a croft and a bit of a thatch cottage on the lea of ould Orrisdale, and we'll lie ashore and take the sun like the goats."

"That reminds me of something," whispered Nelly. "Listen! I've had a letter from father. It made me cry this morning, but it's all right now—Ballamooar is to let!"

"Ballamooar!" repeated Davy, but in another voice. "Aw, no, woman, no! And that reminds me of something."

"What is it," said Nelly.

"I should have been telling you first," said Davy, with downcast head, and in a tone of humiliation.

"Then what?" whispered Nelly.

"There's never no money at a dirty ould swiper that drinks and gambles everything. I'm on the ebby tide, Nelly, and my boat is on the rocks like a taypot. I'm broke, woman, I'm broke."

Nelly laughed lightly. "Do you say so?" she said with mock solemnity.

"It's only an ould shirt I'm bringing you to patch, Nelly," said Davy; "but here I am, what's left of me, to take me or lave me, and not much choice either ways."

"Then I take you, sir," said Nelly. "And as for the money," she whispered in a meaning voice, "I'll take Ballamooar myself and give you trust."

With a cry of joy Davy caught her to his breast and held her there as in a vice. "Then kiss me on it again and swear to it," he cried, "Again! Again! Don't be in a hurry woman! Aw, kissing is mortal hasty work! Take your time, girl! Once more! Shocking, is it? It's like the bags of the bees that we were stealing when we were boys! Another! Then half a one, and I'm done!"

Since they had spoken to Willie Quarrie they had given no further thought to him, when he stepped forward and said out of the darkness: "If you plaze, capt'n, Mr. Lovibond was telling me to give you this lether and this other thing," giving a letter and a book to Davy.

"Hould hard, though; what's doing now?" said Davy, turning them over in his hand.

"Let us go into the house and look," said Nelly.

But Davy had brought out his matchbox, and was striking a light. "Hould up my billycock, boy," said he; and in another moment Willie Quarrie was holding Davy's hat on end to shield from the breeze the burning match which Nelly held inside of it. Then Davy, bareheaded, proceeded to examine what Lovibond had sent him.

"A book tied up in a red tape, eh?" said Davy. "Must be the one he was writing in constant, morning and evening, telling hisself and God A'mighty what he was doing and wasn't doing, and where he was going to and when he was going to go. Aw, yes, he always kep' a diarrhea."

"A diary, Davy," said Nelly.

"Have it as you like, Vauch, and don't burn your little fingers," said Davy; and then he opened the letter, and with many interjections proceeded to read it.

"'Dear Captain. How can I ask you to forgive me for the trick I have played upon you? '(Forgive, is it?)' I have never had an appointment with the Manx lady; I have never had an intention of carrying her off from her husband; I have never seen her in church, and the story I have told you has been a lie from beginning to end.'"

Davy lifted his head and laughed.

"Another match, Willie," he cried. And while the boy was striking a fresh one Davy stamped out the burning end that Nelly dropped on to the grass, and said: "A lie! Well, it was an' it wasn't. A sort of a scriptural parable, eh?"

"Go on, Davy," said Nelly, impatiently, and Davy began again:

"'You know the object of that trick by this time' (Wouldn't trust), 'but you have been the victim of another' (Holy sailor!), 'to which I must also confess. In the gambling by which I won a large part of your money' (True for you!) 'I was not playing for my own hand. It was for one who wished to save you from yourself.' (Lord a massy!) 'That person was your wife' (Goodness me!), 'and all my earnings belong to her.' (Good thing, too!) 'They are deposited at Dumbell's in her name' (Right!), 'and—-'"

"There—that will do," said Nelly, nervously.

"'And I send you the bank-book, together with the dock bonds,... which you transferred for Mrs. Quiggin's benefit... to the name... of her friend...'"

Davy's lusty voice died off to a whisper.

"What is that?" said Nelly, eagerly.

"Nothin'," said Davy, very thick about the throat; and he rammed the letter into his breeches' pocket and grabbed at his hat. As he did so, a paper slipped to the ground. Nelly caught it up and held it on the breezy side of the flickering match.

It was a note from Jenny Crow: "'You dear old goosy; your jealous little heart found out who the Manx sailor was, but your wise little poll never once suspected that Mr. Lovibond could be anything to anybody, although I must have told you twenty times in the old days of the sweetheart from whom I parted. Good thing, too. Glad you were so stupid, my dear, for by helping you to make up your quarrel we have contrived to patch up our own. Good-by! What lovely stories I told you! And how you liked them! We have borrowed your husband's berths for the Pacific steamer, and are going to have an Irish marriage tomorrow morning at Belfast—'"

"So they're a Co. consarn already," said Davy.

"'Good-by! Give your Manx sailor one kiss for me—'"

"Do it!" cried Davy. "Do it! What you've got to do only once you ought to do it well."

Then they became conscious that a smaller and dumpier figure was standing in the darkness by the side of Willie. It was Peggy Quine.

"Are you longing, Peggy?" Willie was saying in a voice of melancholy sympathy.

And Peggy was answering in a doleful tone, "Aw, yes, though—longing mortal."

Becoming conscious that the eyes of her mistress were on her, Peggy stepped out and said, "If you plaze, ma'am, the carriage is waiting this half-hour."

"Then send it away again," said Davy.

"But the boxes is packed, sir——"

"Send it away," repeated Davy.

"No, no," said Nelly; "we must go home to-night."

"To-morrow morning," shouted Davy, with a stamp of his foot and a laugh.

"But I have paid the bill," said Nelly, "and everything is arranged, and we are all ready."

"To-morrow morning," thundered Davy, with another stamp of the foot and a peal of laughter.

And Davy had his way.

THE END.