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<h2> XVII. </h2>
<p>On Saturday afternoon he was at Peel. It was a beautiful day; the sun was
shining, and the bay was blue and flat and quiet. The tide was down, the
harbour was empty of water, but full of smacks with hanging sails and
hammocks of nets and lines of mollags (bladders) up to the mast heads. A
flight of seagulls were fishing in the mud, and swirling through the brown
wings of the boats and crying. A flag floated over the ruins of the
castle, the church-bells were ringing, and the harbour-masters were abroad
in best blue and gold buttons.</p>
<p>On the tilting-ground of the castle the fishermen had gathered, sixteen
hundred strong. There were trawlers among them, Manx, Irish, and English,
prowling through the crowd, and scooping up the odds and ends of gossip as
their boats on the bottom scraped up the little fish. Occasionally they
were observed by the herring-fishers, and then there were high words and
free fights. "Taking a creep round from Port le Murrey are you, Dan?"—"Thought
I'd put a sight on Peel to-day."—"Bad for your complexion, though;
might turn it red, I'm thinking."—"Strek me with blood will you? I'd
just like you to strek me, begough. I'd put a Union Jack on your face as
big as a griddle."</p>
<p>The Governor came, an elderly man, with a formidable air, an aquiline
nose, and cheeks pitted with small-pox. Philip introduced the fishermen
and told their grievance. Trawling destroyed immature fish, and so
contributed to the failure of the fisheries. They asked for power to stop
it in the bays of the island, and within three miles of the coast.</p>
<p>"Then draft me a bill with that object, Mr. Christian," said the Governor,
and the meeting ended with cheers for His Excellency, shouts for Philip,
and mutterings of contempt from the trawlers. "Didn't think there was a
man on the island could spake like it."—"But hasn't your fancy-man
been rubbing his back agen the college?"—"I'd take lil tacks home if
I was yourself, Dan."—"Drink much more and it'll be two feet deep
inside of you."</p>
<p>Philip was hurrying away under the crumbling portcullis, when a deputation
of the fishermen approached him. "What are we owing you, Mr. Christian?"
asked their spokesman.</p>
<p>"Nothing," answered Philip.</p>
<p>"We thank you, sir, and you'll be hearing from us again. Meanwhile, a word
if you plaze, sir?"</p>
<p>"What is it, men?" said Philip.</p>
<p>"When a young man can spake like yonder, it's a gift, sir, and he's
houlding it in trust for something. The ould island's wanting a big man
ter'ble bad, and it hasn't seen the like since the days of your own
grandfather. Good everin, and thank you—good everin!"</p>
<p>With that the rough fellows dismissed him at the ferry steps, and he
hastened to the market-place, where he had left his horse. On putting up,
he had seen C�sar's gig tipped up in the stable-yard. It was now gone,
and, without asking questions, he mounted and made towards Ramsey.</p>
<p>He took the old road by the cliffs, and as he cantered and galloped, he
hummed, and whistled, and sang, and slashed the trees to keep himself from
thinking. At the crest of the hill he sighted the gig in front, and at
Port Lady he came up with it. Kate was driving and C�sar was nodding and
dozing.</p>
<p>"You've been having a great day, Mr. Christian," said C�sar. "Wish I could
say the same for myself; but the heart of man is decaitful, sir, and
desperately wicked. I'm not one to clap people in the castle and keep them
from sea for debts of drink, and they're taking a mane advantage. Not a
penny did I get to-day, sir, and many a yellow sovereign owing to me. If I
was like some—now there's that Tom Raby, Glen Meay. He saw Dan the
Spy coming from the total meeting last night. 'Taken the pledge, Dan?'
says he. 'Yes, I have,' says Dan. 'I'm plazed to hear it,' says he; 'come
in and I'll give you a good glass of rum for it.' And Dan took the rum for
taking the pledge, and there he was as drunk as Mackilley in the castle
this morning."</p>
<p>Philip listened as he rode, and a half-melancholy, half-mocking expression
played on his face. He was thinking of his grandfather, old Iron
Christian, brought into relation with his mother's father, Capt. Billy
Ballure, of the dainty gentility of Auntie Nan and the unctuous vulgarity
of the father of Kate.</p>
<p>C�sar grumbled himself to sleep at last, and then Philip was alone with
the girl, and riding on her side of the gig. She was quiet at first, but a
joyous smile lit up her face.</p>
<p>"I was in the castle, too," she said, with a look of pride.</p>
<p>The sun went down over the waters behind them, and cast their brown
shadows on the road in front; the twilight deepened, the night came down,
the moon rose in their faces, and the stars appeared. They could hear the
tramp of the horses' hoofs, the roll of the gig wheels, the wash and boom
of the sea on their left, and the cry Of the sea-fowl somewhere beneath.
The lovelinese and warmth of the autumn night stole over Kate, and she
began to keep up a flow of merry chatter.</p>
<p>"I can tell all the sounds of the fields in the darkness. By the
moonlight? No; but with my eyes shut, if you like. Now try me."</p>
<p>She closed her eyes and went on: "Do you hear that—that patter like
soft rain? That's oats nearly ripe for harvest. Do you hear that, then—that
pit-a-pat, like sheep going by on the street? That's wheat, just ready.
And there—that whiss, whiss, whiss? That's barley."</p>
<p>She opened her eyes: "Don't you think I'm very clever?"</p>
<p>Philip felt an impulse to lean over the wheel and put his arms about the
girl's neck.</p>
<p>"Take care," she cried merrily; "your horse is shying."</p>
<p>He gazed at her face, lit up in the white moonlight. "How bright and happy
you seem, Kate!" he said with a shiver; and then he laid one hand on the
gig rail.</p>
<p>Her eyelids quivered, her mouth twitched, and she answered gaily, "Why
not? Aren't you? You ought to be, you know. How glorious to succeed? It
means so much—new things to see, new houses to visit, new pleasures,
new friends——"</p>
<p>Her joyous tones broke down in a nervous laugh at that last word, and he
replied, in a faltering voice, "That may be true of the big world over
yonder, Kate, but it isn't so in a little island like ours. To succeed
here is like going up the tower of Castle Rushen with some one locking the
doors on the stone steps behind you. At every storey the room becomes
less, until at the top you have only space to stand alone. Then, if you
should ever come down again, there's but one way for you—over the
battlements with a crash."</p>
<p>She looked up at him with startled eyes, and his own were large and full
of trouble. They were going through Kirk Michael by the house of the
Deemster, who was ill, and both drew rein and went slowly. Some acacias in
the garden slashed their broadswords in the night air, and a windmill
behind stood out against the moon like a gigantic bat. The black shadow of
the horses stepped beside them.</p>
<p>"Are you feeling lonely to-night, Philip?"</p>
<p>"I'm feeling——"</p>
<p>"Yes?"</p>
<p>"I'm feeling as if the dead and the living, the living and the dead—oh,
Kate, Kate, I don't know what I'm feeling."</p>
<p>She put her hand caressingly on the top of his hand. "Never mind, dear,"
she said softly; "I'll stand by you. You shan't be <i>alone</i>."</p>
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