"Philip!"
She burst into a wild fit of hysterical weeping, and buried her face his his breast.
He put his arms about her, thinking to soothe her. "There! be brave!
Hold yourself firm. It"s a terrible blow. I was too sudden. My poor girl. My brave girl!"
She clung to him like a terrified child; the tears came from under her eyelids tightly closed; the flood-gates of four years" reserve went down in a moment, and she kissed him on the lips.
And, throbbing with bliss and a blessed relief from four years hypocrisy and treason, he kissed her back, and they smiled through their tears.
Poor Pete! Poor Pete! Poor Pete!
XI.
At the sound of Kate"s crying, Caesar had thrown away the twister and come close to listen, and Black Tom had dropped from the thatch. Nancy ran back with the basket, and Grannie came hurrying from the house.
Caesar lifted both hands solemnly. "Now, you that are women, control yourselves," said he, "and listen while I spake. Peter Quilliam"s dead in Kimberley."
"Goodness mercy!" cried Grannie.
"Lord alive!" cried Nancy.
And the two women went indoors, threw their ap.r.o.ns over their heads, and rocked themselves in their seats.
"Aw boy veen! boy veen!"
Kate came tottering in, ghostly white, and the women fell to comforting her, thereby making more tumult with their soothing moans than Kate with her crying.
"Chut"! Put a good face on it, woman," said Black Tom. "A whippa of a girl like you will be getting another soon, and singing, "Hail, Smiling Morn!" with the best."
"Shame on you, man. Are you as drunk as Mackillya?" cried Nancy. "Your own grandson, too!"
"Never another for Kate, anyway," wept Grannie. "Aw boy veen, aw boy veen!"
"Maybe he had another himself, who knows?" said Black Tom. "Out of sight out of mind, and these sailor lads have a rag on lots of bushes."
Kate was helped to her room upstairs, Philip sat down in the kitchen, the news spread like a curragh fire, and the barroom was full in five minutes. In the midst of all stood Caesar, solemn and expansive.
"He turned his herring yonder night when he left goodbye to the four of us," he said. "My father did the same the night he was lost running rum for Whitehaven, and I"ve never seen a man do it and live."
"It"s forgot at you father," wept Grannie. "It was Mr. Philip that turned it. Aw boy veen! boy veen!"
"How could that be, mother?" said Caesar. "Mr. Philip isn"t dead."
But Grannie heard no more. She was busy with the consolations of half-a-dozen women who were gathered around her. "I dreamt it the night he sailed. I heard a cry, most terrible, I did. "Father," says I, "what"s that?" It was the same as if I had seen the poor boy coming to his end un-timeously. And I didn"t get a wink on the night."
"Well, he has gone to the rest that remaineth," said Caesar. "The gra.s.s perisheth, and the worm devoureth, and well all be in heaven with him soon."
"G.o.d forbid, father; don"t talk of such dreadful things," said Grannie, napping her ap.r.o.n. "Do you say his mother, ma"am? Is she in life? No, but under the sod, I don"t know the years. Information of the lungs, poor thing."
"I"ve known him since I was a slip of a boy," said one. "It was whip-top time--no, it was peg-top time----"
"I saw him the morning he sailed," said another. "I was standing _so_----"
"Mr. Christian saw him last," moaned Grannie, and the people in the bar-room peered through at Philip with awe.
"I felt like a father for the lad myself," said Caesar, "he was always my white-headed boy, and I stuck to him with life. He desarved it, too.
Maybe his birth was a bit mischancy, but what"s the ould saying, "Don"t tell me what I was, tell me what I am." And Pete was that civil with the tongue--a civiller young man never was."
Black Tom _tsht_ and spat. "Why, you were shouting out of mercy at the lad, and knocking him about like putty. He wouldn"t get lave to live with you, and that"s why he went away."
"You"re bad to forget, Thomas--I"ve always noticed it," said Caesar.
"You"ll be putting the bell about, and praiching his funeral, eh, Caesar?" said somebody.
""Deed, yes, man, Sabbath first," said Caesar.
"That"s impossible, father," said Grannie. "How"s the girl to have her black ready?"
"Sunday week, then, or Sunday fortnight, or the Sunday after the Melliah (harvest-home)," said Caesar; "the crops are waiting for saving, but a dead man is past it. Oh, I"ll be faithful, I"ll give it them straight, it"s a time for spaking like a dying man to dying men; I"ll take a tex"
that"ll be a lesson and a warning, "Ho, every one that thirsteth----"
Black Tom _tsht_ and spat again. "I wouldn"t, Caesar; they"ll think you"re going to trate them," he muttered.
Philip was asked for particulars, and he brought out a letter. Jonaique Jelly, John the Clerk, and Johnny the Constable had come in by this time. "Read it, Jonaique," said Caesar.
"A clane pipe first," said Black Tom. "Aren"t you smook-ing on it, Caesar? And isn"t there a croppa of rum anywhere? No! Not so much as a plate of crackers and a drop of tay going? Is it to be a totaller"s funeral then?"
"This is no time for feasting to the refreshment of our carnal bodies,"
said Caesar severely. "It"s a time for praise and prayer."
"I"ll pud up a word or dwo," said the Constable meekly.
"Masther Niplightly," said Caesar, "don"t be too ready to show your gift.
It"s vanity. I"ll engage in prayer myself." And Caesar offered praise for all departed in faith and fear.
"Caesar is nod a man of a liberal spirit, bud he is powerful in prayer, dough," whispered the Constable.
"He isn"t a prodigal son, if that"s what you mane," said Black Tom.
"Never seen him shouting after anybody with a pint, anyway."
"Now for the letter, Jonaique," said Caesar.
It was from one of the Gills" boys who had sailed with Pete, and hitherto served as his letter-writer.