Sir Hall Caine

“ In two years Davy was skipper, and in three years more he was sailing a steamer of his own. Then the money began to tumble into his chest like crushed oats out of a Crown’s shaft.
The first hundred pounds he had saved he sent home to Dumbell’s bank, because he could not trust it out of the Isle of Man. But the hundreds grew to thousands, and the thousands to tens of thousands, and to send all his savings over the sea as he made them began to be slow work, like supping porridge with a pitchfork. ”

“ So Davy tumbled his boxes and bags and other belongings into the landau, piling them mountains high on the cushioned seats, and clambered into the cart himself. Then they set off at a race which should be home first—the cart or the carriage, the luggage or the owner of it; the English driver on his box seat with his tall hat and starchy cravat, or Billiam twidling his rope reins, and Davy on the plank seat beside him, bobbing and bumping, and rattling over the stones like a parched pea on a frying pan. ”

“ Oh, Jenny, if you ever marry, marry a poor man, and then he can’t fling it in your face that you are poorer than he.”
“No; it can’t be the money, Nelly, for the money is his, and yet it hasn’t changed him. And, Nelly, isn’t it a good thing in a rich man not to turn his back on his old poor comrades—not to think because he has been in the sun that people are black who are only in the shade—not to pretend to have altered his skin because his coat has changed—isn’t it?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The lady was Ellen Kinvig, known of old to all and sundry as Nelly, Ness, or Nell, but now to everybody concerned as Mistress Capt’n Davy Quiggin, six-and-twenty years of age, tall, comely, as blooming as the gorse; once as free as the air, and as racy of the soil as new-cut peat, but suddenly grown stately, smooth, refined, proud, and reserved. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It’s mad work being angry with somebody you are dying to love,” said Jenny.
“Colney Hatch is nothing to it,” said Lovibond.
“Smaller things have parted people for years,” said Jenny.
“Yes; five years,” said Lovibond.
“The longer apart the wider the breach, and the harder to cover it,” said Jenny.
“Just so,” said Lovibond.
“They must meet. Of course they’ll fight like cat and dog, but better that than this separation. Time leaves bigger scars than claws ever made. ”

“ But she said aloud, as well as she could for her throat that was choking her, “I see what you mean, Captain Quiggin. But, Cap tain——”
“Ma’am?” said Davy.
“If you have so much thought— (gulp, gulp) —for your wife’s welfare (gulp) , you—must love her still (gulp, gulp) ?
“I daren’t say no, ma’am,” said Davy, with downcast eyes.
“And if you love her, however deeply she may have offended you, surely you should never leave her. Come, now, Captain, forgive and forget; she is only a woman, you know.” ”

“ With the rustle of silk like a breeze in a pine tree Jenny Crow came back from a walk, swinging a parasol by a ring about her wrist.
“Such an adventure!” she said, sinking into a chair. “A man, of course! I saw him first on the Head at the skirts of the crowd that was listening to the Bishop’s preaching. Such a manly fellow! Broad-shouldered, big-chested, standing square on his legs like a rock. Dark, of course, and such eyes, Nelly! Brown—no black-brown. I like black-brown eyes in a man, don’t you?” ”

“ The Manx sailor’s wife—she who had so behaved that it was impossible for him to live with her—she who was a cat, a shrew, a nagger, a thankless wretch, a piece of human flint, a creature that should be put down by the law as it puts down biting dogs—she whose whole selfish body was not worth the tip of his little finger—was no one else than herself! ”

“ 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.” ”

“ One evening—it was just between the lights—that’s when girls is like kittens, terr’ble full of capers and mischievousness—Nelly rigged up her kopie—that’s her milking-stool—agen mine, so that we sat back to back, her milking Brownie and me milking Whitie. ‘What she agate of now?’ thinks I, but she was looking as innocent as the bas’es themselves, with their ould solem faces when they were twisting round. Then we started, and there wasn’t no noise in the cow-house, but just the cows chewing constant, and, maybe, the rope running on their necks at whiles and the rattle of the milk in the pails. ”

“ But at night, aw, at night, mate, lying out on the deck in that heat like the miller’s kiln, and shelling your clothes piece by piece same as a bushel of oats, and looking up at the stars atwinkling in the sky, and spotting one of them, and saying to yourself quietlike, so as them niggers won’t hear, ‘That’s star is atwinkling over Nelly, too, and maybe she’s watching it now.’ It seemed as if we wasn’t so far apart then. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Davy looked up with vast solemnity. “Take care,” said he. “There’s odds of women, sir. They’re like sheep’s broth is women. If there’s a heart and head in them they’re good, and if there isn’t you might as well be supping hot water. Faces isn’t the chronometer to steer your boat to the good ones. Now I’ve seen some you could swear to——.”
“I’ll swear to this one,” said Lovibond with an appearance of tremendous earnestness.
Davy looked at him, gravely. “D’ye say so?” ”

“ Thus, leaving the pier and the steamers behind them, through the streets and into the hotels, the houses, the cars, and the trains go, the new comers, and the newspapers, and the letters from England, all hot and active, bringing word of the main land, with its hub-bub and hurly-burly, to the island that has been four-and-twenty hours cut off from it—like the throbbing and bounding globules of fresh blood fetching life from the fountain-head to some half-severed limb. It is an hour of tremendous vitality, coming once a day, when the little island pulsates like a living thing. ”

“ Captain Davy’s eyes were of the darkest brown. Mrs. Quiggin gave no sign.
“Then his dress—so simple. None of your cuffs and ruffs, and great high collars like a cart going for coke. Just a blue serge suit, and a monkey jacket. I like a man in a monkey jacket.”
Captain Davy wore a monkey jacket; Mrs. Quiggin colored slightly.
“A sailor, thinks I. There’s something so free and open about a sailor, isn’t there?”
“Do you think so, Jenny?” said Mrs. Quiggin in a faint voice.
“I’m sure of it, Nelly. The sailor is just like the sea. He’s noisy—so is the sea. Liable to storms—so is the sea. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then, looking down at the top of Nelly’s head, where she sat with her eyes in her lap beside him, he softened down to sentiment, and said, “Marry for love, boys; stick to the girl that’s good, and then go where you will she’ll be the star above that you’ll sail your barque by, and if you stay at home (and there’s no place like it) her parting kiss at midnight will be helping you through your work all next day.”
The parting kiss at midnight brought Davy’s oration to a close, for a tug at his coat-tails on Nelly’s side fetched him suddenly to his seat. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ It was the money that done it, bad sess to it,” said Davy, pitching the head of his pipe after the shank. “I went out yonder to get it and I got it. Middling hard work, too, but no matter. It was to be all for her. ‘I’ll come back, Nelly,’ says I, ‘and we’ll take Ballacry and have six craythurs and a pony, and keep a girl to do for you, and you’ll take your aise—only milking maybe, or churning, but nothing to do no harm.’ I was ten years getting it, and I never took notions on no other girls neither. No, honor bright, thinks I, Nelly’s waiting for you, Davy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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...” ”