She's All the World to Me

"Everybody had a father, my veen."

"Had Ruby a father?"

"Hush, Ruby veg!"

Mona's hand unconsciously pressed the hand of Christian. "Oh," she muttered, and crept closer to his breast. Christian's bowels yearned for the child.

The silvery voice was singing again:

"Who has not heard of Adair, the youth?Who does not know that his soul was truth?Woe is me! how smoothly they speak,And Adair was brave, and a man, but weak."

"I am quite sure a good fairy is coming," said Ruby, cocking her eye aslant at that peg on the dresser.

Christian could bear it no longer. He flung open the door, and snatched up the darling in his arms.

An hour later he and Mona came out again into the night, leaving the little one with laughing, wondering, wakeful eyes in bed, and Mrs. Cregeen sitting before the fire with something like happiness in her usually mournful face.

They took the road toward the town. They had no errand there, but the restless, tumultuous joy of this night would not leave them a moment's peace.

As they passed through the market-place they saw that the church windows were lit up. The bells were ringing. Numbers of young people were thronging in at the gates. But the parson was coming out of them. There was no pleasant expression on his face as he beheld the throngs that sought admission. It was Oiel Verree, the Eve of Mary. The bells were ringing for the only service in the year at which not the parson but the parishioners presided. It was an old Manx custom, that after prayers on Christmas-eve the church should be given up to the people for the singing of their native carols. Prayers were now over, and on his way through the market-place the parson encountered Tommy-Bill-beg among the others who were walking toward the church. He stopped the harbor-master, and said, "Mind you see that all is done in decency and order, and that you close my church before midnight."

"Aw, but the church is the people's, I'm thinkin'," said Tommy-Bill-beg, with a deprecating shake of his wise head.

"The people are as ignorant as goats," said the parson angrily.

"Aw, well, and you're the shepherd, so just make sheeps of them," answered Tommy, and passed on.

Laughing at the rejoinder, Christian and Mona went by the church, and, reaching the quay, they crossed the bridge at the top of the harbor. Then, hand in hand, they walked under the Horse Hill, and, without thinking what direction they took, they turned up the path that led toward the cottage in the old quarry.

Half the hillside seemed to be ablaze. Danny's fire over the Poolvash had spread north by many hundred yards. The wind was now blowing strongly from the sea, and fanned it into flame. The castle could be seen by its light from the black rocks fringed about with foam to the top of Fennella's Tower.

When they came abreast of the cottage they saw that a dim light burned in one window. They stepped up and looked into the house. On a bed, covered by a white sheet, lay all that remained of Kisseck. An old woman, set to watch the body, sat knitting beside it.

The deep roar of the sea was all that could be heard there above the moan of the wind.

CHAPTER XXI

OIEL VERREE

On this occasion, as on all similar occasions for the last thirty years, Tommy-Bill-beg, the harbor-master, and Jemmy Quark Balladhoo had been each to contribute toward the curious Manx ritual of carol or carval singing. Great had hitherto been the rivalry between these musical celebrities. But word had gone around the town that to-night their efforts were to be combined in a carol which they were to sing together. A young wag had effected this extraordinary combination by a plot which was expected to add largely to the amusement of the listeners.

Tommy-Bill-beg, as was well known, could not read a syllable, yet he would never sing his carol without having the printed copy of it in his hand. Such curious vanity had long been a cause of merriment, and now some capital was to be made out it. Jemmy Quark Balladhoo, on the other hand, could read, but he resembled Tommy-Bill-beg in being almost stone-deaf. Each could hear himself sing, but neither could hear another.

And now for the plot. Young Mr. Wag had called on the harbor-master that morning at his ivy cottage, and, "Tommy," said he, "it's mortal strange the way a man of your common-sense can't see that you'd wallop that squeaking ould Jemmy Balladhoo in a jiffy if you'd only consent to sing a ballad along with him. Bless me, it's then they'd be seeing what a weak, ould, cracked pot of a voice is at him."

Tommy-Bill-beg's face began to wear a smile of benevolent condescension. Observing his advantage, the young rascal continued, "Do it at the Oiel Verree to-night, Tommy. He'll sing his treble, and you'll sing seconds to him."

It was an unlucky remark. The harbor-master frowned with the austerity of a Malvolio. "Me sing seconds to the craythur? No; never!"

It was explained to Tommy-Bill-beg, with a world of abject apology, that there was a sense in which seconds meant firsts. The harbor-master was mollified, and at length consented to the proposal; but with one idea clearly impressed upon his mind, namely, that if he was to sing a carol with Jemmy Balladhoo, he must take good care to sing his loudest, in order to drown at once the voice of his rival, and the bare notion that it was he who was singing seconds to such a poor creature as that.

Then Mr. Wag walked up the hill to Balladhoo, and, "Jemmy," said he, "it's mortal strange the way a man of your common-sense can't see that you'd wallop that squeaking ould Tommy-Bill-beg in a jiffy if you'd only consent to sing a ballad along with him. Do it at the Oiel Verree to-night, Jemmy, and bless me! that's the time when they'll be seeing what a weak, ould, cracked pot of a voice is at the craythur."

The gardener of Balladhoo fell an easier prey to the plot than the harbor-master, and a carol was selected. It was to be the ancient carol on the bad women mentioned in the Bible as having (from Eve downward) brought evil on mankind. This was accounted an appropriate ditty for these notable illustrations of bachelordom.

Now, Tommy-Bill-beg always kept his carols where Danny saw them – pinned against the walls of his cottage. The "Bad Women" was the carol which was pinned above the mantelpiece. It resembled all the others in being worn, crumpled, and dirty; but Tommy knew it by its locality, and could distinguish every other by its position.

Young Mr. Wag had somehow got what he called a "skute" into this literary mystery; so, after arranging with Jemmy Quark, he watched Tommy-Bill-beg out of his house, crept into it unobserved took down the carol pinned above the mantelpiece, and fixed up another in place of it from a different part of the room. The substituted carol happened, oddly enough, to be a second copy of the Same carol on "Bad Women," with this radical difference: that the one taken down was the version of the carol in English, and the one put up was the version in Manx.

The bells began to ring, and Tommy-Bill-beg donned his best petticoat and monkey-jacket, put the carol in his pocket, and went off to church.

Prayers had been said that night to a thin congregation, but no sooner were they done, and the parson had prepared to leave, than great crowds of young men and maidens trooped down the aisles. The young women went up into the gallery, and from that elevation shot down at their bachelor friends large handfuls of peas; but to what ancient spirit of usage, beyond the ancient spirit of mischief, the strange practise was due must be left as a solemn problem to the learned and curious antiquaries.

Nearly everybody carried a candle, the candles of the young women being usually adorned with a red ribbon and rosette. The brilliance of illumination was such as the dusky old church enjoyed only once in a year.

When everything was understood to be ready, and the parish clerk had taken his station inside the communion-rail, the business of the Oiel Verree began. First one man got up and sang a carol in English; then another sang a Manx carol. The latter depicted the physical sufferings of Christ, and described, with an intensity of "naturalism" even yet unknown to modern literature, how the "skin was torn off his shoulder-blade." But the great event of the night was to be the carol sung by the sworn enemies, Tommy-Bill-beg and Jemmy Quark Balladhoo.

At last their time came. They rose from opposite sides of the church, eyed each other with severe looks, stepped out of their pews, and walked down the aisle to the door of the porch. Then they turned about in silence, and, standing side by side, faced the communion.

The whispering in the gallery and tittering in the body were audible to all except the persons who were the occasion of them.

"Hush, hush, ma veen, that's him, that's him." "Bless me, look at Tommy-Bill-beg and the petticoat, and the handkercher pinnin' round his throat!" "Aw, dear, it's what he's used of." "A reg'lar Punch-and-Judy." "Hush, man, let them make a start for all."

The carol they were about to sing contained some thirty verses. It was an ancient usage that after each verse the carol-singers should take a long stride together toward the communion. By the time the carol came to an end they must therefore be at the opposite end of the church. What this meant must also be left to the venerable doctors aforesaid.

There was now a sublime scorn printed on the features of Jemmy Quark. As for Tommy-Bill-beg, he looked at this last moment like a man who was rather sorry than otherwise for his rash adversary. "The rermantick they're looking," whispered one expectant maiden in the gallery to a giggling companion beside her.

Expectation was at its highest when Tommy-Bill-beg thrust his hand into the pocket of his monkey-jacket and brought out the printed copy of the carol. Tommy unfolded it, glanced at it with the air of a conductor taking a final look at his score, nodded his head at it as if in approval, and then, with a magnanimous gesture, held it between himself and Jemmy Quark. Jemmy in turn glanced at it, glanced again, glanced a third time at the paper, and then up into the face of Tommy-Bill-beg.

Anxiety was now on tiptoe. "Hush, d'ye hear, hush, or it's spoiling all you'll be, for sure."

At the moment when Jemmy Quark glanced into the face of Tommy-Bill-beg there was a smile on that benign countenance. Jemmy mistook that smile. He imagined he saw a trick. Jemmy could read, and he perceived that the carol which the harbor-master held out to him was not the carol he had been told to prepare for. They were, by arrangement, to have sung the English version of "Bad Women." This was the Manx version, and it was always sung to a different metre. Ha! Jemmy understood it all! This rascally Tommy-Bill-beg was trying to expose him. The monster wanted to show that he, Jemmy Quark Balladhoo, could only sing one carol, but Jemmy would be even with him. He could sing this Manx version, and he would. It was Jemmy's turn to smile.

"Aw, look at them – the pair of them – grinnin' together like the two ould gurgoils on the steeple."

At a motion of the harbor-master's hand, intended to beat the time, the singers began. Tommy-Bill-beg sang the carol agreed upon – the English version of "Bad Women." Jemmy Quark sang the carol of which they held the printed copy in their hands – the Manx version of "Bad Women." Neither heard the other. Each bawled at the utmost reach of his lung-power. To one tune Tommy-Bill-beg sang:

"Thus from the days of AdamHer mischief you may trace,"

and to another tune Jemmy Quark sang:

"She ish va'n voir ain ooilleySon v'ee da Adam ben,"

What laughter ensued! How the young women in the gallery lay back in their seats with shrieks of hysteria! How the young fellows in the body made the sacred edifice ring with guffaws! But the singers – Tommy especially – with eyes steadfastly fixed on the paper, heard nothing but each his own voice. Thus they sang on.

They had got through three verses, and made three strides toward the communion, when suddenly there was heard above the uproar a dismal and unearthly cry, and all at once the laughter and the shouting of the people ceased. Every face turned to the porch.

Bareheaded, dripping wet from his matted hair to his feet, a ghastly light in his sunken eyes, with wasted cheeks and panting breath, Danny Fayle stood there, one hand on the door-jamb, the other holding a coil of rope.

"The 'Ben-my-Chree' is on the rocks!" he cried, and was gone in an instant.

If a spectre had appeared the consternation had scarcely been greater. But the next moment, recovering from their surprise, the people on all sides leaped up and rushed out of the church. In two minutes not a soul was left except Tommy-Bill-beg and Jemmy Quark Balladhoo, who still sang lustily, oblivious of the fact that they had no audience.

CHAPTER XXII

ON THE MOAR REEF

This is what had happened.

When Christian and Mona turned away from the house in the quarry, with its dead man and solitary watcher, they thought they descried a sail far out in the black void beyond the line of wild sea that was lighted up by the burning gorse.

"Let's hope they're not in the down-stream, poor fellows, whoever they are," said Christian. "In a wind like this it would be certain to drive them dead on to the Moar Reef."

Then they continued their walk, and passed the open shaft in which Christian had spent his night of peril and agony. There was so much to say that neither spoke except at long intervals. There was so much else to feel that neither felt weary, nor remembered the many hours in which both had been strangers to sleep. They might have wandered on – two dark figures against the red glow of the great fire – until the steep declivities of the Poolvash had stopped them, but that the wind rose higher every moment, and threatened to sweep them from their feet.

"Listen how the sea thunders," said Christian; and just then a cloud of hissing spray came up to them, high as they were, from the boiling surge below.

They turned back, laughing as every gust tore them a little apart.

Before they passed the cottage on their return they were conscious of faint cries from beneath.

"Hark," said Mona, "surely they were voices from the sea."

There could be no doubt of it now. Several voices were calling in accents of fearful agony, and above the rest was one wild thin shriek. It seemed to echo in the lowering dome of the empty sky – was such a cry of distress as might haunt one's dreams for years.

"It's from the boat we saw, and they're on the Moar Reef, too surely," said Christian. Then they hastened on.

When they reached the shore they found the sea running high. A long ground-swell was breaking in the narrow strait between the mainland and the Castle Isle. Flakes of sea-foam were flying around them. The waves were scooping up the shingle and flinging it through the air like sleet.

The cries were louder here than above. By the light of Danny's fire it was but too easy to see from whence they came. Jammed between two huge protruding horns of rock a fishing-boat was laboring hard in the heavy sea, rearing with a creak on the great waves, and plunging down with a crash and groan on the sharp teeth of the shoal beneath her.

The men on deck could be seen hacking at the mast to lighten her, and cutting away the gunwale forward to ease her off the horns that held her like a vise. But every fresh wave behind drove her head deeper into the cleft. The men shouted in mingled rage and fear. They tried to leap on to the rocks, but the weight of seas breaking on them made this a perilous adventure, even if the pitching of the boat left it possible.

Christian took in the situation in an instant. Two or three small boats were lying high and dry on the shore. He ran to them, cut away their cables, tied them together in strong knots, slung one end round his waist and passed the other about an old spar that lay close by.

"They're too near for us to stand and see them die," he shouted excitedly above the tumult of the wind.

Mona clung to him for an instant. Then she loosed him with a fervent kiss.

In another moment he had plunged into the water.

The strait was very narrow – sixty feet at most from the shore to the rocks. Yet what a toilsome journey to the man who was wading off with the rope. The tide was flowing and near the top. It never rose higher than four or five feet in this channel. A man might cross it if the swell did not sweep him back.

Through the boiling surf, piercingly cold, Christian struggled bravely. He was young and strong. He reached the boat at last. It was prancing like an unbroken horse. But waiting for a receding wave, he rushed in, laid firm hold of the first man at hand, and carried him back to the shore. The man had lain in his arms a dead weight. Was he dead indeed?

Mona stooped and looked into his face. "It is Danny Fayle," she cried.

But Danny was not dead. He recovered consciousness, and staggered to his feet.

Loud and angry cries were now coming from the boat. Mingled with the curses of rage there came the words, "Why didn't you give us the rope?"

Christian shouted that he was coming back with it. Then, watching again for an ebbing wave, he plunged off afresh. He reached the boat quicker this time. Being pulled aboard, he unlashed the rope and strapped it to the capstan. Then one of the men – it was old Quilleash – dropped over the side, and drew himself hand-over-hand through the water.

But the rope stretched and creaked with the rolling of the boat. The spar to which the end ashore was strapped budged not an inch. Mona saw the danger too late. Before she could ease the rope it snapped.

Now Christian added one more to the number of those on the boat!

Old Billy, safe on shore, sat down on the shingle and sobbed terror-stricken and helpless. Thank God, the poor despised Danny had his wits about him. He saw what had happened, and ran for another rope. Flying into the town, he shouted, "Help, help!" But all Peel seemed to be at the "carvals." He ran to the church. Screams of laughter and the tumult of noisy singing came out into the darkness. Scarce knowing what he did, he burst open the door, and cried, in a piercing voice, "The 'Ben-my-Chree' is on the rocks." Then, with the new rope in his hand, he fled away to the shore.

When Danny got back a great multitude was at his heels. Old Quilleash still sat wailing and helpless. Mona ran up and down the shore in an agony of suspense. The lad looked at neither. The hillside of fire behind them showed but too clearly what had occurred. Chilled to the bone by the raw winter wind, four of the men had dropped overboard. A fifth had leaped into the water, and after a fearful struggle for life had been lifted off his feet by the breakers and broken on the rocks.

He was seen no more. Only two remained on the deck, and one of the two was Christian. He could be seen clinging to the bowsprit, which was shipped. The dingy had been torn from the lugger, and thrown by the rising tide high and dry on the shingle. Danny pushed it to the water's edge, jumped in, strapped one end of the new rope about his body, threw the other to a group of men on the shore, and looked round for assistance. None stepped out. Many fell back. "It's no use throwing more lives away," muttered one. "They're past saving," said another. Women clung to their husbands, and would not let them stir. Other women, the wives of men who had been on the boat, cried "Help." Little children, crouching together with fear and cold, wept piteously.

Danny pushed off his boat, but in an instant it was lifted on to the top of a snow-capped billow and pitched ashore. Danny himself was thrown out on the shingle. "No use, man," shouted many voices, and the lad was compelled to desist.

The wind clamored louder every minute. Timbers cut away from the fishing-boat were swept up with every wave. The surf around the rocks was like snow. The water was beaten into seething foam around the boat also; between the billows the long swell was red with the reflection of the fire, but the sea was black as ink beyond the line of the Castle Isle, save where, at the farthest line of wave and sky, a streak of ashen light shone in the darkness.

Danny had coiled the rope from end to end around his waist. Then he stood and waited. He knew that the tide must soon turn. He knew too that, having once begun to ebb, it would flow out at this point as fast as a horse might gallop. But low water never left those rocks dry between which the fishing-boat was jammed. The men aboard of her would still need succor. But help might then come to them from the castle side of the channel.

The crowd knew his purpose, and laughed at it. One grizzled old fisherman took Danny by the arm, and would have held him. But at the first glimpse of the reef that ran across the highest and narrowest point of the strait, the lad shook himself free, and bounded across to the Castle Isle.

"Brave Danny," said Mona, in a deep whisper.

"Brave? Is it brave? Aw, well, it's mad I'm calling it," said the old salt.

There is a steep pathway under the east wall of the castle. It runs up from the shore to a great height above the water. It is narrow enough to be called a ledge, and the rocks beneath it fall wellnigh precipitously. Danny ran along this path until he came to the square turret, whose truncated shaft stands on the southeast corner of the castle. While he was under the shelter of the walls the wind did not touch him, but when he reached the east angle a fierce gust from the west threatened to fling him over into the sea. He tried to round the corner and could not. The wind filled his jersey like a sail. He took the jersey off and threw it aside. Then, on hands and knees he crawled round inch by inch, clinging to the stones of the turret and the few tussacs of long grass that grew between them.

Every movement he made could be watched from the opposite side of the channel. The light of the gorse fired over the Poolvash fell full upon him, and lit up the entire castle and rocks and the shuddering boat beneath with an eery brilliance. The townspeople were congregated in thousands on the Horse Hill and the shore of the mainland. "Who's yonder madman?" cried one. "Danny Fayle," answered another. "No, not Danny, the gawk?" "Aw, yes, though, Danny, the gawk." Kerruish Kinvig was there, striding up and down, and shouting like thunder itself above the tumult of the wind, "Clear the road. Stand back, the ruck of you." There was nothing else that Kinvig could do. Mylrea Balladhoo had been sent for. He came and sat down on the spar to which Christian had strapped the rope. The broken piece still hung to it. Mona stood beside him, and spoke to him at intervals. He answered nothing, but stared vacantly before him.

The people held their breath as Danny rounded the turret, expecting every instant to see him lifted from the ledge and hurled into the surf beneath. When he had cleared the corner, and stood full in the wind on the south side of the castle, directly above the two protruding rocks that held the fishing-boat in their grip, the crowds rushed down the shore and along the top of the Contrary Head to keep him in view. What other mad act would the lad attempt?

"He'll go round to the west, and come back on the shingle."

"Not him, man; the shore there is in six feet of water."

Danny emerged presently. He was seen to tie one end of his rope through a hole in the old castle wall to a huge stone built into it. The other end was still about his waist. "He's going down the rocks to the boat." "Gerr out of that. He'd be cut in pieces." "Aw, dear, the poor boy's not mad enough for that, anyway."

But Danny was going down the rocks. Sharp as needles, with their thousand teeth turned upward, slippery and icy cold, Danny set his foot on them. He began his descent with his back to the sea. Clouds of spray rose from every third wave and hid him from the people. But he was seen to be going down foot after foot. What had seemed like madness before began to look like courage now that success appeared possible. It was neither – it was despair. "Aw, beautiful!" "Beautiful, extraordinary!" "It's the young Masther Christian he's going down for." "Well, well, the masther was kind to the boy astonishing." "Poor lad, there's a heart at him!"