She's All the World to Me/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX.
THE HERRING MEAILLEY.
There was high sport at the Jolly Herrings that night. Christian Mylrea was there, more than half ashamed of his surroundings, but too amiably irresolute, as usual, to imperil by absence from this annual gathering his old reputation for good-fellowship.
"Aw, the gentleman he is, isn't he? And him straight from Oxford College, too."
"What's that they're sayin'? Oxford College? Och, no; not that at all." "But the fine English tongue at him, anyway. It's just a pleasure to hear him spake. Smooth as oil, and sweet astonishin'. Bill Kisseck—I say, Bill, there—why didn't you put up the young masther for the chair?"
"Aw, lave me alone," answered Kisseck, with a contemptuous toss of the head. "Him an' me's same as brothers."
"Bill's proud uncommon of the masther, and middlin' jealous too. Aw, well! who's wonderin' at it?"
"It's a bit free them chaps are making," whispered Kisseck to Christian. Then rising to his feet with gravity, "Gentlemen," he said, "what d'ye say to Misther Christian Mylrea Balladhoo for the elber-chair yander?"
"Hooraa! Hooraa!"
Kisseck resumed his seat with a lofty glance of patronage at the men about him, which said, as plainly as words themselves, "I tould ye to lave it all to me."
"Proud, d'ye say? Look at him," whispered Davy Cain.
The "Jolly Herrings" was perhaps the most ludicrous and incongruous house of entertainment of which history records any veracious record. It was a very gurgoil on the fair fabric of the earth, except that it served the opposite uses of attracting rather than banishing the evil spirits about it. Thirty-five years ago it was to be found near the bottom of the narrow, crabbed little thoroughfare that wind and twists and descends to that part of the quay which overlooks the ruins of the castle. The gloomy pothouse was entered by a little porch. Two steps down led you into a room that was half parlor and half bar, and where only the fumes of tobacco-smoke were usually visible. Two more steps led you to an inner and much larger room, that was practically kitchen, living room, and room of special entertainment. This was the apartment in which the herring supper was always given. What a paradox the place was! All that belonged to the room itself was of the rudest and meanest kind. The floor was paved with stones, the walls were sparsely plastered, the ceiling was the bare wood hewn straight from the tree. But over these indications of poverty there was an extraordinary display of curious wealth. The little window behind Christian in his "elber-chair" was glazed with a rich piece of stained glass that had the Madonna and child for subject. The elbow-chair itself was of old oak deeply carved and bound with clamps of engraved brass. Bill Kisseck, who by virtue of his office sat at the opposite end of the table, occupied a small settee covered with gorgeous crimson velvet. On the mantelpiece were huddled in luxurious confusion sundry brass censers, medieval lamps, and an ivory crucifix. On the wall, and beside a piece of marble carved with a medallion, hung a skate that had been cut open to dry. A pair of bellows lay on an antique chest in the ingle. Into the mouth of the censers a bundle of pipe-lights had been methodically arranged. A ponderous silver watch hung round the arms of the crucifix, and a frying-pan was suspended in the recess of the window that was consecrated to the Madonna.
Such was the kitchen and state-room of the Jolly Herrings; and no apartment ever spoke more plainly to those who had ears to hear of the character and habits of its owners. The house was kept by a woman who was thin, wrinkled, and blear-eyed; and by a man who was equally thin and no less wrinkled, but had quick, suspicious eyes, and a few spiky gray hairs about the chin that resembled the whiskers of a cat. As husband and wife this couple hold the little pothouse; but long years after the events now being narrated, it was discovered that husband and wife had both been women.
What sport! What noisy laughter! What singing and rollicking cheers! The men stood neither on the order of their coming nor their going, their sitting nor their standing. They wore their caps or not as pleased them, they sang or talked as suited them, they laughed or sneezed, they sulked or snarled, were noisy or silent precisely as the whim of the individual prescribed the individual rule of manners. The chair at the Jolly Herrings was a position of more distinction than duty, and it was numbered among Christian's virtues that he had never attempted to exercise an arbitrary control over the liberties of free-born Manxmen. Jest or jeer, fun or fight, were alike free of the gathering where he presided; but everything had to be in conscience and reason, for Christian drew the line rigidly at marline-spikes and belaying pins.
Tommy-Bill-beg was there, and a fine scorn sat on his face. The reason of this was that, as a mistaken tribute to music, Jemmy Balladhoo had also been invited, and was sitting with his fiddle directly in front of the harbor-master, though that worthy disdained to take notice of the humiliating proximity. Danny Fayle was there. The lad sat quietly and meekly on a form near the door.
The supper was lifted direct on to the table from the pans and boilers that simmered on the hearth. First came the broth well loaded with barley and cabbage, but not destitute of the flavor of two sheep's heads. Then the suet pudding, round as a well-fed salmon and as long as a twenty-pound cod. After this came three legs of boiled mutton and a square block of roast beef. Last of all the frying-pan was taken from the niche of the Madonna, and two or three dozen of fresh herrings were made to frizzle and crackle and bark and sputter over the fire.
Away went the dishes, away went the cloth, an oil lamp with its open mouth—a relic, perhaps, of some monkish sanctuary of the Middle Ages—was lifted from the mantel-piece and put on the table for the receipt of customs; the censer with the spills was placed beside it, pipes emerged from the waistcoat-pockets, and pots of liquor with glasses and bottles came in from the outer bar.
"Is it heavy on the beer you're goin' to be, Bill?" said Davy Cain.
Kisseck replied with a superior smile and the lifting up of a whisky bottle from which he had just drawn the cork.
Then came the toasts. The chairman rose, amid "Hip, hip, hooraa," to give "Life to man and death to fish." Kisseck gave "Death to the head that never wore hair," Tommy-Bill-beg responded to loud requests for "The Ladies." He reminded the company of the old saying, "No herring, no wedding;" and then, with some pardonable discursiveness, he said he was "terrible glad" to have the fleet around Peel, and not away in those outlandish foreign parts, Kinsale and Scotland; for when they were there he felt like the chairman's namesake, Christian, in the "Pilgrim's Progress." "And what is it he is saying in the good ould Book?" exclaimed Tommy?—"'My occipation's gone!'"
Then came more liquor and some singing. Christian sang too. He sang "Black-Eyed Sue," amid audible sobs.
"The voice he has, anyway; and the loud it is, and the tender, and the way he sliddhers up and down, and no squeaks and jumps; no, no, nothin' lek squeezin' a tune out of an ould sow by pullin' the tail at her, and a sorter of a rippin' up her innards to get the hook out of her gills."
"Aw, lovely he sang—lovely, uncommon."
"Well, I tould you so. I allis said it."
Kisseck listened to this dialogue at his end of the table with a lofty smile. "It's nothin'," he said, condescendingly. "That's nothin'. You should hear him out on the boat, when we're lyin' at anchor, and me and him together, and the stars just makin' a peep, and the moon, and the mar-fire, and all to that, and me and him lyin' aft and smookin' and having a glass maybe; but nothin' to do no harm at all—that's when you should hear him."
"More liquor there," shouted Tommy-Bill-beg, climbing with difficulty to his feet—"more liquor for the chair. And for some one beside—is that what they're saying? Well, look here! bad sess to it—of coorse, some for me too. It's terrible good for the narves, and they're telling me it's mortal good for studdyin' the vice. What's that from the chair? Enemy—eh? Confound it, that's true, though. What's that it's saying—'Who's fool enough to put the enemy into his mouth to stale away his brains?' Aw, now, it's the good ould Book that's fine at summin' it all up."
Still more liquor, and Jemmy Balladhoo comes forth with his fiddle. Immediate and complete capitulation of Tommy-Bill-beg ensues. The harbor-master never yet heard a squeak from his rival's fiddle; but the bare idea that Jemmy Quark Balladhoo should play it was really of itself too ridiculous.
"Aw, the rispen and the raspen. It's the moo of a cow he's on for making now. No? Then it's the sweet hoot of the donkey. Not that? Och, then it's safe to be the grunt of Jemmy's ould pig, anyways."
The violinist had by this time finished an elaborate movement, and called on the chairman to tell the company what it was. Christian, who had been hard put-to to preserve his gravity during the extraordinary musical display, and had not the very vaguest idea of what it was supposed to stand for, thought to get out of the difficulty by flattering the performer. "Oh, that?—-what's that you say?—oh, of course—why that's, of course, the Pastoral Symphony from the 'Messiah.'"
"Not at all," shouted the irate fiddler, "it's 'Rule Britannia!'"
Still more noise and more liquor, and a good deal of both in the vicinity of the chair. Kisseck, who had drunk heavily, struggled his way to the head of the table. There were several strangers present, for it was the custom to welcome as many of the Cornish, Irish, or Scotch fishermen as happened to be at Peel and cared to join in the dubious thanksgiving, in the form of a noisy orgie. Among the rest was a young fellow in oil-skins and a glengarie, which, being several sizes too big for him, fell low over his forehead and almost covered his eyes. He sat near to Christian, drank little, and spoke not at all. When Kisseck made his way to Christian's side he had to pass this stranger. "Who have we here at all?" he said, trying to tip up the glengarie. The young fellow's well timed jerk of the head defeated Kisseck's tipsy intention.
"Aw, Christian, man," said Kisseck in a whisper that was scarcely pitched with prudent moderation even in that tumultuous assembly, "it's a nice nate berth I've found for us at last—nice, extraordinary." Christian motioned his head in the direction of the young stranger; but heedless of the warning Kisseck continued, "No need goin' messin' around graves in the ould castle and all to that. And it isn't religious as you were sayin', and I'm one that stands up for religion, and singin' hymns at whiles, and a bit of a spell at the ould Book sometimes. Aw, yes, though I am—(Louder.) Look here! D'ye hear down yander. Give us a swipe of them sperrits. Right. Let us fill up your glass, Christian. (Coming closer.) Aw, as I was sayin', it's in the Poolvash—Lockjaw they're callin' it now, and as nate for stowin' a box of tay or a roll of silk or lace, or maybe a keg of brandy, and no one never knowin' nothin'." The young fellow in oil-skins had dropped his empty pewter at that moment, and it rolled behind Christian's chair. As he stooped to recover it the chairman wheeled round to give him room, and coming up again, their eyes met for an instant. Christian made a perceptible start. "Strange at least," he muttered to himself.
More liquor and yet more, till the mouth of the monastic lamp ran over with chinking coin.
"Silence!" shouted Bill Kisseck, struggling up to speak. "Aisy there! Here's to Christian Mylrea Balladhoo; and when he gets among them Kays I'm calkerlatin' it'll be all up with the lot o' them, and their laws agen honest tradin', and their by-laws agen the countin' of the herrin', and their new copper money, and all the rest of their messin'. What d'ye say, men? And what's that you're grinnin' and winkin' at, Davy Cain? It's middlin' free you're gettin' with the masther anyhow, and if it wasn't for me he wouldn't bemane himself by comin' among the lek of you, singin' and makin' aisy. Chaps, fill up your glasses, every man of you, d'ye hear? Here's to the best gentleman in the island, bar none—hip, hip, hooraa!"
Among the few who had not responded with becoming alacrity to Kisseck's request was the young stranger. Observing this as he shuffled back to his seat, Kisseck reached over and struck at the glengarie, which tumbled on the floor, and revealed a comely face and a rich mass of auburn hair. The stranger rose at this indignity and made his way to the door. When he got there Danny Fayle, who was leaning against the door-jamb, looked closely into his face and reeled back with a startled cry. The stranger was gone the next instant.
"See yander. What's agate of the lad?" cried Kisseck. And every one turned to Danny, whose cheeks were as pale as death. "What's it that's ailin' you at all?" shouted Kisseck.
"I—I thought it was—was—a woman," stammered Danny, with eyes still fixed on the door.
Loud peals of laughter followed. But wait—what was now going on at the head of the table! When the stranger rose, Christian had risen too. It was the moment to respond to the toast, but Christian glared wildly about him with a tongue that seemed to cleave to his mouth. His glass fell from his fingers. Every eye was fixed on his face. That face quivered and turned white. Laughter died away on the lip, and the voices were hushed. At last Christian spoke. His words came slowly, and fell on the ear like the clank of a chain across snow.
"Men," he said, "you've been drinking my health. You call me a good fellow. That's wrong. I'm the worst man among you." (Murmurs of dissent and some faint smiles of incredulity.) "Bill says I'm going to the House of Keys one of these days. That's wrong too. Shall I tell you where I am going?" (Christian put one hand up to his head; you could see the throbbing of his temples.) "Shall I tell you?" he cried in a hollow voice and with staring eyes; "I'm going to the devil," and amid the breathless silence he dropped back in his seat and buried his head in his hands.
No one spoke. The fair hair lay on the table among broken pipes and the refuse of spilled beer. Then every man rose to his feet. There could be no more drinking to-night. One after one shambled out. In two minutes the room was empty except for the stricken man, who lay there with hidden face, and Danny Fayle, who, with a big glistening tear in his eye, was stroking the tangled curls.
"Strange now, wasn't it?—strange, uncommon! He's been heavy on the beer lately they're tellin' me. Well, well, it isn't right, and him a gentleman. Not lek as if he was one of us."
"And goin' to be a parson, too, so they're sayin'. It's middlin' wicked anyway, and no disrepec'. Oie Vie! Good-night!"
"Pazon, is it?" says Tommy-Bill-beg. "Never a pazon will they make of his mother's son. What's that they're sayin', 'Never no duck wasn't hatched by a drake.'"