CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST OF "THE HERRINGS".
Later in the day the final preparations were being made for the departure of the herring fleet. Tommy-Bill-beg, the harbor-master, in his short petticoat, was bawling all over the quay, first at this man in the harbor and then at that. Bill Kisseck was also there in his capacity as admiral of the fleet—an insular office for which he had been duly sworn in, and for which he received his five pounds a year. Bill was a big black-bearded creature in top-boots—a relic of the reign of the Norseman in Man. Tommy-Bill-beg was chaffed about the light going out on the pier. He looked grave, declared there was "something in it." Something supernatural, Tommy meant. Tommy-Bill-beg believed in his heart it was "all along of the spite of Gentleman Johnny"— now a bogy, erst a thief who in the flesh had been put into a spiked barrel and rolled over the pier into the sea, swearing furiously, as long as he could be heard, that to prove his innocence it was his fixed intention to haunt forever the scene of his martyrdom.
Kerruish Kinvig was standing by, and heard the harbor-master's explanation of the going out of the light. "It's middling strange," shouted Kinvig, "that the ghost should potter about only when the Government cutter happens to be out of the way, and Tommy-Bill-beg is yelping and screeching at the 'Jolly Herrings.' I'd have a law on such bogies, and clap them in Castle Rushen," bawled Kinvig, "and all the fiddlers and carol-singers along with them," he added.
The harbor-master shook his head, apparently more in sorrow than in anger, and whispered Bill Kisseck that, as "the good ould book" says, "Bad is the man that has never no music in his sowl."
It was one of Tommy-Bill-beg's peculiarities of mental twist that he was full of quotations, and never by any chance failed to misascribe, misquote, and misapply them.
The fishing-boats were rolling gently with the motion of the rising tide. When everything had been made ready, and the flood was at hand, the fishermen, to the number of several hundred men and boys, trooped off to the shore of the bay. There they were joined by a great multitude of women and children. Presently the vicar appeared, and, standing in an open boat, he offered the customary prayer for the blessing of God on the fishing expedition which was now setting out.
"Restore and continue to us the harvest of the sea!" And the men, on their knees in the sand, with uncovered heads, and faces in their hats, murmured "Yn Meailley."
Then they separated, the fishermen returning to their boats.
Bill Kisseck leaped aboard the lugger that lay at the mouth of the harbor. His six men followed him. "See all clear," he shouted to Danny, who sailed with him as boy. Danny stood on the quay with the duty of clearing ropes from blocks, and then following in the dingy that was moored to the steps.
Among the women who had come down to the harbor to see the departure of the fleet were two who bore no very close resemblance to the great body of the townswomen. One was an elderly woman, with a thin sad face. The other was a young women, of perhaps two or three and twenty, tall and muscular, with a pale cast of countenance, large brown eyes, and rich auburn hair. The face, though strong and beautiful, was not radiant with happiness, and yet it recalled very vividly a glint of human sunshine that we have known before.
In another moment little Ruby, red with running, pranced up to their side, crying, "Mona, come and see Danny Fayle's boat. Here, look, there; that one with the color on the deck."
The admiral's boat was to carry a flag.
The two women were pulled along by the little sprite and stopped just where Danny himself was untying a knot in a rope. Danny recognized them, lifted his hat, blushed, looked confused, and seemed for the moment to forget the cable. "Tail on there!" shouted Bill Kisseck from the lugger. "Show a leg there, if you don't want the rat's tail. D'ye hear?"
Danny was fumbling with his cap. That poor lagging lower lip was giving a yearning look to the lad's simple face. He muttered some commonplace to Mona, and then dropped his head. At that instant his eyes fell on the lower part of her dress. The blue serge of her gown was bleached near her feet. Danny, who could think of nothing else to say, mumbled something about the salt water having taken the color out of Mona's dress. The girl looked down, and then said quietly:
"Yes, I was caught by the tide last night—I mean to say, I was—"
She was clearly trying to recall her words, but poor Danny had hardly heard them.
"You cursed booby!" cried Bill Kisseck, leaping ashore, "prating with a pack of women when I'm a-waiting for you. I'll make you walk handsome over the bricks, my man."
With that he struck Danny a terrible blow and felled him.
The lad got up abashed, and without a word turned to his work. Kisseck, still in a tempest of wrath, was leaping back to the lugger, when the young woman stepped up to him, looked fearlessly in his face, seemed about to speak, checked herself, and turned away.
Kisseck stood measuring her from head to foot with his eyes, broke into a little bitter laugh, and said:
"I'm right up and down like a yard of pump-water; that's what I am." He jumped aboard again. Danny ran the rope from the blocks, the admiral's boat cleared away, and the flag shot up to the mast-head. The other boats followed one after one to the number of nearly one hundred. The bay was full of them.
When Kisseck's boat had cleared the harbor, Danny ran down the steps of the pier with eyes still averted from the two women and the child, got into the dingy, took an oar and began to scull after it.
"Sissy, Sissy," cried Ruby, tugging at Mona's dress, "look at Danny's little boat. What's the name that is on it in red letters?"
"'Ben-my-Chree,'" the young woman answered.
Then the herring fleet sailed away under the glow of the setting sun.