Davy sailed in an Irish schooner to the Pacific coast of South America. There he cut his stick again, and got a berth on a coasting steamer trading between Valparaiso and Callao. The climate was unhealthy, the ports were foul, the government was uncertain, the dangers were constant, and the hands above him dropped off rapidly. 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. He put much of it away in paper rolls at the bottom of his chest in the cabin, and every roll he put by stood to him for something in the Isle of Man. “That’s a new cowhouse at Ballavolly.” “That’s Balladry.” “That’s ould Brew’s mill at Sulby—he’ll be out by this time.”
All his dreams were of coming home, and sometimes he wrote letters to Nelly. The writing in them was uncertain, and the spelling was doubtful, but the love was safe enough. And when he had poured out his heart in small “i’s” and capital “U’s”? he always inquired how more material things were faring. “How’s the herrings this sayson; and did the men do well with the mack’rel at Kinsale; and is the cowhouse new thatched, and how’s the chapel going? And is the ould man still playing hang with the texes?”
Kinvig heard of Davy’s prosperity, and received the news at first in silence, then with satisfaction, and at length with noisy pride. His boy was a bould fellow. “None o’ yer randy-tandy-tissimee-tea tied to the old mawther’s apron-strings about him. He’s coming home rich, and he’ll buy half the island over, and make a donation of a harmonia to the chapel, and kick ould Cowley and his fiddle out.”
Awaiting that event, Kinvig sent Nelly to England, to be educated according to the station she was about to fill. Nelly was four years in Liverpool, but she had as many breaks for visits home. The first time she came she minced her words affectedly, and Kinvig whispered the mother that she was getting “a fine English tongue at her.” The second time she came she plagued everybody out of peace by correcting their “plaze” to “please,” and the “mate” to “meat,” and the “lave” to “leave.” The third time she came she was silent, and looked ashamed: and the fourth time it was to meet her sweetheart on his return home after ten years’ absence.
Davy came by the Sneafell from Liverpool. It was August—the height of the visiting season—and the deck of the steamer was full of tourists. Davy walked through the cobweb of feet and outstretched legs with the face of a man who thought he ought to speak to everybody. Fifty times in the first three hours he went forward to peer through the wind and the glaring sunshine for the first glimpse of the Isle of Man. When at length he saw it, like a gray bird lying on the waters far away, with the sun’s light tipping the hill-tops like a feathery crest, he felt so thick about the throat that he took six steerage passengers to the bar below to help him to get rid of his hoarseness. There was a brass band aboard, and during the trip they played all the outlandish airs of Germany, but just as the pacquet steamed into Douglas Bay, and Davy was watching the land and remembering everything upon it, and shouting “That’s Castle Mona!” “There’s Fort Ann!” “Yonder’s ould St. Mathews’s!” they struck up “Home, Sweet Home.” That was too much for Davy. He dived into his breeches’ pockets, gave every German of the troupe five shillings apiece, and then sat down on a coil of rope and blubbered aloud like a baby.
Kinvig had sent a grand landau from Ramsey to fetch Capt’n Davy to Ballaugh; but before the English driver from the Mitre had identified his fare Davy had recognized an old crony, with a high, springless, country cart—Billiam Ballaneddan, who had come to Douglas to dispatch a barrel of salted herrings to his married daughter at Liverpool, and was going back immediately. 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.
That was a tremendous drive for Davy. He shouted when he recognized anything, and as he recognized everything he shouted throughout the drive. They took the road by old Braddan Church and Union Mills, past St. John’s, under the Tynwald Hill, and down Creg Willie’s Hill. As he approached Kirk Michael his excitement was intense. He was nearing home and he began to know the people. “Lord save us, there’s Tommy Bill-beg—how do, Tommy? And there’s ould Betty! My gough, she’s in yet—how do, mawther? There’s little Juan Caine growed up to a man! How do, Johnny, and how’s the girls and how’s the ould man, and how’s yourself? Goodness me, here’s Liza Corlett, and a baby at her——! I knew her when she was no more than a babby herself.” This last remark to the English driver who was coming up sedately with his landau at the tail of the springless cart.
“Drive on, Billiam! Come up, ould girl—just a taste of the whip, Billiam! Do her no harm at all. Bishop’s Court! Deary me, the ould house is in the same place still.”
At length the square tower of Ballaugh