"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 Adam
Her mischief you may trace,"