CHAPTER XXVIII
THE CHILD GHOST IN THE HOUSE
After the coroner, Quayle the Gyke, had gone through one part of his dual functions at Ballamona, and thereby discovered that the body of Ewan had been wrapped in a sailcloth of the "Ben-my-Chree," he set out on the other part of his duty, to find the berth of the fishing-boat, and, if need be, to arrest the crew. He was in the act of leaving Ballamona when, at the gate of the highroad, he came upon the women and children of the families of the crew he was in search of, and there, at the moment when the Bishop arrived for the funeral, he heard that the men had been at sea since the middle of the previous day. Confirmed in his suspicions, but concealing them, he returned to the village with the terrified women, and on the way he made his own sinister efforts to comfort them when they mourned as if their husbands had been lost. "Aw, no, no, no, never fear; we'll see them again soon enough, I'll go bail," he said, and in their guileless blindness the women were nothing loth to take cheer from the fellow's dubious smile.
His confidence was not misplaced, for hardly had he got back to the village, and stepped into the houses one after one, making his own covert investigations while he sandwiched his shrewd questions with solace, when the fishermen themselves, old Quilleash, Crennell, Teare, and Corkell, and the lad Davy Fayle, came tramping up the street. Then there was wild joy among the children, who clung to the men's legs, and some sharp nagging among the women, who were by wifely duty bound to conceal their satisfaction under a proper appearance of wrath. "And what for had they been away all night?" and "Didn't they take shame at treating a woman like dirt?" and "Just like a man, just, not caring a ha'p'orth, and a woman up all night, and taking notions about drowning, and more fool for it."
And when at length there came a cessation of such questions, and the fishermen sat down with an awkward silence, or grunted something in an evasive way about "Women preaching mortal," and "Never no reason in them," then the coroner began his more searching inquiries. When did they run in with the cod and ling that was found lying in the tent? Was there a real good "strike" on, that they went out again at half-flood last night? Doing much outside? No? He wouldn't trust but they were lying off the Mooragh, eh? Yes, you say? Coorse, coorse. And good ground, too. And where was the capt'n? Out with them? He thought so.
Everything the coroner asked save the one thing on which his mind was set, but at mention of the Mooragh the women forgot their own trouble in the greater trouble that was over the parish, and blurted out, with many an expletive, the story of the coming to shore of the body of Ewan. And hadn't they heard the jeel? Aw, shocking, shocking! And the young pazon had sailed in their boat, so he had! Aw, ter'ble, ter'ble!
The coroner kept his eyes fixed on the men's faces, and marked their confusion with content. They on their part tried all their powers of dissembling. First came a fine show of ferocity. Where were their priddhas and herrings? Bad cess to the women, the idle shoulderin' craythurs, did they think a man didn't want never a taste of nothin' comin' in off the say, afther workin' for them day and night same as haythen naygroes, and no thanks for it?
It would not do, and the men themselves were the first to be conscious that they could not strike fire. One after another slunk out of his house until they were all five on the street in a group, holding their heads together and muttering. And when at length the coroner came out of old Quilleash's house, and leaned against the trammon at the porch, and looked toward them in the darkness, but said not a word, their self-possession left them on the instant, and straightway they took to their heels.
"Let's away at a slant over the Head and give warning to Mastha Dan," they whispered; and this was the excuse they made to themselves for their flight, just to preserve a little ray of self-respect.
But the coroner understood them, and he set his face back toward the churchyard, knowing that the Deemster would be there by that time.