"Aw, the good-looking he is, astonishing! My gough! You should see him in his Sunday hat, or maybe with a frill on his shirt, and smiling, and all to that! Terrible dacent sort is Hommy-beg!"
"What, the loblolly-boy in the petticoat?"
"Aw, but the tender-hearted he is for all, and, bless me, Kerry woman, the swate he is on you!"
"What, the ould red-head that comes singing, as the saying is?"
"Aw, no, woman, but as black as the raven, and the way he looks sorrowful-like when he comes beside of you. You wouldn't believe it! And, bless me, the rael bad he is to come up to the Coort and take a cup of tay with you, and the like o' that."
"Do you raely mane it, Danny, my chree?"
The very next day Hommy-beg arrived at the kitchen door of Bishop's Court in his Sunday hat, in the shirt with the frill to it, and with a peony as big as a March cabbage in his fist. The end of it all was that Kerry and Hommy-beg were forthwith asked in church. Wild as the freak was that made the deaf man and the blind woman man and wife, their marriage was none the less happy for their infirmities.
The Deemster heard of the plot on his way to church on Sunday morning, and he laughed in his throat all through the service, and when the first of the askings was solemnly proclaimed from the reading-desk, he tittered audibly in his pew. "Danny was tired of the woman's second sight—found it inconvenient, very—wanted to be rid of her—good!" he chuckled. But not long afterward he enjoyed a jest that was yet more to his taste, for his own prime butt of ridicule, the Church itself, was then the victim.
It was an old Manx custom that on Christmas Eve the church should be given up to the people for the singing of their native carols or carvals. The curious service was known as Oiel Verree (the Eve of Mary), and at every such service for the last twenty years Hommy-beg, the gardener, and Mr. James Quirk, the schoolmaster, had officiated as singers in the strange Manx ritual. Great had hitherto been the rivalry between these musical celebrities, but word had gone round the town that at length their efforts were to be combined in a carol which they were to sing together. Dan had effected this extraordinary combination of talent by a plot which was expected to add largely to the amusement of the listeners.
Hommy-beg could not read a syllable, yet he never would sing his carol without having the printed copy of it in his hand. Of course, Mr. Quirk, the schoolmaster, could read, but, as we have seen, he resembled Hommy-beg in being almost stone-deaf. Each could hear himself sing, but neither could hear another.