“I'm telling Dan Johnny here these childers that's coming when a man's away from home isn't much to trust. Best put a sight up with the lil one to the wise woman of Glen Aldyn, eh? A man doesn't like to bring up a cuckoo in the nest—what d'ye say, Capt'n?”
“I say you're a dirty ould divil, Crow; and I don't want to be chucking you off your seat,” said Pete; and with that he turned back to Philip. *
The driver was affronted, but the farmer pacified him by an appeal to his fear. “He'd be coarse to tackle, the same fellow—I saw him clane out a tent with one hand at Tyn-wald.”
“It's a wonder she didn't come home for all,” said Pete at Philip's ear—“at the end, you know. Couldn't face it out, I suppose? Nothing to be afraid of, though, if she'd only known. I had kept things middling straight up to then. And I'd have broke the head of the first man that'd wagged a tongue. But maybe it was myself she was freckened of! Freckened of me! Poor thing! poor thing!”
Philip was in torment. To witness Pete's simple grief, to hear him breathe a forgiveness for the erring woman, and to be trusted with the thoughts of his heart as a father might be trusted by a young child—it was anguish, it was agony, it was horror. More than once he felt an impulse to cast off his load, to confess, to tell everything. But he reflected that he had no right to do this—that the secret was not his own to give away. His fear restrained him also. He looked into Pete's face, so full of manly sorrow, and shuddered to think of it transformed by rage.
“Sit hard, gentlemen. Breeches' work here,” shouted Crow.
They were at the top of the steep descent going down to Laxey. The white town lay sprinkled over the green banks of the glen, and the great water-wheel stood in the depths of the mountain gill behind it.
“She's there! She's yonder! It's herself at the door. She's up. She's looking out for the coach,” cried the fisherman, clambering up on to the seat.
“Aisy all,” shouted Crow.
“No use, Mr. Crow. Nothing will persuade me but that's herself with the lil one in a blanket at the door.”