Kitabı oku: «The Deemster», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XV
THE LIE THAT EWAN TOLD

It was not for long that Dan bore the signs of contrition. As soon as Ewan's pale face had lost the weight of its gloom, Dan's curly poll knew no more trouble. He followed the herrings all through that season, grew brown with the sun and the briny air, and caught the sea's laughter in his rollicking voice. He drifted into some bad habits from which he had hitherto held himself in check. Every morning when the boats ran into harbor, and Teare, the mate, and Crennel, the cook, stayed behind to sell the fish, Dan and old Billy Quilleash trooped up to the "Three Legs of Man" together. There Dan was made much of, and the lad's spirit was not proof against the poor flattery. It was Mastha Dan here, and Mastha Dan there, and Where is Mastha Dan? and What does Mastha Dan say? and great shoutings, and tearings, and sprees; and all the time the old cat with the whiskers who kept the pot-house was scoring up against Dan at the back of the cupboard door.

Did the Bishop know? Know? Did ever a young fellow go to the dogs but some old woman of either sex found her way to the very ear that ought not to be tormented with Job's comfort, and whisper, "Aw, dear! aw, dear!" and "Lawk-a-day!" and "I'm the last to bring bad newses, as the saying is," and "Och, and it's a pity, and him a fine, brave young fellow too!" and "I wouldn't have told it on no account to another living soul!"

The Bishop said little, and tried not to hear; but when Dan would have hoodwinked him, he saw through the device as the sun sees through glass. Dan never left his father's presence without a sense of shame that was harder to bear than any reproach would have been. Something patient and trustful, and strong in hope, and stronger in love, seemed to go out from the Bishop's silence to Dan's reticence. Dan would slink off with the bearing of a whipped hound, or perhaps, with a muttered curse under his teeth, and always with a stern resolve to pitch himself or his cronies straightway into the sea. The tragical purpose usually lasted him over the short mile and a half that divided Bishop's Court from the "Three Legs of Man," and then it went down with some other troubles and a long pint of Manx jough.

Of all men, the most prompt to keep the Bishop informed of Dan's sad pranks was no other than the Deemster. Since the death of Ewan's wife the Deemster's feelings toward Dan had undergone a complete change. From that time forward he looked on Dan with eyes of distrust, amounting in its intensity to hatred. He forbade him his house, though Dan laughed at the prohibition and ignored it. He also went across to Bishop's Court for the first time for ten years, and poured into the Bishop's ears the story of every bad bit of business in which Dan got involved. Dan kept him fully employed in this regard, and Bishop's Court saw the Deemster at frequent intervals.

If it was degrading to the Bishop's place as father of the Church that his son should consort with all the "ragabash" of the island, the scum of the land, and the dirtiest froth of the sea, the Bishop was made to know the full bitterness of that degradation. He would listen with head held down, and when the Deemster, passing from remonstrance to reproach, would call upon him to set his own house in order before he ever ascended the pulpit again, the Bishop would lift his great heavy eyes with an agonizing look of appeal, and answer in a voice like a sob, "Have patience, Thorkell – have patience with the lad; he is my son, my only son."

It chanced that toward the end of the herring season an old man of eighty, one William Callow, died, and he was the captain of the parish of Michael. The captaincy was a semi-civil, semi-military office, and it included the functions of parish head-constable. Callow had been a a man of extreme probity, and his walk in life had been without a slip.

"The ould man's left no living craythur to fill his shoes," the people said when they buried him, but when the name of the old man's successor came down from Castletown, who should be the new captain but Daniel Mylrea? The people were amazed, the Deemster laughed in his throat, and Dan himself looked appalled.

Hardly a month after this event, the relations of Dan and the Deemster, and Dan and the Bishop, reached a climax.

For months past the Bishop had been hatching a scheme for the sub-division of his episcopal glebe, the large extent of which had long been a burden on the dwindling energies of his advancing age; and he had determined that, since his son was not to be a minister of the Church, he should be its tenant, and farm its lands. So he cut off from the demesne a farm of eighty acres of fine Curragh land, well drained and tilled. This would be a stay and a solid source of livelihood to Dan when the herring fishing had ceased to be a pastime. There was no farmhouse on the eighty acres, but barns and stables were to be erected, and Dan was to share with Ewan the old Ballamona as a home.

Dan witnessed these preparations, but entered into them with only a moderate enthusiasm. The reason of his lukewarmness was that he found himself deeply involved in debts whereof his father knew nothing. When the fishing season finished and the calculations were made, it was found that the boat had earned no more than £240. Of this, old Billy Quilleash took four shares, every man took two shares, there was a share set aside for Davy, the boy, and the owner was entitled to eight shares for himself, his nets, and his boat. So far, all was reasonably satisfactory. The difficulty and dissatisfaction arose when Dan began to count the treasury. Then it was discovered that there was not enough in hand to pay old Billy and his men and the boy, leaving Dan's eight shares out of the count Dan scratched his head and pondered. He was not brilliant at figures, but he totted up his numbers again with the same result. Then he computed the provisioning – tea, at four shillings a pound, besides fresh meat four times a week, and fine flour biscuits. It was heavy, but not ruinous, and the season had been poor, but not bad, and whatever the net results, there ought not to have been a deficit where the principle of cooperation between master and man was that of share and share.

Dan began to see his way through the mystery – it was most painfully transparent in the light of the score that had been chalked up from time to time on the inside of the cupboard of the "Three Legs of Man." But it was easier to see where the money had gone than to make it up, and old Billy and his chums began to mutter and to grumble.

"It's raely wuss till ever," said one.

"The tack we've been on hasn't been worth workin'," said another.

Dan heard their murmurs, and went up to Bishop's Court. After all, the deficit was only forty pounds, and his father would lend him that much. But hardly had Dan sat down to breakfast than the Bishop, who was clearly in lower spirits than usual, began to lament that his charities to the poor had been interrupted by the cost of building the barns and stables on the farm intended for his son.

"I hope your fishing will turn out well, Dan," he said, "for I've scarce a pound in hand to start you."

So Dan said nothing about the debt, and went back to the fisher-fellows with a face as long as a haddock's. "I'll tell you, men, the storm is coming," he said.

Old Billy looked as black as thunder, and answered with an impatient gesture, "Then keep your weather eye liftin', that's all."

Dan measured the old salt from head to foot, and hitched his hand into his guernsey. "You wouldn't talk to me like that, Billy Quilleash, if I hadn't been a fool with you. It's a true saying, that when you tell your servant your secret you make him your master."

Old Billy sniggered, and his men snorted. Billy wanted to know why he had left Kinvig's boat, where he had a sure thirty pounds for his season; and Ned Teare wished to be told what his missus would say when he took her five pound ten; and Crennel, the slushy, asked what sort of a season the mastha was aftha callin' it, at all, at all.

Not a man of them remembered his share of the long scores chalked up on the inside of the cupboard door.

"Poor old dad," thought Dan, "he must find the money after all – no way but that," and once again he turned toward Bishop's Court.

Billy Quilleash saw him going off, and followed him. "I've somethin' terrible fine up here," said Billy, tapping his forehead mysteriously.

"What is it?" Dan asked.

"Och, a shockin' powerful schame. It'll get you out of the shoal water anyways," said Billy.

It turned out that the "shockin' powerful schame" was the ancient device of borrowing the money from a money-lender. Old Billy knew the very man to serve the turn. His name was Kisseck, and he kept the "Jolly Herrings" in Peeltown, near the bottom of the crabbed little thoroughfare that wound and twisted and descended to that part of the quay which overlooked the castle rock.

"No, no; that'll not do," said Dan.

"Aw, and why not at all?"

"Why not? Why not? Because it's blank robbery to borrow what you can't pay back."

"Robbery? Now, what's the use of sayin' the like o' that? Aw, the shockin' notions! Well, well, and do you raely think a person's got no feelin's? Robbery? Aw, well now, well now."

And old Billy tramped along with the air of an injured man.

But the end of it was that Dan said nothing to the Bishop that day, and the same night found him at the "Jolly Herrings." The landlord had nothing to lend, not he, but he knew people who would not mind parting with money on good security, or on anybody's bail, as the sayin' was. Couldn't Mastha Dan get a good man's name to a bit o' paper, like? Coorse he could, and nothing easier, for a gen'l'man same as him. Who was the people? They belonged to Liverpool, the Goree Peaizy – Benas they were callin' them.

Three days afterward the forty pounds, made up to fifty for round numbers, came to Kisseck, the landlord, and the bit o' paper came with it. Dan took the paper and went off with it to the old Ballamona. Ewan would go bail for him, and so the Bishop need know nothing of the muddle. But when Dan reached his new home Ewan was away – a poor old Quaker named Christian, who had brought himself to beggary by neglecting Solomon's injunction against suretyship, was dying, and had sent for the parson.

Dan was in a hurry; the fisher-fellows were grumbling, and their wives were hanging close about their coat-tails; the money must be got without delay, and of course Ewan would sign for it straight-away if he were there. An idea struck Dan, and made the sweat to start from his forehead. He had put the paper on the table and taken up a pen, when he heard Ewan's voice outside, and then he threw the pen down and his heart leaped with a sense of relief.

Ewan came in, and rattled on about old Christian, the Quaker. He hadn't a week to live, poor old soul, and he hadn't a shilling left in the world. Once he farmed his hundred acres, but he had stood surety for this man and surety for that man, and paid up the defalcations of both, and now, while they were eating the bread of luxury, he was dying as a homeless pauper.

"Well, he has been practising a bad virtue," said Ewan. "I wouldn't stand surety for my own brother – not for my own brother if I had one. It would be helping him to eat to-day the bread he earns to-morrow."

Dan went out without saying anything of the bit of paper from Liverpool. The fisher-fellows met him, and when they heard what he had to say their grumblings broke out again.

"Well, I'm off for the Bishop – and no disrespec'," said old Billy.

He did not go; the bit o' paper was signed, but not by Ewan; the money was paid; the grateful sea-dogs were sent home with their wages in their pockets and a smart cuff on either ear.

A month or two went by, and Dan grew quiet and thoughtful, and sometimes gloomy, and people began to say, "It's none so wild the young mastha is at all, at all," or perhaps, "Wonderful studdy he's growing," or even, "I wouldn't trust but he'll turn out a parson after all." One day in November Dan went over to new Ballamona and asked for Mona, and sat with her in earnest talk. He told her of some impending disaster, and she listened with a whitening face.

From that day forward Mona was a changed woman. She seemed to share some great burden of fear with Dan, and it lay heavy upon her, and made the way of life very long and cheerless to the sweet and silent girl.

Toward the beginning of December, sundry letters came out of their season from the young clerk of Benas Brothers, Jarvis Kerruish. Then the Deemster went over more than once to Bishop's Court, and had grave interviews with the Bishop.

"If you can prove this that you say, Thorkell, I shall turn my back on him forever – yes, forever," said the Bishop, and his voice was husky and his sad face was seamed with lines of pain.

A few days passed and a stranger appeared at Ballamona, and when the stranger had gone the Deemster said to Mona, "Be ready to go to Bishop's Court with me in the morning."

Mona's breath seemed to be suddenly arrested. "Will Ewan be there?" she asked.

"Yes – isn't it the day of his week-day service at the chapel – Wednesday – isn't it?"

"And Dan?" she said.

"Dan? Why Dan? Well, woman, perhaps Dan too – who knows?"

The Bishop had sent across to the old Ballamona to say that he wished to see his son in the library after service on the following morning.

At twelve next day, Dan, who had been plowing, turned in at Bishop's Court in his long boots and rough red shirt, and there in the library he found Mona and the Deemster seated. Mona did not speak when Dan spoke to her. Her voice seemed to fail; but the Deemster answered in a jaunty word or two; and then the Bishop, looking very thoughtful, came in with Ewan, whose eyes were brighter than they had been for many a day, and behind them walked the stranger whom Mona had seen at Ballamona the day before.

"Why, and how's this?" said Ewan, on perceiving that so many of them were gathered there.

The Bishop closed the door, and then answered, with averted face, "We have a painful interview before us, Ewan – be seated."

It was a dark day; the clouds hung low, and the dull rumble of the sea came through the dead air. A fire of logs and peat burned on the hearth, and the Deemster rose and stood with his back to it, his hands interlaced behind him. The Bishop sat on his brass-clamped chair at the table, and rested his pale cheek on his hand. There was a pause, and then without lifting his eyes the Bishop said, "Ewan, do you know that it is contrary to the customs of the Church for a minister to stand security for a debtor?"

Ewan was standing by the table, fumbling the covers of a book that he had lifted. "I know it," he said, quietly.

"Do you know that the minister who disregards that custom stands liable to suspension at the hands of his Bishop?"

Ewan looked about with a stare of bewilderment, but he answered again, and as quietly, "I know it."

There was silence for a moment, and then the Deemster, clearing his throat noisily, turned to where Dan was pawing up a rug that lay under a column and bust of Bunyan.

"And do you know, sir," said the Deemster, in his shrill tones, "what the punishment of forgery may be?"

Dan's face had undergone some changes during the last few minutes, but when he lifted it to the Deemster's, it was as firm as a rock.

"Hanging, perhaps," he answered, sullenly; "transportation, perhaps. What of it? Out with it – be quick."

Dan's eyes flashed; the Deemster tittered audibly; the Bishop looked up at his son from under the rims of his spectacles and drew a long breath. Mona had covered her face in her hands where she sat in silence by the ingle, and Ewan, still fumbling the book in his nervous fingers, was glancing from Dan to the Deemster, and from the Bishop to Dan, with a look of blank amazement.

The Deemster motioned to the stranger, who thereupon advanced from where he had stood by the door, and stepped up to Ewan.

"May I ask if this document was drawn by your authority?" and saying this the stranger held out a paper, and Ewan took it in his listless fingers.

There was a moment's silence. Ewan glanced down at the document. It showed that fifty pounds had been lent to Daniel Mylrea, by Benas Brothers, of the Goree Piazza, Liverpool, and it was signed by Ewan's own name as that of surety.

"Is that your signature?" asked the stranger.

Ewan glanced at Dan, and Dan's head was on his breast and his lips quivered. The Bishop was trembling visibly, and sat with head bent low by the sorrow of a wrecked and shattered hope.

The stranger looked from Ewan to Dan, and from Dan to the Bishop. The Deemster gazed steadily before him, and his face wore a ghostly smile.

"Is it your signature?" repeated the stranger, and his words fell on the silence like the clank of a chain.

Ewan saw it all now. He glanced again at the document, but his eyes were dim, and he could read nothing. Then he lifted his face, and its lines of agony told of a terrible struggle.

"Yes," he answered, "the signature is mine – what of it?"

At that the Bishop and Mona raised their eyes together. The stranger looked incredulous.

"It is quite right if you say so," the stranger replied, with a cold smile.

Ewan trembled in every limb. "I do say so," he said.

His fingers crumpled the document as he spoke, but his head was erect, and the truth seemed to sit on his lips. Dan dropped heavily into a chair and buried his face in his hands.

The stranger smiled again the same cold smile. "The lenders wish to withdraw the loan," he said.

"They may do so – in a month," said Ewan.

"That will suffice."

The Deemster's face twitched; Mona's cheeks were wet with tears; the Bishop had risen and gone to the window, and was gazing out through blurred eyes into the blinding rain that was now pelting against the glass.

"It would be cruel to prolong a painful interview," said the stranger; and then, with a glance toward Dan where he sat convulsed with distress that he made no effort to conceal, he added, in a hard tone:

"Only the lenders came to have reasons to fear that perhaps the document had been drawn without your knowledge."

Ewan handed the paper back with a nerveless hand. He looked at the stranger through swimming eyes and said gently, but with an awful inward effort, "You have my answer, sir – I knew of it."

The stranger bowed and went out. Dan leaped to his feet and threw his arms about Ewan's neck, but dared not to look into his troubled face. Mona covered her eyes and sobbed.

The Deemster picked up his hat to go, and in passing out he paused in front of Ewan and said, in a bitter whisper:

"Fool! fool! You have taken this man's part to your own confusion."

When the door closed behind the Deemster the Bishop turned from the window. "Ewan," he said, in a voice like a cry, "the Recording Angel has set down the lie you have told to-day in the Book of Life to your credit in heaven."

Then the Bishop paused, and Dan lifted his head from Ewan's neck.

"As for you, sir," the Bishop added, turning to his son, "I am done with you forever – go from me – let me see your face no more."

Dan went out of the room with bended head.

CHAPTER XVI
THE PLOWING MATCH

When Ewan got back home there was Dan sitting before the fire in the old hall, his legs stretched out before him, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his head low in his breast, and his whole mien indicative of a crushed and broken spirit. He glanced up furtively as Ewan entered, and then back with a stony stare to the fire. If Ewan had then given him one word of cheer, God knows what tragic consequences would have been spared to them both. But Ewan had saved Dan from the penalty of his crime at the cost of truth and his self-esteem.

"Dan," he said, "you and I must part – we can be friends no longer."

He spoke with a strong effort, and the words seemed to choke him. Dan shambled to his feet; he appeared to collect his thoughts for a moment, like one who had fainted and returns to consciousness.

"Mind – I don't turn you out of the house," said Ewan, "only if we are to share this place together we must be strangers."

A hard smile broke out on Dan's face. He seemed to be trying to speak, but not a word would come. He twisted slowly on his heel, and lifted the latch of the door that led to the inner part of the house.

"One thing more," said Ewan, speaking quickly, and in a tremulous voice, "I will ask you to look upon yourself as a stranger to my sister also."

Dan stopped and turned about. Over the forced smile his hard face told of a great struggle for self-command. He said nothing, and after a moment he went out, drawing his breath audibly.

Then straightway Ewan flung himself into the chair from which Dan had risen, and his slight frame shook with suppressed sobs. After some minutes the sense of his own degradation diminished, and left room for a just idea of Dan's abject humiliation. "I have gone too far," he thought; "I will make amends." He had risen to follow Dan, when another thought trod heavily on the heels of the first. "Leave him alone, it will be best for himself – leave him alone, for his own sake." And so, with the madness of wrath fermenting in his own brain, he left it to ferment in Dan's brain as well.

Now, when Dan found himself left alone he tried to carry off his humiliation by a brave show of unconcern. He stayed on at the old Ballamona, but he never bothered himself – not he, forsooth – to talk to folks who passed him on the stairs without a word of greeting, or met in the hall without a glance of recognition.

It chanced just then that, in view of a threatened invasion, the authorities were getting up a corps of volunteers, known as the Manx Fencibles, and that they called on the captains of the parishes to establish companies. Dan threw himself into this enterprise with uncommon vigor, took drills himself, acquired a competent knowledge of the rudiments in a twinkling, and forthwith set himself to band together the young fellows of his parish. It was just the sort of activity that Dan wanted at the moment, and in following it up the "Three Legs" saw him something oftener than before, and there the fellows of the baser sort drank and laughed with him, addressing him sometimes as captain, but oftener as Dan, never troubling themselves a ha'p'orth to put a handle to his name.

This was a turn of events which Ewan could not understand. "I have been mistaken in the man," he thought; "there's no heart left in him."

Toward the middle of December Jarvis Kerruish arrived at Ballamona, and forthwith established himself there in a position that would have been proper to the Deemster's heir. He was a young man of medium height and size, closely resembling the Deemster in face and figure. His dress was English: he wore a close-fitting undercoat with tails, and over it a loose cloak mounted with a brass buckle at the throat; he had a beaver hat of the shape of a sugar-loaf; and boots that fitted to his legs like gloves. His manner was expansive, and he betrayed a complete unconsciousness of the sinister bar of his birth, and of the false position he had taken up in the Deemster's house. He showed no desire to visit the cottage at the Cross Vein; and he spoke of the poor with condescension. When he met with Ewan he displayed no uneasiness, and Ewan on his part gave no sign of resentment. Mona, on the other hand, betrayed an instinctive repulsion, and in less than a week from his coming their relations had reached an extraordinary crisis, which involved Ewan and Dan and herself in terrible consequences. This is what occurred:

On the day before Christmas Day there was to be a plowing match in a meadow over the Head, and Ewan stood pledged by an old promise to act as judge. The day came, and it was a heavy day, with snow-clouds hanging overhead, and misty vapors floating down from the hills and up from the Curraghs, and hiding them. At ten in the morning Mona muffled herself in a great cloak, and went over to the meadow with Ewan. There a crowd had already gathered, strong men in blue pilots, old men in sheepskin coats, women with their short blue camblet gowns tucked over their linen caps, boys and girls on every side, all coming and going like shadows in the mist. At one end of the meadow several pairs of horses stood yoked to plows, and a few lads were in charge of them. On Ewan's arrival there was a general movement among a group of men standing together, and a respectful salutation to the parson. The names were called over of the plowmen who had entered for the prize – a pound note and a cup – and last of all, there was a show of hands for the election of six men to form a jury.

Then the stretch was staked out. The prize was to the plowman who would make the stretch up and down the meadow in the shortest time, cutting the furrows straightest, cleanest, and of the most regular depth.

When all was ready, Ewan took up his station where the first furrow would be cut into the field, with Mona at his side, and the six jurors about him. The first plowman to bring up his plow was a brawny young fellow with a tanned face. The plowman had brought up his horses in front of the stake, and had laid hands on his plow-handles, and was measuring the stretch with his eye for a landmark to sight by, when Jarvis Kerruish came into the meadow, and walked through the crowd, and took up a place by Mona's side. There were audible comments, and some racy exclamations as he pushed through the crowd, not lifting an eye to any face; but he showed complete indifference, and began to talk to Mona in a loud, measured tone.

"Ah! this is very gratifying," he was saying, "to see the peasantry engaged in manly sports – useful sports – is, I confess, very gratifying to me."

"My gough!" said a voice from one side.

"Hurroo!" said a voice from the other side.

"Lawk-a-day!" came from behind, in a shrill female treble. "Did ye ever see a grub turn butterfly?"

Jarvis seemed not to hear. "Now there are sports – " he began; but the plowman was shouting to his horses, "Steady, steady," the plow was dipping into the succulent grass, the first swish of the upturned soil was in the air, and Jarvis's wise words were lost.

All eyes were on the bent back of the plowman plodding on in the mist. "He cuts like a razor," said one of the spectators. "He bears his hand too much on," said another. "Do better yourself next spell," said a third.

When the horses reached the far end of the stretch the plowman whipped them round like the turn of a wheel, and in another moment he was toiling back, steadily, firmly, his hand rigid, and his face set hard. When he got back to where Ewan, with his watch in his hand, stood surrounded by the jurors, he was covered with sweat. "Good, very good – six minutes ten seconds," said Ewan, and there were some plaudits from the people looking on, and some banter of the competitors who came up to follow.

Jarvis Kerruish, at Mona's elbow, was beginning again, "I confess that it has always been my personal opinion – " but in the bustle of another pair of horses whipped up to the stake no one seemed to be aware that he was speaking.

Five plowmen came in succession, but all were behind the first in time and cut a less regular furrow. So Ewan and the jurors announced that the prize was to the stranger. Then as Ewan twisted about, his adjudication finished, to where Mona stood with Jarvis by her side, there was a general rush of competitors and spectators to a corner of the meadow, where, from a little square cart, the buirdly stranger who was victor proceeded to serve out glasses of ale from a small barrel.

While this was going on, and there was some laughter and shouting and singing, there came a loud "Hello," as of many voices from a little distance, and then the beat of many irregular feet, and one of the lads in the crowd, who had jumped to the top of the broad turf hedge, shouted, "It's the capt'n – it's Mastha Dan."

In another half-minute, Dan and some fifty or sixty of the scum of the parish came tumbling into the meadow on all sides – over the hedge, over the gate, and tearing through the gaps in the gorse. They were the corps that Dan had banded together toward the Manx Fencibles, but the only regimentals they yet wore were a leather belt, and the only implement of war they yet carried was the small dagger that was fitted into the belt. That morning they had been drilling, and after drill they had set off to see the plowing match, and on the way they had passed the "Three Legs," and being exceeding dry, they had drawn up in front thereof, and every man had been served with a glass, which had been duly scored off to the captain's account.

Dan saw Mona with Ewan as he vaulted the gate, but he gave no sign of recognition, and in a moment he was in the thick of the throng at the side of the cart, hearing all about the match, and making loud comments upon it in his broadest homespun.

"What!" he said, "and you've let yourselves be bate by a craythur like that. Hurroo!"

He strode up to the stranger's furrow, cocked his eye along it, and then glanced at the stranger's horses.

"Och, I'll go bail I'll bate it with a yoke of oxen."

At that there was a movement of the crowd around him, and some cheering, just to egg on the rupture that was imminent.

The big stranger heard all, and strode through the people with a face like a thunder-cloud.

"Who says he'll bate it with a yoke of oxen?" he asked.

"That's just what I'm afther saying, my fine fellow. Have you anything agen it?"

In half a minute a wager had been laid of a pound a side that Dan, with a pair of oxen, would beat the stranger with a pair of horses in two stretches out of three.

"Davy! Davy!" shouted Dan, and in a twinkling there was Davy Fayle, looking queer enough in his guernsey, and his long boots, and his sea-cap, and withal his belt and his dagger. Davy was sent for a pair of oxen to where they were leading manure, not far away. He went off like a shot, and in ten minutes he was back in the meadow, driving the oxen before him.