Next morning the Deemster returned from Douglas, and in the
afternoon, the Governor arrived. They took tea on the piazza, the
days being long and the evenings warm.
The Deemster was uneasy about the case they had tried the day before,
and talked much about it. A farmer had killed a girl on his farm
after every appearance of gross ill-usage. The crime and the motive
had been clear and therefore the law could show no clemency. But
there had been external circumstances which might have affected the
man's conduct. Down to ten years before he had been a right-living
man, clean and sober and honest and even religious. Then he had been
thrown by a young horse and kicked on the head and had had to undergo
an operation. After he came out of the hospital his whole character
was found to have changed. He had become drunken, dishonest, a
sensualist and a foul-mouthed blasphemer, and finally he had
committed the crime for which he now stood condemned.
"It makes me tremble to think of it," said the Deemster, "that a mere
physical accident, a mere chance, or a mere spasm of animal instinct,
may cause any of us at any time to act in a way that is utterly
contrary to our moral character and most sincere resolutions."
"It's true, though," said the Governor, "and it doesn't require the
kick of a horse to make a man act in opposition to his character.
The loudest voice a man hears is the call of his physical nature, and
law and religion have just got to make up their minds to it."
Next morning, Sunday morning, they went to church. Janet drove in
the carriage by way of the high road, but the three men walked down
the grassy lane at the back, which, with its gorse hedges on either
side, looked like a long green picture in a golden frame. The
Deemster, who walked between the Governor and Victor, was more than
usually bent and solemn. He had had an anonymous letter about his
son that morning--he had lately had shoals of them.
The morning was warm and quiet; the clover fields were sleeping in
the sunlight to the lullaby of the bees; the slumberous mountains
behind were hidden in a palpitating haze, and against the broad
stretch of the empty sea in front stood the gaunt square tower from
which the far-off sound of the church bells was coming.
Nowhere in the island could they have found a more tragic
illustration of the law of life they had talked about the evening
before than in the person of the Vicar of the Church they were going
to.
His name was Cowley, and down to middle life he had been all that a
clergyman should be. But then he had lost a son under circumstances
of tragic sorrow. The boy had been threatened with a consumption, so
the father had sent him to sea, and going to town to meet him on his
return to the island, he had met his body instead, as it was being
brought ashore from his ship, which was lying at anchor in the bay.
The sailors had said that at sight of them and their burthen, Parson
Cowley had fallen to the stones of Ramsey harbour like a dead man,
and it was long before they could bring him to, or staunch the wound
on his forehead. What is certain is that after his recovery he began
to drink, and that for fifteen years he had been an inveterate
drunkard.
This had long been a cause of grief and perhaps of shame to his
parishioners; but it had never lessened their love of him, for they
knew that in all else he was still a true Christian. If any lone
"widow man" lay dying in his mud cabin on the Curragh, Parson Cowley
would be there to sit up all the night through with him; and if any
barefooted children were going to bed hungry in the one-roomed hovel
that was their living-room, sleeping-room, birth-room and death-room
combined, Parson Cowley would be seen carrying them the supper from
his own larder.
But his weakness had become woeful, and after a shocking moment in
which he had staggered and fallen before the altar, a new Bishop, who
knew nothing of the origin of his infirmity, and was only conscious
of the scandal of it, had threatened that if the like scene ever
occurred again he would not only forbid him to exercise his office,
but call upon the Governor (in whose gift it was) to remove him from
his living.
The bells were loud when the three men reached the white-washed
church on the cliff, with the sea singing on the beach below it, and
Illiam Christian, the shoemaker and parish clerk, standing bareheaded
at the bottom of the outside steps to the tower to give warning to
the bell-ringers that the Governor had arrived.
In expectation of his visit the church was crowded, and with Victor
going first to show the way, the Governor next, and the Deemster
last, with his white head down, the company from Ballamoar walked up
the aisle to the family pew, in which Janet, in her black silk
mantle, was already seated.
The Deemster's pew was close to the communion rails, and horizontal
to the church with the reading-desk and pulpit in the open space in
front of it, and a marble tablet on the wall behind, containing the
names of a long line of the Ballamoars, going as far back as the
sixteenth century.
The vestry was at the western end of the church, under the tower, and
as soon as the bells stopped and the clergy came out, it was seen
that the Vicar was far from sober. Nevertheless he kept himself
erect while coming through the church behind his choir and curate,
and tottered into the carved chair within the rail of the communion.
The curate took the prayers, and might have taken the rest of the
service also, but the Vicar, thinking his duty compelled him to take
his part in the presence of the Governor, rose to read the lessons.
With difficulty he reached the reading-desk, which was close to the
Deemster's pew, and opened the Book and gave out the place. But
hardly had he begun, in a husky and indistinct voice, with "Here
beginneth the first chapter of the Second Book of Samuel" (for it was
the sixth Sunday after Trinity) when he stopped as if unable to go
farther.
For a moment he fumbled with his spectacles, taking them off and
wiping them on the sleeve of his surplice, and then he began afresh.
But scarcely had he said, in a still thicker voice, "Now it came to
pass" .... when he stopped again, as if the words of the Book before
him had run into each other and become an unreadable jumble.
After that he looked helplessly about him for an instant, as if
wondering what to do. Then he grasped the reading-desk with his two
trembling hands, and the perspiration was seen to be breaking in
beads from his forehead.
A breathless silence passed over the church. The congregation saw
what was happening, and dropped their heads, as if knowing that for
their beloved old Vicar this (before the eyes of the Governor) was
the end of everything.
But suddenly they became aware that something was happening.
Quietly, noiselessly, almost before they were conscious of what he
was doing, Victor Stowell, who had been sitting at the end of the
Deemster's pew, had risen, stepped across to the reading-desk, put a
soft hand on the Vicar's arm, and was reading the lesson for him.
"_Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and
in their death they were not divided .... I am distressed for
thee, my brother Jonathan; thy love to me was wonderful, passing
the love of women._"
People who were there that morning said afterwards that never before
had the sublime lament of the great King, the great warrior and the
great poet, for his dead friend and dead enemy been read as it was
read that day by the young voice, so rich and resonant, that was
ringing through the old church.
But it was not that alone that was welling through every bosom. It
was the thrilling certainty that out of the greatness of his heart
the son of the Deemster (of whom too many of them had been talking
ill) had covered the nakedness of the poor stricken sinner who had
sunk back in his surplice to a seat behind him.
When the service was over, and the clergy had returned to the vestry,
the congregation remained standing until the Governor had left the
church. But nobody looked at him now, for all eyes were on the two
who followed him--the Deemster and Victor.
The Deemster had taken his son's arm as he stepped out of his pew,
and as he walked down the aisle, through the lines of his people, his
head was up and his eyes were shining.
"Did thou see that, Mistress?" said Robbie Creer, in triumphant tones
to Janet Curphey, as she was stepping back, with a beaming face, into
her carriage at the gate.
"Thou need have no fear of thy lad, I tell thee. _The Ballamoar will
out!_"
But the day of temptation was coming, and too soon it came.