The Deemster had a cheerful homegoing. Young Robbie Creer said
afterwards that he had never seen the old man so strong and hearty.
Driving himself, he saluted everybody on the roads, always by name
and generally in the Anglo-Manx. All the way back it was "How do,
John?" or "Grand day done, Mr. Killip."
Janet was waiting for him at the porch of Ballamoar.
"You must be tired after your long day, your Honour?"
"Not at all!"
"And Victor--how did he get on, Sir?"
"Wonderfully! Won his case and covered himself with honour."
At dinner (he insisted on Janet dining with him) he talked of nothing
but Victor and the trial.
"He has got his foot on the ladder now, Miss Curphey, and there is no
height to which he may not ascend."
Janet could do nothing but wipe her shining eyes and say,
"Aw, well now! Think of that now!" And then, with a wise shake of
her old head, "But nobody can say I didn't know he would make us
proud of him some day."
Night fell. Janet began to be afraid of the Deemster's excitement.
She remembered Doctor Clucas's order (privately given to her) to
knock at the Deemster's door between six and seven every morning,
and, if she got no answer, to go into the room. She would do so
to-morrow.
After Janet had gone to bed the Deemster sat at his desk in the
Library and wrote for a long time in his leather-bound book. When he
rose the clock on the landing was striking twelve.
He closed the book, but instead of putting it under lock and key, as
he had always done before, he left it open on the desk, merely
shutting the lid on it. Then with a long look round the room he put
out the lamps and turned to go upstairs.
The reaction had begun by this time, and he staggered a little and
laid hold of the handrail. He paused three times on the stairs, but
his weakness did not frighten him. Lighting his candle on the
landing, he wound the clock, extinguished the lamp that stood by it
and faced the last flight with a smile. All was silent in the house
now.
On reaching his own bedroom he paused again, and then stepped down
the corridor to Victor's. The door was ajar. He pushed it open,
took a step into the empty room and looked round--at the cocoa-nut
matting, the rugs, the bed in the shadow, the discoloured school
trunk in the corner. And then he smiled again. But he was breathing
deeply at intervals and had the look of a man who knew that he was
doing familiar things for the last time.
The window in his own room was open, and the smell of tropical plants
(especially the magnolia, with its sleep-inducing odour) was coming
up from the garden. He remembered that his own father had brought
them from the East long ago, when he was himself a boy.
The sky was dark, but the hidden moon broke through silvery clouds
for a moment, and, looking through the surrounding blackness, he saw
the bald crown of Snaefell, far beyond the trees and above the glen.
He remembered that he had seen it so all the way up since he was a
child.
He closed the curtains slowly and taking his candle again he walked
around the room and looked long at the pictures on the walls. They
were chiefly portraits or miniatures of Victor, at various periods of
childhood and youth--the latest being a photograph sent home to him
from abroad.
That was the last oscillation of the pendulum. When he was about to
prepare for bed he found his strength exhausted, and he was compelled
to sit several times while he undressed. But he continued to smile,
and when he lay down at length and put his head on the-pillow he did
it with a will.
Then he closed his eyes, and drew a deep breath, as one who has gone
through a long day's labour but has seen it finish up well at the
end. And then he closed his eyes and the surge of sleep passed over
him.
Outside the house everything seemed to slumber. It was a night
strangely calm and dark. The tall elms stood like soundless
sentinels in the darkness. Not a leaf stirred. The rivers flowed
without noise, as if a supernatural hand had been laid on them to
silence them. The only sound was the slow boom of the sea, which
seemed to come up out of the ground and to be the pulse of the earth
itself. The deep mystery of night was over all.
Towards morning there was a faint waft of wind in the trees and along
the grass. Was it the movement in the earth's bosom of the new day
about to be born? Or some invisible presence striding along with
noiseless footsteps?
Within the house everything seemed to sleep. But the Deemster lay
dead.