THE DEEMSTER OF MAN
Twenty times that night Thorkell devised expedients to break the web of
fate. At first his thoughts were of revengeful defiance. By fair means
or foul the woman Kerruish should suffer. She should be turned out of
house and home. She should tramp the roads as a mendicant. He would put
his foot on her neck. Then they would see what her uncanny threats had
come to.
He tried this unction for his affrighted spirit, and put it aside as
useless. No, no; he would conciliate the woman. He would settle an
annuity of five pounds a year upon her; he would give her the snug gate
cottage of old Ballamona to live in; his wife should send her warm
blankets in winter, and sometimes a pound of tea, such as old folks
love. Then must her imprecation fall impotent, and his own fate be
undisturbed.
Thorkell's bedroom in his new house on Slieu Dhoo looked over the
Curraghs to the sea. As the day dawned he opened the window, and thrust
out his head to drink of the cool morning air. The sun was rising over
the land behind, a strong breeze was sweeping over the marshes from the
shore, and the white curves of the breakers to the west reflected here
and there the glow of the eastern sky. With the salt breath of the sea
in his nostrils, it seemed to Thorkell a pitiful thing that a man should
be a slave to a mere idea; a thing for shame and humiliation that the
sneezing of an old woman should disturb the peace of a strong man.
Superstition was the bugbear of the Manxman, but it would die of shame
at its sheer absurdity, only that it was pampered by the law. Toleration
for superstition! Every man who betrayed faith in omens or portents, or
charms or spells, or the power of the evil eye, should be instantly
clapped in the Castle. It was but right that a rabid dog should be
muzzled.
Thorkell shut the window, closed the shutters, threw off his clothes,
and went back to bed. In the silence and the darkness, his thoughts took
yet another turn. What madness it was, what pertness and unbelief, to
reject that faith in which the best and wisest of all ages had lived and
died! Had not omens and portents, and charms and spells, and the evil
eye been believed in in all ages? What midget of modern days should now
arise with a superior smile and say, "Behold, this is folly: Saul of
Israel and Saul of Tarsus, and Samuel and Solomon, rose up and lay down
in folly."
Thorkell leaped out of bed, sweating from every pore. The old woman
Kerruish should be pensioned; she should live in the cozy cottage at the
gates of Ballamona; she should have blankets and tea and many a snug
comfort; her daughter should be brought back and married--yes,
married--to some honest fellow.
The lark was loud in the sky, the rooks were stirring in the lofty ash,
the swallows pecking at the lattice, when sleep came at length to
Thorkell's bloodshot eyes, and he stretched himself in a short and
fitful slumber. He awoke with a start. The lusty rap of Hommy-beg was at
the door of his room. There was no itinerant postman, and it was one of
Hommy-beg's daily duties to go to the post-office. He had been there
this morning, and was now returned with a letter for his master.
Thorkell took the letter with nervous fingers. He had recognized the
seal--it was the seal of the insular Government. The letter came from
Castle Rushen. He broke the seal and read:
"CASTLE RUSHEN, June 3d.
"SIR--I am instructed by his Excellency to beg you to come to
Castletown without delay, and to report your arrival at the
Castle to Madam Churchill, who will see you on behalf of the
Duchess.
"I have the honor to be, etc."
The letter was signed by the Secretary to the Governor.
What did it mean? Thorkell could make nothing of it but that in some way
it boded ill. In a bewildered state of semi-consciousness he ordered
that a horse should be got ready and brought round to the front. Half an
hour later he had risen from an untouched breakfast and was seated in
the saddle.
He rode past Tynwald Hill and through Foxdale to the south. Twenty times
he drew up and half-reined his horse in another direction. But he went
on again. He could turn about at any time. He never turned about. At two
o'clock that day he stood before the low gate of the Castle and pulled
at the great clanging bell.
He seemed to be expected, and was immediately led to a chamber on the
north of the courtyard. The room was small and low; it was dimly lighted
by two lancet windows set deep into walls that seemed to be three yards
thick. The floor was covered with a rush matting; a harp stood near the
fireplace. A lady rose as Thorkell entered. She was elderly, but her
dress was youthful. Her waist was short; her embroidered skirt was very
long; she wore spangled shoes, and her hair was done into a knot on the
top of her head.
Thorkell stood before her with the mien of a culprit. She smiled and
motioned him to a seat, and sat herself.
"You have heard of the death of one of our two Deemsters?" she asked.
Thorkell's face whitened, and he bowed his head.
"A successor must soon be appointed, and the Deemster is always a
Manxman; he must know the language of the common people."
Thorkell's face wore a bewildered expression. The lady's manner was very
suave.
"The appointment is the gift of the Lord of the island, and the Duchess
is asked to suggest a name."
Thorkell's face lightened. He had regained all his composure.
"The Duchess has heard a good account of you, Mr. Mylrea. She is told
that by your great industry and--wisdom--you have raised yourself in
life--become rich, in fact."
The lady's voice dropped to a tone of most insinuating suavity. Thorkell
stammered some commonplace.
"Hush, Mr. Mylrea, you shall not depreciate yourself. The Duchess has
heard that you are a man of enterprise--one who does not begrudge the
penny that makes the pound."
Thorkell saw it all. He was to be made Deemster, but he was to buy his
appointment. The Duchess had lost money of late, and the swashbuckler
court she kept had lately seen some abridgment of its gaieties.
"To be brief, Mr. Mylrea, the Duchess has half an intention of
suggesting your name for the post, but before doing so she wished me to
see in what way your feelings lie with regard to it."
Thorkell's little eyes twinkled, and his lips took an upward curve. He
placed one hand over his breast and bent his head.
"My feelings, madam, lie in one way only--the way of gratitude," he
said, meekly.
The lady's face broadened, and there was a pause.
"It is a great distinction, Mr. Mylrea," said the lady, and she drew her
breath inward.
"The greater my gratitude," said Thorkell.
"And how far would you go to show this gratitude to the Duchess?"
"Any length, madam," said Thorkell, and he rose and bowed.
"The Duchess is at present at Bath--"
"I would go so far, and--further, madam, further," said Thorkell, and as
he spoke he thrust his right hand deep into his pocket, and there--by
what accident may not be said--it touched some coins that chinked.
There was another pause, and then the lady rose and held out her hand,
and said, in a significant tone:
"I think, sir, I may already venture to hail you as Deemster of Man."
Thorkell cantered home in great elevation of soul. The milestones fell
behind him one after one, and he did not feel the burden of the way. His
head was in his breast; his body was bent over his saddle-bow; again and
again a trill of light laughter came from his lips. Where were his
dreams now, his omens, his spells, and the power of the evil eye? He was
judge of his island. He was master of his fate.
Passing through St. John's, he covered the bleak top of the hill, and
turned down toward the shady copse of Kirk Michael. Where the trees were
thickest in the valley he drew rein by a low, long house that stood back
to the road. It was the residence of the Bishop of the island, but it
was now empty. The bishopric had been vacant these five years, and under
the heavy rains from the hills and the strong winds from the sea, the
old house had fallen into decay.
Thorkell sat in the saddle under the tall elms in the dim light, and his
mind was busy with many thoughts. His memory went back with something
akin to tenderness to the last days of old Ewan, his father; to his
brother, Gilcrist, and then, by a sudden transition, to the incidents of
that morning at Castle Rushen. How far in the past that morning seemed
to be!
The last rook had cawed out its low guttural note, and the last gleam of
daylight died off between the thick boughs of the dark trees that
pattered lightly overhead, as Thorkell set off afresh.
When he arrived at Ballamona the night was dark. The Archdeacon was
sitting with his daughter, who had not left her room that day. Thorkell,
still booted and spurred, ran like a squirrel up the stairs and into the
bedroom. In twenty hot words that were fired off like a cloud of small
shot from a blunderbuss, Thorkell told what had occurred. His wife's
white face showed no pleasure and betrayed no surprise. Her silence
acted on Thorkell as a rebuke, and when her eyes rested on his face he
turned his own eyes aside. The Archdeacon was almost speechless, but his
look of astonishment was eloquent, and when Thorkell left the room he
followed him out.
At supper the Archdeacon's manner was that of deep amity.
"They are prompt to appoint a Deemster," he said. "Has it not struck you
as strange that the bishopric has been vacant so long?"
Thorkell laughed a little over his plate, and answered that it was
strange.
"Maybe it only needs that a name should be suggested," continued the
Archdeacon. "That is to say, suggested by a man of influence--a man of
position--by the Deemster, for instance."
"Just that," said Thorkell, with a titter.
Then there was an interchange of further amity. When the two men rose
from the table the Archdeacon said, with a conscious smile, "Of course,
if you should occur--if you should ever think--if, that is, the Deemster
should ever suggest a name for the bishopric--of course, he will
remember that--that blood, in short, is thicker than water--_ta fuill my
s'chee na ushtey_, as the Manxman says."
"I will remember it," said Thorkell, in a significant tone, and with a
faint chuckle.
Satisfied with that day's work, with himself, and with the world,
Thorkell then went off to bed, and lay down in peace and content, and
slept the sleep of the just.
In due course Thorkell Mylrea became Deemster Ballamona.
He entered upon his duties after the briefest study of the Statute Laws.
A Manx judge dispensed justice chiefly by the Breast Laws, the unwritten
code locked in his own breast, and supposed to be handed down from
Deemster to Deemster. The popular superstition served Thorkell in good
stead: there was none to challenge his knowledge of jurisprudence.
As soon as he was settled in his office he began to make inquiries about
his brother Gilcrist. He learned that after leaving Cambridge, Gilcrist
had taken deacon's orders, and had become tutor to the son of an English
nobleman, and afterward chaplain to the nobleman's household. Thorkell
addressed him a letter, and received a reply, and this was the first
intercourse of the brothers since the death of old Ewan. Gilcrist had
lately married; he held a small living on one of the remote moors of
Yorkshire; he loved his people and was beloved by them. Thorkell wrote
again and again, and yet again, and his letters ran through every tone
of remonstrance and entreaty. The end of it was that the Deemster paid
yet another visit to the lady deputy at Castle Rushen, and the rumor
passed over the island that the same potent influence that had made
Thorkell a Deemster was about to make his brother the Bishop of Man.
Then the Archdeacon came down in white wrath to Ballamona, and reminded
his son-in-law of his many obligations, touched on benefits forgot,
hinted at dark sayings and darker deeds, mentioned, with a significant
accent, the girl Mally Kerruish, protested that from causes not to be
named he had lost the esteem of his clergy and the reverence of his
flock, and wound up with the touching assurance that on that very
morning, as he rode from Andreas, he had overheard a burly Manxman say
to the tawny-headed fellow who walked with him--both of them the
scabbiest sheep on the hills--"There goes the pazon that sold his
daughter and bought her husband."
Thorkell listened to the torrent of reproaches, and then said, quietly,
as he turned on his heel, "Near is my shirt, but nearer is my skin."
The Deemster's wife held up her head no more. After the christening she
rarely left her room. Her cheeks grew thinner, paler they could not
grow, and her meek eyes lost their faint lustre. She spoke little, and
her interest in life seemed to be all but gone. There was the same
abject submission to her husband, but she saw less of him day by day.
Only the sight of her babe, when Kerry brought it to be nursed, restored
to her face the light of a fleeting joy. If it stayed too long at her
breast, if it cried, if its winsome ways made her to laugh outright, the
swift recoil of other feelings saddened her to melancholy, and she would
put the child from her with a sigh. This went on for several months, and
meantime the Deemster was too deeply immersed in secular affairs to make
serious note of the shadow that hung over his house. "_Goll sheese ny
lhiargagh_--she's going down the steep places," said Kerry.
It was winter when Gilcrist Mylrea was appointed to reach the island,
but he wrote that his wife's health was failing her, that it was not
unlikely that she was to bear a child, and that he preferred to postpone
his journey until the spring. Before the gorse bushes on the mountains
had caught their new spears of green, and before the fishermen of
Peeltown had gone down to the sea for their first mackerel, Thorkell's
wife was lying in her last illness. She sent for her husband and bade
him farewell. The Deemster saw no danger, and he laughed at her meek
adieu. She was soon to be the mother of another of his children--that
was all. But she shook her head when he rallied her, and when he lifted
the little creeping, cooing, babbling Ewan from the floor to his
mother's bed, and laughed and held up his long, lean, hairy finger
before the baby face and asked the little one with a puff how he would
like a little sister, the white face on the pillow twitched and fell,
and the meek eyes filled, and the shadow was over all.
"Good-by, Thorkell, and for baby's sake--"
But a shrill peal of Thorkell's laughter rang through the chamber, and
at the next instant he was gone from the room.
That day the wife of the Deemster passed beyond the sorrows of the life
that had no joys. The angels of life and death had come with linked
hands to the new homestead of Ballamona, and the young mother had died
in giving birth to a girl.
When the Deemster heard what had happened, his loud scream rang through
every room of the house. His soul was in ferment; he seemed to be
appalled, and to be stricken, not with sorrow, but with fright and
horror.
"She's dead; why, she's dead, she's dead," he cried, hysterically; "why
did not somebody tell me that she would die?"
The Deemster buried his wife by the side of old Ewan, under the
elder-tree that grew by the wall of the churchyard that stands over by
the sea. He summoned no mourners, and few stood with him by the open
grave. During the short funeral, his horse was tied to the cross-timbers
of the lych-gate, and while the earth was still falling in hollow thuds
from the sexton's spade, Thorkell got into the saddle and rode away.
Before sunset he waited by the wooden landing jetty at Derby Haven. The
old sea-tub, the "King Orry," made the port that day, and disembarked
her passengers. Among them was the new Bishop of Man, Gilcrist Mylrea.
He looked much older for the six years he had been away. His tall figure
stooped heavily; his thick hair fell in wavelets on his shoulders, and
was already sprinkled with gray; his long cheeks were deeply lined. As
he stepped from the boat on to the jetty he carried something very
tenderly in his arms. He seemed to be alone.
The brothers met with looks of constraint and bewilderment.
"Where is your wife?" asked Thorkell.
"She is gone," said Gilcrist. "I have nothing left of her but this," and
he looked down at the burden at his breast.
It was a baby boy. Thorkell's face whitened, and terror was in his eyes.