DAN'S PENANCE
Dan rose to his feet a sobered man, and went out of the smoky pot-house
without a word to any one, and without lifting his bleared and bloodshot
eyes unto any face. He took the lane to the shore, and behind him, with
downcast eyes, like a dog at the heels of his master, Davy Fayle
slouched along. When they reached the shore Dan turned toward Orris
Head, walking within a yard or two of the water's edge. Striding over
the sands, the past of his childhood came back to him with a sense of
pain. He saw himself flying along the beach with Ewan and Mona, shouting
at the gull, mocking the cormorant, clambering up the rocks to where the
long-necked bird laid her spotted eggs, and the sea-pink grew under the
fresh grass of the corries. Under the head Dan sat on a rock and lifted
away his hat from his burning forehead; but not a breath of wind stirred
his soft hair.
Dan rose again with a new resolve. He knew now what course he must take.
He would go to the Deemster, confess to the outrage of which he had been
guilty, and submit to the just punishment of the law. With quick steps
he strode back over the beach, and Davy followed him until he turned up
to the gates of the new Ballamona, and then the lad rambled away under
the foot of Slieu Dhoo. Dan found the Deemster's house in a tumult.
Hommy-beg was rushing here and there, and Dan called to him, but he
waved his arm and shouted something in reply, whereof the purport was
lost, and then disappeared. Blind Kerry was there, and when Dan spoke to
her as she went up the stairs, he could gather nothing from her hurried
answer except that some one was morthal bad, as the saying was, and in
another moment she, too, had gone. Dan stood in the hall with a sense of
impending disaster. What had happened? A dread idea struck him at that
moment like a blow on the brain. The sweat started from his forehead. He
could bear the uncertainty no longer, and had set foot on the stairs to
follow the blind woman, when there was the sound of a light step
descending. In another moment he stood face to face with Mona. She
colored deeply, and his head fell before her.
"Is it Ewan?" he said, and his voice came like a hoarse whisper.
"No, his wife," said Mona.
It turned out that not long after daybreak that morning the young wife
of Ewan, who had slept with Mona, had awakened with a start, and the
sensation of having received a heavy blow on the forehead. She had
roused Mona, and told her what seemed to have occurred. They had looked
about and seen nothing that could have fallen. They had risen from bed
and examined the room, and had found everything as it had been when they
lay down. The door was shut and there was no hood above the bed. But
Mona had drawn up the window blind, and then she had seen, clearly
marked on the white forehead of Ewan's young wife, a little above the
temple, on the spot where she had seemed to feel the blow, a streak of
pale color such as might have been made by the scratch of a thorn that
had not torn the skin. It had been a perplexing difficulty, and the
girls had gone back to bed, and talked of it in whispers until they had
fallen asleep in each other's arms. When they had awakened again, the
Deemster was rapping at their door to say that he had taken an early
breakfast, that he was going off to hold his court at Ramsey, and
expected to be back at midday. Then half-timidly, Mona had told her
father of their strange experience, but he had bantered them on their
folly, and they had still heard his laughter when he had leaped to the
saddle in front of the house, and was cantering away over the gravel.
Reassured by the Deemster's unbelief, the girls had thrown off their
vague misgivings, and given way to good spirits. Ewan's young wife had
said that all morning she had dreamed of her husband, and that her
dreams had been bright and happy. They had gone down to breakfast, but
scarcely had they been seated at the table before they had heard the
click of the gate from the road.
Then they had risen together, and Ewan had come up the path with a white
bandage about his head, and with a streak of blood above the temple.
With a sharp cry, Ewan's young wife had fallen to the ground insensible,
and when Ewan himself had come into the house they had carried her back
to bed. There she was at that moment, and from a peculiar delicacy of
her health at the time, there was but too much reason to fear that the
shock might have serious results.
All this Mona told to Dan from where she stood, three steps up the
stairs, and he listened with his head held low, one hand gripping the
stair-rail, and his foot pawing the mat at the bottom. When she
finished, there was a pause, and then there came from overhead a long,
deep moan of pain.
Dan lifted his face; its sudden pallor was startling. "Mona," he said,
in a voice that was husky in his throat, "do you know who struck Ewan
that blow?"
There was silence for a moment and then, half in a whisper, half with a
sob, Mona answered that she knew. It had not been from Ewan himself, but
by one of the many tongues of scandal, that the news had come to
Ballamona.
Dan railed at himself in bitter words, and called God to witness that he
had been a curse to himself and every one about him. Mona let the
torrent of his self-reproach spend itself, and then she said:
"Dan, you must be reconciled to Ewan."
"Not yet," he answered.
"Yes, yes, I'm sure he would forgive you," said Mona, and she turned
about as if in the act of going back to seek for Ewan.
Dan grasped her hand firmly. "No," he said, "don't heap coals of fire on
my head, Mona; don't, don't." And after a moment, with a calmer manner,
"I must see the Deemster first."
Hardly had this been spoken when they heard a horse's hoofs on the
gravel path, and the Deemster's voice calling to Hommy-beg as he threw
the reins over the post near the door and entered the house. The
Deemster was in unusual spirits, and slapped Dan on the back and laughed
as he went into his room. Dan followed him, and Mona crept nervously to
the open door. With head held down, Dan told what had occurred. The
Deemster listened and laughed, asked further particulars and laughed
again, threw off his riding boots and leggings, looked knowingly from
under his shaggy brows, and then laughed once more.
"And what d'ye say you want me to do for you, Danny veg?" he asked, with
one side of his wrinkled face twisted awry.
"To punish me, sir," said Dan.
At that the Deemster, who was buckling his slippers, threw himself back
in his chair, and sent a shrill peal of mocking laughter through the
house.
Dan was unmoved. His countenance did not bend as he said slowly, and in
a low tone, "If you don't do it, sir, I shall never look into Ewan's
face again."
The Deemster fixed his buckles, rose to his feet, slapped Dan on the
back, and said: "Go home, man veen, go home," and then hurried away to
the kitchen, where in another moment his testy voice could be heard
directing Hommy-beg to put up the saddle on the "lath."
Mona looked into Dan's face. "Will you be reconciled to Ewan now?" she
said, and took both his hands and held them.
"No," he answered firmly, "I will see the Bishop." His eyes were
dilated; his face, that had hitherto been very mournful to see, was
alive with a strange fire. Mona held his hands with a passionate grasp.
"Dan," she said, with a great tenderness, "this is very, very noble of
you; this is like our Dan, this--"
She stopped; she trembled and glowed; her eyes were close to his.
"Don't look at me like that," he said.
She dropped his hands, and at the next instant he was gone from the
house.
Dan found the Bishop at Bishop's Court, and told him all. The Bishop had
heard the story already, but he said nothing of that. He knew when Dan
hid his provocation and painted his offense at its blackest. With a
grave face he listened while Dan accused himself, and his heart heaved
within him.
"It is a serious offense," he said; "to strike a minister is a grievous
offense, and the Church provides a censure."
Dan held his face very low, and clasped his hands in front of him.
"The censure is that on the next Sabbath morning following, in the
presence of the congregation, you shall walk up the aisle of the parish
church from the porch to the communion behind the minister, who shall
read the 51st Psalm meantime."
The Bishop's deep tones and quiet manner concealed his strong emotion,
and Dan went out without another word.
This was Friday, and on the evening of the same day Ewan heard what had
passed between Dan and the Deemster and between Dan and the Bishop, and
with a great lump in his throat he went across to Bishop's Court to pray
that the censure might be taken off.
"The provocation was mine, and he is penitent," said Ewan; and with
heaving breast the Bishop heard him out, and then shook his head.
"The censures of the Church were never meant to pass by the house of the
Bishop," he said.
"But he is too deeply abased already," said Ewan.
"The offense was committed in public, and before the eyes of all men the
expiation must be made."
"But I, too, am ashamed--think of it, and remove the censure," said
Ewan, and his voice trembled and broke.
The Bishop gazed out at the window with blurred eyes that saw nothing.
"Ewan," he said, "it is God's hand on the lad. Let it be; let it be."
Next day the Bishop sent his sumner round the parish, asking that every
house might send one at least to the parish church next morning.
On Sunday Ewan's young wife kept her bed; but when Ewan left her for the
church the shock of her nerves seemed in a measure to have passed away.
There was still, however, one great disaster to fear, and Mona remained
at the bedside.
The meaning of the sumner's summons had eked out, and long before the
hour of service the parish church was crowded. The riff-raff that never
came to church from year's end to year's end, except to celebrate the
Oiel Verree, were there with eager eyes. While Willas-Thorn tolled the
bell from the rope suspended in the porch, there was a low buzz of
gossip, but when the bell ceased its hoarse clangor, and Will-as-Thorn
appeared with his pitch-pipe in the front of the gallery, there could be
heard, in the silence that followed over the crowded church, the loud
tick of the wooden clock in front of him.
Presently from the porch there came a low, tremulous voice reading the
Psalm that begins, "Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness:
according to the multitude of Thy mercies do away mine offenses."
Then the people who sat in front turned about, and those who sat at the
side strained across, and those who sat above craned forward.
Ewan was walking slowly up the aisle in his surplice, with his pale face
and scarred forehead bent low over the book in his hand, and close
behind him, towering above him in his great stature, with head held
down, but with a steadfast gaze, his hat in his hands, his step firm and
resolute, Dan Mylrea strode along.
There was a dead hush over the congregation.
"Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin. For
I acknowledge my faults; and my sin is ever before me."
The tremulous voice rose and fell, and nothing else broke the silence
except the uncertain step of the reader, and the strong tread of the
penitent behind him.
"Against Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight--"
At this the tremulous voice deepened, and stopped, and went on and
stopped again, and when the words came once more they came in a deep,
low sob, and the reader's head fell into his breast.
Not until the Psalm came to an end, and Ewan and Dan had reached the
communion, and the vicar had begun the morning prayer, and Will-as-Thorn
had sent out a blast from his pitch-pipe, was the hard tension of that
moment broken.
When the morning service ended, the Deemster rose from his pew and
hurried down the aisle. As usual, he was the first to leave the church.
The ghostly smile with which he had witnessed the penance that had
brought tears to the eyes of others was still on the Deemster's lip, and
a chuckle was in his throat when at the gate of the churchyard he met
Hommy-beg, whose face was livid from a long run, and who stood for an
instant panting for breath.
"Well, well, well?" said the Deemster, sending the words like small shot
into Hommy-beg's deaf ear.
"Terrible, terrible, terrible," said Hommy-beg, and he lifted his hands.
"What is it? What? What?"
"The young woman-body is dead in child-bed."
Then the ghostly smile fled from the Deemster's face.