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 L240. 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.