HOW THE NEWS CAME TO THE BISHOP
The Deemster swung aside and went off, followed by Jarvis Kerruish. Then
the two fishermen took up their dread burden and set their faces toward
Ballamona. In a blind agony of uncertainty the Bishop went into his
house. His mind was confused; he sat and did his best to compose
himself. The thing that had happened perplexed him cruelly. He tried to
think it out, but found it impossible to analyze his unlinked ideas. His
faculties were benumbed, and not even pain, the pain of Ewan's loss,
could yet penetrate the dead blank that lay between him and a full
consciousness of the awful event. He shed no tears, and not a sigh broke
from him. Silent he sat, with an expression of suffering that might have
been frozen in his stony eyes and on his whitening lips, so rigid was
it, and as if the power of life had ebbed away like the last ebb of an
exhausted tide.
Then the people from without began to crowd in upon him where he sat in
his library. They were in a state of great excitement, and all reserve
and ceremony were broken down. Each had his tale to tell, each his
conjecture to offer. One told what the longshore shrimper had said of
finding the body near the fishing-ground known as the Mooragh. Another
had his opinion as to how the body had sailed ashore instead of sinking.
A third fumbled his cap, and said, "I take sorrow to see you in such
trouble, my lord, and wouldn't bring bad newses if I could give myself
lave to bring good newses instead, but I'll go bail there's been bad
work goin', and foul play, as they're sayin', and I wouldn't trust but
Mastha Dan--I'm saying I wouldn't trust but Mastha Dan could tell us
something--"
The Bishop cut short the man's garrulity with a slight gesture, and one
by one the people went out. He had listened to them in silence and with
a face of saintly suffering, scarcely hearing what they had said. "I
will await events," he thought, "and trust in God." But a great fear was
laying hold of him, and he had to gird up his heart to conquer it. "I
will trust in God," he told himself a score of times, and in his faith
in the goodness of his God he tried to be calm and brave. But one after
another his people came back and back and back with new and still newer
facts. At every fresh blow from damning circumstances his thin lips
trembled, his nervous fingers ran through his flowing white hair, and
his deep eyes filled without moving.
And after the first tempest of his own sorrow for the loss of Ewan, he
thought of Dan, and of Dan's sure grief. He remembered the love of Ewan
for Dan, and the love of Dan for Ewan. He recalled many instances of
that beautiful affection, and in the quickening flow of the light of
that love half the follies of his wayward son sank out of sight. Dan
must be told what had occurred, and if none had told him already, it was
best that it should be broken to him from lips that loved him.
Thus it was that this brave and long-harassed man, trying to think ill
of his own harshness, that looked so impotent and so childish now,
remembering no longer his vow never to set eyes on the face of his son,
or hold speech with him again, sent a messenger to the old Ballamona to
ask for Dan, and to bring him to Bishop's Court without delay.
Half an hour later, at the sound of a knock at his door, the Bishop,
thinking it was Dan himself, stood up to his stately height, and tried
to hide his agitation, and answered in an unsteady voice, that not all
the resolution of his brave heart could subdue to calmness. But it was
the messenger, and not Dan, and he had returned to say that Mastha Dan
had not been home since yesterday, and that when Mastha Ewan was last
seen at home, he had asked for Mastha Dan, and, not finding him, had
gone down to the Lockjaw Creek to seek him.
"When was that?" the Bishop asked.
"The ould body at the house said it might be a piece after three o'clock
yesterday evening," said the man.
Beneath the cold quietness of the regard with which the Bishop dismissed
his messenger, a keener eye than his might have noted a fearful tumult.
The Bishop's hand grew cold and trembled. At the next instant he had
become conscious of his agitation, and had begun to reproach himself for
his want of faith. "I will trust in God and await events," he told
himself again. "No, I will not speak; I will maintain silence. Yes, I
will await the turn of events, and trust in the good Father of all."
Then there came another knock at his door. "Surely it is Dan at length;
his old housekeeper has sent him on," he thought. "Come in," he called,
in a voice that shook.
It was Hommy-beg. The Deemster had sent him across with a message.
"And what is it?" the Bishop asked, speaking at the deaf man's ear.
Hommy-beg scratched his tousled head and made no answer at first, and
the Bishop repeated the question.
"We're all taking sorrow for you, my lord," said Hommy, and then he
stopped.
"What is it?" the Bishop repeated.
"And right sorry I am to bring his message."
The Bishop's pale face took an ashy gray, but his manner was still calm.
"What did the Deemster send you to say, Hommy?"
"The Dempster--bad cess to him, and no disrespec'--he sent me to tell
you that they're after stripping the canvas off, and, behould ye, it's
an ould sail, and they're knowing it by its number, and what
fishing-boat it came out of, and all to that."
"Where did the sailcloth come from?" asked the Bishop, and his deep eyes
were fixed on Hommy.
"It's an ould--well, the fact is--to tell you not a word of a lie--aw,
my lord, what matter--what if it is--"
"Where?" said the Bishop calmly, though his lips whitened and quivered.
"It's an old drift yawlsail of the 'Ben-my-Chree.' Aw, yes, yes, sarten
sure, and sorry I am to bring bad newses."
Hommy-beg went out, and the Bishop stood for some minutes in the thrall
of fear. He had been smitten hard by other facts, but this latest fact
seemed for the moment to overthrow his great calm faith in God's power
to bring out all things for the best. He wrestled with it long and hard.
He tried to persuade himself that it meant nothing. That Ewan was dead
was certain. That he came by his death through foul play seemed no less
sure and terrible. But that his body had been wrapped in sailcloth once
belonging to Dan's fishing-boat was no sufficient ground for the
terrible accusation that was taking shape in other minds. Could he
accept the idea? Ah, no, no, no. To do so would be to fly in the face of
all sound reason, all fatherly love, and all trust in the good Father
above. Though the sailcloth came from the "Ben-my-Chree," the fact said
nothing of where the body came from. And even though it were certain
that the body must have been dropped into the sea from the fishing-boat
that belonged to Dan, it would still require proof that Dan himself was
aboard of her.
With such poor shifts the Bishop bore down the cruel facts as one after
one they beat upon his brain. He tried to feel shame of his own shame,
and to think hard of his own hard thoughts. "Yes, I will trust in God,"
he told himself afresh, "I will await events, and trust in the good
Father of all mercies." But where was Dan? The Bishop had made up his
mind to send messengers to skirr the island round in search of his son,
when suddenly there came a great noise as of many persons talking
eagerly, and drawing hurriedly near and nearer.
A minute afterward his library door was opened again without reserve or
ceremony, and there came trooping into the room a mixed throng of the
village folk. Little Jabez Gawne was at their head with a coat and a hat
held in his hands before him.
Cold as the day was the people looked hot and full of puzzled eagerness,
and their smoking breath came in long jets into the quiet room.
"My lord, look what we've found on the top of Orrisdel," said Jabez, and
he stretched out the coat, while one of the men behind him relieved him
of the beaver.
The coat was a long black-cloth coat, with lappets and tails and
wristbands turned over.
The Bishop saw at a glance that it was the coat of a clergyman.
"Leave it to me to know this coat, my lord, for it was myself that made
it," said Jabez.
The Bishop's brain turned giddy, and the perspiration started from his
temples, but his dignity and his largeness did not desert him.
"Is it my poor Ewan's coat?" he asked, as he held out his hand to take
it; but his tone was one of almost hopeless misery and not of inquiry.
"That's true, my lord," said Jabez, and thereupon the little tailor
started an elaborate series of identifications, based chiefly on points
of superior cut and workmanship. But the Bishop cut the tailor short
with a wave of the hand.
"You found it on Orrisdale Head?" asked the Bishop.
And one of the men behind pushed his head between the shoulders of those
who were before him, and said:
"Aw, yes, my lord, not twenty yards from the cliff, and I found
something else beside of it."
Just then there was a further noise in the passage outside the library,
and a voice saying:
"Gerr out of the way, you old loblolly-boys, bringing bad newses still,
and glad of them, too."
It was Hommy-beg returned to Bishop's Court with yet another message,
but it was a message of his own and not of the Deemster's. He pushed his
way through the throng until he came face to face with the Bishop, and
then he said:
"The Dempster is afther having the doctor down from Ramsey, and the big
man is sayin' the neck was broken, and it was a fall that killed the
young pazon, and nothing worse, at all at all."
The large sad eyes of the Bishop seemed to shine without moving as Hommy
spoke, but in an instant the man who had spoken before thrust his word
in again, and then the Bishop's face grew darker than ever with settled
gloom.
"It was myself that found the coat and hat, my lord; and a piece nearer
the cliff I found this, and this; and then, down the brew itself--maybe
a matter of ten feet down--I saw this other one sticking in a green
corry of grass and ling, and over I went, hand-under-hand, and brought
it up."
While he spoke the man struggled to the front, and held out in one hand
a belt, or what seemed to be two belts buckled together and cut across
as with a knife, and in the other hand two daggers.
A great awe fell upon every one at sight of the weapons. The Bishop's
face still showed a quiet grandeur, but his breathing was labored and
harassed.
"Give them to me," he said, with an impressive calmness, and the man put
the belts and daggers into the Bishop's hands. He looked at them
attentively, and saw that one of the buckles was of silver, while the
other was of steel.
"Has any one recognized them?" he asked.
A dozen voice answered at once that they were the belts of the
newly-banded militia.
At the same instant the Bishop's eye was arrested by some scratches on
the back of the silver buckle. He fixed his spectacles to examine the
marks more closely. When he had done so he breathed with gasps of agony,
and all the cheer of life seemed in one instant to die out of his face.
His nerveless fingers dropped the belts and daggers on to the table, and
the silver and the steel clinked as they fell.
There had been a dead silence in the room for some moments, and then,
with a labored tranquillity, the Bishop said, "That will do," and stood
mute and motionless while the people shambled out, leaving their dread
treasures behind them.
To his heart's core the Bishop was struck with an icy chill. He tried to
link together the terrible ideas that had smitten his brain, but his
mind wandered and slipped away. Ewan was last seen going toward the
creek; he was dead; he had been killed by a fall; his body had come
ashore in an old sail of the "Ben-my-Chree"; his coat and hat had been
picked up on the top of Orrisdale Head, and beside them lay two weapons
and two belts, whereof one had belonged to Dan, whose name was scratched
upon it.
In the crushing coil of circumstance that was every moment tightening
about him the Bishop's great calm faith in the goodness of his Maker
seemed to be benumbed. "Oh, my son, my son!" he cried, when he was left
alone. "Would to God I had died before I saw this day! Oh, my son, my
son!" But after a time he regained his self-control, and said to himself
again, "I will trust in God; He will make the dark places plain," Then
he broke into short, fitful prayers, as if to drive away, by the warmth
of the spirit, the chill that was waiting in readiness to freeze his
faith--"Make haste unto me, O God! Hide not Thy face from Thy servant,
for I am in trouble."
The short winter's day had dragged on heavily, but the arms of darkness
were now closing round it. The Bishop put on his cloak and hat and set
off for Ballamona. In length of days he was but little past his prime,
but the dark sorrow of many years had drained his best strength, and he
tottered on the way. Only his strong faith that God would remember His
servant in the hour of trouble gave power to his trembling limbs.
And as he walked he began to reproach himself for the mistrust whereby
he had been so sorely shaken. This comforted him somewhat, and he
stepped out more boldly. He was telling himself that, perplexing though
the facts might be, they were yet so inconclusive as to prove nothing
except that Ewan was dead, when all at once he became conscious that in
the road ahead of him, grouped about the gate of Ballamona, were a
company of women and children, all agitated and some weeping, with the
coroner in their midst, questioning them.
The coroner was Quayle the Gyke, the same who would have been left
penniless by his father but for the Bishop's intervention.
"And when did your husband go out to sea?" the coroner asked.
"At floodtide yesterday," answered one of the women; "and my man, he
said to me, 'Liza,' he said, 'get me a bite of priddhas and salt
herrin's for supper,' he said; 'we'll be back for twelve,' he said; but
never a sight of him yet, and me up all night till daylight."
"But they've been in and gone out to sea again," said another of the
women.
"How d'ye know that, Mother Quilleash?" asked the coroner.
"Because I've been taking a slieu round to the creek, and there's a
basket of ray and cod in the shed," the woman answered.
At that the Bishop drew up at the gate, and the coroner explained to him
the trouble of the women and children.
"Is it you, Mrs. Corkell?" the Bishop asked of a woman near him.
"Aw, yes, my lord."
"And you, too, Mrs. Teare?"
The woman courtesied; the Bishop named them one by one, and stroked the
bare head of the little girl who was clinging to her mother's cloak and
weeping.
"Then it's the 'Ben-my-Chree' that has been missing since yesterday at
high-water?" the Bishop said, in a sort of hushed whisper.
"Yes, sure, my lord."
At that the Bishop turned suddenly aside, without a word more, opened
the gate, and walked up the path. "Oh, my son, my son," he cried, in his
bleeding heart, "how have you shortened my days! How have you clothed me
with shame! Oh, my son, my son!"
Before Ballamona an open cart was standing, with the tail-board down,
and the horse was pawing the gravel which had once--on a far different
occasion--been strewn with the "blithe-bread." The door of the house
stood ajar, and a jet of light from within fell on the restless horse
without. The Bishop entered the house, and found all in readiness for
the hurried night burial. On chairs that were ranged back to back a
rough oak coffin, like an oblong box, was resting, and from the rafter
of the ceiling immediately over it a small oil-lamp was suspended. On
either side of the hall were three or four men holding brands and
leathern lanterns, ready for lighting. The Deemster was coming and going
from his own room beyond, attended in bustling eagerness by Jarvis
Kerruish. Near the coffin stood the vicar of the parish, father of the
dead man's dead wife, and in the opening of a door that went out from
the hall Mona stood weeping, with the dead man's child in her arms.
And even as it is only in the night that the brightest stars may truly
be seen, so in the night of all this calamity the star of the Bishop's
faith shone out clearly again, and his vague misgivings fell away. He
stepped up to Mona, whose dim eyes were now fixed on his face in sadness
of sympathy, and with his dry lips he touched her forehead.
Then, in the depth of his own sorrow and the breadth of shadow that lay
upon him, he looked down at the little one in Mona's arms, where it
leaped and cooed and beat its arms on the air in a strange wild joy at
this gay spectacle of its father's funeral, and his eyes filled for what
the course of its life would be.
Almost as soon as the Deemster was conscious of the Bishop's presence in
the house, he called on the mourners to make ready, and then six men
stepped to the side of the coffin.
"Thorkell," said the Bishop, calmly, and the bearers paused while he
spoke, "this haste to put away the body of our dear Ewan is unseemly,
because it is unnecessary."
The Deemster made no other answer than a spluttered expression of
contempt, and the Bishop spoke again:
"You are aware that there is no canon of the Church requiring it, and no
law of State demanding it. That a body from the sea shall be buried
within the day it has washed ashore is no more than a custom."
"Then custom shall be indulged with custom," said Thorkell, decisively.
"Not for fifty years has it been observed," continued the Bishop; "and
here is an outrage on reason and on the respect we owe to our dead."
At this the Deemster said: "The body is mine, and I will do as I please
with it."
Even the six carriers, with their hands on the coffin, caught their
breath at these words; but the Bishop answered without anger: "And the
graveyard is mine, in charge for the Church and God's people, and if I
do not forbid the burial, it is because I would have no wrangling over
the grave of my dear boy."
The Deemster spat on the floor, and called on the carriers to take up
their burden. Then the six men lifted the coffin from the chairs, and
put it into the cart at the door. The other mourners went out on to the
gravel, and such of them as carried torches and lanterns lighted them
there. The Old Hundred was then sung, and when its last notes had died
on the night air the springless cart went jolting down the path. Behind
it the mourners ranged themselves two abreast, with the Deemster walking
alone after the cart, and the Bishop last of all.
Mona stood a moment at the open door, in the hall that was now empty and
desolate and silent, save for the babblings of the child in her arms.
She saw the procession through the gate into the road. After that she
went into the house, drew aside the curtain of her window, and watched
the moving lights until they stopped, and then she knew that they were
gathered about an open grave, and that half of all that had been very
dear to her in this weary world was gone from it forever.