comes, and then good-bye to the mother who brought it.”
“No, by gough!” said Pete. “The child is eighteen carat goold for the
mother's sake, but the mother is di'monds for sake of the child. If I
lost that little one, Kitty, it would be like losing the half of you.”
“Losing, indeed!” said Nancy. “Who's talking about losing? Does she look
like it, bless her lil heart!”
“Take her into the kitchen, Nancy,” said Kate.
“Going to have a rare do to-day,” said Pete, over a mouthful. “I'm off
for Douglas, to see Philip made Dempster. Coming home with himself by
way of St. John's. It's all arranged, woman. Boys to meet the carriage
by Kirk Christ Lezayre at seven o'clock smart. Then out I'm getting,
laying hould of the drum, the band is striking up, and we're bringing
him into Ramsey triumphant. Oh, we'll be doing it grand,” said Pete,
blowing over the rim of his saucer. “John the Clerk is tremenjous on the
trombones, and there's no bating Jonaique with the clar'net--the man is
music to his little backbone. The town will be coming out too, and the
fishermen shouting like one man. We're bound to let the Governor see we
mane it. A friend's a friend, say I, and we're for bucking up for the
man that's bucking up for us. And when he goes to the Tynwald Coort
there, it'll be lockjaw and the measles with some of them. If the
ould Governor's got a tongue like a file, Philip's got a tongue like a
scythe--he'll mow them down. 'No harbour-dues,' says he, 'till we've a
raisonable hope of harbour improvements. Build your embankments for your
trippers in Douglas if you like, but don't ask the fisher-, men to pay
for them.'”
Pete wiped his mouth and charged his pipe. “It'll be a rare ould dust,
but we're not thinking of ourselves only, though. Aw, no, no. If there
wasn't nothing doing we would be giving him a little tune for all,
coming home Dempster.”
Pete lit up. “My sailor! It'll be a proud man I'll be this day, Kitty.
Didn't I always say it? 'He'll be the first Manxman living,' says I
times and times, and he's not going to de-ceave me neither.”
Kate was in fear lest Pete should look up into her face. Catching sight
of a rent in the cloth of his coat, she whipped out her needle and began
to stitch it up, bending closely over it.
“What an eye a woman's got now,” said Pete. “That was the steel of
the drum ragging me sideways when I was a bit excited. Bless me, Kitty,
there won't be a rag left at me when I get through this everin'. They're
ter'ble on clothes is drums.”
He was puffing the smoke through her hair as she knelt below him. “Well,
he deserves it all. My sakes, the years I've known him! Him and me have
been same as brothers. Yes, have we, ever since I was a slip of a boy
in jackets, and we went nesting on Maughold Head together. And getting
married hasn't been making no difference. When a man marries he shortens
sail usually, and pitches out some ballast, but not me at all. You're
taking a chill, Kitty. No? Shuddering any way. Chut! This dress is like
paper; you should be having warmer things under it. Don't be going out
to-day, darling, but to-night, about twenty-five minutes better than
seven, just open the door and listen. We'll be agate of it then like
mad, and when you're hearing the drum booming you'll be saying to
yourself, 'Pete's there, and going it for all he knows.'”
“Oh, Pete, Pete!” cried Kate, and she dropped back at his feet
“Why, what's this at all?” said Pete.
“You've been very, very good to me, Pete, and if I never see you again
you'll think the best of me, will you not?”
She had an impulse to tell all--she could hardly resist it.
He smoothed the black ripples of her hair back from her forehead, and
said, tenderly, “She's not so well to-day, that's it. Her eyes are
bubbling like the laver.” Then aloud, with a laugh, “Never see me again,
eh? I'm not willing to share you with heaven yet, though. But I'll have
to be doing as the doctor was saying--sending you to England aver. I
will now, I will,” he said, lifting his big finger threateningly.
She slid backwards to the ground, but at the next moment was landed on
Pete's breast. “My poor lil Kirry! Not willing to stay with me, eh? Tut,
tut! She'll be as smart as ever, soon.”
She drew away from him with shame and self-reproach, mingled with that
old feeling of personal repulsion which she could not conquer.
Then the gate of the garden clicked, and Ross Christian came up the
path. “He's sticking to me as tight as a limpet,” said Pete.
“Mr. Quilliam,” said Ross, “I come from my father this time.”
“'Deed, man,” said Pete.
“He is a little pressed for money.”
“And Mr. Peter Christian sends to me?”
“He thought you might like to lend on mortgage.”
“On Ballawhaine?”
Ross stammered and stuttered, “Well, yes, certainly, as you say, on
Balla----”
“To think, to think,” muttered Pete. He gazed vacantly before him for
a moment, and then said, sharply, “I've no time to talk of it now, sir.
I'm off to Douglas, but if you like to stop awhile and talk of it with
Mrs. Quilliam, I'll be hearing everything when I come back. Good-day,
Kate. Take care of my wife. Good-day, Nancy; look after my two girls
while I'm away. And Kitty, bogh” (whispering), “mind you send to Robbie
Clucas, the draper, for some nice warm underclothing. Good-bye! Another!
Just one more” (then aloud) “Good-day to you, sir, good-day.”
XIII.
“... He, the Spirit Himself, may come
When all the nerve of sense is numb.”
Philip had not slept at Ballure. The house was in darkness as he passed.
He was riding to Douglas. It is sixteen miles between town and town, six
of them over the steep headland of Kirk Maughold. Before he reached the
top of the ascent he had been an hour on the road, and the night was
near to morning. He had seen no one after leaving Ramsey, except a
drunken miner with his bundle on his stick, marching home to a tipsy
travesty of some brave song.
His self-righteousness was overthrown; his pride was in the dust. Since
he returned home, he had struggled to feel strong and easy in the sense
of being an honourable man; but now he was thrown violently out of the
path in which he had meant to walk rightly. What he was about to do was
necessary, was inevitable, yet in his relation to Kate he was in the
position of an immoral man, a betrayer, an adulterer, with a vulgar
secret, which he must support by lying and share with servants. And what
was the outlook? What would be the end? Here was a situation from which
there was no escape. Let there be no false glamour, no disguise, no
self-deception. On the eve of his promotion to the dignities and
responsibilities of a Judge, he was taking the first step down on the
course of the criminal!
The moon was shining at the full. It was low down in the sky, on his
right, and casting his shadow on to the road. He walked his horse up the
long hill. The even pace, the quiet of the night, the drowsy sounds
of unseen stream and far-off murmuring sea overcame him in spite of
himself, and he dozed in the saddle. As he reached the hilltop the
level step of the horse awoke him, and he knew that he was passing that
desolate spot on the border of parish and parish which is known as Tom
Alone's.
Opening his eyes, without realising that he had slept, he thought he
became aware of another horse and another rider walking by his side.
They were on the left of him, going pace for pace, stepping along with
him like his shadow. “It _is_ my shadow,” he thought, and he forced up
his head to look. Nothing was there but a whitewashed wall that fenced
a sheepfold. The moon had gone under the mountains on the right, and the
night would have been dark but for the stars. With an astonishment near
to terror, Philip gripped the saddle with his quaking knees, and broke
his horse into a trot.
When the hard ride had brought warmth to his blood and a glow to his
cheeks, he told himself he had been the victim of fancy. It was
nothing; it was a delusion of the sight; a mere shadow cast off by his
distempered brain. He was passing at a walking pace through Laxey by
this time, and as the horse's feet beat up the echoes of the sleeping
town, his heart grew brave.
Next day, at noon, he was talking with his servant, Jem-y-Lord, in his
rooms in Athol Street. He had lately become tenant of the entire house.
They were in his old chambers on the first floor, looking on to the
churchyard.
“I may rely on you, Jemmy?”
“You may, Deemster.”
His voice was low and husky, his eyes were down, he was fumbling the
papers on the table. “Get the carriage, a landau, from Shimmin's, but
drive it yourself. Be at Government offices at four--we'll go by St.
John's. If there is any attempt at Ramsey to take the horse out of the
carriage, resist it. I will alight at the head of the town. Then drive
on to the lane between the chapel and Elm Cottage. The moment the lady
joins you, start away. Return to Laxey--are the rooms upstairs ready?”
“They will be.”
“The two in front of your own, and the little parlour behind this. We
shall need no other servants--the lady will be housekeeper.”
“I quite understand, Deemster.”
Philip turned his face aside and spoke thickly, “And you know what
name----”
“I know what name, Deemster.”
“You have no objection?”
“None whatever, Deemster.”
Phillip drew a long breath. “I am not Deemster yet, Jemmy. Perhaps it
might have been... but God knows. You are a good fellow--I shall not
forget it.”
He made a motion as if to dismiss the man, but Jemmy did not go.
“Beg pardon, your honor--”
“Yes?”
“Your honour has eaten nothing at breakfast--and the bed wasn't slept in
last night.”
“I was riding late--then I had work to do.”
“But I heard your foot on the floor---it woke me times.”
“I may have speeches to make to-day.... Fetch me a glass of water.”
Jemmy brought water-bottle and glass. As Philip took the water an
icy numbness seemed to seize his arm. “I--well, I--I declare I can't
lift--ah! thanks.”
The man raised Philip's arm to his mouth; the glass rattled against his
teeth while he drank.
“Pardon, your honour. You're looking ten years older lately. The sooner
this day is over the better.”
“Sleep, Jemmy--I only want sleep. I must have a long, long sleep at
Ballure to-night.”
He left the house at three minutes to three, carrying his cloak over his
arm. It was a hot day at the beginning of June, and when he stepped out
at the door the air of the street smote his face like a blast from an
open furnace. He reeled and almost fell. The sun's heat was like a load
on his head, its dazzling rays made his sight dim, and he had a sound in
his ears like running water. As he walked down the street he caught his
wandering reflection in the shop windows. “Jemmy was right,” he thought.
“My worst enemy would not accuse me of looking too young to-day.”
There was a small crowd about the entrance to Government offices.
Carriages were driving up, discharging their occupants and going on.
The Bishop, the Attorney-General, finally the Governor with his wife
and daughter passed into the house. In the commotion of these arrivals
Philip reached the door unobserved. When he was recognised, there was a
sudden hush of voices, and then a low buzz of gossip. He walked through
with a firm step, going in alone, all eyes upon him.
The doorway opens on a narrow passage, which is neither wide nor very
light, and the sunshine without made the gloom within more grey and
uncertain. As Philip stepped over the threshold he was conscious that
somebody was coming out. When he had taken two paces more, he drew up
sharply with the sense of walking into a mirror. At the next instant he
saw that what he had taken for the reflection of his own face in a glass
was the actual face of another man.
The man was coming out as he went in. They were approaching each other.
At two paces more they were side by side. He looked at the man with
creeping horror. The man looked at him with amazement and dread. Thus,
eye to eye, they crossed and passed. Then each turned his head over his
shoulder and looked after the other, Philip stepping into the gloom, the
stranger striding into the light.
At the next moment the narrow doorway was darkened by a ponderous figure
rolling through. Then a heavy hand fell on Philip's shoulder, and a
hearty voice exclaimed, “Hilloa, Christian; proud to see you, boy!
You've outstripped old stick-in-the-mud; but I always knew you would
lead me the way though.... Funking a bit, are you? Hands like ice,
anyway. Come along--nothing to be nervous about--we're not going to give
you the dose of Illiam Dhone---don't martyr the Christians these days,
you know.”
Is was Philip's old master, the Clerk of the Rolls. Taking Philip's arm,
he was for swinging him along; but Philip, still looking towards
the street, said falteringly, “Did you, perhaps, see a man--a young
man--going out at the door?”
“When?”
“As you came in.”
“Was there?” said the Clerk dubiously; then, as by a sudden light, “Did
he wear a round hat and a monkey-jacket?”
“Maybe--I hardly know--I didn't observe.”
“That'll be the man. He's been at me half the morning for admission to
the Council. Said he'd known you all his life. Bough as a thorn-bush,
but somehow I couldn't say no to the fellow at last. He ought to be
inside, though.”
“It's nothing,” thought Philip. “Only another shadow from a tired
brain. Jemmy's talk about my altered looks--the reflection in the
shop-windows--the sudden gloom after the dazzling sunlight--that's all,
that's all. Sleep, I want sleep.”
When the Governor took his seat with the first Deemster on his right,
and motioned Philip to the chair on his left, an involuntary murmur
passed over the chamber at the contrast there presented--the one
Deemster very old, with round, russet face, quick, gleaming eyes, and
a comfortable, youthful, even merry expression; the other, very young,
with long, pallid, powerful face, large eyes, and a tired look of age.
Philip presented his commission received from the Home Secretary, and
the oath of office was administered to him. Kissing a stained copy of a
leather-bound Testament, he repeated the words after the Governor in a
thick croak that seemed to hack the air--
“By this book, and by the holy contents thereof, and by the wonderful
works that God hath miraculously wrought in heaven above and on the
earth beneath in six days and seven nights, I, Philip Christian, do
swear that I will, without respect of favour or friendship, love or
hate, loss or gain, consanguinity or affinity, envy or malice, execute
the laws of this Isle justly, betwixt our Sovereign Lady the Queen
and her subjects within this Isle, and betwixt party and party, as
indifferently as the herring backbone doth lie in the midst of the
fish.”
As Philip pronounced these words, he was conscious of only one face in
that assembly. It was not the face of the Governor, of the Bishop, of
any dignitary of Church or State--but a rugged, eager, dark face over
a black beard in the grip of a great brown hand, with sparkling eyes,
parted lips, and a look of boyish pride--it was the face of Pete.
“It only remains for me,” said the Governor, “to congratulate your
Honour on the high office to which it has pleased Her Majesty to appoint
you, and to wish you long life and health to fulfil its duties, with
blameless credit to yourself and distinction to your country.”
There was some other speaking, and then Philip replied. He spoke
clearly, firmly, and well. A reference to his grandfather provoked
applause. His modesty and natural manner made a strong impression. “His
Excellency is not so far wrong, after all,” was the common whisper.
Some further business, and the Council broke up for general gossip.
Then, on the pavement outside, while the carriages were coming in line,
there were renewed congratulations, invitations, and warnings. The
Governor invited Philip to dinner. He excused himself, saying he had
promised to dine with his aunt at Ballure. The ladies warned him to
spare himself, and recommended a holiday; and then the Clerk of the
Rolls, proud as a peacock, strutting here and there and everywhere, and
assuming the airs of a guardian, cried, “Can't yet, though, for he
holds his first court in Ramsey tomorrow morning.... Put on the cloak,
Christian. It will be cold driving. Good men are scarce.”
An open landau came up at length, with Jem-y-Lord on the box-seat, and
Pete walking by the horse's head, smoothing its neck and tickling its
ears.
“Why, you were talking of the young man, Christian, and behold ye,
here's the great fellow himself. Well, young chap,” slapping Pete on the
back, “see your Deemster take the oath, eh?”
“He's my cousin,” said Philip.
“Cousin! Is he, then--can he perhaps be--Ah! yes, of course,
certainly------” The good man stammered and stopped, remembering the
marriage of Philip's father. He opened the carriage door and stood aside
for Philip, but Philip said--
“Step in, Pete;” and, with a shamefaced look, Pete rolled into the
carriage. Philip took the seat beside him, amid a buzz of voices from
the people standing about the door.
“Well, as you like; good day, then, boy, good day,” said the Clerk of
the Rolls, clashing the door back. The carriage began to move.
“Good day, your Honour,” cried several out of the crowd.
Philip raised his hat. The hats of the men went up to him. Some of the
girls were wiping their eyes.
XIV.
While Pete and Philip were driving over the road from Douglas, Kate was
sitting with the child on her lap before the fire in Elm Cottage. Her
eyes were restless, her manner agitated. She looked out at the window
from time to time. The setting sun behind the house still held the day
with horizontal shafts of light in the spring green of the transparent
leaves.
“Wouldn't you like to see the procession to-night, Nancy?” she said.
“Aw, mortal,” said Nancy. “But I won't get lave, though. 'Take care of
my two girls,' says he----”
“You may go, Nancy; I'll see to baby,” said Kate.
“But the man himself, woman; he'll be coming home as hungry as a
hunter.”
“I'll see to his supper, too,” said Kate. “Carry the key with you that
you may let yourself in, and be back at half-past seven.”
Then Nancy began to fly about the kitchen like sputter-ings out of the
frying-pan--filling the kettle, lighting the lamp, and getting together
the baby's night-clothes. Kate watched her and glanced at the clock.
“Was the town quiet when you were out for the bacon, Nancy?” she said.
“Quiet enough,” said Nancy. “Everybody flying off Le-zayre way
already--except what were making for the quay.”
“Is the steamer sailing to-night, then?''
“Yes, the _Peveril_; but not water enough to float her till half-past
seven, they were saying. Here's the lil one's nightdress, and here's her
binder, bless her--just big enough for a bandage for a person's wrist if
she sprained it churning.”
“Lay them on the fender to air, Nancy--I'll not undress baby yet awhile.
And see--it's nearly seven.”
“I'll be pinning my shawl on and away like the wind,” said Nancy. “The
bogh!” she said, with the pin between her teeth. “She's off again. Do
you really think, now, the angels in heaven are as sweet and innocent,
Kirry? I don't. They can't if they're grown up. And having to climb
Jacob's ladder, poor things, they must be. Then, if they're men--but
that's ridiculous, anyway.”
“The clock is striking, Nancy. No use going when everything's over,”
said Kate, and the foot with which she rocked the child went faster now
that the little one was asleep.
“Sakes alive! Let me tie the strings of my bonnet, woman. Pity you
can't come yourself, Kitty. But if they're worth their salt they'll be
whipping round this way and giving you a lil tune, anyway.”
“Have you got the key, Nancy?”
“Yes, and I'll be back in an hour. And mind you put baby to bed soon,
and mind you--and mind you----”
With as many warnings as if she had been mistress and Kate the servant,
Nancy backed herself out of the house. It was now dark outside.
Kate rose immediately, put the child in the cradle, and began to lay the
table for Pete's supper--the cruet, the plates, the teapot on the hob
to warm, and then--by force of habit--two cups and saucers. But sight of
the cups awakened her to painful consciousness. She put one of them back
in the cupboard, broke the coal on the fire, settled the kettle up to
the blaze, fixed the Dutch oven with three rashers of bacon before the
bars, then lit a candle, and, with a nervous look around, turned to go
upstairs.
In the bedroom she drew on her cloak, pinned her hat and veil with
trembling fingers, then took her purse from her pocket and emptied its
contents onto the dressing-table.
“Not mine,” she thought. And standing before the mirror at that moment,
she caught sight of her earrings. “I must take nothing of his,” she told
herself, and she raised her hands to her ears. Then her heart smote her.
“As if Pete would ever think of such things,” she thought. “No, not if
I took everything he has in the world. And must _I_ be thinking of
them?... Yet I cannot--I will not take them with me.”
She opened a drawer and hurried everything into it--the money, the
earrings, the keeper off her finger, and then she paused at the touch of
the wedding-ring. A superstitious instinct restrained her. Yet the ring
was the badge of her broken covenant. “With this ring I thee wed----”
She tore off the wedding-ring also, and cast it with the rest.
“He will find them,” she thought. “There will be nothing else to tell
him what has happened. He will come, and I shall be gone. He will call,
and there will be no answer. He will look for me, and I shall be lost to
him for ever. Not a word left behind. Not a line to say, 'Thank you and
good-bye and God bless you, dear Pete, for all your love and goodness to
rae.”'
It was cruel--very cruel--yet what could she write? What could she
say that had not better be left unsaid? The least syllable--no,
the uncertainty would be kinder. Perhaps Pete would think she was
dead--perhaps that she had destroyed herself. Even that would not be so
bitter as the truth. He would get over it--he would become reconciled.
“No,” she thought, “I can write nothing--I can leave no message.”
She shut the drawer quickly, and picked up the candle. As she did so,
the shadow of herself moved about her. It mounted from the floor to the
wall, from the wall to the ceiling. When she walked it seemed to be on
top of her, hanging over her, pressing down on her, crushing her. She
grew cold and sick, and hastened to the door. The room was full of other
shadows--the memories of sleepless nights and of painful awakenings.
These stared at her from every familiar thing--the watch ticking in its
stand on the mantelpiece, the handle of the wardrobe, the pink curtains
of the bed, the white pillow beneath them. She felt like a frightened
child. With a terrified glance over her shoulder she crept out of the
room.
Being downstairs again, she breathed more freely. There was light all
about her, and the hall-parlour was bright and warm. The kettle was now
singing in the cheerful blaze, the cat was purring on the rug, and there
was a smell of bacon slowly frying. She looked at the clock--it was a
quarter after seven. “Time to waken baby,” she thought.
She took from a chest the child's outdoor clothes--a robe, a pelisse,
and a white hood. Her fingers had touched a scarlet hood in a cardboard
box, but “not that” she thought, and left it. She spread the clothes
about her chair, and then lifted the little one from the cradle to her
pillowing arm. The child awoke as she raised it, and made a fretful cry,
which she smothered in a gurgling kiss.
“I can love the darling without shame now,” she thought. “It's sweet
face will reproach me no more.”
With soft cooings at the baby's cheek, she was stooping to take the
robe that lay at her feet, when her eyes fell on the round place in the
cradle where the child had been. That made her think again of Pete. He
would come home and find the little nest cold and empty. It would kill
him; it would be a second bereavement. Was it not enough that she should
go away herself? Must she rob him of the child as well? He loved it; he
doted on it. It was the light of his eyes, the joy of his life. To lose
it would be a blow like the blow of death.
Yet could a mother leave her child behind her? Impossible! The full
tide of motherhood came over her, and its tender selfishness swept down
everything. “I cannot,” she thought; “come what may, I cannot and I will
not leave her.” And then she reached her hand for the child's pelisse.
“It would be a kind of atonement, though,” she thought. To leave the
little one to Pete would be making amends in some sort for the wrong
that she was doing him. To deny herself the sight of the child's sweet
face day by day and hour by hour--that would be a punishment also, and
she deserved to be punished. “Can I leave her?” she thought. “Can I?
Oh, what mother could bear it? No, no--never, never! And yet I ought--I
must--Oh, this is terrible!”
In the midst of this agony of uncertainty, thinking of Pete and of
the wrong she had done him, yet pressing the child to her breast with
trembling arms, as if some one were tearing it away, the babe itself
settled everything. Making some inarticulate whimper of communication,
it nuzzled up to her, its eyes closed, but its head working against her
bosom with the instinct of suckling, though it had never sucked.
“I'm only half a mother, after all,” she thought.
The highest joys, the deepest rights of motherhood had been denied to
her--the child taking from the mother, the mother giving to the child,
the child and the mother one--: this had not been hers.
“My little baby can live without me,” she thought. “If I leave her, she
will never miss me.”
She nearly broke down at that thought, and almost let her purpose slip.
It was like God's punishment in advance, God's hand directing her--thus
to withdraw the child from dependence on herself.
“Yes, I must leave her with Pete,” she thought.
She put the child back into the cradle, half dressed as it was, and
rocked it until it slept again. Then she hung over the tiny bed as a
mother hangs over the little coffin that is soon to be shut up from her
eyes for ever. Her tears rained down on the small counterpane. “My sweet
baby I my little Katherine! I may never kiss you again--never see
you any more'--you may grow up to be a woman and know nothing of your
mother!”
The clock ticked loud in the quiet room--it was twenty-five minutes past
seven.
“One kiss more, my little darling. If they ever tell you... they'll say
because your mother left you... Oh, will she think I did not love her?
Hush!”
Through the walls of the house there came the sound of a band playing
at a distance. She looked at the clock again--it was nearly half-past
seven. Almost at the same moment there was the rumble of carriage-wheels
on the road. They stopped in the lane that ran between the chapel and
the end of the garden.
Kate rose from her knees and opened the door softly. The house had
been as a dungeon to her, and she was flying from it like a prisoner
escaping. A shrill whistle pierced the air. The _Peveril_ was leaving
the quay. Through the streets there was a sound as of water running over
stones. It was the scuttling of the feet of the townspeople as they ran
to meet the procession.
She stepped out. The garden was dark and quiet as a prison yard; Hardly
a leaf stirred, but the moon was breaking through the old fir-tree
as she lifted her troubled face to the untroubled sky. She stood and
listened. The band was coming nearer. She could hear the thud of the big
drum.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Pete was there. He was helping at Philip's triumph. That was the beat of
his great heart made audible.
At this her own heart stopped for a moment. She grew chill at the
thought of the brave man who asked no better lot than to love and
cherish her, and at the memory of the other upon whose mercy she had
cast herself. The band stopped. There was a noise like the breaking of
a mighty rocket in the sky. The people were cheering and clapping hands.
Then a clearer sound struck her ear. It was the clock inside the house
chiming the half-hour.
Nancy would be back soon.
Kate listened intently, inclining her head inwards. If the child had
awakened at that instant, if it had stirred and cried, she must have
gone back for good. She returned for one moment and flung herself over
the cradle again. One spasm more of lingering tenderness. “Good-bye,
my little one! I am leaving you with him, darling, because he loves
you dearly. You will grow up and be a good, good girl to him always.
Good-bye, my pet! My precious, my precious! You will reward him for all
he has done for me. You are half of myself, dearest--the innocent half.
Yes, you will wipe out your mother's sin. You will be all he thinks
I am, but never have been. Farewell, my sweet Katherine, my little,
darling baby--good-bye--farewell--good-bye!”
She leapt up and fled out of the house at last, on tiptoe, like a thief,
pulling the door after her.
When she heard the click of the lock she felt both wretchedness and
exultation--immense agony and immense relief. If little Katherine were
to cry now, she could not return to her. The door was closed, the house
was shut, the prison was left behind. And behind her, too, were the
treachery, the duplicity, and deceit of ten stifling months.
She hurried through the garden to a side-door in the wall leading to
the lane. The path was like a wave of the sea to her stumbling feet.
Her breathing was short, her sight was weak, her temples were beating
audibly. Half across the garden something touched her dress, and she
made a faint scream. It was Pete's dog, Dempster. He was looking up at
her out of the darkness of the bushes. By the light through the blind of
the house she could see his bat's ears and watchful eyes.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The band had begun again. It was coming nearer. Philip! Philip! He was
her only refuge now. All else was a blank.
The side-door had been little used. Its hinges and bolt were rusty and
stiff. She broke her nails in opening it. From the other side came the
light jingle of a curb chain, and over the wall hovered a white sheet of
smoking light.
The carriage was in the lane, and the driver--Philip's servant,
Jem-y-Lord--stood with the door open. Kate stumbled on the step and fell
into the seat. The door was closed.
Then a new thought smote her. It was about the child, about Philip,
about Pete. In leaving the little one behind her, though she had meant
it so unselfishly, she had done the one thing that must be big
with consequences. It would bring its penalty, its punishment, its
retribution. Stop! She would go back even yet. Her face was against the
glass; she was struggling with the strap. But the carriage was
moving. She heard the rumble of the wheels; it was like a deafening
reverberation from the day of doom. Then her senses dwaled away and the
carriage drove on.
XV.
Outside Ballure House there was a crowd which covered the garden, the
fence, the high-road, and the top of the stone wall opposite. The band
had ceased to play, and the people were shouting, clapping hands, and
cheering. At the door--which was open--Philip stood bareheaded, and a
shaft of the light in the house behind him lit up a hundred of the eager
faces gathered in the darkness. He raised his hand for silence, but
it was long before he was allowed to speak. Salutations rugged,
rough--almost rude--but hearty to the point of homeliness, and
affectionate to the length of familiarity, flew at his head from every
side. “Good luck to you, boy!”--“Bravo for Ramsey!”--“The Christians
for your life!”--“A chip of the ould block--Dempster Christian the
Sixth!”--“Hush, man, he's spaking!”--“Go it, Phil!”--“Give it fits,
boy!”--“Hush! hush!”
“Fellow-townsmen,” said Philip--his voice swung like a quivering bell
over a sea,--“you can never know how much your welcome has moved me. I
cannot say whether in my heart of hearts I am more proud of it or more
ashamed. To be ashamed of it altogether would dishonour _you_, and to be
too proud of it would dishonour _me_, I am not worthy of your faith and
good-fellowship. Ah!”--he raised his hand to check a murmur of dissent
(the crowd was now hushed from end to end)--“let me utter the thought of
all. In honouring me you are thinking of others also ['No,' 'Yes');
you are thinking of my people--above all, of one who was laid under the
willows yonder, a wrecked, a broken, a disappointed man--my father, God
rest him! I will not conceal it from you--his memory has been my guide,
his failures have been my lightship, his hopes my beacon, his love my
star. For good or for evil, my anchor has been in the depths of his
grave. God forbid that I should have lived too long under the grasp of
a dead hand. It was my aim to regain what he had lost, and this day has
witnessed its partial reclamation. God grant I may not have paid too
dear for such success.”
There were cries of “No, sir, no.”
He smiled faintly and shook his head. “Fellow-countrymen, you believe I
am worthy of the name I bear. There is one among you, an old comrade, a
tried and trusted friend, whose faith would be a spur if it were not a
reproach----”
His voice was breaking, but still it pealed over the sea of heads.
“Well, I will try to do my duty--from this hour onwards you shall see
me try. Fellow-Manxmen, you will help me for the honour of the place I
fill, for the sake of our little island, and--yes, and for my own sake
also, I know you will--to be a good man and an upright judge. But”--he
faltered, his voice could barely support itself--“but if it should ever
appear that your confidence has been misplaced--if in the time to come
I should seem to be unworthy of this honour, untrue to the oath I took
to-day to do God's justice between man and man, a wrongdoer, not a
righter of the wronged, a whited sepulchre where you looked for a tower
of refuge--remember, I pray of you, my countrymen, remember, much as
you may be suffering then, there will be one who will be suffering
more--that one will be myself.”
The general impression that night was that the Deemster's speech had
not been a proper one. Breaking up with some damp efforts at the earlier
enthusiasm, the people complained that they were like men who had come
for a jig and were sent home in a wet blanket. There should have been
a joke or two, a hearty word of congratulation, a little natural
glorification of Ramsey, and a quiet slap at Douglas and Peel and
Castletown, a few fireworks, a rip-rap or two, and some general
illumination. “But sakes alive! the solemn the young Dempster was! And
the melancholy! And the mystarious!”
“Chut!” said Pete. “There's such a dale of comic in you, boys. Wonder in
the world to me you're not kidnapped for pantaloonses. Go home for all
and wipe your eyes, and remember the words he's been spaking. I'm not
going to forget them myself, anyway.”
Handing over the big drum to little Jonaique, Pete turned to go into the
house. Auntie Nan was in the hall, hopping like a canary about Philip,
in a brown silk dress that rustled like withered ferns, hugging him,
drawing him down to the level of her face, and kissing him on the
forehead. The tears were raining over the autumn sunshine of her
wrinkled cheeks, and her voice was cracking between a laugh and a cry.
“My boy! My dear boy! My boy's boy! My own boy's own boy!”
Philip freed himself at length, and went upstairs without turning his
head, and then Auntie Nan saw Pete standing in the doorway.
“Is it you, Pete?” she said with an effort. “Won't you come in for a
moment? No?”
“A minute only, then--just to wish you joy, Miss Christian, ma'am,” said
Pete.
“And you, too, Peter. Ah!” she said, with a bird-like turn of the head,
“you must be a proud man to-night, Pete.”
“Proud isn't the word for it, ma'am--I'm clane beside myself.”
“He took a fancy to you when you were only a little barefooted boy,
Pete.”
“So he did, ma'am.”
“And now that he's Deemster itself he owns you still.”
“Aw, lave him alone for that, ma'am.”
“Did you hear what he said about you in his speech. It isn't everybody
in his place would have done that before all, Pete.”
“'Deed no, ma'am.”
“He's true to his friends, whatever they are.”
“True as steel.”
The maid was carrying the dishes into the dining-room, and Auntie Nan
said in a strained way, “You won't stay to dinner, Pete, will you?
Perhaps you want to get home to the mistress. Well, home is best for all
of us, isn't it? Martha, I'll tell the Deemster myself that dinner is on
the table. Well, good-night, Peter. I'm always so glad to see you.”
She was whisking about to go upstairs, but Pete had taken one step into
the dining-room, and was gazing round with looks of awe.
“Lord alive, Miss Christian, ma'am, what feelings now-barefooted boy,
you say? You're right there, and cold and hungry too, sleeping in
the gable-house with the cow, and not getting much but the milk I was
staling from her, and a leathering at the ould man for that. Philip
fetched me in here one evenin'--that was the start, ma'am. See that
pepper-and-salt egg on the string there? It's a Tommy Noddy's. Philip
got it nesting up Gob-ny-Garvain. Nearly cost him his life, though. You
see, ma'am, Tommy Noddy has only one, and she fights like mad for it.
We were up forty fathom and better, atop of a cave, and had two straight
rocks below us in the sea, same as an elephant's hoofs, you know,
walking out on the blue floor. And Phil was having his lil hand on the
ledge where the egg was keeping, when swoop came the big white wings
atop of his bare head. If I hadn't had a stick that day, ma'am, it would
have been heaven help the pair of us. The next minute Tommy Noddy was
going splash down the cliffs, all feathers and blood together, or Philip
wouldn't have lived to be Dempster.... Aw, frightened you, have I,
ma'am, for all it's so long ago? The heart's a quare thing, now, isn't
it? Got no yesterday nor to-morrow neither. Well, good-night, ma'am.”
Pete was making for the door, when he looked down and said, “What's
this, at all? Down, Dempster, down!”
The dog had came trotting into the hall as Pete was going out. He was
perking up his big ears and wagging his stump of a tail in front of him.
“My dog, ma'am? Yes, ma'am, and like its master in some ways. Not much
of itself at all, but it has the blood in it, though, and maybe it'll
come out better in the next generation. Looking for me, are you,
Dempster? Let's be taking the road, then.”
“Perhaps you're wanted at home, Pete?”
“Wouldn't trust. Good night, ma'am.” Auntie Nan hopped upstairs in her
rustling dress, relieved and glad in the sweet selfishness of her love
to get rid of Pete and have Philip to herself.
XVI.
Pete went off whistling in the darkness, with the dog driving ahead
of him. “I'm to blame, though,” he thought. “Should have gone home
directly.”
The town was now quiet, the streets were deserted, and Pete began to
run. “She'd be alone, too. That must have been Nancy in the crowd yonder
by Mistress Beatty's. 'Lowed her out to see the do, it's like. Ought to
be back now, though.”
As Pete came near to Elm Cottage, the moon over the tree-tops lit up
the panes of the upper windows as with a score of bright lamps. One step
more, and the house was dark.
“She'll be waiting for me. Listening, too, I'll go bail.”
He was at the gate by this time, and the dog was panting at his feet
with its nose close to the lattice.
“Be quiet, dog, be quiet.”
Then he raised the latch without a sound, stepped in on tiptoe, and
closed the gate as silently behind him.
“I'll have a game with her; I'll take her by surprise.”
His eyes began to dance with mischief, like a child's, and he crept
along the path with big cat strides, half doubled up, and holding his
breath, lest he should laugh aloud.
“The sweet creatures! A man shouldn't frighten them, though,” he
thought.
When he reached the porch he went down on all fours, and began mewing
like a mournful tom-cat near to the bottom of the door. Then he listened
with his ear to the jamb. He expected a faint cry of alarm, the raucous
voice of Nancy Joe, and the clatter of feet towards the porch. There was
not a sound.
“She's upstairs,” he thought, and stepped back to look up at the front
of the house. There was no light in the rooms above.
“I know what it is. Nancy is not home yet, and Kirry's fallen asleep at
the rocking.”
He stole up to the window and tried to look into the hall, but the blind
was down, and he could not see much through the narrow openings at the
sides of it.
“She's sleeping, that's it. The house was quiet and she dropped off,
rocking the lil one, that's all.”
He scraped a handful of the light gravel and flung a little of it at the
window. “That'll remind her of something,” he thought, and he laughed
under his breath.
Then he listened again with his ear at the sill. There was no noise
within. He flung more gravel and waited, thinking he might catch her
breathing, but he could hear nothing.
Then rising hurriedly and throwing off his playfulness, he strode to
the door and tried to open it. The door was locked. He returned to the
window.
“Kate!” he called softly. “Kate! Are you there? Do you hear me? It's
Pete. Don't be frightened, Kate, bogh!”
There was no response. He could hear the beat of the sea on the shore.
The dog had perched himself on one end of the window sill and was
beginning to whine.
“What's this at all? She can't be out. Couldn't take the child anyway.
Where's that Nancy? What right had the woman to lave her? She has
fainted, being left alone; that's what's going doing.”
He tried to open the window, but the latch was shot. Then he tried the
other windows, and the back door, and the window above the hall, which
he reached from the roof of the porch; but they would not stir. When he
returned to the hall window, the white blind was darker. The lamp inside
the room was going out.
The moonlight was dripping down on him through the leaves of the trees.
He found some matches beside his pipe in his side pocket, struck one,
and looked at the sash, then took out his clasp knife to remove the pane
under the latch. His hand trembled and shook and burst through the glass
with a jerk. It cut his wrist, but he felt the wound no more than if
it had been the glass instead of his arm that bled. He thrust his hand
through, shot back the latch, then pushed up the sash, and clambered
into the room past the blind. The cat, sitting on the ledge inside,
rubbed against his hand and purred.
“Kirry! Kate!” he whispered.
The lamp had given up its last gleam with the puff of wind from the
window, and, save for the slumbering fire, all was dark within the
house. He hardly dared to drop to his feet for fear of treading on
something. When he was at last in the middle of the floor he stood with
legs apart, struck another match, held the light above his head, and
looked down and around, like a man in a cave.
There was nothing. The child, awakened by the draught of the night air,
began to cry from the cradle. He took it up and hushed it with baby
words of tenderness in a breaking voice. “Hush, bogh, hush! Mammie will
come to it, then. Mammie will come for all.”
He lit a candle and crept through the house, carrying the light about
with him. There was no sign anywhere until he came to the bedroom, when
he saw that the hat and cloak of Kate's daily wear had gone. Then he
knew that he was a broken-hearted man. With a cry of desolation he
stopped in his search and came heavily downstairs.
He had been warding off the moment of despair, but he could do so no
longer now. The empty house and the child, the child and the empty
house; these allowed of only one interpretation. “She's gone, bogh,
she's left us; she wasn't willing to stay with us, God forgive her!”
Sitting on a stool with the little one on his knees, he sobbed while the
child cried--two children crying together. Suddenly he leapt up. “I'm
not for believing it,” he thought. “What woman alive could do the like
of it? There isn't a mother breathing that hasn't more bowels. And she
used to love the lil one, and me too--and does, and does.”
He saw how it was. She was ill, distraught, perhaps even--God help her
I--perhaps even mad. Such things happened to women after childbirth--the
doctor himself had said as much. In the toils of her bodily trouble,
beset by mental terrors, she had fled away from her baby, her husband,
and her home, pursued by God knows what phantoms of disease. But she
would get better, she would come back.
“Hush, bogh, hush, then,” he whimpered tenderly. “Mammie will come home
again. Still and for all she'll come back.”
There was the click of a key in the lock, and he crept back to the
stool. Nancy came in, panting and perspiring.
“Dear heart alive! what a race I've had to get home,” she said, puffing
the air of the night.
She was throwing off her bonnet and shawl, and talking before looking
round.
“Such pushing and scrooging, you never seen the like, Kirry. Aw, my best
Sunday bonnet, only wore at me once, look at the crunched it is! But
what d'ye think now? Poor Christian Killip's baby is dead for all. Died
in the middle of the rejoicings. Aw, dear, yes, and the band going
by playing 'The Conquering Hero' the very minute. Poor thing! she was
distracted, and no wonder. I ran round to put a sight on the poor soul,
and----why, what's going wrong with the lamp, at all? Is that yourself
on the stool, Kirry? Pete, is it? Then where's the mistress?”
She plucked up the poker, and dug the fire into a blaze. “What's doing
on you, man? You've skinned your knuckles like potato peel. Man, man,
what for are you crying, at all?”
Then Pete said in a thick croak, “Hould your bull of a tongue, Nancy,
and take the child out of my arms.”
She took the baby from him, and he rose to his feet as feeble as an old
man.
“Lord save us!” she cried. “The window broke, too. What's happened?”
“Nothing,” growled Pete.
“Then what's coming of Kirry? I left her at home when I went out at
seven.”.
“I'm choking with thirst, woman. Can't you be giving a man a drink of
something?”
He found a dish of milk on the table, where the supper had been laid,
and he gulped it down at a mouthful.
“She's gone--that's what it is. I see it in your face.” Then going to
the foot of the stairs, she called, “Kirry! Kate! Katherine Cregeen!”
“Stop that!” shouted Pete, and he drew her back from the stairs.
“Why aren't you spaking, then?” she cried. “If you're man enough to bear
the truth, I'm woman enough to hear it.”
“Listen to me, Nancy,” said Pete, with uplifted fist. “I'm going out
for an hour, and till I'm back, stay you here with the child, and say
nothing to nobody.”
“I knew it!” cried Nancy. “That's what she hurried me out for. Aw, dear!
Aw, dear! What for did you lave her with that man this morning?”
“Do you hear me, woman?” said Pete; “say nothing to nobody. My
heart's lying heavy enough already. Open your lips, and you'll kill me
straight.”
Then he went out of the house, staggering, stumbling, bent almost
double. His hat lay on the floor; he had gone bareheaded.
He turned towards Sulby. “She's there,” he thought “Where else should
she be? The poor, wandering lamb wants home.”
XVII.
The bar-room of “The Manx Fairy” was full of gossips 'that night, and
the puffing of many pipes was suspended at a story that Mr. Jelly was
telling.
“Strange enough, I'm thinking. 'Deed, but it's mortal strange. Talk
about tale-books--there's nothing in the 'Pilgrim's Progress' itself to
equal it. The son of one son coming home Dempster, with processions and
bands of music, at the very minute the son of the other son is getting
kicked out of the house same as a dog.”
“Strange uncommon,” said John the Widow, and other voices echoed him.
Jonaique looked round the room, expecting some one to question him. As
nobody did so, except with looks of inquiry, he said, “My ould man
heard it all. He's been tailor at the big house since the time of Iron
Christian himself.”
“Truth enough,” said Cæsar.
“And he was sewing a suit for the big man in the kitchen when the bad
work was going doing upstairs.”
“You don't say!”
“'You've robbed me!' says the Ballawhaine.”
“Dear heart alive!” cried Grannie. “To his own son, was it?”
“'You've cheated me!' says he, 'you deceaved me, you've embezzled my
money and broke my heart!' says he. 'I've spent a fortune on you, and
what have you brought me back?' says he. 'This,' says he, 'and this--and
this--barefaced forgeries, all of them!' says he.”
“The Lord help us!” muttered Cæsar.
“'They're calling me a miser, aren't they?' says he. 'I grind my people
to the dust, do I? What for, then? _Whom_ for? I've been a good father
to you, anyway, and a fool, too, if nobody knows it!' says he.”
“Nobody! Did he say nobody, Mr. Jelly?” said Cæsar, screwing up his
mouth.
“'If you'd had _my_ father to deal with,' says he, 'he'd have turned
you out long ago for a liar and a thief.' 'My God, father,' says
Ross, struck silly for the minute. 'A thief, d'ye hear me?' says the
Ballawhaine; 'a thief that's taken every penny I have in the world, and
left me a ruined man.'”
“Did he say that?” said Cæsar.
“He did, though,” said Jonaique. “The ould man was listening from the
kitchen-stairs, and young Ross snaked out of the house same as a cur.”
“And where's he gone to?” said Cæsar.
“Gone to the devil, I'm thinking,” said Jonaique.
“Well, he'd be good enough for him with a broken back--pity the ould man
didn't break it,” said Cæsar. “But where is the wastrel now?”
“Gone to England over with to-night's packet, they're saying.”
“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,” said Cæsar.
A grunt came out of the corner from behind a cloud of smoke. “You've
your own rasons for saying so, Cæsar,” said the husky voice of Black
Tom. “People were talking and talking one while there that he'd be
'bezzling somebody's daughter, as well as the ould miser's money.”
“Answer a fool according to his folly,” muttered Cæsar; and then the
door jerked open, and Pete came staggering into the room. Every pipe
shank was lowered in an instant, and Grannie's needles ceased to click.
Pete was still bareheaded, his face was ghastly white, and his eyes
wandered, but he tried to bear himself as if nothing had happened.
Smiling horribly, and nodding all round, as a man does sometimes in
battle the moment the bullet strikes him, he turned to Grannie and moved
his lips a little as if he thought he was saying something, though he
uttered no sound. After that he took out his pipe, and rammed it with
his forefinger, then picked a spill from the table, and stooped to the
fire for a light.
“Anybody--belonging--me--here?” he said, in a voice like a crow's,
coughing as he spoke, the flame dancing over the pipe mouth.
“No, Pete, no,” said Grannie. “Who were you looking for, at all?”
“Nobody,” he answered. “Nobody partic'lar. Aw, no,” he said, and he
puffed until his lips quacked, though the pipe gave out no smoke.
“Just come in to get fire to my pipe. Must be going now. So long, boys!
S'long! Bye-bye, Grannie!”
No one answered him. He nodded round the room again and smiled
fearfully, crossed to the door with a jaunty roll, and thus launched out
of the house with a pretence of unconcern, the dead pipe hanging upside
down in his mouth, and his head aside, as if his hat had been tilted
rakishly on his uncovered hair.
When he had gone the company looked into each other's faces in surprise
and fear, as if a ghost in broad daylight had passed among them. Then
Black Tom broke the silence.
“Men,” said he, “that was a d------ lie.”
“Si------” began Cæsar, but the protest foundered in his dry throat.
“Something going doing in Ramsey,” Black Tom continued. “I believe in my
heart I'll follow him.”
“I'll be going along with you, Mr. Quilliam,” said Jonaique.
“And I,” said John the Clerk.
“And I”--“And I,” said the others, and in half a minute the room was
empty.
“Father,” whimpered Grannie, through the glass partition, “hadn't you
better saddle the mare and see if any thing's going wrong with Kirry?”
“I was thinking the same myself, mother.”
“Come, then, away with you. The Lord have mercy on all of us!”
XVIII.
As soon as he was out of earshot Pete began to run. Within half an
hour he was back at Elm Cottage. “She'll be home by this time,” he told
himself, but he dared not learn the truth too suddenly. Creeping up to
the hall window, he listened at the broken pane. The child was crying,
and Nancy Joe was talking to herself, and sobbing as she bathed the
little one.
“Bless its precious heart, it's as beautiful as the angels in heaven.
I've bathed her mother on the same knee a hundred times. 'Deed have I,
and a thousand times too. Mother, indeed! What sort of mothers are in
now at all? She must have a heart-as hard as a stone to lave the like
of it. Can't be a drop of nature in her.... Goodness, Nancy, what are
saying for all? Kate is it? Your own little Kirry, and you blackening
her! Aw, dear!--aw, dear! The bogh!--the bogh!”
Pete could not go in. He crept back to the cabin in the garden and
leaned against it to draw his breath and think. Then he noticed that
the dog was on the path with its long tongue hanging over its jaw. It
stopped its panting to whine woefully, and then it turned towards the
darker part of the garden.
“He's telling me something,” thought Pete.
A car rattled down the side road at that moment, and the light of its
lamp shot through the bushes to his feet.
“The ould gate must be open,” he thought.
He looked and saw that it was, and then a new light dawned on him.
“She's gone up to Philip's,” he told himself. “She's gone by Claughbane
to Ballure to find me.”
Five minutes afterwards he was knocking at Ballure House. His breath was
coming in gusts, perspiration was standing in beads on his face, and his
head was still bare, but he was carrying himself bravely as if nothing
were amiss. His knock was answered by the maid, a tall girl of cheerful
expression, in a black frock, a white apron, and a snow-white cap. Pete
nodded and smiled at her.
“Anybody been here for me? No?” he asked.
“No, sir, n--o, I think not,” the girl answered, and as she looked at
Pete her face straightened.
There was a rustling within as of autumn leaves, and then a twittering
voice cried, “Is it Capt'n Quilliam, Martha?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
Some whispered conference took place at the dining-room door, and Auntie
Nan came hopping through the hall. But Pete was already moving away in
the darkness.
“Shall I call the Deemster, Peter?”
“Aw, no, ma'am, no, not worth bothering him. Good everin', Miss
Christian, ma'am, good everin' to you.”
Auntie Nan and Martha were standing in the light at the open door when
the iron gate of the garden swung to with a click, and Pete swung across
the road.
He was making for the lane which goes down to the shore at the foot of
Ballure Glen. “No denying it,” he thought. “It must be true for all. The
trouble in her head has driven her to it. Poor girl, poor darling!”
He had been fighting against an awful idea, and the quagmire of despair
had risen to his throat at last. The moon was behind the cliffs, and he
groped his way through the shadows at the foot of the rocks like one who
looks for something which he dreads to find. He found nothing, and his
catchy breathing lengthened to sighs.
“Thank God, not here, anyway!” he muttered.
Then he walked down the shore towards the harbour. The tide was still
high, the wash of the waves touched his feet; on the one hand the dark
sea, unbroken by a light, on the other the dull town blinking out and
dropping asleep.
He reached the end of the stone pier at the mouth of the harbour, and
with his back to the seaward side of the lighthouse he stared down into
the grey water that surged and moaned under the rounded wall. A black
cloud like a skate was floating across the moon, and a startled gannet
scuttled from under the pier steps into the moon's misty waterway. There
was nothing else to be seen.
He turned back towards the town, following the line of the quay, and
glancing down into the harbour when he came to the steps. Still he saw
nothing of the thing he looked for. “But it was high water then, and now
it's the ebby tide,” he told himself.
He had met with nobody on the shore or on the pier, but as he passed
the sheds in front of the berth for the steamers he was joined by the
harbour-master, who was swinging home for the night, with his coat
across his arm. Then he tried to ask the question that was slipping off
his tongue, but dared not, and only stammered awkwardly----
“Any news to-night, Mr. Quay le?”
“Is it yourself, Capt'n? If you've none, I've none. It's independent
young rovers like you for newses, not poor ould chaps tied to the
harbour-post same as a ship's cable. I was hearing you, though. You'd
a power of music in the everin' yonder. Fine doings up at Ballure,
seemingly.”
“Nothing fresh with yourself then, Daniel? No?”
“Except that I am middling sick of these late sailings, and the sooner
they're building us a breakwater the better. If the young Deemster will
get that for us, he'll do.”
They were nearing a lamp at the corner of the marketplace.
“It's like you know the young Ballawhaine crossed with the boat
to-night? Something wrong, with the ould man, they're telling me. But
boy, veen, what's come of your hat at all?”
“My hat?” said Pete, groping about his head. “Oh, my hat? Blown off on
the pier, of coorse.”
“'Deed, man! Not much wind either. You'll be for home and the young
wife, eh, Capt'n?”
“Must be,” said Pete, with an empty laugh. And the harbour-master, who
was a bachelor, laughed more heartily, and added----
“You married men are like Adam, you've lost the rib of your liberty, but
you've got a warm little woman to your side instead.”
“Ha! ha! ha! Goodnight!”
Pete's laugh echoed through the empty market-place.
The harbour-master had seen nothing. Pete drew a long breath, followed
the line of the harbour as far as to the bridge at the end of it, and
then turned back through the town. He had forgotten again that he was
bareheaded, and he walked down Parliament Street with a tremendous step
and the air of a man to whom nothing unusual had occurred. People were
standing in groups at the corner of every side street, talking eagerly,
with the low hissing sound that women make when they are discussing
secrets. So absorbed were they that Pete passed some of them unobserved.
He caught snatches of their conversation.
“The rascal,” said one.
“Clane ruined the ould man, anyway,” said another.
“Ross Christian again,” thought Pete. But a greater secret swamped
everything. Still he heard the people as he passed.
“Sarve her right, though, whatever she gets--she knew what he was.”
“Laving the child, too, the unfeeling creature.”
Then the sharp voices of the women fell on the dull consciousness of
Pete like forks of lightning.
“Whisht, woman! the husband himself,” said somebody.
There was a noise of feet like the plash of retiring waves, and Pete
noticed that one of the groups had broken into a half circle, facing
him as he strode along the street. He nodded cheerfully over both sides,
threw back his bare head, and plodded on. But his teeth were set hard,
and his breathing was quick and audible.
“I see what they mane,” he muttered.
Outside his own house he found a crowd. A saddle-horse, with a cloud of
steam rising from her, was standing with the reins over its head, linked
to the gate-post. It was Cæsar's mare, Molly. Every eye was on the
house, and no one saw Pete as he came up behind.
“Black Tom's saying there's not a doubt of it,” said a woman.
“Gone with the young Ballawhaine, eh?” said a man.
“Shame on her, the hussy,” said another woman.
Pete ploughed his way through with both arms, smiling and nodding
furiously. “If you, plaze, ma'am I If _you_ plaze.”
As he pushed on he heard voices behind him. “Poor man, he doesn't know
yet.”--“I'm taking pity to look at him.”
The house-door was open. On the threshold stood a young man with long
hair and a long note-book. He was putting questions. “Last seen at seven
o'clock--left alone with child--husband out with procession--any other
information?”
Nancy Joe, with the child on her lap, was answering querulously from
the stool before the fire, and Cæsar, face down, was leaning on the
mantelpiece.
Pete took in the situation at a glance. Then he laid his big hand on
the young man's shoulder and swung him aside as if he had been turning a
swivel.
“What going doing?” he asked.
The young man faltered something. Sorry to intrude--Capt'n Quilliam's
trouble.
“What trouble?” said Pete.
“Need I say--the lamented--I mean distressing--in fact, the mysterious
disappearance----”
“What disappearance?” said Pete, with an air of amazement.
“Can it be, sir, that you've not yet heard----”
“Heard what? Your tongue's like a turnip-watch in a fob pocket--out with
it, man.”
“Your wife, Captain----”
“What? My wife disa---- What? So this is the jeel! My wife mysteriously
disappear---- Oh, my gough!”
Pete burst into a peal of laughter. He shouted, roared, held his sides,
doubled, rocked up and down, and at length flung himself into a chair,
threw back his head, heaved out his legs, and shook till the house
itself seemed to quake.
“Well, that's good! that's rich! that bates all!” he cried.
The child awoke on Nancy's knee and sent its thin pipe through Pete's
terrific bass. Cæsar opened his mouth and gaped, and the young man, now
white and afraid, scraped and backed himself to the door, saying--
“Then perhaps it's not true, after all, Capt'n?”
“Of coorse it's not true,” said Pete.
“Maybe you know where she's gone.”
“Of course I know where's she's gone. I sent her there myself!”
“You did, though?” said Cæsar.
“Yes, did I--to England by the night sailing.”
“'Deed, man!” said Cæsar.
“The doctor ordered it. You heard him yourself, grandfather.”
“Well, that's true, too,” said Cæsar.
The young man closed his long note-book and backed into a throng of
women who had come up to the porch. “Of course, if you say so, Capt'n
Quilliam----”
“I do say so,” shouted Pete; and the reporter disappeared.
The voices of two women came from the gulf of white faces wherein the
reporter had been swallowed up. “I'm right glad it's lies they've been
telling of her, Capt'n,” said the first.
“Of coorse you are, Mistress Kinnish,” shouted Pete.
“I could never have believed the like of the same woman, and I always
knew the child was brought up by hand,” said the other.
“Coorse you couldn't, Mistress Kewley,” Pete replied.
But he swung up and kicked the door to in their faces. The strangers
being shut out, Cæsar said cautiously--
“Do you mane that, Peter?”
“Molly's smoking at the gate like a brewer's vat, father,” said Pete.
“The half hasn't been told you, Peter. Listen to me. It's only proper
you should hear it. When you were away at Kim-berley this Ross Christian
was bothering the girl terrible.”
“She'll be getting cold so long out of the stable,” said Pete.
“I rebuked him myself, sir, and he smote me on the brow. Look! Here's
the mark of his hand over my temple, and I'll be carrying it to my
grave.”
“Ross Christian! Ross Christian!” muttered Pete impatiently.
“By the Lord's restraining grace, sir, I refrained myself--but if Mr.
Philip hadn't been there that night--I'm not hould-ing with violence,
no, resist not evil--but Mr. Philip fought the loose liver with his fist
for me; he chastised him, sir; he--”
“D------the man!” cried Pete, leaping to his feet. “What's he to me or
my wife either?”
Cæsar went home huffed, angry, and unsatisfied. And then, all being gone
and the long strain over, Pete snatched the puling child out of Nancy's
arms, and kissed it and wept over it.
“Give her to me, the bogh,” he cried, hoarse as a raven, and then sat
on the stool before the fire, and rocked the little one and himself
together. “If I hadn't something innocent to lay hould of I should be
going mad, that I should. Oh, Katherine bogh! Katherine bogh! My little
bogh! My I'll bogh millish!”
In the deep hours of the night, after Nancy had grumbled and sobbed
herself to sleep by the side of the child, Pete got up from the sofa in
the parlour and stole out of the house again.
“She may come up with the morning tide,” he told himself. “If she does,
what matter about a lie, God forgive me? God help me, what matter about
anything?”
If she did not, he would stick to his story, so that when she came back,
wherever she had been, she would come home as an honest woman.
“And _will be_, too,” he thought. “Yes, will be, too, spite of all their
dirty tongues--as sure as the Lord's in heaven.”
The dog trotted on in front of him as he turned up towards Ballure.
XIX.
Philip had not eaten much that night at dinner. He had pecked at the
wing of a fowl, been restless, absent, preoccupied, and like a man
struggling for composure. At intervals he had listened as for a step or
a voice, then recovered himself and laughed a little.
Auntie Nan had explained his uneasiness on grounds of natural excitement
after the doings of the great day. She had loaded his plate with good
things, and chirruped away under the light of the lamp.
“So sweet of you, Philip, not to forget Pete amid all your success. He's
really such a good soul. It would break his heart if you neglected him.
Simple as a child, certainly, and of course quite uneducated, but----”
“Pete is fit to be the friend of any one, Auntie.”
“The friend, yes, but you'll allow not exactly the companion----”
“If he is simple, it is the simplicity of a nature too large for little
things.”
“The dear fellow! He's not a bit jealous of you, Philip.”
“Such feelings are far below him, Auntie.”
“He's your first cousin after all, Philip. There's no denying that. As
he says, the blood of the Christians is in him.”
The conversation took a turn. Auntie Nan fell to talking of the other
Peter, uncle Peter Christian of Ballawhaine. This was the day of the big
man's humiliation. The son he had doted on was disgraced. She tried, but
could not help it; she struggled, but could not resist the impulse--in
her secret heart the tender little soul rejoiced.
“Such a pity,” she sighed. “So touching when a father--no matter how
selfish--is wrecked by love of a thankless son. I'm sorry, indeed I am.
But I warned him six years ago. Didn't I, now?”
Philip was far away. He was seeing visions of Pete going home,
the deserted house, the empty cradle, the desolate man alone and
heart-broken.
They rose from the table and went into the little parlour, Auntie Nan on
Philip's arm, proud and happy. She fluttered down to the piano and sang,
to cheer him up a little, an old song in a quavering old voice.
“Of the wandering falcon
The cuckoo complains,
He has torn her warm nest,
He has scattered her young.”
Suddenly Philip got up stiffly, and said in a husky whisper, “Isn't that
his voice?”
“Who's, dear?”
“Pete's.”
“Where, dearest?”
“In the hall.”
“I hear nobody. Let me look. No, Pete's not here. But how pale you are,
Philip. What's amiss?”
“Nothing,” said Philip. “I only thought----”
“Take some wine, dear, or some brandy. You've overtired yourself to-day,
and no wonder. You must have a long, long rest to-night.”
“Yes I'll go to bed at once.”
“So soon! Well, perhaps it's best. You want sleep: your eyes show that.
Martha! Is everything ready in the Deemster's room? All but the lamp?
Take it up, Martha. Philip, you'll drink a little brandy and water
first? I'll carry it to your room then; you might need it in the night.
Go before me, dear. Yes, yes, you must. Do you think I want you to
see how old I am when I'm going upstairs? Ah! I hadn't to climb by the
banisters this way when I came first to Bal-lure.”
On reaching the landing, Philip was turning to his old room, the bedroom
he had occupied from his boyhood up, the bedroom of his mother's father,
old Capt'n Billy.
“Not that way to-night, Philip. This way--_there!_ What do you say to
_that?_”
She pushed open the door of the room opposite, and the glow of the fire
within rushed out on them.
“My father's room,” said Philip, and he stepped back.
“Oh, I've aired it, and it's not a bit the worse for being so long shut
up. See, it's like toast Oo--oo--oo! Not the least sign of my breath.
Come!”
“No, Auntie, no.”
“Are you afraid of ghosts? There's only one ghost lives here, Philip,
the memory of your dear father, and that will never harm you.”
“But this place is too sacred. No one has slept here since----”
“That's why, dearest. But now you have justified your father's hopes,
and it must be your room for the future. Ah! if he could only see
you himself, how proud he would be! Poor father! Perhaps he does. Who
knows--perhaps--kiss me, Philip. See what an old silly I am, after all.
So happy that I have to cry. But mind now, you've got to sleep in this
room every time you come to hold court in Ramsey. I refuse to share you
with Elm Cottage any longer. Talk about jealousy! If Pete isn't
jealous, I know somebody who is--or soon will be. But Philip--Philip
Christian----”
“Yes?”
The sweet old face grew solemn. “The greatest man has his cares and
doubts and divisions. That's only natural--out in the open field of
life. But don't be ashamed to come here whenever you are in trouble.
It's what home is for, Philip. Just a place of peace and shelter from
the rough world, when it wounds and hurts you. A quiet spot, dear, with
memories of father and mother and innocent childhood--and with an old
goose of an auntie, maybe, who thinks of you all day and every day,
and is so vain and foolish--and--and who loves you. Philip, better than
anybody in the World.”
Philip's arms were about the old soul, but he had not heard her. With a
terrified glance towards the window, he was saying in a low quick voice,
“Isn't that a footstep on the gravel?”
“N--o, no! You're nervous to-night, Philip. Lie and rest. When you're
asleep, I'll creep back and look at you.”
She left him, and he looked around. Not in all the world could Philip
have found a spot so full of terrors. It was like a sepulchre of dead
things--his dead father, his dead mother, his dead youth, his dead
innocence, his slaughtered friendship, and his outraged conscience.
Over the fireplace hung a portrait of his mother. It was the picture
of a comely girl, young and soft, with full ripe lips and bright brown
eyes. Philip shuddered as he looked at it. The portrait was like the
ghost of himself looking through the veil of a woman's face.
Facing this, and hanging over the side of the bed, was a portrait of his
father. The eyes were full of light, the lines of the cheek were round;
the mouth seemed to quiver with a tender smile. But Philip could not see
it as it was. He saw it with straggling hair, damp and long as reeds,
the cheeks pallid and drawn, the eyes like lamps in a mist, the throat
bare of the shirt, and the lips kept apart by laboured breathing.
Near the window stood the cot where he had once slept with Pete, and
leaped up in the morning and laughed. On every hand, wherever his eye
could rest, there rose a phantom of his lost and buried life. And Auntie
Nannie's love and pride had brought him to this chamber of torture!
The night was calm enough outside; but it seemed to lie dead within that
room, so quiet was it and so still. There was a clock, but it did not
go; and there was a cage for a bird, but no bird pecked in it, Philip
thought he heard a knocking at the door of the house. Nobody answered
it, so he rang for the maid. She came upstairs with a smile.
“Didn't you hear a knock at the front door, Martha?”
“No, sir,” said the girl.
“Strange! Very strange! I could have sworn it was the knock of Mr.
Quilliam.”
“Perhaps it was, sir. Ill go and look.”
“No matter. I've a singing in my ears to-night. It must be that.”
The girl left him. He threw off his boots and began to creep about the
room as if he were doing something in which he feared detection. Every
time his eyes fell on the portrait of his father he dropped his head and
turned aside. Presently he heard voices in the room below. This time the
sound in his ears was no dreaming. He opened the door noiselessly and
listened. It was Pete. Martha was answering him. Auntie Nan was calling
from the dining-room, and Pete was saying “No, no,” in a light way and
moving off. The gate of the garden clicked and the front door was closed
quietly. Then Philip shut the door of his own room without a sound.
A moment later Auntie Nan re-opened it. She was carrying a lighted
candle.
“Such an extraordinary thing, Philip. Martha says you thought you heard
Peter knocking, and, do you know, he must have been coming up the hill
at that very moment. He was so strange, too, and looked so wild. Asked
if anybody had been here inquiring for him; as if anybody should.
Wouldn't have me call to you, and went off laughing about nothing.
Really, if I hadn't known him for a sober man----”
Philip felt sick-and chill, and-he began to shiver. An irresistible
impulse took hold of him. It was like the half-smothered fear which
makes guilty men go to sit at the inquests on their murdered victims.
“Something wrong,” he said. “Where are my boots?”
“Going to Elm Cottage, Philip? Pity the coachman drove back to Douglas.
Hadn't you better send Martha? Besides, it may be only my fancy. Why
worry in any case? You're too tender-hearted--indeed you are.”
Philip fled downstairs like one who flies from torture. While dragging
on his coat in the hall, he began to foresee what was before him. He was
to go to Pete, pretending to know nothing; he was to hear Pete's story,
and show surprise; he was to comfort Pete--perhaps to help him in his
search, for he dared not appear _not_ to help--he was to walk by Pete's
side, looking for what he knew they should not find. He saw himself
crawling along the streets like a snake, and the part he had to play
revolted him. He went upstairs again.
“On second thoughts, you must be right, auntie.”
“I'm sure I am.”
“If not, he'll come again.”
“I'm sure he will.”
“If there's anything amiss with Pete, he'll come first to me.”
“There can be nothing amiss except what I say. Just a glass too much
maybe and no great sin either, considering the day, and how proud he is,
for your sake, Philip. I believe in my heart that young man couldn't be
prouder and happier if he stood in your own shoes instead.”
“Good-night, Auntie,” said Philip, in a thick gurgle.
“Good-night, dear. I'm going to bed, and mind you go yourself.”
Being alone, Philip found himself leaning against the mantelpiece and
looking across at his father's picture. He began to contrast his father
with himself. He was a success, his father had been a failure. At
seven-and-twenty he was Deemster at all events; at thirty his father had
died a broken man. He had got what he had worked for; he had recovered
the place of his people; and yet how mean a man he was compared to him
who had done nothing and lost all.
Failure was all that his father had had to reproach himself with; but
he had to accuse himself of dishonour as well. His father's offence had
been a fault; his own was a crime. If his father had been willing to
betray love and friendship, he might have succeeded. Because he himself
had been true to neither, he had not failed. The very excess of his
father's virtues had kept him down. Every act of his own selfishness
had pushed him up. His father had thought first of love and truth and
an upright life, and last of money and rank and applause. The world had
renounced his father because his father had first renounced the world.
But it had opened its arms to him, and followed him with shouts and
cheers, and loaded him with honours. And yet, miserable man, better be
down in the ooze and slime of a broken life, better be dead and in the
grave--for the dead in his grave must despise him.
An awful picture rose before Philip. It was a picture of himself in the
time to come. An old man--great, powerful, perhaps even beloved, maybe
worshipped, but heart-dead, tottering on to the grave, and the mockery
of a gorgeous funeral, with crowds and drums and solemn music. Then
suddenly a great silence, as if the snow had begun to fall, and a great
white light, and an awful voice crying, “Who is this that comes with
dust for a bleeding heart, and ashes for a living soul?”
Philip screamed aloud at the vision, as piece by piece he put it
together. His cry died off with a tingle in the china ornaments of the
mantelpiece, and he remembered where he was. Then two gentle taps came
to the door of his room. He composed himself a little, snatched up a
book, and cried “Come in!”
It was Auntie Nan. She was in her night-dress and night-cap. A candle
was in her hand, and the flame was shaking.
“Whatever's to do, my child?” she said.
“Only reading aloud, Auntie. Did I awaken you?”
“But you screamed, Philip.”
“Macbeth, Auntie. See, the banquet scene. He has become king, you know,
but his conscience----”
He stopped. The little lady looked at him dubiously and made a pull
at the string of her night-cap, causing it to fall aside and give a
grotesque appearance to her troubled old face.
“Take a little brandy, dear. I left it here on the dressing-table.”
“Don't trouble about me, Auntie. Good-night again. There! go back to
bed.”
Half coaxing, half forcing her, he drew her to the door, and she went
out slowly, reluctantly, doubtfully, the wandering strings of her cap
trailing on her shoulders, and her bare feet nipping up the bottom of
the night-dress behind her.
Philip looked at the book he had snatched up in his haste. What had put
that book of all books into his hand? What had brought him to that room
of all rooms? And on that night of all nights? What devil out of hell
had tempted Auntie Nan to torture him? He would not stay; he would go
back to his own bed.
Out on the landing he heard a low voice. It came from Auntie Nan's room.
A spear of candle-light shot from her door, which was ajar. He paused
and looked in. The white night-dress was by the bedside, the night-cap
was buried in the counterpane. A cat had established itself beside it,
and was purring softly. Auntie Nan was on her knees. Philip heard his
own name----
“God bless my Philip in the great place to which he has been called this
day. Give him wisdom and strength and peace!”
Holy woman, with angels hovering over you, who dared to think of devils
tempting your innocence and love?
Philip went back to his father's room. He began to reconcile himself
to his position. Though he had been extolling his father at his own
expense, what had he done but realise his father's hopes. And, after
all, he could not have acted differently. At no point could he have
behaved otherwise than he had. What had he to accuse himself for? If
there had been sin, he had been dragged into it by blind powers which he
could not command. And what was true of himself was also true of Kate.
Ah! he could see her now. She was gone where he had sent her. There
were tears in her beautiful eyes, but time would wipe them away. The
duplicity of her old life was over; the corroding deceit, the daily
torment, the hourly infidelity--all were left behind. If there was
remorse, it was the fault of destiny; and if she was suffering the pangs
of shame, she was a woman, and she would bear it cheerfully for the sake
of the man she loved. She was going through everything for him. Heaven
bless her! In spite of man and man's law, she was his love, his darling,
his wife--yes, his wife--by right of nature and of God; and, come what
would, he should cling to her to the last.
Suddenly a thick voice cut through the still air of the night.
“Philip!”
It was Pete at last He was calling up at the window from the path below.
Philip groaned and covered his face with his hands.
“Philip!”
With rigid steps Philip walked to the window and threw up the sash. It
was starlight, and the branches were bending in the night air.
“Is it you, Pete?”
“Yes, it's me. I was seeing the lamp, so I knew you war'n in bed at all.
Studdying a bit, it's like, eh? I thought I wouldn't waken the house,
but just shout up and tell you.”
“What is it, Pete?” said Philip. His voice shivered like a sail at
tacking.
“Nothing much at all. Only the wife's gone to England over by the
night's steamer.”
“To England?”
“Aw, time for it too, I'm thinking; the wake and narvous she's been
lately. You remember what the doctor was saying yonder everin,' when we
christened the child? 'Send her out of the island,' says he, 'and she'll
be coming home another woman.' Wasn't for going, though. Crying and
shouting she wouldn't be laving the lil one. So I had to put out a bit
of authority. Of course, a husband's got the right to do that, Philip,
eh? Well, I'll be taking the road again. Doing a fine night, isn't it?
Make's a man unwilling to go to bed.”
Philip trembled and felt sick. He tried to speak, but could utter
nothing except an inarticulate noise. As Pete went off, an owl screeched
in the glen. Philip drew down the sash, pulled the blind, tugged the
curtains across, stumbled into the middle of the floor, and leaned
against the bed.
“Such is the beginning of the end,” he thought.
The duplicity, the deceit, the daily torment which Kate had left behind,
were henceforward to be his own! At one flash, as of lightning, he saw
the path before him. It was over cliffs and chasms and quagmires, where
his foot might slip at any step.
His head began to reel. He took the brandy bottle from the
dressing-table, poured out half a tumbler, and drained it at one
draught. As he did so, his eyes above the rim of the glass rested on the
portrait of his mother over the fireplace. The face as he saw it then
was no longer the face of the winsome bride. It was the living face as
he remembered it--bleared, bloated, gross, and drunken. She smiled on
him, she beckoned to him.
It was the beginning of the end indeed. He was his mother's son as well
as his father's. The father had ruled down to that day, but it was the
turn of the mother now. He could not resist her. She was alive in his
blood, and he was hers.
Never before had he touched raw spirits, and the brandy mastered him
instantly. Feeling dizzy, he made an effort to undress and get into bed.
He dragged off his coat and his waistcoat, and threw his braces over his
shoulders. Then he stumbled, and he had to lay hold of the bedpost. His
hand grew chill and relaxed its hold. Stupor came over him. He slipped,
he slid, he fell, and rolled with outstretched arms on to the floor. The
fire went out and the lamp died down.
Then the sun came up over the sea. It was a beautiful morning. The town
awoke; people hailed each other cheerfully in the streets, and joy-bells
rang from the big church tower for the first court-day of the new
Deemster. But the Deemster himself still lay on the floor, with damp
forehead and matted hair, behind the blind of the darkened room.