There had been a general surging of the Keys and clergy towards the

steps, and now one of them cried out of their group, “Is Tynwald Court

to be turned into a bear-garden?” And another said in a cynical voice,

“Perhaps your Excellency has taken somebody else's seat.”

Philip raised himself to his full height, and answered, with his eyes on

the speakers, “We are free-born men on this island, your Excellency. We

did not come to Tynwald to learn order from the grandson of a Spanish

pirate, or freedom from the son of a black chief.”

“Hould hard, boys!” cried Pete, lifting one hand against his followers,

as if to keep them quiet. He was boiling with a desire to shout till his

throat should crack.

The Governor had exchanged rapid looks and low whispers with the

captain. He saw that he was outwitted, that he was helpless, that he was

even in personal danger. The captain was biting his leg with vexation

that he had not reckoned more seriously with this rising--that he had

not drawn up his men in column.

“Your Excellency will hear the fishermen?” said Philip.

“No, no, no,” said the Governor. He was at least a brave man, if a vain

and foolish one.

There was silence for a moment. Then, standing erect, and making an

effort to control himself, Philip said, “May it please your Excellency,

you fill a proud position here; you are the ruler of this island under

your sovereign lady our Queen. But we, your subjects, your servants, are

in a prouder position still. We are Manxmen. This is the Court of our

country.”

“Hould hard,” cried Pete again.

“For a thousand years men with our blood and our names have stood on

this hill to hear the voice of the people, and to do justice between

man and man. That's what the place was meant for. If it has lost that

meaning, root it up--it is a show and a sham.”

“Bravo!” cried Pete; he could hold himself in no longer, and his word

was taken up with a shout, both on the hill and on the green beneath.

Philip's voice had risen to a shrill cry, but it was low and meek as he

added, bowing yet lower while he spoke--

“Your Excellency will hear the fishermen?”

The Governor rolled in his seat. “Go on,” he said impatiently.

The men made their petition. Three or four of them spoke briefly and

to the point. They had had harbours, their fathers' harbours, which had

been freed to them forty years before; don't ask them to pay harbour

dues until proper harbours were provided:

The Governor gave his promise. Then he rose, the band struck up “God

save the Queen,” and the Legislature filed back to the chapel.

Philip went with them. He had fought a great battle, and he had

prevailed. Through purging fires the real man had emerged, but he

had paid the price of his victory. His eye burned like live coal,

his cheek-bones seemed to have upheaved. He walked alone; his ancient

colleague had stepped ahead of him. But now and again, as he passed down

the long path to the church-door, fishermen and farmers pushed between

the rifles of the guards, and said in husky voices, “Let me shake you by

the hand, Dempster.”

The scene was repeated with added emotion half an hour afterwards, when,

the court being adjourned and the Governor gone in ominous silence,

Philip came out, white and smiling, and leaning on the arm of his old

master, the Clerk of the Rolls. He could scarcely tear himself through

the thick-set hedge of people that lined the path to the gate. As he

got into the carriage his smile disappeared. Sinking into the seat, he

buried himself in the corner and dropped his head on his breast. The

people began to cheer.

“Drive on,” he cried.

The cheering became loud.

“Drive, drive,” he cried.

The people cheered yet louder. They thought that they had seen a grand

triumph that day--a man triumphing over the Governor. But there had

been a grander triumph which they had not seen--a man triumphing over

himself. Only one saw that, and it was God.

XII.

Pete seemed to be beside himself. He laughed until he cried; he cried

until he laughed. His resonant voice rang out everywhere.

“Hear him? My gough, it was like a bugle spaking. There's nobody can

spake but himself. When the others are toot-tooting, it's just 'Polly,

put the kettle on' (mimicking a mincing treble). See the lil Puffin on

his throne of turf there? Looked as if Ould Nick had been thrashing peas

on his face for a week.”

Pete's enthusiasm rose to frenzy, and he began to sweep through the

fair, bemoaning his country and pouring mouth-fuls of anathema on his

countrymen.

“_Mannin veg villish_ (sweet little Isle of Man), with your English

Governors and your English Bishops, and boys of your own worth ten of

them. _Manninee graihagh_ (beloved Manxmen), you're driving them away to

be Bishops for others and Governors abroad--and yourselves going to the

dogs and the divil, and d------ you.”

Pete's prophetic mood dropped to a jovial one. He bought the remaining

stock-in-trade of an itinerant toffee-seller, and hammered the lid of

the tin hat-box to beat up the children. They followed him like hares

hopping in the snow; and he distributed his bounty in inverse relation

to size, a short stick to a big lad, a long stick to a little one, and

two sticks to a girl. The results were an infantile war. Here, a damsel

of ten squaring her lists to fight a hulking fellow of twelve for her

sister of six; and there, a mother wiping the eyes of her boy of five,

and whispering “Hush, bogh; hush! You shall have the bladder when we

kill the pig.”

Pete began to drink. “How do, Faddy? Taking joy of you, Juan. Are you in

life, Thom! Half a glass of rum will do no harm, boys. Not the drink at

all--just the good company, you know.”

He hailed the women also, but they were less willing to be treated. “I'd

have more respect for my quarterly ticket, sir,” said Betsy--she was a

Primitive, with her husband on the “Planbeg.” “There's a hole in your

pocket, Capt'n; stop it up with your fist, man,” said Liza--she was a

gombeen woman, and when she got a penny in her hand it was a prisoner

for life. “Chut! woman,” said Pete, “what's the good book say ing?

'Riches have wings;' let the birds fly then,” and off he went, reeling

and tottering, and laughing his formidable laugh.

Pete grew merry. Rooting up the remains of the fishermen's band, he

hired them to accompany him through the fair. They were three little

musicians, now exceedingly drunk, and their duty was to play “Hail, Isle

of Man,” as he went swaggering along in front of them.

“Hail, Isle of Man,

Swate ocean lan',

I love thy sea-girt border.”

“Play up, Jackie.”

“The barley sown,

Potatoes down,

We'll get our boats in order.”

Thus he forged through the fair, capering, laughing, shouting protests

over his shoulder when the tipsy music failed, pretending to be very

drunk, trying to show that he was carrying on, that he was going it,

that he hadn't a second thought, but watching everything for all that,

studying every face, and listening to the talk of everybody.

“Whips of money at him, Liza--whips of it--millions, they're

saying.”--“He's spending it like flitters then. The Manx chaps isn't fit

for fortunes--no, they aren't. I wonder in the world what sort of wife

there's at him. _I_ don't 'low my husband the purse. Three ha'pence is

enough to be giving any man at once.”--“Wife, you're saying? Don't you

know, woman?” Then some whispering.

“Bass, boy--more bass, I tell thee.”

“We then sought nex'

The soothing sex,

Our swatearts at Port Erin.”

“Who _is_ the man at all?”--“Why, Capt'n Quilliam from

Kimberley.”--“'Deed, man! Him that married with some of the Cæsar

Glenmooar's ones?”--“She's left him, though, and gone off with a

wastrel.”--“You don't say?”--“Well, I saw the young woman myself----”

“At Quiggin's Hall

There's enough for all,

Good beer, and all things proper.”

“Hould,boys!”

Pete had drawn up suddenly, and stopped his musicians with a sweep of

the arm.

“Were you spaking, Mr. Corteen?”

“Nothing, Capt'n. No need to stare at all. I was only saying I was at

the camp-meeting at Sulby, and I saw----”

“Go on, Jackie.”

“A pleasant place,

With beds of aise,

When we are done our supper.”

The unhappy man was deceiving himself at least as much as anybody else.

After looking for the light of intelligence in every face, waiting for

a word, watching for a glance, expecting every moment that some one

from south or north, or east or west, would say, “I've seen her;” yet,

covering up the burning coal of his anxiety with the ashes of mock

merriment, he tried to persuade himself that Kate was not on the

island if nobody at Tynwald had seen her; that he had told the truth

unwittingly, and that he was as happy as the day was long.

XIII.

A man in a gig came driving a long-horned cow in front of him. Driver,

horse, gig, and cow were like animated shapes of dust, but Pete

recognised them.

“Is it yourself, Cæsar? So you're for selling ould Horney?”

“Grieved in my heart I am to do it, sir. Many a good glass of milk she

has given to me and mine,” and Cæsar was ready to weep.

“Going falling in fits, isn't she, Cæsar?”

“Hush, man! hush, man!” said Cæsar, looking about. “A good cow, very;

but down twice since I left home this morning.”

“I'd give a bad sixpence to see Cæsar selling that cow,” thought Pete.

Three men were bargaining over a horse. Two were selling, the third (it

was Black Tom) was buying.

“Rising five years, sir. Sired by Mahomet. Oh, I've got the papers to

prove it,” said one of the two.

“What, man? Five?” shouted Black Tom down the horse's open mouth.

“She'll never see eight the longest day she lives.”

“No use decaiving the man,” said the other dealer, speaking in Manx.

“She's sixteen--'low she's nine, anyway.”

“Fair play, boys; spake English before a poor fellow,” said Black Tom,

with a snort.

“This brother of mine lows she's seven,” said the first of the two.

“You thundering liar,” said Black Tom in Manx. “He says she's sixteen.”

“Dealing ponies then?” asked Pete.

“Anything, sir; anything. Buying for farmers up Lonan way,” said Black

Tom.

“Come on,” said Pete; “here's Cæsar with a long-horned cow.”

They found the good man tethering a white, long-horned cow to the wheel

of the tipped-up gig.

“How do, Cæsar? And how much for the long-horn?” said Black Tom.

“Aw, look at the base (beast), Mr. Quilliam. Examine her for yourself,”

said Cæsar.

“Middling fair ewer, good quarter, five calves--is it five, Cæsar?” said

Black Tom, holding one of the long horns.

“Three, sir, and calving again for February.”

“No milk fever? No? Kicks a bit at milking? Never? Fits? Ever had fits,

Cæsar?” opening wide one of the cow's eyes.

“Have you known me these years for a dacent man, Mr. Quilliam----” began

Cæsar in an injured tone.

“Well, what's the figure?”

“Fourteen pound, sir! and she'll take the road before I'll go home with

a pound less!”

“Fourteen--what! Ten; I'll give you ten--not a penny more.”

“Good day to _you_, Mr. Quilliam,” said Cæsar. Then, as if by an

afterthought, “You're an ould friend of mine, Thomas; a very ould

friend, Tom--I'll split you the diff'rance.”

“Break a straw on it,” said Black Tom; and the transaction was complete.

“I've had a clane strike here--the base is worth fifteen,” chuckled

Black Tom in Pete's ear as he drove the cow in to a shed beyond.

“I must be buying another cow in place of poor ould Horney,” whispered

Cæsar as he dived into the cattle stand.

“Strike up, Jackie,” shouted Pete.

“West of the mine,

The day being fine.

The tide against us veering.”

Ten minutes later Pete heard a fearful clamour, which drowned the noise

that he himself was making. Within the shed the confusion of tongues was

terrific.

“What's this at all?” he asked, crushing through with an innocent face.

“The man's cow has fits,” cried Black Tom. “I'll have my money back.

The ould psalm-singing Tommy Noddy! did he think he was lifting the

collection? My money! My twelve goolden pounds!”

If Black Tom had not been as bald as a bladder, he would have torn his

hair in his mortification. But Pete pacified him.

“Cæsar is looking for another cow--sell him his own back again.

Impozz'ble? Who says it's impozz'ble? Cut off her long horns, and he'll

never be knowing her from her grandmother.”

Then Pete made up to Cæsar and said, “Tom's got a mailie (hornless) cow

to sell, and it's the very thing you're wanting.”

“Is she a good mailie?” asked Cæsar.

“Ten quarts either end of the day, Cæsar, and fifteen pounds of butter a

week,” said Pete.

“Where's the base, sir?” said Cæsar.

They met Black Tom leading a hornless, white cow from the shed to the

green.

“Are you coming together, Peter?” he said cheerfully.

Cæsar eyed the cow doubtfully for a moment, and then said briskly,

“What's the price of the mailie, Mr. Quilliam?”

“Aw, look at the base first, Mr. Cregeen. Examine her for yourself,

sir.”

“Yes--yes--well, yes; a middling good base enough. Four calves, Thomas?”

“Two, sir, and calves again for January. Twenty-four quarts of new milk

every day of life, and butter fit to burst the churn for you.”

“No fever at all? No fits? No?”

“Aw, have you known me these teens of years, Mr. Cregeen----”

“Well, what d'ye say--eleven pounds for the cow, Tom!”

“Thirteen, Cæsar; and if you warn an ould friend----”

“Hould your hand, Mr. Quilliam; I'm not a man when I've got a

bargain.... Manx notes or the dust, Thomas? Goold? Here you are,

then--one--two--three--four...” (giving the cow another searching glance

across his shoulder). “It's wonderful, though, the straight she's

like ould Horney... five--six--seven... in colour and size, I

mane... eight--nine--ten... and if she warn a mailie cow, now...

eleven--twelve--” (the money hanging from his thumb). “Will that be

enough, Mr. Quilliam? No? Half a one, then? Aw, you're hard, Tom...

thirteen.”

Having paid the last pound, Cæsar stood a moment contemplating his

purchase, and then said doubtfully, “Well, if I hadn't... Grannie will

be saying it's the same base back-----” (the cow began to reel). “Yes,

and it--no, surely--a mailie for all-----” (the cow fell). “It's got the

same fits, anyway,” cried Cæsar; and then he rushed to the cow's head.

“It _is_ the same base. The horns are going cutting off at her. My money

back! Give me my money back--my thirteen yellow sovereigns--the sweat of

my brow!” he cried.

“Aw, no,” said Black Tom. “There's no money giving back at all. If the

cow was good enough for you to sell, she's good enough for you to buy,”

and he turned on his heel with a laugh of triumph.

Cæsar was choking with vexation.

“Never mind, sir,” said Pete. “If Tom has taken a mane advantage of

you, it'll be all set right at the Judgment. You've that satisfaction,

anyway.”

“Have I? No, I haven't,” said Cæsar from between his teeth. “The man's

clever. He'll get himself converted before he comes to die, and then

there'll not be a word about cutting the horns off my cow.”

“Strike up, Jackie,” shouted Pete.

“Hail, Isle of Man,

Swate ocean làn',

I love thy sea-girt border.”

XIV.

The sky became overcast, rain began to fall, and there was a rush for

the carts. In half an hour Tynwald Hill was empty, and the people were

splashing off on every side like the big drops of rain that were pelting

down.

Pete hired a brake that was going back to the north, and gathered up

his friends from Ramsey. When these were seated, there was a rush of

helpless and abandoned ones who were going in the same direction--young

mothers with children, old men and old women. Pete hauled them up till

the seats and the floor were choked, and the brake could hold no more.

He got small thanks. “Such crushing and scrooging! I declare my black

merino frock, that I've only had on once, will be teetotal spoilt.”--“If

they don't start soon I'll be taking the neuralgy dreadful.”

They got started at length, and, at the tail of a line of stiff carts,

they went rattling over the mountain-road. The harebells nodded their

washed faces from the hedge, and the talk was brisk and cheerful.

“Our Thorn's sowl a hafer, and got a good price.”--“What for didn't you

buy the mare of Corlett Beldroma, Juan?”--“Did I want to be killed as

dead as a herring?”--“Kicks, does she? Bate her, man; bate her. A horse

is like a woman. If you aren't bating her now and then----”

They stopped at every half-way houses--it was always halfway to

somewhere. The men got exceedingly drunk and began to sing. At that the

women grew very angry.

“Sakes alive! you're no better than a lot of Cottonies.”--“Deed, but

they're worse than any Cottonies, ma'am. Some excuse for the like of

_them_. In their cotton-mills all the year, and nothing at home but a

piece of grass the size of your hand in the backyard, and going hopping

on it like a lark in a cage.”

The rain came down in torrents, the mountain-path grew steep and

desolate, the few houses passed were empty and boarded up, gorse bushes

hissed to the rising breeze, geese scuttled and screamed across the

untilled land, a solitary black crow flew across the leaden sky, and on

the sea outside a tall pillar of smoke went stalking on and on, where

the pleasure-steamer carried her freight of tourists round the island.

Then songs gave way to sighs, some of the men began to pick quarrels,

and some to break into fits of drunken sobbing.

Pete kept them all up. He chaffed and laughed and told funny stories.

Choking, stifling, wounded to the heart as he was, still he was carrying

on, struggling to convince everybody and himself as well, that nothing

was amiss, that he was a jolly fellow, and had not a second thought.

He was glad to get home, nevertheless, where he need play the hypocrite

no longer. Going through Sulby, he dropped out of the brake and looked

in at the “Fairy.” The house was shut. Grannie was sitting up for Cæsar,

and listening for the sound of wheels. There was something unusual and

mysterious about her. Cruddled over the fire, she was smoking, a long

clay in little puffs of blue smoke that could barely be seen. The sweet

old soul in her troubles had taken to the pipe as a comforter. Pete

could see that something had happened since morning, but she looked at

him with damp eyes, and he was afraid to ask questions. He began to talk

of the great doings of the day at Tynwald, then of Philip, and finally

of Kate, apologising a little wildly for the mother not coming home

sooner to the child, but protesting that she had sent the little one no

end of presents.

“Presents, bless ye,” he began rapturously----

“You don't ate enough, Pete, 'deed you don't,” said Grannie.

“Ate? Did you say ate?” cried Pete. “If you'd seen me at the fair you'd

have said, 'That man's got the inside of a limekiln!' Aw, no, Grannie,

I'm not letting my jaws travel far. When I've got anything before me

it's--down--same as an ostrich.”

Going away in the darkness, he heard Cæsar creaking up in the gig with

old Horney, now old Mailie, diving along in front of him.

Nancy was waiting for Pete at Elm Cottage. She tried to bustle him

upstairs.

“Come, man, come,” she said; “get yourself off to bed and I'll bring

your clothes down to the fire.”

He had never slept in the bedroom since Kate had left. “Chut! I've lost

the habit of beds,” he answered. “Always used of the gable loft, you

know, and the wind above the thatch.”

Not to be thought to behave otherwise than usual, he went upstairs that

night. But--

“Feather beds are saft,

Pentit rooms are bonnie,

But ae kiss o' my dear love

Better's far than ony.”

The rain was still falling, the sea was loud, the mighty breath of night

was shaking the walls of the house and rioting through the town. He was

wet and tired, longing for a dry skin and a warm bed and rest.

“Yet fain wad I rise and rin

If I tho't I would meet my dearie.”

The long-strained rapture of faith and confidence was breaking down. He

saw it breaking. He could deceive himself no more. She was gone, she was

lost, she would lie on his breast no more.

“God help me! O, Lord, help me,” he cried in his crushed and breaking

heart.

XV.

When Kate thought of her husband after she had left him, it was not with

any crushing sense of shame. She had injured him, but she had gained

nothing by it. On the contrary, she had suffered, she had undergone

separation from her child. To soften the hard blow inflicted, she had

outraged the tenderest feelings of her heart. As often as she thought of

Pete and the deep wrong she had done him, she remembered this sacrifice,

she wept over this separation. Thus she reconciled herself to her

conduct towards her husband. If she had bought happiness at the cost of

Pete's sufferings, her remorse might have been deep; but she had only

accepted shame and humiliation and the severance of the dearest of her

ties.

When she had said in the rapture of passionate confidence that if she

possessed Philip's love there could be no humiliation and no shame, she

had not yet dreamt of the creeping degradation of a life in the dark,

under a false name, in a false connection: a life under the same roof

with Philip, yet not by his side, unacknowledged, unrecognised, hidden

and suppressed. Even at the moment of that avowal, somewhere in the

secret part of her heart, where lay her love of refinement and her

desire to be a lady, she had cherished the hope that Philip would find

a way out of the meanness of their relation, that she would come to live

openly beside him, she hardly knew how, and she did not care at what

cost of scandal, for with Philip as her own she would be proud and

happy.

Philip had not found that way out, yet she did not blame him. She had

begun to see that the deepest shame of their relation was not hers but

his. Since she had lived in Philip's house the man in him had begun to

decay. She could not shut her eyes to this rapid demoralisation, and she

knew well that it was the consequence of her presence. The deceptions,

the subterfuges, the mean shifts forced upon him day by day, by every

chance, every accident, were plunging him in ever-deepening degradation.

And as she realised this a new fear possessed her, more bitter than any

humiliation, more crushing than any shame--the fear that he would cease

to love her, the terror that he would come to hate her, as he recognised

the depth to which she had dragged him down.

XVI.

Back from Tynwald, Philip was standing in his room. From time to time

he walked to the window, which was half open, for the air was close and

heavy. A misty rain was falling from an empty sky, and the daylight

was beginning to fail. The tombstones below were wet, the treed were

dripping, the churchyard was desolate. In a corner under the wall lay

the angular wooden lid which is laid by a gravedigger over an open

grave. Presently the iron gates swung apart, and a funeral company

entered. It consisted of three persons and an uncovered deal coffin. One

of the three was the sexton of the church, another was the curate, the

third was a policeman. The sexton and the policeman carried the coffin

to the church-door, which the curate opened. He then went into the

church, and was followed by the other two. A moment later there were

three strokes of the church bell. Some minutes after that the funeral

company reappeared. It made for the open grave in the corner by the

wall. The cover was removed, the coffin was lowered, the policeman half

lifted his helmet, and the sexton put a careless hand to his cap. Then

the curate opened a book and closed it again. The burial service was

at an end. Half an hour longer the sexton worked alone in the drenching

rain, shovelling the earth back into the grave.

“Some waif,” thought Philip; “some friendless, homeless, nameless waif.”

He went noiselessly up the stairs to the floor above, slinking through

the house like a shadow. At a door above his own he knocked with a heavy

hand, and a woman's voice answered him from within--

“Is any one there?”

“It is!,” he said. “I am coming to see you.”

Then he opened the door and slipped into the room. It was a room like

his own at all points, only lower in the ceiling, and containing a bed.

A woman was standing with her back to the window, as if she had just

turned about from looking into the churchyard. It was Kate. She had been

expecting Philip, and waiting for him, but she seemed to be overwhelmed

with confusion. As he crossed the floor to go to her, he staggered, and

then she raised her eyes to his face.

“You are ill,” she said. “Sit down. Shall I ring for the brandy?”

“No,” he answered. “We have had a hard day at Tyn-wald--some

trouble--some excitement--I'm tired, that's all.”

He sat on the end of the bed, and gazed out on the veil of rain,

slanting across the square church tower and the sky.

“I was at Ramsey two days ago,” he said; “that's what I came to tell

you.”

“Ah!” She linked her hands before her, and gazed out also. Then, in a

trembling voice, she asked, “Is mother well?”

“Yes; I did not see her, but--yes, she bears up bravely.”

“And--and--” the words stuck in her throat, “and Pete?”

“Well, also--in health, at all events.”

“You mean that he is broken-hearted?”

With a deep breath he answered, “To listen to him you would think he was

cheerful enough.”

“And little Katherine?”

“She is well too. I did not see her awake. It was late, and she was in

her cradle. So rosy, and fresh, and beautiful!”

“My sweet darling! She was clean too? They take care of her, don't

they?”

“More care they could not take.”

“My darling baby! Has she grown?”

“Yes; they talk of taking her out of the long clothes soon. Nancy is

like a second mother to her.”

Kate's foot was beating the floor. “Oh, why can't her own mother----”

she began, and then in a faltering voice, “but that cannot be, I

suppose.... Do her eyes change? Are they still blue? But she was asleep,

you say. My dear baby! Was it very late? Nine o'clock? Just nine? I was

thinking of her at that moment. It is true I am always thinking of her,

but I remember, because the clock was striking. 'She will be in her

little cot now,' I thought, 'bathed and clean, and so pretty in her

nightdress, the one with the frill!' My sweet, sweet angel!”

Her speech was confused and broken. “Do you think if I never see her

until... Will I know her if... It's useless to think of that, though.

Is her hair like... What is the colour of her hair, Philip?”

“Fair, quite fair; as fair as mine was----”

She swirled round, came face to face with him, and cried, “Philip,

Philip, why can't I have my darling to myself? She would be well enough

here. I could keep her quiet. Oh, she would not disturb you. And I

should be so happy with my little Kate for company. The time is long

with me sometimes, Philip, and I could play with her all the day. And

then at night, when she would be in the cot, I could make her little

stock of clothes--her frocks and her little pinafores, and----”

“Impossible, Kate, impossible!” said Philip.

She turned to the window. “Yes,” she said, in a choking voice, “I

suppose it would even be stealing to fetch her away now. Only think! A

mother stealing her own child! O gracious heaven, have I sinned myself

so far from my innocent baby! My child, my child! My little Katherine!”

Her bosom heaved, and she said in a hard tone, “I daresay they think I'm

a bad mother because I left her to others to nurse her and to love her,

to see her every day and all day, to bathe her sweet body, and to comb

her yellow hair, to look into her little blue eyes, and to watch all her

pretty, pretty ways--Oh, yes, yes.” she said, with increasing emotion,

“I daresay they think that of me.”

“They think nothing but what is good of you, Kate--nothing but what is

good and kind.”

She looked out on the rain which fell unceasingly, and said in a low

voice, “Is Pete still telling the same story--that I am only away for a

little while--that I am coming back?”

“He is writing letters to himself now, and saying they come from you.”

“From me?”

“Such simple things--all in his own way--full of love and happiness--_I

am so happy and comfortable_--it is pitiful. He is like a child--he

never suspects anything. You are better and enjoying yourself and

looking forward to coming home soon. Sending kisses and presents for the

baby, too, and greetings for everybody. There are messages for me also.

_Your true and loving wife_--it is terrible.”

She covered her face with both hands. “And is he telling everybody?”

“Yes; that's what the letters are meant for. He thinks he is keeping

your name sweet and your place clean, so that you may return at any

time, and scandal may not touch you.”

“Oh, why do you tell me that, Philip? It is dragging me back. And the

child is dragging me back also... Does he show the letters to you?”

“Worse than that, Kate--much worse--he makes me answer them. I answered

one the other night. Oh, when I think of it! _Dear wife, glad to get

your welcome letters_. God knows how I held the pen--I was giddy enough

to drop it. He gave you all the news--about your father, and Grannie,

and everybody. All in his own bright way--poor old Pete, the

cheeriest, sunniest soul alive. _The Dempster is putting a sight on

us regular--trusts you are the better for leaving home_. It was

awful--awful! _Dearest Kirry, I'm missing you mortal--worse than

Kimberley. So come home soon, my true lil wife, to your foolish ould

husband, for his heart is losing him._”

He leapt up, and began to tramp the floor. “But why do I tell you this?

I should bear my own burdens.”

Her hands had come down from her face, which was full of a great

compassion. “And did _you_ have to write all that?” she asked.

“Oh, he meant no harm. He had no thought of hurting anybody! He never

dreamt that every word was burning and blistering me to the heart of

hearts.”

His voice deepened, and his face grew hard and ugly. “But it was the

same as if some devil out of hell had entered into the man and told him

how to torture me--as if the cruellest tyrant on earth had made me take

up the pen and write down my own death-warrant. I could have killed

him--I could not help it--yes, I felt at that moment as if---- Oh, what

am I saying?”

He stopped, sat on the end of the bed again, and held his head between

his hands.

She came and sat by his side. “Philip,” she said, “I am ruining you.

Yes, I am corrupting you. I who would have had you so high and pure--and

you so pure-minded--I am bringing you to ruin. Having me here is

destroying you, Philip. No one visits you now. You are shutting the

door on everybody.... I heard you come in last night, Philip. I hear you

every night. Yes, I know everything. Oh, you will end by hating me--I

know you will. Why don't you send me away? It will be better to send me

away in time, Philip. Besides, it will make no difference. We are in the

same house, yet we never meet. Send me away now, before it is too late.”

He dropped his hand and felt for her hand; he was trying not to look

into her face. “We have both suffered, Kate. We can never hate one

another--we have suffered for each other's sake.”

She clung tightly to the hand he gave her, and said, “Then you will

never forsake me, whatever happens?”

“Never, Kate, never,” he answered; and with a smothered cry she threw

her arms about his neck.

The rain continued to pour down on the roofs and on the tombs with a

monotonous plash. “But what is to be done?” she said.

“God knows,” he answered.

“What is to become of us, Philip? Are we never to smile on each other

again? We cannot carry a burden like this for ever. To-day, to-morrow,

the next day, the next year--is it to go on like this for a lifetime? Is

this life? Is there nothing that will end it?”

“Yes, Kate, yes; there is one thing that will end it--one thing only.”

“Do you mean--_death?_”

He did not answer. She rose slowly from his side and returned to the

window, rested her forehead against the pane, and looked down on the

desolate churchyard and the sexton at his work in the rain. Suddenly she

broke the silence. “Philip,” she said, “I know now what we ought to do.

I wonder we have never thought of it before.”

“What is it?” he asked.

She was standing in front of him. Her breath came quickly. “Tell Pete

that I am dead.”

“No, no, no.”

She took both his hands. “Yes, yes,” she said.

He kept his face away from her. “Kate, what are you saying?”

“What is more natural, Philip? Only think--if you had been anybody else,

it would have come to that already. You must have hated me for dragging

you down into this mire of deceit, you must have forsaken me, and I must

have gone to wreck and ruin. Oh, I see it all--just as if it had really

happened. A solitary room somewhere--alone--sinking--dying--unknown,

unnamed--forgotten----”

His eyes were wandering about the room. “It will kill him. If his heart

can break, it will break it,” he said.

“He has lived after a heavier blow than that, Philip. Do you think he is

not suffering? For all his bright ways and hopeful talk and the letters

and the presents, do you think he is not suffering?”

He liberated his hands, and began to tramp the room as before, but with

head down dud hands linked behind him.

“It will be cruel to deceive him,” he said.

“No, Philip, but kind. Death is not cruel. The wound it makes will heal.

It won't bleed for ever. Once he thinks I am dead he will weep a little

perhaps, and then “--she was stifling a sob--“then it will be all over.

'Poor girl,' he will say, 'she was much to blame. I loved her once,

and never did her any wrong. But she is gone, and she was the mother of

little Katherine--let us forget her faults'----”

He had not heard her; he was standing before the window looking down.

“You are right, Kate, I think you must be right.”

“I'm sure I am.”

“He will suffer, but he will get over it.”

“Yes, indeed. And you, Philip--he will torture you no longer. No more

letters, no more presents, no more messages----”

“I'll do it--I'll do it to-morrow,” he said.

She opened her arms wide, and cried, “Kiss me, Philip, kiss me. We shall

live again. Yes, we shall laugh together still--kiss me, kiss me.”

“Not yet--when I come back.”

“Very well--when you come back.”

She sank into a chair, crying with joy, and he went out as he had

entered, noiselessly, stealthily, like a shadow.

When a man who is not a criminal is given over to a deep duplicity of

life, he will clutch at any lie, wearing the mask of truth, which seems

to shield him from shame and pain. He may be a wise man in every other

relation, a shrewd man, a far-seeing and even a cunning man, but in this

relation--that of his own honour, his own fame, his own safety--he is

certain to be a blunderer, a bungler, and a fool. Such is the revenge of

Nature, such is God's own vengeance!

XVII.

Philip was walking from Ballure House to Elm Cottage. It was late,

and the night was dark and silent--a muggy, dank, and stagnant night,

without wind or air, moon or stars. The road was quiet, the trees were

still, the sea made only a far-off murmur.

And as he walked he struggled to persuade himself that in what he was

about to do he would be doing well. “It will not be wrong to deceive

him,” he thought. “It will only be for his own good. The suspense would

kill him. He would waste away. The sap of the man's soul would dry up.

Then why should I hesitate? Besides, it is partly true--true in its own

sense, and that is the real sense. She _is_ dead--dead to him. She can

never return to him; she is lost to him for ever. So it is true after

all--it is true.”

“It is a lie,” said a voice at his ear.

He started. He could have been sure that somebody had spoken. Yet there

was nobody by his side. He was alone in the road. “It must have been my

own voice,” he thought. “I must have been thinking aloud.” And then he

resumed his walk and his meditation.

“And if it is a lie, is it therefore a crime?” he asked himself. “Sure

it is--how very sure!--it was a wise man that said so--a great fault

once committed is the first link in a chain. The other links seem to be

crimes also, but they are not--they are consequences. _Our_ fault was

long ago, and even then it was partly the fault of Fate. If the past

could be recalled we could not act differently unless our fates were

different. And what has followed has been only the consequence. It was

the consequence when Kate was married to Pete; it was the consequence

when she left him--and _this_ is the consequence.”

“It is a lie,” said the same voice by his side.

He stopped. The darkness was gross around him--he could see nothing.

“Who's there?” he demanded.

There was no answer. He stretched his hand out nervously. There was no

one at his side. “It must have been the wind in the trees,” he thought;

but there could be no wind in the stagnant dampness of that air. “It

was like my own voice,” he thought. Then he remembered how his man

in Douglas had told him that he had contracted a habit of talking to

himself of late. “It was my own voice,” he thought, and he went on

again.

“A lie is a bad foundation to build on--that's certain. The thing that

should be cannot rest on the thing that is not. It will topple down; it

will come to ruin; it will wreck everything. Still----”

“It is a lie,” said the voice again. There could be no mistaking it this

time. It was a low, deep whisper. It seemed to be spoken in the very

cavity of his ear. It was not his own voice, and yet it struck upon his

sense with the sound as of his own. It must be his own voice speaking to

himself!

When this idea took hold of him, he was seized with a deadly shuddering.

His heart knocked against his ribs, and an icy coldness came over him.

“Only the same tormenting dream,” he thought. “Before it was a vision;

now it is a voice. It is generated by solitude and separation. I must

resist it I must be strong. It will drive me into an oppression as

of madness. Men do not 'see their souls' until they are bordering on

madness from religious mania or crime.”

“A lie! a lie!” said the voice.

“This is madness itself. To paint faces on the darkness, to hear voices

in the air, is madness. The madman can do no more.”

“A lie!” said the voice again. He cast a look over his shoulder. It was

the same as if some one had touched him and spoken.

He walked faster. The voice seemed to walk with him. “I will hold myself

firm,” he thought; “I will not be afraid. Reason does not fail a man

until he allows himself to _believe_ that it is failing. 'I am going

mad,' he thinks; and then he shrieks and is mad indeed. I will not

depart from my course. If I do so now, I shall be lost. The horror will

master me, and I shall be its slave for ever.”

He had turned out of Ballure into the Ramsey Road, and he could see

the town lights in the distance. But the voice continued to haunt him

persistently, besiegingly, despotically.

“Great God!” he thought, “what is the imaginary devil to the horror of

this presence? Your own eye, your own voice, always with you, always

following you! No darkness so dense that it can hide the sight, no noise

so loud that it can deaden the sound!”

He walked faster. Still the voice seemed to stride by his side, an

invisible thing, with deliberate and noiseless step, from which there

was no escape.

He drew up suddenly and walked slower. His knees were tottering, he was

treading as on waves; yet he went on. “I will not yield. I will master

myself. I will do what I intended. I am not mad,” he thought.

He was at the gate of Elm Cottage by this time, and, with a strong glow

of resolution, he walked boldly to the door and knocked.

XVIII.

Pete had not awakened until late that morning. While still in bed he

had heard Grannie and Nancy in the room below. The first sound of their

voices told him that something was amiss.

“Aw, God bless me, God bless me!” said Nancy, as though with uplifted

hands.

“It was Kelly the postman,” said Grannie in a doleful tone--the tone in

which she had spoken between the puffs of her pipe.

“The dirt!” said Nancy.

“He was up at Cæsar's before breakfast this morning,” said Grannie.

“There now!” cried Nancy. “There's men like that, though. Just aiger for

mischief. It's sweeter than all their prayers to them.... But where can

she be, then? Has she made away with herself, poor thing?”

“That's what I was asking Cæsar,” said Grannie. “If she's gone with

the young Ballawhaine, what for aren't you going to England over and

fetching her home?” says I.

“And what did Cæsar say?”

“'No,' says he, 'not a step,' says he. 'If she's dead,' says he, 'we'll

only know it a day the sooner, and if she's in life, it'll be a disgrace

to us the longest day we live.'”

“Aw, bolla veen, bolla veen!” said Nancy. “When some men is getting

religion there's no more inside at them than a gutted herring, and

they're good for nothing but to put up in the chimley to smook.”

“It's Black Tom, woman,” said Grannie. “Cæsar's freckened mortal of the

man's tongue going. 'It's water to his wheel,' he's saying. 'He'll be

telling me to set my own house in order, and me a local preacher, too.'

But how's the man himself?”

“Pete?” said Nancy. “Aw, tired enough last night, and not down yet....

Hush!... It's his foot on the loft.”

“Poor boy! poor boy!” said Grannie.

The child cried, and then somebody began to beat the floor to the

measure of a long-drawn hymn. Grannie must have been sitting before the

fire with the baby across her knees.

“Something has happened,” thought Pete as he drew on his clothes. A

moment later something had happened indeed. He had opened a drawer of

the dressing-table and found the wedding-ring and the earrings where

Kate had left them. There was a commotion in the room below by this

time, but Pete did not hear it. He was crying in his heart. “It is

coming! I know it! I feel it! God help me! Lord forgive me! Amen! Amen!”

Cæsar, the postman, and the constable, as a deputation from “The

Christians,” had just entered the house. Black Tom was with them. He was

the ferret that had fetched them out of their holes.

“Get thee home, woman,” said Cæsar to Grannie, “This is no place for

thee. It is the abode of sin and deception.”

“It's the home of my child's child, and that's enough for me,” said

Grannie.

“Get thee back, I tell thee,” said Cæsar, “and come thee to this house

of shame no more.”

“Take her, Nancy,” said Grannie, giving up the child. “Shame enough,

indeed, I'm thinking, when a woman has to shut her heart to her own

flesh and blood if she's not to disrespect her husband,” and she went

off, weeping.

But Cæsar's emotions were walled in by his pietistical views. “Every

one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or

mother, or wife, or children, or land, for My name's sake, shall receive

an hundredfold,” said Cæsar, with a cast of his eye towards Black Tom.

“Well, if I ever!” said Nancy. “The husband that wanted the like of

that from me now.... A hundredfold, indeed! No, not for a hundred

hundredfolds, the nasty dirt.”

“Don't he turning up your nose, woman, but call your master,” said

Cæsar.

“It's more than some ones need do, then, and I won't call my master,

neither--no, thank you,” said Nancy.

“I've something to tell him, and I've come, too, for to do it,” said

Cæsar.

“The devil came farther than ever you did, and it was only a lie he was

bringing for all that,” said Nancy.

“Hould your tongue, Nancy Cain,” said Cæsar, “and take that Popish thing

off the child's head.” It was the scarlet hood.

“Pity the money that's wasted on the like wasn't given to the poor.”

“I've heard something the same before, Cæsar Cregeen,” said Nancy. “It

was Judas Iscariot was saying it first, and you're just thieving it from

a thief.”

“Chut!” cried Cæsar, goaded by the laughter of Black Tom. “I'll call the

man myself. Peter Quilliam!” and he made for the staircase door.

“Stand back,” cried Nancy, holding the child like a pillow over one of

her arms, and lifting the other threateningly.

“Aw, you'll never be raising your hand to the man of God, woman,”

giggled Black Tom.

“Won't I, though?” said Nancy grimly, “or the man of the devil either,”

she added, flashing at himself.

“The woman's not to trust, sir,” snuffled the constable. “She's only an

infidel, anyway. I've heard tell of her saying she didn't believe the

whale swallowed Jonah.”

“That's the diff'rance between us, then,” said Nancy; “for there's some

of you Manx ones would believe if Jonah swallowed the whale.”

The staircase door opened at the back of Nancy, and Pete stepped into

the room. “What's this, friends?” he asked, in a careworn voice.

Cæsar stepped forward with a yellow envelope in his hand. “What's

_that_, sir?” he answered.

Pete took the envelope and opened it.

“That's your letter back to you through the dead letter office, isn't

it?” said Cæsar.

“Well?” said Pete.

“There's nobody of that name in that place, is there!” said Cæsar.

“Well?” said Pete again.

“Letters from England don't come through Peel, but your first letter had

the Peel postmark, hadn't it?”

“Well?”

“Parcels from England don't come through Port St. Mary, but your parcel

was stamped in Port St. Mary, wasn't it?”

“Anything else?”

“The handwriting inside the letter wasn't your own handwriting, was it?

The address on the outside of the parcel wasn't your own address--no?”

“Is that all?”

“Enough to be going on, I'm thinking.”

“What about Uncle Joe?” said Black Tom, with another giggle.

“Your mistress is not in Liverpool. You don't know where she is. She has

gone the way of all sinners,” said Cæsar.

“Is that what you're coming to tell me?” said Pete.

“No; we're coming to tell you,” said Cæsar, “that, as a notorious loose

liver, we must be putting her out of class. And we're coming to call

on yourself to look to your own salvation. You've deceaved us, Mr.

Quilliam. You've grieved the Spirit of the Lord,” with another

“glime” in the direction of Black Tom; “you've brought contempt on the

fellowship that counts you for one of the fold. You've given the light

of your countenance to the path of an evildoer, and you've brought down

the head of a child of God with sorrow to the grave.”

Cæsar was moved by his self-satisfied piety, and began to make' noises

in his nostrils. “Let us lay the case before the Lord,” he said; and he

went down on his knees and prayed--

“Our brother has deceived us, O Lord, but we forgive him freely. Forgive

Thou also his trespasses, so that at the last he escape hell-fire. Count

not Thy handmaid for a daughter of Belial, wherever she is this day. May

it be good for her to be cut off from the body of the righteous. Grant

that she feel this mercy in her carnal body before her eternal soul be

called to everlasting judgment. Lord, strengthen Thy servant. Let not

his natural affections be as the snare of the fowler unto his feet.

Though it grieve him sore, even to tears and tribulation, help him to

pluck out the gourd that groweth in his own bosom----”

“Dear heart alive!” cried Nancy, clattering her clogs, “it's a wonder

in the world the man isn't thinking shame to blacken his own daughter

before the Almighty Himself.”

“Be merciful, O Lord,” continued Cæsar, “to all rank unbelievers, and

such as live in heathen darkness in a Christian land, and don't know

Saturday from Sunday, and are imper-ent uncommon and bad with the

tongue----”

“Stop that now.” cried Nancy, “that's meant for me.”

Pete had stood through this in silence, but with an angry, miserable

face.

“Beg pardon all,” he said. “I'm not going for denying to what you say.

I'm like the fish at the heel of the trawl-boat--the net's closing in on

me and I'm caught. The game's up. I did deceave you. I _did_ write

those letters myself. I've no Uncle Joe, nor no Auntie Joney neither. My

wife's left me. I'm not knowing where she is, or what's becoming of her.

I'm done, and I'm for throwing up the sponge.”

There were grunts of satisfaction. “But don't you feel the need of

pardon, brother,” said Cæsar.

“I don't,” said Pete. “What I was doing I was doing for the best, and,

if I was doing wrong, the Almighty will have to forgive me--that's about

all.”

Cæsar shot out his lip. Pete raised himself to his full height and

looked from face to face, until his eyes settled on the postman.

“But it takes a thief to catch a thief,” he said. “Which of you was the

thief that catcht me? Maybe I've been only a blundering blockhead, and

perhaps you've been clever, and smart uncommon, but I'm thinking there's

some of you hasn't been rocked enough for all that.”

He held out the yellow envelope. “This letter was sealed when you gave

it to me, Mr. Cregeen--how did you know what was inside of it? 'On

Her Majesty's Sarvice,' you say. But it isn't dead letters only that's

coming with words same as that.”

The postman was meddling with his front hair.

“The Lord has His own wayses of doing His work, has He, Cæsar? I never

heard tell, though, that opening other people's letters was one of

them.”

Mr. Kelly's ferret eyes were nearly twinkling themselves out.

Pete threw letter and envelope into the fire. “You've come to tell me

you're going to turn my wife out of class. All right! You can turn me

out, too, and if the money I gave you is anywhere handy, you can turn

that out at the same time and make a clane job.”

Black Tom was doubling with suppressed laughter at the corner of the

dresser, and Cæsar was writhing under his searching glances.

“You're knowing a dale about the ould Book and I'm not knowing much,”

said Pete, “but isn't it saying somewhere, 'Let him that's without sin

amongst you chuck the first stone?' I'm not worth mentioning for a saint

myself, so I lave it with you.”

His voice began to break. “You're thinking a dale about the broken law

seemingly, but I'm thinking more about the broken heart. There's the

like in somewhere, you go bail. The woman that's gone may have done

wrong--I'm not saying she didn't, poor thing; but if she comes home

again, you may turn her out, but I'll take her back, whatever she is and

whatever she's done--so help me God I will--and I'll not wait for the

Day of Judgment to ask the Almighty if I'm doing right.”

Then he sat down with his back to them on a chair before the fire.

“Now you can go home to nurse,” said Nancy, wiping her eyes, “and lave

me to sweeten the kitchen--it's wanting water enough after dirts like

you.”

Cæsar also was wiping his eye--the one nearest to Black Tom. “Come,” he

said with plaintive resignation, “our errand was useless. The Ethiopian

cannot change his skin, nor the leopard his spots.”

“No, but he can get a topcoat to cover them, though,” said Nancy. “Oh,

that flea sticks, does it, Cæsar? Don't blame the looking-glass if your

face is ugly.”

Cæsar pretended not to hear her. “Well,” he said, with a sigh discharged

at Pete's back, “we'll pray, spite of appearances, that we may all go to

heaven together some day.”

“No, thank you, not me,” said Nancy. “I wouldn't be-mane myself going

anywhere with the like of you.”

The Job in Cæsar could bear up no longer. “Vain and ungrateful woman,”

he cried, “who hath eaten of my bread and drunken of my cup----”

“Cursing me, are you?” said Nancy. “Sakes! you must have been found in

the bulrushes at Pharaoh's daughter and made a prophet of.”

“No use bandying words, sir, wid a single woman dat lives alone wid a

single man,” said Mr. Niplightly.

Nancy flopped the child from her right arm to her left, and with the

back of her hand she slapped the constable across the face. “Take that

for the cure of a bad heart,” she said, “and tell the Dempster I gave it

you.”

Then she turned on the postman and Black Tom. “Out of it, you lil thief,

your mouth's only a dirty town-well and your tongue's the pump in it. Go

home and die, you big black spider--you're ould enough for it and wicked

enough, too. Out of it, the lot of you!” she cried, and clashed the door

at their backs, and then opened it again for a parting shot. “And if

it's true you're on your way to heaven together, just let me know, and

I'll see if I can't put up with the other place myself.”

XIX.

That evening Pete was sitting with one foot on the cradle rocker, one

arm on the table, and the other hand trifling tenderly with the ring

and the earrings which he had found in the drawer of the dressing-table,

when there was a hurried knock on the door. It had the hollow

reverberation of a knock on the lid of a coffin.

“Come in,” called Pete.

It was Philip, but it was almost as if Death had entered, so thin and

bony were his cheeks, so wild his eyes, so cold his hands.

Pete was prepared for anything. “You've found me out, too, I see you

have,” he said defiantly. “You needn't tell _me_--it's chasing caught

fish.”

“Be brave, Pete,” said Philip. “It will be a great shock to you.”

Pete looked up and his manner changed. “Speak it out, sir. It's a poor

man that can't stand----”

“I've come on the saddest errand,” said Philip, taking a seat as far

away as possible.

“You've found her--you've seen her, sir. Where is she?”

“She is----” began Philip, and then he stopped.

“Go on, mate; I've known trouble before to-day,” said Pete.

“Can you bear it?” said Philip. “She is----” and he stopped again.

“She is--where?” said Pete.

“She is dead,” said Philip at last.

Pete rose to his feet. Philip rose also, and now poured out his message

with the headlong rush of a cataract.

“In fact, it all happened some time ago, Pete, but I couldn't

bring myself to tell you before. I tried, but I couldn't. It was in

Douglas--of a fever--in a lodging--alone--unattended----”

“Hould hard, sir! Give me time,” said Pete. “I'd a gunshot wound

at Kimberley, and since then I've a stitch in my side at whiles and

sometimes a bit of a catch in my breathing.”

He staggered to the porch door and threw it open, then came back

panting--“Dead! dead! Kate is dead!”

Nancy came from the kitchen at the moment, and hearing what he was

saying, she lifted both hands and uttered a piercing shriek. He took

her by the shoulders and turned her back, shut the door behind her, and

said, holding his right hand hard at his side, “Women are brave, sir,

but when the storm breaks on a man----” He broke off and muttered again,

“Dead! Kirry is dead!”

The child, awakened by Nancy's cry, was now whimpering fretfully. Pete

went to the cradle and rocked it with one foot, crooning in a quavering

treble, “Hush-a-bye! hush-a-bye!”

Philip's breathing was oppressed. He felt like a man at the edge of a

precipice, with an impulse to throw himself over. “God forgive me,” he

said. “I could kill myself. I've broken your heart;----”

“No fear of me, sir,” said Pete. “I'm an ould hulk that's seen weather.

I'll not go to pieces from inside at all. Give me time, mate, give

me time.” And then he went on muttering as before, “Dead! Kirry dead!

Hush-a-bye! My Kirry dead!”

The little one slept, and Pete drew back in his chair, nodded into the

fire, and said in a weak, childish voice, “I've known her all my life,

d'ye know? She's been my lil sweetheart since she was a slip of a girl,

and slapped the schoolmaster for bating me wrongously. Swate lil thing

in them days, mate, with her brown feet and tossing hair. And now she's

a woman and she's dead! The Lord have mercy upon me!”

He got up and began to walk heavily across the floor, dipping and

plunging as if going upstairs. “The bright and happy she was when I

started for Kimberley, too; with her pretty face by the aising stones in

the morning, all laughter and mischief. Five years I was seeing it in my

drames like that, and now it's gone. Kirry is gone! My Kirry! God help

me! O God, have mercy upon me!”

He stopped in his unsteady walk, and sat and stared into the fire. His

eyes were red; blotches of heart's blood seemed to be rising to them;

but there was not the sign of a tear. Philip did not attempt to console

him. He felt as if the first syllable would choke in his throat.

“I see how it's been, sir,” said Pete. “While I was away her heart was

changing her, and when I came back she thought she must keep her word.

My poor lamb! She was only a child anyway. But I was a man--I ought to

have seen how it was. I'm like a drowning man, too--things are coming

back on me. I'm seeing them plain enough now. But it's too late! My poor

Kirry! And I thought I was making her so happy!” Then, with a helpless

look, “You wouldn't believe it, sir, but I was never once thinking

nothing else. No, I wasn't; it's a fact. I was same as a sailor working

all the voyage home, making a cage, and painting it goold, for the

love-bird he's catcht in the sunny lands somewhere; but when he's

putting it in, it's only wanting away, poor thing.”

With a sense of grovelling meanness, Philip sat and listened. Then, with

eyes wandering across the floor, he said, “You have nothing to reproach

yourself with. You did everything a man could do--everything. And she

was innocent also. It was the fault of another. He came between

you. Perhaps he thought he couldn't help it--perhaps he persuaded

himself--God knows what lie he told himself--but she's innocent, Pete;

believe me, she's----”

Pete brought his fist down heavily on the table, and the rings that lay

on it jumped and tingled. “What's that to me?” he cried hoarsely. “What

do I care if she's innocent or guilty? She's dead, isn't she? and that's

enough. Curse the man! I don't want to hear of him. She's mine now. What

for should he come here between me and my own?”

The torn heart and racked brain could bear no more. Pete dropped his

head on the table. Presently his anger ebbed. Without lifting his

head, he stretched his hand across the rings to feel for Philip's hand.

Philip's hand trembled in his grasp. He took that for sympathy, and

became the more ashamed.

“Give me time, mate,” he said. “I'll be my own man soon. My head's

moithered dreadful--I'm not knowing if I heard you right. In Douglas,

you say? By herself, too? Not by herself, surely? Not quite alone

neither? She found you out, didn't she? _You'd_ be there, Phil? You'd be

with her yourself? She'd be wanting for nothing?”

Philip answered huskily, his eyes still wandering. “If it will be any

comfort to you... yes, I _was_ with her--she wanted for nothing.”

“My poor girl!” said Pete. “Did she send--had she any--maybe she said a

word or two--at the last, eh?”

Philip clutched at the question. There was something at last that he

could say without falsehood. “She sent a prayer for your forgiveness,”

he said. “She told me to tell you to think of her as little as might be;

not to grieve for her too much, and to try to forget her, so that her

sin also might be forgotten.”

“And the lil one--anything about the lil one?” asked Pete.

“That was the bitterest grief of all,” said Philip. “It was so hard

that you must think her an unnatural mother. 'My Katherine! My little

Katherine! My sweet angel!' It was her cry the whole day long.”

“I see, I see,” said Pete, nodding at the fire; “she left the lil

one for my sake, wanting it with her all the while. Poor thing! You'd

comfort her, Philip? You'd let her go aisy?”

“'The child is well and happy,' I told her. 'He's thinking nothing of

yourself but what is good and kind,' I said.”

“God's peace rest on her! My darling! My wife!” said Pete solemnly. Then

suddenly in another tone, “Do you know where she's buried?”

Philip hesitated. He had not foreseen this question. Where had been his

head that he had never thought of it? But there was no going back now.

He was compelled to go on. He must tell lie on lie. “Yes,” he faltered.

“Could you take me to the grave?”

Philip gasped; the sweat broke out on his forehead.

“Don't be freckened, sir,” said Pete; “I'm my own man again. Could you

take me to my wife's grave?”

“Yes,” said Philip. He was in the rapids. He was on the edge of

precipitation. He was compelled to go over. He made a blindfold plunge.

Lie on lie; lie on lie!

“Then we'll start by the coach to-morrow,” said Pete.

Philip rose with rigid limbs. He had meant to tell one lie only, and

already he had told many. Truly “a lie is a cripple;” it cannot stand

alone. “Good night, Pete; I'll go home. I'm not well to-night.”

“We'll stop the coach at your aunt's gate in the morning,” said Pete.

They stepped to the door together, and stood for a moment in the dank

and lifeless darkness.

“The world's getting wonderful lonely, man, and you're all that's left

to me now, Phil--you and the child. I'm not for wailing, though. When

I got my gun-shot wound out yonder, I was away over the big veldt,

hundreds of miles from anywhere, behind the last bush and the last blade

of grass, with the stones and the ashes and the dust--about as far,

you'd say, as the world was finished, and never looking to see herself

and the ould island and the ould faces no more. I'm not so lonesome as

that at all. Good-night, ould fellow, and God bless you!”

The gate opened and closed, Philip went stumbling up the road. He was

hating Pete. To hate this open-hearted man who had dragged him into an

entanglement of lies was the only resource of his stifled conscience.

Pete went back to the house, muttering, “Kirry is dead! Kirry is dead!”

He put the catch on the door, said, “Close the shutters, Nancy,” and

then returned to his chair by the cradle.

XX.

Later the same night Pete carried the news to Sulby. Grannie was in the

bar-room, and he broke it to her gently, tenderly, lovingly.

Loud voices came from the kitchen. Cæsar was there in angry contention

with Black Tom. An open Bible was between them on their knees. Tom

tugged it towards him, bobbed his blunt forefinger down on the page, and

cried, “There's the text--that'll pin you--_publicans and sinners_.”

Cæsar leaned back'in his seat, and said with withering scorn, “It's a

bad business--I'll give you lave to say that. It's men like you that's

making it bad. But whether is it better for a bad business to be in bad

hands or in good ones? There's a big local praicher in London, they're

telling me, that's hot for joining the public-house to the church, and

turning the parsons into the publicans. That's what they all were on

the Isle of Man in ould days gone by, and pity they're not so still.

Oh, I've been giving it my sarious thoughts, sir. I've been making it

a subject for prayer. 'Will I give up my public or hould fast to it to

keep it out of worse hands?' And I'm strong to believe the Lord hath

spoken. 'It's a little vineyard--a little work in a little vineyard.

Stick to it, Cæsar,' and so I will.”

Pete stepped into the kitchen and flung his news at Cæsar with a sort of

wild melancholy, as who would say, “There, is that enough for you? Are

you satisfied now?”

“_Mair yee shoh_--it's the hand of God,” said Cæsar.

“A middling bad hand then,” said Pete; “I've seen better, anyway.”

A high spiritual pride took hold of Cæsar--Black Tom was watching him,

and working his big eyebrows vigorously. With mouth firmly shut and head

thrown back, Cæsar said in a sepulchral voice, “The Lord gave, and the

Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

Pete made a crack of savage laughter.

“Aren't you feeling it, sir?” said Cæsar.

“Not a feel near me,” said Pete. “I never did the Lord no harm that I

know of, but He's taken my young wife and left my poor innocent lil one

motherless.”

“Unsearchable the wisdom and justice of God,” said Cæsar.

“Unsearchable?” said Pete. “It's all that. But I don't know if you're

calling it justice. I'm not myself. It isn't my tally. Blasphemy? I lave

it with you. A scoffer, am I? So be it. The Lord's licked me, and I've

had enough. But I'm not going down on my knees for it, anyway. The

Almighty and me is about quits.”

With that word on his lips he strode out of the place, grim, implacable,

almost savage, a fierce smile fluttering on his ashy face.

XXI.

Grannie came to Elm Cottage next morning with two duck eggs for Pete's

breakfast. She was boiling them in a saucepan when Pete came downstairs.

“Come now,” she said coaxingly, as she laid them on the table, with the

water smoking off the shells. But Pete could not eat.

“He hasn't destroyed any food these days,” said Nancy. A little before

she had rolled her apron, slipped out into the street, and brought back

a tiny packet screwed up in a bit of newspaper.

“Perhaps he'll ate them on the road,” said Grannie. “I'll put them in

the hankerchief in his hat anyway.”

“My faith, no, woman!” cried Nancy. “He's the mischief for sweating.

He'll be mopping his forehead and forgetting the eggs. But here--where's

your waistcoat pocket, Pete? Have you room for a hayseed anywhere?

There!... It's a quarter of twist, poor boy,” she whispered behind her

hand to Grannie.

Thus they vied with each other in little attentions to the down-hearted

man. Meantime Crow, the driver of the Douglas coach, a merry old sinner

with a bulbous nose and short hair, standing erect like the steel pins

of an electric brush, was whistling as he put his horses to in the

marketplace. Presently he swirled round the corner and drew up at the

gate. The women then became suddenly quiet, and put their aprons to

their mouths, as if a hearse had stopped at the door; but Pete bustled

about and shouted boisterously to cover the emotion of his farewell.

“Good-bye, Grannie; I'll say a word for you when I get there. Good-bye,

Nancy; I'll not be forgetting yourself neither. Good bye, lil bogh,”

dropping on one knee at the side of the cradle. “What right has a man's

heart to be going losing him while he has a lil innocent like this to

live for? Good-bye!”

There was a throng of women at the gate talking of Kate. “Aw, a civil

person, very--a civiller person never was.”--“It's me that'll be missing

her too. I served her eggs to the day of her death, as you might say.

'Good morning, Christian Anne,' says she--just like that. Welcome, you

say? I was at home at the woman's door.”--“And the beautiful she came

home in the gig with the baby! Only yesterday you might say. And now,

Lord-a-massy!”--“Hush! it's himself! I'm fit enough to cry when I look

at the man. The cheerful heart is broke at him.”--“Hush!”

They dropped their heads so that Pete might avoid their gaze, and held

the coach-door open for him, expecting that he would go inside, as to a

funeral. But he saluted them with “Good morning all,” and leapt to the

box-seat with Crow.

The coach stopped to take up the Deemster at the gate of Ballure House.

Philip looked thin and emaciated, and walked with a death-like weakness,

but also a feverish resolution. Behind him, carrying a rag, came Aunty

Nan in her white cap, with little nervous attentions, and a face full of

anxiety.

“Drive inside to-day, Philip,” she said.

“No, no,” he answered, and kissed her, pushed her to the other side of

the gate with gentle protestation, and climbed to Pete's side. Then the

old lady said--

“Good-morning, Peter. I'm so sorry for your great trouble, and trust...

But you'll not let the Deemster ride too long outside if it grows...

He's had a sleepless night and----”

“Go on, Crow,” said Philip, in a decisive voice.

“I'll see to that, Miss Christian, ma'am,” shouted Crow over his

shoulder. “His honour's studdying a bit too hard--that's what _he_

is. But a gentleman's not much use if his wife's a widow, as the man

said--eh? Looking well enough yourself, though, Miss Christian, ma'am.

Getting younger every day, in fact. I'll have to be fetching that East

Indee capt'n up yet. I will that. Ha! ha! Get on, Boxer!” Then, with a

flick of the whip, they were off on their journey.

The day was calm and beautiful. Old Barrule wore his yellow skull-cap of

flowering gorse, the birds sang on the trees, and the sea on the shore

sang also with the sound of far-off joy-bells. It was a heart-breaking

day to Pete, but he tried to bear himself bravely.

He was seated between Philip and the driver. On the farther side of Crow

there were two other passengers, a farmer and a fisherman. The farmer, a

foul-mouthed fellow with a long staff and two dogs racing and barking

on the road, was returning from Midsummer fair, at which he had sold

his sheep; the fisherman, a simple creature, was coming home from the

mackerel-fishing at Kinsale, with a box of the fish between his legs.

“The wife's been having a lil one since I was laving in March,” said

the fisherman, laughing all over his bronzed face. “A boy, d'ye say?

Aw, another boy, of coorse. Three of them now--all men. Got a letter at

Ramsey post-office coming through. She's getting on as nice as nice, and

the ould woman's busy doing for her.”

“Gee up, Boxer--we'll wet its head at the Hibernian,” said Crow.

“I'm not partic'lar at all,” said the fisherman cheerily. “The

mack'rel's been doing middling this season, anyway.”

And then in his simple way he went on to paint home, and the joy of

coming back to it, with the new baby, and the mother in child-bed, and

the grandmother as housekeeper, and the other children waiting for new

frocks and new jackets out of the earnings of the fishing, and himself

going round to pay the grocer what had been put on “strap” while he was

at Kin-sale, till Pete was melted, and could listen no longer.

“I'm persuaded still she wasn't well when she went away,” he whispered,

turning his shoulder to the men and his face to Philip. He talked in

a low voice, just above the rumble of the wheels, trying to extenuate

Kate's fault and to excuse her to Philip.

“It's no use thinking hard of anybody, is it, sir?” he said. “We can't

crawl into another person's soul, as the saying is.”

After that he asked many questions--about Kate's illness, about the

doctor, about the funeral, about everything except the man--of him he

asked nothing. Philip was compelled to answer. He was like a prisoner

chained at the galleys--he was forced to go on. They crossed the bridge

over the top of Ballaglass, which goes down to the mill at Cornaa.

“There's the glen, sir,” said Pete. “Aw, the dear ould days! Wading in

the water, leaping over the stones, clambering on the trunks--aw, dear!

aw, dear! Bareheaded and barefooted in those times, sir; but smart

extraordinary, and a terble notion of being dressy, too. Twisting ferns

about her lil neck for lace, sticking a mountain thistle, sparkling with

dew, on her breast for a diamond, twining a trail of fuchsia round her

head for a crown--aw, dear! aw, dear! And now--well, well, to think! to

think!”

There was laughter on the other side of the coach.

“What do _you_ say, Capt'n Pete?” shouted Crow.

“What's that?” asked Pete.

The fisherman had treated the driver and the farmer at the Hibernian,

and was being rewarded with robustious chaff.

“I'm telling Dan Johnny here these childers that's coming when a man's

away from home isn't much to trust. Best put a sight up with the lil one

to the wise woman of Glen Aldyn, eh? A man doesn't like to bring up a

cuckoo in the nest--what d'ye say, Capt'n?”

“I say you're a dirty ould divil, Crow; and I don't want to be chucking

you off your seat,” said Pete; and with that he turned back to Philip. *

The driver was affronted, but the farmer pacified him by an appeal to

his fear. “He'd be coarse to tackle, the same fellow--I saw him clane

out a tent with one hand at Tyn-wald.”

“It's a wonder she didn't come home for all,” said Pete at Philip's

ear--“at the end, you know. Couldn't face it out, I suppose? Nothing to

be afraid of, though, if she'd only known. I had kept things middling

straight up to then. And I'd have broke the head of the first man that'd

wagged a tongue. But maybe it was myself she was freckened of! Freckened

of me! Poor thing! poor thing!”

Philip was in torment. To witness Pete's simple grief, to hear him

breathe a forgiveness for the erring woman, and to be trusted with the

thoughts of his heart as a father might be trusted by a young child--it

was anguish, it was agony, it was horror. More than once he felt an

impulse to cast off his load, to confess, to tell everything. But he

reflected that he had no right to do this--that the secret was not his

own to give away. His fear restrained him also. He looked into Pete's

face, so full of manly sorrow, and shuddered to think of it transformed

by rage.

“Sit hard, gentlemen. Breeches' work here,” shouted Crow.

They were at the top of the steep descent going down to Laxey. The

white town lay sprinkled over the green banks of the glen, and the great

water-wheel stood in the depths of the mountain gill behind it.

“She's there! She's yonder! It's herself at the door. She's up. She's

looking out for the coach,” cried the fisherman, clambering up on to the

seat.

“Aisy all,” shouted Crow.

“No use, Mr. Crow. Nothing will persuade me but that's herself with the

lil one in a blanket at the door.”

Before the coach had drawn up at the bridge, the fisherman had leapt

to the ground, shouldered his keg, shouted “Good everin' all,” and

disappeared down an alley of the town.

The driver alighted. A crowd gathered around. There were parcels to take

up, parcels to set down, and the horses to water. When the coach was

ready to start again, the farmer with his dogs had gone, but there was a

passenger for an inside place. It was a girl, a bright young thing, with

a comely face and laughing black eyes. She was dressed smartly, after

her country fashion, in a hat covered with scarlet poppies, and with a

vast brooch at the neck of her bodice. In one hand she carried a huge

bunch of sweet-smelling gilvers. A group of girl companions came to see

her off, and there was much giggling and chatter and general excitement.

“Are you forgetting the pouch and pipe, Emma?”

“Let me see; am I? No; it's here in my frock.”

“Well, you'll be coming together by the coach at nine, it's like?”

“It's like we will, Liza, if the steamer isn't late.”

“Now then, ladies, off the step! Any room for a lil calf' in the straw

with you, missy? Freckened? Tut! Only a lil calf, as clane as clane--and

breath as swate as your own, miss. There you are--it'll be lying quiet

enough till we get to Douglas. All ready? Ready we are then. Collar work

now, gentlemen. Aise the horse, sir. Thank you! Thank you! Not you, your

Honour--sit where you are, Dempster.”

XXII.

Pete got down to walk up the hill, but Philip, though he made some show

of alighting also, was glad of the excuse to remain in his seat. It

relieved him of Pete's company for a while, at all events. He had time

to ask himself again why he was there, where he was going to, and what

he was going to do. But his brain was a cloudy waste. Only one picture

emerged from the maze. It was that of the burial of the nameless waif in

the grave at the foot of the wall. If he was conscious of any purpose,

it was a vague idea of going to that grave. But it lay ahead of him only

as an ultimate goal. He was waiting and watching for an opportunity of

escape. If it came, God be praised! If it did not come, God help and

forgive him!

Meanwhile Pete walked behind, and caught fragments of a conversation

between the girl and Crow.

“So you're going to meet himself coming home, miss, eh?”

“My faith, how d'ye know that? But it's yourself for knowing things, Mr.

Crow. Has he been sailing foreign? Yes, sir; and nine months away for

a week come Monday. But spoken at Holyhead in Tuesday's paper, and paid

off in Liverpool yesterday. That's his 'nitials, if you want to know--J.

W. I worked them on the pouch myself. I've spun him a web for a jacket,

too. Sweethearting with the miner fellows while Jemmy's been away? Have

I, d'ye say? How people _will_ be talking!”

“Aw, no offence at all. But sorry you're not keeping another string to

your bow, missy. These sailor lads aren't partic'lar, anyway. Bless your

heart, no; but getting as tired of one swateheart as a pig of brewer's

grain. Constant? Chut! When the like of that sort is away foreign, he

lays up of the first girl he comes foul of.”

The girl laughed, and shook her head bravely, but the tears were

beginning to trickle from her eyes, and the hand that held the flowers

was trembling.

“Don't listen to the man, my dear,” said Pete. “There's too much comic

in these ould bachelor bucks. Your boy is dying to get home to you. Go

bail on that, Emma. The packet isn't making half way enough for him, and

he's bad dreadful wanting to ship aloft and let out the topsail.”

At the crest of the hill Pete climbed back to Philip's side, and

said, “The heart's a quare thing, sir. Got its winds and tides same as

anything else. The wind blows contrary ways in one day, and it's the

same with the heart itself. Changeable? Well, maybe! We shouldn't be too

hard on it for all.... If I'd only known now.... She wasn't much better

than a child when I left for Kimberley... and then what was I? I was

only common stuff anyway... not much fit for the likes of herself, when

you think of it, sir.... If I'd only guessed when I came back.... I

could have done it, sir--I was loving the woman like life, but if I'd

only known, now.... Well, and what's love if it's thinking of nothing

but itself? If I'd thought she was loving another man by the time I came

home, I could have given her up to him--yes, I could; I'm persuaded I

could---so help me God, I could.”

Philip was wasting on that journey like a piece of wax. Pete saw his

face melting away till it looked more like a skeleton than the face of à

man really alive.

“You mustn't be taking it so bad at all, Phil,” said Pete. “She'll be

middling right where she's gone to, sir. She'll be right enough yonder,”

he said, rolling his head sideways to where the sun was going round to

its setting. And then softly, as if half afraid she might not be, he

muttered into his beard, “God be good to my poor broken-hearted girl,

and forgive her sins for Christ's sake.”

An elderly gentleman got on the coach at Onchan.

“Helloa, Deemster!” he cried. “You look as sober as an old crow. Sober!

Old Crow! Ha, ha!”

He was a facetious person of high descent in the island.

“Crow never goes home without getting off the box once or twice to pick

up the moonlight on the road--do you, Crow?”

“That'll do, parson, that'll do!” roared Crow. And then his reverence

leaned across the driver and directed the shaft of his wit at Philip.

“And how's the young housekeeper, Deemster?”

Philip shuddered visibly, and made some inarticulate reply--

“Good-looking young woman, they're telling me. Jem-y-Lord's got taste,

seemingly. But take care, your Honour; take care! 'Thou shalt not covet

thy neighbour's wife, nor his ox, nor his ass'----”

Philip laughed noisily. The miserable man was writhing in his seat.

“Take an old fiddler's advice, Deemster--have nothing to do with the

women. When they're young they're kittens to play with you, but when

they're old they're cats to scratch you.”

Pete twisted his body until the whole breadth of his back blocked the

parson from Philip's face.

“A fortnight ago, you were saying, sir?”

“A fortnight,” muttered Philip.

“There'll be daisies growing on her grave by this time,” said Pete

softly.

The parson had put up his nose-glasses. “Who's this fellow, Crow?

Captain--what? His honour's cousin? _Cousin?_ Oh, of course--yes--I

remember--Tynwald--ah--h'm!”

The coach set down its passengers in the market-place. Pete inquired the

hour of its return journey, and was told that it started back at six. He

helped the girl to alight, and directed her to the pier, where a crowd

of people' were awaiting the arrival of the steamer. Then he rejoined

Philip, who led the way through the town.

The Deemster was observed by everybody. As he passed along the streets

there was much whispering and nudging, and some bowing and lifting

of hats. He responded to none of it He recognised no one. He, who was

famous for courtesy, renowned for gracious manners, beloved for a smile

like sunshine--the brighter and more winsome when it broke as from a

cloud--returned no man's salutation that day, and replied to no woman's

greeting. His face was set hard like a marble mask. It passed along

without appearing to see.

Pete walked one step behind. They did not speak as they went through

the town. Not a word or a sign passed between them. Philip turned into

a side street, and drew up at an iron gate which opened on to a

churchyard. They were at the churchyard of St. George's.

“This is the place,” said Philip huskily.

Pete took off his hat.

The gate was partly open. It was Saturday, and the organist was alone in

the church practising hymns for Sunday's services. They passed through.

The churchyard was an oblong enclosure within high walls, overlooked on

its long sides by rows of houses. One of these rows was Athol Street,

and one of the houses was the Deemster's.

It was late afternoon by this time. Long shadows were cast eastward

from the tombstones; the horizontal sunlight was making the leaves very

light.

Philip walked noisily, jerkily, irregularly, like a man conscious of

weakness and determined to conquer it. Pete walked behind, so softly

that his foot on the gravel was hardly to be heard. The organist was

playing Cowper's familiar hymn--

“God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform.”

There was a broad avenue, bordered by railed tombs, leading to the

church-door. Philip turned out of this into a narrow path which went

through a bare green space, that was dotted with pegs of wood and little

unhewn slabs of slate, like an abandoned quoit ground. At the farthest

corner of this space he stopped before a mound near to the wall. It was

the new-made grave. The scars of the turf were still unhealed, and the

glist of the spade was on the grass.

Philip hesitated a moment, and looked round at Pete, as if even then,

even there, he would confess. But he saw no escape from the mesh of his

own lies, and with a deep, breath of submission he pointed down, turned

his head over his shoulder, and said in a strange voice--

“There.”

The silence was long and awful. At length Pete said in a broken

whisper--

“Lave me, sir, lave me.”

Philip turned away, breathing audibly. A moment longer Pete stood where

he was, gripping his hat with both hands in front of him. Then he went

down on his knees. “Oh, forgive me my hard thoughts of thee,” he said.

“Jesus, forgive me my hard thoughts of my poor Kirry.”

Philip heard no more. The organ was very loud and triumphant.

“Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never-failing skill,

He treasures up His bright designs

And works His sovereign will.”

A red shaft of sunlight tipped down on Pete's uncovered head from the

top of the wall. The blessed tears had come to him. He was sobbing

aloud; he was alone with his love at last.

He was alone with her indeed. At that moment Kate was looking down from

the window of her room. She saw him kneeling and praying by another's

grave.

Philip never knew how he got out of the churchyard. He crawled

out--creeping along by the wall, and slinking through the

gate--heart-sick and all but heart-dead. When he came to himself, he

was standing in Athol Street, and a company of jolly fellows in a

jaunting-car, driving out of the golden sunset, were rattling past him

with shouts and peals of laughter.

XXIII.

Kate was standing in her room with the door open, beating her hands

together in the first helpless stupor of fear, when she saw a man coming

up the stairs. His legs seemed to be giving way as he ascended; he was

bent and feeble, and had all the look of great age. As he approached he

lifted his face, which was old and withered. Then she saw who it was. It

was Philip.

She made an involuntary cry, and he smiled upon her--a hard, frozen,

terrible smile. “He is lost,” she thought. Her scared expression

penetrated to his soul. He knew that she had seen everything. At first

he tried to speak, but he could utter nothing. Then a mad desire seized

him to lay hold of her--by the arms, by the shoulders, by the throat.

Conquering this impulse, he stood motionless, passing his hands through

his hair. She dropped her eyes and hung her head. Their abasement in

each other's eyes was complete. He was ashamed before her, she was

ashamed before him. One moment they faced each other thus, in silence,

in pitiless and awful silence, and then slowly, very slowly, stupefied

and crushed, he turned away and crept out of the house.

“It is the end--the end.” What was the use of going farther? He

had fallen too low. His degradation was abject. It was hopeless,

irreparable, irremediable. “End it all--end it all.” The words clamoured

in his inmost soul.

Halting down the quay, he made for the ferry steps, where boats were

waiting for hire. He had lately hired one of an evening, and pulled

round the Head for the sake of the breath and the silence of the sea.

“Going far out this evening, your Honor?” the boatman asked.

“Farther than ever,” he answered.

Pull, pull! Away from the terrible past. Away from the horrible present.

The steamer had arrived, and had discharged her passengers. She was

still pulsing at the end of the red pier like a horse that pants after

running a race.

A band was playing a waltz somewhere on the promenade. Pleasure boats

were darting about the bay. Sea-birds were sitting on the water where

the sewers of the gay little town empty into the sea.

Pull, pull! He was flying from remorse, from despair, from the deep

duplicity of a double life, from the lie that had slain the heart of a

living man. How low he had fallen! Could he fall lower without falling

into crime?

Pull, pull! He would be a criminal next. When a man had been degraded

in his own eyes, and in the eyes of her he loved, crime stood beckoning

him. He might try, but he could not resist; he must yield, he must fall.

It was the only degradation remaining. Better end everything before

dropping into that last abyss.

Pull, pull! He was the judge of his island, and he had outraged justice.

Holding a false title, living on a false honour, he was safe of no man's

respect, secure of no woman's goodwill. Exposure hung over him. He would

be disgraced, the law would be disgraced, the island would be disgraced.

Pull, pull, pull, before it is too late; out, far out, farther than tide

returns, or sea tells stories to the shore.

He had rowed like a slave escaping from his chains, in terror of being

overtaken and dragged back. The voices of the harbour were now hushed,

the music of the band was deadened, the horses running along the

promenade seemed to creep like ants, and the traffic of the streets was

no louder than a dull subterranean rumble. He had shot out of the margin

of smooth blue water in which the island lay as on a mirror, and out of

the shadow of the hill upon the bay. The sea about him now was running

green and glistening, and the red sun-? light was coming down on it like

smoke. Only the steeples and towers and glass domes of the town reached

up into luminous air. He could see the squat tower of St. George's

silhouetted against the dying glory of the sky. Seven years he had been

its neighbour, and it had witnessed such happy and such cruel hours. All

the joy of work, the sweetness of success, the dreams of greatness, the

rosy flushes of love, and then--the tortures of conscience, the visions,

the horror, the secret shame, the self-abandonment, and, last of all,

the twofold existence as of husband with wife, hidden, incomplete,

unfulfilled, yet full of tender ties which had seemed like galling bonds

so many a time, but were now so sweet when the hour had come to break

them.

How distant it all appeared to be! And was he flying from the island

like this? The island that had honoured him, that had rewarded him

beyond his deserts, and earlier than his dreams, that had suffered no

jealousy to impede him, no rivalry to fret him, no disparity of age and

service to hold him back--the little island that had seemed to open its

arms to him, and to cry, “Philip Christian, son of your father, grandson

of your grandfather, first of Manxmen, come up!”

Oh, for what might have been! Useless regrets! Pull, pull, and forget.

But the home of his childhood! Ballure--Auntie Nan--his father's death

brightened by one hope--the last, but ah! how vain!--Port Mooar--Pete,

“The sea's calling me.” Pull, pull! The sea was calling him indeed.

Calling him to the deep womb that is death, not birth.

He was far out. The sun had gone, the island was like a bird of ashy

grey stretched across the horizon; the great wing of night was coming

down from the sky, and up out the mysterious depths of the sea came the

profound hum, the mighty voice that is the organ of the world.

He took in the oars, and his tiny shell began to drift At that moment

his eye caught something at the bottom of the boat. It was a flower, a

broken stem, a torn rose, and a few scattered rose leaves. Only a relic

of the last occupants, but it brought back the perfume of love, a sense

of tenderness, of bright eyes, of a caress, a kiss. His mind went back

to Sulby, to the Melliah, to the glen, to the days so full of tremulous

love, when they hovered on the edge of the precipice. They had been

hurled over it since then. It was some relief that between love and

honour he would not have to struggle any longer.

And Kate? When all was over and word went round, “The Deemster is gone,”

what would happen to Kate? She would still be at his house in Athol

Street. That would be the beginning of evil! She would wait for him, and

when hope of his return was lost, she would weep for him. That would be

the key of discovery! The truth would become known. Though he might be

at the bottom of the sea, yet the cloud that hung over his life would

break. It was inevitable. And she would be there to bear the storm

alone--alone with the island which had been deceived, alone with Pete,

who had been lied to and betrayed. Was that just? Was that brave?

And then--what then? What would become of her? Openly shamed, charged,

as she must be, with the whole weight of the crime from whose burden

he had fled, accused of his downfall, a Delilah, a Jezebel, what fate

should befall her? Where would she go? Down to what depths? He saw

her sinking lower than ever man sinks; he heard her appeals, her

supplications.

“Oh, what have I done,” he cried, “that I can neither live nor die?”

Then in that delirium of anguish in which the order of nature is

reversed, and external objects no longer produce sensation, but

sensation produces, as it were, external objects, he thought he saw

something at the bottom of the boat where the broken rose had been. It

was the figure of a man, stretched out, still and lifeless. His eyes

went up to the face. The face was his own. It was ashy grey, and it

stared up at the grey sky. The brain image was himself, and he was

dead. He watched it, and it faded away. There was nothing left but the

scattered rose-leaves and the torn flower on the broken stem.

The terrible shadow was gone; he felt that it was gone for ever. It was

dead, and it would haunt him no longer. It had lived on an empire of

evil-doing, and his evil-doing was at an end. He would “see his soul” no

more. The tears gushed to his eyes and blinded him. They were the first

he could remember since he was a boy. Alone between the two mirrors of

sea and sky, the chain that he had dragged so long fell: away from him.

He was a free man again.

“Go back! your place is by her side. Don't sneak out of life, and leave

another to pay. Suffering is a grand thing. It is the struggle of the

soul to cast off its sin. Accept it, go through with it, come out of it

purged. Go back to the island. Your life is not ended yet.”

XXIV.

“We were just going sending a lil yawl after you, Dempster, when we were

seeing you a bit overside the head yonder coming back. 'He's drifting

home on the flowing tide,' says I, and so you were. Must have been a

middling stiff pull for all. We were thinking you were lost one while

there.”

“I _was_ almost lost, but I'm here again, thank God,” said Philip.

He spoke cheerily, and went away with a light step. It was now full

night; the town was lit up, and the musicians of the pavement were

twanging their banjos and harps. Philip felt a sort of physical

regeneration, a renewal of youth, a new birth of heart and hope. He was

like a man coming out of some hideous Gehenna of delirious illness;

he though he had never been so light, so buoyant, so happy in his life

before. The future was vague. He did not yet know what he would do. It

would be something radical, something that would go down to the heart

of his condition. Oh, he would be strong, he would be resolute, he would

pay the uttermost farthing, he would not wait to count the cost. And

she--she would be with him. He could do nothing without her. The partner

of his fault would share his redemption also. God bless her!

He let himself into the house and shut the door firmly behind him.

The lights were still burning in the hall, so it was not very late. He

mounted the stairs with a loud step and swung into his room. The lamp

was on the table, and within the circle cast by its blue shade a letter

was lying. He took it up with dismay. It was in Kate's handwriting:--

“Forgive me! I am going away. It is all my fault. I have broken the

heart of one man, and I am destroying the soul of another. If I stay

here any longer you will be ruined and lost. I am only a millstone about

your neck. I see it, I feel it. And yet I have loved you so, and wished

to be so proud of you. Your heart is brave enough, though I have sunk it

down so low. You will live to be strong and good and true, though that

can never be while I am with you. I have been far below you from the

first. All along I have only been thinking how much I loved you, but you

have had so many other things to consider. My life seems to have been

one long battle for love. I think it has been a cruel battle too.

Anyway, I am beaten, and oh! so tired.

“Do not follow me. I pray of you do not try to find me. It is my last

request. Think of me as on a long journey. I may be--the Great God of

heaven knows.

“I am taking the little cracked medallion from the bottom of the oak

box. It is the only picture I can find, and it will remind me of some

one else as well--my little Katherine, my motherless baby.

“I have nothing to leave with you but this (_it was a lock of her

hair_). At first I thought of the wedding-ring that you gave me when I

came here, but it would not come off, and besides, I could not part with

it.

“Good-bye! I ought to have done this long ago. But you will not hate me

now? We could never be happy together again. Good-bye!”