_THE DEEMSTER_
It was _The Deemster_ that brought Hall Caine fame. It was written in a
mood of dissatisfaction, of disappointment. He felt that he had it in him
to write a novel that should be worthy of the world’s respect, and though
_The Shadow of a Crime_ and _A Son of Hagar_ were, in no sense, failures,
yet they had not met with the success for which the young novelist was
so ardently longing. This was to be his first book dealing with Manx
life, customs and character, and he wrote it in the island with all the
beautiful landscape and the glorious sea for an inspiration.
The plot of the book is founded on the story of the Prodigal Son. It
teaches the doctrine of purification by suffering, though by no stretch
of the imagination can it be called a “book with a purpose.” Rather is
it an imaginative picture of wonderful pathos, and the moral which it
enforces is never hinted at; it is revealed in the very atmosphere of the
book, in its childlike purity, in its passionate simplicity.
The Prodigal Son is Daniel, son of Gilchrist Mylrea, Bishop of Man. His
mother died at his birth, and so during the early years of his young life
his father acted as mother, nurse, teacher, playmate and friend. Here
is a picture of father and son, with Mona and Ewan, Dan’s cousins and
housemates.
Meantime Bishop’s Court was musical with children’s voices, and
with the patter of tiny feet that ferreted out every nook and
cranny of the old place. There was Ewan, the Deemster’s son, a
slight, sensitive boy, who listened to you with head aslant,
and with absent looks. There was wee Mona, Ewan’s meek sister,
with the big eyes and the quiet ways, who liked to be fondled,
and would cry sometimes when no one knew why. And there was
Daniel—Danny—Dan, the Bishop’s boy, a braw little rogue, with a
slice of the man in him, as broad as he was long, with tousled
fair head and face usually smudged, laughing a good deal, and
not crying over much, loving a good tug or a delightful bit
of a fight, and always feeling high disdain at being kissed.
And the Bishop, God bless him! was father and mother both to
the motherless brood, though Kerry Quayle was kept as nurse. He
would tell a story, or perhaps sing one, while Mona sat on his
knee with her pretty head resting on his breast, and Ewan held
on to his chair with his shy head hanging on his own shoulder,
and his eyes looking out at the window, listening intently in
his queer little absent way. And when Dan, in lordly contempt of
such doings, would break in on song or story, and tear his way up
the back of the chair to the back of the Bishop, Mona would be
set on her feet, and the biggest baby of the four there present
would slide down on to his hands and knees and creep along the
floor with the great little man astride him, and whinny like
a horse, or perhaps bark like a dog, and pretend to leap the
four-bar gate of the baby’s chair tumbled down on its side. And
when Dan would slide from his saddle, and the restless horseman
would turn coachman and tug the mane of his steed, and all the
Bishop’s long hair would tumble over his face, what shrieks of
laughter, what rolling on the ground and tossing up of bare
legs! And then when supper-time came, and the porridge would be
brought in, and little Mona would begin to whimper because she
had to eat it, and Ewan to fret because it was barley porridge
and not oaten cake, and Dan to devour his share with silent
industry, and then bellow for more than was good for him, what
schemes the good Bishop resorted to, what promises he made, what
crafty tricks he learned, what an artful old pate his simple head
suddenly became! And then, when Kerry came with the tub and the
towels, and three little naked bodies had to be bathed, and the
Bishop stole away to his unfinished sermon, and little Mona’s wet
hands clung to Kerry’s dress, and Ewan, standing bolt upright
in the three inches of water, blubbered while he rubbed the
sponge over an inch and a half of one cheek, and Dan sat on his
haunches in the bottom of the tub splashing the water on every
side, and shrieking at every splash; then the fearful commotion
would bring the Bishop back from the dusky room upstairs, where
the shaded lamp burned on a table that was littered with papers.
And at last, when the day’s big battle was done, and night’s
bigger battle begun; and three night-dresses were popped over
three weary heads that dodged them when they could, the Bishop
would carry three sleepless, squealing piggies to bed—Mona at his
breast because she was little, Ewan at his back because he was
big, and Dan across his shoulders because he could not get to
any loftier perch. Presently there would be three little pairs
of knees by the crib side, and then three little flaxen polls on
the pillow, tumbling and tossing, and with the great dark head
of the Bishop shaking gravely at them from over the counterpane,
and then a hush broken by a question lisped drowsily, or a baby
rhyme that ran a line or two and stopped, and at length the long
deep quiet and the silence of sleep, and the Bishop going off on
tiptoe to the dusky room with the shaded lamp, and to-morrow’s
sermon lying half-written beneath it.
Can you not see them?—the four innocent children playing their games
as though they were the whole world. But their happiness was soon cut
short. Thorkell Mylrea, the Deemster and the father of Ewan and Mona,
and the evil genius of the book, calls at Bishop’s Court, and takes his
children away. “Let a father treat his children as the world will treat
them when they have nothing but the world for their father,” he says, and
henceforth the children’s joy is taken away. But Dan lives on with his
father, the Bishop, laughing, playing his pranks, and making of the Court
one huge nursery. The years pass, and a friendship like that of David
and Jonathan springs up between Dan and Ewan. But Dan is headstrong,
wilful and impetuous. He runs almost wild, and his great strength and
love of sport lead him into the companionship of good-for-noughts. He
quarrels with Ewan, and, in a scene of great beauty and tenderness, a
reconciliation is effected. But again they quarrel, and Dan strikes Ewan
a terrible blow which has far-reaching consequences. Dan is covered with
shame, and feels abased in his very soul. And then, assailed by the most
subtle temptation, Dan commits forgery, and Ewan, by now a priest, tells
a lie to save him. And so Dan, the noble-hearted, pure-minded soul,
sinks deeper and deeper into petty sins. He wastes his substance, idles,
drinks—does all that a tortured weak soul will do when it has begun to
step on the downward path. The end of it all is that in fair fight Dan
kills his cousin, and goes to Mona to tell her of his sin.
“Yes, yes, our Ewan is dead,” he repeated in a murmur that came
up from his heart. “The truest friend, the fondest brother, the
whitest soul, the dearest, bravest, purest, noblest—O God! O God!
dead, dead! Worse, a hundredfold worse—Mona, he is murdered.”
At that she raised herself up, and a bewildered look was in her
eyes.
“Murdered? No, that is not possible. He was beloved by all. There
is no one who would kill him—there is no one alive with a heart
so black.”
“Yes, Mona, but there is,” he said; “there is one man with a
heart so black.”
“Who is he?”
“Who! He is the foulest creature on God’s earth. Oh, God in
heaven! Why was he born?”
“Who is he?”
He bowed his head where he stood before her, and beads of sweat
started from his brow.
“Cursed be the hour when that man was born!” he said in an awful
whisper.
Then Mona’s despair came upon her like a torrent and she wept
long. In the bitterness of her heart she cried,—
“Cursed indeed, cursed for ever! Dan, Dan, you must kill him—you
must kill that man…”
Then Dan said in a heartrending voice,—
“Mona, he did not mean to kill Ewan—they fought—it was all in the
heat of blood.”
Once more he tried to avoid her gaze, and once more, pale and
immovable, she watched his face.
“Who is he?” she asked, with an awful calmness.
“Mona, turn your face away from me, and I will tell you,” he said.
Then everything swam about her, and her pale lips grew ashy.
“Don’t you know?” he asked in a whisper.
She did not turn her face, and he was compelled to look at her
now. His glaring eyes were fixed upon her.
“Don’t you know?” he whispered again, and then in a scarcely
audible voice he said, “It was I, Mona.”
The restrained power of this passage is typical of Hall Caine—not one
word too much, and yet the man and woman live and breathe before our very
eyes.
Mona confesses her love, and Dan leaves her to give himself up to
justice. But temptation and hindrances are put in his way. It seems to
be fated that his crime shall go unpunished, unatoned for. At length,
overcoming all his weakness, and with a mighty resolve to suffer the
penalty of his guilt, Dan gives himself up at the Ramsey courthouse.
Then follow weary months of waiting until his trial. Finally he receives
his punishment on Tynwald Hill—the ancient mound where, once in each
year, the laws of the island are proclaimed to the assembled people. He
is sentenced by his own father to lifelong solitude. “Men and women of
Man,” cries the Bishop, “the sentence of the court of the barony of the
island is, that this man shall be cut off from his people. Henceforth
let him have no name among us, nor family, nor kin. From now for ever
let no flesh touch his flesh. Let no tongue speak to him. Let no eye
look on him. If he should be an-hungered, let none give him meat. When
he shall be sick, let none minister to him. When his death shall come,
let no man bury him. Alone let him live, alone let him die, and among the
beasts of the field let him hide his unburied bones.” And then follows
a tear-compelling document written by Dan in his exile, wherein it is
shown how he works out his own redemption, and regains his manhood.
Eventually he becomes the saviour of his people and dies in Mona’s arms.
Many critics have levelled at Mr Caine a charge of unnecessary sadness in
thus allowing his hero to die just at the moment when his regeneration is
complete, but to my mind that is the only possible ending. Read in the
right spirit the book is not sad; pervading its pages is seen a glorious
optimism which not only gives one new faith in humanity, but makes one
feel that life itself is a grander and nobler thing than one had ever
before imagined. If Dan had had his punishment cancelled, and had married
Mona—what a painful piece of bathos it would have been! And yet that
is precisely what many critics desired. They seem to imagine that the
temporal life is of far more importance than the spiritual. Dan’s life
was crowned and his death glorified by his spiritual triumph. During
those years of awful loneliness he not only purified his own nature,
but exalted his very soul. _The Deemster_ is no melodramatic piece of
stagework; it is a direct human document, a spiritual drama. It is the
first work of Hall Caine’s which has indubitably written on every page
the word “genius.”
It was published in 1838, and immediately created a sensation. Critics
welcomed it on all hands. It was recognised as a powerful and original
piece of work, and the new setting for the story added not a little to
its attractiveness; for, fully in sympathy with Manxland, its laws,
customs and society, Mr Caine had painted a picture of great charm and
attraction. Old Kerry, Quilleash, and Hommy-beg were accepted as true
portraits of Manx character, with their ingrained superstition, their
vanity and their generosity. But the book did not impress the critics
only; it was read far and wide by the public, and within a few months the
circulation had become enormous. _The Deemster_ was one of the successes
of the year, and from the date of its publication the popularity of Hall
Caine began.
I am permitted to give here, by the courtesy of Mr A. P. Watt, Mr Wilkie
Collins’s literary executor, a letter addressed to Mr Caine by the late
novelist. It is only one out of many hundreds received by Hall Caine from
all parts of the world, congratulating him on his success, and offering
him tributes of thanks.
“90 GLOUCESTER PLACE,
“PORTMAN SQUARE, W.,
“LONDON, _March 15, 1888_.
“DEAR HALL CAINE,—(Let us drop the formality of ‘Mr’—and let me
set the example because I am the oldest).
“I have waited to thank you for _The Deemster_, until I could
command time enough to read the book without interruptions. Let
me add that the chair in which I have enjoyed this pleasure is
not the chair of the critic. What I am now writing conveys the
impressions of a brother in the art.
“You have written a remarkable work of fiction—a great advance
on _The Shadow of a Crime_ (to my mind)—a powerful and pathetic
story—the characters vividly conceived, and set in action with
a master hand. Within the limits of a letter, I cannot quote a
tenth part of the passages which have seized on my interest and
admiration. As one example, among many others which I should like
to quote, let me mention the chapters that describe the fishermen
taking the dead body out to sea in the hope of concealing the
murder. The motives assigned to the men and the manner in which
they express themselves show a knowledge of human nature which
place you among the masters of our craft, and a superiority to
temptations to conventional treatment that no words of mine can
praise too highly. For a long time past, I have read nothing in
contemporary fiction that approaches what you have done here. I
have read the chapters twice, and, if I know anything of our art,
I am sure of what I say.
“Now let me think of the next book that you will write, and let
me own frankly where I see room for improvement in what the
painters call, ‘treatment of the subject.’
“When you next take up your pen, will you consider a little
whether your tendency to dwell on what is grotesque and violent
in human character does not require some discipline? Look again
at ‘The Deemster’ and at some of the qualities and modes of
thought attributed to ‘Dan.’
“Again—your power as a writer sometimes misleads you, as I
think, into forgetting the value of contrast. The grand picture
which your story presents of terror and grief wants relief.
Individually and collectively, there is variety in the human lot.
We are no more continuously wretched than we are continuously
happy. Next time, I want more humour, which breaks out so
delightfully in old ‘Quilleash.’ More breaks of sunshine in your
splendid cloudy sky will be a truer picture of nature—and will
certainly enlarge the number of your admiring readers. Look
at two of the greatest tragic stories—_Hamlet_ and _The Bride
of Lammermoor_, and see how Shakespeare and Scott take every
opportunity of presenting contrasts, and brightening the picture
at the right place.
“I believe you have not—even yet—written your best work. And here
you have the proof of my sincerity. Always truly yours,
“WILKIE COLLINS.”
The criticism contained in this letter is both sound and just, and though
Mr Collins declares that in penning it he was not sitting in the chair
of the critic, but in that of the novelist, yet the advice afforded is
such as only the most competent critic who united the qualities of the
imaginative writer could possibly have given.
Where Mr Caine particularly shows his strength in this novel, to my mind,
is in the last part of all—the document written by Dan just before his
death. The situation offers so many temptations to write in a falsely
pathetic style that one cannot offer too much praise for the admirably
firm and manly way in which Mr Caine has written this part of his novel.
I have before me as I write two letters written in October 1886. One is
from Mr Hall Caine to the late Thomas Edward Brown (of _Fo’c’stle Yarns_
fame), _re_ the plot and _mise-en-scène_ of what afterwards became _The
Deemster_; and the other is Mr Brown’s reply. The letters are too long to
reproduce exactly as they stand, but I give here sufficiently important
extracts to show the reader what enormous and seemingly insuperable
difficulties Mr Caine had to overcome before even beginning the actual
writing of the book that brought him fame. Mr Caine’s letter is dated 3rd
October 1886, from Aberleigh Lodge, Bexley Heath, London.
“DEAR MR BROWN … You must have guessed that I have been
constantly prompted by a selfish desire to consult you about my
new novel. I am still undecided as to where the scene should be.
The difficulty of determining the period is no less serious. …
I wish to write a romance in the strict sense of the word and
to be as nearly as possible untrammelled by facts of history
and the like. Your opinion as to the feasibility of the Isle of
Man must have been final with me when I had briefly explained
my scheme. I remember that your brother Hugh did something to
dissuade me from tackling Manxland in any sort of work. He did
not think the readers of novels would find the island at all
interesting, and he was sure that the local atmosphere was not
such as would attract them. I thought over this a good deal,
and decided, I must say, against your brother’s judgment. … In
the first place, the island has excellent atmosphere. It has
the sea, a fine coast on the west, fine moorland above; it has
traditions, folk-talk, folk-lore, a ballad literature, and no
end of superstition,—and all these are very much its own. Such
were its attractions for any romance writer, and for me it had
the further fascination of being in some sort one’s native place,
with types of character that had been familiar to me since my
earliest years. Moreover, it was unlike the scene in which I had
already worked—the dales of Cumberland—and gave me above all one
great and new element—the sea. So I decided that even Mudie and
his thousands of young ladies might find Manxland an attractive
background for a story. … The difficulty is whether the Isle of
Man is a possible scene for a real epic. You will judge when
I sketch very roughly my plot, which is still in a nebulous
condition.
“I wish to open with a picture of an island governed mainly by
a depraved nobility, or something equivalent to a privileged
class. The great man (the Dooney Mooar, is it?) of that class
shall be old, anxious (like King Lear) to give up his share in
the government, yet kept to his post by restless energy. He shall
have lands and be a Hebrew patriarch as to flocks and herds.
His wife is long dead, and the memory of her is the one vein of
tenderness in a nature that seems to be as hard as granite. He
has two sons and a daughter, the former arrived at man’s estate,
the latter just budding into womanhood. Long ago he had a brother
who died at war with him, leaving a widow and an infant son. The
lad is now five-and-twenty, a reckless scapegrace, beloved by all
children and all dogs, the athlete of the island, physically a
magnificent creature, but constantly under the ban of the great
man, his kinsman. The young man is poor, his father having been
impoverished. This young fellow should be the central personage
of the novel. His youth is sketched; his scrapes, his disgraces,
his dubious triumphs come in quick succession. At length he is a
man and only less than an outlaw. He and his mother are neglected
by the old nobleman (?) and his sons, but the daughter does not
repudiate the kinship. The relations of the cousins must be
delicately handled. On his side the affection is cousinly. On her
side it is imperceptibly deepening into love. … The daughter of
the great man is a noble creature, educated, too, and great of
soul…
“Then comes the time when the great man intends to lay aside his
state. His sons shall succeed to him. … At this juncture the
eldest brother begins to suspect the relations of his sister and
cousin. The men meet, quarrel and resolve to fight. … It is an
unequal match; it is murder; the brother is backed to the cliff
edge and … tumbles into the sea. … Then in an instant the soul
of the athlete awakes. He realises what he is, and whither down
to that moment his life has tended. In that moment of awakening
there is only one thing he can think of doing. He will go to his
cousin, the nobleman’s daughter. She is his good angel, etc.
He goes, and sees her alone at night. He tells her that he has
killed her brother—murdered him—extenuates nothing, etc. … the
woman will be hard to do. What is the part?… I hardly know. I
think she should drive him from her. But she is his confessor
and will not betray him, nevertheless. … The man gives himself
up to the law. He is tried on his own confession and condemned
to death. The death is to be by hanging, but no man has ever
suffered death for crime in that island within memory or record.
There is a superstitious dread of hanging. It must not be begun,
or where will it end, etc. … The criminal is brought out, and …
the curse is pronounced: that no man shall speak to him, that
none shall look his way, that none shall give him food, that if
he is sick none shall minister to him, that when he dies no man
shall bury him. … Then comes a rupture in the state. The people
try to cast off the rule of the privileged classes. Bit by bit
the outlaw works out his redemption, his slow regeneration, his
gradual renewing of the man within. One after one he does the
people great services, accepting meantime all his punishment. …
At length the regeneration is complete, and the outlaw becomes
the saviour of his people, and is received in triumph on the
scene of his former disgrace. Love is justified, the cousins are
united, the broken old man dies, as is most fit.
“Now, dear Mr Brown, all this is very vague; but I shall be
curious to hear how far it would be possible to work some such
scheme into the (romantic) history of the Isle of Man. The House
of Keys was, I think, a self-elected body down to recent years.
If I _could_ get it into the present century even by any ordinary
liberties I should be delighted.”
The foregoing is noteworthy not only because it is the first skeleton
of _The Deemster_, but because (as will be seen from Mr Brown’s reply),
there were many difficulties opposing the idea of making the Isle of Man
the _mise-en-scène_ for the plot, and because these difficulties were
most skilfully overcome. These two letters are one of the most convincing
proofs with what extraordinary care and patience Mr Caine works.
The following is Mr Brown’s reply.
“CLIFTON, _October 14, 1886_.
“MY DEAR SIR,—Thanks for this admission to the secrets of your
workshop. The story is most interesting. … It could not possibly
be placed in the Isle of Man, nor timed in the nineteenth century.
“The Isle of Man does not give you the remoteness of the place
which you want. Norway might, Kamtschatka might! but the Isle of
Man—no.
“Then as to time—
“The history of the Isle of Man since the Revestment (1765!)
is not legendary, nor has it been otherwise than very clearly
defined since the Reformation. It is an eventless history, but
quite ascertained, and rigid within its narrow compass. Its
constitution has been singularly unbroken; there is not the
faintest hint of any such revolution as you postulate. The House
of Keys was cooptative in my own time, and the change to the
popular method of election was the merest emigration ‘from the
blue bed to the brown.’ The stage is inadequate for your romance;
and, moreover, it is quite occupied by the most obstinate
fixtures. Your Dooiney (_sic_) Mooar is less than a fable. Where
can you get him in? He is not, I suppose, the Earl of Derby, or
the Duke of Athol; but, if he is not, he ought to be, for these
gentlemen hold the field, and you can’t get rid of them. It is
impossible to conceive the privileged class, or nobles, of whom
you speak. The fact is, you would take the Isle of Man as the
merest physical basis, and constand upon it a whole system of
manners, institutions, a social system, in short, which it never
knew. It can’t be done at the distance; it can’t be done at all.
“Now, why not cut away from your socio-politico-revolutionary
setting altogether, and rely, as you no doubt desire to do, on
the sheer humanities? The Dooiney Mooar need not be a Lear, but
he might be an old Manx gentleman; and, instead of resigning a
seigniory, he might resign his landed estate. Such a person, and
grouped around him nearly all the rest of your story, you could
place about the year 1800. The Duke of Athol held a sort of court
in those days: he brought over with him to the island a choice
assortment of shwash-bucklers, led captains and miscellaneous
blackguards. There are some fierce stories about these fellows.
Duelling was in vogue.
“It was a very corrupt society, and no doubt greatly demoralised
the native population. … Bishop Wilson (1710) was an
‘epoch-making’ personage. The Church and State question was then
prominent. He was a complicated man, or at anyrate, a composite
one. Never was man more beloved, never was there a serener saint,
never a more brutal tyrant. But why seek this sort of person in
the Isle of Man? Think of Laud and his tremendous stage. Has
anyone ever ‘done’ him, and the robin coming into his study,
and ‘all to that’? But yours is a romance? not an unconditional
romance though, I suppose?…
“But your fiction is splendid; the incidents are quite
magnificent, and, from what I can see, the possibilities of
character are highly promising. … It must not be thrown away;
it is strong and vital; but the Isle of Man sinks beneath it.
And besides the inadequacy of the stage there is the fact of its
being preoccupied with social and historical furniture that will
in no way fit with your invented properties.
“For my part, I think the interest attaching to the ‘transition
period’ idea is adscititious, and rather vapid. And as for an
epic—just write the words, ‘A Manx Epic’ and behold the totally
impossible at once!
“If you cling to this form, however, take it out to the red men,
and let the scene be the Alleghanies, _temp. circiter_ 1730. I
hope I have made my meaning clear. The story is good, but its
setting is impossible. Drop the latter, but stick to the former.
If you do, you can retain the Isle of Man as the scene of your
action. … Most truly yours,
“T. E. BROWN.”
He hopes he “has made his meaning clear.” Only too terribly clear! Almost
every point necessary to the proper development of the plot was promptly
knocked on the head; the vital links in the chain were broken, the
structural backbone of the romance was destroyed. Ninety-nine men out of
a hundred would have given up the idea in despair; but not Hall Caine.
He seized on the hint of Bishop Wilson—the “epoch-making” personage; he
altered this part of the plot, and developed that; he substituted one
character for another, and introduced new _dramatis personæ_;—in a word,
he not only recast the plot, but made it historically convincing, and
this in the very face of the warnings and obstacles raised by one of the
most erudite scholars the Isle of Man has yet produced. This, of course,
involved immense labour, but it was done, and done successfully. Even Mr
Brown himself had to acknowledge this. As Mr Caine has written me: “When
the book was written there was no such sympathetic reader as T. E. B.”
Another eminent writer who generously acknowledged the power and beauty
of _The Deemster_ was the late R. D. Blackmore, who wrote the following
letter immediately after reading Mr Caine’s book.
“TEDDINGTON, _April 3, 1888_.
“MY DEAR MR CAINE,—I thank you heartily for your kind and
friendly letter, which was a comfort to me. It has always seemed
to me that your turn of mind and power of creation are especially
dramatic; and that you will write (if once you take to that form)
a very grand and moving play. There is no one who can do that
now, so far at least as I can judge; and I shall be proud if I
live long enough to see you achieve it.
“For novel-writing you have not yet (according to my small
judgment) the sense of proportion and of variety which are
needful for pleasant work. I have read with great care your
_Deemster_, and have admired and been stirred by it. But to
my mind (which is not at all a critical one) there is not the
sliding, and the quiet shifting, and the sense of pause, which
are perhaps only the mechanical parts of great work, but help
to lift it. I cannot exactly express my meaning, and I have no
science to second it; and I know that I cannot do the thing
myself, and never attempt it consciously. But it will come to
you, with time, and give grace to your excelling power.
“As for myself, of which you ask, there is little to say except
that all the spirit is taken out of it. I care for nothing that
I do; nor whether I do anything—which for a man who has not been
lazy is a dreary change of mood; my shame at such a state of mind
is useless to improve it, and I wonder how long it will last. But
this, I hope, you will never understand, except as I did—before
it came to pass.
“If you care to come down to so dull a place, you will be always
welcome, but a line beforehand will help it. Tuesdays are my
absent days, and Saturdays rather ‘throng’ with work.—Believe me,
ever truly yours,
“R. D. BLACKMORE.”
“‘Luncheon’—dinner it is to me,—at 2 o’clock daily. Try to come
in time for that, and a look-round afterwards.”