m m m 'MM: wm n-\' 'iMf-^i ■^mm: m ^^^£# s.jik^<^ L%^'.s^-ss3^^ j illi .III!! ! ,iii!l ,,4^jmm^^4>fm;m^momm ^ iHi .I'lll. iilllli ,illlli nlllli SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. X^ ;|l" W 'II"" THOMAS HALL CAINE was born May 14th, ncorn, in Cheshire. On his father's side he is Manx by his early youth, and again in manhood, he spent much ti -nxland and te'ls many stories of his life there which have sii lihar to the readers of the "Deemster" and the ''Bondmai auburn-haired and bearded man, with a lofty forehead, la IS, and an extraordinary likeness to Shakspeare — very ea phatic in his mode of conversation — a man who feels i n of deepest convictions, with that vivid power of thought and i 50 strongly characteristic of his books. To his mother no doul 3S the deep religious fervour which is never unduly prominent lucts of his pea, and he always endeavours with honest coun Hfe not as it is, but as it should be. It is life with all i i splendid possibilities its lost opportunities, its irreparable past, orrows, its sunshine and its gloom that Mr. Caine takes for th I do not think I exaggerate when I describe him as emph 'ture. His aim is so lofty, his tone so pure, and his sincerity .o reach the hearts of all those striving after the better life, an *^ every class in a far larger majority even than we can drean thing, and, alas ! are frequently forced to be content with that . To these Mr. Hall Caine speaks with no uncertain sound, 'ill be heard. With the spread of education comes the kno ! world is very evil ; and there come a certain hardness, an ic The brain prospers at the expense of the heart, and the old s^ iltivated times appears frequently to be dying out. One has bi ire yearly pouring from our Board Schools, to ascertain beyond THOMAS HALL CAINE. Crown 8vo. cloth extra, 3J-. dd. A SON OF HAGAR. By HALL CAINE, Author of ' The Shadow of a Crime.' 'A brilliant and powerful romance. There has not appeared in this country for a long time past a story more brilliantly and forcibly told. It stands out from the novels of the day as the work of an acute thinker and powerful writer.' — Scotsman. 'Quite as powerful a novel as "The Shadow of a Crime." The author's aims are as high and pure, his burning love of justice is as apparent.' Saturday Review. ' The episode of Mercy Fisher and her child, though it is, like the Fantine episode in '* Les Miserables," almost too painful for art, may really be compared with that terrible picture for power and pathos.' — Athenaeum. ' Mr. Hall Caine's novels are, in their way, prose epics. . , . He is a won- derfully powerful novelist.' — Glasgow Herald. ' Mr. Hall Caine has done for the fells and dales of Cumberland what George Eliot did for pastoral Derbyshire and Warwickshire. . . . His power of portraiture is very great ; his pictures of fell scenery are trenchant tran- scripts from nature. . . . There are few episodes in modern fiction more pathetic than the death of Mercy Fisher's baby.'— Westmoreland Gazette. ' Passion, eloquence, and conviction. . . . One magnificent chapter.' St. James's Gazette. * Shows the hand of a great master. . . . A poet, preacher, prophet. The last book of the story rises to a sublimity of grandeur. The retribution on Hugh Ritson has its forecasts in the last hours of Ralph Nickleby, and his death recalls that of the hapless brother of Charlotte Bronte. The characters seem to live and breathe on the pages before us. One of them, Parson Christian, is worthy to stand beside the Vicar of Wakefield. . . . Scenes in this story will linger in the memory long after the book is laid aside." Dundee Advertiser. 'A powerful, almost lurid, study ot a Nineteenth Century Macbeth." Rochdale Observer. ' Taken altogether, the story is in every sense of the word a great story. It is intensely dramatic. Quite apart from the central figure of the novel — which, in its breadth of treatment, and its minuteness of detail, is a marvel- lous piece of mental portraiture — the surroundings in which it is set have a freshness in conception, a grace in finish, and an inner beauty of their own which are captivating in the highest degree. . . . In the way of the indigenous country clergyman of the past, nothing better than Parson Christian has been given us in a novel since Fielding's Parson Adams. . . . Masterly fiction." Liverpool Mercury. ' That two such novels should have come from his pen gives promise of a brilliant future.' — Birmingham Post. ' We pronounce unhesitatingly that " A Son of Hagar " is a powerful and unique work, with the stamp of genius marked indelibly upon it.' Whitehall Review. ' It takes a master-hand to draw such pictures as " Young Folk's Day " in the Vale of Newlands, and the stricken home of the charcoal-burner.' Literary World. Londo7i: CHATTO &^ WIN DUS, Piccadilly, JK Crown 8vo. cloth extra, js, 6d. ; post 8vo. illustrated boards, 2s. THE SHADOW OF A CRIME. By HALL CAINE, Author of ' A Son of Hagar^ ' Mr. Caine has written a fine story, . . . Ralph Ray is a strong and a beautiful figiire. The character of the heroine, too (Rotha Stagg) is lifelike and charming. The scenes between the Garths (mother and son) are thrilling, and the reader's curiosity is worked up to a high pitch. ... In this art Mr. Caine shows himself to be an adept. The story, indeed, is picturesque, and unusually full of incidents of a striking and novel kind. It is, moreover, full of that ti ue local colour which can only come from local knowledge. The scenes among the Cumbrian hills are highly impressive. There is one scene in par- ticular, where during a funeral procession across the hills a horse runs away with the coffin strapped to his back, and is lost — a scene which once read will not soon be forgotten ; and altogether the characteristics of the story are freshness of incident and originality of treatment. ' — Athenaeum. ' To say that we derive from it much the same quality of literary pleasure as from Mr. Blackmore's masterpiece is to pay it a great compliment, but not an undeserved one. In both we have strong and simple characters of the primitive heroic type, and Ralph Ray is grander morally, if not physically, than the hero of "' Lorna Doone." ... It is a fine story finely told, full of racy humour, and rising to true and unaffected pathos. Some of the more tragic scenes — e.g. , the night on which the body of Ralph's father is found, and the tailor (Simeon Stagg) is driven from his cave in the mountain by the rain and thunder — are remarkable for sustained strength of tragic power, never degenerating into melodrama.' — Saturday Review. ' There are in this novel passages which the most callous reviewer cannot read without emotion of various kinds — of strong sympathy felt with the characters, as well as admiration for the writer ; and there are scenes and descriptions which the most cautious reviewer would be inchned to describe as little short of splendid. The tone, too, is so wholesome and manly, and the fundamental conception is so fine, that the most cynical reviewer cannot fail to be impressed, and to record with ready pen his cordial approbation. A novelist who presents to the public so noble an example of life as the Cumbrian dalesman, Ralph Ray, confers a benefit, whether advantage be taken of it or not. upon the community.' — St. James's Gazette. ' This book is no ordinary novel ; to treat it as such would be an injustice alike to the author and the public. It is a character-study of a high order of merit — how high we should not venture to sav after a first perusal. . . . Mr. Caine has produced a work of art which will live in the memory of all those who can put themselves in the position of sympathy with deep ieeling and highly- wrought emotion, ' — Academy. ' If this book, as we believe to be the case, is Mr. Caine's first essay as a novelist, it must be at once conceded that it is a most successful one — so suc- cessful that its pages remind the reader of some of the best attributes of Charles Reade. The story has almost all the vigour of the author of "The Cloister and the Hearth," with almost more than that writer's picturesqueness as a romancist.' — Standard. ' A very noble note is struck in "The Shadow of a Crime," by Hall Caine. . . . The novel is one which it does the author great honour to have written, and which it should do a reader appreciable good to read. ... It is very seldom indeed that there appears a novel so fine in conception, so heroic in tone, so healthy in its associations, so attractive, and so natural in its descrip- tions, so altogether good, sound, and improving.' Illustrated London News, Londo7i: CHATTO &^ WIND US, Piccadilly, W. THE DEEMSTER A ROMANCE BY HALL CAINE AUTHOR OF ' THE SHADOW OF A CRIME ETC. * Ub^ love to me was wonfecrf ul, passing tbe love of women ' ♦ Ob, wretcbeb man tbat 3 am, wbo will ieliver me from tbe bo&v of tbis ^eatb?' IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. L ITonbon CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1887 iThe right of translation is reserzed] PRINTED BV SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON ra3 ;s-*~ J/// thanks are due to my friend and fellow -countryman the Author of ' Fo'c's'le Yarns ' for some racy touches of Manx character, and to Mr. A. W. Moore, Member of the Manx Legislature, and Sir James Gell, Attorney -General in the Isle of Man, for much valuable information con- ^^ceming the extraordinary j^oicers of the old Spiritjinl rBaro?iies of that island, the scene of my story. ^ iJ. C. t i ^ CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME CHAPTER I. THE DEATH OF OLD EWAN II. A MAX CHILD IS BORX. III. THE CHRISTENING OF YOUNG EV.AN . IV. THE DEEMSTER OF MAN V. THE Manxman's bishop . VI. the cosy nest at bishop's COURT VII. DANNY, THE MADCAP VIII. PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN IX. THE SERVICE ON THE SHORE . X. THE FIRST NIGHT WITH THE HERRINGS XI. THE HERRING BREAKFAST XII. dan's penance XIII. HOW EWAN mourned for HIS WIFE XIV. WRESTLING WITH FATE XV. THE LIE THAT EWAN TOLD PAGK 1 18 35 54 74 106 135 165 188 203 229 240 256 265 281 THE DEEMSTER. CHAPTER I. THE DEATH OF OLD EWAN. Thorkell Mylrea had waited long for a dead man's shoes, but he was wearing them at length. He was forty years of age ; his black hair was thin on the crown and streaked with grey about the temples ; the crows' feet were thick under his small eyes, and the backs of his lean hands were coated with a reddish down. But he had life in every vein, and restless energy in every Imib. His father, Ewan Mylrea, had lived long, and mourned much, and died in sorrow. VOL. I. B 2 THE DEEMSTER The good man had been a patriarch among his people, and never a serener saint had trod the ways of men. He was already an old man when his wife died. Over her open grave he tried to say, ' The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed ' Eut his voice faltered and broke. Though he lived ten years longer, he held up his head no more. Little by little he relinquished all active interest in material affairs. The world had lost its light for him, and he was travel- ling in the dusk. On his sons, Thorkell, the elder, Gilcrist, the younger, with nearly ^\^ years between them, the conduct of his estate devolved. Never were brothers more unlike. Gilcrist, resembhng his father, was of a simple and tranquil soul ; Thorkell' s nature was fiery, impetuous, and crafty. The end was the inevitable one ; the heel of Thorkell was too soon on the neck of Gilcrist. THE DEATH OF OLD EWAN 3 Gilcrist's placid spirit overcame its first vexation, and lie seemed content to let liis interests slip from liis hands. Before a year was out Thorkell Mylrea was in effect the master of Ballamona ; his younger brother was nightly immersed in astronomy and the Fathers, and the old man was sitting daily, in his slippers, in the high-backed arm-chair by the ingle, over which these w^ords were cut in the black oak : ' God's Providence is mine inheritance.' They were strange effects that followed. People said they had never understood the extraordinary fortunes of Ballamona. Again and again the rents were raised throughout the estate, until the farmers cried in the grip of their poverty, that they would neither go nor starve. Then the waggons of Thorkell Mylrea, followed close at their tail-boards by the carts of the clerg}^, drove into the corn- fields when the corn was cut, and . picked up 4 THE DEEMSTER the stooks and bore them away amid the deep curses of the bare-armed reapers who looked on in their impotent rage. Nevertheless, Thorkell Mylrea said, far and wide, without any show of reserve, and with every accent of sincerity, that never before had his father's affairs worn so grave a look. He told Ewan as much time after time, and then the troubled old face looked puzzled. The end of many earnest consultations be- tween father and son, as the one sat by the open hearth and the other leaned against the lettered ingle, was a speedy recourse to certain moneys that lay at an English bank, as well as the old man's signature to documents of high moment. Old Ewan's spirits sank yet lower year by year, but he lived on peacefully enough. As time went by, he talked less, and his humid eyes seemed to look within in degree as they grew dim to things without. But the day THE DEATH OF OLD EWAN 5 came at lengtli when tlie old man died in his chair, before the shimberous peat lire on the hearth, quietly, silently, without a movement, his graspless fingers fumbling a worm-eaten hour-glass, his long waves of thin white hair falling over his drooping shoulders, and his upturned eyes fixed in a strong stare on the text carved on the rannel-tree shelf, ^ God's Providence is mine inheritance.' That night Thorkell sat alone at the same ingle, in the same chair, glancing at many parchments and dropping them one by one into the fire. Lono; afterwards, w^hen idle tono;ues were set to wag, it was said that the elder son of Ewan Mylrea had found a means whereby to sap away his father's personalty. Then it was remembered that throuo-h all his stranofe misfortunes Thorkell had borne an equal countenance. They buried the old man under the elder tree by the wall of the churchyard that stands 6 THE DEEMSTER over against the sea. It seemed as if half of the inhabitants of the island came to his funeral, and six sets of bearers claimed their turn to carry him to the grave. The day was a gloomy day of winter ; there was not a bird or a breath in the heavy air ; the sky was low and empty ; the long dead sea was very grey and cold ; and over the unploughed land the withered stalks of the last crop lay dank on the mould. When the company returned to Ballamona they sat down to eat and drink and make merry, for ' excessive sorrow is ex- ceeding dry.' Iso one asked for the will ; there was no will because there was no personalty, and the lands were by law the inheritance of the eldest son. Thorkell was at the head of his table, and he smiled a little, and sometimes reached over the board to touch with his glass the glass that was held out towards him. Gilcrist had stood with these mourners under the empty sky, and his THE DEATH OF OLD EWAN 7 heart was as bare and desolate, but lie could endure tbeir company no longer. In an agony of grief and remorse, and rage as well, he got up from his untouched food and walked away to his own room. It was a little, quiet nest of a room that looked out by one small window over the marshy Curraghs that lay between the house and the sea. There Gilcrist sat alone that day in a sort of dull stupor. The daylight had gone, and the revolving lamps on the headland of Ayre were twinkling red after black over the blank waters, when the door opened and Thorkell entered. Gil- crist stirred the fire, and it broke into a bright blaze. ThorkelFs face wore a curious ex- pression. ^ I have been thinking a good deal about you, Gilcrist ; especially during the last few days. In fact, I have been troubled about you, to say the truth,' said Thorkell, and then S THE DEEMSTER he paused. ' Affairs are in a bad way at Ballamona — very. ' Gilcrist made no response whatever, but clasped his hands about his knee and looked steadily into the fire. ^ We are neither of us young men now, but if you should think of — of — anything, I should consider it wrong to stand — to put myself in your way — to keep you here that is — to your disadvantage, you know.' Thorkell was standing with his back to the fire, and his fingers interlaced behind him. Gilcrist rose to his feet. ^ Yery well,' he said with a strained quietness, and then turned towards the window and looked out at the dark sea. Only the sea's voice from the shore beyond the churchyard broke the silence in that little room. Thorkell stood a moment, leaning on the mantelshelf, and the flickering lights of the THE DEATH OF OLD EWAN 9 fire seemed to make sinister smiles on his face. Then he went out without a word. Next morning at daybreak Gilcrist Mylrea was ridmg towards Derby Haven with a pack in green cloth across his saddle-bow. He took passage by the ' Kmg Orry/ an old sea tub plying once a week to Liverpool. From Liverpool he went on to Cambridge to offer himself as a sizar at the University. It had never occurred to anyone that Thorkell ]\Iylrea would marry. But his father was scarcely cold in his grave, the old sea tub that took his brother across the Channel had hardly grounded at Liverpool, when Thorkell Mylrea offered his heart and wrinkled hand and the five hundred acres of Ballamona to a lady twenty years of age, who lived at a dis- tance of some six miles from his estate. It would be more precise to say that the liberal tender was made to the lady's father, for her own will was little more than a cypher in the lo THE DEEMSTER bargaining. She was a girl of sweet spirit, very tender and submissive, and much under tbe spell of religious feeling. Her mother had died during her infancy, and she had been brought up in a household that was without other children, in a gaunt rectory that never echoed with children's voices. Pier father was Archdeacon of the island, Archdeacon Teare ; her own name was Joance. If half the inhabitants of the island turned out at old Ewan's funeral, the entire popula- tion of four parishes made a holiday of his son's wedding. The one followed hard upon the other, and thrift was not absent from either. Thorkell was married in the early spring at the Archdeacon's church at Andreas. It would be rash to say that the presence of the great company at the wedding was intended as a tribute to the many virtues of Thorkell Mylrea. Indeed, it was as well that the elderly bridegroom could not overhear the THE DEATH OF OLD ElVAN ii conversation T^itli wliicli some of the homely folk beguiled the way. ' Aw, the murther of it/ said one buirdly Manxman, ' five-and-forty if he's a day, and a wizened ould polecat anyway.' ' You'd really the gel's got no feelm's. Aw, shockin', shockin' extraordinary I ' ' And a rael good gel too, they're sayin'. Amazin' ! Amazin' ! ' The marriage of Thorkell was a curious ceremony. First there walked abreast the fiddler and the piper, playing vigorously the ' Black and Grey ; ' then came the bride- groom's men carrying osiers, as emblems of their superiority over the bridesmaids, who followed them. Three times the company passed round the church before entering it, and then they troojoed up towards the com- munion rail. Thorkell went through the ceremony vv'ith the air of a whipped terrier. On the outside 12 THE DEEMSTER he was gay in frills and cuffs, and his thin hair was brushed crosswise over the bald patch on his crown. He wore buckled shoes and blue laces to his breeches. But his brave ex- terior lent him small support as he took the ungloved hand of his girlish bride. He gave his responses in a voice that first faltered, and then sent out a quick, harsh, loud pipe. No such gaunt and grim shadow of a joyful bride- groom ever before knelt beside a beautiful bride, and while the Archdeacon married this spectre of a happy man to his own submissive daughter, the whispered comments of the throng that filled nave and aisles and gallery sometimes reached his own ears. '- You wouldn't think it, now, that the craythur's sold his own gel, and him preaching there about the covenant and Isaac and Ee- becca, and all that ! ' ^ Hush, man, it's Laban and Jacob he's meaning.' THE DEATH OF OLD El VAN 13 When the ceremony had come to an end, and the bridegroom's eyes were no longer fixed in a stony stare on the words of the Com- mandments printed in black and white under the chancel window, the scene underwent a swift change. In one minute Thorkell was like another man. All his abject bearing fell away. When the party was clear of the churchyard four of the groom's men started for the Rectory at a race, and the first to reach it won a flask of brandy, with which he re- turned at high speed to the wedding company. Then Thorkell, as the custom was, bade his friends to form a circle where they stood in the road, while he drank of the brandy and handed the flask to his wife. ' Custom must be indulged with custom,' said he, ' or custom will weejD.' After that the company moved on until they reached the door of the Archdeacon's house, where the bridecake was broken over 14 THE DEEMSTER the bride's head, and then thrown to be scrambled for by the noisy throng that blew neat's horns and fired guns and sang ditties by the way. Thorkell, with the chivalrous bearing of an old courtier, delivered up his wife to the flock of ladies who were ready to pounce upon her at the door of the Eectory. Then he mingled freely with the people and chatted and bantered, and made quips and quibbles. Finally, he invited all and sundry to partake freely of the oaten cake and ale that he had himself brought from Ballamona in his car for the refreshment of his own tenants there pre- sent. The fare was Lenten fare for a wedding day, and some of the straggle-headed troop grumbled, and some sniffled, and some scratched their heads, and some laughed out- right. The beer and bread were left almost untouched. Thorkell was blind to the discontent of THE DEATH OF OLD EVVAN 15 his guests, but the Archdeacon perceived it, and forthwith called such of the tumultuous assemblage as came from a distance into his barns. There the creels were turned bottom up, and four close- jointed gates lifted off their hinges were laid on the top for tables. Then from pans and boilers that simmered in the kitchen a great feast was spread. First came the broth, well loaded with barley and cabbage, and not destitute of the flavour of numerous sheep's heads. This was served in wooden j)iggins, shells being used as sjDoons. Then suet pudding, as round as a well-fed salmon, and as long as a 301b. cod. Last of all a fat hog, roasted whole, and cut with a cleaver, but further dissected only by teeth and fingers, for the unfastidious Manxman cared nothing' for knife and fork. After that there were liquor and lusty song. And all the time there could be heard over the boisterous harmony of the feasters within the i6 THE DEEMSTER barn the yet noisier racket of the peoj)le without. By this time, whatever sentiment of doubt- ful charity had been harboured in the icy breast of the Manxman had been thawed away under the charitable effects of good cheer, and Thorkell Mylrea and Archdeacon Teare began to appear in truly Christian character. ' It's none so ould he is yet, at all at all.' * Ould ? He hasn't the hayseed out of his hair, boy.' ' And a shocking powerful head-piece at him for all.' There were rough jokes and dubious toasts, and Thorkell enjoyed them all. There was dancing, too, and fiddling, and the pipes at intervals, and all went merry until mid- night, when the unharmonious harmonies of fiddle and pipes and unsteady song went off over the Curraghs in various directions. Next morning Thorkell took his wife THE DEATH OF OLD EWAN 17 home to Ballamona. They drove in the open springless car in which he had brought down the oaten cake and ale. Thorkell had seen that the remains of these good viands were thriftily gathered up. He took them back home with him, carefully packed under the board on which his young wife sat. VOL. I. i8 THE DEEMSTER CHAPTER 11. A MAN CHILD IS BORN. Thkee years passed and Thorkell's fortunes grew apace. He toiled early and late. Time had no odd days or holiday in his calendar. Every day was working day except Sunday, and then Thorkell, like a devout Christian, went to church. Thorkell believed that he was a devoutly religious man, but rumour whispered that he was better able to make his words fly up than to prevent his thoughts from remaining below. His wife did not seem to be a happy woman. During the three years of her married life she had not borne her husband children. It began to dawn upon her that A MAN CHILD IS BORN 19 Thorkeirs sole desire in marriage had been a child, a son, to whom he could leave what no man can carry away. One Sunday morning as Thorkell and his wife were on then way to church, a young- woman of about twenty passed them, and as she went by she curtsied low to the lady. The gh'l had a comely nut-brown face with dark wavy clusters of hair tumbling over her forehead from beneath a white sun-bonnet of which the poke had been dexterously rolled back. It was summer, and her light blue bodice was open and showed a white under - bodice and a full neck. Her sleeves were rolled up over the elbows, and her dimpled arms were bare and brown. There was a look of coquetry in her hazel eyes as they shot up their dark lustre under her long lashes, and then dropped as quickly to her feet. She wore buckle shoes with the open clock tops. Thorkell's quick eyes glanced over her, and c 2 20 THE DEEMSTER when the girl curtsied to his wife he fell back the few paces that he was in front of her. ' Who is she ? ' he asked. Thorkell's wife replied that the girl was a net-maker from near Peeltown. ' What's her name ? ' ThorkelFs wife answered that the girl's name was Mally Kerruish. ' Who are her people ? Has she any ? ' Thorkell's wife explained that the girl had a mother only, who was poor and worked in the fields, and had come to Ballamona for help during the last hard winter. ^ Humph ! Doesn't look as if the daughter wanted for much. How does the girl come by her fine feathers if her mother lives on charity ? ' Thorkell's wizened face was twisted into grotesque lines. His wife's face saddened, and her voice dropped as she hinted in faltering accents that * scandal did say — say ' A MAN CHILD IS BORN 21 ' Well, woman, wliat does scandal say ? ' asked Thorkell, and his voice had a curious lilt, and his mouth wore a strange smile. ^ It says — I'm afraid, Thorkell, the poor girl is no better than she ought to be.' Thorkell snorted, and then laughed in his throat like a frisky gelding. ' I thought she looked like a lively young puffin,' he said, and then trotted on in front, his head rolhng between his shoulders, and his eyes down. After going a few yards further he slackened speed again. ' Lives near Peeltown, you say — a net- maker — Mally — is it Mally Kerruish ? ' Thorkell' s wife answered with a nod of the head, and then her husband faced about, and troubled her with no further conversation until he drew up at the church door, and said, ^ Quick, woman, quick, and mind you shut the pew door after you.' But 'God remembered Kachel and heark- 22 THE DEEMSTER ened to her,' and then, for the first time, the wife of Thorkell Mylrea began to show a cheerful countenance. ThorkelFs own eleva- tion of spirits was yet more noticeable. He had heretofore showed no discontent with the old homestead that had housed his people for six generations, but he now began to build another and much larger house on the rising ground at the foot of Slieu Dhoo. His habits underwent some swift and various changes. He gave away no grey blankets that winter;, the itinerant jooor who were ' on the houses ' often went empty from his door, and — most appalling change of all — he promptly stopped his tithe. When the parson's cart drove up to Ballamona, Thorkell turned the horse's head, and gave the flank a sharp cut with his whip. The parson came in white wrath. ^ Let every pig dig for herself,' said Thor- kell. ^ I'll daub grease on the rump of your fat pig no more.' A MAN CHILD IS BORN 23 Thorkell's new homestead rose rapidly, and wlien the walls were ready for the roof the masons and carpenters went up to Balla- mona for the customary feast of Cowree and Jough and Binjean. * What ! Is it true, then, as the saying is,' Thorkell exclaimed at the sight of them, ' that when the sport is the merriest it is time to give up ? ' They ate no cowree at Ballamona that night and they drank no jough. ' We've been going to the goat's house for wool,' grunted one of them as they trudged home. ' Aw, well, man, and what can you get of the cat but his skin? ' growled another. Next day they put on the first timbers of the roof, and the following night a great storm swept over the island, and the roof tim- bers were torn away, not a spar or purlin being left in its place. Thorkell fumed at the 24 THE DEEMSTER storm and swore at the men, and wlien the wmd subsided he had the work done afresh. The old homestead of Ballamona was thatched, but the new one must be slated, and slates were quarried at and carted to Slieu Dhoo, and run on to the new roof. A dead calm had prevailed during these operations, but it was the calm that lies in the heart of the storm, and the night after they were completed the other edge of the cyclone passed over the island, tearing up the trees by their roots, and shaking the old Ballamona to its foundations. Thorkell Mylrea slept not a wink, but tramped up and down his bedroom the long night through ; and next morning, at daybreak, he drew the blind of his window, and peered through the haze of the dawn to where his new house stood on the breast of Slieu Dhoo. He could just descry its blue walls — it was roofless. The people began to mutter beneath their breath. A MAN CHILD IS BORN 25 * Aw, man, it's a judgment,' said one. ' He has been middlin' hard on the widda and fatherless, and it's like enough that there's Them aloft as knows it.' ' What's that they're saying ? ' said one old crone, ^ What comes with the wind goes with the water.' ^ Och, I knew his father — him and me were same as brothers — and a good ould man for all' ' Well, and many a good cow has a bad calf,' said the old woman. Thorkell went about like a cloud of thun- der, and when he heard that the accidents to his new homestead were ascribed to super- natural agencies he flashed like forked light- ning. ^ Where there are geese there's dirt,' he said, ' and where there are women there's talking. Am I to be frightened if an old woman sneezes ? ' 26 THE DEEMSTER But before Thorkell set to work again he paid his tithe. He paid it with a rick of dis- coloured oats that had been cut in the wet and threshed before it was dry. Thorkell had often wondered whether his coays would eat it. The next Sunday morning the parson paused before his sermon to complam that certain of his parishioners, whom he would not name at present, appeared to think that what was too bad for the pigs was good enough for the priests. Let the Church of God have no more of their pig- swill. Thorkell in his pew chuckled audibly and muttered something about paymg for a dead horse. It was spring when the second roof was blown down, and the new house stood roof- less until early summer. Then Thorkell sent four lean pigs across to the Eectory, and got his carpenters together and set them to work. The roofing proceeded without interruption. The primrose was not yet gone, the swal- A MAN CHILD IS BORN 27 low liad not yet come, aad the young grass under the feet of the oxen was still small and sweet when Thorkell's wife took to her bed. Then all Ballamona was astir. Hommy-beg, the deaf gardener of Ballamona, was sent in the hot haste of his best two miles an hour to the village, commonly known as the Street, to summon the midwife. This good woman was called Kerry Quayle ; she was a spinster of forty, and she was all but blind. ' I'm thinking the woman-body is after going on the straw,' said Hommy-beg, when he reached the Street, and this was the sum of the message that he delivered. ' Then we'd better be off, as the saying is,' remarked Kerry, who never accepted responsi- bility for any syllable she ever uttered. When they got to Ballamona, Thorkell Mylrea bustled Hommy-beg into the square springless car, and told him to drive to An- dreas, and fetch the Archdeacon without an 28 THE DEEMSTER hour's delay. Hommy-beg set off at fine paces that carried him to the Archdeaconry a matter of four miles an hour. Thorkell followed Kerry Quayle to the room above. When they stepped into the bedroom Thorkell drew the midwife aside to a table on which a large candle stood in a tall brass candlestick with gruesome gargoyles carved on the base and upper flange. From this table he picked up a small Testament bound in shiny leather, with silver clasps. ' I'm as great a man as any in the island,' said Thorkell, in his shrill whisper, *for laughing at the sim]3letons that talk about witches and boaganes and the like of that.' ^ So you are, as the saying is,' said Kerry. ' I'd have the law on the lot of them, if I had my way,' said Thorkell, still holding the Book. ' Aw, and shockin' powerful luck it would be, as the old body said, if all the witches and A MAN CHILD IS BORN 29 boao:anes in the island could be run into the sea/ said Kerry. ' Pshaw ! I'm talking of the simpletons that believe in them/ said Thorkell, snappishly. ^ I'd clap them all in Castle Rushen.' ' Aw, yes, and clean law and clean justice, too, as the Irishman said.' ' So don't think I want the midwife to take her oath in my house,' said Thorkell. ' Och, no, of coorse not. You wouldn't bemean yourself, as they say.' ' But, then, you know what the saying is, Kerry. '• Custom must be indulged with custom, or custom will weep," ' and, saying this, Thorkell's voice took a most insmuating tone. ' Aw, now, and I'm as good as here and there one at standing up for custom, as the saying is,' said the midwife. * The end of it all was that Kerry Quayle took there and then a solemn oath not to use 30 THE DEEMSTER sorcery or incantation of any kind in the time of travail, not to change the infant at the hour of its birth, not to leave it in the room for a week afterwards without spreading the tongs over its crib, and much else of the like solemn purport. The dusk deepened, and the Archdeacon had not yet arrived. Night came on, and the room was dark, but Thorkell would not allow a lamp to be brought in, or a fire to be lighted. Some time later, say six hours after Hommy- beg had set out on his six-mile journey, a lumbrous, jolting sound of heavy wheels came from the road below the Curragh, and soon afterwards the Archdeacon entered the room. ' So dark,' he said, on stumbling across the threshold. ' Ah ! Archdeacon,' said Thorkell, with the unaccustomed greeting of an outstretched hand, ^ the Church shall bring light to the chamber here,' and Thorkell handed the A MAN CHILD IS BORN 31 tinder-box to tlie Archdeacon and led him to the side of the table on which the candle stood. In an instant the Archdeacon, lauo^hins; a little or protesting meekly against his clerical honours, was striking the flint, when Thorkell laid a hand on his arm. ^ Wait one moment ; of com'se you know how I despise superstition ? ' ' Ah! of course, of course,' said the Arch- deacon. ' But, then, you know the old saying, Archdeacon, ^' Custom must be indulged with custom," you know it ? ' And Thorkell's face shut up like a nutcracker. ^ So I must bless the candle. Eh, is that it ? ' said the Archdeacon, with a low eruro-le, and the next moment he was gabbling in a quick undertone through certain words that seemed to be all one word : — * 0-Lord-Jesus-Christ- bless-Thou-this-creature-of-a-waxen- taper-that -on-what-place-soever-it-be-lighted-or -set- the- 32 THE DEEMSTER devil- may - flee - from - tliat- habitation -and-no- more-disquiet-them-that- serve — Thee ! ' After the penultimate word there was a short pause, and at the last word there was the sharp crack of the flmt, and in an instant the candle was lighted. Then the Archdeacon turned towards the bed and exchanged some words with his daughter. The bed was a mahogany four- post one, with legs like rocks, a hood like a pulpit sounding-board, and tapestry curtains like a muddy avalanche. The Archdeacon — he was a small man, with a face like a russet apple — leaned against one of the bed-posts, and said, in a tone of banter : * Why, Thorkell, and if you're for indulg- ing custom, how comes it that you have not hung up your hat ? ' ' My hat — my hat ! ' said Thorkell, in per- plexity. ' Aw, now,' said the midwife, Hhe master's A MAN CHILD IS BORN 33 as great a man as any in the island at laugh- ing at the men craythurs that hang up their hats over the straw to fright the boaganes, as the old woman said.' Thork ell's laughter instantly burst forth to justify the midwife's statement. ' Ha, ha ! Hang up my hat ! Well now, well now ! Drives away the black spirits from the birth-bed — isn't that what the dunces say? It's twenty years since I saw the like of it done, and I'd forgotten the old custom. Must look fanny, very, the good man's hat perched up on the bed-post ? What d'ye say, Arch- deacon, shall we have it up ? Just for the laugh, you know, ha, ha ! ' In another moment Thorkell was gone from the room, and his titter could be heard from the stairs ; it ebbed away and presently flowed back again, and Thorkell was once more by the bedside, laughing immoderately, and perching his angular soft hat on the top- VOL. I. D 34 THE DEEMSTER most knob of one of the posts at tlie foot of the bed. Then Thorkell and the Archdeacon went down to the little room that had once been Gilcrist's room, looking over the Curragh to the sea. Before daybreak next morning a man child was born to Thorkell Mykea, and an heir to the ^nq. hundred acres of Ballamona. 35 CHAPTER III. THE CHRISTENIXG OF YOUNG EWAN. In the dead waste of that night the old walls of Ballamona echoed to the noise of hurrying feet. Thorkell hmiself ran like a squirrel, hither and thither, breaking out now and again into shrill peals of hysterical laughter ; while the women took the kettle to the room above, and employed themselves there in sundry mysterious ordinances on which no male busybody might intrude. Thorkell dived down into the kitchen, and rooted about in the meal casks for the oaten cake, and into the larder for the cheese, and into the cup- board for the bread-basket known as the ' peck.' 36 THE DEEMSTER Hommy-beg, who had not been permitted to go home that night, had coiled himself in the settle drawn up before the kitchen fire, and was now snoring lustily. Thorkell roused him, and set him to break the oatcake and cheese into small pieces into the peck, and, when this was done, to scatter it broad- cast on the staircase and landing, and on the garden-path immediately in front of the house, while he himself carried a similar peck, piled up like a pyramid with similar pieces of oat- cake and cheese, to the room whence there issued at intervals a thin, small voice, that was the sweetest music that had ever yet fallen on Thorkell' s ear.. What high commotion did the next day witness ! For the first time since that lurid day when old Ewan Mylrea was laid under the elder tree in the churchyard by the sea, Ballamona kej^t open house. The itinerant poor, who made the circuit of the houses, THE CHRISTENING OF YOUNG EWAN 37 came again, and lifted the latch without knocking, and sat at the fire without being asked, and ate of the oatcake and the cheese. And upstairs, where a meek white face looked out with an unfamiliar smile from behind sheets that were hardly more white, the robustious statespeople from twenty miles around sat down in their odorous atmosphere of rude health and high sph^its, and noise and lauofhter, to drink their o;lass of new brewed jough, and to spread on their oaten bread a thick crust of the rum-butter that stood in the great blue china bowl on the little table near the bed-head. And Thorkell — how nimbly he hopped about, and encouraged his visitors to drink, and rallied them if they ceased to eat! ' Come man, come,' he said a score of times, ' shameful leaving is worse than shame- ful eating — eat, drink ! ' And they ate, and they drank, and they 38 THE DEEMSTER laughed, and they sang, till the bedroom reeked with the fumes of a pot-house, and the confusion of tongues therein was w^orse than at the foot of Babel. Throughout three long jovial weeks the visitors came and went, and every day the ' blithe bread ' was piled in the peck for the poor of the earth, and scattered on the j)aths for the good spirits of the air. And when people jested upon this, and said that not since the old days of their grandfathers ha*d the boaganes and the fairies been so civilly treated, Thorkell laughed noisily, and said what great fan it was that they should think he w^as superstitious, and that custom must be indulged with custom, or custom would weep ! Then came the christening, and to this ceremony the whole country round w^as invited. Thorkell was now^ a man of consequence, and the neighbours high and low trooped in wdth presents for the young Christian. THE CHRISTENING OF YOUNG EWAN 39 Kerry, the midwife, who was nurse as well, carried the child to church, and the tiny red burden lay cooing softly at her breast in a very hillock of white swaddlings. Thorkell walked behind, his little eyes twinkling under his bushy eyebrows ; and on his arm his wife leaned heavily after every feeble step, her white waxwork face bright with the smile of first motherhood. The Archdeacon met the company at the west porch, and they gathered for the baptism about the font in the aisle : half-blind Kerry with the infant, Thorkell and his young wife, the two godfathers, the Yicar-General and the High Bailiff of Peeltown, and the god- mother, the High Bailiff's wife, and behind this circle a mixed throng of many sorts. After the gospel and the prayers, the Arch- deacon, in his white surplice, took the infant into his hands and called on the god-parents to name the child, and they answered Ewan. 40 THE DEEMSTER Then as the drops fell over the wee blinkmg eyes, and all voices were hushed m silence and awe, there came to the open porch and looked into the dusky church a little fleecy lamb, all soft and white and beautiful. It lifted its innocent and dazed face where it stood in the morning sunshine, on the grass of the graves, and bleated, and bleated, as if it had strayed from its mother and was lost. The Archdeacon paused with his drooping finger half raised over the other innocent face at his breast, Thorkell's features twitched, and the tears ran down the white cheeks of his wife. In an instant the baby -lamb had hobbled away, and before the Archdeacon had restored the child to the arms of blind Kerry, or mumbled the last of the prayers, there came the hum of many voices from the distance. The noise came rapidly nearer, and as it approached it broke into a tumult of men's deep shouts and women's shrill cries. THE CHRISTENING OF YOUNG EWAN 41 The iron hasp of the lych-gate to the churchyard was heard to chink, and at the same moment there was the sound of hurry- ing footsteps on the paved way. The com- pany that had gathered about the font broke up abruptly, and made for the porch with looks of inquiry and amazement. There, at the head of a mixed throng of the riiF-raff of the parish, bareheaded men, women with bold faces, and children witli naked feet, a man held a young woman by the arm and pulled her towards the church. He was a stalwart fellow, stern of feature, iron grey, and he gripped the girl's bare brown arm like a vice. ' Make way there ! Come, mistress, and no struggling,' he shouted, and he tugged the girl after him, and then pushed her before him. ' She was young ; twenty at most. Her comely face was drawn hard with lines of pain ; her hazel eyes flashed with wrath ; and where her white sun -bonnet had fallen 42 THE DEEMSTER back from her head on to her shoulders, the knpts of her dark hair, draggled and tangled in the scuffle, tumbled in masses over her neck and cheeks. It was Mally Kerruish, and the man who held her and forced her along was the parish sumner, the church constable. ' Make way, I tell you ! ' shouted the sumner to the throng that crowded upon him, and into the porch, and through the company that had come for the christening. When the Archdeacon stepped down from the side of the font, the sumner with his prisoner drew up on the instant, and the noisy crew stood and was silent. ' I have brought her for her oath, your reverence,' said the sumner, dropping his voice and his head together. ^ Who accuses her ? ' the Archdeacon asked. ' Her old mother,' said the sumner \ ' here she is.' THE CHRISTENING OF YOUNG EWAN 43 From tlie middle of the tlirong behind him the sumner drew out an elderly woman with a hard and wizened face. Her head was bare, her eyes were quick and restless, her lips firm and long, her chin was broad and heavy. The woman elbowed her way for- ward ; but when she was brought face to face with the Archdeacon, and he asked her if she charged her daughter, she looked around before answering, and seeing her girl Mally standing there with her white face, under the fire of fifty pairs of eyes, all her resolution seemed to leave her. ' It isn't natheral, I know,' she said, ' a mother speaking up agen her child,' and with that her hard mouth softened, her quick eyes reddened and filled, and her hands went up to her face. ' But nature goes down with a flood when you're looking to have another belly to fill, and not a shilling at you this fortnight.' 44 THE DEEMSTER The girl stood without a word, and not one streak of colour came to her white cheeks as her mother spoke. ^ She denied it, and denied it, and said no, and no ; but leave it to a mother to know what way her girl's going.' There was a low murmur among the people at the back and some whispering. The girl's keen ear caught it, and she turned her head over her shoulder with a defiant glance. ^ Who is the man ? ' said the Archdeacon, recalling her with a touch of his finger on her arm. She did not answer at first, and he re- peated the question. ' Who is the guilty man ? ' he said in a voice more stern. ' It's not true. Let me go,' said the girl in a quick undertone. ' Who is the partner of your sin ? ' ' It's not true, I say. Let me go, will THE CHRISTENING OF YOUNG EWAN 45 you ? ' and the girl struggled feebly in the Sumner's grip. ' Bring her to the altar,' said the Arch- deacon. He faced about and walked towards the communion and entered it. The company followed him and drew up outside the com- munion rail. He took a Testament from the reading desk and stepped towards the girl. There was a dead hush. ' The Church provides a remedy for slan- der/ he said in a cold, clear tone. ' If you are not guilty swear that you are innocent, that he who tampers with your good name may beware.' ^Yith that the Archdeacon held the Testament towards the girl. She made no show of taking it. He thrust it into her hand. At the touch of the book she gave a faint cry and stepped a jDace backward, the Testament falling open on to the penitent- form beneath. Then the murmur of the bystanders rose 46 THE DEEMSTER again. The girl heard it once more, and dropped on her knees and covered her face, and cried in a tremulous voice that echoed over the church, ' Let me go, let me go.' The company that came for the christen- ing had walked up the aisle. Blinking Kerry stood apart, hushing the infant in her arms ; it made a fretful whimper. Thorkell stood behind, pawing the paved path with a restless foot. His wife had made her way to the girl's side, her eyes overflowing with compassion. ' Take her to prison at the Peel,' said the Archdeacon, ' and keep her there until she confesses the name of her paramour.' At that ThorkelFs wife dropped to her knees beside the kneeling girl, and putting one arm about her neck raised the other against the sumner, and cried, ^ No, no, no ; she will confess.' There was a pause and a long hush. Mally let her hands fall from her face, and turned her eyes full on the eyes of the young THE CHRISTENING OF YOUNG ElVAN 47 mother at her side. In dead silence the two rose to their feet together. ^ Confess his name ; whoever he is, he does not deserve that you should suiFer for him as well,' said the wife of Thorkell Mylrea, and as she spoke she touched the girFs white fore- head with her pale lips. ^ Do you ask that ? ' said Mally with a strained quietness. For one swift instant the eyes of these women seemed to see into each other's heart. The face of Thorkell' s wife became very pale ; she grew faint, and clutched the communion rail as she staggered back. At the next instant Mally Kerruish was being hurried by the sumner down the aisle ; the noisy concourse that had come with them went away with them, and in a moment more the old church was empty save for the com- pany that had gathered about the font. There was a great feast at Ballamona that 48 THE DEEMSTER day. The new house was finished, and the young Christian, Ewan Mykea, of Ballamona, was the first to enter it ; for was it not to be his house, and his children's, and his children's children's ? Thorkell's wife did not join the revels, but in her new home she went back to her bed. The fatigue and excitement of the day had been too much for her. Thorkell himself sat in his place, and laughed noisily and drank much. Towards sunset the sumner came to say that the girl who had been taken to prison at the Peel had confessed, and was now at large. The Archdeacon got up and went out of the room. Thorkell called lustily on his guests to drink again, and one stupefied old crony clambered to his feet and demanded silence for a toast. ' To the father of the girl's by-blow,' he shouted, when the glasses were charged ; and then the company laughed till the roof rang. THE CHRISTEXING OF YOUNG EWAN 49 and above all was the shrill laugh of Thorkell Mylrea. Presently the door opened again, and the Archdeacon, with a long grave face, stood on the threshold and beckoned to Thorkell at the head of his table. Thorkell went out with him, and when they returned together a little later, and the master of Balla- mona resumed his seat, he laughed yet more noisily than before, and drank yet more liquor. On the outside of Ballamona that night an old woman, hooded and caped, knocked at the door. The loud laughter and the ranting songs from within came out to her where she stood in the darkness, under the silent stars. When the door was opened by Hommy-beg the woman asked for Mylrea Ballamona. Hommy-beg repulsed her, and would have shut the door in her face. She called again, and again, and yet again, and at last, by reason of her importunity, Hommy-beg went in and told Thorkell, who got up and followed VOL. I. E so THE DEEMSTER liim out. The Archdeacon heard the message, and left the room at the same moment. Oatside, on the gravel path, the old woman stood with the light of the lamp that burned in the hall on her wizened face. It was Mrs. Kerruish, the mother of Mally. ' It's fine times you're having of it. Master Mylrea,' she said, 'and you, too, your rever- ence, but what about me and my poor girl? ' 'It was yourself that did it, woman,' said Thorkell ; and he tried to laugh, but under the stars his laugh fell short. ' Me, you say ? Me, was it for all ? May the good God judge between us. Master Mylrea. D'ye know what it is that's hajD- pened ? My poor girl's gone.' ' Gone I ' 'Eh, gone — gone off — gone to hide her shameful face ; God help her.' ' Better luck,' said Thorkell, and a short gurgle rattled in his dry throat. THE CHRISTENING OF YOUNG ElVAN 51 ' Luckj you call it ? Luck ! Take care, Ballamona/ The Archdeacon interposed. ^Come, no threats, my good woman,' he said, and waved his hand in protestation. ' The Church has done you justice in this matter.' ^ Threats, your reverence ? Justice ? Is it justice to punish the woman and let the man go free ? What ! the woman to stand penance six Sabbaths by the church- door of six parishes, and the man to pay his dirty money, six pounds to you and three to me, and then no mortal to name his name ! ' The old woman rummaged in the pocket at her side and pulled out a few coins. ^ Here, take them back ; I'm no Judas to buy my own girl. Here, I say, take them ! ' Thorkell had thrust his hands in his pockets, and was making a great show of laughing boisterously. The old woman stood silent for a moment, E 2 LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF ILLfNOfS 52 THE DEEMSTER and her pale face turned livid. Then by a sudden impulse she lifted her eyes and her two trembling arms. ' God in Heaven/ she said in a hoarse whisper, ' let Thy wrath rest on this man's head ; make this house that he has built for himself and for his children a curse to him and them and theirs ; bring it to pass that no birth come to it but death come with it, and so on and on until Thou hast done justice between him and me.' Thorkell's laughter stopped suddenly. As the woman spoke his face quivered, and his knees shook perceptibly under him. Then he took her by the arms and clutched her con- vulsively. ' Woman, woman, what are you saying ? ' he cried in his shrill treble. She disengaged herself and went away into the night. For a moment Thorkell tramped the hall with nervous footsteps. The Archdeacon stood speechless. Then the sound of laughter THE CHRISTENING OF YOUNG EWAN 53 and of song came from the room they had left, and Thorkell flung in on the merry-makers. ^ Go home, go home, every man of you ! Away with you ! ' he shouted hysterically, and then dropped like a log into a chair. One by one, with many wise shakes of many sapient heads, the tipsy revellers broke up and went off, leaving the master of Balla- mona alone in that chamber, dense with dead smoke, and noisome with the fumes of liquor. 54 THE DEEMSTER CHAPTER lY. THE DEEMSTER OF MAN. Twenty times that night Thorkell devised expedients to break the web of fate. At first his thoughts were of revengeful defiance. By- fair means or foul the woman Kerruish should sufi*er. She should be turned out of house and home. She should tramp the roads as a mendicant. He would put his foot on her neck. Then they would see what her un- canny threats had come to. He tried this unction for his afirighted spirit, and put it aside as useless. No, no ; he would conciliate the woman. He would settle an annuity of five pounds a year upon her ; he would give her the snug gate cottage THE DEEMSTER OF MAN 55 of old Ballamona to live in ; his wife should send her warm blankets in winter, and some- times a pound of tea, such as old folks love. Then must her imprecation fall impotent, and his own fate be undisturbed. Thorkell's bedroom in his new house on Slieu Dhoo looked over the Curraghs to the sea. As the day dawned he o^^ened the win- dow, and thrust out his head to drink of the cool mornino^ air. The sun was risino; over the land behind, a strong breeze was sweeping over the marshes from the shore, and the white curves of the breakers to the west reflected here and there the glow of the eastern sky. With the salt breath of the sea in his nostrils, it seemed to Thorkell a pitiful thing that a man should be a slave to a mere idea ; a thins; for shame and humiliation that the sneezino^ o of an old woman should disturb the peace of a strong man. Superstition was the bugbear of the Manxman, but it would die of shame 56 THE DEEMSTER at its sheer absurdity, only that it was pam- pered by the law. Toleration for superstition ! Every man who betrayed faith in omens or portents, or charms or spells, or the power of the evil eye, should be instantly clapped in the Castle. It was but right that a rabid dog should be muzzled. Thorkell shut the window, closed the shutters, threw off his clothes, and went back to bed. In the silence and the darkness, his thoughts took yet another turn. What mad- ness it was, what pertness and unbelief, to reject that faith in which the best and wisest of all acres had lived and died ! Had not omens and portents, and charms and spells, and the evil eye been believed in in all ages ? What midget of modern days should now arise with a superior smile and sa}^, ' Behold, this is folly : Saul of Israel and Saul of Tarsus, and Samuel and Solomon rose up and lay down in folly.' THE DEEMSTER OF MAN 57 Thorkell leapt out of bed, sweating from every pore. The old woman, Kerruish, should be pensioned ; she should live in the cosy- cottage at the gates of Ballamona ; she should have blankets and tea and many a snug com- fort ; her dauo;hter should be brouo-ht back and married — ^}^xs, married — to some honest fellow. The lark was loud in the sky, the rooks were stirring in the lofty ash, the swallows peckmg at the lattice, when sleep came at length to Thorkell' s blood- shot eyes, and he stretched himself in a short and fitful slumber. He awoke with a start. The lusty rap of Hommy-beg was at the door of his room. There was no itmerant postman, and it was one of Hommy-beg's daily duties to go to the Post Office. He had been there this morning, and was now returned with a letter for his master. Thorkell took the letter with nervous 58 THE DEEMSTER finsrers. He had recomised the seal — it was the seal of the insular Government. The letter came from Castle Rushen. He broke the seal and read : — * Castle Euslieu, June 3. ^ Sir, — I am instructed by his Excellency to beg you to come to Castletown without delay, and to report your arrival at the Castle to Madam Churchill, who will see you on behalf of the Duchess. ^ I have the honour to be, &c.' The letter was signed by the Secretary to the Governor. What did it mean ? Thorkell could make nothing of it but that in some way it boded ill. In a bewildered state of semi-conscious- ness he ordered that a horse should be got ready and brought round to the front. Half an hour later he had risen from an untouched breakfast and was seated in the saddle. He rode past Tynwald Hill and through THE DEEMSTER OF MAN 59 Foxdale to the south. Twenty times he drew up and half-reined his horse in another direc- tion. But he went on again. He could turn about at any time. He never turned about. At two o'clock that day he stood before the low gate of the Castle and pulled at the great clanging bell. He seemed to be expected, and was imme- diately led to a chamber on the north of the courtyard. The room was small and low ; it was dimly lighted by two lancet windows set deep into walls that seemed to be three yards thick. The floor was covered with a rush matting ; a harp stood near the fireplace. A lady rose as Thorkell entered. She was elderly, but her dress was youthful. Her waist was short \ her embroidered skirt was very long ; she wore s]3angled shoes, and her hair was done into a knot on the top of her head. Thorkell stood before her with the mien of 6o THE DEEMSTER a culprit. She smiled and motioned him to a seat, and sat herself. ^ You have heard of the death of one of our two Deemsters ? ^ she asked. ThorkelFs face whitened, and he bowed his head. ' A successor must soon be appointed, and the Deemster is ahyays a Manxman ; he must know the language of the common people.' Thorkell's face wore a bewildered expres- sion. The lady's manner was very suave. ' The appointment is the gift of the Lord of the island, and the Duchess is asked to suggest a name.' Thorkell's face lightened. He had regained all his composure. ' The Duchess has heard a good account of you, Mr. Mylrea. She is told that by your great industry and — wisdom — you have raised yourself in life — become rich, in fact.' The lady's voice dropped to a tone of most THE DEEMSTER OB MAN 6i insinuating suavity. Thorkell stammered some commonplace. ' Hush, Mr. Mylrea, you shall not depre- ciate yourself. The Duchess has heard that you are a man of enterprise — one who does not begrudge the penny that makes the pound.' Thorkell saw it all. He was to be made Deemster, but he was to buy his apjDointment. The Duchess had lost money of late, and the swashbuckler court she kept had lately seen some abrido'ment of its sraieties. ' To be brief, Mr. Mylrea, the Duchess has half an intention of suggesting your name for the post, but before doing so she wished me to see m what way your feelings lie with regard to it.' Thorkell' s little eyes twinkled, and his lips took an upward curve. He placed one hand over his breast and bent his head. * My feelings, madam, lie m one way only — the way of gratitude,' he said meekly. 62 THE DEEMSTER The lady's face broadened, and there was a pause. ^ It is a great distinction, Mr. Mylrea,' said the lady, and she drew her breath in- wards. ^ The greater my gratitude,' said Thorkell. ^ And how far would you go to show this gratitude to the Duchess ? ' ^ Any length, madam,' said Thorkell, and he rose and bowed. ^ The Duchess is at present at Bath ' ' I would go so far, and — farther, madam, farther,' said Thorkell, and as he spoke he thrust his right hand deep mto his pocket, and there — by what accident may not be said — it touched some coins that chinked. There was another pause, and then the lady rose and held out her hand, and said in a significant tone : ' I think, sir, I may already venture to hail you as Deemster of Man.' THE DEEMSTER OF MAN 63 Thorkell cantered home in great elevation of soul. The milestones fell behind him one after one, and he did not feel the burden of the way. His head was in his breast ; his body was bent over his saddle-bow ; again and ao;ain a trill of lio;ht lauo'hter came from his lips. Where were his dreams now, his omens, his spells, and the power of the evil eye ? He was judge of his island. He was master of his fate. Passing through St. John's, he covered the bleak top of the hill, and turned down towards the shady copse of Kirk Michael. Where the trees were thickest in the valley he drew rein by a low, long house that stood back to the road. It was the residence of the Bishop of the island, but it was now empty. The bishopric had been vacant these five years, and under the heavy rains from the hills and the strong winds from the sea the old house had fallen into decay. 64 THE DEEMSTER Thorkell sat in the saddle under the tall elms in the dim light, and his mind was busy with many thoughts. His memory went back with something akin to tenderness to the last days of old Ewan, his father ; to his brother, Gilcrist, and then, by a sudden transition, to the incidents of that morning at Castle Kushen. How far in the past that morning seemed to be ! The last rook had cawed out its low guttural note, and the last gleam of daylight died off between the thick boughs of the dark trees that pattered lightly overhead, as Thor- kell set off afresh. When he arrived at Ballamona the night was dark. The Archdeacon was sitting with his daughter, who had not left her room that day. Thorkell, still booted and spurred, ran like a squirrel up the stairs and into the bed- room. In twenty hot words that were fired off like a cloud of small shot from a blunder- THE DEEMSTER OF MAN 65 buss, Thorkell told what had occurred. His wife's white face showed no pleasure and be- trayed no surprise. Her silence acted on Thor- kell as a rebuke, and when her eyes rested on his face he turned his own eyes aside. The Archdeacon was almost speechless, but his look of astonishment was eloquent, and when Thorkell left the room he followed him out. At supper the Archdeacon's manner was that of deep amity. ' They are prompt to appoint a Deemster,' he said. ' Has it not struck you as strange that the bishopric has been vacant so long ? ' Thorkell laughed a little over his plate, and answered that it was strange. ^ Maybe it only needs that a name should be suo^o-ested,' continued the Archdeacon ' That is to say, suggested by a man of in iluence, a man of position — by the Deemster, for instance.' * Just that,' said Thorkell with a titter. VOL. I. r 66 THE DEEMSTER Then there was an mterchange of further amity. "When the two men rose from the table the Archdeacon said, with a conscious smile, ' Of course, if you should occur — if you should ever think — if, that is, the Deemster should ever suggest a name for the bishopric — of course, he will remember that — that blood, in short, is thicker than water — ta fuill ny scliee na ushtey, as the Manxman says.' ' I will remember it,' said Thorkell, in a sio'nificant tone, and with a faint chuckle. Satisfied with that day's work, with himself, and with the world, Thorkell then went off to bed, and lay down in peace and content, and slept the sleep of the just. In due course Thorkell Mylrea became Deemster Ballamona. He entered upon his duties after the briefest study of the Statute Laws. A Manx judge dispensed justice chiefly by the Breast Laws, the unwritten code locked in his own breast, and supposed to be handed THE DEEMSTER OF MAN 67 down from Deemster to Deemster. The popular superstition served Thorkell in good stead : there was none to challenge his know- ledge of jm-isprudence. As soon as he was settled in his office he began to make inquiries about his brother Gilcrist. He learned that after leavino' Cam- bridge Gilcrist had taken deacon's orders, and had become tutor to the son of an English nobleman, and afterwards chaplain to the nobleman's household. Thorkell addressed him a letter, and received a reply, and this was the first intercourse of the brothers since the death of old Ewan. Gilcrist had lately married ; he held a small living on one of the remote moors of Yorkshire ; he loved his people and was beloved by them. Thorkell wrote again and again, and yet again, and his letters ran through every tone of remonstrance and entreaty. The end of it was that the Deemster paid yet another visit to the lady P 2 68 THE DEEMSTER deputy at Castle Rushen, and the rumour passed over the island that the same potent influence that had made Thorkell a Deemster was about to make his brother the Bishop of Man. Then the Archdeacon came down in white wrath to Ballamona, and reminded his son-in- law of his many obligations, touched on bene- fits forgot, hinted at dark sayings and darker deeds, mentioned, with a significant accent, the girl Mally Kerruish, j^rotested that from causes not to be named he had lost the esteem of his clergy and the reverence of his flock, and wound up with the touching assurance that on that very morning, as he rode from Andreas, he had overheard a burly Manxman say to the tawny-headed fellow who walked with them — both of them the scabbiest sheep on the hills — ' There goes the pazon that sold his daughter and bought her husband.' Thorkell listened to the torrent of re- THE DEEMSTER OF MAN 69 proaclies, and then said quietly, as he turned on his heel, ' Xear is my shirt, hut nearer is my skin/ The Deemster's wife held up her head no more. After the christening she rarely left her room. Her cheeks grew thinner, paler they could not grow, and her meek eyes lost their faint lustre. She spoke little, and her interest in life seemed to be all but gone. There was the same abject submission to her husband, but she saw less of him day by day. Only the sight of her babe, when Kerry brought it to be nursed, restored to her face the light of a fleeting joy. If it stayed too long at her breast, if it cried, if its winsome ways made her to laugh outright, the swift recoil of other feelings saddened her to melan- choly, and she would put the child from her with a sigh. This went on for several months, and meantime the Deemster was too deeply immersed in secular affairs to make serious 70 THE DEEMSTER note of the shadow that hung over his house. ^ Goll sheese ny Ihiargagh — she's going down the steep pLaces/ said Kerry. It was winter when Gilcrist Mylrea was appointed to reach the island, but he wrote that his wife's health was failing her, that it was not unlikely that she was to bear a child, and that he preferred to postjDone his journey until the spring. Before the gorse bushes on the mountains had caught their new spears of green, and before the fishermen of Peeltown had gone down to the sea for their first mackerel, Thork ell's wife was lying in her last illness. She sent for her husband and bade him farewell. The Deemster saw no danger, and he laughed at her meek adieu. She was soon to be the mother of another of his children — that was all. But she shook her head when he rallied her, and when he lifted the little creeping, cooing, babbling Ewan from the floor to his mother's bed, and laughed and THE DEEMSTER OF MAN 71 held up his long, lean, hairy finger before the baby face and asked the little one with a pufF how he would like a little sister, the white face on the pillow twitched and fell, and the meek eyes filled, and the shadow was over all. ^ Grood-bye, Thorkell, and for baby's sake ' But a shrill peal of Thorkell' s laughter rang through the chamber, and at the next instant he was gone fi-om the room. ' That day the wife of the Deemster passed beyond the sorrows of the life that had no joys. The angels of life and death had come with linked hands to the new homestead of Ballamona, and the young mother had died in giving birth to a girl. "When the Deemster heard what had hap- pened his loud scream rang through every room of the house. His soul was in ferment ; he seemed to be appalled and to be stricken not with sorrow, but with fright and horror. 72 THE DEEMSTER ^ She's dead ; why, she's dead, she's dead,' he cried hysterically ; ' why did not soraebody tell rae that she would die ? ' The Deemster buried his wife by the side of old Ewan, under tlie elder tree that grew by the wall of the churchyard that stands over by the sea. He summoned no mourners, and few 'stood with him by the open grave. During the short funeral his horse was tied to the cross-timbers of the lych-gate, and while the earth was still falling in hollow thuds from the sexton's spade Thorkell got into the saddle and rode away. Before sunset he waited by the wooden landing jetty at Derby Haven. The old sea tub, the ' King Orry,' made the port that day, and disembarked her passengers. Among them was the new^ Bishop of Man, Gilcrist Mylrea. He looked much older for the six years he had been away. His tall figure stooped heavily ; his thick hair fell in wave- THE DEEMSTER OF MAN 7^ lets on his shoulders, and was already sprinkled with grey ; his long cheeks were deeply lined. As he stepped from the boat on to the jetty he carried something very tenderly in his arms. He seemed to be alone. The brothers met with looks of constraint and bewilderment. ' Where is your wife ? ' asked Thorkell. ' She is gone,' said Gilcrist. ' I have nothing left of her but this,' and he looked down at the burden at his breast. It was a baby boy. Thorkell's face whitened, and terror was in his eyes. 74 ^'-'^ 'EEJfSTER CHAPTEE T. THE ATAVXAIAXS BISHOP. GiLCEiST AIyleza had been confirmed Bishop, and consecrated in England : bnt he had to be installed in his cathedral church at Peeltown Tvith all the honours of the insular decrees. The ceremony was not an imposing one. Few of the nauTe population witnessed it. The Manxman did not love the Church with a love too fervent. * Pazon. pazon.' he would say. ' what can you expect from the like o' that ? Xever no duck wasn't hatched by a drake.' It was no merit in the eyes of the people that the new Bishop was himself a Manxman. •Aw. man.' they would say. * I knew his father.' and knowledge of the father implied a limita- tion of the respect due to the son. * What's THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 75 his family ? ' would l^e asked again and again across the hearth that scarcely knew its own family more intimately. ' Maybe some of the first that's going/ would be the answer, and then there would be a laugh. The Bishop was enthroned by Archdeacon Teare, who filled his function with what srace his chagrin would allow. Thorkell watched his father-in-law keenly during the ceremony, and more than once his little eyes twinkled, and his hps were sucked inwards as if he rolled a delectable morsel on his tongue. Archdeacon Teare was conscious of the close fire of his son-in-law's gaze, and after the installation was done, and the clergy that constituted priests and congregation were breaking up, he apj)roached the Deemster with a benevolent smile, and said, ^ '\A"eU, Thorkell. we've had some disaoreements. but we'll all meet for peace and harmony in heaven.' 76 THE DEEMSTER The Deemster tittered audibly, and said, ' I'm not so sure of that, though.' ^ No ? ' said the Archdeacon, with elevated eyebrows. ^ Why, why ? ' Because we read in the good Book that there will be no more tears^ Archdeacon,' said Thorkell, with a laugh like the whinny of a colt. The Bishop and his brother, the Deemster, got on their horses, and turned their heads towards the episcopal palace. It was late when they drove under the tall elms of Bishop's Court. The old house was lit up for their reception. Half- blind Kerry Quayle had come over from Ballamona to nurse the Bishop's child, and to put him to bed in his new home. ' Och, as sweet a baby-boy as any on the island, I'll go bail, as the old body said,' said Kerry, and the Bishop patted her arm with a gentle familiarity. He went up to the little room where the child lay asleep. THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 77 and stooped over the cot and touched with his lips the soft lips that breathed gently. The dignity of the Bishop as he stood four hours before under the roof of St. German's had sat less well on this silent man than the tender- ness of the father by the side of his motherless child. Thorkell was in great spirits that night. Twenty times he drank to the health of the new Bishop ; twenty times he reminded him of his own OTacious offices towards securino; the bishopric to one of his own family. Gil- crist smiled and responded in few words. He did not deceive himself; his eyes were open. He knew that Thorkell had not been so anxious to make him a Bishop as to prevent a place of honour and emolument from going to anyone less near to himself than his own brother. ' Near is my shirt/ as Thorkell had told the Archdeacon, ' but nearer is my skin.' Next day the Bishop lost no time in 78 THE DEEMSTER settling to his work. His people watched liim closely. He found his palace in a forlorn and dilapidated state, and the episcopal de- mesne, which was about a square mile of glebe, as fallow as the rough top of the mountains. The money value of this bishopric was rather less than 500/. a year, but out of this income he set to work to fence and drain his lands, plant trees, and restore his house to comfort if not to stateliness. ^ I find my Patmos in ruins,' he said, ' and that will oblige me to interrupt my charity to the poor in some measure.' He assumed none of the social dignity of a Bishop. He had no carriage and no horse for riding. When he made his pastoral visi- tations he went afoot. The journey to Douglas he called crossing the Pyrenees ; and he likened the toilsome tramp across the heavy Curraghs from Bishop's Court to Kirk Andreas to the passing of pilgrims across a desert. THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 79 ^ To speak truth,' lie Tvould say, ' I have a title too large for my scant fortune to main- tain/ His first acts of episcopal authority did not conciliate either the jDopulace or their superiors in station. He set his face against the contraband trade, and refused communion to those who followed it. ' Och, terrible, wonderful hard on the poor man he is, with his laws agen honest trading, and his by-laws and his customs and his canons and the like o' that messing.' It was soon made clear that the Bishop did not court popularity. He started a school in each of the parishes by the help of a lady, who settled a bounty, payable at the Bishop's pleasure, for the support of the teachers. The teachers were appointed by his vicars-general. One day a number of the men of his own parish, with Jabez Gawne, the sleek little tailor, and Matthias Jubman, the buirdly 8o THE DEEMSTER maltster, at tlieir head, came up to Bishop's Com't to complain of the schoolmaster ap- pointed to Kirk Michael. According to the mal- contents the schoolmaster was miable to divide his syllables, and his home, which was the schoolhouse also, was too remote for the con- venience of the children. ' So we beseech your Lordship,' said little Jabez, who was spokesman, ' to allow us a fit person to dis- charge the office, and with submission ice loill recommend one,'' The Bishop took in the situation at a glance ; Jabez' s last words had let the cat out of the bag, and it could not be said to be a Manx cat, for it had a most pro- digious tail. Next day the Bishop went to the school, examined master and scholars, then called the petitioners together and said, ' I find that James Quirk is qualified to teach an English school, and I cannot remove him ; but I am of your opinion that his house is in a remote part of the parish, and I shall expect THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 8i the parishioners to build a new schoolhouse in a convenient place, near the church, within a reasonable time, otherwise the bounty can- not be continued to them.' The answer staggered the petitioners, but they were men with the saving grace of humour, and through the mouth of little Jabez, which twisted into curious lines, they forthwith signified to his Lordship then* earnest desire to meet his wish by building their schoolhouse within the churchyard. Though a zealous upholder of Church authority, the Bishop was known to temper justice with mercy. He had not been a month in the diocese when his sumner told him a painful story of hard penance. A young girl from near Peeltown had been pre- sented for incontinence, and with the partner of her crime she had been ordered to stand six Sundays at the door of six churches. The man, who was rich, had compounded VOL. I. G 82 THE DEEMSTER with the Archdeacon, paymg six pounds for exemption, and behig thenceforward no more mentioned ; but the woman, being penniless and appalled at the disgrace before her, had fled from the island. The Archdeacon had learned her whereabouts in England, and had written to the minister of the place to acquaint him that she was under the Church's censure. The minister, on his part, had laid before her the terror of her position if she died out of communion with God's people. She resisted all appeals until her time came, and then, in her travail, the force of the idea had worked upon her, and she could resist it no more. When she rose from bed she returned volun- tarily to the island, with the sign of her shame at her breast, to undergo the peuance of her crime. She had stood three Sundays at the doors of three churches, but her health was feeble, and she could scarcely carry her child, so weak was she, and so long the THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 83 distances from lier lodging in Peeltown. ^ Let her be pardoned the rest of her penance/ said the Bishop. ' The Church's censure was not passed on her to afflict her with overmuch shame or sorrow.' It was not until years afterwards that the Bishop learned the full facts of the woman's case, and comprehended the terrible' signifi- cance of her punishment. She was Mally Kerruish. The island was in the province of York, and bound by the English canons, but the Bishop made his own canons, and none were heard to demur. Some of his judgments were strange, but all leaned towards the weaker side. A man named Quayle the Gyke, a blusterous fellow, a thorn in the side of every official within a radius of miles, died after a long illness, leaving nothing to a legitimate son who had nursed him affec- tionately. This seemed to the Bishop to be 84 THE DEEMSTER contrary to natural piety, and in the exercise of his authority he appointed tlie son an executor with the others. Quayle the younger lived, as we shall see, to return evil for the Bishop's good. A rich man of bad repute, Thormod Mylechreest, died intestate, leaving an illegitimate son. The Bishop ordered the ordinary to put aside a sum of money out of the estate for the maintenance and education of the child. But Thorkell came down in the name of the civil power, reversed the spiritual judgment, ordered that the whole belongings of the deceased should be confiscated to the Lord of the Isle, and left the base-begotten to charity. We shall also see that the bastard returned good for Thorkell' s evil. The canons and customs of Bishop Mylrea not only leaned — sometimes with too great indulgence — to the weaker side, but they supposed faith in the people by allowing a voluntary oath as evidence, and this made THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 85 false swearing a terror. Except in tlie degree of superstition, he encouraged belief in all its forms. He trusted an oath implicitly, but no man ever heard him gainsay his yea or nay. A hoary old dog known as Billy the Gawk, who had never worked within living memory, who lived as they said ' on the houses,' and frequented the pot-house with more than the regularity of religious observance, was not long in finding out that Bishop's Court had awakened from its j^i'otracted sleep. The Bishop had been abroad for his morning's ramble, and sitting on the sunny side of a high turf hedge looking vacantly out to sea, he heard footsteps on the road behind him, and then a dialogue, of which this is a brief summary : ^ Going up to the Coort, eh ? Ah, well, it's plenty that's there to take the edge off your stomach ; plenty, plenty, and a rael welcome too.' 86 THE DEEMSTER ' Ah, it's not tlie stomacli that's bothering me. It's the narves, boy, the narves, and a drop of the rael stuff is worth a Jew's eye for studdymg a man after a night of it, as the saying is.' ' Aw, Billy, Billy, aw well, well, well.' The conversation died off on the Bishop's ear in a loud roystering laugh and a low gurgle as undertone. Half an hour later Billy the Gawk stood before the Bishop inside the gates of Bishop's Court. The old dog's head hung low, his battered hat was over his eyes, and both his trembling hands leaned heavily on his thick blackthorn stick. ' And how do you live, my man ? ' asked the Bishop. ' I'm getting a bite here and a sup there, and I've had terrible little but a bit o' barley bread since yesterday morning,' said the Gawk. THE MAXXMAN-'S BISHOP 8; ^Poor man, that's hard fare/ said the Bishop ; ' but mind you call here every day for the future.' Billy got a measure of corn worth six- pence, and went straightway to the village, where he sold it at the pot-house for as much liquor as could have been bought for three- halfpence. .And as Billy the Gawk drank his drop of the real stuff he laughed very loud and boasted that he could outwit the Bishop. But the liquor got into his head, and from laughing he went on to swearing and thence to fighting, until the innkeeper turned him out into the road, where, under the weight of his measure of corn taken in solution, Billy sank into a dead slumber. The Bishop chanced to take an evening walk that day, and he found his poor pensioner, who fared hard, lodged on a harder bed, and he had him picked up and carried into the house. Xext morning, when Billy awoke and found where 88 THE DEEMSTER he was, and remembered what had occurred, an unaccustomed sensation took possession of him, and he stole away unobserved. The hoary old dog was never seen again at Bishop's Court. But if Billy never came again, his kith and kin came frequently. It became a jest that the Bishop kept the beggars from every house but his own, and that no one else could get a beggar. He had a book, which he called his ' Matricula Pauperum,' in which he entered the names of his pensioners, with notes of their circumstances. He knew all the bits of family history — when Jemmy Cork ell's wife was down with lumbago, and when liobbie Quirk was to kill his little pig. Billy the Gawk was not alone in thinking ♦ that he could outwit the Bishop. When the Bishop wanted a new pair of boots or a new coat, the tailor or shoemaker came to Bishop's THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 89 Court, and was kept there until liis job of work was finished. The first winter after his ar- rival in his Patmos, he wanted a cloak, and sent for Jabez Gawne, the sleek little fox who had been spokesman for the conspirators against James Quirk, the schoolmaster. Jabez had cut out the cloak, and was preparing it for a truly gorgeous adornment when the Bishop ordered him to put merely a button and a loop on it to keep it together. Jabez thereupon dropped his cloth and held up his hands where he sat cross -leo^ofed on the kitchen dresser, and exclaimed with every accent of aggrieved surprise : ' My Lord, what would become of the poor button-makers and their families if everyone ordered his tailor in that way ? ' ' How so, Jabez ? ' ' Why, they would be starved outright.' * Do you say so, Jabez ? ' ^ Yes, my Lord, I do.' 90 THE DEEMSTER ' Then button it all over, Jabez,' said the Bishop. The Deemster was present at that inter- view, and went away from it tittering audibly. ' Give to the raven and he'll come again,' he muttered. ' I forgot that poor Jabez would have his buttons in his breeches pocket,' said the Bishop. The Manxman had not yet made up his mind concerning the composite character of Bishop Mylrea, his dignity and his humility, his reserve and his simplicity, when a great event settled for the Manxman's heart the problem that* had been too much for his head. This was no less a catastrophe than a general famine. It came uj)on the island in the second year of the Bishop's residence, and was the cause of many changes. One of the changes was that the Bishop came to be regarded by his people with the reverence of Israel for THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 91 Samuel, and by liis brother, the Deemster, with the distrust, envy, and, at length, mingled fear and hatred of Saul for Israel's j)i'ophet. The land of the island had been held under a tenure of straw, known as the three-lives tenure ; the third life was everywhere running out, and the farms were reverting to the Lord of the Isle. This disheartened the farmers, who lost all interest in agriculture, let their lands lie fallo^N^, and turned to the only other industry in which they had an interest, the herrino; fishing;. The herrino-s failed this season, and without fish, with empty barns, and a scant potato crop, caused by a long summer of drought, the people were reduced to poverty. Then the Bishop opened wider the gates of Bishop's Court, which since his coming had never been closed. Heaven seemed to have given him a special blessing. The drought had parched up the grass even of the damp 92 THE DEEMSTER Cnrragh, and left bleached on tlie whitening mould the poor, thin, dwarfed corn, that could never be reaped. But the glebe of Bishop's Court gave fair crops, and when the people cried in the grip of their necessity the Bishop sent round a pastoral letter to his clergy, say- ino' that he had eio;ht hundred bushels of wheat, barley, and oats more than his house- hold required. Then there came from the north and the south, the east and the west, long straggling troops of buyers with little or no money to buy, and Bishop's Court was turned into a public market. The Bishop sold to those who had money at the price that corn fetched before the famine, and in his barn be- hind the house he kept a chest for those who came in at the back with nothing but a sack in their hands. Once a day he inspected the chest, and when it was low, which was fre- quently, he replenished it, and when it was high, which was rarely, he smiled, and said THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 93 that God was turning away his displeasure from his people. The eight hundred bushels were at an end in a month, and still the famine continued. Then the Bishop bought eight hundred other bushels ; wheat at ten shillings, barley at six shillinors. and oats at four shillino^s, and sold them at half these prices. He gave orders that the bushel of the poor man was not to be stroked, but left in heaped-up measure. A second month went by ; the second eight hundred bushels were consumed, and the famine showed no abatement. The Bishop waited for vessels from Liverpool, but no vessels came. He was a poor priest, with a great title, and he had little money ; but he wrote to England asking for a thousand bushels of grain and five hundred kischen of potatoes, and promised to pay at six days after the next annual revenue. A week of weary waiting ensued, and every day the Bishop cheered the 94 THE DEEMSTER haggard folk that came to Bishop's Court with accounts of the provisions that were coming ; and every day they went up on to the head of the hill, and strained their bleared eyes sea- ward for the sails of an English ship. When patience was worn to despair, the old ^ King Orry ' brought the Bishop a letter saying that the drought had been general, that the famine was felt throughout the kingdom, and that an embargo had been put on all food to forbid traders to send it from Eno^lish shores. Then the voice of the hungry multitudes went up in one deep cry of pain. ' The hunger is on us,' they moaned. ' Poor once, poor for ever,' • they muttered ; and the voice of the Bishop was silent. Just at that moment a further disaster threatened the people. Their cattle, which they could not sell, they had grazed on the mountains, and the milk of the cows had been the chief food of the children, and the wool of THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 95 the slieep the only clothmg of their old men. With parched meadows and Curraghs, where the turf was so dry that it would take fire from the sun, the broad tops of the furze- covered hills were the sole resource of the poor. At daybreak the shepherd with his six ewe lambs and one goat, and the day labourer with his cow, would troop up to where the grass looked greenest, and at dusk they would come down to shelter, with weary limbs and heavy hearts. ' What's it say in',' they would mutter, ' a green hill when far from me ; bare, bare, when it is near.' At this crisis it began to be whispered that the Deemster had made an offer to the Lord to rent the whole stretch of mountain land from Ramsey to Peeltown. The rumour created consternation, and was not at first believed. But one day the Deemster, with the Governor of the Grand Enquest, drove to the glen at Sulby and went up the hill-side. Xot lon^ 96 THE DEEMSTER after, a light cart was seen to follow the high road to the glen beyond Ballaugh and then turn up towards the mountains by the cart track. The joeople who were grazing their cattle on the hills came down and gathered with the people of the valleys at the foot, and there were dark faces and firm -set lips among them, and hot words and deep oaths were heard. ' Let's off to the Bishop,' said one, and then went to Bishop's Court. Half an hour later the Bishop came from Bishop's Court at the head of a draggled company of men, and his face was white and hard. They overtook the cart halfway up the side of the mountain, and the Bishop called on the driver to stop, and asked what he carried, and where he was going. The man answered that he had pro- visions for the Governor, the Deemster, and the Grand Enquest, who were surveying the tops of the mountains. The Bishop looked round, and his lip was THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 97 set, and his nostrils quivered. • Can any man lend me a knife ? ' lie asked with a strained quietness. A huge knife was handed to him, such as shepherds carry in the long legs of their boots. He stepped to the cart and ripped up the harness, which was rope harness, the shafts fell and the horse was free. Then the Bishop turned to the driver and said very quietly : ' Where do you live, my man ? ' * At Sulby, my Lord,' said the man, trem- bling with fear. ' You shall have leather harness to-mor- row.' Then the Bishop went on, his soiled and draggled company following him, the cart lying helpless in the cart track behind them. When they got to the top of the mountain they could see the Governor and the Deemster and their associates stretching the chain in the purple distance. The Bishop made in their VOL. I. H 98 THE DEEMSTER direction, and when he came up with them he said : ' Gentlemen, no food will reach you on the mountains to-day ; the harness of your cart has been cut, and cart and provisions are lying on the hill side.' At this Thorkell turned white with wrath, and clenched his fists and stamped his foot on the turf, and looked piercingly into the faces of the Bishop's followers. ' As sure as I'm Deemster,' he said with an oath, ^ the man who has done this shall suffer. Don't let him deceive himself — no one, not even the Bishop himself, shall step in between that man and the punishment of the law/ The Bishop listened with calmness, and then said, ' Thorkell, the Bishop will not intercede for him. Punish him if you can.' 'And so by God I will,' cried the Deem- THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 99- ster, and his eye traversed the men behind his brother. The Bishop then took a stejD forward. ' / am that man,' he said, and then there was a great silence. Thorkell's face flinched, his head fell be- tween his shoulders, his manner grew dogged, he said not a word, his brao^o^adocio was gone. The Bishop approached the Governor. ' You have no more right to rent these moun- tains than to rent yonder sea,' he said, and he stretched his arm towards the broad blue line to the west. ' They belong to God and to the poor. Let me warn you, sii', that as sure as you set up one stone to enclose these true God's acres I shall be the first to pull that stone down.' The Grand Enquest broke up in confusion, and the mountains were saved to the people. It blew hard on the hill top that day, and h2 loo THE DEEMSTER the next morning the news spread through the island that a ship laden with barley had put in from bad weather at Douglas Harbour. ^ And a terrible wonderful sight of corn, plenty for all, plenty, plenty,' was the word that went round. In three hours' time hun- dreds of men and women trooped down to the quay with money to buy. To all comers the master shook his head, and refused to sell. ' Sell, man — sell, sell,' they cried. ' I can't sell. The cargo is not mine. I'm a poor man myself,' said the master. ^ Well, and what's that it's sayin', " When one poor man helps another j)oor man, God laughs." ' The Bishop came to the ship's side and tried to treat for the cargo. ' I've given bond to land it all at White- haven,' said the master. Then the people's faces greT^' black, and deep oaths rose to their lips, and they turned THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP loi and looked into each other's eyes in their impotent rage. ^ The hunger is on us — we can't starve — ^let every herring hang by its own gill — let's board her,' they muttered among themselves. And the Bishop heard their threats. ' My people,' he said, ' what will become of this poor island unless God averts his awful judg- ments, only God himself can know ; but this good man has given his bond, and let us not bring on our heads God's farther displeasure.' There was a murmur of discontent, and then one long sigh of patient endurance, and then the Bishop lifted his hands, and down on their knees on the quay the people with fam- ished faces fell around the tall, drooping figure of the man of God, and from parched throats, and hearts well nigh as dry, sent up a great cry to heaven to grant them succour lest they should die. About a week afterwards, another ship put I02 THE DEEMSTER in by contrary winds at Castletown. It had a cargo of Welsh oats bound to Dumfries, on the order of the Provost. The contrary winds continued, and the corn began to heat and ^poil. The hungry populace, enraged by famine, called on the master to sell. He was powerless. Then the Bishop walked over his ^ Pyrenees,' and saw that the food for which his people hungered was perishing before their eyes. When the master said ' No ' to him, as to others, he remembered how in old time David, being an hungered, did that which was not lawful in eating of the shew- bread, and straightway he went up to Castle Eushen, got a company of musketeers, re- turned with them to the ship's side, boarded the ship, put the master and crew in irons, and took possession of the corn. What wild joy among the people ! What :shouts were heard ; what tears rolled down the stonv cheeks of stern men ! THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 103 ^ Patience ! ' cried the Bishop. ^ Bring the market weights and scales.' The scales and weiorhts were brouorht down to the quay and every bushel of the cargo was exactly weighed, and paid for at the j)rime price according to the master's re- port. Then the master and crew were libe- rated, and the Bishop paid the ship's freight out of his own purse. When he passed through the market-place on his way back to the Bishop's Court the people followed with eyes that were almost too dim to see, and they blessed him in cheers that were sobs. And then God remembered his people, and their troubles passed away. With the opening spring the mackerel nets came back to the boats in shining silver masses, and peace and plenty came again to the hearth of the poorest. The Manxman knew his Bishop now ; he knew him for the strongest soul in the dark 104 T^HE DEEMSTER hour, the serenest samt in the hour of Hght and peace. That hoary old dog, Billy the Gawk, took his knife and scratched ' B.M.,' and the year of the Lord on the inside of his cupboard door to record the advent of Bishop Mylrea. A mason from Ireland, a Catholic named Patrick Looney, was that day at work build- ing the square tower of the church of the market-place, and when he saw the Bishop pass under him he went down on his knees on the scaffold and dropped his head for the good man's blessing. A little girl of seven with sunny eyes and yellow hair stood by at that moment, and for love of the child's happy face the Bishop touched her head and said ' God bless you, my sweet child.' The little one lifted her innocent eyes to his eyes, and answered with a curtsey, ^ And God bless you, too, sir.' THE MANXMAN'S BISHOP 105 ^ Thank you, child, thank you,' said the Bishop. ' I do not doubt that your blessing will be as good as mine.' Such was Gilcrist Mylrea, Bishop of Man. He needed all his strength and all his tenderness for the trials that were to come. io6 THE DEEMSTER CHAPTER YI. THE COSY NEST AT BISHOP's COURT. The children of the Deemster and Bishop spent the first five years as one little brood in the cosy nest at Bishop's Court. The arrange- ment was agreeable to both brothers while it lasted. It left Ballamona a silent place, but the master recked little of that. The Deem- ster kept no company or next to none. He dismissed all his domestics except one, and Hommy-beg, who had been gardener hitherto, became groom as well. The new Ballamona began to gather a musty odour, and the old Ballamona took the moss on its wall and the lichen on its roof. The Deemster rose early and went late to bed. Much of the day was spent in the saddle passing from town to town THE COSY NEST AT BISHOP'S COURl 107 of his northern circuit, for he held a court twice weekly at Ramsey and Peeltown. To- wards nightfall he was usually back at his house, sitting alone by the fireplace, whether, as in the long nights of winter, a peat fire burned there, or, as in the summer evenings, the hearth was empty. Hardly a sound broke the dead quiet of the solitary place, save when some litiocious farmer who had cauo;ht his neighbour in the act of trespass brought him there and then for judgment to the Deemster's house by that most summary kind of summons — the force of superior muscles. On such occasions the plaintiff and defendant, with their noisy witnesses, would troop into the hall with the yaps and snaps of a pack of dogs, and Thorkell would twist in his chair and fine one of them, or perhaps both, and pocket their money, and then drive them all away dissatisfied, to settle their dispute by other means in the darkness of the road outside. io8 THE DEEMSTER 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 his head aslant, and with absent looks. There was wee Mono, 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 then 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 cr}^- ing over much, loving a good tug or a delight ful bit of a fight, and always feeling high disdain at bemg 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 THE COSY NEST AT BISHOP'S COURT 109 Mb 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 in- tently 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, Moi;a would be set on her feet, and \\\^ biggest baby of the four there j^resent 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 ^lide from his saddle, and the restless horse- ^nan would turn coachman and tug the mane )f his steed, and all the Bishop's long hair vYOuld tumble over his facC; what shrieks of no THE DEEMSTER 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 THE COSY NEST AT BISHOP'S COURT iii splashing the water on every side, and shriek- ing at every splash ; then the fearful commo- tion 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 began, and three night-dresses were popped over three wary 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 on 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 Bishoj) shaking gravely at them from over the counterj)ane, and then a hush broken by a question lisped 112 THE DEEMSTER 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. And so five tearing, romping years went by, and though they were the years of the famine and the pestilence, and of many another dark cloud that hung blackest over Bishop's Court, a world of happiness was crowded into them. Then when Ewan was six years old, and Danny and Mona were five, and the boys were buttoning their own corduroys, the Deemster came over from Ballamona and broke up the little nest of humming-birds. ^ Gilcrist,' said Thorkell, ' you are ruining the children, and I must take my own away from you.' The Bishop's grave face grew suddenly white, and when, after a pause he said, ' No, THE COSY NEST AT BISHOP'S COURT 113 no, Tliorkel], you don't mean tliat,' there was a tremor in liis deep voice. ' I do mean it,' said the Deemster. ' Let a father treat his children as the world will treat them when they have nothing but the world for their father — that's my maxim, and I'll act up to it with my own.' ' That's hard treatment, Thorkell,' said the Bishop, and his eyes began to fill. ' Spare the rod, spoil the child,' said Thorkell. ' Maybe you're right,' said the Bishop in a quivering voice, and he could say no more. But the Deemster was as good as his word. Ewan and Mona were removed to Ballamona. There they had no nurse, and shifted a good deal for themselves. They ate oaten cake and barley porridge three times a day, and that was to build up their bone an i brain ; they were bathed in cold water suinnier and winter, and til at was to make them hardy ; they VOL. I. I 114 THE DEEMSTER wore frocks with low necks, and tliat was to strengthen then' hmgs ; they went to bed without a light and fell asleep while trembling in each other's arms, and that was to make them brave and prevent them from becoming superstitious. If the spirit and health of the little ones did not sink under their Spartan training it was because Ts^ature was stronger than custom, and because God is very good to the bruised hearts of children. They did not laugh too loud when the Deemster was near, and they were never seen to pull his vest, or to tug him by his hair, or to ride across his back, which was never known to stoop low for their little legs to mount. The house was not much noisier, or dirtier, or less orderly for their presence ; they did not fill it with their voices, or tumble it out of its propriety with their busy fingers, as with Cousin Danny's powerful assistance they had filled and turn- THE COSY NEST AT BISHOP'S COURT 115 bled Bishop's Court, until ever}^ room in tlie comfortable old place seemed to say to yon Tvitli a wink and a nod, ' k child lives here ; this is his own home, and he is mastei* of the whole house.' But when they stole away to their own little room at the back, wliere no fire burned lest they should grow ' nc^h,' not all the masks that were ever made to make life look like a sorry tragedy could have hidden the joy that was always wanting to break out on their little faces. There they would romp and laugh and crow and sing, and Ewan would play at preaching with the back of a chair for a pulpit, and his pinafore for surplice, and Mona of the big eyes sitting on the floor below for choir and conoreo^ation. And if in the middle of their play it happened that all at once they remembered Danny, then Ewan's head would fall aside, and his look in an instant be far away, and Mona's lower lip ii6 THE DEEMSTER would liang suddenly, and the sunshine would straightway die out of lier laughing face. When the Bishop lost the Deemster's children he found a great void in his heart ; but little Danny troubled his big head not at all about the change that had taken place. He laughed just as loud, and never cried at all, and when he awoke in the morning and his cousins were not there, their place forth- with knew them no more. In a vague way he missed his playmates, but that only meant that the Bishop had to be his playmate even more than before, and the Bishop was nothing loath. Away they ran through the copse together, these boon companions, and if the Bishop hid behind a tree, of course Danny found him, and if it was Danny that hid, of course the Bishop searched high and low, and never once heard the merry titter that came from behind the gorse bush that was arm's length away, until, with a burst o^ laughter, THE COSY NEST AT BISHOP'S COURT wy Danny leapt out on liim like an avalanche. They talked one jargon, too, for Danny's indnstrious tongue could not say its tv, and it made an s of its f. ' How many 'heels has your cart got, carter ? ' ' Sour.' ' Very srosty to-day, master.' ' Well, then, come in to the sire.' In a strange and unconscious way the Bishop developed a sort of physical affinity with this sworn ally. AVhen no sound seemed to break the silence he could hear the little man's cry through three stout stone walls and up two flights of stairs. If the child fell and hurt himself half a mile from the house, the Bishop at home felt as if he had himself dropped on a sharp stone and cut his knee. If he clambered to the top of a high wall that was out of sight, the Bishop in his study felt dizzy. But extraordinary as was this affinity of the Bishop and his boy, the mtercourse that Ii8 THE DEEMSTER subsisted between Danny and liis nurse was yet more marvellous. The Bishop had merely a prescience of disaster threatening his darling ; but Kerry seemed, by an exercise of some nameless faculty, to know the child's where- abouts at any moment of clay or night. Half- blind at the time of the birth of little Ewan, Kerry Quayle had grown stone-blind since, and this extraordinary power was in truth her second sight. It was confined to Danny, her nursling, but over his movements it was an absolute gift. * Och,' she cried, leaping up from the spinning-wheel, ' the wee craythur's into the chapel, as the say in' is.' ' Impossible ! ' the Bishop answered ; ^ I've only this moment locked the door.' But Kerry and the Bishop went to the chapel to search for him, and found the fugi- tive, who had clambered in through an open window, lighting the candle at the reading- THE COS\ NEST AT BISHOP'S COURT 119 desk, after washing his black hands in the font. ^ Aw, now,' said Kerry, lifting np her hands and her blind face in horror, ' what's that it's saying, '' The little hemlock is sister to the bisr hemlock : " ' which was as much as to say that the small sin was akin to the great sin, and that little Danny, who had been caught in an act of sacrilege, would one day be guilty of worse. * Nonsense, woman, nonsense ; a child is but a child,' said the Bishop, leadmg the delinquent away. That day — it was Thursday of Whitsun week — Convocation was to be held at Bishop's Court, and the clerg}^ had already begun to gather in the library that looked west towards the sea. To keep Danny out of further mis- chief the Bishop led him to his own room, and there he poured water into a bowl and proceeded to bathe his eyes, which had latterly I20 THE DEEMSTER sliown signs of weakness. To do this lie had need to remove his spectacles, and he set them down on the table by his hand. Danny watched these proceedings with a roguish look, and when the Bishop's face was in the bowl he whipped up the spectacles and pushed them down his neck between his frock and his breast. With a whirr and a puff the Bishop shook the water from his face and dried it, and when the lash comb had tossed back his long hair he stretched his hand out for his spectacles. He could not feel them, and when he looked he could not see them, and then he called on Danny to search for them, and straightway the rogue was on hands and knees hunting in every possible and impos- sible place. But Danny could not find them, not he. Convocation was waiting for its chief, but the spectacles could not be found, and the Bishop, for all bookish services, was blinder than a bat without them. High and low, up THE COSY NEST AT BISHOP'S COURT 121 and down, on every table, under every paper, into every pocket, and still no spectacles. At length the Bishop paused and looked steadily into the eyes of the little man sitting on his haunches and tittering audibly. ' Where are the glasses ? ' Danny laughed very loud. ' Where are my glasses, Danny veg ? ' Danny veg laughed still louder. There was nothing to be made of an answer like that, so down on his knees went the Bishop again to see if the rogue had hidden the spectacles beneath the hearthrug, or under the seat of the settle, or inside the shaving-pot on the hearth. And all the time Danny, with his hands clasped under his haunches, hopped about the room like a frog with great starry eyes, and crowed and laughed till his face grew scarlet and the tears trickled down his cheeks. Blind Kerry came to say that the gentle- 122 THE DEEMSTER men wanted to know when the Bishop would be with them, as the saying was ; and two minutes afterwards the Bishop strode into the library through a Ime of his clergy, who rose as he entered, and bowed to him in silence when his tall figure bent slightly to each of them in turn. ' Your pardon, gentlemen, for this delay,' he said, gravely, and then he settled himself at the head of the table. Hardly had the clergy taken their seats when the door of the room was dashed open with a lordly bang, and into the muggy room, made darker still by twenty long black coats, there shot a gleam of laughing sunshine — Danny himself, at a hop, skip, and a jump, with a pair of spectacles perched insecurely on the slidino; brido'e of his diminutive nose. The Archdeacon was there that day, and when the intruder had been evicted by blind Kerry, who came in hot pursuit of him, he shook his head and looked as solemn and as wise as his little russet face would admit and said : ^ Ah, my Lord, ^^ou'll kill that child with kindness. May you never heap up for your- self a bad harvest ! ' The Bishop made no answer, but breathed on the restored spectacles, and rubbed them with his red silk handkerchief. 'I hold with the maxim of my son-in-law the Deemster/ the Archdeacon continued : ' let a child be dealt with in his father's house as the world hereafter will deal with him.' ' Xay, nay, but more gently,' said the Bishop. ' If he is a good man, ten to one the world will whip him — let him remember his father's house as a place of love.' ' Ah, my Lord,' said the Archdeacon, ' but what of the injunction against the neglect of the rod ? ' 124 * THE DEEMSTER The Bisliop bent his head and did not answer. Once in a way during these early years the Bishop took Danny across to BaUamona, and then the two little exiles in their father's house, banished from the place of love, would rush into the Bishop's arms, Mona at his chin, Ewan with hands clasped about his leg and flaxen head against the great seals that hung from his fob-pocket. But as for Danny and his cousins, and the cousins and Danny, they usually stood awhile and inspected each other with that solemnity and aloofness which is one of the phenomena of child manners, and then, when the reserve of the three hard little faces had been softened by a smile, they would forthwith rush at each other with mighty clenched fists and pitch into one another for five minutes together, amid a chorus of squeals. In this form of salutation Danny was never known to fail, and as he THE COSV NEST AT BISHOP'S COURT 125 was too much of a man to limit liis erreetino- to Ewan, lie always pitched into Mona with the same masculine impartiality. But the time came again when the saluta- tion was unnecessary, for they were sent to school together, and they saw each other daily. There was only one school to which they could be sent, and that was the parish school, the same that was taught by James Quirk, who ' could not divide his syllables,' according to the account of Jabez Gawne, the tailor. The parishioners had built their new schoolhouse near the church, and it lay about midway between Bishop's Court and Balla- mona. It was also about half way down the road that led to the sea, and that was a proximity of never-ending delight. After school on the long summer evenings the scholars would troop down to the shore in one tumultuous company, the son of the 126 THE DEEMSTER Bishop with the son of the cobbler, the Deemster's little girl with the big girl of Jabez, who sent his child on charity. Kagged and well clad, clean and dirty, and the biggest lad ' rioroino; ' the smallest, and not carino- a ha'porth if his name was the name of the Deem- ster or the name of Billy the Gawk. Hand in hand, Danny and Ewan, with Mona be- tween, would skip and caper along the sands down to where the grey rocks of the head jutted out into the sea and bounded the uni- verse; Mona prattling and singing, shaking out her wavy hair to the wind, dragging Danny aside to look at a seaweed, and pulling Ewan to look at a shell, tripping down to the water's edge, until the big bearded waves touched her boots, and then back once more with a half-frightened, half-affected, laughter- loaded scream. Then the boys w^ould strip and bathe, and Mona, being only a woman, would mind the men's clothes, or they would THE COSY NEST AT BISHOP'S COURT 127 shout altogether at the gulls, and Danny Trould mock Mother Gary's chicken and catch the doleful cry of the cormorant, and pelt with pebbles the long-necked bird as it sat on the rocks ; or he would clamber up over the slippery seaweed, across the sharp slate ribs to where the sea pinks grew in the corries and the sea duck laid her eo^o-s, and sino; out from some dizzy height to where Ewan held his breath below and ]\Iona stood crymg and trembling on the sands. What times for Danny! How the lad seemed to swell and grow every day of life ! Before he was ten he had outgrown Ewan by half an mch, and gone through a stand-up fight with every ruffian under twelve. Then down among the fishermen on the beach, what sport! Knocking about among the boats, pulling at the oars like mad, or tugging at the sheets, baling out and pushing ofi*, and riding away over the white breakers and 128 THE DEEMSTER shouting for pure devilment above the plash of the water. ■ Aw, man, it's all for the happy the lad feels inside,' said Billy Quilleash. Danny and Billy Quilleash were sworn chums, and the little sand-boy learned all the old salt's racy sayings, and went home to Bishop's Court and fired them off at his father. ' There's a storm coming,' the Bishop said one day, looking up at the scudding clouds. ' Ay, ay,' said Danny, with his small eye askew, ' the long cat's tail was going off at a slant awhile ago, and now the round thick skate yonder is hanging mortal low.' ' The wind is rising,' the Bishop said on another occasion. ^ Ay, Davy's ]3utting on the coppers for the parson,' said the young heretic. School, too, was only another playground to Danny, a little less tumultuous but no less delightful than the shore. The schoolmaster had grown very deaf since the days when the THE COSY NEST AT BISHOP'S COURT 129 Bishop pronounced him qualified to teach an Enghsh school. This deafness he did his best to conceal, for he had a lively recollection of the dissatisfaction of the parishioners, and he had a natural unwillingness to lose his bread and butter. But his scholars were not easily hoodwinked, and Danny, the daring young dog, would play on the master's infirmity. ' Spell me the word arithmetic,' the school- master might ask when the boys were ranged about his desk in class. And Danny would answer with a face of tragic solemnity, ' Twice one are two, twice two are four.' ' Very good,' the schoolmaster would reply. ' And now, sir, repeat me your multij)lication table — twice times.' And then, while the master held his head aside, as if in the act of intent listening, and the other boys twisted their faces to hide their grins or sniggered ojDenly, Danny, still with the face of a judge, would repeat a paraphrase of the familiar little hymn^ VOL. I. K 130 THE DEEMSTER 'Jemmy was a Welshman, Jemmy was a thief, Jemmy ' ' Don't speak so fast, sir, say your figures more plainly,' the school- master would interrupt. And Danny would begin again with a more explicit enun- ciation, ^ Jemmy Quirk was a Welshman, Jemmy ' Then the sniggers and the snorts would rise to a tumult. And down would come the master's cane on the desk. ^ Silence, boys, and let the boy say his table. Some of you big lads might take example by him, and be none the worse. Go on, Daniel — you are quite right so far — twice five are ten, twice six ' There was one lad in the school who could not see the humour of the situation, a slim, quiet boy, only a little older than Danny, but a long way ahead of him in learning, and one evening this solemn youngster hung behind when school was breaking up, and blurted out the mischief to the schoolmaster. He did not THE COSY NEST AT BISHOP'S COURT 131 get the reception he expected, for in dire wrath at the imputation that he was deaf, Mr. Quirk birched the informant soundly. Nor did the reward of his treachery end with birching. It did not take half an hour for the report of both birching and treachery to travel by that swiftest of telephones, the schoolboy tongue, through that widest of kingdoms, the world of school, and the same evening while Mona, on her way home, was gathering the blue-bells that grew on the lea of the yellow-tipped gorse, and Ewan was chasing the humming bee throuo:h the hot air that was thick with midges, Danny, with a face as white as a had- dock, was striding alone by a long circuit across the moor, to where a cottage stood by the path across the Head. There he bounded in at the porch, caught a boy by the coat, dragged him into the road, pummelled him with silent vigour, while the lad bellowed and struggled to escape. b:2 132 THE DEEMSTER In anotlier instant an old woman hobbled out of tlie cottage on a sticky and with that weapon she made for Danny, and gave him sundry hard raps on the back and head. ' Och, the craythur,' she cried, *get off with ye — the damon — extraordinary — would the Lord think it now — it's in the breed of ye — get off, or I'll break every bone in your skin.' Danny paid as little heed to the old woman's blows as to her threats, and was up with his fist for the twentieth time to come down on the craven traitor who bellowed in his grip, when all at once a horse's feet were, tramping about their limbs where they struggled in the road, and a stern voice from over their heads shouted, ' Stop, stop, or must I bring the whip across your flanks ? ' It was the Deemster. Danny fell aside on the right of the horse, and the old woman and the boy on the left. THE COSY NEST AT BISHOP'S COURT 133 ^ What does this mean ? ' asked the Deem- ster, turning to his nephew ; but Danny stood there panting, his eyes like fire, his fists clenched, his knuckles standing out like ribs of steel, and he made no answer. ' Who is this blubbering coward ? ' asked the Deemster, pointing with a contemptuous gesture to the boy half hidden by the old woman's dress. ^ Coward, is it? ' said the woman. ' Coward, you say ? ' ' Who is the brat, Mrs. Kerruish ? ' said the Deemster, sharply. At that Mrs. Kerruish, for it was she, pulled the boy from behind her, plucked off his hat, ran her wrinkled hand over his fore- head to his hair, and held ap his face and said : * Look at him, Deemster ; look at him. You don't come this way often, but look at him while you're here. Did you ever see his 134 THE DEEMSTER picture before? Never? Never see a face like that ? No ? Not when you look in the glass, Deemster ? ' ' Get into the house, woman,' said the Deemster, in a low, thick tone, and, so saying, he put the spurs to his horse. ' As for this young demon here,' said the old woman, pushing the boy back and point- ing with her stick at Danny, ' he'll have his heel on your neck yet. Deemster — and re- member the word I'm saying.' CHAPTER VII. Now Danny was a great favourite with the Deemster, and nothing that he could do was amiss. The sjDice of mischief in the lad made him the darling of the Deemster's heart. His own son disappointed the Deemster. He seemed to have no joy in him. Ewan was quiet, and his father thought him a milksop. There was more than one sense in which the Deemster was an indifferent judge of his species, but he found no difficulty in compre- hending the idiosyncrasy of his brother's son. Over the pathetic story of Danny's maddest prank or the last mournful account of his daring devilry, the Deemster would chuckle 136 THE DEEMSTER and shake, and roll his head between his shoulders, then give the boy a slap on his hindmost part, accompanied by a lusty name, and finally rummage for something in his pocket, and smuggle that something into the young rascal's palm. Danny would be about fifteen years of age — a lump of a lad. and therefore out of the leading-strings of his nurse, Kerry Qaayle, — when he concocted a most audacious scheme, whereof Kerry was the chief subject and victim. This had nothing less for its aim and object than to get Kerry married to Hommy-beg — the blind woman to the deaf man. Xow Hommy was a gaunt, raw-boned man, dressed in a rough blue jacket and a short grey petti- coat. His fall and proper name was now quite lost. He was known as Hommy-beg, some- times as Hommy-beg-Bill, a name which at once embodied a playful allusion to his great physique, and a certain genealogical record in DANNY, THE MADCAP 137 sliowing that he was little Tom, the son of Bill. Though scarcely short of stone deaf, he was musical. He played two instruments, the fiddle and the voice. The former squeaked like a rasj), and the latter thundered like a fog-horn. Away to Ballamona Master Danny went, and found Hommy-beg thinning a bed of peonies. ' Aw, man, the terrible fond she is of the like o' that swate flower,' said the young rogue, who spoke the home-spun to the life. ' Aw, dear, the way she smells at them when you bring them up for the Bishop ! ' ' What, ould Kerry ? Smelling, is it ? And never a whiff of a smell at the breed o' them ! ' ' Och no, it's not the flowers, it's the man, the man, Hommy.' ' That'll do, that'll do. And blind, too ! Well, weU.' ' But the swate temper that's at her, 138 THE DEEMSTER Hommy ! And the coaxing and coaxing of her ! And, man alive, the fond she is of you ! A fine sort of a man anyways^ and A raelgood voice at him. Aw, extraordinary, extraordi- nary.' ' D'ye raely mane it ? ' ' Mane it ? Aw, well, well, and who but you doesn't know it, Hommy ? ' ' Astonishing, astonishing ! ' ' Come up to the Coort and take a cup o' tay with her.' Hommy-beg scratched his head. ' Is it raely true, Danny veg ? ' ' I'll lave it with you, Hommy,' said Danny, and straightway the young rascal went back to Bishop's Court, lighted upon blind Kerry, and entered upon a glowing description of the personal charms of Hommy-beg. ' Aw, the good-looking he is, astonishing ! My gough ! You should see him in his Sunday hat, or maybe with a frill on his shirt, 139 and smiling, and all to that ! Terrible dacent sort is Hommy-beg ! ' * What, the loblolly-boy in the petticoat ? ' * Aw, but the tender-hearted he is for all, and, bless me, Kerry woman, the swate he is on you ! ' * What, the ould red-head that comes sing- ing, as the saying is ? ' ' Aw, no, woman, but as black as the raven, and the way he looks sorrowful like when he comes beside of you. You wouldn't believe it ! And, bless me, the rael bad he is to come up to the Coort and take a cup of tay with you, and the like o' that.' ' Do you raely mane it, Danny, my chree? ' The very next day Hommy-beg arrived at the kitchen door of Bishop's Court in his Sunday hat, in the shirt with the frill to it, and with a peony as big as a March cabbage in his fist. The end of it all was that Kerry and Hommy-beg were forthwith asked in I40 THE DEEMSTER cliurcli. Wild as the freak was that made the deaf man and the blind woman man and wife, their marriage was none the less happy for their infirmities. The Deemster heard of the plot on his way to church on Sunday morning, and he laughed in his throat all through the service, and when the first of the askings was solemnly pro- claimed from the reading-desk he tittered audibly in his pew. ' Danny was tired of the woman's second sight — found it inconvenient, very — wanted to be rid of her — good ! ' he chuckled. But not long afterwards he enjoyed a jest that was yet more to his taste, for his own prime butt of ridicule, the Church itself, was then the victim. It was an old Manx custom that on Christmas Eve the church should be given up to the people for the singing of their native carols or carvals. The curious service was known as Oiel Yerree (the Eve of Mary), and DANNY, THE MADCAP 141 at every such service for the last twenty years Hommy-beg, the gardener, and Mr. James Quirk, the schoohnaster, had officiated as singers in the strange Manx ritual. Great had hitherto been the rivalry between these musical celebrities, but word had gone round the town that at length their efforts were to be combined in a carol which they were to sing together. Dan had effected this extra- ordinary combination of talent by a plot which was expected to add largely to the amusement of the listeners. Hommy-beg could not read a syllable, yet he never would sing his carol without having the printed copy of it in his hand. Of course Mr. Quirk, the schoolmaster, could read, but, as we have seen, he resembled Hommy-beg in being almost stone-deaf. Each could hear himself sing, but neither could hear another. And now for the plot. Master Dan called on the gardener at his cottage on the Brew on 142 THE DEEMSTER the morning of the day before Christmas Day, and ' Hommy,' said he, ^ it's morthal strange the way a man of your common sense can't see that you'd wallop that squeaking ould Jemmy Quirk in a jiify if you'd only consent to sing a ballad along of him. Bless me, man alive, it's then they'd be seeing what a weak, ould cracked pot of a voice is at him.' Hommy-beg's face began to wear a smile of benevolent condescension. Observing his advantage, the young rascal continued, ^ Do it at the Oiel Verree to-night, Hommy. He'll sing his treble, and you'll sing seconds to him.' Itjwas an unlucky remark. The gardener frowned austerely. ^ Me sing seconds to the craythur ? No ; never ! ' Dan explained to Homroy-beg, with a world of abject apologies, that there was a sense in which seconds meant firsts, and at length the gardener was mollified, and con- sented to the proposal ; but one idea was DANNY, THE MADCAP 143 firmly rooted in his mind — namely, tliat if he was to sing a carol with the schoolmaster, he must take the best of care to smo; his loudest, in order to drown at once the voice of his rival, and the bare notion that it was he who was singing seconds to such a poor creature as that. Then Master Danny trotted off to the schoolhouse, where he was now no lono-er a scholar, and consequently enjoyed an old boy's j^rivilege of approaching the master on equal terms, and ' Jemmy,' he said, '• it's morthal strange the way a man of your com- mon sense can't see that you'd wallop that squeaking old Hommy-beg in a jiffy if you'd only consent to sing a ballad along of him. Do it at the Oiel Yerree to-night. Jemmy, and bless me ! that's the when they'll be seeing what a weak, ould crackpot of a voice is at the craythur.' The schoolmaster fell even an easier prey 144 I^HE DEEMSTER to the plot than the gardener had been. A carol was selected ; it was to be the ancient Manx carol on the bad women mentioned in the Bible as having (from Eve downward) brought evil on mankind. Now, Hommy-beg kept his carols pinned aofainst the walls of his cottao;e. The ^ Bad Women' was the carol which was pinned above the mantel-piece just under the pen- dulum of the clock with the facetious face. It resembled the other prints in being worn, crumpled, and dirty ; but Hommy-beg knew it by its position, and he could distinguish every other carol by its place on his walls. Danny had somehow got a ^ skute ' into this literary mystery, and after arranging with the schoolmaster the carol that was to be sung, he watched Hommy-beg out of his cot- tage, and then went into it under pretence of a friendly call upon blind Kerry. Before he left the cottage he had taken down the carol that DANNY, THE MADCAP 145 had been pinned above the mantel-piece and fixed up another in place of it from the oppo- site side of the room. The substituted carol happened, oddly enough, to be a second copy of the carol on ' Bad Women,' with this radi- cal difference : the copy taken from under the clock was the version of the carol in English, and the copy put up was the version in Manx. Towards ten o'clock that night the church bells began to ring, and Hommy-beg looked at the clock, took the carol from under the pendulum, put on his best petticoat, and went oiF to cliurch. Xow, there were to be seasonable rejoic- ings at the Court on the morrow, and Kerry had gone over to help at the Christmas prepa- rations. Ewan and Mona had always spent their Christmas at Bishop's Court since the day when they left it as children. That night they had arrived as usual, and after they had spent some hours with Danny in dressing the VOL. I. L 146 THE DEEMSTER house in a green and red garment of hibbin and boUin, tbe Bishop had turned them off to bed. Danny's bedroom was the httle crib over the library, and Ewan's was the room over that. All three bade the Bishop good- night and went into their rooms. But Danny did not go to bed ; he listened until he heard the Bishop in the library twisting his chair and stirring the peats, and then he whipped off his boots and crept upstairs to Ewan's room. There in bated breath he told of the great sport that was to come oiF at the Oiel Verree, announced his intention of going, and urged Ewan to go with him. They could just jump through the little window of his room and light on the soft grass by the library wall, and get in again by the same easy means. No one would know that they had been out, and what high jinks they must have ! But no, Ewan was not to be persuaded, and Danny set off alone. DANNY, THE MADCAP 147 Hommy-beg did not reach tlie church until the parson's sermon was almost over. Prayers had been said in a thin congregation, but no sooner were they done than crowds of young men and maidens trooped down the aisles. The young women went up into the gallery, and from that elevation they shot down at their bachelor friends large handfuls of peas. To what ancient spirit of usage, beyond the ancient spirit of mischief, the strange practice was due, we must be content to leave, as a solemn problem, to the learned and curious antiquaries. Xearly everybody carried a candle, and the candles of the young women were adorned with a red ribbon or rosette. In passing out of the church the parson came face to face with Hommy-beg, who was pushing his way up the aisle. The expres- sion on his face was not at the moment one of peculiar grace, and he stopped the gardener and said sharply in his ear, ' Mind you L 2 148 THE DEEMSTER see that all is done in decency and order, and tliat you close my churcli before mid- night.' ' Aw, but the church is the people's, I'm thinldn',' said Hommy-beg with a shake of his tousled head. ' The people are as ignorant as goats,' said the parson angrily. ^ Aw, well, and you're their shepherd, so just make sheeps of them,' said Hommy-beg, and he pushed on. Danny was there by this time, and, with a ilxce of mighty solemnity, he sat on the right of Hommy-beg, and held a candle in his left hand. When everything was understood to be ready, and Will-as-Thorn, the clerk, had taken his station inside the communion rail, the business of the Oiel Yerree began. First one man got up and sang a carol in English ; then another sans; a Manx carol. But the great event of the night was to be the carol DANNY, THE MADCAP 149 sung by tlie sworn enemies and rivals, Hommy-beg and Mr. James Quirk. At last the time came for tliese worthies. Tliey rose from opposite sides of the church, eyed each other with severe looks, stepped out of their j^ews and walked down the aisle to the door of the porch. Then they turned about in silence, and, standing side by side, faced the communion. The tittering in the gallery and whisper- ing in the body were audible to all except the persons who were the cause of both. * Hush, hush, man alive, that's him, that's him.' ' Bless me, look at Hommy-beg and the petticut, and the handkercher pinnin' round his throat.' ' Aw, dear, it's what he's used of.' ' A regular Punch and Judy.' Danny was exerting himself at that mo- ment to keep order and silence. ' Hush, man, let them make a start for all.' The carol the rivals were about to sing ISO THE DEEMSTER contained some thirty verses. It was an ancient usage that after each verse the carol singers should take a long stride towards the communion. By the time the carol of ' Bad Women ' came to an end the carol singers must, therefore, be at the oj^posite end of the church. There was now a sublime scorn printed on the features of Mr. Quirk. As for Hommy- beg, he looked, at this last instant, like a man who was rather sorry than otherwise for his rash adversary. ^ The rermantic they're looking,' whispered a girl in the gallery to the giggling com- panion beside her. Expectation was at its highest when Hommy-beg thrust his hand into his pocket and brought out the printed copy of the carol. Hommy unfolded it, glanced at it with the air of a conductor taking a final look at his score, nodded his head at it as if in approval. DANNY, THE MADCAP 151 and then, with a magnanimous gesture, held it between himself and Mr. Quirk. The schoolmaster in turn glanced at it, glanced again, glanced a third time at the paper, and up into the face of Hommy-beg. Anxiety was now on tiptoe. ' Hush, d'ye hear, hush,' whispered Danny from his pew ; ' hush, man, or it's spoiling it all you'll be, for sure.' At the moment when Mr. Quirk glanced into the face of Hommy-beg there was a smile on that countenance. Mr. Quirk mistook that smile. He imagined he saw a trick. The schoolmaster could read, and he per- ceived that the carol which the gardener held out to him was not the carol for which he had been told by Master Danny to prepare. They were, by arrangement, to have sung the English version of ' Bad Women.' This was the Manx version, and though the metre was the same, it was always sung to a different 152 THE DEEMSTER tune. Ah ! Mr. Quirk understood it all ! The monster wanted to show that he, James Quirk, schoolmaster, could only sing one carol ; but, as sure as his name was Jemmy, he would be equal w^ith him ! He could sing this Manx version, and he would. It was now Mr. Quirk's turn to smile. ' Aw, look at them — the two of them — grinnin' together like a pair of old gurgoils on the steeple ! ' At a motion of the gardener's hand, in- tended to beat the time, the singers began. Hommy-beg sang the carol agreed upon — the English version of ' Bad Women.' Mr. Quirk sang the carol they held in their hands — the Manx version of ' Bad Women.' Neither heard the other, and to dispel the bare notion that either was singing seconds, each bawled at the utmost reach of his lung power. To one tune Hommy-beg sang — Thus from the days of Adam Her mischief you may trace. DANNY, THE MADCAP 153 And to another Mr. Quirk sang — She ish va'n voir ain ooilley Son v'ee da Adam ben. Such laughter! How the young women in the gallery lay back in their seats with hysterical shrieks ! How the young fellows in the body made the sacred edifice ring with guffaws ! But the singers, with eyes stead- fastly fixed on the paper, heard nothing but each his own voice. Three verses had been sung, and three strides made towards the communion, when suddenly the laughter and shouting of the people ceased. All eyes had turned towards the porch. There the Bishop stood, with blank amazement printed on his face, his head bare, and one hand on the half- opened door. If a spectre had appeared the consterna- tion had scarcely been greater. Danny had been rolling in his pew with unconstrained 154 THE DEEMSTER laughter, but at sight of the Bishop his candle fell from his hand and sputtered on the book rail. The Bishop turned about, and before the people had recovered from their surprise he was gone. At the next moment everybody got up without a word and left the church. In two minutes more not a soul remained except Hommy-beg and Mr. Jemmy Quirk, who, with eyes riveted on the printed carol in their hands, still sang lustily, oblivious of the fact that they had no audience. When Danny left the church that night it was through the lancet windoAV of the vestry. Dropping on the turf at the north-east of the church, he leapt the wall that divided the churchyard from a meadow on the north, and struck upon a path that went round to Bishop's Court by way of the cliff head. The path was a long one, but it was lonesome, and its lonesomeness was no small merit in Danny's view that night. The Bishop must DANNY, THE MADCAP 155 return to the Court by the highway through the village, and the Bishop must be in front of him. The night was dark and dumb, and, laden with salt scent, the dank Yaj)our floated up from the sea. Danny walked quickly. The deep boom of the waters rolling on the sand below came up to him through the dense air. Late as was the hour, he could hear the little sand-j)iper screaming at Orris Head. The sea swallow shot over him too, with its low mournful cry. Save for these sounds, and the quick beat of his own feet, all was still around him. Beneath his stubborn bit of scepticism Danny was superstitious. He was full to the throat of fairy lore and stories of witchcraft. He had learned both from old Billy Quilleash and his mates as they sat barking their nets on the shore. And that night the ghostly memories would arise, do what he mio-ht to 156 ■ THE DEEMSTER keep them down. To banish them Danny began to whistle, and, failing to enliven him- self much by that exercise, he began to sing. His selection of a song was not the happiest under the circumstances. It was the doleful ballad of ' Myle Charaine.' Danny sang it in Manx, but here is a stave of it in Eno^lish : — Oh, Myle Charaine, where got you your gold ? Lone, lone, you have left me here ; Oh, not in the Curragh, deep under the mould — Lone, lone, and void of cheer. He had come up to Bishop's Court on the sea front, and there the Bishop's library stood out from the body of the old house, between the cbapel porch and the kitchen offices. A light was in the library, and passing over the soft grass with the soft flight of a lapwing, Danny peered in at the curtainless window. The familiar room was empty. On the hearth a turf fire burned without flame, and bathed the book-encased walls in a rosy red. '^he DANNY, THE MADCAP 157 Bishop's easy chair, in its white covering, stood at one side of the mgie, his slippers in front of it ; and beside it, on the little three- legged mahogany table, were the ink-horn and the long quill, and the Bishop's four- cornered library cap. The door stood ajar, and the two candles in the two brass brackets at each side of the fire-place were tipped by their extinguishers. The Bishop had not returned ; but the faint smile of triumph which at that thought rested like a ray of pale sunshine on Danny's face suddenly vanished. In a lad's vague way Danny now realised that it had not been merely because the night was dark and the road lonely that he had whistled and sung. He hung his head where he stood in the night, and as if by an involuntary movement he lifted his cap and fumbled it. At the next instant Danny was clambering up the angle of the wall to the lead flat that 158 THE DEEMSTER covered tlae projecting part of the library. From this lead flat there opened the window of his own bedroom, and in a moment he was striding through it. All was darkness with- in, but he needed no light to see his way in that room. He knew every crib and corner ; the place where he kept his fishing lines, the nail from which his moth net hung, the bottle on the drawers in which he had his minnows, and the can with the lid well down that con- tained the newts that were the terror of all the women in the house. If Danny had been as blind as old Kerry he could have found everything his room had in it, except, perhaps, his breeches, or his shirt, or his other coat, or that cap that was always getting itself lost, and of course no sight and no light would help a lad to find things like these. Hardly had Danny taken a step mto his room before he realised that someone had been there since he left it. Derry, his white- 159 eyed collie, who had been lying on the bed, dropped on the floor, and frisked about him. * Down, Derry, down ! ' he whispered, and for a moment he thought it might have been Derry that had pushed open the door. But the doom's snout could not have turned down the counterpane of the bed, or o^Dened the top drawer that held the fishing flies, or rum- mao;ed amono; the lono' rods in the corner. o o o The counterpane lay double, the drawer stood open, the rods were scattered — someone had been there to look for him, and, not finding him, had tried to find a reason for his absence, and that someone had either come into the room in the dark, or — been blmd. ' Aw, it's always Kerry that's in it,' Danny told himself, and with an unpleasant remem- brance of Kerry's strange faculty, whereof he was the peculiar victim, he reflected that his race home had been vain. Then on the instant Danny found himself concocting a i6o THE DEEMSTER trick to defeat appearances. He had a foot on the stairs to carry out his design when he heard the door at the front of the house open and close, and a famihar step pass through the halh The Bishop had returned. Danny waited and listened, ^ow there was talking in the library. Danny's quick ear could scarcely distinguish the words, but the voices he could not mistake — they were the voices of the Bishop and blind Kerry. With a stealthy stride Danny went up to Ewan's room. Ewan was' sleeping. Feeling hot and cold together, Danny undressed and turned into bed. Before he had time to bury his head under the clothes he heard the Bishop on the stairs. The footsteps passed into the room below, and then after an interval they were again on the stairs. In another moment Danny knew, though of course his eyes were fast shut, and he was sleeping most profoundly, that the Bishop with a lighted candle in his hand was leaning- over him. DANNY, THE MADCAP i6i It would wrong the truth to say that Master Danny's slumber was disturbed that night ; bat next morning when the boys awoke together, and Ewan rose on his elbow with a puzzled gaze at his unexpected bed- fellow, Danny sidled out of the bed on to the floor, and, without looking too much into Ewan's face, he began his toilet, as was his wont, by putting on his cap. He had got this length, and was standing in cap and shirt, when he blurted out the mischief of last night's adventure, the singing, the sudden appearance of the Bishop, the race home along the cliff, and the coming up to bed. ' But you won't let on, Ewan, will you ? ' he said. Ewan looked at that moment as if the fate of the universe hung on his answer, but he gave the promise that was required of him. Then the boys went downstairs and found Mona, and imparted the dread secret to her. Pre- sently the Bishop came in to breakfast with a VOL. I. M 1 62 THE DEEMSTER face that was paler than usual, and more than ordinarily solemn. ' Danny/ he said, ' why did you not sleep in your own bed last night, my boy ? ' ' I slept with Ewan, father,' Danny an- swered promptly. The Bishop said no more then, and they all sat down at the table. ^And so you two boys went to bed to- gether — together ? ' he said, and, with a dig of emphasis on his last word, repeated, he looked at Ewan. Ewan's face crimsoned, and his tongue faltered, ' Yes, uncle.' The Bishop's eyes fell. ' Boys,' he said in another tone, ' would you think it ? I have done you a great wrong.' The boys were just then most intent on the table-cloth. ' You must know,' the Bishop went on, ' that there was a most unseemly riot at the DANNY, THE MADCAP 163 Oiel ^^erree, and all niglit long I have been sore troubled by the bad thought that Danny was in the midst of it.' The boys held their heads very low over their plates, and Mona's big eyes filled visibly. Danny's impulse was to blurt out the whole mischief there and then, but he re- flected that to do so would be to charge Ewan with falsehood. Ewan, on his part, Avould have confessed to the deception, but he knew that this would mean that Danny must be punished. The boy's wise head could see no way out of a tangle like that. The break- fast was the quietest ever eaten on a Christ- mas morning at Bishop's Court, and, little as the talking was, the Bishop, strangely enough, did it all. But when they rose from the table, and the boys slunk out of the room with most portentous gravity, Mona went up to the Bishop with a face full of liquid grief, and turning the whole depths of her great M 2 i64 THE DEEMSTER troubled eyes upon him, the little maiden said, * Ewan didn't mean to tell you what wasn't true — and cousin Danny didn't intend to deceive — but he was — that is, Danny — I mean — dear uncle, you won't — ' ' You mean that Dann}^ was at the Oiel Verree last night— I know it, child, I know it,' said the Bishop, and he patted her head and smiled. But the Bishop knew also that Danny had that day made one more step down the steep of life, and left a little ghost of his child- self behind him, and in his secret heart the Bishop saw that shadowy form, and wept over it. i65 CHAPTER YIII. PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN. Now the facts of this history must stride on some six years, and in that time the Deemster had lost nearly all the little interest he ever felt in his children. Mona had budded into womanhood, tender, gracious, quiet, a tall, fair-haired maiden of twenty, with a drooping head like a flower, with a voice soft and low, and the full blue eyes with their depths of love and sympathy shaded by long fluttering lashes as the trembling sedge shades the deep mountain pool. It was as ripe and beautiful a womanhood as the heart of a father might dream of, but the Deemster could take little pleasure in it. If ^lona had been his son, i66 THE DEEMSTER her quiet ways and tractable nature mi^ht have counted for something ; but a woman was only a woman in the Deemster's eyes, and the Deemster, like the Bedouin chief, would have numbered his children without counting his daughter. As for Ewan, he had falsified every hope of the Deemster. His Spartan training had gone for nothing. He was physically a weakling ; a tall, spare youth of two and twenty, fair-haired like his sister, with a face as spiritual and beautiful, and hardly less feminine. He was of a self-tor- turing spirit, constantly troubled with vague questionings, and though in this regard he was very much his father's son, the Deemster held his temperament in contempt. The end of all was that Ewan showed a strong desire to enter the Church. The Deemster had intended that his son should study the law and follow him in his place when his time came. But Ewan's womanly PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN 167 temperament co- existed with a manly temper. Into the law lie would not go, and the Church he was resolved to follow. The Bishop had then newly opened at Bishop's Court a train- ing college for his clergy, and Ewan sought and obtained admission. The Deemster famed, but liis son was not to be moved even by his wrath. This was when Ewan was nineteen years of age, and after two more years the spirituality of his character overcame the obstacle of his youth, and the Bishop ordained him at twenty-one. Then Ewan was made chaplain to the household at Bishop's Court. Hardly had this been done when Ewan took another step in life. With the know- ledge of the Bishop, but without consulting the Deemster, he married, being now of age, a pretty child of sixteen, the daughter of his father's old foe, the vicar of the parish. When knowledge of this act of unwisdom reached the Deemster his last remaining spark 1 68 THE DEEMSTER of interest in his son expired, and he sent Mona across to Bishop's Court with a cnrt message saying that Ewan and his wife were at liberty, if they liked, to take possession of the old Ballamona. Thus he turned his back upon his son, and did his best to wipe him out of his mind. Ewan took his young wife to the home- stead that had been the place of his people for six generations, the place where he himself had been born, the place where that other Ewan, his good grandfather, had lived and died. More than ever for these events the Deem- ster became a solitary man. He kept no company ; he took no pleasures. Alone he sat night after night in iiis study at Balla- mona, and Ballamona was asleep before he slept, and before it awoke he was stirring. His daughter's presence in the house was no society for the Deemster. She grew beside him like her mother's youth, a yet fairer PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN 169 vision of the old days coming back to him hour by hour, but he saw nothing of all that. Disappointed in his sole hope, his son, whom truly he had never loved for love's sake, but only for his own sorry ambitions, he sat down under his disappointment a doubly- soured and thrice-hardened man. He had grown noticeably older, but his restless energy suf- fered no abatement. Bi-weekly he kept his courts, but few sought the law whom the law did not first find, for word went round that the Deemster was a hard judge, and deemed the laws in rii2:our. If men differed about money, they would say, ' Och, why go to the Deemster ? It's throwing a bone into the bad dog's mouth,' and then they would divide their difference. The one remaining joy of the Deenaster's lonely life was centred in his brother's son, Dan. That lusty youth had not disappointed his expectations. At twenty he was a braw, I70 THE DEEMSTER brown-haired, brown-eyed lad of six feet two inches in stature, straight and upright, and with the thews and sinews of an ox. He was the athlete of the island, and where there was a tough job of wTestling to be had, or a delightful bit of fighting to be done, there was Dan in the heart of it. ' Aw, and mid- dling few could come anigh him/ the people used to say. But more than in Dan's great stature and great strength the little Deemster took a bitter pleasure in his daring irreverence for things held sacred. In this regard Dan had not improved with improving years. Scores of tricks his sad pugnacity devised to help the farmers to cheat the parson of his tithe, and it added not a little to the Deemster's keen relish of freaks like these that it was none other than the son of the Bishop who perpetrated them. As for the Bishop himself, he tried to shut his eyes to such follies. He meant his son to go into the Church, and, in PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN 171 spite of all outbursts of spirits, notwithstand- ing wrestling matches and fights, and even some tipsy broils of which rumour was in the air, he entered Dan as a student at the college he kept at Bishop's Court. In due course the time of Dan's examina- tion came, and then all further clinging to a forlorn hope was at an end. The Archdeacon acted as the Bishop's examining chaplain, and more than once the little man had declared in advance his conscientious intention of dealing with the Bishop's son as he would deal with any other. The examination took place in the library of Bishop's Court, and besides the students and the examiner there were some six or seven of the clergy present, and Ewan Mylrea, then newly ordained, w^as among them. It was a purely oral examination, and when Dan's turn came the Archdeacon assumed his loftiest look, and first tackled the candidate where he was known to be weakest. 172 THE DEEMSTER * I suppose, sir, you think you can read your Greek Testament ? ' Dan answered that he had never thought anything about it. ' I dare say for all your modesty that you have an idea that you know it well enough to teach it,' said the Archdeacon. Dan hadn't an idea on the subject. ^ Take down the Greek Testament, and imagine that I'm your pupil, and proceed to expound it,' said the Archdeacon. Dan took the book from the bookcase and fumbled it in his fingers. * Well, sir, open at the parable of the tares.' Dan scratched his big head leisurely, and he did his best to find the place. * So I'm to be tutor — is that it ? ' he said, with a puzzled look. ' That is so.' ' And you are to be the pupil ? ' PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN 173 ' Precisely — suppose yourself my tutor — and now begiu.' At this Ewan stepped out with a look of anxiety. ' Is not that a rather difficult sup- position, Archdeacon ? ' he said timidly. The Archdeacon glanced over his grandson loftily and made no reply. ' Begin, sir, begin,' he said, with a sweep of his hand towards Dan, and at that he sat down in the high-backed oak chair at the head of the table. Then on the instant there came into Dan's quick eyes a most mischievous twinkle. He was standing before the table with the Greek Testament open at the parable of the tares, and he knew too well he could not read the parable. ' When do we change places, Archdeacon ? ' he asked. ' We have changed places — you are now the tutor — I am your pupil — begin, sir.' 174 THE DEEMSTER ' Oh ! we have changed places, have "we ? ' said Dan, and at that he lifted up the Arch- deacon's silver-tipped walking cane which lay on the table and brouo-ht it down as^ain with a bang. * Then just you get up off your chair, sir/ he said with a tone of command. The Archdeacon's russet face showed several tints of blue at that moment, but he rose to his feet. Thereupon Dan handed him the open book. ^ Now, sir,' he said, ' first read me the parable of the tares.' The clergy began to shuffle about and look into each other's faces. The Archdeacon's expression was not amiable, but he took the book and read the parable. ' Yery fair, very fair indeed,' said Dan in a tone of mild condescension — ' a few false quantities, but very fair on the whole.' ' Gentlemen, gentlemen, this is going too far,' said one of the clergy. PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN 175 'Silence, sir,' said Dan, with a look of outraged authority. Then there was dire confusion. Some of the clergy laughed outright, and some giggled under their breath, and some protested in white wrath, and the end of it all was that the examination came to a sudden termina- tion, and, rightly or wrongly, wisely or foolishly, Dan was adjudged to be unfit for the ministry of the Church. "When the Bishop heard the verdict his pale face whitened visibly, and he seemed to see the beginning of the end. At that moment he thouo^ht of the Deemster with bitterness. This blow to his hopes did not cement the severed lives of the brothers. The forces that had been dividing them year by year since the days of their father appeared to be drawing them yet wider apart in the lives and fortunes of their children. Each felt that the other was frustrating his dearest expectations in his 176 THE DEEMSTER son, and that was an offence tliat neither could forgive. To the Deemster it seemed that the Bishop was bearing down every ambition of his life, tearing him up as a naked trunk, leaving him a childless man. To the Bishop it seemed that the Deemster was wrecking the one life that was more to him than his own soul, and standing between him and the heart that with all its follies was dearer than the world beside. From this time of Ewan's marriage and Dan's disgrace the Bishop and the Deemster rarely met, and when they passed on the road they exchanged only the coldest salutation. But if the fates were now more than ever fostering an unnatural enmity between the sons of old Ewan, they were cherishing at the same time the loves of their children. Never were cousins more imlike or more fondly attached. Between Dan, the reckless scape- grace, and Mona, with the big soft eyes and PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN 177 the quiet ways, the affection was such as neither understood. They had grown up side by side, they had seen each other daily, they had scampered along the shore Avith clasped hands, they had screamed at the sea- gulls with one voice, and still they were boy and girl together. But once they were stooking the barley in the glebe, and, the day being hot, Mona tipped back her white sun bonnet, and it fell on to her shoulders. Seeing; this, Dan came stealthily behind and thought very craftily to whisk it away unobserved ; but the strings by which it was tied caught in her hair and tugged at its knot, and the beau- tiful wavy shower fell rip-rip-rippling down her back. The wind caught the loosened hair and tossed it about her, and she stood up erect among the corn with the first blush on her cheeks that Dan had ever brought there, and turned full upon him all the -iorious light of her deep blue eyes. Then, then, oh VOL. I. N 178 THE DEEMSTER then, Dan seemed to see lier for the first time a girl no longer, but a woman, a woman, a woman ! And the mountains behind her were in one instant blotted out of Dan's eyes, and everything seemed to spin about him. When next he knew where he was, and what he was doing, behold there were Mona's rosy lips under his, and she was panting and gasping for breath. But if the love of Dan and Mona was more than cousinly, though they knew it not as yet, the love of Ewan for Dan was won- derful and passing the love of women. That pure soul, with its vague spiritual yearnings, seemed to have nothing in common with the jovial roysterer, always fighting, always laughing, taking disgrace as a duck takes water, and losing the trace of it as easily. Twenty times he stood between the scape- grace and the Bishop, twenty times he hid from the good father the follies of the son. PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN 179 He thought for that thoughtless head that never had an ache or a care under its abundant curls ; he hoped for that light neart that hoped for nothing ; ne trembled for the soul that felt no fear. Never was such loyalty between man and man since David wept for Jonathan. And Ewan's marriage disturbed this affection not at all, for the love he bore to Dan was a brotherly passion for which language has yet no name. Let us tell one story that shall show this friendship m its double bearings — Ewan's love and temper and Dan's heedless harshness and the great nature beneath it, and then we will pass on with fuller knowledge to weightier matters. Derry, the white-eyed collie that had nestled on the top of his master's bed the night Dan sneaked home in disgrace from the Oiel Yerree, was a crafty little fox, with cunning and duplicity bred in his very bones. N 2 i8o THE DEEMSTER If you were a tramp of the profession of Billy the Gawk, he would look up at you with his big innocent eyes, and lick your hand, and thrust his nose into your palm, and the next moment he would seize you by the hindmost parts and hold on like a leech. His unamiable qualities grew as he grew in years, and one day Dan went on a long journey, leaving Derry behind, and when he returned he had another dog with hini, a great shaggy Scotch collie, with bright eyes, a happy phiz, and a huge bush of a tail. Derry was at the gate when his master came home, and he eyed the new-comer with looks askance, From that day Derry turned his back on his master, he would never answer his call, and he did not know his whistle from the croak of a corn- crake. In fact, Derry took his own courses, and forthwith fell into all manner of dissolute habits. He went out at nights alone, incognito, and kept most unchristian hours. The farmers PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN i8i around complained that their sheep were found dead in the field, torn and worried by a dog's teeth. Derry was known to be a dog that did not live a reputable life, and suspicion fell on him. Dan took the old fox in hand, and thenceforward Derry looked out on the world through a rope muzzle. One day there was to be a sheep-dog match, and Dan entered his Scotch collie. Laddie. The race was to be in the meadow at the foot of Slieu Dhoo, and great crowds of people came to witness it. Hurdles were set up to make all crooks and cranks of diffi- culty, and then a drift of sheep were turned loose in the field. The prize was to the dog that would, at the word of its master, gather the sheep together and take them out at the gate in the shortest time. Ewan, then newly married, was there, and beside him was his child-wife. Time was called, and Dan's turn came to try the mettle of his Laddie. The i82 THE DEEMSTER dog started well, and in two or three minutes lie had driven the whole flock save two into an alcove of hurdles close to where Ewan and his wife stood together. Then at the word of his master Laddie set off over the field for the stragglers, and Dan shouted to Ewan not to stir a hand or foot or the sheep would be scattered again. Now just at that instant who should pop over the edge but Derry in his muzzle, and quick as thought he shot down his head, put up his paws, threw off his muzzle, dashed at the sheep, snapped at their legs, and away they went in twenty directions. Before Ewan had time to cry out Derry was gone, with his muzzle between his teeth. When Dan, who was a perch or two up the meadoAV, turned round and saw what had happened, and that his dog's chances were gone, his anger overcame him, and he turned on Ewan with a torrent of reproaches. PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN 183 ' There — you've done it with your lumber- ing — curse it.' With complete self-possession Ewan ex- plained how Derry had done the mischief. Then Dan's face was darker with wrath than it had ever been before. ' A pretty tale/ he said, and his lip curled in a sneer. He turned to the people around. * Anybody see the dog slip his muzzle ? ' None had seen what Ewan affirmed. The eyes of everyone had been on the two stragglers in the distance pursued by Dan and Laddie. Now when Ewan saw that Dan distrusted him, and appealed to strangers as witness to his word, liis face flushed deep, and his delicate nostrils quivered. ' A pretty tale,' Dan repeated, and he was twisting on his heel when up came Derry again, his muzzle on his snout, whisking his tail, and friskmg about Dan's feet with an expression of quite lamb-like simplicity. i84 THE DEEMSTER At tliat sight Ewan's livid face turned to a great pallor, and Dan broke into a hard laugh. ^ We've heard of a dog slipping his muzzle/ he said, ' but who ever heard of a dog putting a muzzle on again ? ' Then Ewan stepped from the side of his girl-wife, who stood there with heaving breast. His eyes were aflame, but for an instant he conquered his emotion, and said, with a con- strained quietness, but with a deep pathos in his tone, 'Dan, do you think I've told you the truth ? ' Dan wheeled about. ' I think you've told me a lie,' he said, and his voice came thick from his throat. All heard the word, and all held their breath. Ewan stood a moment, as if rooted to the spot, and his pallid face whitened every instant. Then he fell back, and took the girl- wife by the hand and turned away with her, PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN 185 his head down, his very heart surging itself out of his choking breast. And, as he passed through the throng, to carry away from that scene the madness that was working in his brain, he overheard the mocking comments of the people. ' Aw, well, well, did ye hear that now ? — called him a liar, and not a word to say agen it.' 'A liar ! Och, a liar ? and him a parzon, too ! ' ' Middling chicken- hearted anyways — a liar ! Aw, well, well, well ! ' At that Ewan flung away the hand of his wife, and, quivering from head to foot, he strode towards Dan. ' You've called me a liar,' he said in a shrill voice that was like a cry. ' Now, you shall prove your word — you shall fight me — you shall, by God.' He was completely carried away by pas- sion. ' The parzon, the parzon ! ' ' Man alive, the i86 THE DEEMSTER young parzon ! ' the people muttered, and they closed around. Dan stood a moment. He looked down from Ms great height at Ewan's quivering form and distorted face. Then he turned about and glanced into the faces of the people. In another instant his eyes were swimming in tears ; he took a step towards Ewan, flung his arms about him, and buried his head in his neck, and the great stalwart lad wept like a little child. In another moment Ewan's pas- sion was melted away, and he kissed Dan on the cheek. ' Blubbering cowards ! ' ' Aw, blather- skites ! ' ' Och, man alive, a pair of turtle- doves 1 ' Dan lifted his head, and looked around, raised himself to his full height, clenched his fists, and said : 'Now, my lads, 'you did your best to make a fight, and you couldn't manage it. I PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN 187 won't fight my cousin, and he shan't fight me ; but if there's a man among you would like to know for himself how much of a coward I am, let him step out — I'm ready.' Not a man budged an inch. i38 THE DEEMSTER CHAPTER IX. THE SERVICE ON THE SHORE. It was the spring of the year when the examining chaplain gave the verdict which for good or ill put Dan out of the odour of sanctity. Then in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes he haunted the shore where old Billy and his mates were spreading their nets and barking them in preparation for the herring season that was soon to begin. There it was, while stretched on the warm shingle, with old Billy Quilleash sitting near, smoking his black cutty and mending the meshes broken by the dog-fish of last year, that Dan hit on the idea of a new course in life. This was nothing better or THE SERVICE ON THE SHORE 189 worse than that of turning fisherman. He would buy a smack and make old Billy his skipper ; he would follow the herrings himsehf, and take up his own share and the share of the boat. It would be delightful, and, of course, it would be vastly profitable. Everything looked plain and straight and simple, and though old Billy more than half shook his grey head at the project, and let fall by several inches his tawny face, and took his pipe out of his mouth and cleared his throat noisily and looked vacantly out to sea, and gave other ominous symptoms of grave internal dubitation, Dan leapt to his feet at the sudden access of new purpose, and bowled off in hot haste to tell the Bishop. The Bishop listened in silence at first, and with a sidelong look out at the window up to the heights of Slieu Dhoo, and when Dan, in a hang- dog manner, hinted at certain 190 THE DEEMSTER new-born intentions of reform, there was a perceptible trembling of the Bishop's eyelids, and when he gathered voice and pictured the vast scheme of profit without loss, the Bishop turned his grave eyes slowly upon him, and then Dan's own eyes suddenly fell, and the big world began to shrivel up to the pitiful dimensions of an orange with the juice squeezed out of it. But the end of it all was that the Bishop undertook to become responsible for the first costs of the boat, and, having made this promise with the air of a man who knows too well that he is pampering the whim of a spoiled boy, he turned away rather suddenly with his chin a thought deeper than ever in his breast. What hurry and bustle ensued ! What driving away to north, south, east, and west, to every fishing port in the island where boats were built or sold ! At length a boat was bought on the chocks at Port le Mary, THE SERVICE ON THE SHORE 191 a thirty-tons' boat of lugger-build, and old Billy Quilleash was sent south to bring it up through the Calf Sound to the harbour at Peeltown. Then there was the getting together of a crew. Of course, old Billy was made skipper. He had sailed twenty years in a boat of Kinvig's with three nets to his share, and half that time he had been admiral of the Peeltown fleet of herring boats, with five pounds a year for his post of honour. In Dan's boat he was to have four nets by his own right, and one for his nephew, Davy Fayle. Davy was an orphan, brought up by Billy Quilleash. He was a lad of eighteen, and was to sail as boy. There were other four hands — Crennel, the cook ; Teare, the mate ; Corkell, and Corlett. Early and late Dan was down at the harbour, stripped to the woollen shirt, and tackling any odd job of painting or carpentry, 192 THE DEEMSTER for tlie opening of the lierring season was hard upon them. But he found time to run up to the new Ballamona to tell Mona that she was to christen his new boat, for it had not been named when it left the chocks ; and then to the old Ballamona, to persuade Ewan to go with him on his first trip to the herrings. The day appointed by custom for the first takmgs of the herring came quickly round. It was a brilliant day in early June. Ewan had been across to Slieu Dhoo to visit his father for the first time since his marriage, more than half a year ago, in order to say that he meant to go out for the night's fishing in Dan's new boat, and to beg that his young wife, who was just then in delicate health, might be invited to spend the night of his absence with Mona at the new Bal- lamona. The Deemster complied with a grim grace ; Ewan's young wife went across in the THE SERVICE ON THE SHORE 193 early morning, and in the afternoon all four, the Deemster and Mona, Ewan and his wife, set off in a lumbering, springiess coach — the first that the island had yet seen — to witness the departure of the herring fleet from Peel- town, and to engage in that day's ceremony. The salt breath of the sea was in the air, and the light ripples of the bay glistened through a drowsy haze of warm sunshine. It was to be high- water at six o'clock. When the Deemster's company reached Peeltown, the sun was still high over Contrary Head, and the fishino' boats in the harbour, to the number of two hundred, were rolling gently, with their brown sails half set, to the motion of the rising tide. There was Dan in his guernsey on the deck of his boat, and, as the coach drew up near the bottom of the wooden pier, he lifted his red cap from his curly head, and then went on to tie a bottle by a long blue ribbon VOL. I. o 194 THE DEEMSTER to the tiller. There was old Billy Quilleash in his sea-boots, and there was Davy Fayle, a shambling sort of lad, long rather than tall, with fair hair tangled over his forehead, and a face which had a simple, vacant look that came of a lagging lower lip. Men on every boat in the harbour were washing the decks, or bailing out the dingy, or laying down the nets below. The harbour-master was on the quay, shouting to this boat to pull up or to that one to lie back. And down on the broad sands of the shore were men, women, and children in many hundreds, sitting and lying and lounging about an empty boat with a hole in the bottom that lay high and dry on the beach. The old fishing: town itself had lost its chill and cheerless aspect, and no longer looked hun- grily out over miles of bleak sea. Its blind alleys and dark lanes, its narrow, crabbed, crooked streets were bright with little flags THE SERVICE ON THE SHORE 195 hung out of the little stufFed-up windows, and yet brighter with bright faces that hurried to- and-fro. About five o'clock, as the sun was dip- ping seaward across the back of Contrary, leaving the brown sails in the harbour in shade, and glistening red on the sides of the cathedral church on the island -rock that stood twenty yards out from the mainland, there was a movement of the people on the shore towards the town behind them, and of fisher-fellows from their boats towards the beach. Some of the neighbourmg clergy had come down to Peeltown, and the little Deemster sat in his coach, thrown open, blinking in the sun under his shaggy grey eyebrows. But someone was still looked for, and expectation was plainly evident in every face until a cheer came over the tops of the houses from the market-place. Then there was a general rush towards the mouth of 196 THE DEEMSTER the quay, and presently there came labourmg over the rough cobbles of the tortuous Castle Street, flanked by a tumultuous company of boys and men, bare-headed women, and children, who halloed and waved their arms and tossed up their caps, a rough-coated Manx pony, on which the tall figure of the Bishop sat. The people moved on with the Bishop at their head until they came to the beach, and there, at the disused boat lying dry on the sand, the Bishop alighted. In two minutes more every fisherman in the harbour had left his boat and gathered with his fellows on the shore. Then there began a ceremony of in- finite pathos and grandeur. In the open boat the pale-faced Bishop stood, his long hair, sprinkled with grey, lifted gently over his drooping shoulders by the gentle breeze that came with its odour of brine from the sea. Around him on their THE SERVICE ON THE SHORE i^-j knees on the sand were tlie tawny-faced, weather-beaten fishermen in their sea- boots and guernseys, bare headed, and fumbling their soft caps in their hard hands. There on the outside, stood the multitude of men, women, and young children, and on the skirts of the crowd stood the coach of the Deemster, and it was half-ench'cled by the pawing horses of some of the black-coated clergy. The Bishop began the service. It asked for the blessing of God on the fishing expe- dition which was about to set out. First came the lesson, ' And God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly ; ' and then the story of Jesus in the ship, when there arose a great tempest while He slept, and His disciples awoke Him, and He arose and rebuked the waves ; and then that other story of how the disciples toiled all night and took nothmg, but let down their nets 198 THE DEEMSTER again at Christ's word, and there came a great multitude of fishes, and their nets brake. ^ Restore and continue to us the harvest of the sea,' prayed the Bishop, with his face uplifted ; and the men on their knees on the sand, with uncovered heads and faces in their caps, murmured their re- sponse in their own toDgue, ' Yn Meailley.' And while they prayed, the soft boom of the unruffled waters on the shore, and the sea's deep murmur from away beyond the headland, and the wild jabbering cries of a flight of sea-gulls, disporting on a rock in the bay, were the only sounds that mingled with the Bishoj)'s deep tones and the men's hoarse voices. Last of all the Bishop gave out a hymn. It was a simple old hj'mn, such as every man had known since his mother crooned it over his M^ot. The men rose to their feet, and their lusty voices took up the strain ; THE SERVICE ON THE SHORE 199 the crowd behind, and the clergy on their horses, joined it ; and from the Deemster's coach two women's voices took it up ; and higher, higher, higher, like a lark, it floated up, until the soft boom and deep murmur of the sea and the wild cry of the sea-birds were drowned in the broad swell of the simple old sacred song. The sun was sinking fast through a red haze towards the sea's verge, and the tide was near the flood, when the service on the shore ended, and the fishermen returned to their boats. Billy Quilleash leaped aboard the ne\7 lugger, and his four men followed him. ^ See all clear,' he shouted to Davy Fayle ; and Davy stood on the quay with the duty of clearing the ropes from the blocks, and then following in the dingy that lay moored to the wooden steps. Dan had gone up to the Deemster's coach 200 THE DEEMSTER and helped Mona and the young wife of Ewan to alight. He led them to the quay steps, and when the company had gathered about, and all was made ready, he shouted to old Billy to throw him the bottle that lay tied by the blue ribbon to the tiller. Then he handed the bottle to Mona, who stood on the step, a few feet above the water's edge. Mona was looking very fresh and beauti- ful that day, with a delicious joy and pride in her deep eyes. Dan was talking to her with an awkward sort of consciousness, look- ing askance at his big brown hands when they came in contact with her dainty white fingers, then glancing down at his great clattering boots, and up into her soft smooth face. ' What am I to christen her ? ' said Mona, with the bottle held up in her hand. ' " Mona," ' answered Dan, with a shame- faced look and one hand in his brown hair. THE SERVICE ON THE SHORE 201 ' Xo, no,' said she, ^ not that.' ' Then what you like,' said Dan. ' Well, the " Ben-my-Chree," ' said Mona, and with that the bottle broke on the boat's side. In another mstant Ewan was kissing his meek little wife, and bidding her good-bye, and Dan, in a fumbling way, was, for the first time in his life, demurely shaking Mona's hand, and trying hard to look her in the face. ' Tail on there,' shouted Quilleash from the lugger. Then the two men jumped aboard, Davy Fayle ran the ropes from the blocks, the admiral's boat cleared away from the quay, and the admiral's flag was shot up to the masthead. The other boats in the harbour followed one by one, and soon the bay was full of the fleet. As the 'Ben-my-Chree' stood out to sea beyond the island-rock, Dan and Ewan stood 202 THE DEEMSTER aft, Dan in his brown guernsey, Ewan in his black coat ; Ewan waving his handkerchief, and Dan his cap ; old Billy was at the tiller, Crennel, the cook, had his head just above the hatchways, and Davy was clambering hand-over-hand up the rope by which the dingy was hauled to the stern. Then the herring fleet sailed away under the glow of the setting sun. CHAPTER X. THE FIRST NIGHT WITH THE HERRINGS. The Sim went down, and a smart breeze rose off the land as tlie ' Ben-my-Chree,' with the fleet behind her, rounded Contrary Head, and crossed the two streams that flow there. For an hour afterwards there was still liirht enough to see the coast-line curved into cove- lets and promontories, and to look for miles over the hills with their moles of gorse, and tussocks of lush grass. The twilight deep- ened as the fleet rounded Niarbyl Point, and left the islet on their lee, with Cronk-ny- Irey-Lhaa towering into the gloomy sky. When they sailed across Fleshwick Bay the night gradually darkened, and nothing was 204 THE DEEMSTER seen of Ennyn Mooar. But after an hour of darkness the heavens lightened again, and glistened with stars, and when old Billy Quilleash brought his boat head to the wind in six fathoms of water outside Port Erin, the moon had risen behind Bradda, and the rugged headland showed clear against the sky. One after another the boats and the fleet brought to about the ' Ben-my-Chree/ Dan asked old Billy if he had found the herrings on this ground at the same time in former seasons. ' Not for seven years,' said the old man. ' Then why try now ? ' Bill stretched out his hand to where a flight of sea-gulls were dipping and sailing in the moonlight. ' See the gull there ? ' he said. ' She's skipper to-night ; she's show- ing us the fish.' Davy Fayle had been leaning over the THE FIRST NIGHT WITH THE HERRIXGS 205 bow, rapping with a stick at the timbers near the water's edge. ' Any signs ? ' shouted Billy Quilleash. ' Ay/ said Davy, Hhe mar-fire's risin'.' The wind had dropped, and luminous patches of phosphorescent light in the water were showing that the herrings were stirring. ^ Let's make a shot ; up with the gear,' said Quilleash, and preparations were made for shooting the nets over the quarter. ^ Xed Teare, you see to the line. Crennel, look after the corks. Davy — where's that lad ? — look to the seizings, d'ye hear ? ' Then the nets were hauled from below, and passed over a bank-board placed between the hatchway and the top of the bulwark. Teare and Crennel shot the gear, and as the seizings came up, Davy ran aft with them, and made them fast to the warp near the taffrail. When the nets were all paid out, every 2o6 THE DEEMSTER net in the drift being tied to the next, and a solid wall of meshes nine feet deep had been swept away along the sea for half a mile be- hind them, Quilleash shouted, ' Down with the sheets.' The ropes were hauled, the sails were taken in, the mainmast — which was so made as to lower backward — was dropped, and only the drift- mizzen was left, and that was to keep the boat head on to the wind. ' Up with the light there,' said Quilleash. At this word Davy Fayle popped his head out of the hatchways. ' Aw, to be sure, that lad's never ready. Ger out of that, quick.' Davy jumped on deck, took a lantern and fixed it to the top of the mitch board. Then vessel and nets drifted together, and Dan and Ewan, who had kept the deck until now, went below together. It was now a calm, clear night, with just THE FIRST NIGHT WITH THE HERRINGS 207 light enough to show two or three of the buoys on the back of the net nearest to the boat as they floated under water. Old Billy had not mistaken his ground. Large white patches came moving out of the surrounding pavement of deep black, lightened only by the image of a star where the vanishing ripples left the dark sea smooth. Once or twice countless faint popping sounds were to be heard, and minute points of shootmg silver were to be seen on the water around. The herrings were at play, and shoals on shoals soon broke the black sea into a o-listenino; foam. But no ' strike ' was made, and after an hour's time Dan popped his head over the hatchways and asked the skipper to try the ' look- on ' net. The warp was hauled in until the first net was reached. It came up as black as coal, save for a dog-fish or two that had broken a mesli here and there. 2o8 THE DEEMSTER '' Too much moon to-night/ said Quil- leash ; ' they see the nets, and 'cute they are extraordinary.' But half-an-hour later the moon went out behind a thick ridge of cloud that floated over the land ; the sky became grey and leaden, and a rising breeze ruffled the sea. Then hour after hour wore on, and not a fish came to the look-on net. Towards one o'clock in the morning the moon broke out again. ' There'll be a heavy strike now,' said Quilleash, and in another instant a luminous patch floated across the line of the nets, sunk, disappeared, and finally pulled three of the buoys down with them. ' Pull up now,' shouted Quilleash, in another tone. Then the nets were hauled. Davy, the boy, led the warp through a snatch-block fixed to the mast-hole on to the capstan. Ned Teare disconnected the nets from the THE FIRST NIGHT iVITH THE HERRINGS iqc) warps, and Crennel and Corlett pulled the nets over tlie gunwale. They came up silver- white in the moonlight, a solid block of fish. Billy Quilleash and Dan passed them over the scudding-pole and shook the herrings into the hold. ' Five maze at least,' said Quilleash, with a chuckle of satisfaction. ' Try agam.' And once more the nets were shot. The other boats of the fleet were signalled, by a blue light run up the drift-mizzen, that the ' Ben- my-Chree ' had struck a scale of fish. In a few minutes more the blue lio;ht was an- swered by other blue lights on every side, and these reported that the fishery was every- where faring well. One, two, three o'clock came and went. The night was wearing on ; the moon went out once more, and in the darkness which preceded the dawn the lanterns burning on the fleet of driftino; boats gave out an eerie VOL. I. P 2IO THE DEEMSTER glow across the waters that Lay black and flat around. The grey light came at length m the east, and the sun rose over the land. Then the nets were hauled in for the last time and that nio'ht's fishino; was done. The mast was lifted, but before the boat was brought about the skipper shouted, ' Men, let us do as we're used of,' and instantly the admiral's flag w^as run up to the masthead, and at this sign the men dropped on one knee with their faces in their caps, and old Billy offered up a short and simple prayer of thanks for the blessings of the sea. When this was done every man leapt to his feet, and all was work, bustle, shouting, singing out, and some lusty curses. ^ Tumble up the sheets — bear a hand there — d the lad,' bawled Quilleash ; ' Ger out of the way, or I'll make you walk handsome over the bricks.' In five minutes more the ' Ben-my-Chree,' THE FIRST NIGHT WITH THE HERRINGS 211 with the herrmg fleet beliind her, was running home before a stiff breeze. ' Nine maze — not bad for the first night,' said Dan to Ewan. * Souse them well,' said Quilieash, and Ned Teare sprinkled salt on the herrings as they lay in the hold. Crennel, the cook, better known as the slushy, came up the hatchways with a huge saucepan, which he filled with the fish. As he did so there was a faint ' cheep, cheep ' from below — the herrings were still alive. All hands went down for a smoke except Corlett, who stood at the tiller, Davy, who counted for nobody and stretched himself out at the bow, and Ewan. The young parson, who had been taking note of the lad during the night, now seated himself on a coil of rope near where Davy lay. The ' cheep, cheep ' was the only sound in the air except the plash of the waters at the boat's bow, and p 2 212 THE DEEMSTER with an inclination of tlie head in the direction of the fish in the hold, Ewan said, ' It seems cruel, Davy, doesn't it ? ' ' Cruel ? Well, pozzible, pozzible. Och, Meed now, they've got their feelings same as anybody else.' The parson had taken the lad's measure at a glance. ' You should see the shoals of them lying round the nets, watching the others — their mothers and sisters, as you might say — who've got their gills 'tangled. And when you haul the net up, away they go at a slant in millions and millions, just the same as lightning going through the water. Och, yes, yes, leave them alone for having their feelings.' ' It does seem cruel, Davy, eh ? ' Davy looked puzzled ; he was reasoning out a grave problem. ^ Well, sir, that's the mortal strange part of it. It does look cruel to catch them, sarten THE FIRST NIGHT WITH THE HERRINGS 213 sure ; but then the herrings themselves catch the sand-eels, and the cod catch the herring, and the porpoises and grampuses catch the cod; Ewan did his best to look astonished. ^ Aw, that's the truth, sir. It's terrible, wonderful, strange, but I suppose it's all nathur. You see, sir, we do the same our- selves.' ' How do you mean, Davy ? We don't eat each other, I hope,' said the young parson. ' Och, don't we though ? Lave us alone for that.' Ewan tried to look appalled. ' Well, of coorse, not to say ate^ not 'xactly ate ; but the biggest chap allis rigs the rest ; and the next biggest chap allis rigs a littler one, you know, and the littlest chap, he gets rigged by everybody all round, doesn't he, sir?' Davy had got a grip of the knotty problem, 214 THE DEEMSTER but the lad's poor, simple face looked sadly burdened, and he came back to his old word. ' Seems to me it must be all nathur, sir.' Ewan began to feel some touch of shame at playing with this simple, earnest, big little heart. ' So you think it is all nature, Davy,' he said, with a lump gathering in his throat. ' Well, well, I do, you know, sir ; it does make a fellow fit to cry a bit, somehow ; but it must be nathur, sir.' And Davy took off his blue worsted cap and fumbled it and gave his troubled young head a grave shake. Then there was some general talk about Davy's early history. Davy's father had been pressed into the army before Davy was born, and had afterwards been no more heard of ; then his mother had died, and Billy Quilleash, being his mother's elder brother, had brought him up. Davy had always sailed as boy with Uncle Billy, he was sailing as boy then, and THE FIRST NIGHT WITH THE HERRINGS 215 that was to the end that Uncle Billy might draw his share, but the young master (Mastha Dan) had spoken up for him, so he had, and he knew middlin' well what that would come to. ' He's a tidy lump of a lad now,' says 'Mastha Dan, and he's well used of the boats, too,' says he, ' and if he does well this time,' he says, ' he must sail man for himself next season. Aw, yes, sir, that was what Mastha Dan said.' It was clear that Dan was the boy's hero. When Dan was mentioned that lagging lip gave a yearning look to Davy's simple face. Dan's doubtful exploits and his dubious triumphs all looked glorious in Da\^'s eyes. Davy had watched Dan, and listened to him, and thouo;h Dan mio-ht know nothino- of his silent worship, every word that Dan had spoken to him had been hoarded up in the lad's heart like treasure. Davy had the dog's soul, and Dan was his master. 2i6 THE DEEMSTER ' Uncle Billy and him's same as brothers,' said Davy ; ^ and Uncle Billy's uncommon proud of the young master, and middlin' jealous, too. Aw, well ! who's wondering at it?' Just then Crennel, the cook, came up to say that breakflist was ready, and Ewan and Davy went below, the young parson's hand resting on the boy's shoulder. In the cabin Dan was sitting by the stove, laughing im- moderately. Ewan saw at a glance that Dan had been drinking, and he forthwith elbowed his way to Dan's side and lifted a brandy bottle from the stove top into the locker under pretence of finding a place for his hat. Then all hands sat down to the table. There was a huge dish of potatoes boiled in their jackets, and a similar dish of herrings. Every man dipped into the dishes with his hands, lifted his herring on to his plate, ran his fingers from tail to head, swept all the flesh off the THE FIRST NIGHT WITH THE HERRINGS 217 fresh fish, and threw the bare backbone into the crock that stood behmd. ^ Keep a corner for the Meailley at the " Three Legs," ' said Dan. There was to be a herring breakfast that morning at the ' Three Legs of Man ' to celebrate the opening of the fishing season. ' You'll come, Ewan, eh ? ' The young parson shook his head. Dan was m great spirits, to which the spirits he had imbibed contributed a more than common share. Ewan saw the too familiar lio:ht of dano^erous mischief dancing* in Dan's eyes, and made twenty attempts to keep the conversation within ordinary bounds of serious- ness. But Dan was not to be restrained, and breaking away into the homespun — a sure indication that the old Adam was having the upper hand — he forthwith plunged into some chaff that was started by the mate, ISi ed Teare, at Davy Fayle's expense. 2i8 THE DEEMSTER ' Aw, ye wouldn't think it's true, would ye, now ? ' said Ned, with a wink at Dan and a ' glime ' at Davy. ' And what's that ? ' said Dan, with another ' glime ' at the lad. ' Why, that the like o' yander is tackin' round the gels.' ' D'ye raely mane it ? ' said Dan, dropping his herring and lifting his eyes. Ewan coughed with some volume, and said, ' There, there, Dan, there, there.' ' Yes, though, and sniffin' and snuffin' abaft of them astonishin',' Ned Teare put in again. ' Aw, well, well, well,' said Dan, turning up afresh the whites of his eyes. There was not a sign from Davy ; he broke his potato more carefully, and took both hands and both eyes to strip away its jacket. ^ Yes, yes, the craythur's doing somethin' in the spooney line,' said Billy Quilleash ; THE FIRST NIGHT WITH THE HERRINGS 219 * him as hasn't the hayseed out of his hair yet; ^ Aw, well,' said Dan, pretending to come to Davy's relief, ' it isn't raisonable but the lad should be coortin' some gel now.' ' What's that ? ' shouted Quilleash, drop- ping the banter rather suddenly. ' What, and not a farthing at him ? And owin' me for- tune for the bringin' up.' ' No matter, Billy,' said Dan, ^ and don't ride a man down like a main-tack. One of these fine mornings Davy will be payin' his debt to you with the foretopsail.' Davy's eyes were held very low, but it was not hard to see that they were beginning to fill. ' That will do, Dan, that will do,' said Ewan. The young parson's face had grown suddenly pale, but Dan saw nothing of that. * And look at him there,' said Dan, reach- ing round Ewan to prod Davy in the ribs, 220 THE DEEMSTER ' look at him there pretendin' he never knows nothin'.' The big tears were near to toppling out of Davy's eyes. He could have borne the chaiF from anyone but Dan. ' Dan,' said Ewan, with a constrained quietness, ^ stop it ; I can't stand it much longer.' At that Davy got up from the table, leav- ing his unfinished breakfast, and began to climb the hatchways. ^ Aw, now, look at that,' said Dan with affected solemnity, and so saying, and not heedins: the chang^e in Ewan's manner, Dan got up too and followed Davy out, put an arm round the lad's waist, and tried to draw him back. ' Don't mind the loblolly boys, Davy veg,' he said coaxingly. Davy pushed him away with an angry word. ' What's that he's after saying ? ' asked Quilleash. THE FIRST NIGHT WITH THE HERRINGS 221 ' Notliin' ; he only cussed a bit,' said Dan. ' Cussed, did he ? He'd better show a leo; if he don't want the rat's taiL' Then Ewan rose from the table, and his eyes flashed and his pale face quivered. ' I'll tell you what it is,' he said in a tense, tremulous voice : ^ there's not a man amono; you. You're a lot of skulking cowards.' At that he was making for the deck ; but Dan, whose face, full of the fire of the liquor he had taken, grew in one moment old and ugly, leapt to his feet in a tempest of wrath, overturned his stool and rushed at Ewan with eyes aflame and uplifted hand, and suddenly, instantly, like a flash, his fist fell, and Ewan rolled on the floor. Then the men jumped up and crowded round in confusion. ' The parzon ! the parzon ; God preserve me, the parzon ! ' There stood Dan, with a ghastly counte- 222 THE DEEMSTER nance, white and convulsed, and there at his feet lay Ewan. ' God A'mighty ! Mastha Dan, Mastha Dan,' cried Davy. Before the men had found time to breathe, Davy had leapt back from the deck to the cockpit, and had lifted Ewan's head on to his knee. Ewan drew a long breath and opened his eyes. He was bleeding from a gash above the temple, having fallen among some refuse of iron chain. Davy, still moaning piteously, ^ Oh, Mastha Dan, God A'mighty, Mastha Dan,' took a white handkerchief from Ewan's breast, and bound it about his head over the wound. The blood oozed through and stained the handkerchief. Ewan rose to his feet pale and trembling, and without looking at anyone steadied him- self by Davy's shoulder, and clambered weakly to the deck. There he stumbled forward, sat down on the coil of rope that had been his THE FIRST NIGHT WITH THE HERRINGS 223 seat before, and buried his uncovered head in his breast. The sun had now risen above Contrary, and the fair young morning light danced over the rippling waters far and near. A fresh breeze blew from the land, and the boats of the fleet around and about scudded on before the wind like a flight of hapj)y birds, with out- spread wings. The ' Ben-my-Chree' was then roundmg the head, and the smoke was beginning to coil up in many a slender shaft above the chimneys of the little town of Peel. But Ewan saw nothing of this ; with head on his breast, and his heart cold within him, he sat at the bow. Down below Dan was then doing his best to make himself believe that he was unconcerned. He whistled a little, and sang a little, and laughed a good deal ; but the whistle lost its tune, and the song stopped short, and the laugh was loud and empty. AYhen he first 224 THE DEEMSTER saw Ewan lie where he fell, all the fire of his evil passion seemed to die away, and for the instant his heart seemed to choke him, and he was prompted to drop down and lift Ewan to his feet ; but at that moment his stubborn knees would not bend, and at the next moment the angel of God troubled the waters of his heart no more. Then the fisher-fellows over- came their amazement, and began to crow, and to side with him, and to talk of his pluck, and what not. ^ The parzons — och, the parzons — they think they may ride a uian down for half a word inside his gills.' ' '' Cowards " — och, " skulking cowards," if you plaize — right sarved, say I ! ' Dan tramped about the cabin restlessly, and sometimes chuckled aloud and asked him- self what did he care, and then laughed noisily, and sat down to smoke, and presently jumped up, threw the pipe into the open stove, and THE FIRST NIGHT WITH THE HERRINGS 225 took the brandy bottle out of the locker. Where was Ewan ? What was he doing ? What was he looking hke? Dan would rather have died than humbled himself to ask ; but would none of these grinning boobies tell him? When Teare, the mate, came down from the deck, and said that sarten sure the young parzon was afther sayin' his prayers up forrard, Dan's eyes flashed again, and he had almost hfted his hand to fell the sniggering waistrel. He drank half-a-tumbler of brandy, and pro- tested afresh, though none had yet disputed it, that he cared nothing, not he, let them say what they liked to the contrary. In fifteen minutes from the time of the quarrel the fleet was runninginto harbour. Dan had leaped on deck just as the ' Ben-my-Chree ' touched the two streams outside Contrary. He first looked forward, and saw Ewan sitting on the cable in the bow with his eyes shut and his pallid face sunk deep in his breast. Then VOL. I. Q 226 THE DEEMSTER a strange, wild light shot into Dan's eyes, and he reeled aft and plucked the tiller from the hand of Corlett, and set it hard-aport, and drove the boat head on for the narrow neck of water that flowed between the mainland and the island-rock on which the old castle stood. 'Hould hard,' shouted old Billy Quilleash, 'there's not water enough for the like o' that — you'll run her on the rocks.' Then Dan laughed wildly, and his voice rang among the coves and caves of the coast. ' Here's for the harbour or — hell,' he screamed, and then another wild peal of his mad lauo:hter rans; in the air and echoed from the land. ' What's agate of the young mastha ? ' the men muttered one to another ; and with eyes of fear they stood stock-still on the deck and saw themselves driven on towards the shoals of the little sound. In two minutes more they breathed freely. THE FIRST NIGHT WITH THE HERRINGS 227 The ' Ben-my-Chree ' had shot like an arrow through the belt of water and was putting about in the harbour. Dan dropped the tiller, reeled along the deck, scarcely able to bear himself erect, and stumbled under the hatchways. Old Billy brought up the boat to its moorings. ' Come, lay down, d'ye hear. Where's that lad ? ' Davy was standing by the young parson. ' You idiot waistrel, why d'ye stand prating there ? I'll pay you, you beachcomber.' The skipper was making for Davy, when Ewan got up, stepped towards him, looked him hard in the face, seemed about to speak, checked himself, and turned away. Old Billy broke mto a bitter little laugh, and said, ' I'm right up and down like a yard o' pump water, that's what I am.' The boat was now at the quay side, and Ewan leapt ashore. Without a word or a q2 228 THE DEEMSTER look more he walked away, the white hand- kerchief, clotted with blood, still about his forehead, and his hat carried in his hand. On the quay there were numbers of women with baskets waiting to buy the fish. Teare, the mate, and Crennel, the cook, counted the herrings and sold them. The rest of the crew stepped ashore. Dan went away with the rest. His face was livid in the soft morning sunlight. He was still keeping up his brave outside, while the madness was growing every moment fiercer within. As he stumbled along the paved way with an unsteady step his hollow laugh grated on the quiet air. !29 CHAPTER XI. THE HERRING BREAKFAST. It was between four o'clock and five when the fleet ran into Peeltown harbour after the first night of the herring season, and towards eight the fisher-fellows, to the number of fifty at least, had gathered for their customary first breakfast in the kitchen of the ' Three Legs of Man.' What sport ! What noisy laughter! What singing and rollicking cheers ! The men stood neither on the order of their commg nor their going, their sitting nor their standing. In they trooped in their woollen caps or their broad sou' westers, theii oilskins or their long sea-boots swung across their arms. They wore their caps or not as pleased them, they 230 THE DEEMSTER sang or talked as suited tliem, they laughed or sneezed, they sulked or snarled, they were noisy or silent, precisely as the whim of the individual prescribed, the individual rule of manners. Kather later than the rest Dan Mylrea came swinging in, with a loud laugh and a shout, and soDiething like an oath, too, and the broad homespun on his lips. ' Billy Quilleash — I say, Billy, there — why don't you put up the young mastha for the chair ? ' ' Aw, lave me alone,' answered Billy Quil- leash, with a contemptuous toss of the head. ' Uncle Billy's proud uncommon of the mastha,' whispered Davy Fayle, who sat meekly on a form near the door, to the man who sat cross-legged on the form beside him. ^ It's a bit free them chaps is making,' said old Billy, in a confidential undertone to Dan, who was stretching himself out on the settle. Then rising to his feet with gravity, THE HERRING BREAKFAST 231 'Gen'i'men/ said Quilleash, 'what d'ye say now to Mistha Dan'l Mylrea for the elber- cheer yander ? ' At that there was the response of loud raps on the table with the heels of the long- boots swung over various arms, and with several clay pipes that lost their heads in the encounter. Old Billy resumed his seat with a lofty glance of patronage at the men about him, which said as plainly as words them- selves, ' I tould ye to lave it all to me.' ' Proud, d'ye say ? Look at him,' mut- tered the fisherman sitting by Davy Fayle. Dan staggered up, and shouldered his way to the elbow-chair at the head of the table. He had no sooner taken his seat than he shouted for the breakfast, and without more ado the breakfast was lifted direct on to the table from the pans and boilers that simmered on the hearth. First came the broth, well loaded with 232 THE DEEMSTER barley and cabbage ; then suet puddings ; and last of all the frying-pan was taken down from the wall, and four or five dozen of fresh herrings were made to grizzle and crackle and sputter over the fire. Dan ate ravenously, and laughed noisily, and talked incessantly as he ate. The men at first caught the contagion of his boisterous manners, but after a time they shook their touzled heads and laid them together in gravity, and began to repeat in whispers, ' What's agate of the young mastha, at all at all? ' Away went the dishes, away went the cloth, an oil lamp with its open mouth — a rehc of some monkish sanctuary of the middle acres — was lifted from the mantelshelf and o put on the table for the receipt of custom ; a brass censer, choked with spills, was placed beside it ; pipes emerged from waistcoat pockets, and pots of liquor, with glasses and bottles, came in from the outer bar. THE HERRING BREAKFAST 233 ^ Is it heavy on the Uquor you're going to be, Billy ? ' said Necl, the mate ; and old Billy replied with a superior smile and the lifliDg up of a whisky bottle, from which lie had just drawn the cork. Then came the toasts. The chairman arose amid hip, hip, hooraa ! and gave ' Life to man and death to fish ! ' and Quilleash gave ' Death to the head that never wore hair ! ' Then came more noise and more liquor, and a good deal of both in the vicinity of the chair. Dan struck up a song. He sang ^ Drink to me only,' and the noisy company were at first hushed to silence and then melted to audible sobs. ^ Aw, man, the voice he has, any way ! ' * And the loud it is, and the tender, too, and the way he slidders up and down, and no squeaks and jumps.' ^ No, no ; nothin' like squeezin' a tune out of an ould sow by pulling the tail at her.' 234 THE DEEMSTER Old Billy listened to this dialogue among the fisher-fellows about him, and smiled loftily. * It's nothinV he said, condescendingly, ' that's nothin'. You should hear him out in the boat, when we're lying at anchor, and me and him together, and the stars just makin' a peep, and the moon, and the mar-fire, and all to that, and me and him lying aft and smookin', and having a glass maybe, but nothin' to do no harm — that's the when you should hear him. Aw, man alive, him and me's same as brothers.' ' More liquor there,' shouted Dan, climbing with difficulty to his feet. ' Ay, look here. D'ye hear down yander ? Give us a swipe o' them speerits. Right. More liquor for the chair ! ' said Billy Quil- leash. ' And for some one besides ? — is that what they're saying, the loblolly boys ? Well, look here, bad cess to it, of coorse, some for me, too. It's terrible good for the narves, THE HERRING BREAKFAST 235 and they're telling me it's morthal good for steddyin' the vice. Going to sing ? Coorse, coorse. What's that from the elber-cheer ? Enemy, eh ? Confound it, and that's true, though. What's that it's sayin' ? ''AVho's fool enough to put the enemy into his mouth to stale away his brains ? " Aw, now, it's the good ould Book that's fine at summin' it all up.' Then there was more liquor and yet more, till the mouth of the monastic lamp ran over with chinking coin. Old Billy struck up his song. It was a doleful ditty on the loss of the herring fleet on one St. Matthew's Day not long before. An hour before day, Tom Grimshaw, they say, To run for the port had resolved ; Himself and John More Were lost in that hour, And also unfortunate Kinved. The last three lines of each verse were 236 THE DEEMSTER repeated by the Avliole company in chorus. Doleful as the ditty might be, the men gave it voice with a heartiness that suggested no special sense of sorrow, and loud as were the voices of the fisher-fellows, Dan's voice was yet louder. ' Aw, Dan, man, Dan, man alive, Dan,' the men whispered among themselves. ^ What's agate of Mastha Dan, it's more than's good, man, aw, yes, yes, yes.' Still more liquor and yet more noise^ and then, through the dense fumes of tobacco smoke, old Billy Quilleash could be seen struggling to his feet. ' Silence ! ' he shouted ; ' Aisy there ! ' and he lifted up his glass. ' Here's to Mistha Dan'l Mylrea, and if he's not going amongst the parzons, bad cess to them, he's going amongst the Kays, and when he gets to the big house at Castletown, I'm calkerlatin' it'll be all up with the lot o' them narzons, with their tithes and their censures, THE HERRING BREAKFAST 237 and their customs and their canons, and their regalashuns agen the countin' of the herrin', and all the rest of their messin'. What d'ye say, men ? " Skulking cowards ? " Coorse, and right sarved, too, as I say. And what's that you're grinning and winkin' at, Ned Teare ? It's middlin' free you're gettin' with the mastha anyhow, and if it wasn't for me he wouldn't bemane himself by comin' among the like of you, singin' and makin' aisy. Chaps, fill up your glasses every man of you, d'ye hear ? Here's to the best gen'l'man in the island, bar none — Mistha Dan'l Mylrea, hip, hip, hooraa ! ' The toast was responded to with alacrity, and loud shouts of ' Dan'l Mylrea — best gen'l'man — bar none.' But what was going on at the head of the table ? Dan had risen from the elbow-chair ; it was the moment for him to respond, but he stared wildly around, and stood there in 238 THE DEEMSTER silence, and his tongue seemed to cleave to his mouth. Every eye was now fixed on his face, and that face quivered and turned white. The glass he had held in his hand fell from his nerveless fingers, and broke on the table. Laughter died on every lip, and the voices were hushed. At last Dan spoke ; his words came slowly, and fell heavily on the ear. ' Men,' he said, ^ you have been drinking my health. You call me a good fellow. That's wrong. I'm the worst man among you. Old Billy says I'm going to the House of Keys. That's wrong, too. Shall I tell you where I am going ? Shall I tell you ? I'm going to the devil,' and then, amid breathless silence, he dropped back in his seat, and buried his head in his hands. No one spoke. The fair head lay on the table among broken pipes and the refuse of spilled liquor. There could be no more drinking that morning. Every man rose to THE HERRING BREAKFAST 239 his feet, and. picking up his waterproofs or his long sea-boots, one after one went shambling out. The room was dense with smoke ; but outside the air was light and free, and the morning sun shone brightly. ^ Strange now, wasn't it ? ' muttered one of the fellows. ' Strange uncommon ! ' ' He's been middlin' heavy on the liquor lately.' ' And he'd never no rio'ht to strike the young parzon, and him his cousin, too, and terrible fond of him, as they're saying.' ' Well, well, it's middlin' wicked any way.' And so the croakers went their way. In two minutes more the room was em2:)t3^, except for the stricken man, who lay there with hidden face, and Davy Fayle, who, with big tears glistening in his eyes, was stroking the tangled curls. 240 THE DEEMSTER CHAPTER XIL dan's penance. Dan rose to liis feet a sobered man, and went out of tlie smoky pothouse without a word to anyone, and without lifting his bleared and bloodshot eyes unto any face. He took the lane to the shore, and behind him, with down- cast eyes, like a dog at the heels of his master, Davy Fayle slouched along. When they reached the shore Dan turned towards Orris Head, walking within a yard or two of the water's edge. Striding over the sands, the past, the past of his childhood came back to him with a sense of pain. He saw himself flying along the beach with Ewan and Mona, shouting at the gull, mocking the cormorant. DAN'S PENANCE 241 clambering up the rocks to where the long- necked bird laid her spotted eggs, and the sea-pink grew under the fresh grass of the corries. Under the head Dan sat on a rock and lifted away his cap from his burning fore- head ; but not a breath of wind stirred his soft hair. Dan rose again with a new resolve. He knew now what course he must take. He would go to the Deemster, confess to the out- rage of which he had been guilty, and submit to the just punishment of the law. With quick steps he strode back over the beach, and Davy followed him until he turned up to the gates of the new Ballamona, and then the lad rambled away under the foot of Slieu Dhoo. Dan found the Deemster's house in a tumult. Hommy-beg was rushing here and there, and Dan called to him, but he waved his arm and shouted something in reply whereof the pur- port was lost, and then disappeared. Blind VOL. I. R 242 THE DEEMSTER Kerry was there, and when Dan spoke to her as she went up the stairs, he could gather nothing from her hurried answer except that someone was morthal bad, as the saying was, and in another moment she, too, had gone. Dan stood in the hall with a sense of impending disaster. What had happened ? A dread idea struck him at that moment like a blow on the brain. The sweat started from his forehead. He could bear the uncertainty no longer, and had set foot on the stairs to follow the blind woman when there was the sound of a light step descending. In another moment he stood face to face with Mona. She coloured deeply, and his head fell before her. ^ Is it Ewan ? ' he said, and his voice came like a hoarse whisper. ' No, his wife,' said Mona. It turned out that not long after daybreak that morning the young wife of Ewan, who had slept with Mona, had awakened with a DAN'S PENANCE 243 start, and tlie sensation of having received a lieavy blow on the forehead. She had roused Mona, and told her what seemed to have oc- curred. They had looked about and seen nothing that could have fallen ; they had risen from bed and examined the room, and had found everything as it had been when they lay down. The door was shut, and there was no hood above the bed. But Mona had drawn up the window blind, and then she had seen, clearly marked on the w^hite forehead of Ewan's young wife, a little above the temple, on the spot where she had seemed to feel the blow, a streak of pale colour such as might have been made by the scratch of a thorn that had not torn the skin. It had been a per- j)lexing difficulty, and the girls had gone back to bed, and talked of it in whispers until they had fallen asleep in each other's arms. When they had awakened again, the Deemster was rapping at their door to say that he had taken R 2 244 THE DEEMSTER an early breakfast, that lie was going off to hold his court at Ramsay, and expected to be back at midday. Then, half timidly, Mona had told her father of their strange experience, but he had bantered them on their folly, and they had still heard his laughter when he had leapt to the saddle in front of the house, and was cantering away over the gravel. Re- assured by the Deemster's unbelief, the girls had thrown off their vague misgivings, and given way to good s})irits. Ewan's young wife had said that all morning she had dreamt of her husband, and that her dreams had been bright and happy. They had gone down to breakfast, but scarcely had they been seated at the table before they had heard the click of the gate from the road. Then they had risen together, and Ewan had come up the path with a white bandage about his head, and with a streak of blood above the temple. With a sharp cry, Ewan's DAN'S PENANCE 245 young wife had fallen to the ground in- sensible, and when Ewan himself had come into the house they had carried her back to bed. There she was at that moment, and from a peculiar delicacy of her health at the time, there was but too much reason to fear that the shock might have serious results. All this Mona told to Dan from where she stood three steps up the stairs, and he listened with his head held low, one hand gripping the stair rail, and his foot pawing the mat at the bottom. When she finished, there was a pause, and then there came frona overhead a long, deep moan of pain. Dan lifted his face ; its sudden pallor was startling. ' Mona,' he said, in a voice that was husky in his throat, ' do you know who struck Ewan that blow ? ' There was silence for a moment, and then, half in a whisper, half with a sob, Mona answered that she knew. It had not been 246 THE DEEMSTER from Ewan himself, but by one of the many tongues of scandal that the news had come to Ballamona. Dan railed at himself in bitter words, and called Grod to witness that he had been a curse to himself and everyone about him. Mona let the torrent of his self-reproach spend itself, and then she said : ' Dan, you must be reconciled to Ewan.' ' Not yet,' he answered. ' Yes, yes, I'm sure he would forgive you,' said Mona, and she turned about as if in the act of going back to seek for Ewan. Dan grasped her hand firmly. ' No,' he said, ' don't heap coals of fire on my head, Mona ; don't, don't.' And after a moment, with a calmer manner, ' I must see the DeemvSter first.' Hardly had this been spoken when they heard a horse's hoofs on the gravel path, and the Deemster's voice calling to Hommy-beg DAN'S PENANCE 247 as he threw the reins over the post near the door and entered the house. The Deemster was in unusual spirits, and slapped Dan on the back and laughed as he went into his room. Dan followed him, and Mona crept nervously to the open door. With head held down, Dan told what had occurred. The Deemster listened and laughed, asked further particulars and laughed again, threw off his riding boots and leggings, looked knowmgly from under his shaggy brows, and then laughed once more. ' And what d'ye say you want me to do for you, Danny-veg ? ' he asked, with one side of his wrmkled face twisted awry. ^ To punish me, sir,' said Dan. At that the Deemster, who was buckling his slippers, threw himself back in his chair, and sent a shrill peal of mocking laughter through the house. Dan was unmoved. His countenance did 248 THE DEEMSTER not bend as he said slowly, and in a low tone, ^ If yon don't do it, sir, I shall never look into Ewan's face again.' The Deemster fixed his buckles, rose to his feet, slapped Dan on the back, said ' Go home, man veen, go home,' and then hurried away to the kitchen, where in another moment his testy voice could be heard direct- ing Hommy-beg to put up the saddle on the ' lath.' Mona looked into Dan's face. ' Will you be reconciled to Ewan now ? ' she said, and took both his hands and held them. ^ No,' he answered firmly, ' I will see the Bishop.' His eyes were dilated ; his face, that had hitherto been very mournful to see, was alive with a strano'e fire. Mona held his hands with a passionate grasp. ^Dan,' she said, with a great tenderness, * this is very, very noble of you ; this is like our Dan, this ' DAN'S PENANCE 249 She stopped ; she trembled and glowed ; her eyes were close to his. ' Don't look at me like that,' he said. She dropped his hands, and at the next instant he was gone from the house. Dan found the Bishop at Bishop's Court, and told him all. The Bishop had heard the story already, but he said nothing of that. He knew when Dan hid his provocation and painted his offence at its blackest. With a grave face he listened while Dan accused himself, and his heart heaved within him. ' It is a serious offence,' he said ; ' to strike a minister is a grievous offence, and the Church provides a censure.' Dan held his face very low, and clasped his hands in front of him. ' The censure is that on the next Sabbath morning following, in the presence of the congregation, you shall walk up the aisle of the parish church from the porch to the 250 THE DEEMSTER Communion behind the minister, who shall read the 51st Psalm meantime.' The Bishop's deep tones and quiet manner concealed his strong emotion, and Dan went out without another word. This was Friday, and on the evening of the same day Ewan heard what had passed between Dan and the Deemster and between Dan and the Bishop, and with a great lump in his throat he went across to Bishop's Court to pray that the censure might be taken off. * The provocation was mine, and he is penitent,' said Ewan ; and with heaving breast the Bishop heard him out, and then shook his head. ' The censures of the Church were never meant to pass by the house of the Bishop,' he said. ^ But he is too deeply abased already,' said Ewan. DAN'S PENANCE 251 ' The offence was committed in public, and before the eyes of all men the expiation must be made.' ' But I, too, am ashamed — think of it, and remove the censure,' said Ewan, and his voice trembled and broke. The Bishop gazed out at the window with blurred eyes that saw nothing. ' Ewan,' he said, ' it is God's hand on the lad. Let it be ; let it be.' Next day the Bishop sent his sumner round the parish, asking that every house might send one at least to the parish church next mornino^. On Sunday Ewan's young wife kept her bed ; but when Ewan left her for the church the shock to her nerves seemed in a measure to have passed away. There was still, how- ever, one great disaster to fear, and Mona re- mained at the bedside. The meanino; of the sumner's summons 252 THE DEEMSTER liad eked out, and long before the hour of service the parish church was crowded. The riff-raff that never came to church from year's end to year's end, except to celebrate the Oiel Yerree, were there with eager eyes. While Will-as- Thorn tolled the bell from the rope suspended in the porch there was a low buzz of gossip, but when the bell ceased its hoarse clangour, and Will-as -Thorn appeared with his pitch-pipe in the front of the gallery, there could be heard in the silence that followed over the crowded church the loud tick of the old wooden clock in front of him. Presently from the porch there came a low tremulous voice reading the Psalm that begins, ' Have mercy upon me, God, after thy great goodness : according to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences.' Then the people who sat in front turned about, and those who sat at the side strained across, and those who sat above craned forward. DAN'S PENANCE 253 Ewan was walking slowly up the aisle in his surplice, with his pale face and scarred forehead bent low over the book in his hand, and close behind him, towering above him in his great stature, with head held down, but with a steadfast gaze, his hat m his hands, his step firm and resolute, Dan Mylrea strode along. There was a dead hush over the congre- gation. ' Wash me throughly from my wickedness : and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknow- ledge my faults : and my sin is ever before me.' The tremulous voice rose and fell, and nothing else broke the silence except the un- certain step of the reader, and the strong tread of the penitent behind him. ^ Against thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight ' At this the tremulous voice deepened, and 254 THE DEEMSTER stopped, and went on and stopped again, and wlien the words came once more they came in a deep, low sob, and the reader's head fell into his breast. Not until the Psalm came to an end, and Ewan and Dan had reached the Communion, and the Yicar had begun the morning prayer, and Will-as-Thorn had sent out a blast from his pitch-pipe, was the hard tension of that moment broken. When the morning service ended, the Deemster rose from his pew and hurried down the aisle. As usual, he was the first to leave the church. The ghostly smile with which he had witnessed the penance that had brought tears to the eyes of others was still on the Deemster's lip, and a chuckle was in his throat when at the gate of the churchyard he met Hommy-beg, whose face was livid from a long run, and who stood for an instant panting for breath. DAN'S PENANCE 255 ' Well, well, well ? ' said tlie Deemster, sending the words like small shot into Hommy-beg's deaf ear. ' Terrible, terrible, terrible,' said Hommy- beg, and he lifted his hands. 'What is it? What? What?' ^ The young woman-body is dead in child- bed.' Then the ghostly smile fled from the Deemster's face. 256 THE DEEMSTER CHAPTER XIII. HOW EWAN MOURNED FOR HIS WIFE. What passed at tlie new Ballamona on that morning of Dan's penance was very pitiful. There in the death chamber, already darkened, lay Ewan's young wife, her eyes lightly closed, her girlish features composed, and a faint tinge of colour in her cheeks. Her breast was half open, and her beautiful head lay in a pillow of her soft brown hair. One round arm was stretched over the counterpane, and the dehcate fingers were curved inwards until the thumb-nail, like an acorn, rested on the inner rim of a ring. Quiet, peaceful, very sweet and tender, she lay there like one who slept. After a short, sharp pang she had died gently, with- HOW ElVAN MOURNED FOR HIS WIFE 257 out a struggle, almost without a sigli, merely closing her eyes as one who was weary, and drawing a long, deep breath. In dying she had given premature birth to a child, a girl, and the infant was alive, and was taken from the mother at the moment of death. When the Deemster entered the room with a face of great pallor and eyes of fear, Mona was standing by the bed-head gazing down, but seeino; nothino;. The Deemster felt the pulse of the arm over the counterpane with fingers that trembled visibly. Then he shot away from the room, and was no more seen that day. The vicar, the child- wife's father, came with panting breath and stood by the bedside for a moment, and then turned aside in silence. Ewan came, too, and be- hind him Dan walked to the door and there stopped, and let Ewan enter the chamber of his great sorrow alone. Not a word was said until Ewan went down on his knees by the VOL. I. s 258 THE DEEMSTER side of his wife, and put his arms about her, and kissed her lips, still warm, with his own far colder lips, and called to her softly by her name, as though she slept gently, and must not be awakened too harshly, and drew her to his breast, and called again in a tenderer tone that brushed the upturned face like a caress : ' Aileen ! Aileen ! Aileen ! ' Mona covered her eyes in her hands, and Dan, where he stood at the door, turned his head away. ' Aileen ! Ailee ! Ailee ! My Ailee ! ' The voice went like a whisper and a kiss into the deaf ear, and only one other sound was heard, and that was the faint cry of an infant from a room below. Ewan raised his head and seemed to listen ; he paused and looked at the faint colour in the quiet cheeks ; he put his hand lightly on the heart, and looked long at the HOW EWAN MOURNED FOR HIS WIFE 259 breast that did not lieave. Then he drew his arms very slowly away, and rose to his feet. For a moment he stood as one dazed, like a man whose brain is benumbed, and with the vacant light still in his eyes he touched Mona on the arm and drew her hand from her eyes, and he said, as one who tells you something that you could not think, ' She is dead ! ' Mona looked up into his face, and at sight of it the tears rained down her own. Dan had stepped into the room noiselessly, and came behind Ewan, and when Ewan felt his presence, he turned to Dan with the same vacant look, and repeated in the same empty tone, ' She is dead ! ' And never a tear came into Ewan's eyes to soften their look of dull torpor ; never again did he stretch out his arms to the silent form beneath him ; only with dazed, dry eyes, he looked down, and said once more, * She is dead ! ' s 2 ^6o THE DEEMSTER Dan could bear up no longer ; liis heart was choking, and lie went out without a word. It was the dread silence of feeling that was frozen, but the thaw came in its time. They laid out the body of the young wife in the darkened room, and Ewan went away and rambled over the house all day long, and when night fell in, and the lighted candles were set in the death chamber, and all in Ballamona were going off to bed, Ewan was still rambling aimlessly from room to room. He was very quiet, and he spoke little and did not weep at all. In the middle of that night the Deemster opened his bed- room door and listened, and Ewan's step was still passing from room to room, and Mona heard the same restless footfall in every break of her fitful sleep. But later on, in the dark hour that comes before day, the Deemster opened his door and listened again. nOlV EWAN MOURNED FOR HIS WIFE 261 and then all was quiet in the house. ' He has gone to bed at last/ thought the Deemster ; but in the early morning as he passed by Ewan's room he found the door open, and saw that the bed had not been slept in. The second day went by like the first^ and the next night like the former one, and again in the dead of night the Deemster opened his door and heard Ewan's step. Once more in the dark hour that goes before the day he opened his door and listened again, and all was quiet as before. ' Surely he is in bed now/ thought the Deemster. He was turninof back into his own room when he felt a sudden impulse to go to Ewan's room first and see if it was as he supposed. He went, and the door was open and Ewan was not there, and again the bed had not been slept in. The Deemster crept back on tiptoe, and 262 THE DEEMSTER a gruesome feeling took hold of him. He could not lie, and no sleep had come near his wakeful eyes, so he waited and listened for that unquiet beat of restless feet, but the sound did not come. Then, as the day was breakmg over the top of Slieu Dhoo, and all the Curraghs around lay veiled in mist, and far away to the west a deep line stretched across where the dark sea lay with the light- ening sky above it, the Deemster opened his door yet again, and went along the corridor steadily imtil he came to the door of the room where the body was. ' Perhaps he is sitting with her,' he thought, with awe, and he turned the handle. But when the door swung open the Deemster paused ; a faint sound broke the silence ; it was a soft and measured breathing from within. Quivering with dread, the Deemster stepped into the death- chamber, and his head turned rigidly towards the bed. There, in the gloom of HO IV EWAN MOURNED FOR HIS WIFE 263 tlie dawn that came over the light of the last candle that flickered in its socket, Ewan lay outstretched by the side of the white, up- turned face of his dead wife, and his hand lay on her hand, and he was in a deep sleep. To the Deemster it was as if a spirit had passed before his face, and the hair of his flesh stood up. They buried Ewan's young wife side-by- side with his mother under the elder-tree (now thick with clusters of the green berry) by the wall of the churchyard that stood over by the sea. The morning was fine, but the sun shone dimly through a crust of hot air that gathered and slumbered and caked above. Ewan passed through all without a word or a sio-h or a tear. But when the company returned to the Deemster's house, and Mona spoke to Ewan and he answered her without any show of feeling, and Dan told him of his own remorse and accused 264 THE DEEMSTER himself of every disaster, and still Ewan gave no sign, but went in and out among them all with the vacant light in his eyes, then the Bishop whispered to Mona, and she went out and presently came again, and in her arms was the infant in its white linen clothes. The sun was now hidden behind the heavy cloud overhead, and against the window-panes at that moment there was a light pattering of rain-drops. Ewan had watched with his vacant gaze when Mona went out, but when she came again a new light seemed to come into his eyes, and he stepped up to her and looked down at the little face that was sleeping softly against her breast. Then he put out his arms to take the child, and Mona passed it to him, and he held it, and sat down with it, and all at once the tears came into his dry eyes and he wept aloud. 26s CHAPTER XIY. WKESTLING WITH FATE. So far as concerned tlie Deemster this death of Ewan's wife was the beginning of the end. Had she not died under the roof of the new Ballamona ? Was it not by the strangest of accidents that she had died there, and not in her own home ? Had she not died in child- bed ? Did not everything attending her death suggest the force of an irresistible fate? More than twenty years ago the woman Kerruish, the mother of Mally Kerruish, had cursed this house, and said that no life would come to it but death would come with it. And for more than twenty years the Deemster had done his best to laugh at the 266 THE DEEMSTER prediction and to forget it. Who was he that he should be the victim of fear at the sneezing of an old woman ? What was he that he should not be master of his fate ? But what had occurred ? For more than twenty years one disturbing and distinct idea had engrossed him. In all his waking hours it exasperated him, and even in his hours of sleep it lay heavy at the back of his brain as a dull feeling of dread. On the bench, in the saddle, at table, alone by the winter's fire, alone in summer walks, the obstinate idea was always there. And nothing but death seemed likely to shake it off. Often he laughed at it in his long, lingering, nervous laugh]; but it was a chain that was slowly tightening about him. Everything was being fulfilled. First came the death of his wife at the birth of Mona, and now, after an interval of twenty years, the death of his son's wife at the birth of WRESTLING WITH FATE 267 her child. In that stretch of time he had become in his oAvn view a childless man ; his hopes had been thwarted in the son on whom alone his hopes had been built ; the house he had founded was but an echoino: vault ; the fortune he had reared an empty bubble. He was accursed ; God had heard the woman's voice ; he looked too steadily at the facts to mistake them, and let the incre- dulous fools laugh if they liked. When, twenty years before, the Deemster realised that he was the slave of one tyran- nical idea, he tried to break the f[Tte that hung over him. He bought up the cottage on the Brew, and turned the woman Kerruish into the roads. Then he put his foot on every sign of superstitious belief that came in his way as judge. But not with such brave shows of un- belief could he conquer his one disturbing idea. His nature had never been kindly, but 268 THE DEEMSTER now there grew upon liim an obstinate hatred of everybody. This was in the days when his children, Ewan and Mona, lived in the cosy nest at Bishop's Court. If in these days any man mentioned the Kerruishes in the Deemster's presence, he showed irritation, but he kept his ears open for every syllable said about them. He knew all their history ; he knew when the girl Mally fled away from the island on the day of Ewan's christening ; he knew by what boat she sailed ; he knew where she settled herself in England ; he knew when her child was born, and when in terror at the unfulfilled censure of the Church that hung over her (separating her from all communion with God's people in life or hope of redemption in death) she came back to the island, drawn by an irresistible idea, her child at her breast, to work out her penance on the scene of her shame. Thereafter he watched her daily, and knew WRESTLING WITH FATE 269 her life. She had been taken back to work at the net-looms of Kinvig, the Peeltown net- maker, and she lived with her mother at the cottage over the Head, and there in poverty she brought up her child, her boy, Jarvis Kerruish, as she had called him. If any pointed at her and laughed with cruelty; if any pretended to sympathise with her and said, with a snigger, ' The first error is always forgiven, Mally woman' ; if any mentioned the Deemster himself, and said, with a wink, ^ I'm thinking it terrible strange, Mally, that you don't take a slue round and put a sight on him ' ; if any said to her when she bought a new garment out of her scant earnings, a gown or even a scarf or bit of bright ribbon such as she loved in the old days, ' Dearee dear ! I thought you wouldn't take rest, but be up and put a sight on the ould crooky ' — the Deemster knew it all. He saw the ruddy, audacious girl of twenty sink into the 270 THE DEEMSTER pallid slattern of thirty, without hope, without joy in life, and with only a single tie. And the Deemster found that there grew upon him daily his old malicious feeling ; but so far as concerned his outer bearing matters took a turn on the day he came upon the boys, Dan Mylrea and Jarvis Kerruish, fight- ing: in the road. It was the first time he had seen the boy Jarvis. ' Who is he ? ' he had asked, and the old woman Kerruish had made answer, ' Don't you know him. Deemster ? Do you never see a face like that ? Not when you look in the glass ? ' There was no need to look twice into a mirror like the face of that lad to know whose son he was. The Deemster went home to Ballamona, and thought over the fierce encounter. He could tolerate no longer the living reproach of this boy's presence within a few miles of his own house, and, by an impulse no better WRESTLING WITH FATE 271 than humbled pride, he went back to the cottage of the Kerruishes at night, alone, and afoot. The cottage was a lone place on the top of a bare heath, with the bleak sea in front, and the purple hills behind, and with a fenceless cart-track leading up to it, A lead mine, known as the Cross Yein, had been worked there forty years before. The shaft was still open, and now full of dark, foul water almost to the surface. One roofless wall showed where the gear had stood, and under the shelter of this wall there crouched a low thatched tool-shed, having a door and a small window. This was the cottage ; and until old Mrs. Kerruish had brought there her few rickety sticks when, by the Deemster's orders, they had been thrown into the road, none had ever occupied the tool-shed as a house. The door was open, and the Deemster stepped in. One of the women, old Mrs. Kerruish, was sitting on a stool by the fire — 272 THE DEEMSTER it was a fire of sputtering hazel sticks — shredding some scraps of green vegetables into a pot of broth that swung from the iron hook of the chimney. The other woman, Mally, was doing something in the dark crib of a sleeping room, shut off from the living room by a wooden partition like the stanchion- board of a stable. The boy was asleep ; his soft breathing came from the dark crib. ' Mrs. Kerruish/ said the Deemster, ' I am willing to take the lad, and rear him, and when the time comes to set him to business, and give him a start in life.' Mrs. Kerruish had risen stiffly from her stool, and her face was set hard. ^ Think of it, woman, think of it, and don't answer in haste,' said the Deemster. ^ We'd have to be despard hard put to for a bite and a sup before we'd take anything from you, Deemster,' said the old woman. The Deemster's quick eyes, under the WRESTLING WITH TATE 273 shaggy grey brows, glanced about the room. It was a place of poverty, descending to squalor. The floor was of the bare earth trodden hard, the roof was of the bare thatch, with here and there a lath pushed between the unhewn spars to keep it up, and here and there a broken patch dropping hay- seed. ^ You are desperate hard put to, woman,' said the Deemster, and at that Mally herself came out of the sleeping crib. Her face was thin and pale, and her bleared eyes had lost their sharp light ; it was a countenance with- out one ray of hope. ' Stop, mother,' she said, ' let us hear what the Deemster has to oiFer.' ' Offer ? Offer ? ' the old woman rapped out ; ' you've had enough of the Deemster's offers, I'm thmkino^.' ' Be quiet, mother,' said Mally, and then she turned to the Deemster and said, ' Well, sir, and what is it ? ' VOL. I. T 274 I^HE DEEMSTER ' Aw, very nate and amazing civil to dirks like tliat — go on, girl, go on,' said tlie old woman, tossing her head and hand in anger towards Mally. ' Mother, this is my concern, I'm thinkmg — what is it, sir ? ' But the old woman's wrath at her daughter's patience was not to be kept down. ' Behold ye ! ' she said, ' it's my own girl that's after telling me before strangers that I've not a farthing at me, and me good for nothing at working, and only fit to hobble about on a stick, and fix the house tidy maybe, and to have no say in nothing — go on, och, go on, girl.' The Deemster explained his proposal. It was that the boy Jarvis should be given entirely into his control, and be no more known by his mother and his mother's mother, and perhaps no more seen or claimed or ac- knowledged by them, and that the Deemster WRESTLING WITH FATE 275 should provide for him and see him started in life. Mrs. Kerriiish's impatience knew no bounds. ' My gough ! ' she cried, ' my gough, my gough ! ' But Mally listened and reflected. Her spirit was broken, and she was thinking of her poverty. Her mother was now laid aside by rheumatism, and could earn nothing, and she herself worked piece- work at the net -making — so much for a piece of net, a hundred 3^ards long by two hundred meshes deep, toiling without heart from eight to eight, and earning four, five, and six shillings a week. And if there was a want, her boy felt it. She did not answer at once, and after a moment the Deemster turned to the door. ' Think of it.' he said ; ^ think of it.' ' Hurroo ! hurroo ! ' cried the old woman derisively from her stool, her untameable soul aflame with indication. ' Be quiet, mother,' said Mally, and the T 2 276 THE DEEMSTER liopelessness that had spoken from her eyes seemed then to find a way mto her voice. The end of it was that Jarvis Kerruish was sent to a school at Liverpool, and re- mained there three years, and then became a clerk in the counting-house of Benas Brothers, of the Goree Piazza, ostensibly African mer- chants, really English money-lenders. Jarvis did not fret at the loss of his mother, and of course he never wrote to her ; but he ad- dressed a careful letter to the Deemster twice a year, beginning ' Honoured sir,' and endiug ^ Yours, with much respect, most obediently.' Mally had miscalculated her self-command. If she had thought of her poverty it had been because she had thought of her boy as well. He would be lifted above it all if she could but bring herself to part with him. She wrought up her feelings to the sacrifice, and gave away her son, and sat down as a broken- spirited and childless woman. Then she WRESTLING WITH FATE 277 realised the price she had to pay. The boy had been the cause of her shame ; but he had been the centre of her pride as welL If she had been a hopeless woman before, she was now a heartless one. Little by little she fell into habits of idleness and intemperance. Before young Jarvis sat in his frilled shirt on the stool in the Goree Piazza, and before the down had l:>egun to show on his lean cheeks, his mother was a lost and abandoned woman. But not yet had the Deemster broken his fate. When Ewan disappointed his hopes and went into the Church and married without his sanction or knowledge, it seemed to him that the chain was gradually tightening about him. Then the Deemster went over once more to the cottage at the Cross Vein, alone, and in the night. ' Mrs. Kerruish,' he said, ' I am wiUiug to allow you six pounds a year pension, and I will pay it in three pound notes on Lady Day 278 THE DEEMSTER and Martinmas/ and putting liis first payment on the table he turned about and was gone before the rheumatic old body could twist in her chair. The Deemster had just made his third visit to the cottage at the Cross Yein, and left his second payment, when the death of Ewan's young wife came as a thunderbolt and startled him to the soul. For days and nights there- after he went about like a beaten horse, trembling to the very bone. He had resisted the truth for twenty years ; he had laughed at it in his long lingering laugh at gomg to bed at night and at rising in the morning ; he had ridiculed superstition in others, and punished it when he could ; he was the judge of the island, and she through whose mouth his fate fell upon him was a miserable ruin cast aside on life's highway ; but the truth would be resisted no longer : the house over his head was accursed — accursed to him, WRESTLING WITH FATE 279 and to his children, and to his children's children. The Deemster's engrossing idea became a dominating terror. Was there no way left to him to break the fate that hung over him ? None ? The Deemster revolved the problem nio'ht and dav, and meantime lived the life of the damned. At length he hit on a plan, and then peace seemed to come to him, a poor paltering show of peace, and he went about no lon^rer like a beaten and broken horse. His project was a strange one ; it was the last that prudence would have suggested, but the first that the evil spirit of his destiny could have hoped for — it was to send to Liverpool for Jarvis Kerruish, and establish him in Ballamona as his son. In that project the hand of his fate was strongly upon him ; he could not resist it ; he seemed to yield himself to its power ; he made himself its willing victim ; he was even 28o THE DEEMSTER as Saul when the Spirit of the Lord had gone from him and an evil spirit troubled him, sending for the anointed son of Jesse to play on the harp to him and to supplant him on the throne. >8i CHAPTER XA^ THE LIE THAT EWAN TOLD. It was not for lono- that Dan bore the sio-ns of contrition. As soon as Ewan's pale face had lost the weight of its gloom, Dan's curly poll knew no more of trouble. He followed the herrings all through that season, grew brown with the sun and the briny air, and caught the sea's laughter in his rollicking voice. He drifted into some bad habits from which he had liitherto held himself m check. Every morning when the boats ran into harbour, and Teare, the mate, and Crennel, the cook, stayed behind to sell the fish, Dan and old Billy Quilleash trooped up to the ^ Three Legs of Man ' too-ether. There Dan 282 THE DEEMSTER was made much of, and the lad's spirit was not proof against the poor flattery. It was Mastha Dan here, and Mastha Dan there, and Where is Mastha Dan ? and What does Mastha Dan say ? and great shoutings, and tearings, and sprees ; and all the time the old cat with the whiskers who kept the pot-house was scoring up against Dan at the back of the cupboard door. Did the Bishop know ? Know ? Did ever a young fellow go to the dogs but some old woman of either sex found her way to the very ear that ought not to be tormented with Job's comfort, and whisper, ' Aw, dear ! aw, dear ! ' and ' Lawk-a-day ! ' and ' I'm the last to bring bad newses, as the saymg is,' and ^ Och, and it's a pity, and him a fine, brave young fellow too ! ' and, ' I wouldn't have told it on no account to another living soul ! ' The Bishop said little, and tried not to hear ; but when Dan would have hood- THE LIE THAT EWAN TOLD 283 winked him lie saw tlirough the device as the sun sees through glass. Dan never left his father's presence without a sense of shame that was harder to bear than any reproach would have been. Something patient and trustful, and strong in hope, and stronger in love seemed to go out from the Bishop's silence to Dan's reticence. Dan would slink off with the bearing of a whipped hound, or, perhaps, with a muttered curse under his teeth, and always with a stern resolve to pitch himself or his cronies straightway into the sea. The tragical purpose usually lasted him over the short mile and a half that divided Bishop's Court from the ' Three Legs of Man,' and then it went down with some other troubles and a long pint of ]\Ianx jough. Of all men, the most prompt to keep the Bishop informed of Dan's sad pranks was no other than the Deemster. Since the death of ^4 THE DEEMSTER Ewan's wife tlie Deemster's feelings towards Dan had undergone a complete change. From that time forward he looked on Dan with eyes of distrust, amounting in its intensity to hatred. He forbade him his house, though Dan laughed at the prohibition and ignored it. He also went across to Bishop's Court for the first time for ten years, and poured into the Bishop's ears the story of every bad bit of business in which Dan got involved. Dan kept him fully employed in this regard, and Bishop's Court saw the Deemster at frequent intervals. If it was degrading to the Bishop's place as father of the Church that his son should consort with all the ' raggabash ' of the island, the scum of the land, and the dirtiest froth of the sea, the Bishop was made to know the full bitterness of that degradation. He would listen with head held down, and when the Deemster, passing from remonstrance to THE LIE THAT ElVAN TOLD 285 reproach, would call upon him to set his own house in order before he ever ascended the pulpit again, the Bishop would lift his great heavy eyes with an agonised look of appeal, and answer in a voice like a sob, ' Have patience, Thorkell, have patience with the lad ; he is my son, my only son.' It chanced that towards the end of the herring season an old man of eighty, one William Callow, died, and he was the captain of the parish of Michael. The captaincy was a semi-civil, semi-military office, and it in- cluded the functions of parish head-constable. Callow had been a man of extreme probity, and his walk in life had been without a slip. ' The ould man's left no living craythur to fill his shoes,' the people said when they buried him, but when the name of tlie old man's successor came down from Castletown, who should be the new captain but Daniel My Ire a ? The people were amazed, the 286 THE DEEMSTER Deemster laughed in his throat, and Dan himself looked appalled. Hardly a month after this event, the relations of Dan and the Deemster, and Dan and the Bishop reached a climax. For months past the Bishop had been hatching a scheme for the subdivision of his episcopal glebe, the large extent of which had long been a burden on the dwindling energies of his advancing age ; and he had determined that, since his son was not to be a minister of the Church, he should be its tenant, and farm its lands. So he cut off from the demesne a farm of eighty acres of fine Curragh land, well drained and tilled. This would be a stay and a solid source of livelihood to Dan when the herring fishing had ceased to be a pastime. There was no farm-house on the eighty acres, but barns and stables were to be erected, and Dan was to share with Ewan the old Ballamona as a home. THE LIE THAT EWAN TOLD 287 Dan witnessed these preparations, but entered into ttieni with only a moderate enthusiasm. The reason of his lukewarm- ness was that he found himself deeply- involved in debts whereof his father knew nothino'. When the fi shins; season finished and the calculations were made, it was found that the boat had earned no more than 240/. Of this, old Billy Quilleash took four shares, every man took two shares, there was a share set aside for Davy, the boy, and the owner was entitled to eight shares for himself, his nets, and his boat. So far all was reasonably satisfactory. The difficulty and dissatisfac- tion arose when Dan began to count the treasury. Then it was discovered that there was not enough in hand to pay old Billy and his men and the boy, leaving Dan's eight shares out of the count. Dan scratched his head and pondered. He was not brilliant at figures, but he totted 288 THE DEEMSTER up his numbers again with the same result. Then he computed the provisioning — tea, at four shilHngs a pound, besides fresh meat four times a week, and fine flour biscuits. It was heavy but not ruinous, and the season had been poor but not bad, and, whatever the net results, there ought not to have been a deficit where the principle of co-operation between master and man was that of share and share. Dan began to see his w\ay through the mystery — it was most painfully transparent in the light of the score that had been chalked up from time to time on the inside of the cupboard at the ' Three Legs of Man.' But it was easier to see where the money had gone than to make it up, and old Billy and his chums began to mutter and to grumble. ' It's raely wuss till ever,' said one. ^ The tack we've been on hasn't been worth workin',' said another. Dan heard their murmurs, and went up to THE LIE THAT ElVAN TOLD 289 Bishop's Court. After all the deficit was only forty pounds, and his father would lend him that much. But hardly had Dan sat down to breakfast than the Bishop, who was clearly in lower spirits than usual, began to lament that his charities to the poor had been interrupted by the cost of building the barns and stables on the farm intended for his son. ' I hope your fishing will turn out well, Dan,' he said, ' for I've scarce a pound in hand to start you.' So Dan said nothing about the debt, and went back to the fisher-fellows with a face as long as a haddock's. ' I'll tell you, men, the storm is coming,' he said. Old Billy looked as black as thunder, and answered with an impatient gesture, ' Then keep your weather eye liftin', that's all.' Dan measured the old salt from head to foot, and hitched his hand into his guernsey. ' You wouldn't talk to me like that, Billy VOL. I. TT 290 THE DEEMSTER Quilleasli, if I hadn't been a fool with you. It's a true saying, that when you tell your servant your secret you make him your master.' Old Billy sniggered, and his men snorted. Billy wanted to know why he had left Kinvig's boat, where he had a sure thirty pounds for his season ; and Ned Teare wished to be told what his missus would say when he took her ^y^ pound ten ; and Crennel, the slushy, asked what sort of a season the mastha was afther callin' it, at all, at all. Not a man of them remembered his share of the long scores chalked up on the inside of the cupboard door. ' Poor old dad,' thought Dan, ^ he must find the money after all — no way but that,' and once again he turned towards . Bishop's Court. Billy Quilleash saw him going off, and THE LIE THAT ElVAN TOLD 291 followed him. ^ I've somethin' terrible fine up here/ said Billy, tapping his forehead mysteriously. ' What is it ? ' Dan asked. ' Och, a shockin' powerful schame. It'll get you out of the shoal water anyways,' said Billy. It turned out that the shockin' powerful schame was the ancient device of borrowing the money from a money-lender. Old Billy knew the very man to serve the turn. His name was Kisseck, and he kept the ' Jolly Herrings ' in Peeltown, near the bottom of the crabbed little thoroughfare that wound and twisted and descended to that part of the quay which overlooked the castle rock. ' No, no ; that'll not do,' said Dan. ' Aw, and why not at all ? ' ' Why not ? Why not ? Because it's blank robbery to borrow what you can't pay back.' 292 THE DEEMSTER ^ Robbery ? Now, what's the use of sayin' the like o' that ? Aw, the shockm' notions ! Well, well, and do you raelly think a person's got no feelin's ? Robbery ? Aw, well now, well now.' And old Billy tramped along with the air of an injured man. But the end of it was that Dan said nothing to the Bishop that day, and the same night found him at the ^ Jolly Herrings.' The landlord had nothing to lend, not he, but he knew people who would not mind parting with money on good security, or on any- body's bail, as the sayin' was. Couldn't Mastha Dan get a good man's name to a bit o' paper, like ? Coorse he could, and nothing easier, for a gentl'man same as him. Who was the people ? They belonged to Liverpool, the Goree Peaizy — Benas they were callin' them. Three days afterwards the forty pounds, THE LIE THAT EWAN TOLD 293 made up to fifty for round numbers, came to Kisseck, the landlord, and the bit 0' paper came with it. Dan took the paper and went off with it to the old Ballamona. Ewan would go bail for him, and so the Bishop need know nothing of the muddle. But when Dan reached his new home Ewan was aAvay — a poor old Quaker named Christian, who had brought himself to beggary by neglecting Solomon's injunction against suretyship, was dying, and had sent for the parson. Dan was in a hurry ; the fisher -fellows were grumbling, and their wives were hano-ino; close about their coat-tails ; the money must be got without delay, and of course Ewan would sign for it straight away if he were there. An idea struck Dan, and made the sweat to start fi:om his forehead. He had put the paper on the table and taken up a pen when he heard Ewan's voice out- 294 THE DEEMSTER side, and then he threw the pen down and his heart leapt with a sense of rehef. Ewan came in, and rattled on about old Christian, the Quaker. He hadn't a week to live, poor old soul, and he hadn't a shilling left in the world. Once he farmed his hundred acres, but he had stood surety for this man and surety for that man, and paid up the defalcations -of both, and now, while they were eating the bread of luxury, he was dying as a homeless pauper. ' Well, he has been j)ractising a bad virtue,' said Ewan. ' I wouldn't stand surety for my own brother — not for my own brother if I had one. It would be helj^ing him to eat to-day the bread he earns to- morrow.' Dan went out without sa3nng anything of the bit of paper from Liverpool. The fisher- fellows met him, and when they heard what he had to say their grumblings broke out again. THE LIE THAT EWAN TOLD 295 'Well, I'm off for the Bishop— and no disrespec'/ said old Billy. He did not go ; the bit o' paper was signed, but not by Ewan ; the money was paid ; the grateful sea dogs were sent home with their wages in their pockets and a smart cuff on either ear. A month or two went by, and Dan grew quiet and thoughtful, and sometimes gloomy, and peonle began to say, ' It's none so wild the young mastha is at all at all,' or perhaps, ' Wonderful studdy he's growing,' or even, ' I wouldn't trust but he'll turn out a parson after all.' One day in Xovember Dan went over to new Ballamona and asked for Mona, and sat with her in earnest talk. He told her of some impending disaster, and she listened with a whitening face. From that day forward Mona Avas a changed woman. She seemed to share some great burden of fear with Dan, and it lay 296 THE DEEMSTER heavy upon lier, and made the way of life very long and cheerless to the sweet and silent girl. Towards the beginning of December, sundry letters came out of their season from the young clerk of Benas Brothers, Jarvis Kerruish. Then the Deemster went over more than once to Bishop's Court, and had grave interviews with the Bishop. ' If you can prove this that you say, Thorkell, I shall turn my back on him for ever — yes, for ever,' said the Bishop, and his voice was husky and his sad face was seamed with lines of pain. A few days passed and a stranger appeared at Ballamona, and when the stranger had gone the Deemster said to Mona, 'Be ready to go to Bishop's Court with me in the morning.' Mona's breath seemed to be suddenly arrested. ' Will Ewan be there ? ' she asked. ' Yes — isn't it the day of his week-day service at the chapel — Wednesday — isn't it ? ' THE LIE THAT EWAN TOLD 297 ' And Dan ? ' she said. * Dan ? Why Dan ? Well, woman, per- haps Dan too— who knows ? ' The Bishop had sent across to the old Ballamona to say that he wished to see his son in the library after service on the follow- mo' mornmo'. At twelve next day, Dan, who had been ploughing, turned in at Bishop's Court in his long boots and rough red shirt, and there in the library he found Mona and the Deemster seated. Mona did not speak when Dan spoke to her. Her voice seemed to fail ; but the Deemster answered in a jaunty word or two ; and then the Bishop, looking very thoughtful, came in with Ewan, whose eyes were brighter than they had been for many a day, and behind them walked the stranger whom Mona had seen at Ballamona the day before. ' Why, and how's this ? ' said Ewan, 298 THE DEEMSTER on perceiving tliat so many of tliem were gathered there. The Bishop closed the door, and then answered with averted face, ^ We have a pain- ful interview before us, Ewan — be seated.' It was a dark day ; the clouds hung low, and the dull rumble of the sea came through the dead air. A fire of logs and peat burned on the hearth, and the Deemster rose and stood with his back to it, his hands interlaced behind him. The Bishop sat on his brass- clamped chair at the table, and rested his pale cheek on his hand. There was a pause, and then without lifting his eyes the Bishop said, ^Ewan, do you know that it is contrary to the customs of the Church for a minister to stand security for a debtor ? ' Ewan was standing by the table fumbling the covers of a book that he had lifted. ' I know it,' he said, quietly. ^ Do you know that the minister who THE LIE THAT EWAN TOLD 299 disregards that custom, stands liable to sus- pension at the hands of his Bishop ? ' Ewan looked about with a stare of be- wilderment, but he answered again and as quietly, ' I know it.' There was silence for a moment, and then the Deemster, clearing his throat noisily, turned to where Dan was pawing up a rug that lay under a column and bust of Bun van. ' And do you know, sir,' said the Deemster in his shrill tones, ' what the punishment of forgery may be ? ' Dan's face had undero;one some chano-es during the last few minutes, but when he lifted it to the Deemster's it was as firm as a rock. 'Hanging, perhaps,' he answered sullenly; ' transportation, perhaps. What of it ? Out with it — be quick.' Dan's eyes flashed ; the Deemster tittered audibly ; the Bishop looked up at his son from under the rims of his spectacles and drew a 300 THE DEEMSTER long breath. Mona had covered her face in her hands where she sat in silence by the ingle, and Ewan, still fumbling the book in his nervous fingers, was glancing from Dan to the Deemster, and from the Bishop to Dan, with a look of blank amazement. The Deemster motioned to the stranger, who thereupon advanced from where he had stood by the door, and stepped up to Ewan. ' May I ask if this document was drawn by your authority ? ' and saying this the stranger held out a paper, and Ewan took it in his listless fingers. There was a moment's silence. Ewan glanced down at the document. It showed that fifty pounds had been lent to Daniel Mylrea, by Ben as Brothers, of the Goree Piazza, Liverpool, and it was signed by Ewan's own name as that of surety. ■ Is that your signature ? ' asked the stranger. THE LIE THAT ElVAN TOLD 301 Ewan glanced at Dan, and Dan's head was on his hreast, and his lips quivered. The Bishop was tremblmg visibly, and sat with head bent low by the sorrow of a wrecked and shattered hope. The stranger looked from Ewan to Dan, and from Dan to the Bishop. The Deemster gazed steadily before him, and his face wore a ghostly smile. ' Is it your signature ? ' repeated the stranger, and his words fell on the silence like the clank of a chain. Ewan saw it all now. He glanced again at the document, but his eyes were dim, and he could read nothing. Then he lifted his face, and its Imes of agony told of a terrible struggle. ^ Yes,' he answered, ' the signature is mine —what of it ? ' At that the Bishop and Mona raised their eyes together. The stranger looked incredu- lous. 302 • THE DEEMSTER ' It is quite right if you say so/ the stranger replied with a cold smile. Ewan trembled in every limb. ' I do say so,' he said. His fingers crumpled the document as he spoke, but his head was erect, and the truth seemed to sit on his lips. Dan dropped heavily into a chair and buried his face in his hands. The stranger smiled again the same cold smile. ' The lenders wish to withdraw the loan,' he said. ' They may do so — in a month,' said Ewan. ' That will suffice.' The Deemster's face twitched ; Mona's cheeks were wet with tears ; the Bishop had^ risen, and gone to the window, and was gazing out through blurred eyes into the blinding rain that was now pelting against the glass. ' It would be cruel to prolong a painful interview,' said the stranger ; and then, with a elance towards Dan where he sat convulsed THE LIE THAT EWAN TOLD 303 with distress that he made no effort to conceal, he added in a hard tone — * Only the lenders came to have reasons to fear that perhaps the document had been drawn without your knowledge.' Ewan handed the paper back with a nerve- less hand. He looked at the stranger through swimming eyes and said gently, but with an awful inward effort, ' You have my answer, sir — I knew of it.' The stranger bowed and went out. Dan leapt to his feet and threw his arms about Ewan's neck, but dared not to look into his troubled face. Mona covered her eyes and sobbed. The Deemster picked up his hat to go, and in passing out he paused in front of Ewan and said, in a bitter whisper — * Fool ! fool ! You have taken this man's part to your own confusion.' When the door closed behind the 304 THE DEEMSTER Deemster tlie Bishop turned from the window. ' Ewan,' he said, in a voice like a cry, ' the Recording Angel has set down the lie you have told to-day in the Book of Life to your credit in heaven.' Then the Bishop paused, and Dan lifted his head from Ewan's neck. ' As for you, sir,' the Bishop added, turning to his son, ' I am done with you for ever — go from me — let me see your face no more.' Dan went out of the room Avith bended head. END or THE EIRST VOLUME. PBIKTKD BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARB LONDON [October, 1887. A List of Books PUBLISHED BY CHATTO & WiNDUS, 214, PICCADILLY, LONDON, W. Sold by all Booksellers, or sent post-free for the published price by the Publishers. Allen (Grant) — continued. Strange Stories. With Frontispiece by George Du Maurier. Cr. 8vo, cl. ex., 6s. ; post 8vo, illust. bds., 2s. Philistia: ANovel. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 3s. 6d ; post 8vo, illust. bds., 2s. Babylon : A Novel, Post 8vo, illust. boards, 2s. For Maimie's Sake: A Tale of Love and Dynamite. Cr. 8vo, cl. ex., 6s. 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