The Deemster Part 15

Old Billy listened to this dialogue among the fisher-fellows about him, and smiled loftily. "It's nothin'," 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 gla.s.s 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 Quilleash. "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, and they're telling me it's morthal good for steddyin' the vi'ce. 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'? 'Who'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 c.h.i.n.king 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 repeated by the whole 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 gla.s.s.

"Here's to Mistha Dan'l Mylrea, and if he's not going among the parzons, bad cess to them, he's going among 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 parzons, with their t.i.thes and their censures, 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 gla.s.ses 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 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 gla.s.s 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 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 right 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 anyway."

And so the croakers went their way. In two minutes more the room was empty, 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.

CHAPTER XII

DAN'S PENANCE

Dan rose to his feet a sobered man, and went out of the smoky pot-house without a word to any one, and without lifting his bleared and bloodshot eyes unto any face. He took the lane to the sh.o.r.e, and behind him, with downcast eyes, like a dog at the heels of his master, Davy Fayle slouched along. When they reached the sh.o.r.e Dan turned toward Orris Head, walking within a yard or two of the water's edge. Striding over the sands, 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, clambering up the rocks to where the long-necked bird laid her spotted eggs, and the sea-pink grew under the fresh gra.s.s of the corries. Under the head Dan sat on a rock and lifted away his hat from his burning forehead; 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 outrage 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 purport was lost, and then disappeared. Blind 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 some one 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 colored deeply, and his head fell before her.

"Is it Ewan?" he said, and his voice came like a hoa.r.s.e 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 start, and the sensation of having received a heavy blow on the forehead. She had roused Mona, and told her what seemed to have occurred. 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 white 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 color such as might have been made by the scratch of a thorn that had not torn the skin. It had been a perplexing 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 an early breakfast, that he was going off to hold his court at Ramsey, 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 leaped to the saddle in front of the house, and was cantering away over the gravel.

Rea.s.sured by the Deemster's unbelief, the girls had thrown off their vague misgivings, and given way to good spirits. Ewan's young wife had said that all morning she had dreamed 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 young wife had fallen to the ground insensible, 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 from 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 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 G.o.d to witness that he had been a curse to himself and every one 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 Deemster 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 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 knowingly from under his s.h.a.ggy 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 wrinkled 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 not bend as he said slowly, and in a low tone, "If you 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, and said: "Go home, man veen, go home," and then hurried away to the kitchen, where in another moment his testy voice could be heard directing 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 strange fire. Mona held his hands with a pa.s.sionate grasp.

"Dan," she said, with a great tenderness, "this is very, very n.o.ble of you; this is like our Dan, this--"