The Deemster Part 39

Hommy-beg scratched his tousled head and made no answer at first, and the Bishop repeated the question.

"We're all taking sorrow for you, my lord," said Hommy, and then he stopped.

"What is it?" the Bishop repeated.

"And right sorry I am to bring his message."

The Bishop's pale face took an ashy gray, but his manner was still calm.

"What did the Deemster send you to say, Hommy?"

"The Dempster--bad cess to him, and no disrespec'--he sent me to tell you that they're after stripping the canvas off, and, behould ye, it's an ould sail, and they're knowing it by its number, and what fishing-boat it came out of, and all to that."

"Where did the sailcloth come from?" asked the Bishop, and his deep eyes were fixed on Hommy.

"It's an ould--well, the fact is--to tell you not a word of a lie--aw, my lord, what matter--what if it is--"

"Where?" said the Bishop calmly, though his lips whitened and quivered.

"It's an old drift yawlsail of the 'Ben-my-Chree.' Aw, yes, yes, sarten sure, and sorry I am to bring bad newses."

Hommy-beg went out, and the Bishop stood for some minutes in the thrall of fear. He had been smitten hard by other facts, but this latest fact seemed for the moment to overthrow his great calm faith in G.o.d's power to bring out all things for the best. He wrestled with it long and hard.

He tried to persuade himself that it meant nothing. That Ewan was dead was certain. That he came by his death through foul play seemed no less sure and terrible. But that his body had been wrapped in sailcloth once belonging to Dan's fishing-boat was no sufficient ground for the terrible accusation that was taking shape in other minds. Could he accept the idea? Ah, no, no, no. To do so would be to fly in the face of all sound reason, all fatherly love, and all trust in the good Father above. Though the sailcloth came from the "Ben-my-Chree," the fact said nothing of where the body came from. And even though it were certain that the body must have been dropped into the sea from the fishing-boat that belonged to Dan, it would still require proof that Dan himself was aboard of her.

With such poor shifts the Bishop bore down the cruel facts as one after one they beat upon his brain. He tried to feel shame of his own shame, and to think hard of his own hard thoughts. "Yes, I will trust in G.o.d,"

he told himself afresh, "I will await events, and trust in the good Father of all mercies." But where was Dan? The Bishop had made up his mind to send messengers to skirr the island round in search of his son, when suddenly there came a great noise as of many persons talking eagerly, and drawing hurriedly near and nearer.

A minute afterward his library door was opened again without reserve or ceremony, and there came trooping into the room a mixed throng of the village folk. Little Jabez Gawne was at their head with a coat and a hat held in his hands before him.

Cold as the day was the people looked hot and full of puzzled eagerness, and their smoking breath came in long jets into the quiet room.

"My lord, look what we've found on the top of Orrisdel," said Jabez, and he stretched out the coat, while one of the men behind him relieved him of the beaver.

The coat was a long black-cloth coat, with lappets and tails and wristbands turned over.

The Bishop saw at a glance that it was the coat of a clergyman.

"Leave it to me to know this coat, my lord, for it was myself that made it," said Jabez.

The Bishop's brain turned giddy, and the perspiration started from his temples, but his dignity and his largeness did not desert him.

"Is it my poor Ewan's coat?" he asked, as he held out his hand to take it; but his tone was one of almost hopeless misery and not of inquiry.

"That's true, my lord," said Jabez, and thereupon the little tailor started an elaborate series of identifications, based chiefly on points of superior cut and workmanship. But the Bishop cut the tailor short with a wave of the hand.

"You found it on Orrisdale Head?" asked the Bishop.

And one of the men behind pushed his head between the shoulders of those who were before him, and said:

"Aw, yes, my lord, not twenty yards from the cliff, and I found something else beside of it."

Just then there was a further noise in the pa.s.sage outside the library, and a voice saying:

"Gerr out of the way, you old loblolly-boys, bringing bad newses still, and glad of them, too."

It was Hommy-beg returned to Bishop's Court with yet another message, but it was a message of his own and not of the Deemster's. He pushed his way through the throng until he came face to face with the Bishop, and then he said:

"The Dempster is afther having the doctor down from Ramsey, and the big man is sayin' the neck was broken, and it was a fall that killed the young pazon, and nothing worse, at all at all."

The large sad eyes of the Bishop seemed to shine without moving as Hommy spoke, but in an instant the man who had spoken before thrust his word in again, and then the Bishop's face grew darker than ever with settled gloom.

"It was myself that found the coat and hat, my lord; and a piece nearer the cliff I found this, and this; and then, down the brew itself--maybe a matter of ten feet down--I saw this other one sticking in a green corry of gra.s.s and ling, and over I went, hand-under-hand, and brought it up."

While he spoke the man struggled to the front, and held out in one hand a belt, or what seemed to be two belts buckled together and cut across as with a knife, and in the other hand two daggers.

A great awe fell upon every one at sight of the weapons. The Bishop's face still showed a quiet grandeur, but his breathing was labored and hara.s.sed.

"Give them to me," he said, with an impressive calmness, and the man put the belts and daggers into the Bishop's hands. He looked at them attentively, and saw that one of the buckles was of silver, while the other was of steel.

"Has any one recognized them?" he asked.

A dozen voice answered at once that they were the belts of the newly-banded militia.

At the same instant the Bishop's eye was arrested by some scratches on the back of the silver buckle. He fixed his spectacles to examine the marks more closely. When he had done so he breathed with gasps of agony, and all the cheer of life seemed in one instant to die out of his face.

His nerveless fingers dropped the belts and daggers on to the table, and the silver and the steel clinked as they fell.

There had been a dead silence in the room for some moments, and then, with a labored tranquillity, the Bishop said, "That will do," and stood mute and motionless while the people shambled out, leaving their dread treasures behind them.

To his heart's core the Bishop was struck with an icy chill. He tried to link together the terrible ideas that had smitten his brain, but his mind wandered and slipped away. Ewan was last seen going toward the creek; he was dead; he had been killed by a fall; his body had come ash.o.r.e in an old sail of the "Ben-my-Chree"; his coat and hat had been picked up on the top of Orrisdale Head, and beside them lay two weapons and two belts, whereof one had belonged to Dan, whose name was scratched upon it.

In the crushing coil of circ.u.mstance that was every moment tightening about him the Bishop's great calm faith in the goodness of his Maker seemed to be benumbed. "Oh, my son, my son!" he cried, when he was left alone. "Would to G.o.d I had died before I saw this day! Oh, my son, my son!" But after a time he regained his self-control, and said to himself again, "I will trust in G.o.d; He will make the dark places plain," Then he broke into short, fitful prayers, as if to drive away, by the warmth of the spirit, the chill that was waiting in readiness to freeze his faith--"Make haste unto me, O G.o.d! Hide not Thy face from Thy servant, for I am in trouble."

The short winter's day had dragged on heavily, but the arms of darkness were now closing round it. The Bishop put on his cloak and hat and set off for Ballamona. In length of days he was but little past his prime, but the dark sorrow of many years had drained his best strength, and he tottered on the way. Only his strong faith that G.o.d would remember His servant in the hour of trouble gave power to his trembling limbs.

And as he walked he began to reproach himself for the mistrust whereby he had been so sorely shaken. This comforted him somewhat, and he stepped out more boldly. He was telling himself that, perplexing though the facts might be, they were yet so inconclusive as to prove nothing except that Ewan was dead, when all at once he became conscious that in the road ahead of him, grouped about the gate of Ballamona, were a company of women and children, all agitated and some weeping, with the coroner in their midst, questioning them.

The coroner was Quayle the Gyke, the same who would have been left penniless by his father but for the Bishop's intervention.

"And when did your husband go out to sea?" the coroner asked.

"At floodtide yesterday," answered one of the women; "and my man, he said to me, 'Liza,' he said, 'get me a bite of priddhas and salt herrin's for supper,' he said; 'we'll be back for twelve,' he said; but never a sight of him yet, and me up all night till daylight."

"But they've been in and gone out to sea again," said another of the women.

"How d'ye know that, Mother Quilleash?" asked the coroner.

"Because I've been taking a slieu round to the creek, and there's a basket of ray and cod in the shed," the woman answered.