The Deemster Part 46

A few minutes after Gorry had left the cell, in answer to the loud knocking that had echoed through the empty chambers overhead, Dan could hear that he was returning to it, halting slowly down the steps with many a pause, and mumbling remarks meantime, as if lighting some one who came after him.

"Yes, my lord, it's dark, very dark. I'll set the lantern here, my lord, and turn the key."

In another moment old Gorry was at Dan's side, saying, in a fearful undertone, "Lord 'a' ma.s.sy! It's the Bishop hisself. I lied to him mortal, so I did--but no use--I said you were sleeping, but no good at all, at all. He wouldn't take rest without putting a sight on you. Here he is--Come in, my lord."

Almost before Dan's mind, distraught by other troubles, had time to grasp what Gorry said, the old jailer had clapped his lantern on the floor of the cell, and had gone from it, and Dan was alone with his father.

"Dan, are you awake?" the Bishop asked, in a low, eager tone. His eyes were not yet familiar with the half-light of the dark place, and he could not see his son. But Dan saw his father only too plainly, and one glance at him in that first instant of recovered consciousness went far to banish as an empty sophism the soothing a.s.surance he had lately nursed at his heart that in what he had done he had done well.

The Bishop was a changed and shattered man. His very stature seemed to have shrunk, and his Jovian white head was dipped into his breast. His great calm front was gone, and in the feeble light of the lantern on the floor his eyes were altered and his face seemed to be cut deep with lines of fear and even of cunning. His irresolute mouth was half-open, as if it had only just emitted a startled cry. In one of his hands he held a small parcel bound tightly with a broad strap, and the other hand wandered nervously in the air before him.

Dan saw everything in an instant. This, then, was the first-fruits of that day's work. He rose from his seat.

"Father!" he cried, in a faint, tremulous voice.

"My son!" the Bishop answered, and for some swift moments thereafter the past that had been very bitter to both was remembered no more by either.

But the sweet oblivion was cruelly brief. "Wait," the Bishop whispered, "are we alone?" And with that the once stately man of G.o.d crept on tiptoe like a cat to the door of the cell, and put his head to it and listened.

"Art thou there, Paton Gorry?" he asked, feebly simulating his accustomed tone of quiet authority.

Old Gorry answered from the other side of the door that he was there, that he was sitting on the steps, that he was not sleeping, but waiting my lord's return.

The Bishop crept back to Dan's side, with the same cat-like step as before. "You are safe, my son," he whispered in his low eager tone. "You shall leave this place. It is my prison, and you shall go free."

Dan had watched his father's movements with a sickening sense.

"Then you do not know that I surrendered?" he said, faintly.

"Yes, yes, oh, yes, I know it. But that was when your arrest was certain. But now--listen."

Dan felt as if his father had struck him across the face. "That was what the Deemster said," he began; "but it is wrong."

"Listen--they have nothing against you. I know all. They can not convict you save on your own confession. And why should you confess?"

"Why?"

"Don't speak--don't explain--I must not hear you--listen!" and the old man put one arm on his son's shoulder and his mouth to his ear. "There is only one bit of tangible evidence against you, and it is here; look!"

and he lifted before Dan's face the parcel he carried in his other trembling hand. Then down he went on one knee, put the parcel on the floor, and unclasped the strap. The parcel fell open. It contained a coat, a hat, two militia daggers, and a large heavy stone.

"Look!" the Bishop whispered again, in a note of triumph, and as he spoke a grin of delight was struck out of his saintly old face.

Dan shuddered at the sight.

"Where did you get them?" he asked.

The Bishop gave a little grating laugh.

"They were brought me by some of my good people," he answered. "Oh, yes, good people, all of them; and they will not tell. Oh, no, they have promised me to be silent."

"Promised you?"

"Yes--listen again. Last night--it was dark, I think it must have been past midnight--I went to all their houses. They were in bed, but I knocked, and they came down to me. Yes, they gave me their word--on the Book they gave it. Good people, all--Jabez the tailor, Stean the cobbler, Juan of Ballacry, and Thormod in the Street. I remember every man of them."

"Father, do you say you went to these people--these, the very riff-raff of the island--you went to them--you, and at midnight--and begged them--"

"Hush, it is nothing. Why not? But this is important." The Bishop, who was still on his knees, was buckling up the parcel again. "You can sink it in the sea. Did you mark the stone? That will carry it to the bottom.

And when you are in the boat it will be easy to drop everything overboard."

"The boat?"

"Ah! have I not told you? Thormod Mylechreest--you remember him? A good man, Thormod--a tender heart, too, and wronged by his father, poor misguided man. Well, Mylechreest has promised--I have just left him--to come down to the harbor at nine to-night, and take the fishing-smack, the 'Ben-my-Chree,' and bring her round to the west coast of St.

Patrick's Islet, and cast anchor there, and then come ash.o.r.e in the boat, and wait for you."

"Wait for me, father?"

"Yes; for this prison is mine, and I shall open its doors to whomsoever it pleases me to liberate. Look!"

The Bishop rose to his full height, threw back his head, and with a feeble show of his wonted dignity strode to the door of the cell and cried, in a poor, stifled echo of his accustomed strong tone, "Paton Gorry, open thou this door."

Old Gorry answered from without, and presently the door was opened.

"Wider."

The door was thrown wide.

"Now, give me the keys, Paton Gorry," said the Bishop, with the same a.s.sumption of authority.

Old Gorry handed his keys to the Bishop.

"And get thee home, and stay there."

Old Gorry touched his cap and went up the steps.

Then, with a bankrupt smile of sorry triumph, the Bishop turned to his son. "You see," he said, "you are free. Let me look--what is the hour?"

He fumbled for his watch. "Ah, I had forgotten. I paid my watch away to poor Patrick Looney. No matter. At nine by the clock Mylechreest will come for you, and you will go to your boat and set sail for Scotland, or England, or Ireland, or--or--"

Dan could bear up no longer. His heart was choking. "Father, father, my father, what are you saying?" he cried.

"I am saying that you are free to leave this place."

"I will not go--I can not go."

The Bishop fetched a long breath and paused for a moment. He put one trembling hand to his forehead, as if to steady his reeling and heated brain.

"You can not stay," he said. "Hark! do you hear the wind how it moans?

Or is it the sea that beats on the rock outside? And over our heads are the dead of ten generations."