The Deemster Part 59

The people broke up abruptly, and talking of what the Bishop had said, they shook their heads. But their terror continued, and before its awful power their qualms of faith went down as before a flood. Then they cried, "Send for the priest!" and the Bishop sent for him.

Seven weary days pa.s.sed, and at length with a brightening countenance the Bishop announced that the priest had answered that he would come.

Other three days went by, and the news pa.s.sed from north to south that in the brig "Bridget of Cork," bound for Whitehaven, with liberty to call at Peeltown, the Romish priest, Father Dalby, had sailed for the Isle of Man.

Then day after day the men went up to the hilltops to catch sight of the sail of an Irish brig. At last they sighted one from the Mull Hills, and she was five leagues south of the Calf. But the wind was high, and the brig labored hard in a heavy sea. Four hours the people watched her, and saw her bearing down into the most dangerous currents about their coast.

Night closed in, and the wind rose to the strength of a gale. Next morning at early dawn the people climbed the headlands again, but no brig could they now see, and none had yet made their ports.

"She must be gone down," they told themselves, and so saying they went home with heavy hearts.

But two days afterward there went through the island a thrilling cry, "He is here!--he has come!--the priest!" And at that word a wave of rosy health swept over a thousand haggard faces.

III

In the dark sleeping-room of a little ivy-covered cottage that stood end-on to the highroad through Michael a blind woman lay dying of the sickness. It was old Kerry; and on a three-legged stool before her bed her husband Hommy sat. Pitiful enough was Hommy's poor ugly face. His thick lubber lips were drawn heavily downward, and under his besom brows his little eyes were red and his eyelids swollen. In his hands he held a shovel, and he was using it as a fan to puff air into Kerry's face.

"It's all as one, man," the sick woman moaned. "Ye're only keeping the breath in me. I'm bound to lave ye."

And thereupon Hommy groaned l.u.s.tily and redoubled his efforts with the shovel. There was a knock at the door, and a lady entered. It was Mona, pale of face, but very beautiful in her pallor, and with an air of restful sadness.

"And how are you now, dear Kerry?" she asked, leaning over the bed.

"Middling badly, mam," Kerry answered feebly. "I'll be took, sarten sure, as the saying is."

"Don't lose heart, Kerry. Have you not heard that the priest is coming?"

"Chut, mam! I'll be gone, plaze G.o.d, where none of the like will follow me."

"Hush, Kerry! He was in Patrick yesterday; he will be in German to-morrow, and the next day he will be here in Michael. He is a good man, and is doing wonders with the sick."

Kerry turned face to the wall, and Hommy talked with Mona. What was to become of him when Kerry was gone? Who would be left to give him a bit of a tidy funeral? The Dempster? Bad cess to the like of him. What could be expected from a master who had turned his own daughter out of doors?

"I am better where I am," Mona whispered, and that was her sole answer to the deaf man's too audible questions. And Hommy, after a pause, a.s.sented to the statement with his familiar comment, "The Bishop's a rael ould archangel, so he is."

Thereupon Kerry turned her gaze from the wall and said, "Didn't I tell ye, mam, that he wasn't dead?"

"Who?"

"Why--him--him that we mayn't name--_him_."

"Hush, dear Kerry, he died long ago."

"I tell ye, mam, he's a living man, and coming back--I know it--he's coming back immadient--I saw him."

"Drop it, woman, it's drames," said Hommy.

"I saw him last night as plain as plain--wearing a long gray sack and curranes on his feet, and a queer sort of hat."

"It must have been the priest that you saw in your dream, dear Kerry."

The sick woman raised herself on one elbow, and answered eagerly, "I tell you no, mam, but him--_him_."

"Lie still, Kerry; you will be worse if you uncover yourself to the cool air."

There was a moment's quiet, and then the blind woman said finally, "I'm going where I'll have my eyes same as another body."

At that Hommy's rugged face broadened to a look of gruesome sorrow, and he renewed his exertions with the shovel.

IV

At seven o'clock that day the darkness had closed in. A bright turf fire burned in a room in Bishop's Court, and the Bishop sat before it with his slippered feet on a sheepskin rug. His face was mellower than of old, and showed less of strength and more of sadness. Mona stood at a tea-table by his side, cutting slices of bread and b.u.t.ter.

A white face, with eyes of fear, looked in at the dark window. It was Davy Fayle. He was but little older to look upon for the seven years that had gone heavily over his troubled head. His simple look was as vacant and his lagging lip hung as low; but his sluggish intellect had that night become suddenly charged with a ready man's swiftness.

Mona went to the door. "Come in," she said; but Davy would not come. He must speak with her outside, and she went out to him.

He was trembling visibly.

"What is it?" she said.

"Mistress Mona," said Davy, in a voice of great emotion, "it's as true as the living G.o.d."

"What?" she said.

"He's alive--ould Kerry said true--he's alive, and coming back."

Mona glanced into his face by the dull light that came through the window. His eyes, usually dull and vacant, were aflame with a strange fire. She laid one hand on the door-jamb, and said, catching her breath, "Davy, remember what the men said long ago--that they saw him lying in the snow."

"He's alive, I'm telling you--I've seen him with my own eyes."

"Where?"

"I went down to Patrick this morning to meet the priest coming up--but it's no priest at all--it's--it's--it's _him_."

Again Mona drew her breath audibly.

"Think what you are saying, Davy. If it should not be true! Oh, if you should be mistaken!"

"It's Bible truth, Mistress Mona--I'll go bail on it afore G.o.d A'mighty."

"The priest, you say?"

"Aw, lave it to me to know Mastha--I mean--_him_"

"I must go in, Davy. Good-night to you, and thank you--Good-night, and--" the plaintive tenderness of her voice broke down to a sob. "Oh, what can it all mean?" she exclaimed more vehemently.

Davy turned away. The low moan of the sea came up through the dark night.