The Deemster Part 64

To this question there was no reply, and he asked again:

"Who?"

"Myself."

The Bishop lifted with trembling fingers his horn-bridged spectacles to his eyes.

"Your voice is strangely familiar," he said. "What is your name?"

Again there was no answer.

"Give me your name, sir--that I may pray of G.o.d to bless you."

Still there was no answer.

"Let me remember it in my prayers."

Then in a breaking voice Daniel Mylrea replied:

"In your prayers my poor name has never been forgotten."

At that the Bishop tottered a pace backward.

"Light," he said, faintly. "More light."

He touched a bell on the table, and sank quietly into his chair. Daniel Mylrea fell to his knees at the Bishop's feet.

"Father," he said in a fervent whisper, and put his lips to the Bishop's hand.

The door was opened, and a servant entered with candles. At the same moment Daniel Mylrea stepped quickly out of the room.

Then the little maiden leaped from the floor to the Bishop's side.

"Grandpa, grandpa! Oh, what has happened to grandpa?" she cried.

The Bishop's head had dropped into his breast and he had fainted. When he opened his eyes in consciousness Mona was bathing his forehead and damping his lips.

"My child," he said, nervously, "one has come back to us from the dead."

And Mona answered him with the thought that was now uppermost in her mind:

"Dear uncle," she said, "my poor father died half an hour ago."

CHAPTER XLV

"OUR FATHER, WHICH ART IN HEAVEN"

Not many days after the events recorded in the foregoing chapter the people of Man awoke to the joyful certainty that the sweating sickness had disappeared. The solid wave of heat had gone; the ground had become dry and the soil light; and no fetid vapors floated over the Curraghs at midday. Also the air had grown keener, the nights had sharpened, and in the morning the fronds of h.o.a.r-frost hung on the withering leaves of the trammon.

Then the poor folk began to arrange their thoughts concerning the strange things that had happened; to count up their losses by death; to talk of children that were fatherless, and of old men left alone in the world, like naked trunks, without bough or branch, flung on the bare earth by yesterday's storm.

And in that first roll-call after the battle of life and death the people suddenly became aware that, with the sweating sickness, the man who had brought the cure for it had also disappeared. He was not on the Curraghs, he was no longer in Michael, and further east he had not traveled. None could tell what had become of him. When seen last he was walking south through German toward Patrick. He was then alone, save for the half-daft lad, Davy Fayle, who slouched at his heels like a dog. As he pa.s.sed up Creg Willey's Hill the people of St. John's followed him in ones and twos and threes to offer him their simple thanks. But he pushed along as one who hardly heard them. When he came by the Tynwald he paused and turned partly toward Greeba, as though half minded to alter his course. But, hesitating no longer, he followed the straight path toward the village at the foot of Slieu Whallin. As he crossed the green the people of St. John's, who followed him up the hill road, had grown to a great number, being joined there by the people of Tynwald. And when he pa.s.sed under the ancient mount, walking with long, rapid steps, his chin on his breast and his eyes kept steadfastly down, the gray-headed men uncovered their heads, the young women thrust their young children under his hands for his blessing, and all by one impulse shouted in one voice, "G.o.d bless the priest!" "Heaven save the priest!"

There were spectators of that scene who were wont to say, when this sequel had freshened their memories, that amid the wild tumult of the grat.i.tude of the island's poor people he who was the subject of it made one quick glance of pain upward to the mount, now standing empty above the green, and then, parting the crowds that encircled him, pushed through them without word or glance or sign. Seeing at last that he shrunk from their thanks, the people followed him no further, but remained on the green, watching him as he pa.s.sed on toward Slieu Whallin, and then up by the mountain track. When he had reached the top of the path, where it begins its descent to the valley beyond, he paused again and turned about, glancing back. The people below saw his full figure clearly outlined against the sky, and once more they sent up their shout by one great impulse in one great voice that drowned the distant rumble of the sea: "G.o.d bless the priest!" "Heaven save the priest!" And he heard it, for instantly he faced about and disappeared.

When he was gone it seemed as if a spell had broken. The people looked into one another's faces in bewilderment, as if vaguely conscious that somewhere and some time, under conditions the same yet different, all that they had then seen their eyes had seen before. And bit by bit the memory came back to them, linked with a name that might not be spoken.

Then many things that had seemed strange became plain.

In a few days the whisper pa.s.sed over Man, from north to south, from east to west, from the sod cabins on the Curragh to the Castle at Castletown, that he who had cured the people of the sickness, he who had been mistaken for the priest out of Ireland, was none other than the unblessed man long thought to be dead; and that he had lived to be the savior of his people.

The great news was brought to Bishop's Court, and it was found to be there already. Rumor said that from Castletown an inquiry had come asking if the news were true, but none could tell what answer Bishop's Court had made. The Bishop had shut himself up from all visits, even those of his clergy. With Mona and the child, Ewan's little daughter, he had pa.s.sed the days since Thorkell's death, and not until the day of Thorkell's funeral did he break in upon his solitude. Then he went down to the little churchyard that stands over by the sea.

They buried the ex-Deemster near to his son Ewan, and with scarcely a foot's s.p.a.ce between them. Except Jarvis Kerruish, the Bishop was Thorkell's sole mourner, and hardly had the service ended, or the second shovel of earth fallen from old Will-as-Thorn's spade, when Jarvis whipped about and walked away. Then the Bishop stood alone by his brother's unhonored grave, trying to forget his malice and uncharity, and his senseless superst.i.tions that had led to many disasters, thinking only with the pity that is nigh to love of the great ruin whereunto his poor beliefs had tottered down. And when the Bishop had returned home the roll-call of near kindred showed him pitiful gaps. "The island grows very lonesome, Mona," he said.

That night Davy Fayle came to Bishop's Court with a book in his hand. He told Mona how he had found the "Ben-my-Chree" a complete wreck on the shingle of the Dhoon Creek in the Calf Sound, and the book in its locker. Not a syllable could Davy read, but he knew that the book was the fishing-log of the lugger, and that since he saw it last it had been filled with writings.

Mona took the book into the library, and with the Bishop she examined it. It was a small quarto, bound in sheepskin, with corners and back of untanned leather. Longways on the back the words "Ben-my-Chree Fishing-Log" were lettered, as with a soft quill in a bold hand. On the front page there was this inscription:

Ben-my-Chree.

Owner, Daniel Mylrea, Bishop's Court, Isle of Man.

Master, Illiam Quilleash.

Over page was the word "ACCOUNTS," and then followed the various items of the earnings and expenditure of the boat. The handwriting was strong and free, but the bookkeeping was not lucid.

Eight pages of faintly-tinted paper, much frayed, and with lines ruled by hand one way of the sheet only, were filled with the accounts of the herring season of 1705. At the bottom there was an attempt at picking out the items of profit and loss, and at reckoning the shares of owner, master, and man. The balance stood but too sadly on the wrong side.

There was a deficit of forty pounds four shillings and sixpence.

The Bishop glanced at the entries, and pa.s.sed them over with a sigh. But turning the leaves, he came upon other matter of more pathetic interest.

This was a long personal narrative from the owner's pen, covering some two hundred of the pages. The Bishop looked it through, hurriedly, nervously, and with eager eyes. Then he gave up the book to Mona.

"Read it aloud, child," he said, in a voice unlike his own, and with a brave show of composure he settled himself to listen.

For two hours thereafter Mona read from the narrative that was written in the book. What that narrative was does not need to be told.

Often the voice of the reader failed her, sometimes it could not support itself. And in the lapses of her voice the silence was broken by her low sobs.

The Bishop listened long with a great outer calmness, for the affections of the father were struggling with a sense of the duty of the servant of G.o.d. At some points of the narrative these seemed so to conflict as to tear his old heart wofully. But he bore up very bravely, and tried to think that in what he had done seven years before he had done well. At an early stage of Mona's reading he stopped her to say:

"Men have been cast on desert islands beforetime, and too often they have been adrift on unknown seas."

Again he stopped her to add, with a slow shake of the head:

"Men have been outlawed, and dragged out weary years in exile--men have been oftentimes under the ban and chain of the law."