The Manxman Part 112

She slid to her knees at his feet, took the hand that hung by his side and began to cover it with kisses. "Forgive me," she said; "I have been very weak and very guilty."

"What's the use of talking like that?" he answered. "What's past is past," and he drew his hand away. "No child now, no child now," he muttered again, as though his dispair cried out to G.o.d.

He was feeling like a man wrecked in mid-ocean. A spar came floating towards him. It was all he could lay hold of from the foundering ship, in which he had sailed, and sung, and laughed, and slept. He had thought to save his life by it, but another man was clinging to it, and he had to drop it and go down.

She could not look into his face again; she could not touch his hand; she could not ask for his forgiveness. He stood over her for a moment without speaking, and then, with his hollow cheeks, and deep eyes, and ragged heard, he went away in the morning sunlight.

XII.

Phillip fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, he saw, as in a mirror, a solution to the tumultuous drama of his life. It was a glorious solution, a liberating and redeeming end, an end bringing freedom from the bonds which had beset him. What matter if it was hard; if it was difficult; if it was bitter as Marah and steep as Calvary? He was ready, he was eager. Oh, blessed sleep! Oh, wise and soothing sleep I It had rent the dark cloud of his past and given the flash of light that illumined the path before him.

He opened his eyes and saw Auntie Nan seated by his side, reading a volume of sermons. At the change in his breathing the old dove looked round, dropped the book, and began to flutter about. "Hush, dearest, hush!" she whispered.

There was a heavy, monotonous sound, like the beating of a distant drum or the throb of an engine under the earth.

"Auntie!"--"Yes, dearest."

"What day is it?"

"Sunday. Oh, you've had a long, long sleep, Philip. You slept all day yesterday."

"Is that the church-bell ringing?"

"Yes, dear, and a fine morning, too--so soft and springlike. I'll open the window."

"Then my hearing must be injured."

"Ah! they m.u.f.fled the bell--that's it. 'The church is so near,' they said, 'it might trouble him.'"

A carriage was coming down the road. It rattled on the paved way; then the rattling ceased, and there was a dull rumble as of a cart sliding on to a wooden bridge. "That horse has fallen," said Philip, trying to rise.

"It's only the straw on the street," said Auntie Nan. "The people brought it from all parts. 'We must deaden the traffic by the house,'

they said. Oh, you couldn't think how good they've been. Yesterday was market-day, but there was no business done. Couldn't have been; they were coming and going the whole day long. 'And how's the Deemster now?'

'And how's he now?' It was fit to make you cry. I believe in my heart, Philip, n.o.body in Ramsey went to bed the first night at all. Everybody waiting and waiting to see if there wasn't something to fetch, and the kettle kept boiling in every kitchen round about. But hush, dearest, hush! Not so much talking all at once. Hush, now!"

"Where is Pete?" asked Philip, his face to the wall.

"Oiling the hinges of the door, dearest. He was laying carpets on the stairs all day yesterday. But never the sound of a hammer. The man's wonderful. He must have hands like iron. His heart's soft enough, though. But then everybody is so kind--everybody, everybody! The doctor, and the vicar, and the newspapers--oh, it's beautiful! It's just as Pete was saying."

"What was Pete saying, Auntie?"

"He was saying the angels must think there's somebody sick in every house in the island."

A sound of singing came through the open window, above the whisper of young leaves and the twitter of birds. It was the psalm that was being sung in church--

"Blessed is the man that considereth the poor and needy; The Lord shall deliver him in time of trouble."

"Listen, Philip. That must be a special psalm. I'm sure they're singing it for you. How sweet of them! But we are talking too much, dear. The doctor will scold. I must leave you now, Philip. Only for a little, though, while I go back to Bal lure, and I'll send up Cottier."

"Yes, send up Cottier," said Philip.

"My darling," said the old soul, looking down as she tied her bonnet strings. "You'll lie quiet now? You're sure you'll lie quiet? Well, good bye! good-bye!"

As Philip lay alone the soar and swell of the psalm filled the room.

Oh, the irony of it all! The frantic, hideous, awful irony! He was lying there, he, the guilty one, with the whole island watching at his bedside, pitying him, sorrowing for him, holding its breath until he should breathe, and she, his partner, his victim, his innocent victim, was in jail, in disgrace, in a degradation more deep than death. Still the psalm soared and swelled. He tried to bury his head in the pillows that he might not hear.

Jem-y-Lord came in hurriedly and Philip beckoned him close. "Where is she?" he whispered.

"They removed her to Castle Rushen late last night, your Honour," said Jemmy softly.

"Write immediately to the Clerk of the Bolls," said Philip. "Say she must be lodged on the debtors' side and have patients' diet and every comfort. My Kate! my Kate!" he kept saying, "it shall not be for long, not for long, my love, not for long!"

The convalescence was slow and Philip was impatient. "I feel better to-day, doctor," he would say, "don't you think I may get out of bed?"

"_Traa dy liooar_ (time enough), Deemster," the doctor would answer.

"Let us see what a few more days will do."

"I have a great task before me, doctor," he would say again. "I must begin immediately."

"You have a life's work before you, Deemster, and you must begin soon, but not just yet."

"I have something particular to do, doctor," he said at last. "I must lose no time."

"You must lose no time indeed, that's why you must stay where you are a little longer."

One morning his impatience overcame him, and he got out of bed. But, being on his feet, his head reeled, his limbs trembled, he clutched at the bed-post, and had to clamber back. "Oh G.o.d, bear me witness, this delay is not my fault," he murmured.

Throughout the day he longed for the night, that he might close his eyes in the darkness and think of Kate. He tried to think of her as she used to be--bright, happy, winsome, full of joy, of love, of pa.s.sion, dangling her feet from the apple-tree, or tripping along the tree-trunk in the glen, teasing him? tempting him. It was impossible. He could only think of her in, the gloom of the prison. That filled his mind with terrors. Sometimes in the dark hours his enfeebled body beset his brain with fantastic hallucinations. Calling for paper and pens, he would make show of writing a letter, producing no words or intelligible signs, but only a ma.s.s of scrawls and blotches. This he would fold and refold with great elaboration, and give to Jem y-Lord with an air of gravity and mystery, saying in a whisper, "For her!" Thus night brought no solace, and the dawn found him waiting for the day, that he might open his eyes in the sunlight and think, "She is better where she is; G.o.d will comfort her."

A fortnight went by and he saw nothing of Pete. At length he made a call on his courage and said, "Auntie, why does Pete never come?"

"He does, dearest. Only when you're asleep, though. He stands there in the doorway in his stockings. I nod to him and he comes in and looks down at you. Then he goes away without a word."

"What is he doing now?"

"Going to Douglas a good deal seemingly. Indeed, they're saying--but then people are so fond of talking."

"What are people saying, Auntie?"

"It's about a divorce, dearest!"

Philip groaned and turned away his face.

He opened his eyes one day from a doze, and saw the plain face of Nancy Joe, framed in a red print handkerchief. The simple creature was talking with Auntie Nan, holding council, and making common cause with the dainty old lady as unmarried women and old maids both of them.

"'Why don't you keep your word true?' says I. 'Wasn't you saying you'd take her back,' says I, 'whatever she'd done and whatever she was, so help you G.o.d?' says I. 'Isn't she shamed enough already, poor thing, without you going shaming her more? Have you no bowels at all? Are you only another of the gutted herrings on a stick?' says I. 'Why don't you keep your word true?' 'Because,' says he, 'I want to be even with the other one,' says he, and then away he went wandering down by the tide."