The Manxman Part 113

"It's unchristian, Nancy," said Auntie Nan, "but it's human; for although he forgives the woman, he can hardly be expected to forgive the man, and he can't punish one without punishing both."

"Much good it'll do to punish either, say I. What for should he put up his fins now the hook's in his gizzard? But that's the way with the men still. Talking and talking of love and love; but when trouble is coming, no better than a churn of sour cream on a thundery day. We're best off that never had no truck with them--I don't know what you think, Miss Christian, ma'am. They may talk about having no chances--I don't mind if they do--do you? I had chance enough once, though--I don't know what you've had, ma'am. I had one sweetheart, anyway--a sort of a sweetheart, as you might say; but he was sweeter on the money than on me. Always asking how much I had got saved in the stocking. And when he heard I had three new dresses done, 'Nancy,' says he, 'we had better be putting a sight up on the parzon now, before they're all wore out at you.'"

The Governor, who was still in London, wrote a letter full of tender solicitude and graceful compliment. The Clerk of the Rolls had arranged from the first that two telegrams should be sent to him daily, giving accounts of Philip's condition. At last the Clerk came in person, and threw Auntie Nan into tremors of nervousness by his noise and robustious-ness. He roared as he came along the path, roared himself through the hall, up the stairs, and into the bedroom, roared again as he set eyes on Philip, protesting that the sick man was worth five hundred dead men yet, and vowing with an oath (and a tear trickling down his nose) that he would like to give "time" to the fools who frightened good people with bad reports. Then he cleared the room for a private consultation. "Out you go, Cottier. Look slippy, man!"

Auntie Nan fled in terror. When she had summoned resolution to invade afresh the place of the bear that had possession of her lamb, the Clerk of the Rolls was rising from the foot of the bed and saying--

"We'll leave it at that then, Christian. These d------ things _will_ happen; but don't you bother your head about it. I'll make it all serene. Besides, it's nothing--nothing in a lifetime. I'll have to send you the summons, though. You needn't trouble about that; just toss it into the fire."

Philip's head was down, his eyes were on the counterpane, and a faint tinge of colour overspread his wasted face.

"Ah! you're back, Miss Christian? I must be going, though. Good-bye, old fellow! Take care of yourself--good men are scarce. Good-bye, Miss Christian! Good-bye, all! Good-bye, Phil! G.o.d bless you!"

With that he went roaring down the stairs, but came thunging up again in a moment, put his head round the doorpost, and said--

"Lord bless my soul, if I wasn't forgetting an important bit of news--very important news, too! It hasn't got into the papers yet, but I've had the official wrinkle. What d'ye think?--the Governor has resigned! True as gospel. Sent in his resignation to the Home Office the night before last. I saw it coming. He hasn't been at home since Tynwald. Look sharp and get better now. Good-bye!"

Philip got up for the first time the day following. The weather was soft and full of whispers of spring; the window was open and Philip sat with his face in the direction of the sea. Auntie Nan was knitting by his side and running on with homely gossip. The familiar and genial talk was floating over the surface of his mind as a sea-bird floats over the surface of the sea, sometimes reflected in it, sometimes skimming it, sometimes dipping into it and being lost.

"Poor Pete! The good woman here thinks he's hard. Perhaps he is; but I'm sure he is much to be pitied. Ross has behaved badly and deserves all that can come to him. 'He's the same to me as you are, dear--in blood, I mean--but somehow I can't be sorry.... Ah! you're too tender-hearted, Philip, indeed you are. You'd find excuses for anybody. The doctor says overwork, dearest; but _I_ say the shock of seeing that poor creature in that awful position. And what a shock you gave me, too! To tell you the truth, Philip, I thought it was a fate. Never heard of it? No? Never heard that grandfather fainted on the bench? He did, though, and he didn't recover either. How well I remember it! Word broke over the town like a clap of thunder, 'The Deemster has fallen in the Court-house.'

Father heard it up at Ballure and ran down bareheaded. Grandfather's carriage was at the Courthouse door, and they brought him up to Ballawhaine. I remember I was coming downstairs when I saw the carriage draw up at the gate. The next minute your father, with his wild eyes and his bare head, was lifting something out of the inside. Poor Tom! He had never set foot in the house since grandfather had driven him out of it.

And little did grandfather think in whose arms he was to travel the last stage of his life's journey."

Philip had fallen asleep. Jem-y-Lord entered with a letter. It was in a large envelope and had come by the insular post.

"Shall I open it?" thought Auntie Nan. She had been opening and replying to Philip's letters during the time of his illness, but this one bore an official seal, and so she hesitated. "Shall I?" she thought, with the knitting needle to her lip. "I will. I may save him some worry."

She fixed her gla.s.ses and drew out the letter. It was a summons from the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice--a pet.i.tion for divorce.

The pet.i.tioner's name was Peter Quilliam; the respondent----, the co respondent----.

As Philip awoke from his doze, with the salt breath of the sea in his nostrils and the songs of spring in his ears, Auntie Nan was fumbling with the paper to get it back into the envelope. Her hands trembled, and when she spoke her voice quivered. Philip saw in a moment what had happened. She had stumbled into the pit where the secret of his life lay buried.

The doctor came in at that instant. He looked attentively at Auntie Nan, and said significantly, "You have been nursing too long, Miss Christian, you must go home for a while."

"I will go home at once," she faltered, in a feeble inward voice.

Philip's head was on his breast. Such was the first step on the Calvary he intended to ascend. O G.o.d, help him! G.o.d support him! G.o.d bear up his sinking feet that he might not fall from weakness, or fear, or shame.

XIII.

Caesar visited Kate at Castle Rushen. He found her lodged in a large and light apartment (once the dining-room of the Lords of Man), indulged with every comfort, and short of nothing but her liberty. As the turnkey pulled the door behind him, Caesar lifted both hands and cried, "The Lord is my refuge and my strength; a very present help in trouble." Then he inquired if Pete had been there before him, and being answered "No," he said, "The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light." After that he fell to the praise of the Deemster, who had not only given Kate these mercies, comfortable to her carnal body, if dangerous to her soul, but had striven to lighten the burden of her people at the time when he had circulated the report of her death, knowing she was dead indeed, dead in trespa.s.ses and sins, and choosing rather that they should mourn her as one who was already dead in fact, than feel shame for her as one that was yet alive in iniquity.

Finally, he dropped his handkerchief on to the slate floor,-went down on one knee by the side of his tall hat, and called on her in prayer to cast in her lot afresh with the people of G.o.d. "May her lightness be rebuked, O Lord!" he cried. "Give her to know that until she repents she hath no place among Thy children. And, Lord, succour Thy servant in his hour of tribulation. Let him be well girt up with Christian armour.

Help him to cry aloud, amid his tears and his lamentations, 'Though my heart and hers should break, Thy name shall not be dishonoured, my Lord and my G.o.d!'"

Rising from his knee and dusting it, Caesar took up his tall hat, and left Kate as he had found her, crouching by the fire inside the wide ingle of the old hall, covering her face and saying nothing.

He was in this mood of spiritual exaltation as he descended the steps into the Keep, and came upon a man in the dress of a prisoner sweeping with a besom. It was Black Tom. Caesar stopped in front of him, moved his lips, lifted his face to the sky, shut both eyes, then opened them again, and said in a voice of deep sorrow, "Aw, Thomas! Thomas Quilliam!

I'm taking grief to see thee, man. An ould friend, whose hand has rested in my hand, and swilling the floor of a prison! Well, I warned thee often. But thou wast ever stony ground, Thomas. And now thou must see for thyself whether was I right that honesty is the better policy. Look at thee, and look at me. The Lord has delivered me, and prospered me even in temporal things. I have lands and I have houses. And what hast thou thyself? Nothing but thy conscience and thy disgrace. Even thy very clothes they have taken away from thee, and they would take thy hair itself if thou had any."

Black Tom stood with feet flatly planted apart, rested himself on the shank of his besom, and said, "Don't be playing cammag (shindy) with me, Mr. Holy Ghoster. It isn't honesty that's making the diff'rance between us at all--it's luck. You've won and I've lost, you've succeeded and I've failed, you're wearing your chapel hat and I'm in this bit of a saucepan lid, but you're only a reg'lar ould Pharisee, anyway."

Caesar waved his hand. "I can't take the anger with thee, Thomas," he said, backing himself out. "I thought the devil had been chained since our last camp-meeting, but I was wrong seemingly. He goeth about still like a raging lion, seeking whom he may devour."

"Don't be trying to knock me down with your tex'es," said Thomas, shouldering his besom. "Any c.o.c.k can crow on his own midden."

"You can't help it, Thomas," said Caesar, edging away. "It isn't my ould friend that's blaspheming at all. It's the devil that has entered into his heart and is rending him. But cast the devil out, man, or h.e.l.l will be thy portion."

"I was there last night in my dreams, Caesar," said Black Tom, following him up. "'Oh, Lord Devil, let me in,' says I. 'Where d'ye come from?'

says he. 'The Isle of Man,' says I. 'I'm not taking any more from there till my Bishop comes,' says he. 'Who's that?' says I. 'Bishop Caesar, the publican--who else?' says he."

"I marvel at thee, Thomas," said Caesar, half through the small door of the portcullis, "but the sons of Belial have to fight hard for his throne. I'll pray for thee, though, that it be not remembered against thee when(D.V.) there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."

That night Caesar visited the Deemster at Elm Cottage. His eyes glittered, and there was a look of frenzy in his face. He was still in his mood of spiritual pride, and when he spoke it was always with the thees and the thous and in the high pitch of the preacher.

"The Ballawhaine is dead, your Honour," he cried, "They wouldn't have me tell thee before because of thy body's weakness, but now they suffer it.

Groanings and moanings and 'stericks of torment! Ter'ble sir, ter'ble!

Took a notion he would have water poured out for him at the last. It couldn't wash him clane, though. And shouting with his dying voice, 'I've sinned, O G.o.d, I've sinned!' Oh, I delivered my soul, sir; he can clear me of that, anyway. 'Lay hould of a free salvation,' says I. 'I've not lived a right life,' says he. 'Truth enough,' says I; 'you've lived a life of carnal freedom, but now is the appointed time. Say, "Lord, I belaive; help thou my unbelaife."' 'Too late, Mr. Cregeen, too late,'

says he, and the word was scarce out of his mouth when he was key-cold in a minute, and gone into the night of all flesh that's lost. Well, it was his own son that killed him, sir; robbed him of every silver sixpence and ruined him. The last mortgage he raised was to keep the young man out of prison for forgery. Bad, sir, bad! To indulge a child to its own d.a.m.nation is bad. A human infirmity, though; and I'm feeling for the poor sinner myself being tempted--that is to say inclining--but thank the Lord for his strengthening arm----"

"Is he buried?" asked Philip.

"Buried enough, and a poor funeral too, sir," said Caesar, walking the room with a proud step, the legs straightened, the toes conspicuously turned out. "Driving rain and sleet, sir, the wind in the trees, the gra.s.s wet to your calf, and the parson in his white smock under the umbrella. n.o.body there to spake of, neither; only myself and the tenants mostly."

"Where was Ross?"

"Gone, sir, without waiting to see his foolish ould father pushed under the sod. Well, there was not much to wait for neither. The young man has been a besom of fire and burnt up everything. Not so much left as would buy a rope to hang him. And Ballawhaine is mine, sir; mine in a way of spak-ing--my son-in-law's, anyway--and he has given me the right to have and to hould it. Aw, a Sabbath time, sir; a Sabbath time. I made up my mind to have it the night the man struck me in my own house in Sulby. He betrayed my daughter at last, sir, and took her from her home, and then her husband lent six thousand pounds on mortgage. 'Do what you like with it,' said he, and I said to myself, 'The man shall starve; he shall be a beggar; he shall have neither bread to eat, nor water to drink, nor a roof to cover him.' And the moment the breath was out of the ould man's body I foreclosed."

Philip was trembling from head to foot. "Do you mean," he faltered, "that that was your reason?"

"It is the Lord's hand on a rascal," said Caesar, "and proud am I to be the instrument of his vengeance. 'G.o.d moves in a mysterious way,' sir.

Oh, the Lord is opening His word more and more. And I have more to tell thee, too. Balla-whaine would belong to thyself, sir, if every one had his rights. It was thy grandfather's inheritance, and it should have been thy father's, and it ought to be thine. Take it, sir, take it on thy own terms; it is worth a matter of twelve thousand, but thou shalt have it for nine, and pay for it when the Lord gives thee substance.

Thou hast been good to me and to mine, and especially to the poor lost lamb who lies in the Castle to-night in her shame and disgrace. Little did I think I should ever repay thee, though. But it is the Lord's doings. It is marvellous in our eyes. 'Deep in unfathomable mines'----"

Caesar was pacing the room and speaking in tones of rapture. Philip, who was sitting at the table, rose from it with a look of fear.

"Frightful! frightful!" he muttered. "A mistake! a mistake!"

"The Lord G.o.d makes no mistakes, sir," cried Caesar.

"But what if it was not Ross----" began Philip. Caesar paid no heed.

"What if it was not Ross----" Caesar glanced over his shoulder.

"What if it was some one else----" said Philip. Caesar stopped in front of him.