The Manxman Part 114

"Some one you have never thought of--some one you have respected and even held in honour----"

"Who, then?" said Caesar huskily.

"Mr. Cregeen," said Philip, "it is hard for me to speak. I had not intended to speak yet; but I should hold myself in horror if I were silent now. You have been living in awful error. Whatever the cost, whatever the consequences, you must not remain in that error a moment longer. It was not Ross who took away your daughter."

"Who was it?" cried Caesar. His voice had the sound of a cracked bell.

Philip struggled hard. He tried to confess. His eyes wandered about the walls. "As you have cherished a mistaken resentment," he faltered, "so you have nourished a mistaken grat.i.tude."

"Who? who?" cried Caesar, looking fixedly into Philip's face.

Philip's rigid fingers were crawling over the papers on the table like the claws of crabs. They touched the summons from the Chancery Court, and he picked it up.

"Read this," he said, and held it out to Caesar.

Caesar took it, but continued to look at Philip with eyes that were threatening in their wildness. Philip felt that in a moment their positions had been changed. He was the judge no longer, but only a criminal at the bar of this old man, this grim fanatic, half-mad already with religious mania.

"The Lord of Hosts is mighty," muttered Caesar; and then Philip heard the paper crinkle in his hand.

Caesar was feeling for his spectacles. When he had liberated them from the sheath, he put them on the bridge of his nose upside down. With the two gla.s.ses against the wrinkles of his forehead and his eyes still uncovered, he held the paper at arm's length and tried to read it. Then he took out his red print handkerchief to dust the spectacles. Fumbling spectacles and sheath and handkerchief and paper in his trembling hands together, he muttered again in a quavering voice, as if to fortify himself against what he was to see, "The Lord of Hosts is mighty."

He read the paper at length, and there was no mistaking it. "Quilliam v.

Quilliam and Christian (Philip)."

He laid the summons on the table, and returned his spectacles to their sheath. His breathing made noises in his nostrils. "_Ugh cha nee!_" (woe is me), he muttered. "_Ugh cha nee! Ugh cha nee!_"

Then he looked helplessly around and said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."

The vengeance that he had built up day by day had fallen in a moment into ruins. His hypocrisy was stripped naked. "I see how it is," he said in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "The Lord has de-ceaved me to punish me. It is the public-house. Ye cannot serve G.o.d and mammon. What's gained on the devil's back is lost under his belly. I thought I was a child of G.o.d, but the deceitfulness of riches has choked the word. _Ugh cha nee! Ugh cha nee!_ My prosperity has been like the quails, only given with the intent of choking me. _Ugh cha nee!_"

His spiritual pride was broken down. The Almighty had refused to be made a tool of. He took up his hat and rolled his arm over it the wrong way of the nap. Half-way to the door he paused. "Well, I'll be laving you; good-day, sir," he said, nodding his head slowly. "The Lord's been knowing what you were all the time seemingly. But what's the use of His knowing--He never tells on n.o.body. And I've been calling on sinners to flee from the wrath, and He's been letting the devils make a mock at myself! _Ugh cha nee! Ugh cha nee!_"

Philip had slipped back in his chair, and his head had fallen forward'

on the table. He heard the old man go out; he heard his heavy step drop slowly down the stairs; he heard his foot dragging on the path outside.

"_Ugh cha nee! Ugh cha nee!_" The word rang in his heart like a knell.

Jem-y-Lord, who had been out in the town, came back in great excitement.

"Such news, your Honour! Such splendid news!"

"What is it?" said Philip, without lifting his head.

"They're signing pet.i.tions all over the island, asking the Queen to make you Governor."

"G.o.d in heaven!" said Philip; "that would be frightful."

XIV.

When Philip was fit to go out, they brought up a carriage and drove him round the bay. The town had awakened from its winter sleep, and the harbour was a busy and cheerful scene. More than a hundred men had come from their crofts in the country, and were making their boats ready for the mackerel-fishing at Kinsale. There was a forest of masts where the flat hulls had been, the taffrails and companions were touched up with paint, and the newly-barked nets were being hauled over the quay.

"Good morning, Dempster," cried the men.

They all saluted him, and some of them, after their Manx fashion, drew up at the carriage-door, lifted their caps with their tarry hands, and said--

"Taking joy to see you out again, Dempster. When a man's getting over an attack like that, it's middling clear the Lord's got work for him."

Philip answered with smiles and bows and cheerful words, but the kindness oppressed him. He was thinking of Kate. She was the victim of his success. For all that he received she had paid the penalty. He thought of her dreams, her golden dreams, her dreams of going up side by side and hand in hand with the man she loved. "Oh, my love, my love!" he murmured. "Only a little longer."

The doctor was waiting for him when he reached home.

"I have something to say to you, Deemster," he said, with averted face.

"It's about your aunt."

"Is she ill?" said Philip.--"Very ill."

"But I've inquired daily."

"By her express desire the truth has been kept back from you."

"The carriage is still at the door----" began Philip.

"I've never seen any one sink so rapidly. She's all nerve. No doubt the nursing exhausted her."

"It's not that--I'll go up immediately."

"She was to expect you at five."

"I cannot wait," said Philip, and in a moment he was on the road. "O G.o.d!" he thought, "how steep is the path I have to tread."

On getting to Ballure, he pushed through the hall and stepped upstairs.

At the door of Auntie Nan's bedroom he was met by Martha, the housemaid, now the nurse. She looked surprised, and made some nervous show of shutting him out. Before she could dc so he was already in the room. The air was heavy with the smell of medicines and vinegar and the odours of sick life.

"Hush!" said Martha, with a movement of lips and eyebrows.

Auntie Nan was asleep in a half-sitting position on the bed. It was a shock to see the change in her. The beautiful old face was white and drawn with pain; the chin was hanging heavily; the eyes were half open; there was no cap on her head; her hair was straggling loosely and was dull as tow.

"She must be very ill," said Philip under his breath.

"Very," said Martha. "She wasn't expecting you until five, sir."

"Has the doctor told her? Does she know?"

"Yes, sir; but she doesn't mind that. She knows she's dying, and is quite resigned--quite--and quite cheerful--but she fears if you knew--hush!"

There was a movement on the bed.