The Manxman Part 121

Jem-y-Lord was at the eye-hole of the door. "He's coming on to the bench, sir. The gentlemen of the council are following him, and the Court-house is full of ladies."

Philip was pacing to and fro like a man in violent agitation. At the other side of the wall the confused murmur had risen to a sharp crackle of many voices.

The constable came back with the Clerk of the Court and the jailor.

"Everything ready, your Excellency," said the Clerk of the Court.

The constable turned the key of the door, and laid his hand on the k.n.o.b.

"One moment--give me a moment," said Philip.

He was going through the last throes of his temptation. Something was asking him, as if in tones of indignation, what right he had to bring people there to make fools of them. And something was laughing as if in mockery at the theatrical device he had chosen for gathering together the people of rank and station, and then dismissing them like naughty school-children.

This idea clamoured loud in wild derision, telling him that he was posing, that he was making a market of his misfortune, that he was an actor, and that whatever the effect of the scene he was about to perform, it was unnecessary and must be contemptible. "You talk of your shame and humiliation--no atonement can wipe it out. You came here prating to yourself of blotting out the past--no act of man can do so.

Vain, vain, and idle as well as vain! Mere mummery and display, and a blow to the dignity of justice!"

Under the weight of such torment the thought came to him that he should go through the ceremony after all, that he should do as the people expected, that he should accept the Governorship, and then defy the social ostracism of the island by making Kate his wife. "It's not yet too late," said the tempter.

Philip stopped in his walk and remembered the two letters of yesterday.

"Thank G.o.d! it _is_ too late," he said.

He had spoken the words aloud, and the officers in attendance glanced up at him. Jem-y-Lord was behind, trembling and biting his lip.

It was indeed too late for that temptation. And then the vanity of it, the cruelty and insufficiency of it! He had been a servant of the world long enough. From this day forth he meant to be its master. No matter if all the devils of h.e.l.l should laugh at him! He was going through with his purpose. There was only one condition on which he could live in the world--that he should renounce it. There was only one way of renouncing the world--to return its wages and strip off its livery. His sin was not only against Kate, against Pete; it was against the island, and the island must set him free.

Philip approached the door, slackened his pace with an air of uncertainty; at one step from the constable he stopped. He was breathing noisily. If the officers had observed him at that moment they must have thought he looked like a man going to execution. But the constable gazed before him with a sombre expression, held his helmet in one hand, and the k.n.o.b of the door in the other.

"Now," said Philip, with a long inspiration.

There was a flash of faces, a waft of perfume, a flutter of pocket-handkerchiefs, and a deafening reverberation. Philip was in the Court-house.

XXII.

It was remarked that his face was fearfully worn, and that it looked the whiter for the white wig above it and the black gown beneath. His large eyes flamed as with fire. "The sword too keen for the scabbard,"

whispered somebody.

There is a kind of aloofness in strong men at great moments. n.o.body approaches them. They move onward of themselves, and stand or fall alone. Everybody in court rose as Philip entered, but no one offered his hand. Even the ex-Governor only bowed from the Governor's seat under the canopy.

Philip took his customary place as Deemster. He was then at the right of the Governor, the Bishop being on the left. Behind the bishop sat the Attorney-General, and behind Philip the Clerk of the Rolls. The cheers that had greeted Philip on his entrance ended with the clapping of hands, and died off like a wave falling back from the shingle. Then he rose and turned to the Governor.

"I do not know if you are aware, your Excellency, that this is Deemster's Court-day?"

The Governor smiled, and a t.i.tter went round the court. "We will dispense with that," he said. "We have better business this morning." 34

"Excuse me, your Excellency," said Philip; "I am still Deemster. With your leave we will do everything according to rule."

There was a slight pause, a questioning look, then a cold answer. "Of course, if you wish it; but your sense of duty----"

The ladies in the galleries bad ceased to flutter their fans, and the members of the House of Keys were shifting in their seats in the well below.

The Clerk of the Deemster's Court pushed through to the s.p.a.ce beneath the bench. "There is only one case, your Honour," he whispered up.

"Speak out, sir," said Philip. "What case is it?"

The Clerk gave an informal answer. It was the case of the young woman who had attempted her life at Ramsey, and had been kept at Her Majesty's pleasure.

"How long has she been in prison?"--"Seven weeks, your Honour."

"Give me the book and I will sign the order for her release."

The book was handed to the bench. Philip signed it, handed it back to the Clerk, and said with his face to the jailor--

"But keep her until somebody comes to fetch her."

There had been a cold silence during these proceedings. When they were over, the ladies breathed freely. "You remember the case--left her husband and little child--divorced since, I'm told--a worthless person."--"Ah! yes, wasn't she first tried the day the Deemster fell ill in court?"--"Men are too tender with such creatures."

Philip had risen again. "Your Excellency, I have done the last of my duties as Deemster." His voice had hoa.r.s.ened. He was a worn and stricken figure.

The ex Governor's warmth had been somewhat cooled by the unexpected interruption. Nevertheless, the pock-marks smoothed out of his forehead, and he rose with a smile. At the same moment the Clerk of the Rolls stepped up and laid two books on the desk before him--a New Testament in a tattered leather binding, and the _Liber Juramentorum_, the Book of Oaths.

"The regret I feel," said the ex-Governor, "and feel increasingly, day by day, at the severance of the ties which have bound me to this beautiful island is tempered by the satisfaction I experience that the choice of my successor has fallen upon one whom I know to be a gentleman of powerful intellect and stainless honour. He will preserve that autonomous independence which has come down to you from a remote antiquity, at the same time that he will uphold the fidelity of a people who have always been loyal to the Crown. I pray that the blessing of Almighty G.o.d may attend his administration, and that, if the time ever comes when he too shall stand in the position I occupy to-day, he may have recollections as lively of the support and kindness he has met with, and regrets as deep at his separation from the little Manx nation which he leaves behind."

Then the Governor took the staff of office, and gave the signal for rising. Everybody rose. "And now, sir," he said, turning to Philip with a smile, "to do everything, as you say, according to rule, let us first take Her Majesty's commission of your appointment."

There was a moment's pause, and then Philip said in a cold clear voice--

"Your Excellency, I have no commission. The commission which I received I have returned. I have, therefore, no right to be installed as Governor. Also, I have resigned my office as Deemster, and, though my resignation has not yet been accepted, I am, in reality, no longer in the service of the State."

The people looked at the speaker with eyes that were full of the stupefaction of surprise. Somebody bad risen at the back of the bench.

It was the Clerk of the Rolls. He stretched out his hand as if to touch Philip on the shoulder. Then he hesitated and sat down again.

"Gentlemen of the Council and of the Keys," continued Philip, "you will think you have a.s.sembled to see a man take a leap into an abyss more dark than death. That is as it may be. You have a right to an explanation, and I am here to make it. What I have done has been at the compulsion of conscience. I am not worthy of the office I hold, still less of the office that is offered me."

There was a half-articulate interruption from behind Philip's chair.

"Ah! do not think, old friend, that I am dealing in vague self depreciation. I should have preferred not to speak more exactly, but what must be, must be. Your Excellency has spoken of my honour as spotless. Would to G.o.d it were so; but it is deeply stained with sin."

He stopped, made an effort to begin afresh, and stopped again. Then, in a low tone, with measured utterance, amid breathless silence, he said-- "I have lived a double life. Beneath the life that you have seen there has been another--G.o.d only knows how full of wrongdoing and disgrace and shame. It is no part of my duty to involve others in this confession.

Let it be enough that my career has been built on falsehood and robbery, that I have deceived the woman who loved me with her heart of hearts, and robbed the man who would have trusted me with his soul."

The people began to breathe audibly. There was the sc.r.a.ping of a chair behind the speaker. The Clerk of the Rolls had risen. His florid face was violently agitated.

"May it please your Excellency," he began, faltering and stammering, in a husky voice, "it will be within your Excellency's knowledge, and the knowledge of every one on the island, that his Honour has only just risen from a long and serious illness, brought on by overwork, by too zealous attention to his duties, and that--in fact, that--well, not to blink the plain truth, that----"

A sigh of immense relief had pa.s.sed over the court, and the Governor, grown very pale, was nodding in a.s.sent. But Philip only smiled sadly and shook his head.