Tongues of Conscience Part 6

"Yes. I buried him. The Skipper--sane then, though in terrible grief--was able to identify him, to follow the drowned body as chief mourner, to choose the inscription for the stone."

"What was it?" asked Sir Graham, without curiosity, idly, almost absently.

"'Lead, kindly light.' He would have that put. I think he had heard the boy sing it, or whistle the tune of it, at sea one day."

"The boy? It was a boy then?"

"Yes."

The clergyman spoke with a certain hesitation, a sudden diffidence. He looked at the painter, and an abrupt awkwardness, almost a shamefacedness, crept into his manner, even showed itself in his att.i.tude. The painter did not seem to be aware of it. He was still engrossed in his own sorrow, his own morbid reflections. He looked out again in the night.

"Poor faithful watch-dog," he murmured.

Then he turned away from the window.

"The Skipper does not wait for that boy," he said. "He knows at least that he can never come to him from the sea."

"Strangely--no. Indeed, he always looks for the boy first."

"First, do you say? Was it so to-night?"

Again Uniacke hesitated. He was on the verge of telling a lie, but conscience intervened.

"Yes," he said.

"Didn't he speak of little Jack?" said Sir Graham slowly, and with a sudden nervous spasm of the face.

"Yes, Sir Graham."

"That's curious."

"Why?"

"The same name--my wonder-child's name."

"And the name of a thousand children."

"Of course, of course. And--and, Uniacke, the other name, the other name upon that tomb?"

"What other name?"

"Why--why the surname. What is that?"

The painter was standing close to the clergyman and staring straight into his eyes. For a moment Uniacke made no reply. Then he answered slowly:

"There is no other name."

"Why not?"

"Why--the--the Skipper would only have Jack put, that was all. Jack--he was the boy on the schooner 'Flying Fish'--'Lead, kindly light.'"

"Ah!"

The exclamation came in a sigh, that might have been a murmur of relief or of disappointment. Then there was a silence. The painter went over again to the fire. Uniacke stood still where he was and looked on the ground. He had told a deliberate lie. It seemed to grow as he thought of it. And why had he told it? A sudden impulse, a sudden fear, had led him into sin. A strange fancy had whispered to him, "What if that boy buried by the wall yonder should be the wonder-child, the ragam.u.f.fin who looked at the rainbow, the sea urchin, the spectre haunting your guest?" How unlikely that was! And yet ships go far, and the human fate is often mysteriously sad. It might be that the wonder-child was born to be wrecked, to be cast up, streaming with sea-water on the strand of this lonely isle. It might be that the eyes which worshipped the rainbow were sightless beneath that stone yonder; that the hands which pointed to it were folded in the eternal sleep. And, if so, was not the lie justified? If so, could Peter Uniacke regret it? He saw this man who had come into his lonely life treading along the verge of a world that made him tremble in horror. Dared he lead him across the verge into the darkness? And yet his lie troubled him, and he saw a stain spreading slowly out upon the whiteness of his ardent soul. The painter turned from the fire. His face was haggard and weary.

"I will go to bed," he said. "I must try to get some sleep even in the storm."

He held out his thin hand. Uniacke took it.

"Good-night," he said.

"Good-night. I am sorry I have troubled you with my foolish history."

"It interested me deeply. By the way--what did you say your wonder-child's name was, his full name?"

"Jack--Jack Pringle. What is it?"

"Nothing. That gust of wind startled me. Good-night."

The painter looked at Uniacke narrowly, then left the room.

The clergyman went over to the fire, leaned his arms on the mantelpiece, and rested his head on them.

Presently he lifted his head, went softly to the door, opened it and listened. He heard the tread of his guest above stairs, moving to and fro about the spare room. He waited. After a while there was silence in the house. Only the wind and the sea roared outside. Then Uniacke went into the kitchen, pulled out a drawer in a dresser that stood by the window, and took from it a chisel and a hammer. He carried them into the pa.s.sage, furtively put on his coat and hat, and, with all the precaution of a thief, unlocked the front door and stole out into the storm.

PART II.

THE GRAVE.

PART II.

THE GRAVE.

In the morning the storm was still fierce. Clouds streamed across a sky that bent lower and lower towards the aspiring sea blanched with foam.

There was little light, and the Rectory parlour looked grim and wintry when Sir Graham and Uniacke met there at breakfast time. The clergyman was pale and seemed strangely discomforted and at first unable to be natural. He greeted his guest with a forcible, and yet flickering, note of cheerfulness, abrupt and unsympathetic, as he sat down behind the steaming coffee-pot. The painter scarcely responded. He was still attentive to the storm. He ate very little.

"You slept?" asked Uniacke presently.

"Only for a short time towards dawn. I sat at my window most of the night."

"At your window?" Uniacke said uneasily.