The Deemster

When the stranger came, the young man opened the door to him, and whispered that the old master's wits were gone. "He's not been wise these two hours," the young man said, and then led the way to Thorkell's bedroom. He missed the corridor, and the stranger pointed to the proper door.

Thorkell was sitting up in his bed. His clothes had not been taken off, but his coat – a blue coat, laced – and also his long yellow vest were unbuttoned. His wig was perched on the top of a high-backed chair, and over his bald head hung a torn piece of red flannel. His long hairy hands, with the prominent blue veins, crawled over the counterpane. His eyes were open very wide. When he saw the stranger he was for getting out of bed.

"I am not ill," he said; "it's folly to think that I've taken the sickness. I sent for you to tell you something that you should know."

Then he called to the young man to bring him water. "Juan, water!" he cried; "Juan, I say, more water."

He turned to the stranger. "It's true I'm always athirst, but is that any proof that I have taken the sickness? Juan, be quick – water!"

The young man brought a pewter pot of cold water, and Thorkell clutched at it, but as he was stretching his neck to drink, his hot lips working visibly, and his white tongue protruding, he drew suddenly back. "Is it from the well?" he asked.

The stranger took the pewter out of his hands, unlocking his stiff fingers with his own great bony ones. "Make the water hot," he said to the servant.

Thorkell fell back to his pillow, and the rag of red blanket dropped from his bald crown. Then he lifted himself on one elbow and began again to talk of the sickness. "You have made a mistake," he said. "It is not to be cured. It is God's revenge on the people of this sinful island. Shall I tell you for what offense? For superstition. Superstition is the ape of religion. It is the reproach of God. Juan! Juan, I say, help me off with this coat. And these bedclothes also. Why are there so many? It's true, sir – Father, is it? – it's true, Father, I'm hot, but what of that? Water! Juan, more water – Glen water, Juan!"

The stranger pushed Thorkell gently back, and covered him closely from the air.

"As I say, it is superstition, sir," said Thorkell again. "I would have it put down by law. It is the curse of this island. What are those twenty-four Keys doing that they don't stamp it out? And the clergy – what are they wrangling about now, that they don't see to it? I'll tell you how it is, sir. It is this way. A man does something, and some old woman sneezes. Straightway he thinks himself accursed, and that what is predicted must certainly come about. And it does come about. Why? Because the man himself, with his blundering, doddering fears, brings it about. He brings it about himself – that's how it is! And then every old woman in the island sneezes again."

Saying this, Thorkell began to laugh, loudly, frantically, atrociously. Jarvis Kerruish had entered while he was running on with his tirade. The stranger did not lift his eyes to Jarvis, but Jarvis looked at him attentively.

When Thorkell had finished his hideous laugh, he turned to Jarvis and asked if superstition was not the plague of the island, and if it ought not to be put down by law. Jarvis curled his lips for answer, but his form of contempt was lost on old Thorkell's dim eyes.

"Have we not often agreed that it is so?" said Thorkell.

"And that you," said Jarvis, speaking slowly and bitterly, "are the most superstitious man alive."

"What? what?" Thorkell cried.

The stranger lifted his face, and looked steadily into Jarvis's eyes. "You," he said, calmly, "have some reason to say so."

Jarvis reddened, turned about, stepped to the door, glanced back at the stranger, and went out of the room.

Thorkell was now moaning on the pillow. "I am all alone," he said; and he fell to a bout of weeping.

The stranger waited until the hysterical fit was over, and then said, "Where is your daughter?"

"Ah!" said Thorkell, dropping his red eyes.

"Send for her."

"I will. Juan, go to Bishop's Court. Juan, I say, run fast and fetch Mistress Mona. Tell her that her father is ill."

As Thorkell gave this order Jarvis Kerruish returned to the room.

"No!" said Jarvis, lifting his hand against the young man.

"No?" cried Thorkell.

"If this is my house, I will be master in it," said Jarvis.

"Master! your house! yours!" Thorkell cried; and then he fell to a fiercer bout of hysterical curses. "Bastard, I gave you all! But for me you would be on the roads – ay, the dunghill!"

"This violence will avail you nothing," said Jarvis, with hard constraint. "Mistress Mona shall not enter this house."

Jarvis placed himself with his back to the door. The stranger stepped up to him, laid one powerful hand on his arm, and drew him aside. "Go for Mistress Mona," he said to the young man. "Knock at the door on your return. I will open it."

The young man obeyed the stranger. Jarvis stood a moment looking blankly into the stranger's face. Then he went out of the room.

Thorkell was whimpering on the pillow. "It is true," he said, with laboring breath, "though I hate superstition and loathe it, I was once its victim – once only. My son Ewan was killed by my brother's son, Dan. They loved each other like David and Jonathan, but I told Ewan a lie, and they fought, and Ewan was brought home dead. Yes, I told a lie, but I believed it then. I made myself believe it. I listened to some old wife's balderdash, and thought it true. And Dan was cut off – that is to say, banished, excommunicated; worse, worse. But he's dead now. He was found dead in the snow." Again Thorkell tried to laugh, a poor despairing laugh that was half a cry. "Dead! They threatened me that he would push me from my place. And he is dead before me! So much for divination! But tell me – you are a priest – tell me if that sin will drag me down to – to – But then, remember, I believed it was true – yes, I – "

The stranger's face twitched, and his breathing became quick.

"And it was you who led the way to all that followed" he said, in a subdued voice.

"It was; it was – "

The stranger had suddenly reached over the bed and taken Thorkell by the shoulders. At the next instant he had relinquished his hard grasp, and was standing upright as before, and with as calm a face. And Thorkell went jabbering on:

"These three nights I have dreamt a fearful dream. Shall I tell you what it was? Shall I? I thought Dan, my brother's son, arose out of his grave, and came to my bedside, and peered into my face. Then I thought I shrieked and died; and the first thing I saw in the other world was my son Ewan, and he peered into my face also, and told me that I was damned eternally. But, tell me, don't you think it was only a dream? Father! Father! I say, tell me – "

Thorkell was clambering up by hold of the stranger's coat.

The stranger pushed him gently back.

"Lie still; lie still – you, too, have suffered much," he said. "Lie quiet – God is merciful."

Just then Jarvis Kerruish entered, in wild excitement. "Now I know who this man is," he said, pointing to the stranger.

"Father Dalby," said Thorkell.

"Pshaw! – it is Dan Mylrea."

Thorkell lifted himself stiffly on his elbow, and rigidly drew his face closely up to the stranger's face, and peered into the stranger's eyes. Then he took a convulsive hold of the stranger's coat, shrieked, and fell back on to the pillow.

At that moment there was a loud knocking at the door below. The stranger left the room. In the hall a candle was burning. He put it out. Then he opened the door. A woman entered. She was alone. She passed him in the darkness without speaking. He went out of the house and pulled the door after him.

X

An hour later than this terrible interview, wherein his identity (never hidden by any sorry masquerade) was suddenly revealed, Daniel Mylrea, followed closely at his heels by Davy Fayle, walked amid the fires of the valley to Bishop's Court. He approached the old house by the sea-front, and went into its grounds by a gate that opened on a footpath to the library through a clump of elms. Sluggish as was Davy's intellect, he reflected that this was a path that no stranger could know.

The sky of the night had lightened, and here and there a star gleamed through the thinning branches overhead. In a faint breeze the withering leaves of the dying summer rustled slightly. On the meadow before the house a silvery haze of night-dew lay in its silence. Sometimes the croak of a frog came from the glen; and from the sea beyond (though seemingly from the mountains opposite) there rose into the air the rumble of the waves on the shore.

Daniel Mylrea passed on with a slow, strong step, but a secret pain oppressed him. He was walking on the ground that was dear with a thousand memories of happy childhood. He was going back for some brief moments that must be painful and joyful, awful and delicious, to the house which he had looked to see no more. Already he was very near to those who were very dear to him, and to whom he, too – yes, it must be so – to whom he, too, in spite of all, must still be dear. "Father, father," he whispered to himself. "And Mona, my Mona, my love, my love." Only the idle chatter of the sapless leaves answered to the yearning cry of his broken spirit.

He had passed out of the shade of the elms into the open green of the meadow with the stars above it, when another voice came to him. It was the voice of a child singing. Clear and sweet, and with a burden of tenderness such as a child's voice rarely carries, it floated through the quiet air.

Daniel Mylrea passed on until he came by the library window, which was alight with a rosy glow. There he stood for a moment and looked into the room. His father, the Bishop, was seated in the oak chair that was clamped with iron clamps. Older he seemed to be, and with the lines a thought deeper on his massive brow. On a stool at his feet, with one elbow resting on the apron in front of him, a little maiden sat, and she was singing. A fire burned red on the hearth before them. Presently the Bishop rose from his chair, and went out of the room, walking feebly, and with drooping head.

Then Daniel Mylrea walked round to the front of the house and knocked. The door was opened by a servant whose face was strange to him. Everything that he saw was strange, and yet everything was familiar. The hall was the same but smaller, and when it echoed to his foot a thrill passed through him.

He asked for the Bishop, and was led like a stranger through his father's house to the door of the library. The little maiden was now alone in the room. She rose from her stool as he entered, and, without the least reserve, stepped up to him and held out her hand. He took her tender little palm in his great fingers, and held it for a moment while he looked into her face. It was a beautiful child-face, soft and fair and oval, with a faint tinge of olive in the pale cheeks, and with yellow hair – almost white in the glow of the red fire – falling in thin tresses over a full, smooth forehead.

He sat and drew her closer to him, still looking steadily into her face. Then, in a tremulous voice he asked her what her name was, and the little maiden, who had shown no fear at all, nor any bashfulness, answered that her name was Aileen.

"But they call me Ailee," she added, promptly; "everybody calls me Ailee."

"Everybody? Who?"

"Oh, everybody," she answered, with a true child's emphasis.

"Your mother?"

She shook her head.

"Your – your – perhaps – your – "

She shook her head more vigorously.

"I know what you're going to say, but I've got none," she said.

"Got none?" he repeated.

The little maiden's face took suddenly a wondrous solemnity, and she said, "My father died a long, long, long time ago – when I was only a little baby."

His lips quivered, and his eyes fell from her face.

"Such a long, long while ago – you wouldn't think. And auntie says I can't even remember him."

"Auntie?"

"But shall I tell you what Kerry said it was that made him die? – shall I? – only I must whisper – and you won't tell auntie, will you? – because auntie doesn't know – shall I tell you?"

His quivering lips whitened, and with trembling hands he drew aside the little maiden's head that her innocent eyes might not gaze into his face.

"How old are you, Ailee ven?" he asked, in a brave voice.

"Oh, I'm seven – and auntie, she's seven too; auntie and I are twins."

"And you can sing, can you not? Will you sing for me?"

"What shall I sing?"

"Anything, sweetheart – what you sang a little while since."

"For grandpa?"

"Grandpa?"

"Kerry says no, it's uncle, not grandpa. But that's wrong," with a look of outraged honor; "and besides, how should Kerry know? It's not her grandpa, is it? Do you know Kerry?" Then the little face saddened all at once. "Oh, I forgot —poor Kerry."

"Poor Kerry?"

"I used to go and see her. You go up the road, and then on and on and on until you come to some children, and then on and on and on until you get to a little boy – and then you're there."

"Won't you sing, sweetheart?"

"I'll sing grandpa's song."

"Grandpa's?"

"Yes, the one he likes."

Then the little maiden's dimpled face smoothened out, and her simple eyes turned gravely upward as she began to sing:

"O, Myle Charaine, where got you your gold?Lone, lone, you have left me here.O, not in the curragh, deep under the mold,Lone, lone, and void of cheer."

It was the favorite song of his own boyish days; and while the little maiden sang it seemed to the crime-stained man who gazed through a dim haze into her cherub face, that the voice of her dead father had gone into her voice. He listened while he could, and when the tears welled up to his eyes, with his horny hands he drew her fair head down to his heaving breast, and sobbed beneath his breath, "Ailee ven, Ailee ven."

The little maiden stopped in her song to look up in bewilderment at the bony, wet face that was stooping over her.

At that moment the door of the room opened, and the Bishop entered noiselessly. A moment he stood on the threshold, with a look of perplexity. Then he made a few halting steps, and said:

"My eyes are not what they were, sir, and I see there is no light but the firelight; but I presume you are the good Father Dalby?" Daniel Mylrea fell to his knees at the Bishop's feet.

"I come from him," he answered.

"Is he not coming himself?"

"He can not come. He charged me with a message to you."

"You are very welcome. My niece will be home presently. Be seated, sir."

Daniel Mylrea did not sit, but continued to stand before his father, with head held down. After a moment he spoke again.

"Father Dalby," he said, "is dead."

The Bishop sunk to his chair. "When – when – "

"He died the better part of a month ago."

The Bishop rose to his feet.

"He was in this island but yesterday."

"He bade me tell you that he had fulfilled his pledge to you and come to the island, but died by the visitation of God the same night whereon he landed here."

The Bishop put one hand to his forehead.

"Sir," he said, "my hearing is also failing me, for, as you see, I am an old man now, and besides, I have had trouble in my time. Perhaps, sir, I did not hear you aright?"

Then Daniel Mylrea told in few words the story of the priest's accident and death, and how the man at whose house he died had made bold to take the good priest's mission upon himself.

The Bishop listened with visible pain, and for a while said nothing. Then, speaking in a faltering voice, with breath that came quickly, he asked who the other man had been. "For the good man has been a blessing to us," he added, nervously.

To this question there was no reply, and he asked again:

"Who?"

"Myself."

The Bishop lifted with trembling fingers his horn-bridged spectacles to his eyes.

"Your voice is strangely familiar," he said. "What is your name?"

Again there was no answer.

"Give me your name, sir – that I may pray of God to bless you."

Still there was no answer.

"Let me remember it in my prayers."

Then in a breaking voice Daniel Mylrea replied:

"In your prayers my poor name has never been forgotten."

At that the Bishop tottered a pace backward.

"Light," he said, faintly. "More light."

He touched a bell on the table, and sank quietly into his chair. Daniel Mylrea fell to his knees at the Bishop's feet.

"Father," he said in a fervent whisper, and put his lips to the Bishop's hand.

The door was opened, and a servant entered with candles. At the same moment Daniel Mylrea stepped quickly out of the room.

Then the little maiden leaped from the floor to the Bishop's side.

"Grandpa, grandpa! Oh, what has happened to grandpa?" she cried.

The Bishop's head had dropped into his breast and he had fainted. When he opened his eyes in consciousness Mona was bathing his forehead and damping his lips.

"My child," he said, nervously, "one has come back to us from the dead."

And Mona answered him with the thought that was now uppermost in her mind:

"Dear uncle," she said, "my poor father died half an hour ago."

CHAPTER XLV

"OUR FATHER, WHICH ART IN HEAVEN"

Not many days after the events recorded in the foregoing chapter the people of Man awoke to the joyful certainty that the sweating sickness had disappeared. The solid wave of heat had gone; the ground had become dry and the soil light; and no fetid vapors floated over the Curraghs at midday. Also the air had grown keener, the nights had sharpened, and in the morning the fronds of hoar-frost hung on the withering leaves of the trammon.

Then the poor folk began to arrange their thoughts concerning the strange things that had happened; to count up their losses by death; to talk of children that were fatherless, and of old men left alone in the world, like naked trunks, without bough or branch, flung on the bare earth by yesterday's storm.

And in that first roll-call after the battle of life and death the people suddenly became aware that, with the sweating sickness, the man who had brought the cure for it had also disappeared. He was not on the Curraghs, he was no longer in Michael, and further east he had not traveled. None could tell what had become of him. When seen last he was walking south through German toward Patrick. He was then alone, save for the half-daft lad, Davy Fayle, who slouched at his heels like a dog. As he passed up Creg Willey's Hill the people of St. John's followed him in ones and twos and threes to offer him their simple thanks. But he pushed along as one who hardly heard them. When he came by the Tynwald he paused and turned partly toward Greeba, as though half minded to alter his course. But, hesitating no longer, he followed the straight path toward the village at the foot of Slieu Whallin. As he crossed the green the people of St. John's, who followed him up the hill road, had grown to a great number, being joined there by the people of Tynwald. And when he passed under the ancient mount, walking with long, rapid steps, his chin on his breast and his eyes kept steadfastly down, the gray-headed men uncovered their heads, the young women thrust their young children under his hands for his blessing, and all by one impulse shouted in one voice, "God bless the priest!" "Heaven save the priest!"

There were spectators of that scene who were wont to say, when this sequel had freshened their memories, that amid the wild tumult of the gratitude of the island's poor people he who was the subject of it made one quick glance of pain upward to the mount, now standing empty above the green, and then, parting the crowds that encircled him, pushed through them without word or glance or sign. Seeing at last that he shrunk from their thanks, the people followed him no further, but remained on the green, watching him as he passed on toward Slieu Whallin, and then up by the mountain track. When he had reached the top of the path, where it begins its descent to the valley beyond, he paused again and turned about, glancing back. The people below saw his full figure clearly outlined against the sky, and once more they sent up their shout by one great impulse in one great voice that drowned the distant rumble of the sea: "God bless the priest!" "Heaven save the priest!" And he heard it, for instantly he faced about and disappeared.

When he was gone it seemed as if a spell had broken. The people looked into one another's faces in bewilderment, as if vaguely conscious that somewhere and some time, under conditions the same yet different, all that they had then seen their eyes had seen before. And bit by bit the memory came back to them, linked with a name that might not be spoken. Then many things that had seemed strange became plain.

In a few days the whisper passed over Man, from north to south, from east to west, from the sod cabins on the Curragh to the Castle at Castletown, that he who had cured the people of the sickness, he who had been mistaken for the priest out of Ireland, was none other than the unblessed man long thought to be dead; and that he had lived to be the savior of his people.

The great news was brought to Bishop's Court, and it was found to be there already. Rumor said that from Castletown an inquiry had come asking if the news were true, but none could tell what answer Bishop's Court had made. The Bishop had shut himself up from all visits, even those of his clergy. With Mona and the child, Ewan's little daughter, he had passed the days since Thorkell's death, and not until the day of Thorkell's funeral did he break in upon his solitude. Then he went down to the little churchyard that stands over by the sea.

They buried the ex-Deemster near to his son Ewan, and with scarcely a foot's space between them. Except Jarvis Kerruish, the Bishop was Thorkell's sole mourner, and hardly had the service ended, or the second shovel of earth fallen from old Will-as-Thorn's spade, when Jarvis whipped about and walked away. Then the Bishop stood alone by his brother's unhonored grave, trying to forget his malice and uncharity, and his senseless superstitions that had led to many disasters, thinking only with the pity that is nigh to love of the great ruin whereunto his poor beliefs had tottered down. And when the Bishop had returned home the roll-call of near kindred showed him pitiful gaps. "The island grows very lonesome, Mona," he said.

That night Davy Fayle came to Bishop's Court with a book in his hand. He told Mona how he had found the "Ben-my-Chree" a complete wreck on the shingle of the Dhoon Creek in the Calf Sound, and the book in its locker. Not a syllable could Davy read, but he knew that the book was the fishing-log of the lugger, and that since he saw it last it had been filled with writings.

Mona took the book into the library, and with the Bishop she examined it. It was a small quarto, bound in sheepskin, with corners and back of untanned leather. Longways on the back the words "Ben-my-Chree Fishing-Log" were lettered, as with a soft quill in a bold hand. On the front page there was this inscription:

Ben-my-ChreeOwner, Daniel Mylrea, Bishop's Court,Isle of ManMaster, Illiam Quilleash

Over page was the word "Accounts," and then followed the various items of the earnings and expenditure of the boat. The handwriting was strong and free, but the bookkeeping was not lucid.

Eight pages of faintly-tinted paper, much frayed, and with lines ruled by hand one way of the sheet only, were filled with the accounts of the herring season of 1705. At the bottom there was an attempt at picking out the items of profit and loss, and at reckoning the shares of owner, master, and man. The balance stood but too sadly on the wrong side. There was a deficit of forty pounds four shillings and sixpence.

The Bishop glanced at the entries, and passed them over with a sigh. But turning the leaves, he came upon other matter of more pathetic interest. This was a long personal narrative from the owner's pen, covering some two hundred of the pages. The Bishop looked it through, hurriedly, nervously, and with eager eyes. Then he gave up the book to Mona.

"Read it aloud, child," he said, in a voice unlike his own, and with a brave show of composure he settled himself to listen.