To his heart's core the Bishop was struck with an icy chill. He tried to link together the terrible ideas that had smitten his brain, but his mind wandered and slipped away. Ewan was last seen going toward the creek; he was dead; he had been killed by a fall; his body had come ashore in an old sail of the "Ben-my-Chree"; his coat and hat had been picked up on the top of Orrisdale Head, and beside them lay two weapons and two belts, whereof one had belonged to Dan, whose name was scratched upon it.
In the crushing coil of circumstance that was every moment tightening about him the Bishop's great calm faith in the goodness of his Maker seemed to be benumbed. "Oh, my son, my son!" he cried, when he was left alone. "Would to God I had died before I saw this day! Oh, my son, my son!" But after a time he regained his self-control, and said to himself again, "I will trust in God; He will make the dark places plain," Then he broke into short, fitful prayers, as if to drive away, by the warmth of the spirit, the chill that was waiting in readiness to freeze his faith—"Make haste unto me, O God! Hide not Thy face from Thy servant, for I am in trouble."
The short winter's day had dragged on heavily, but the arms of darkness were now closing round it. The Bishop put on his cloak and hat and set off for Ballamona. In length of days he was but little past his prime, but the dark sorrow of many years had drained his best strength, and he tottered on the way. Only his strong faith that God would remember His servant in the hour of trouble gave power to his trembling limbs.
And as he walked he began to reproach himself for the mistrust whereby he had been so sorely shaken. This comforted him somewhat, and he stepped out more boldly. He was telling himself that, perplexing though the facts might be, they were yet so inconclusive as to prove nothing except that Ewan was dead, when all at once he became conscious that in the road ahead of him, grouped about the gate of Ballamona, were a company of women and children, all agitated and some weeping, with the coroner in their midst, questioning them.
The coroner was Quayle the Gyke, the same who would have been left penniless by his father but for the Bishop's intervention.
"And when did your husband go out to sea?" the coroner asked.
"At floodtide yesterday," answered one of the women; "and my man, he said to me, 'Liza,' he said, 'get me a bite of priddhas and salt herrin's for supper,' he said; 'we'll be back for twelve,' he said; but never a sight of him yet, and me up all night till daylight."
"But they've been in and gone out to sea again," said another of the women.
"How d'ye know that, Mother Quilleash?" asked the coroner.
"Because I've been taking a slieu round to the creek, and there's a basket of ray and cod in the shed," the woman answered.
At that the Bishop drew up at the gate, and the coroner explained to him the trouble of the women and children.
"Is it you, Mrs. Corkell?" the Bishop asked of a woman near him.
"Aw, yes, my lord."
"And you, too, Mrs. Teare?"
The woman courtesied; the Bishop named them one by one, and stroked the bare head of the little girl who was clinging to her mother's cloak and weeping.
"Then it's the 'Ben-my-Chree' that has been missing since yesterday at high-water?" the Bishop said, in a sort of hushed whisper.
"Yes, sure, my lord."
At that the Bishop turned suddenly aside, without a word more, opened the gate, and walked up the path. "Oh, my son, my son," he cried, in his bleeding heart, "how have you shortened my days! How have you clothed me with shame! Oh, my son, my son!"
Before Ballamona an open cart was standing, with the tail-board down, and the horse was pawing the gravel which had once—on a far different occasion—been strewn with the "blithe-bread." The door of the house stood ajar, and a jet of light from within fell on the restless horse without. The Bishop entered the house, and found all in readiness for the hurried night burial. On chairs that were ranged back to back a rough oak coffin, like an oblong box, was resting, and from the rafter of the ceiling immediately over it a small oil-lamp was suspended. On either side of the hall were three or four men holding brands and leathern lanterns, ready for lighting. The Deemster was coming and going from his own room beyond, attended in bustling eagerness by Jarvis Kerruish. Near the coffin stood the vicar of the parish, father of the dead man's dead wife, and in the opening of a door that went out from the hall Mona stood weeping, with the dead man's child in her arms.
And even as it is only in the night that the brightest stars may truly be seen, so in the night of all this calamity the star of the Bishop's faith shone out clearly again, and his vague misgivings fell away. He stepped up to Mona, whose dim eyes were now fixed on his face in sadness of sympathy, and with his dry lips he touched her forehead.
Then, in the depth of his own sorrow and the breadth of shadow that lay upon him, he looked down at the little one in Mona's arms, where it leaped and cooed and beat its arms on the air in a strange wild joy at this gay spectacle of its father's funeral, and his eyes filled for what the course of its life would be.
Almost as soon as the Deemster was conscious of the Bishop's presence in the house, he called on the mourners to make ready, and then six men stepped to the side of the coffin.
"Thorkell," said the Bishop, calmly, and the bearers paused while he spoke, "this haste to put away the body of our dear Ewan is unseemly, because it is unnecessary."
The Deemster made no other answer than a spluttered expression of contempt, and the Bishop spoke again:
"You are aware that there is no canon of the Church requiring it, and no law of State demanding it. That a body from the sea shall be buried within the day it has washed ashore is no more than a custom."
"Then custom shall be indulged with custom," said Thorkell, decisively.
"Not for fifty years has it been observed," continued the Bishop; "and here is an outrage on reason and on the respect we owe to our dead."
At this the Deemster said: "The body is mine, and I will do as I please with it."
Even the six carriers, with their hands on the coffin, caught their breath at these words; but the Bishop answered without anger: "And the graveyard is mine, in charge for the Church and God's people, and if I do not forbid the burial, it is because I would have no wrangling over the grave of my dear boy."
The Deemster spat on the floor, and called on the carriers to take up their burden. Then the six men lifted the coffin from the chairs, and put it into the cart at the door. The other mourners went out on to the gravel, and such of them as carried torches and lanterns lighted them there. The Old Hundred was then sung, and when its last notes had died on the night air the springless cart went jolting down the path. Behind it the mourners ranged themselves two abreast, with the Deemster walking alone after the cart, and the Bishop last of all.
Mona stood a moment at the open door, in the hall that was now empty and desolate and silent, save for the babblings of the child in her arms. She saw the procession through the gate into the road. After that she went into the house, drew aside the curtain of her window, and watched the moving lights until they stopped, and then she knew that they were gathered about an open grave, and that half of all that had been very dear to her in this weary world was gone from it forever.
After the coroner, Quayle the Gyke, had gone through one part of his dual functions at Ballamona, and thereby discovered that the body of Ewan had been wrapped in a sailcloth of the "Ben-my-Chree," he set out on the other part of his duty, to find the berth of the fishing-boat, and, if need be, to arrest the crew. He was in the act of leaving Ballamona when, at the gate of the highroad, he came upon the women and children of the families of the crew he was in search of, and there, at the moment when the Bishop arrived for the funeral, he heard that the men had been at sea since the middle of the previous day. Confirmed in his suspicions, but concealing them, he returned to the village with the terrified women, and on the way he made his own sinister efforts to comfort them when they mourned as if their husbands had been lost. "Aw, no, no, no, never fear; we'll see them again soon enough, I'll go bail," he said, and in their guileless blindness the women were nothing loth to take cheer from the fellow's dubious smile.
His confidence was not misplaced, for hardly had he got back to the village, and stepped into the houses one after one, making his own covert investigations while he sandwiched his shrewd questions with solace, when the fishermen themselves, old Quilleash, Crennell, Teare, and Corkell, and the lad Davy Fayle, came tramping up the street. Then there was wild joy among the children, who clung to the men's legs, and some sharp nagging among the women, who were by wifely duty bound to conceal their satisfaction under a proper appearance of wrath. "And what for had they been away all night?" and "Didn't they take shame at treating a woman like dirt?" and "Just like a man, just, not caring a ha'p'orth, and a woman up all night, and taking notions about drowning, and more fool for it."
And when at length there came a cessation of such questions, and the fishermen sat down with an awkward silence, or grunted something in an evasive way about "Women preaching mortal," and "Never no reason in them," then the coroner began his more searching inquiries. When did they run in with the cod and ling that was found lying in the tent? Was there a real good "strike" on, that they went out again at half-flood last night? Doing much outside? No? He wouldn't trust but they were lying off the Mooragh, eh? Yes, you say? Coorse, coorse. And good ground, too. And where was the capt'n? Out with them? He thought so.
Everything the coroner asked save the one thing on which his mind was set, but at mention of the Mooragh the women forgot their own trouble in the greater trouble that was over the parish, and blurted out, with many an expletive, the story of the coming to shore of the body of Ewan. And hadn't they heard the jeel? Aw, shocking, shocking! And the young pazon had sailed in their boat, so he had! Aw, ter'ble, ter'ble!
The coroner kept his eyes fixed on the men's faces, and marked their confusion with content. They on their part tried all their powers of dissembling. First came a fine show of ferocity. Where were their priddhas and herrings? Bad cess to the women, the idle shoulderin' craythurs, did they think a man didn't want never a taste of nothin' comin' in off the say, afther workin' for them day and night same as haythen naygroes, and no thanks for it?
It would not do, and the men themselves were the first to be conscious that they could not strike fire. One after another slunk out of his house until they were all five on the street in a group, holding their heads together and muttering. And when at length the coroner came out of old Quilleash's house, and leaned against the trammon at the porch, and looked toward them in the darkness, but said not a word, their self-possession left them on the instant, and straightway they took to their heels.
"Let's away at a slant over the Head and give warning to Mastha Dan," they whispered; and this was the excuse they made to themselves for their flight, just to preserve a little ray of self-respect.
But the coroner understood them, and he set his face back toward the churchyard, knowing that the Deemster would be there by that time.
The Bishop had gone through the ceremony at the graveside with composure, though his voice when he spoke was full of tears, and the hair of his uncovered head seemed to have passed from iron-gray to white. His grand, calm face was steadfast, and his prayer was of faith and hope. Only beneath this white quiet as of a glacier the red riot of a great sorrow was rife within him.
It was then for the first time in its fulness that—undisturbed in that solemn hour by coarser fears—he realized the depth of his grief for the loss of Ewan. That saintly soul came back to his memory in its beauty and tenderness alone, and its heat and uncontrollable unreason were forgotten. When he touched on the mystery of Ewan's death his large wan face quivered slightly and he paused; but when he spoke of the hope of an everlasting reunion, and how all that was dark would be made plain and the Judge of all the earth would do right, his voice grew bold as with a surety of a brave resignation.
The Deemster listened to the short night-service with alternate restlessness—tramping to and fro by the side of the grave—and cold self-possession, and with a constant hardness and bitterness of mind, breaking out sometimes into a light trill of laughter, or again into a hoarse gurgle, as if in scorn of the Bishop's misplaced confidence. But the crowds that were gathered around held their breath in awe of the mystery, and when they sang it was with such an expression of emotion and fear that no man knew the sound of his own voice.
More than once the Deemster stopped in his uneasy perambulations, and cried "What's that?" as if arrested by sounds that did not break on the ears of others. But nothing occurred to disturb the ceremony until it had reached the point of its close, and while the Bishop was pronouncing a benediction the company was suddenly thrown into a great tumult.
It was then that the coroner arrived, panting, after a long run. He pushed his way through the crowd, and burst in at the graveside between the Bishop and the Deemster.
"They've come ashore," he said, eagerly; "the boat's in harbor and the men are here."
Twenty voices at once cried "Who?" but the Deemster asked no explanation. "Take them," he said, "arrest them;" and his voice was a bitter laugh, and his face in the light of the torches was full of malice and uncharity.
Jarvis Kerruish stepped out. "Where are they?" he asked.
"They've run across the Head in the line of the Cross Vein," the coroner answered; "but six of us will follow them."
And without more ado he twisted about and impressed the five men nearest to him into service as constables.
"How many of them are there?" said Jarvis Kerruish.
"Five, sir," said the coroner, "Quilleash, Teare, Corkell, Crennell, and the lad Davy."
"Then is he not with them?" cried the Deemster, in a tone that went to the Bishop's heart like iron.
The coroner glanced uneasily at the Bishop, and said, "He was with them, and he is still somewhere about."
"Then away with you; arrest them, quick," the Deemster cried in another tone.
"But what of the warrant, sir?" said the coroner.
"Simpleton, are you waiting for that?" the Deemster shouted, with a contemptuous sweep of the hand. "Where have you been, that you don't know that your own warrant is enough? Arrest the scoundrels, and you shall have warrant enough when you come back."
But as the six men were pushing their way through the people, and leaping the cobble wall of the churchyard, the Deemster picked from the ground a piece of slate-stone that had come up from the vault, and scraped his initials upon it with a pebble.
"Take this token, and go after them," he said to Jarvis Kerruish, and instantly Jarvis was following the coroner and his constables, with the Deemster's legal warranty for their proceedings.
It was the work of a moment, and the crowd that had stood with drooping heads about the Bishop had now broken up in confusion. The Bishop himself had not spoken; a shade of bodily pain had passed over his pale face, and a cold damp had started from his forehead. But hardly had the coroner gone, or the people recovered from their bewilderment, when the Bishop lifted one hand to bespeak silence, and then said, in a tone impossible to describe: "Can any man say of his own knowledge that my son was on the 'Ben-my-Chree' last night?"
The Deemster snorted contemptuously, but none made answer to the Bishop's question.
At that moment there came the sound of a horse's hoofs on the road, and immediately the old archdeacon drew up. He had been preaching the Christmas sermons at Peeltown that day, and there he had heard of the death of his grandson, and of the suspicions that were in the air concerning it. The dour spirit of the disappointed man had never gone out with too much warmth to the Bishop, but had always been ready enough to cast contempt on the "moonstruck ways" of the man who had "usurped" his own place of preferment; and now, without contrition or pity, he was ready to strike his blow at the stricken man.
"I hear that the 'Ben-my-Chree' has put into Peel harbor," he said, and as he spoke he leaned across his saddle-bow, with his russet face toward where the Bishop stood.
"Well, well, well?" cried the Deemster, rapping out at the same time his oath of impatience as fast as a hen might have pecked.
"And that the crew are not likely to show their faces soon," the archdeacon continued.
"Then you're wrong," said the Deemster imperiously, "for they've done as much already. But what about their owner? Was he with them? Have you seen him? Quick, let us hear what you have to say."
The archdeacon did not shift his gaze from the Bishop's face, but he answered the Deemster nevertheless.
"Their owner was with them," he said, "and woe be to him. I had as lief that a millstone were hung about my neck as that I stood before God as the father of that man."
And with such charity of comfort the old archdeacon alighted and walked away with the Deemster, at the horse's head. The good man had preached with unwonted fervor that day from the Scripture which says, "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."
In another instant the Bishop was no longer the same man. Conviction of Dan's guilt had taken hold of him. Thus far he had borne up against all evil shown by the strength of his great faith in his Maker to bring out all things well. But at length that faith was shattered. When the Deemster and the archdeacon went away together, leaving him in the midst of the people, he stood there, while all eyes were upon him, with the stupid bewildered look of one who has been dealt an unexpected and dreadful blow. The world itself was crumbling under him. At that first instant there was something like a ghastly smile playing over his pale face. Then the truth came rolling over him. The sight was terrible to look upon. He tottered backward with a low moan. When his faith went down his manhood went down with it.
"Oh, my son, my son!" he cried again, "how have you shortened my days! How have you clothed me with shame! Oh, my son, my son!"
But love was uppermost even in that bitter hour, and the good God sent the stricken man the gift of tears. "He is dead, he is dead!" he cried; "now is my heart smitten and withered like grass. Ewan is dead. My son is dead. Can it be true? Yes, dead, and worse than dead. Lord, Lord, now let me eat ashes for bread and mingle my drink with weeping."
And so he poured out his broken spirit in a torrent of wild laments. The disgrace that had bent his head heretofore was but a dream to this deadly reality. "Oh, my son, my son! Would God I had died before I saw this day!"
The people stood by while the unassuageable grief shook the Bishop to the soul. Then one of them—it was Thormod Mylechreest, the bastard son of the rich man who had left his offspring to public charity—took the old man by the hand, and the crowd parted for them. Together they passed out of the churchyard, and out of the hard glare of the torchlight, and set off for Bishop's Court. It was a pitiful thing to see. How the old father, stricken into age by sorrow rather than years, tottered feebly on the way. How low his white head was bent, as if the darkness itself had eyes to peer into his darkened soul.
And yet more pitiful was it to see how the old man's broken spirit, reft of its great bulwark, which lay beneath it like an idol that was broken, did yet struggle with a vain effort to glean comfort from its fallen faith. But every stray text that rose to his heart seemed to wound it afresh. "As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth.... They shall not be ashamed.... Oh, Absalom, my son, my son!... For thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face.... I am poor and needy; make haste unto me, O God.... Hide not thy face from thy servant, for I am in trouble.... O God, thou knowest my foolishness.... And Eli said, It is the Lord, let him do as seemeth him good.... The waters have overwhelmed me, the streams have gone over my soul; the proud waters have gone over my soul."
Thus tottering feebly at the side of Mylechreest and leaning on his arm, the Bishop went his way, and thus the poor dead soul of the man, whose faith was gone, poured forth its barren grief. The way was long, but they reached Bishop's Court at last, and at sight of it a sudden change seemed to come over the Bishop. He stopped and turned to Mylechreest, and said, with a strange resignation:
"I will be quiet. Ewan is dead, and Dan is dead. Surely I shall quiet myself as a child that is weaned of its mother. Yes, my soul is even as a weaned child."
And with the simple calmness of a little child he held out his hand to Mylechreest to bid him farewell, and when Mylechreest, with swimming eyes and a throat too full for speech, bent over the old man's hand and put his lips to it, the Bishop placed the other hand on his head, as if he had asked for a blessing, and blessed him.
"Good-night, my son," he said simply, but Mylechreest could answer nothing.
The Bishop was turning into his house when the memory that had gone from him for one instant of blessed respite returned, and his sorrow bled afresh, and he cried piteously. The inanimate old place was in a moment full of spectres. For that night Bishop's Court had gone back ten full years, and if it was not now musical with children's voices, the spirit of one happy boy still lived in it.
Passing his people in the hall and on the stairs, where, tortured by suspense, bewildered, distracted, they put their doubts and rumors together, the Bishop went up to the little room above the library that had once been little Danny's room. The door was locked, but the key was where it had been for many a day—though Dan in his headstrong waywardness had known nothing of that—it was in the Bishop's pocket. Inside the muggy odor was of a chamber long shut up. The little bed was still in the corner, and its quilted counterpane lay thick in dust. Dust covered the walls, and the floor also, and the table under the window was heavy with it. Shutting himself in this dusty crib, the Bishop drew from under the bed a glass-covered case, and opened it, and lifted out one by one the things it contained. They were a child's playthings—a whip, a glass marble, a whistle, an old Manx penny, a tomtit's mossy nest with three speckled blue eggs in it, some pearly shells, and a bit of shriveled seaweed. And each poor relic as it came up awoke a new memory and a new grief, and the fingers trembled that held them. The sense of a boy's sport and a boy's high spirits, long dumb and dead, touched the old man to the quick within these heavy walls.
The Bishop replaced the glass-covered case, locked the room, and went down to his library. But the child ghost that lived in that gaunt old house did not keep to the crib upstairs. Into this book-clad room it followed the Bishop, with blue eyes and laughter on the red lips; with a hop, skip, and a jump, and a pair of spectacles perched insecurely on the diminutive nose.
Ten years had rolled back for the broken-hearted father that night, and Dan, who was lost to him in life, lived in his remembrance only as a beautiful, bright, happy, spirited, innocent child that could never grow older, but must be a child forever.
The Bishop could endure the old house no longer. It was too full of spectres. He would go out and tramp the roads the long night through. Up and down, up and down, through snow or rain, under the moonlight or the stars until the day dawned, and the pitiless sun should rise again over the heedless sleeping world.
The Bishop had gone into the hall for his cloak and hat when he came face to face with the Deemster, who was entering the house. At sight of his brother his bewildered mind made some feeble efforts to brace itself up.
"Ah, is it you, Thorkell? Then you have come at last! I had given you up. But I am going out to-night. Will you not come into the library with me? But perhaps you are going somewhere?"
It was a painful spectacle, the strong brain of the strong man tottering visibly. The Deemster set down his hat and cane, and looked up with a cold, mute stare in answer to his brother's inconsequent questions. Then, without speaking, he went into the library, and the Bishop followed him with a feeble, irregular step, humming a lively tune—it was "Salley in our Alley"—and smiling a melancholy, jaunty, bankrupt smile.
"Gilcrist," said the Deemster, imperiously, and he closed the door behind them as he spoke, "let us put away all pretense, and talk like men. We have serious work before us, I promise you."
By a perceptible spasm of will, the Bishop seemed to regain command of his faculties, and his countenance that had been mellowed down to most pitiful weakness, grew on the instant firm and pale.
"What is it, Thorkell?" he said, in a more resolute tone.
Then the Deemster asked deliberately, "What do you intend to do with the murderer of my son?"
"What do I mean to do! I? Do you ask me what I intend to do?" said the Bishop, in a husky whisper.
"I ask you what you intend to do," said the Deemster, firmly. "Gilcrist, let us make no faces. You do not need that I should tell you what powers of jurisdiction over felonies are held by the Bishop of this island as its spiritual baron. More than once you have reminded me, and none too courteously, of those same powers when they have served your turn. They are to-day what they were yesterday, and so I ask you again, What do you intend to do with the murderer of my son?"
The Bishop's breath seemed suspended for a moment, and then, in broken accents he said, softly, "You ask me what I intend to do with the murderer of our Ewan—his murderer, you say?"
In a cold and resolute tone the Deemster said again, "His murderer," and bowed stiffly.
The Bishop's confusion seemed to overwhelm him. "Is it not assuming too much, Thorkell?" he said, and while his fingers trembled as he unlaced them before him, the same sad smile as before passed across his face.
"Listen, and say whether it is not so or not," said the Deemster, with a manner of rigid impassibility. "At three o'clock yesterday my son left me at my own house with the declared purpose of going in search of your son. With what object? Wait. At half-past three he asked for your son at the house they shared together. He was then told that your son would be found at the village. Before four o'clock he inquired for him at the village pot-house, your son's daily and nightly haunt. There he was told that the man he wanted had been seen going down toward the creek, the frequent anchorage of the fishing-smack the "Ben-my-Chree," with which he has frittered away his time and your money. As the parish clock was striking four he was seen in the lane leading to the creek, walking briskly down to it. He was never seen again."
"My brother, my brother, what proof is there in that?" said the Bishop, with a gesture of protestation.
"Listen. That creek under the Head of Orrisdale is known to the fisher-folk as the Lockjaw. Do you need to be told why? Because there is only one road out of it. My son went into the creek, but he never left it alive."
"How is this known, Thorkell?"
"How? In this way. Almost immediately my son had gone from my house Jarvis Kerruish went after him, to overtake him and bring him back. Not knowing the course, Jarvis had to feel his way and inquire, but he came upon his trace at last, and followed Ewan on the road he had taken, and reached the creek soon after the parish clock struck five. Now, if my son had returned as he went, Jarvis Kerruish must have met him."
"Patience, Thorkell, have patience," said the Bishop. "If Ewan found Dan at the Lockjaw Creek, why did not the young man Jarvis find both of them there?"
"Why?" the Deemster echoed, "because the one was dead, and the other in hiding."
The Bishop was standing at that moment by the table, and one hand was touching something that lay upon it. A cry that was half a sigh and half a suppressed scream of terror burst from him. The Deemster understood it not, but set it down to the searching power of his own words. Shuddering from head to foot the Bishop looked down at the thing his hand had touched. It was the militia belt. He had left it where it had fallen from his fingers when the men brought it to him. Beside it, half hidden by many books and papers, the two small daggers lay.
Then a little low cunning crept over the heart of that saintly man, and he glanced up into his brother's face with a dissembled look, not of inquiry, but of supplication. The Deemster's face was imperious, and his eyes betrayed no discovery. He had seen nothing.
"You make me shudder, Thorkell," the Bishop murmured, and while he spoke he lifted the belt and dagger furtively amid a chaos of loose papers, and whipped them into the door of a cabinet that stood open.
His duplicity had succeeded; nor even the hollow ring of his voice had awakened suspicion, but he sat down with a crushed and abject mien. His manhood had gone, shame overwhelmed him, and he ceased to contend.
"I said there was only one way out of the creek," said the Deemster, "but there are two."
"Ah!"
"The other way is by the sea. My son took that way, but he took it as a dead man, and when he came ashore he was wrapped for sea-burial—by ignorant bunglers who had never buried a body at sea before—in a sailcloth of the 'Ben-my-Chree.'"
The Bishop groaned, and wiped his forehead.
"Do you ask for further evidence?" said the Deemster, in a relentless voice. "If so, it is at hand. Where was the 'Ben-my-Chree' last night? It was on the sea. Last night was Christmas Eve, a night of twenty old Manx customs. Where were the boat's crew and owner? They were away from their homes. To-day was Christmas Day. Where were the men? Their wives and children were waiting for some of them to eat with them their Christmas dinner and drink their Christmas ale. But they were not in their houses, and no one knew where they were. Can circumstances be more damning? Speak, and say. Don't wring your hands; be a man, and look me in the face."
"Have mercy, Thorkell," the Bishop murmured, utterly prostrate. But the Deemster went on to lash him as a brutal master whips a broken-winded horse.
"When the 'Ben-my-Chree' came into harbor to-night what was the behavior of crew and owner? Did they go about their business as they are wont to do when wind and tide has kept them too long at sea? Did they show their faces before suspicion as men should who have no fear? No. They skulked away. They fled from question. At this moment they are being pursued."
The Bishop covered his face with his hands.
"And so I ask you again," resumed the Deemster, "what do you intend to do with the murderer of my son?"
"Oh, Dan, Dan, my boy, my boy!" the Bishop sobbed, and for a moment his grief mastered all other emotions.
"Ah, see how it is! You name your son, and you know that he is guilty."
The Bishop lifted up his head, and his eyes flashed. "I do not know that my son is guilty," he said in a tone that made the Deemster pause. But, speedily recovering his self-command, the Deemster continued, in a tone of confidence, "Your conscience tells you that it is so."
The Bishop's spirit was broken in a moment.
"What would you have me do, Thorkell?"
"To present your son for murder in the court of your barony."
"Man, man, do you wish to abase me?" said the Bishop. "Do you come to drive me to despair? Is it not enough that I am bent to the very earth with grief, but that you of all men should crush me to the dust itself with shame? Think of it—my son is my only tie to earth, I have none left but him; and, because I am a judge in the island as well as its poor priest, I am to take him and put him to death."
Then his voice, which had been faint, grew formidable.
"What is it you mean by this cruel torture? If my son is guilty, must his crime go unpunished though his father's hand is not lifted against him? For what business are you yourself on this little plot of earth? You are here to punish the evil-doer. It is for you to punish him if he is guilty. But no, for you to do that would be for you to be merciful. Mercy you will not show to him or me. And, to make a crime that is terrible at the best thrice shameful as well, you would put a father as judge over his son. Man, man, have you no pity? No bowels of compassion? Think of it. My son is myself, life of my life. Can I lop away my right hand and still keep all my members? Only think of it. Thorkell, Thorkell, my brother, think of it. I am a father, and so are you. Could you condemn to death your own son?"
The sonorous voice had broken again to a sob of supplication.
"Yes, you are a father," said the Deemster, unmoved, "but you are also a priest and a judge. Your son is guilty of a crime—"
"Who says he is guilty?"
"Yourself said as much a moment since."
"Have I said so? What did I say? They had no cause of quarrel—Dan and Ewan. They loved each other. But I can not think. My head aches. I fear my mind is weakened by these terrible events."
The Bishop pressed his forehead hard, like a man in bodily pain, but the Deemster showed no ruth.
"It is now for you to put the father aside and let the priest-judge come forward. It is your duty to God and your Church. Cast your selfish interests behind you and quit yourself like one to whom all eyes look up. The Bishop has a sacred mission. Fulfil it. You have punished offenders against God's law and the Church's rule beforetime. Don't let it be said that the laws of God and Church are to pass by the house of their Bishop."
"Pity, pity! have pity," the Bishop murmured.
"Set your own house in order, or with what courage will you ever again dare to intrude upon the houses of your people? Now is your time to show that you can practise the hard doctrine that you have preached. Send him to the scaffold—yes, to the scaffold—"
The Bishop held up his two hands and cried: "Listen, listen. What would it avail you though my son's life were given in forfeit for the life of your son? You never loved Ewan. Ah! it is true, as Heaven is my witness, you never loved him. While I shall have lost two sons at a blow. Are you a Christian, to thirst like this for blood? It is not justice you want; it is vengeance. But vengeance belongs to God."
"Is he not guilty?" the Deemster answered. "And is it not your duty and mine to punish the guilty?"
But the Bishop went on impetuously, panting as he spoke, and in a faint, broken tone:
"Then if you should be mistaken—if all this that you tell me should be a fatal coincidence that my son can not explain away? What if I took him and presented him, and sent him to the gallows, as you say, and some day, when all that is now dark became light, and the truth stood revealed, what if then I had to say to myself before God, 'I have taken the life of my son?' Brother, is your heart brazed out that you can think of it without pity?"
The Bishop had dropped to his knees.
"I see that you are a coward," said the Deemster, contemptuously. "And so this is what your religion comes to! I tell you that the eyes of the people of this island are on you. If you take the right course now their reverence is yours; if the wrong one, it will be the worst evil that has ever befallen you from your youth upward."
The Bishop cried, "Mercy, mercy—for Christ's sake, mercy!" and he looked about the room with terrified eyes, as if he would fly from it if he could.
But the Deemster's lash had one still heavier blow.
"More, more," he said—"your Church is on its trial also, and if you fail of your duty now, the people will rise and sweep it away."
Then a great spasm of strength came to the Bishop, and he rose to his feet.
"Silence, sir!" he said, and the Deemster quailed visibly before the heat and flame of his voice and manner.
But the spasm was gone in an instant, for his faith was dead as his soul was dead, and only the galvanic impulse of the outraged thing remained. And truly his faith had taken his manhood with it, for he sat down and sobbed. In a few moments more the Deemster left him without another word. Theirs had been a terrible interview, and its mark remained to the end like a brand of iron on the hearts of both the brothers.
The night was dark but not cold, and the roads were soft and draggy. Over the long mile that divided Bishop's Court from Ballamona the old Deemster walked home with a mind more at ease than he had known for a score of years. "It was true enough, as he said, that I never loved Ewan," the Deemster thought. "But then whose was the fault but Ewan's own? At every step he was against me, and if he took the side of the Bishop and his waistrel son he did it to his own confusion. And he had his good parts, too. Patient and long-suffering like his mother, poor woman, dead and gone. A little like my old father also, the simple soul. With fire, too, and rather headstrong at times. I wonder how it all happened."
Then, as he trudged along through the dark roads, his mind turned full on Dan. "He must die," he thought, with content and a secret satisfaction. "By Bishop's law or Deemster's he can not fail but be punished with death. And so this is the end! He was to have his foot on my neck some day. So much for the brave vaunt and prophecy. And when he is dead my fate is broken. Tut, who talks of fate in these days? Idle chatter and balderdash!"
When the Deemster got to Ballamona he found the coroner, Quayle the Gyke, in the hall awaiting him. Jarvis Kerruish was on the settle pushing off his slush-covered boots with a bootjack.
"Why, what? How's this?" said the Deemster.
"They've escaped us so far," said the coroner, meekly.
"Escaped you? What? In this little rat-hole of an island, and they've escaped you?"
"We gave them chase for six miles, sir. They've taken the mountains for it. Up past the Sherragh Vane at Sulby, and under Snaefell and Beinn-y-Phott—that's their way, sir. And it was black dark up yonder, and we had to leave it till the morrow. We'll take them, sir, make yourself easy."
"Had any one seen them? Is he with them?"
"Old Moore, the miller at Sulby, saw them as they went by the mill running mortal hard. But he told us no, the captain wasn't among them."
"What! then you've been wasting your wind over the fishermen while he has been clearing away?"
Jarvis Kerruish raised his head from where he was pulling on his slippers.
"Set your mind at rest, sir," he said, calmly. "We will find him, though he lies like a toad under a stone."
"Mettle, mettle," the Deemster chuckled into his breast, and proceeded to throw off his cloak. Then he turned to the coroner again.
"Have you summoned the jury of inquiry?"
"I have, sir—six men of the parish—court-house at Ramsey—eight in the morning."
"We must indict the whole six of them. You have their names? Jarvis will write them down for you. We can not have five of them giving evidence for the sixth."
The Deemster left the hall with his quick and restless step, and turned into the dining-room, where Mona was helping to lay the supper. Her face was very pale, her eyes were red with long weeping, she moved to and fro with a slow step, and misery itself seemed to sit on her. But the Deemster saw nothing of this. "Mona," he said, "you must be stirring before daybreak to-morrow."
She lifted her face with a look of inquiry.
"We breakfast at half-past six, and leave in the coach at seven."
With a puzzled expression she asked in a low tone where they were to go.
"To Ramsey, for the court of inquiry," he answered with complacency.
Mona's left hand went up to her breast, and her breath came quick.
"But why am I to go?" she asked, timidly.
"Because in cases of this kind, when the main evidence is circumstantial, it is necessary to prove a motive before it is possible to frame an indictment."
"Well, father?" Mona's red eyes opened wide with a startled look, and their long lashes trembled.
"Well, girl, you shall prove the motive."
The Deemster opened the snuff-horn on the mantel-shelf.
"Iam to do so?"
The Deemster glanced up sharply under his spectacles. "Yes, you child—you," he said, with quiet emphasis, and lifted his pinch of snuff to his nose.
Mona's breast began to heave, and all her slight frame to quiver.
"Father," she said, faintly, "do you mean that I am to be the chief witness against the man who took my brother's life?"
"Well, perhaps, but we shall see. And now for supper, and then to bed, for we must be stirring before the lark."
Mona was going out of the room with a heavy step, when the Deemster, who had seated himself at the table, raised his eyes. "Wait," he said; "when were you last out of the house?"
"Yesterday morning, sir. I was at the plowing match."
"Have you had any visitors since five last night?"
"Visitors—five—I do not understand—"
"That will do, child."
Jarvis Kerruish came into the room at this moment. He was the Deemster's sole companion at supper that night. And so ended that terrible Christmas Day.
It was at the late dawn of the following morning that Dan Mylrea escaped from his night-long burial in the shaft of the disused lead mine. On his way to Ballamona he went by the little shed where Mrs. Kerruish lived with her daughter Mally. The sound of his footstep on the path brought the old woman to the doorway.
"Asking pardon, sir," the old body said, "and which way may you be going?"
Dan answered that he was going to Ballamona.
"Not to the Deemster's? Yes? Och! no. Why, d'ye say? Well, my daughter was away at the Street last night—where she allis is o' nights, more's the pity, leaving me, a lone woman, to fret and fidget—and there in the house where they tell all newses, the guzzling craythurs, they were sayin' as maybe it was yourself as shouldn't trouble the Deemster for a bit of a spell longer."
Dan took no further heed of the old woman's warning than to thank her as he passed on. When he got to Ballamona the familiar place looked strange and empty. He knocked, but there was no answer. He called, but there was no reply. Presently a foot on the gravel woke the vacant stillness. It was Hommy-beg, and at sight of Dan he lifted both his hands.
Then, amid many solemn exclamations, slowly, disjointedly, explaining, excusing, Hommy told what had occurred. And no sooner had Dan realized the business that was afoot, and that the Deemster, with Jarvis Kerruish and Mona, were gone to Ramsey on a court of inquiry touching Ewan's death, than he straightway set his face in the same direction.
"The court begins its business at eight, you say? Well, good-by, Hommy, and God bless you!" he said, and turned sharply away. But he stopped suddenly, and came back the pace or two. "Wait, let us shake hands, old friend; we may not have another chance. Good-by."
In a moment Dan was going at a quick pace down the road.
It was a heavy morning. The mists were gliding slowly up the mountains in grim, hooded shapes, their long white skirts sweeping the meadows as they passed. Overhead the sky was dim and empty. Underfoot the roads were wet and thick. But Dan felt nothing of this wintry gloom. It did not touch his emancipated spirit. His face seemed to open as he walked, and his very stature to increase. He reflected that the lumbering coach which carried the Deemster and his daughter and bastard son must now be far on its way through the ruts of this rough turnpike that lay between Michael and Ramsey. And he pushed on with new vigor.
He passed few persons on the roads. The houses seemed to be deserted. Here or there a little brood of children played about a cottage door. He hailed them cheerily as he went by, and could not help observing that when the little ones recognized him they dropped their play and huddled together at the threshold like sheep affrighted.
As he passed into Ballaugh under the foot of Glen Dhoo he came upon Corlett Ballafayle. The great man opened his eyes wide at sight of Dan and made no answer to his salutation; but when Dan had gone on some distance he turned, as if by a sudden impulse, and hailed him with scant ceremony.
"Ay, why do you take that road?"
Dan twisted his head, but he did not stop, and Corlett Ballafayle laughed in his throat at a second and more satisfying reflection, and then, without waiting for an answer to his question, he waved the back of one hand, and said, "All right. Follow on. It's nothing to me."
Dan had seen the flicker of good-will, followed by the flame of uncharity, that flashed over the man's face, but he had no taste or time for parley. Pushing on past the muggy inn by the bridge, past the smithy that stood there and the brewery that stood opposite, he came into the village. There the women, standing at their doors, put their heads together, looked after him and whispered, and, like Corlett Ballafayle, forgot to answer his greeting. It was then that over his new-found elevation of soul Dan felt a creeping sense of shame. The horror and terror that had gone before had left no room for the lower emotion. Overwhelmed by a crushing idea of his guilt before God, he had not realized his position in the eyes of his fellow-men. But now he realized it, and knew that his crime was known. He saw himself as a hunted man, a homeless, friendless wanderer on the earth, a murderer from whom all must shrink. His head fell into his breast as he walked, his eyes dropped to the ground, he lifted his face no more to the faces of the people whom he passed, and gave none his salutation.
The mists lifted off the mountains as the morning wore on, and the bald crowns were seen against the empty sky. Dan quickened his pace. When he came to Sulby it had almost quickened to a run, and as he went by the mill in the village he noticed that old Moore, the miller, who was a square-set, middle-aged man with a heavy jowl, stood at the open door and watched him. He did not lift his eyes, but he was conscious that Moore turned hurriedly into the mill, and that at the next instant one of his men came as hurriedly out of it.
In a few minutes more he was at the bridge that crosses the Sulby River, and there he was suddenly confronted by a gang of men, with Moore at their head. They had crossed the river by the ford at the mill-side, and running along the southern bank of it, had come up to the bridge at the moment that Dan was about to cross it from the road. Armed with heavy sticks, which they carried threateningly, they called on Dan to surrender himself. Dan stopped, looked into their hot faces, and said, "Men, I know what you think, but you are wrong. I am not running away; I am going to Ramsey court-house."
At that the men laughed derisively, and the miller said with a grin that if Dan was on his road to Ramsey they would take the pleasure of his company, just to see him safely landed there.
Dan's manner was quiet. He looked about him with calm but searching looks. At the opposite bank of the river, close to the foot of the bridge, there was a smithy. At that moment the smith was hooping a cart-wheel, and his striker set down his sledge and tied up his leather apron to look on and listen.
"Men," said Dan again, in a voice that was low but strong and resolute, "it is the truth that I am on my way to Ramsey court-house, but I mean to go alone, and don't intend to allow any man to take me there as a prisoner."
"A likely tale," said the miller, and with that he stepped up to Dan and laid a hand upon his arm. At the next moment the man of flour had loosed his grip with a shout, and his white coat was rolling in the thick mud of the wet road. Then the other men closed around with sticks uplifted, but before they quite realized what they were to do, Dan had twisted some steps aside, darted through them, laid hold of the smith's sledge, swung it on his shoulder, and faced about.
"Now, men," he said, as calmly as before, "none of you shall take me to Ramsey, and none of you shall follow me there. I must go alone."
The men had fallen quickly back. Dan's strength of muscle was known, and his stature was a thing to respect. They were silent for a moment and dropped their sticks. Then they began to mutter among themselves, and ask what it was to them after all, and what for should they meddle, and what was a few shillin' anyway?
Dan and his sledge passed through. The encounter had cost him some minutes of precious time, but the ardor of his purpose had suffered no abatement from the untoward event, though his heart was the heavier for it and the dreary day looked the darker.
Near the angle of the road that turns to the left to Ramsey and to the right to the Sherragh Vane, there was a little thatched cottage of one story, with its window level with the road. It was the house of a cobbler named Callister, a lean, hungry, elderly man, who lived there alone under the ban of an old rumor of evil doings of some sort in his youth. Dan knew the poor soul. Such human ruins had never been quarry to him, the big-hearted scapegrace, and now, drawing near, he heard the beat of the old man's hammer as he worked. The hammering ceased, and Callister appeared at his door.
"Capt'n," he stammered, "do you know—do you know—?" He tried to frame his words and could not, and at last he blurted out, "Quayle the Gyke drove by an hour ago."
Dan knew what was in the heart of the poor battered creature, and it touched him deeply. He was moving off without speaking, merely waving his hand for answer and adieu, when the cobbler's dog, as lean and hungry as its master to look upon, came from the house and looked up at Dan out of its rheumy eyes and licked his hand.
The cobbler still stood at his door, fumbling in his fingers his cutting-knife, worn obliquely to the point, and struggling to speak more plainly.
"The Whitehaven packet leaves Ramsey to-night, capt'n," he said.
Dan waved his hand once more. His heart sank yet lower. Only by the very dregs of humanity, the very quarry of mankind, and by the dumb creatures that licked his hand, was his fellowship rewarded. Thus had he wasted his fidelity, and thrown his loyalty away. In a day he had become a hunted man. So much for the world's gratitude and even the world's pity. And yet, shunned or hunted, a mark for the finger of shame or an aim for the hand of fate, he felt, as he had felt before, bound by strong ties to his fellow-creatures. He was about to part from them; he was meeting them for the last time. Not even their coldest glance of fear or suspicion made a call on his resolution.
At every step his impatience became more lively. Through Lezayre, and past Milntown, he walked at a quick pace. He dared not run, lest his eagerness should seem to betray him and he should meet with another such obstacle as kept him back at Sulby Bridge. At length he was walking through the streets of Ramsey. He noticed that most of the people who passed him gave him a hurried and startled look, and went quickly on. He reached the court-house at last. Groups stood about the Saddle Inn, and the south side of the enclosure within the rails was crowded. The clock in the church tower in the market-place beyond was striking nine. It was while building that square tower, twenty years before, that the mason Looney had dropped to his knees on the scaffold and asked the blessing of the Bishop as he passed. To the Bishop's son the clock of the tower seemed now to be striking the hour of doom.
The people within the rails of the courtyard fell aside as Dan pushed his way through, and the dull buzz of their gossip fell straightway to a great silence. But those who stood nearest the porch were straining their necks toward the inside of the court-house in an effort to see and hear. Standing behind them for an instant Dan heard what was said in whispers by those within to those without, and thus he learned what had been done.
The Deemster's inquest had been going on for an hour. First, the landlady of the "Three Legs of Man" had sworn that, at about three o'clock on Christmas Eve, Parson Ewan had inquired at her house for Mr. Dan Mylrea, and had been directed to the creek known sometimes as the Lockjaw. Then the butcher from the shambles in the lane had sworn that Parson Ewan had passed him walking toward the creek; and the longshore fishermen who brought the body to Bishop's Court gave evidence as to when (ten o'clock on Christmas morning) and where (the coral ground for herrings, called the Mooragh) it came ashore. After these, Jarvis Kerruish had sworn to following Parson Ewan within half an hour of the deceased leaving Ballamona, to hearing a loud scream as he approached the lane leading to Orris Head, and to finding at the creek the fisher-lad, Davy Fayle, whose manner awakened strong suspicion when he was questioned as to whether he had seen Parson Ewan and his master, Mr. Daniel Mylrea. The wife of one of the crew of the "Ben-my-Chree" had next been called to say that the fishing-boat had been at sea from high-water on Christmas Eve. The woman had given her evidence with obvious diffidence and some confusion, repeating and contradicting herself, being sharply reprimanded by the Deemster, and finally breaking down into a torrent of tears. When she had been removed the housekeeper at the old Ballamona, an uncomfortable, bewildered old body, stated that Mr. Dan Mylrea had not been home since the early morning on the day before Christmas Day. Finally, the harbor-master at Peel had identified the sailcloth in which the body had been wrapped as a drift yawlsail of the "Ben-my-Chree," and he had also sworn that the lugger of that name had come into the harbor at low-water the previous night, with the men Quilleash, Teare, Corkell, Crennell, and Davy Fayle, as well as the owner, Mr. Dan Mylrea, aboard of her.
Without waiting to hear more, Dan made one great call on his resolution, and pushed his way through the porch into the court-house. Then he realized that there was still some virtue left in humanity. No sooner had the people in the court become aware of his presence among them than one stepped before him as if to conceal him from those in front, while another tapped him on the shoulder, and elbowed a way out, beckoning him to follow as if some pressing errand called him away.
But Dan's purpose was fixed, and no cover for cowardice availed to shake it. Steadfast and silent he stood at the back of the court, half hidden by the throng about him, trying to look on with a cool countenance, and to fix his attention on the proceedings of his own trial. At first he was conscious of no more than the obscurity of the dusky place and a sort of confused murmur that rose from a table at the farther end. For a while he looked stupidly on, and even trembled slightly. But all at once he found himself listening and seeing all that was going on before him.
The court-house was densely crowded. On the bench sat the Deemster, his thin, quick face as sharp as a pen within his heavy wig. Jarvis Kerruish and Quayle, the coroner, stood at a table beneath. Stretched on the top of this table was a canvas sail. Six men from Michael sat to the right as a jury. But Dan's eyes passed over all these as if scarcely conscious of their presence, and turned by an instinct of which he knew nothing toward the witness-box. And there Mona herself was now standing. Her face was very pale and drawn hard about the lips, which were set firm, though the nostrils quivered visibly. She wore a dark cloak of half-conventual pattern, with a hood that fell back from the close hat that sat like a nun's cap about her smooth forehead. Erect she stood, with the fire of two hundred eager eyes upon her, but her bosom heaved and the fingers of her ungloved hand gripped nervously the rail in front of her.
In an instant the thin shrill voice of the Deemster broke on Dan's consciousness, and he knew that he was listening to his own trial, with Mona put up to give evidence against him.
"When did you see your brother last?"
"On the afternoon of the day before yesterday."
"At what hour?"
"At about two o'clock."
"What passed between you at that interview?"
There was no answer to this question.
"Tell the jury if there was any unpleasantness between you and your brother at two o'clock the day before yesterday."
There was a pause, and then the silence was broken by the reply, meekly spoken:
"It is true that he was angry."
"What was the cause of his anger?"
Another pause and no answer. The Deemster repeated his question, and still there was no reply.
"Listen; on your answer to this question the burden of the indictment must rest. Circumstance points but too plainly to a crime. It points to one man as perpetrator of that crime, and to five other men as accessories to it. But it is necessary that the jury should gather an idea of the motive that inspired it. And so I ask again, what was the difference between you and your brother at your interview on the afternoon of the day before yesterday?"
There was a deep hush in the court. A gloomy, echoless silence, like that which goes before a storm, seemed to brood over the place.
All eyes were turned to the witness-box.
"Answer," said the Deemster, with head aslant. "I ask for an answer—I demand it."
Then the witness lifted up her great, soft, liquid eyes to the Deemster's face, and spoke: "Is it the judge or the father that demands an answer?" she said.
"The judge, the judge," the Deemster replied with emphasis, "we know of no father here."
At that the burden that had rested on Mona's quivering face seemed to lift away. "Then, if it is the judge that asks the question, I will not answer it."
The Deemster leaned back in his seat, and there was a low rumble among the people in the court. Dan found his breath coming audibly from his throat, his finger-nails digging trenches in his palms, and his teeth set so hard on his lips that both teeth and lips were bleeding.
After a moment's silence the Deemster spoke again, but more softly than before, and in a tone of suavity.
"If the judge has no power with you, make answer to the father," and he repeated his question.
Amid silence that was painful Mona said, in a tremulous voice, "It is not in a court of justice that a father should expect an answer to a question like that."
Then the Deemster lost all self-control, and shouted in his shrill treble that, whether as father or judge, the witness's answer he should have; that on that answer the guilty man should yet be indicted, and that even as it would be damning to that man so it should hang him.
The spectators held their breath at the Deemster's words and looked aghast at the livid face on the bench. They were accustomed to the Deemster's fits of rage, but such an outbreak of wrath had never before been witnessed. The gloomy silence was unbroken for a moment, and then there came the sound of the suppressed weeping of the witness.
"Stop that noise!" said the Deemster. "We know for whom you shed your tears. But you shall yet do more than cry for the man. If a word of yours can send him to the gallows, that word shall yet be spoken."
Dan saw and heard all. The dark place, the judge, the jury, the silent throng, seemed to swim about him. For a moment he struggled with himself, scarcely able to control the impulse to push through and tear the Deemster from his seat. At the next instant, with complete self-possession and strong hold of his passions, he had parted the people in front of him, and was making his way to the table beneath the bench. Dense as the crowd was it seemed to open of itself before him, and only the low rumble of many subdued voices floated faintly in his ear. He was conscious that all eyes were upon him, but most of all that Mona was watching him with looks of pain and fear.
He never felt stronger than at that moment. Long enough he had hesitated, and too often he had been held back, but now his time was come. He stopped in front of the table, and said in a full clear voice, "I am here to surrender—I am guilty."
The Deemster looked down in bewilderment; but the coroner, recovering quickly from his first amazement, bustled up with the air of a constable making a capture, and put the fetters on Dan's wrists.
What happened next was never afterward rightly known to any of the astonished spectators. The Deemster asked the jury for their verdict, and immediately afterward he called on the clerk to prepare the indictment.
"Is it to be for this man only, or for all six?" the clerk asked.
"All six," the Deemster answered.
Then the prisoner spoke again. "Deemster," he said, "the other men are innocent."
"Where are they?"
"I do not know."
"If innocent, why are they in hiding?"
"I tell you, sir, they are innocent. Their only fault is that they have tried to be loyal to me."
"Were they with you when the body was buried?"
Dan made no answer.
"Didtheybury it?"
Still no answer. The Deemster turned to the clerk, "The six."
"Deemster," Dan said, with stubborn resolution, "why should I tell you what is not true? I have come here when, like the men themselves, I might have kept away."
"You have come here, prisoner, when the hand of the law was upon you, when its vengeance was encircling you, entrapping you, when it was useless to hold out longer; you have come here thinking to lessen your punishment by your surrender. But you have been mistaken. A surrender extorted when capture is certain, like a confession made when crime can not be denied, has never yet been allowed to lessen the punishment of the guilty. Nor shall it lessen it now."
Then as the Deemster rose a cry rang through the court. It was such a cry out of a great heart as tells a whole story to a multitude. In a moment the people saw and knew all. They looked at the two who stood before them, Dan and Mona, the prisoner and the witness, with eyes that filled, and from their dry throats there rose a deep groan from their midst.
"I tell you, Deemster, it is false, and the men are innocent," said Dan.
The clerk was seen to hand a document to the Deemster, who took a pen and signed it.
"The accused stands committed for trial at the Court of General Jail Delivery."
At the next moment the Deemster was gone.