X

"O sinner, see your dangerous state,And think of hell ere 'tis too late;When worldly cares would drown each thought,Pray call to mind that hell is hot.Still to increase your godly fearsLet this be sounding in your ears,Still bear in mind that hell is hot,Remember, and forget it not."

Thus, with a swinging motion of the body, the old bard of the mountains chanted this rude song on the dangers of damnation. Thorkell leaped up from the settle and sputtered out an expression of contempt. What madness was this? If he had his way he would clap all superstitious people into the Castle.

The next morning, when sitting down to breakfast, Thorkell told Jarvis Kerruish that he had three nights running dreamt the same dream, and it was a terrible one. Jarvis laughed in his face, and said he was a foolish old man. Thorkell answered with heat, and they parted on the instant, neither touching food. Toward noon Thorkell imagined he felt feverish, and asked for Jarvis Kerruish; but Jarvis was at his toilet and would not be disturbed. At five o'clock the same day Thorkell was sweating from every pore, and crying lustily that he had taken the sickness. Toward seven he ordered the servant—a young man named Juan Caine, who had come to fill Hommy's place—to go in search of the Romish priest, Father Dalby.

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,bringsit 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 isDan 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.

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.

"Sucha 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 nothergrandpa, is it? Doyouknow Kerry?" Then the little face saddened all at once. "Oh, I forgot—poorKerry."

"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."

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:

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.

For two hours thereafter Mona read from the narrative that was written in the book. What that narrative was does not need to be told.

Often the voice of the reader failed her, sometimes it could not support itself. And in the lapses of her voice the silence was broken by her low sobs.

The Bishop listened long with a great outer calmness, for the affections of the father were struggling with a sense of the duty of the servant of God. At some points of the narrative these seemed so to conflict as to tear his old heart wofully. But he bore up very bravely, and tried to think that in what he had done seven years before he had done well. At an early stage of Mona's reading he stopped her to say:

"Men have been cast on desert islands beforetime, and too often they have been adrift on unknown seas."

Again he stopped her to add, with a slow shake of the head:

"Men have been outlawed, and dragged out weary years in exile—men have been oftentimes under the ban and chain of the law."

And once again he interrupted and said, in a trembling undertone, "It is true—it has been what I looked for—it has been a death in life."

But as Mona went on to read of how the outcast man, kept back from speech with every living soul, struggled to preserve the spiritual part of him, the Bishop interrupted once more, and said, in a faltering voice:

"This existence has been quite alone in its desolation."

As Mona went on again to read of how the unblessed creature said his prayer in his solitude, not hoping that God would hear, but thinking himself a man outside God's grace, though God's hand was upon him—thinking himself a man doomed to everlasting death, though the blessing of Heaven had already fallen over him like morning dew—then all that remained of spiritual pride in the heart of the Bishop was borne down by the love of the father, and his old head fell into his breast, and the hot tears rained down his wrinkled cheeks.

Later the same night Mona sent for Davy Fayle. The lad was easily found; he had been waiting in the darkness outside the house, struggling hard with a desire to go in and tell Mistress Mona where Daniel Mylrea was to be found.

"Davy," she said, "do you know where he is?"

"Sure," said Davy.

"And you could lead me to him?"

"I could."

"Then come here very early in the morning, and we will go together."

Next day when Mona, attired for her journey, went down for a hasty breakfast, she found the Bishop fumbling a letter in his trembling fingers.

"Read this, child," he said in a thick voice, and he handed the letter to her.

She turned it over nervously. The superscription ran, "These to the Lord Bishop of Man, at his Palace of Bishop's Court," and the seal on the other face was that of the insular Government.

While the Bishop made pretense of wiping with his handkerchief the horn-bridged spectacles on his nose Mona opened and read the letter.

It was from the Governor at Castletown, and said that the Lord of Man and the Isles, in recognition of the great services done by Daniel Mylrea to the people of the island during their recent affliction, would be anxious to appoint him Deemster of Man, in succession to his late uncle, Thorkell Mylrea (being satisfied that he was otherwise qualified for the post), if the Steward of the Ecclesiastical Courts were willing to remove the censure of the Church under which he now labored.

When she had finished reading, Mona cast one glance of nervous supplication upward to the Bishop's face, and then with a quick cry of joy, which was partly pain, she flung her arms about his neck.

The old Bishop was quite broken down.

"Man's judgments on man," he said, "are but as the anger of little children—here to-day, gone to-morrow, and the Father's face is over all."

What need to tell of one of the incidents of Mona's journey, or of the brave hopes that buoyed her up on the long and toilsome way? Many a time during these seven years past she had remembered that it was she who had persuaded Dan to offer his life as an atonement for his sin. And often the thought came back to her with the swiftness of remorse that it was she who, in her blindness, had sent him to a doom that was worse than death. But Heaven's ways had not been her ways, and all was well. The atonement had been made, and the sin had been wiped out of the book of life. Dan, her love, her beloved, had worked out his redemption. He had proved himself the great man she had always known he must be. He was to come back loaded with honor and gratitude, and surrounded by multitudes of friends.

More than once, when the journey was heaviest, she put her hand to her bosom and touched the paper that nestled so warmly there. Then in her mind's eye she saw Dan in the seat of the Deemster, the righteous judge of his own people. Oh, yes, he would be the Deemster, but he would be Dan still, her Dan, the lively, cheerful, joyous, perhaps even frolicsome Dan, once more. He would sport with her like Ailee; he would play with her as he used to play long ago with another little girl that she herself could remember—tickling her under her armpits, and under her chin, and in twenty different cozy nests of her pretty body, where whole broods of birdies sent up a chorus of squealing song-laughter.

The burden of Mona's long years of weary sorrow had been so suddenly lifted away that she could not restrain her thoughts from childish sportiveness. But sometimes she remembered Ewan, and then her heart saddened, and sometimes she thought of herself, and then it flushed full of quick, hot blood. And, oh, how delicious was the secret thing that sometimes stole up between her visions of Dan and the high destiny that was before him. It was a vision of herself, transfigured by his noble love, resting upon and looking up to him, and thus passing on and on and on to the end.

Once she remembered, with a chill passing through her, that in the writing which she had read Dan had said he was ill? But what of that? She was going to him, and would nurse him back to health.

And Davy Fayle, walking at her side, was full of his own big notions, too. Mastha Dan would be Dempster, true; but he'd have a boat for his pleasure, sarten sure. Davy Fayle would sail man in her, perhaps mate, and maybe skipper some day—who knows? And then—lying aft and drifting at the herrings, and smokin', and the stars out, and the moon makin' a peep—aw, well, well, well!

They reached the end of their journey at last. It was in a small gorse-covered house far over the wild moor, on the edge of the Chasms, looking straight out on the hungry sea. In its one bare room (which was without fire, and was cheerless with little light) there was a table, a settle, a chair, a stool, and a sort of truckle-bed. Dan was there, the same, yet, oh, how different! He lay on the bed unconscious, near to death of the sickness—the last that the scourge was to slay.

Of this story of great love and great suffering what is left to tell?

There are moments when life seems like the blind swirl of a bat in the dusk—blundering, irresponsible, not to be counted with, the swift creature of evil chance. We see a little child's white face at a hospital window, a strong man toiling hopelessly against wrong, the innocent suffering with the guilty, good instincts thwarted and base purposes promoted, and we ask ourselves, with a thrill of the heart, What, after all, is God doing in this His world? And from such blind laboring of chance the tired and beaten generations of men seem to find it reward enough to drop one after one to the hushed realms of rest.

Shall we marvel very much if such a moment came to this pure and noble woman as she stood in the death-chamber of her beloved, with whom, after years of longing, she was at last brought face to face?

But again, there are other moments, higher and better, when there is such a thing in this so bewildering world as the victory of vanquishment, when the true man crushed by evil chance is yet the true man undestroyed by it and destroying it, when Job on his dunghill is more to be envied than Pharaoh on his throne, and death is as good as life.

And such a higher moment came to Mona in that death-chamber. She sat many hours by Dan's side, waiting for the breaking of his delirium and the brief space of consciousness and of peace which would be the beginning of the end. It came at long, long length, and, ah, how soon it came!

The night had come and gone while she sat and watched. When the sunrise shot red through the skin-covered window it fell on Dan and awakened him. Opening his eyes, he saw Mona, and his soul smiled over his wasted face. He could not speak, nor could he lift his worn hands. She knew that the time was near, and holding back her grief, like wild creatures held by the leash, she dropped to her knees, and clasped her hands together to pray. And while she prayed the dying man repeated some of the words after her. "Our Father—"

"Our—Father—"

"Which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name—"

"Hallowed—be—Thy—name—"

"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven; give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil—"

"But deliver us from evil—"

"Amen."

Back to Index Next