“Deerest peat i am gettin that much better... i am thathappy and comforbel... sometimes i am longing for a sight ofthe lil ones swate face... no more at present... ure owntrew wife.”
“Come to the P. N. yet, Philip?” said Pete. He was on his knees before the fire, lighting his pipe with a red coal.
“axpectin to be home sune but... give my luv and bessrespects to the Dempster when you see him he was so good to mewhen “were forren the half was never towl you”
“She's not laving a man unaisy, you see,” said Pete.
Philip could not speak. His throat was choking; his tongue filled his mouth; his eyes were swimming in tears that scorched them. Nancy, who had been up to Sulby with news of the letter, came in at the moment, and Philip raised his head.
“I told my aunt not to expect me to-night, Nancy. Is my room upstairs ready?”
“Aw, yes, always ready, your honour,” said Nancy, with a curtsey.
He got up, with head aside, took a candle from Nancy's hand, excused himself to Pete—he was tired, sleepy, had a heavy day to-morrow—said “Good-night,” and went upstairs—stumbling and floundering—tore open his bedroom door, and clashed it back like a man flying from an enemy.
Pete thought he had succeeded to admiration, but he looked after Philip, and was not at ease. He had no misgivings. Writing was writing to him, and it was nothing more. But in the deep midnight, Philip, who had not slept, heard a thick voice that was like a sob coming from somewhere downstairs. He opened his door, crept out on to the stairhead, and listened. The house was dark. In some unseen place the voice was saying—
“Lord, forgive me for deceaving Philip. I couldn't help it, though; Thou knows, Thyself, I couldn't. A lie's a dirty thing, Lord. It's like chewing dough—it sticks in your throat and chokes you. But I had to do it to save my poor lost lamb, and if I didn't I should go mad myself—Thou knows I should. So forgive me, Lord, for Kirry's sake. Amen.”
The thick voice stopped, the house lay still, then the child awoke in a room beyond, and its thin cry came through the darkness. Philip crept back in terror.
“This is whatshehad to go through! O God! My God!”
Cæsar called next day and took Pete to the office of the High Bailiff, where the business of the mortgage was completed. The deeds of Ballawhaine were then committed to Cæsar's care for custody and safe keeping, and he carried them off to his safe at the mill with a long stride and a face of fierce triumph.
“The ould Ballawhaine is dying,” he thought; “and if we kick out the young one some day, it'll only be the Lord's hand on a rascal.”
On drawing his big cheque, Pete had realised that, with reckless spending, and more reckless giving, he had less than a hundred pounds to his credit. “No matter,” he thought; “Philip will pay me back when he comes in to his own.”
Grannie was with Nancy at Elm Cottage when Pete returned home. The child was having its morning bath, and the two women were on their knees at either side of the tub, cackling and crowing like two old hens over one egg.
“Aw, did youever, now, Nancy? 'Deed, no; you neverdidsee such a lil angel. Up-a-daisy!”
“Cry I must, Grannie, when I see it looking so beautiful. Warm towels, you say? I'm a girl of this sort—when I get my heart down, I can never get it up again. Fuller's earth, is it? Here, then.”
“Boo—loo—loo! the bog millish! Nancy, we must be shortening her soon.”
And with that they fell to an earnest council on frocks and petticoats, and other mysteries unread by man. Pete sat and watched and listened. “People will be crying shame on her if they see the Grannie doing everything,” he thought.
That night he lounged through the town and examined the shop windows out of the corner of his eye. He was trying to bear himself like a workman enjoying his Saturday night's ramble in clean clothes, but the streets were thronged, and he found himself observed. “Not here,” he told himself. “I can buy nothing here. Doesn't do to be asleep at all, and a man isn't always in bed when he's sleeping.”
Some hours later, Nancy and the child being upstairs, Pete bethought himself of something that was kept at the bottom of a drawer. Going to the drawer to open it, he found it stiff to his tugging, and it came back with a jerk, which showed it had not lately been disturbed. Pete found what he looked for, and came upon something beside. It was a cardboard box, tied about with a string, which was knotted in a peculiar way. “Kate's knot,” thought Pete with a sigh. He slipped it, and opened the lid and took out a baby's hood of scarlet plush. “The very thing,” he thought. He held it, mouth open, over his big brown hand, and laughed with delight. “She's been buying it for the child and never using it.” His eyes glistened. “Theverything,” he thought, and then he took down pen and paper to write something to go with it.
This is what he wrote—
“For lil Katerin from her Luvin mother”
Then he held it at arm's length and looked at it. The subscription crossed the whole face of a half-sheet of paper. But the triumphant success of his former effort had made him bold. He could not resist the temptation to write more. So he turned the paper over and wrote on the back—
“tell pa pa not to wurry about me i aspect to be home sunebut dont no ezactly”
His eyes were swimming by the time he got that down, but they brightened again as he remembered something.
“Weve had grate times ear uncle Jo—”
“Must go on milking that ould cow,” he thought
“tuk me to sea the prins of Wales yesterda”
He could not help it—he began to take a wild joy in his own inventions.
“flags and banns of musick all day and luminerashuns allnight it was grand we were top of an umnibuss goin down lordstrete and saw him as plane as plane”
“Bless me,” said Pete, dropping his pen, and rubbing his hands in ravishing contemplation of his own fiction; “the next thing we hear she'll be riding in her carriage and' pair.”
He was sobbing a little, for all that, in a low, smothered way, but he could not deny himself one word more—
“luv to all enquirin frens and bess respecs to the Dempsterif im not forgot at him.”
This second forgery of love being finished, he went about the house on tiptoe, found brown paper and twine, put the hood back into the box with his half-sheet peeping from between the frills where the little face would go, and made it up, with his undeft fingers, into an ungainly parcel, which he addressed to himself as before. After that he did his accustomed duty with the lamp and the door, and lay down in the parlour to sleep.
On Monday, at dinner, he broke out peevishly with “Ter'ble botheration, Nancy—I must be going to Port St. Mary about that thundering demonstration.”
Then from underneath the sofa in the parlour he rooted up a brown paper parcel, stuffed it under his coat, buttoned it up, and so smuggled it out of the house.
They set sail early in the afternoon, and ran down the coast under a fair breeze that made the canvas play until the sea hissed. The day was wet and cheerless; a thick mist enshrouded the land, and going by Laxey they could just descry the top arc of the great wheel like a dun-coloured ghost of a rainbow in a grey sky. As they came to Douglas the mist was lifting, but the rain was coming down in a soaking drizzle. A band was playing dance tunes on the iron pier, which shot like a serpent's tongue out of the mouth of the bay. The steamer from England was coming round the head, and her sea-sick passengers were dense as a crowd on her forward deck, the men with print handkerchiefs tied over their caps, the women with their skirts over their drooping feathers. A harp and a violin were scraping lively airs amidships. The town was like a cock with his tail down crowing furiously in the wet.
When they came to Port St. Mary the mist had risen and the rain was gone, but the fishing-town looked black and sullen under a lowering cloud. The tide was down, and many boats lay on the beach and in the shallow water within the rocks.
Pete was put ashore; his Nickey went round the Calf to the herring ground beyond the shoulder; a number of fishermen were waiting for him on the quay, with heavy looks and hands deep in their trousers-pockets.
“No need for much praiching at all,” said Pete, pointing to the boats lying aground. “There you are, boys, fifty of you at the least, with no room to warp for the rocks. Yet they're for taxing you for dues for a harbour.”
“Go ahead, Capt'n,” said one of the fishermen; “there's five hundred men here to back you up through thick and thin.”
Pete posted his brown paper parcel as stealthily as he had posted his letter, and left Port St. Mary the same night for Douglas. The roads were thick with coaches, choked full with pleasure-seekers from Port Erin. These cheerful souls were still wearing the clothes which had been drenched through in the morning; their boots were damp and cold; they were chill with the night-air, but they did not repine. They sang and laughed and ate oranges, drew up frequently at wayside houses, and handed round bottles of beer with the corks drawn. In their own way they were bright and cheerful company. Sometimes “Hold the Fort,” sung in a brake going ahead, mingled with “Molly and I and the Baby,” from lusty throats coming behind. Battling through Castletown, they shouted wild chaff at the redcoats lounging by the Castle, and when the darkness fell they dropped asleep—the men usually on the women's shoulders; and then the horses' hoofs were heard splashing along the muddy road, and every rider cracked his whip over a chorus of stertorous snores.
Douglas was ablaze with light as they dipped down to it from the dark country. Long sinuous tails of light where the busy streets were, running in and out, this way and that, and belching into the wide squares and market-places like the race of a Curragh fire. The sleepers awoke and shook themselves. “Going to the Castle to-night?” said one. “What do you think?” said another, and they all laughed at the foolish question.
“I'll sleep here,” thought Pete. “I've not searched Douglas yet.”
The driver found him a bed at his mother's house. It was a lodging-house in Church Street, overlooking the churchyard. Finding himself so near to Athol Street, Pete thought he would look at the outside of Philip's chambers. He lit on the house easily, though the street was dark. It was one of a line of houses having brass plates, each with its name, and always the wordAdvocate. Philip's house bore one plate only, a small one, with the name hardly legible in the uneertain light. It ran—The Deemster Christian.
Having spelt out this inscription, Pete crept away. That was the last house in the island at which he wished to call. He was almost afraid of being seen in the same town. Philip might think he was in Douglas to look for Kate.
Pete rambled through the narrow thoroughfares of Post-Office Place, Heywood Lane, and Fancy Street, until he came to the sea front. It was now full tide of busy night, and the holiday town seemed to be given over to enjoyment. The steps of the terraces were thronged; itinerant photographers pitched their cameras on the curb-stones; every open window had its dark heads with the light behind; pianos were clashing in the houses, harps were twanging in the street, tinkling tram-cars, like toast-racks, were sweeping the curve of the bay; there was a steady flow of people on the pavement, and from water's edge to cliff top, three parts round like a horse's shoe, the town flashed and fizzed and sparkled and blazed under its thousand lights with the splendour of a forest fire.
Pete called to mind the blinking and groping of the dear old half-lit town to the north; he remembered the dark village at the foot of the lonely hills, with its trout-stream burrowing under the low bridge, and he thought, “She may have tired of it all, poor thing!”
He looked at every woman's face as she went by him, hungering for one glimpse of a face he feared to see. He did not see it, and he wandered like a lost soul through the little gay town until he drifted with the wave that flowed around the bay into the place that was known as the Castle.
It was a dancing palace in a garden, built in the manner of a conservatory, with the ground level for those who came to dance, and the galleries for such as came to see. Seated by the front rail of the gallery, Pete peered down into the faces below. Three thousand young men and young women were dancing, the men in flannels and coloured scarves, the women in light muslins and straw hats. Sometimes the white lights in the glass roof were coloured with red and blue and yellow. The low buzz of the dancers' feet, the clang and clash of the brass instruments, the boom of the big drum, the quake of the glass house itself, and the low rumble of the hollow floor beneath—it was like a battle-field set to music.
“She may have tired, poor thing; God knows she may,” thought Pete.
His eyes were growing hazy and his head dizzy, when he became conscious of a waft of perfume behind him, and a soft voice saying at his ear, “Were you looking for anybody, then?”
He turned with a start, and looked at the speaker. It was a young girl with a pretty face, thick with powder. He could not be angry with the little thing; she was so young, and she was smiling.
“Yes,” he said, “Iwaslooking for somebody;” and then he tried to shake her off.
“Is it Maudie, you mane, dear? Are you the young man from Dublin?”
“Lave me, my girl; lave me,” said Pete, patting her hand, and twisting about.
The girl looked at him with a sort of pity, and then close at his neck she said, “A fine boy like you shouldn't be going fretting his heart about the best girl that's in.”
He looked at the pretty face again, and the little knowing airs began to break down. “You're a Manx girl, aren't you?”
The smile vanished like a flash. “How do you know that? My tongue doesn't tell you, does it?” And the little thing was ashamed.
Pete took the tight-gloved fingers in his big palm. “So you're my lil countrywoman, then?” he said. “How old are you?”
The painted lips began to tremble. “Sixteen for harvest,” she answered.
“My God!” exclaimed Pete.
The darkened eyelids blinked; she was beginning to cry. “It wasn't my fault. He was a visitor with my mother at Ballaugh, and he left me to it.”
Pete took a sovereign out of his pocket, and shut it in the girl's hand.
“Go home to-night, my dear,” he whispered, and then he clambered out of the place.
“Not there!” cried Pete in his heart; “not there—I swear to God she is not there.”
That ended his search. He resolved to go home the same night, and he went back to his lodgings to pay his bill. Turning out of Athol Street, Pete was almost overrun by a splendid equipage, with two men in buff on the box-seat, and one man behind. “The Governor's carriage,” said somebody. At the next moment it drew up at Philip's door, its occupant alighted, and then it swung about and moved away. “It was the young Deemster,” said a girl to her companion, as she went skipping past.
Pete had seen the tall, dark figure, bent and feeble, as it walked heavily up the steps. “Truth enough,” he thought, “there's nothing got in this world without paying the price of it.”
It was three in the morning when Pete reached Ramsey, Elm Cottage was dark and silent. He had to knock again and again before awakening Nancy. “Now, if this had been Kate!” he thought, and a new fear took hold of him. His poor darling, his wandering lamb, could she have knocked twice? Where was she to-night? He had been picturing her in happiness and plenty—was she in poverty and distress? All the world was sleeping—was she asleep? His hope was slipping away; his great faith was breaking down. “Lord, do not forsake me! Master, strengthen me! My poor lost love, where is she? What is she? Shall I see her face again?”
Something cold touched his hand. It was the dog. Without a bark he had put his nose into Pete's palm. “What, Dempster, man, Dempster!” The bat's ears were cocked—Pete felt them—the scut of a tail was wagged, and Pete got comfort from the battered old friend that had tramped the world at his heels.
Nancy unchained the door, opened it an inch, held a candle over her head, and peered out. “My goodness, is it the man himself? However did you come home?”
“By John the Flayer's pony,” said Pete; and he laughed and made light of his night-long walk.
But next morning, when Nancy came downstairs with the child, Pete was busy with a screwdriver taking the chain off the door. “Ter'ble ould-fashioned, these chains—must be moving with the times, you know.”
“Then what are you putting in its place?” said Nancy.
“You'll see, you'll see,” said Pete.
At seven that night Pete was smoking over the gate when Kelly the Thief came up with a brown paper parcel. “Parcel for you, Mr. Quilliam,” said the postman, with the air of a man who knew something he should not know.
Pete blinked and looked bewildered. “You don't say!” he said.
“Well, if that's your name,” began the postman, holding the address for Pete to read.
Pete gave it a searching look. “Cap'n Peatr Quilliam, that's it sartenly,Lm Cottig—yes, it must be right,” he said, taking the parcel gingerly. Then with a prolonged “O——o!” shutting his eyes and nodding his head, “I know—a bit of a present from the mother to the lil one. Wonderful thoughtful a woman is about a baby when she's a mother, Mr. Kelly.”
The postman giggled, threw his finger seaward over one shoulder, and said, “Why aren't you writing back to her, then?”
“What's that?” said Pete sharply, making the parcel creak.
“Why aren't you writing to tell her how the lil one is, I'm saying?”
Pete looked at the postman as if the idea had dropped from heaven. “I must have a head as thick as a mooring-post, Mr. Kelly. Do you know, I never once thought of it. I'm like Goliath when he got little David's stone at his forehead—such a thing never entered my head before.”
“Do it for all, Mr. Quilliam,” said the postman, moving off.
“I will, I will,” said Pete; and then he turned into the house.
“Scissors, Nancy,” he shouted, throwing the parcel on the table.
“My sakes, a parcel!” cried Nancy.
“Aisy to tell where it comes from, too. See that knot, woman?” said Pete, with a knowing wink.
“What in the world is it, Pete?” said Nancy.
“I wonder!” said Pete. “Papers enough round it, anyway. A letter? We'll look at that after,” he said loftily, and then out came the scarlet hood. “Gough bless mee what's this thing at all?” and he held it up by the crown.
Nancy made a cry of alarm, took the hood out of his hand, and scolded him roundly. “These men, they're fit to spoil an angel's wings.”
Then she whipped up the baby out of the cradle, tried the hood on the little round head, and shouted with delight.
“Now I was thinking of that, d'ye know?” she said. “I was, yes, I was; believe me or not, I was. 'Kirry will be sending something for the lil one the next time she writes,' I was thinking, and behould ye—here it is.”
“Something spakes to us, Nancy,” said Pete. “'Deed it does, though.”
The child gurgled and purred, and for all her fine headgear she was absorbed in her bare toes.
“And there's yourself, Pete—going to Peel and to Douglas, and I don't know where—and you've never once thought of the lil one—and knowing we were for shortening her, too.”
Pete cast down his head and looked ashamed.
“Well, no—of coorse—I never have—that's truth enough,” he faltered.
Pete went out to buy a sheet of notepaper and an envelope, a pen, and a postage stamp. He had abundance of all theso at home, but that did not serve his turn. Going to as many shops as might be, he dropped hints everywhere of the purpose to which his purchases were to be put. Finally, he went to the barber's in the market-place and said, “Will you write an address for me, Jonaique?”
“Coorse I will,” said the barber, sweeping a hand of velvet over one cheek of the postman, who was in the chair, leaving the other cheek in lather while he took up the pen.
“Mistress Peter Quilliam, care of Master Joseph Quilliam, Esquire, Scotland Road, Liverpool” dictated Pete.
“What number, Capt'n?” said Jonaique.
“Number?” said Pete, perplexed. “Bless me, what's this the number is now? Oh,” by a sudden inspiration, “five hundred and fifteen.”
“Five hundred—d'ye sayfive” said the postman from the half of his mouth that was clear.
“Five,” said Pete emphatically. “Aw, they're well up.”
“Ifyousay so, Capt'n,” said the barber, and down went “515.”
Pete returned home with the stamped and addressed envelope open in his hands, “Clane the table quick,” he shouted; “I must be writing to Kirry. Will I give her your love, Nancy?”
With much hem-ing and ha-ing and clearing of his throat, Pete was settling himself before a sheet of note-paper, when the door opened, and Philip stepped into the house. His face was haggard and emaciated; his eyes burned as with a fire that came up from within.
“I've come to warn you,” he said; “you are in great danger. You must stop that demonstration.”
“Sit down, sir, sit down,” said Pete.
Philip did not seem to hear. He walked to and fro with short, nervous, noiseless steps. “The Governor sent for me last night, and I found him in a frenzy. 'Deemster,' he said, 'they tell me there's to be a disturbance at Tynwald—have you heard of anything?' I said, 'Yes, I had heard of a meeting of fishermen at Peel.' 'They talk of their rights,' said he; 'I'll teach them something of one right they seem to forget—the right of the Governor to shoot down the disturbers of Tynwald, without judge or jury.' 'That's a very old prerogative, your Excellency,' I said; 'it comes down from more lawless days than ours. You will never use it.' 'Will I not?' said he. 'Listen, I'll tell you what I've done already. I've ordered the regiment at Castletown to be on Tynwald Hill on Tynwald day. Every man of these—there are three hundred—shall have twenty rounds of ball-cartridge. Then, if the vagabonds try to interrupt the Court, I've only to lift my hand—so—and they'll be mown down like grass.' 'You can't mean it,' I said, and I tried to take his big talk lightly. 'Judge for yourself—see,' and he showed me a paper. It was an order for the ambulance waggons to be stationed on the ground, and a request to the doctors of Douglas to be present.”
“Then we've made the ould boy see that we mane it,” said Pete.
“'If you know any one of the ringleaders, Deemster,' he said, with a look into my face—somebody had been with him—there are tell-tales everywhere——”
“It's the way of the world still,” said Pete.
“'Tell him,' said he, 'that I don't want to take the life of any man—I don't want to send any one to penal servitude.'” It was useless to protest. The man was mad, but he was in earnest. His plan was folly—frantic folly—but it was based on a sort of legal right. “So, for the Lord's sake, Pete, stop this thing. Stop it at once, and finally. It's life or death. If ever you thought my word worth anything, you'll do as I bid you, now. God knows where I should be myself if the Governor were to do what he threatens. Stop it, stop it; I haven't slept for thinking of it.”
Pete had been sitting at the table, chewing the tip of the pen, and now he lifted to the paleness and wildness of Philip's face a cool, bold smile.
“It's good of you, Phil.... We've a right to be there, though, haven't we?”
“You've a right, certainly, but——”
“Then, by gough, we'll go,” said Pete, dropping the pen, and bringing his fist down on the table.
“The penalty will be yours, Pete—yours. You are the man who will suffer—you first—you alone.”
Pete smiled again. “No use—I'm incorr'iblê. I'm like Dan-ny-Clae, the sheep-stealer, when he came to die. 'I'm going to eternal judgment—what'll I do?' says Dan. 'Give back all you've stolen,' says the parzon. 'I'll chance it first,' says the ould rascal. It's the other fellow that's for stealing this time; but I'll chance it, Philip. Death it may be, and judgment too, but I'll chance it, boy.”
Philip's eyes wandered over the floor. “Then you'll not change your plan for anything I've told you?”
“I will, though,” said Pete, “for one thing, anyway.Youshan't be getting into trouble—I'll be spokesman for the fishermen myself. Oh, I'll spake enough if they get my dander up. I'll just square my arms acrost my chest and I'll say, 'Your Excellency,' I'll say, 'you can't do it, and you shan't do it—because it isn'tright.' But chut! botheration to all such bobbery! Look here—man alive, look here! She's not forgetting the lil one, you see,” and, making a proud sweep of the hand, Pete pointed to the scarlet hood. It had been put to sit across the back of a china dog on the mantelpiece, with Pete's half sheet of paper pinned to the strings.
Philip recognised it. The hood was the present he had made as godfather. His eyes blinked, his mouth twitched, the cords of his forehead moved.
“So she—she sent that,” he stammered.
“Listen here,” said Pete, and he unpinned the paper and read the message aloud, with flourishes of voice and gesture—“For lil Katherine from her loving mother... papa not to worry... love to all inquiring friends... best respects to the Dempster if Im not forgot at him.” Then in an off-hand way he tossed the paper into the fire. “Aw, what's a bit of a letter,” he said largely, as it took flame and burned.
Philip's bloodshot eyes seemed to be starting from his head.
“Nancy's right—a man would never have thought of the like of that—now, would he?” said Pete, looking proudly from Philip to the hood, and from the hood back to Philip.
Philip did not answer. Something seemed to be throttling him.
“But when a woman goes away she leaves her eyes behind her, as you might say. 'What'll I be getting for them that's at home?' she's thinking, and up comes a nice warm lil thing for the baby. Aw, the women's good, Philip. They're what they make the sovereigns of, God bless them!”
Philip felt as if he must rush out of the house shrieking. One moment he stood up before Pete, as though he meant to say something, and then he turned to go.
“Not sleeping to-night, no? Have to get back to Douglas? Then maybe you'll write me a letter first?”
Philip nodded his head and returned, his mouth tightly closed, sat down at the table, and took up the pen.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Am I to give you the words, Phil? Yes? Well, if you won't be thinking mane——”
Pete charged His pipe out of his waistcoat pocket, and began to dictate:
“Dear wife.'”
At that Philip gave an involuntary cry.
“Aw, best to begin proper, you know. 'Dear wife,'” said Pete again.
Philip made a call on his resolution, and put the words down. His hand felt cold; his heart felt frozen to the core. Pete lit up, and walked to and fro as he dictated his letter. Nancy sat knitting by the cradle, with one foot on the rocker.
“'Glad to get your welcome letter, darling, and the bonnetfor the baby'——-”
“'Go on,” said Philip, in an impassive voice.
“Got that down, Philip? Aw, you're smart wonderful with the pen, though....
'When she's got it on her lil head you'd laugh tremenjous.She's straight like a lil John the Baptist in the churchwindow'—”
Pete paused; Philip lifted his pen and waited.
“Done already? Man veen, there's no houlding you....
'Glad to hear you're so happy and comfortable with Uncle Joeand Auntie Joney. Give the pair of them my fond love andbest respects. We're getting on beautiful, and I'm as happyas a sandboy. Sometimes Grannie gets a bit down withlonging, and so does Nancy, but I tell them you'll be homefor their funeral sarmon, anyway, and then they're comfortedwonderful.'”
“Don't be writing his rubbage and lies, your Honour,” said Nancy.
“Chut! woman; where's the harm at all? A merry touch to keep a person's spirits up when she's away from home—eh, Philip?” and Pete appealed to him with a nudge at his writing elbow.
Philip gave no sign. With a look of stupor he was staring down at the paper as he wrote. Pete puffed and went on—
“'Cæsar's at it still, going through the Bible same as atrawl-boat, fishing up the little texes. The Dempster'sputting a sight on us reg'lar, and you're not forgot at himneither. 'Deed no, but thinking of you constant, andtrusting you're the better for laving home——-'
... Going too fast, am I? So I'm bating you at last, eh?”
A cold perspiration had broken out on Philip's forehead, and he was looking up with the eyes of a hunted dog.
“Am I to—must I write that?” he said in a helpless way.
“Coorse—go ahead,” said Pete, puffing clouds of smoke, and laughing.
Philip wrote it. His hand was now stiff. It sprawled and splashed over the paper.
“'As for myself, I'm a sort of a grass-widow, and if youkeep me without a wife much longer they'll be taxing me fora bachelor.'”
Pete put his pipe on the mantelpiece, cleared his throat repeatedly, and began to be afflicted with a cough.
“'Glad to hear you're coming home soon, darling (cough).Dearest Kirry, I'm missing you mortal (cough), worse norat Kimberley (cough). When I'm going to bed, 'Where is sheto-night?' I'm saying. And when I'm getting up, 'Where isshe now?' I'm thinking. And in the dark midnight I'm askingmyself, 'Is she asleep, I wonder?' (Cough, cough.) Comehome quick, bogh; but not before you're well at all.'
... Never do to fetch her too soon, you know,” he said in a whisper over Philip's shoulder, with another nudge at his elbow.
Philip answered incoherently, and shrank under Pete's touch as if he had been burnt. The coughing continued; the dictating began again.
'“I'm keeping a warm nest for you here, love. There'll be awelcome from everybody, and nobody saying anything but thegood and the kind. So come home soon, my true lil wife,before the foolish ould heart of your husband is losinghim'——”
Pete coughed violently, and stretched his neck and mouth awry. “This cough I've got in my neck is fit to tear me in pieces,” he said. “A spoonful of cold pinjane, Nancy—it's ter'ble good to soften the neck.”
Nancy was nodding over the cradle—she had fallen asleep.
Philip had turned white and giddy and sick. For one moment an awful impulse seized him. He wanted to fall on Pete; to lay hold of him, to choke him. The consciousness of his own inferiority, his own duplicity, made him hate Pete. The very sweetness of the man sickened him. He could not help it—the last spark of his self-pride was fighting for its life. Then in shame, in remorse, in horror of himself and dread of everything, he threw down the pen, caught up his hat, shouted “Good night” in a voice like the growl of a beast in terror, and ran out of the house.
Nancy started up from a doze. “Goodness grazhers!” she cried, and the cradle rocked violently under her foot.
“He's that tender-hearted and sympathising,” whispered Pete as he closed the door. (Cough, cough)... “The letter's finished, though—and here's the envelope.”
The following evening the Deemster was in his rooms in Athol Street. His hat was on, his cloak was over his arm, he was resting his elbow on the sash of the window and looking vacantly into the churchyard. Jem was behind him, answering at his back. Their voices were low; they scarcely moved.
“All well upstairs?” said Philip.
“Pretty well, your Honour.”
“More cheerful and content?”
“Much more, except when your Honour is from home. 'The Deemster's back,' she'll say, and her poor face will be like sunshine on a rainy day.”
Philip remained silent for a moment, and then said in a scarcely audible voice—
“Not fretting so much about the child, Jemmy?”
“Just as anxious to hear of it, though. 'Has he been to Ramsey to-day? Did he see her? Is she well?' That's the word constant, sir.”
The Deemster was silent again, and Jem was withdrawing with a deep bow. “Jemmy, I'm going to Government House, and may be late. Don't wait up for me.”
Jem answered in a half whisper, “Some one waits up for your Honour whether I do or not 'He's at home now,' she'll say, and then creep away to bed.”
Philip muttered, thickly and huskily, “The decanter is empty—leave out another bottle.” Then he turned to go from the room, keeping his eyes from his servant's face.
He found the Governor as violent as before, and eager to fall on him before he had time to speak.
“They tell me. Deemster, that the leader of this rising is a sort of left-hand relative of yours. Surely you can stop the man.”
“I've tried to, your Excellency, and failed,” said Philip.
The Governor tossed up his chin. “I'm told the fellow can't even write his own name,” he said.
“It's true,” said Philip.
“An illiterate and utterly uneducated person.”
“All the same, he's the wisest and strongest man on this island,” said Philip decisively.
The Governor frowned, and the pockmarks on his forehead seemed to swell. “The wisest and strongest man on this island will have to leave it,” he said.
Philip made no answer. He had come to plead, but he saw that it was hopeless. The Governor put his right hand in the breast, of his white waistcoat—he was alone in the dining-room after dinner—and darted at Philip a look of anger and command.
“Deemster,” he said, “if, as you say, you cannot stop this low-bred rascal, there's one thing you can do—leave him to himself.”
“That is to say,” said Philip out of a corner of his mouth, “to you.”
“To me be it, and who has more right?” said the Governor hotly.
Philip held himself in hand. He was silent, and his silence was taken for submission. Cracking some nuts and munching them, the Governor began to take another tone.
“I should be sorry, Mr. Christian, if anything came between you and me—very sorry. We've been good friends thus far, and you will allow that you owe me something. Don't you see it yourself—this man is dishonouring me in the eyes of the island? If you have tried your best to keep his neck out of the halter, let the consequences be his own.”
“Eh?” said Philip, with his eyes on the floor.
“You have done your duty by the man, I say. Help yourself to a glass of wine.”
Still Philip did not speak. The Governor saw his advantage, but little did he guess the pitiless power of it.
“The fellow is your kinsman, Deemster, and I shall not ask you to deal with him. That would be inhuman. If there is no hope of restraining him to-morrow—wise as he is, if he will not listen to saner counsels, I will only beg of you—but this is a matter for the police. You are a high official now. It would be a pity to give you pain. Stay at home—I'll gladly excuse you—you look as if a day's rest would do you good.”
Philip drank two glasses of the wine in quick succession. The Governor poured him a third, and went on—
“I don't know what you're feeling for the man may be—it can't be friendship. I'm sure he's a thorn in your flesh. And as long as he's here he will always be.”
Philip looked up with inquiry, doubt, and fear.
“Ah! I knew it. Even if this matter goes by, your time will come. You'll quarrel with the fellow yet—you know you will—it's in the nature of things—if he's the man you say.”
Philip drank the third glass of wine and rose to go.
“Leave him to me—I'll deal with him. You'll be done with him, and a good riddance, too, I reckon. And now come in to the ladies—they'll know you're here.”
Philip excused himself and went off with feverish gestures and an excited face.
“The Governor is right,” he thought, as he went home over the dark roads. Pete was a thorn in his flesh, and always would be; his enemy, his relentless enemy, notwithstanding his love for him.
The misery of the past month could not be supported any longer. Perpetual fear of discovery, perpetual guard of the tongue, keeping watch and ward on every act of life—to-day, to-morrow, the next day, on and on until life's end in wretchedness or disgrace—it was insupportable, it was impossible, it could not be attempted.
Then came thoughts that were too fearful to take form-too awful to take words. They were like the flapping of unseen wings going by him in the night, but the meaning of them was this: If Pete persists in his purpose, there will be a riot. If any one is injured, Pete will be transported. If any one is killed, Pete will be indicted for his life.
“Well, I have done my duty by him,” his heart whimpered. “I have tried to restrain him. I have tried to restrain the Governor. It isn't my fault. What more can I do?”
Philip walked fast. Here was the way of escape from the evil that beset his path. Fate was stretching out her hands to him. When men had done wrong, they did yet more wrong to elude the consequences of their first fault; but there was no need for that in his case.
The hour was late. A strong breeze was blowing off the sea. It flicked his face with salt as he went swinging down the hill into the town. His blood was a-fire. He had a feeling, never felt before, of courage and even ferocity. Something told him that he was not so good a man as he had been, but it was a tingling pleasure to feel that he was a stronger man than before.
Should he tell Kate? No! Let the thing go on; let it end. After it was over she would see where their account lay. Thinking in this way, he laughed aloud.
The town was quiet when he came to it. So absorbed had he been that, though the air was sharp, he had been carrying his cloak over his arm. Now he put it on, and drew the hood close over his head. A dog, a homeless cur, had begun to follow at his heels. He drove it off, but it continued to hang about him. At last it got in front of his feet, and he stumbled over it in one of his large, quick strides. Then he kicked the dog, and it crossed the dark street yelping. He was a worse man, and he knew it.
He let himself into the house with his latch-key, and banged the door behind his back. But no sooner had he breathed the soft, woolly, stagnant air within than a change came over him. His ferocious strength ebbed away, and he began to tremble.
The hall passage and staircase were in darkness. This was by his orders—coming in late, he always forgot to put out the gas. But the lamp of his room was burning on the candle rest at the stairhead, and it cast a long sword of light down the staircase well.
Chilled by some unknown fear, he had set one foot on the first tread when he thought he heard the step of some one coming down the stairs. It was a familiar step. He was sure he knew it. It must be a step he heard daily.
He stopped, and the step seemed to stop also. At that moment there was a shuffling of slippered feet on an upper landing, and Jem-y-Lord called down, “Is it you, your Honour?”
With an effort he answered, “Yes.”
“Is anything the matter?” called the man-servant.
“There's somebody coming downstairs, isn't there?” said Philip.
“Somebody coming downstairs?” repeated the man-servant, and the light shifted as if he were lifting the lamp.
“Is it you coming down, Jem?”
“Me coming down? I'm here, holding the lamp, your Honour.”
“Another of my fancies,” thought Philip; and he laid hold of the handrail, and started afresh. The step came on. He knew it now; it was his own step. “An echo,” he told himself. “A dream,” he thought, “a mirage of the mind;” and he compelled himself to go up. The step came down. It passed him on the stairs, going by the wall as he went by the rail, with an irresistible down-drive, headlong, heavily.
Then came one of those moments of partial unconsciousness in which the sensation of a sound takes shape. It seemed to Philip that the figure of a man had passed him. He remembered it instantly. It was the same that he had seen in the lobby to the Council Chamber, his own figure, but wrapped in a cloak like the one he was then wearing, and with the hood drawn over the head. The body had been half turned aside, the face had been hidden, and the whole form had expressed contempt, repugnance, and loathing.
“Not well to-night, your Honour?” said the far-off voice of Jem-y-Lord. He was holding the dazzling lamp up to the Deemster's face.
“A little faint—that's all. Go to bed.”
Then Philip was alone in his room. “Conscience!” he thought. “Pete may go, butthiswill be with me to the end. Which, O God?—which?”
He poured out half a tumbler from the bottle on the table, and gulped it down at a draught. At the same moment he heard a light foot overhead. It was a woman's foot; it crossed the floor, and then ceased.