XV.

Philip did not go back to Elm Cottage. He buried Auntie Nan at the foot of his father's grave. There was no room at either side, his mother's sunken grave being on the left and the railed tomb of his grandfather on the right. They had to remove a willow two feet nearer to the path.

When all was over he returned home alone, and spent the afternoon in gathering up Auntie Nan's personal belongings, labelling some of them and locking them up in the blue room. The weather had been troubled for some days. Spots had been seen on the sun. There were magnetic disturbances, and on the night before the aurora had pulsed in the northern sky. When the sun was near to sinking there was a brilliant lower sky to the west, with a bank of rolling cloud above it like a thick thatch roof, and a shaft of golden light dipping down into the sea, as if an angel had opened a door in heaven. After the sun had gone a fiery red bar stretched across the sky, and there were low rumblings of thunder.

Pausing in his work to look out on the beach, Philip saw a man riding hard on horseback. It was a messenger from Government Offices. He drew up at the gate. A moment later the messenger was in Philip's room handing him a letter.

If anybody had seen the Deemster as he took that letter he must have thought it his death-warrant. A deadly pallor came to his face when he broke the seal of the envelope and drew out the contents. It was a commission from the Home Office. Philip was appointed Governor of the Isle of Man. “My punishment, my punishment!” he thought. The higher he rose, the lower he had to fall. It was a cruel kindness, a painful distinction, an awful penalty. Truly the steps of this Calvary were steep. Would he ever ascend it?

The messenger was bowing and smirking before him. “Thousand congratulations, your Excellency!”

“Thank you, my lad. Go downstairs. They'll give you something to eat.”

A moment later Jem-y-Lord came into the room on some pretence and hopped about like a bird. “Yes, your Excellency—No, your Excellency—Quite so, your Excellency.”

Martha came next, and met Philip on the landing with a courageous smile and a courtesy. And the whole house, lately so dark and sad, seemed to lighten and to laugh, as when, after a sleepless night, you look, and lo! the daylight is on the blind; you listen and the birds are twittering in their cages below the stairs.

“Shewill hear it too,” thought Philip.

He wrote her two lines of a letter, the first that he had penned since his illness—

“Keep up heart, dear; I will be with you soon.”

This, without signature or superscription, he put into an envelope, and addressed. Then he went out and posted it himself.

There was lightning as he returned. He felt as if he would like to wander away in it down to Port Mooar, and round by the caves, and under the cliffs, where the sea-birds scream.

The night had fallen, and he was sitting in his room, when there was a clamour of loud voices in the hall. Some one was calling for the Deemster. It was Nancy Joe. She was newly returned from Sulby. Something had happened to Cæsar, and nobody could control him.

“Go to him, your Honour,” she cried from the doorway. “It's only yourself that has power with him, and we don't know in the world what's doing on the man. He's got a ram's horn at him, and is going blowing round the house like the mischief, calling on the Lord to bring it down, and saying it's the walls of Jericho.”

Philip sent for a carriage, and set off for Sulby immediately. The storm had increased by this time. Loud peals of thunder echoed in the hills. Forks of lightning licked the trunks of the trees and ran like serpents along the branches. As they were going by the church at Lezayre, the coachman reached over from the box, and said, “There's something going doing over yonder, sir. See?”

A bright gleam lit up the dark sky in the direction they were taking. At the turn of the road by the “Ginger,” somebody passed them running.

“What's yonder?” called the coachman.

And a voice out of the darkness answered him, “The 'Fairy' is struck by lightning, and Cæsar's gone mad.”

It was the fact. While Cæsar in his mania had been blowing his ram's horn around his public-house under the delusion that it was Jericho, the lightning had struck it. The fire was past all hope of subduing. A great hole had been burnt into the roof, and the flames were leaping through it as through a funnel. All Sulby seemed to be on the spot. Some were dragging furniture out of the burning house; others were running with buckets to the river and throwing water on the blazing thatch.

But encircling everything was the figure of a man going round and round with great plunging strides, over the road, across the river, and through the mill-pond behind, blowing a horn in fierce, unearthly blasts, and crying in a voice of triumph and mockery, first to this worker and then to that, “No use, I tell thee. Thou can never put it out. It's fire from heaven. Didn't I say I'd bring it down?”

It was Cæsar. His eyes glittered, his mouth worked convulsively, and his cheeks were as black with the flying soot as the “colley” of the pot.

When he saw Philip, he came up to him with a terrible smile on his fierce black face, and, pointing to the house, he cried above the babel of voices, the roar of the thunder, and crackle of the fire, “An unclean spirit lived in it, sir. It has been tormenting me these ten years.”

He seemed to listen and to hear something. “That's it roaring,” he cried, and then he laughed with wild delight.

“Compose yourself, Mr. Cregeen,” said Philip, and he tried to take him by the arm.

But Cæsar broke away, blew a terrific blast on his ram's horn, and went striding round the house again. When he came back the next time there was a deep roll of thunder in the air, and he said, “It's the Ballawhaine. He had the stone five years, and he used to groan so.”

Again Philip entreated him to compose himself. It was useless. Round and round the burning house he went, blowing his horn, and calling on the workers to stop their ungodly labour, for the Lord had told him to blow down the walls of Jericho, and he had burnt them down instead.

The people began to be afraid of his frenzy. “They'll have to put the man in the Castle,” said one. “Or have him chained up in an outhouse,” said another. “They kept the Kirk Maug-hold lunatic fifteen years on the straw in the gable loft, and his children in the house grew up to be men and women.” “It's the girl that's doing on Cæsar. Shame on the daughters that bring ruin to their old fathers!”

Still Cæsar went careering round the fire, blowing his ram's horn and crying, “No use! It's the Lord God!”

The more the fire blazed, the more it resisted the efforts of the people to subdue it, the more fierce and unearthly were Cæsar's blasts and the more triumphant his cries.

At last Grannie stepped out and stopped him. “Come home, father,” she whimpered. He looked at her with bewildered eyes, then he looked at the burning house, and he seemed to recover himself in a moment.

“Come home, bogh,” said Grannie tenderly.

“I've got no home,” said Cæsar in a helpless way. “And I've got no money. The fire has taken all.”

“No matter, father,” said Grannie. “We had nothing when we began; we'll begin again.”

Then Cæsar fell to mumbling texts of Scripture, and Grannie to soothing him after her simple fashion.

“'My soul is passing through deep waters. I am feeble and sore broken. Save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul, I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing.'”

“Aw, no Cæsar, we're on the road now. It's dry enough here, anyway.”

“'Many bulls have compassed me; great bulls of Bashan have beset me round. Save me from the lion's mouth; for Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorn.'”

“Never mind the lion and the unicorn, father, but come and we'll change thy wet trousers.”

“'Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.'”

“Aw, yes, we'll wash thee enough when we get to Ramsey. Come, then, bogh.”

He had dropped his ram's horn somewhere, and she took him by the hand. Then he suffered himself to be led away, and the two old children went off into the darkness.

There was a letter waiting for Philip at home. It was from the Clerk of the Rolls. Only a few lines scribbled on the back of a draft deposition, telling him the petition for divorce had been heard that day within closed doors. The application had been granted, and all was settled and comfortable.

“I don't want to hurt your already much wounded feelings, Christian,” wrote the Clerk of the Rolls, “or to add anything to your responsibility when you come to make provision for the woman, but I must say she has given up for your sake a deuced good honest fellow.”

“I know it,” said Philip aloud.

“When I told him that all was over, and that his erring wife would trouble him no more, I thought he was going to burst out crying.”

But Philip had no time yet to think of Pete. All his heart was with Kate. She would receive the official intimation of the divorce, and it would fall on her in her prison like a blow. She would think of herself, with all the world against her, and of him with all the world at his feet. He wanted to run to her, to pluck her up in his arms, to kiss her on the lips, and say, “Mine, mine at last!” His wife—her husband—all forgiven—all forgotten!

Philip spent the rest of the night in writing a letter to Kate. He told her he could not live without her; that now for the first time she was his, and he was hers, and they were one; that their love was re-born, and that he would spend the future in atoning for the wrongs he had inflicted upon her in the past. Then he dropped to the sheer babble of affection and poured out his heart to her—all the babydom of love, the foolish prattle, the tender nonsense. What matter that he was Governor now, and the first man in the island? He forgot all about it. What matter that he was writing to a fallen woman in prison? He only remembered it to forget himself the more.

“Just a little longer, my love, just a little longer. I am coming to you, I am coming. Older, perhaps, perhaps sadder, and a boy no more, but hopeful still, and ready to face whatever fate befall, with her I love beside me.”

Next day Jem-y-Lord took this letter to Castle Rushen and brought back an answer. It was one line only—“My darling! At last! At last! Oh, Philip! Philip!But what about our child?”

The proclamation of Philip's appointment as Governor of the Isle of Man had been read in the churches, and nailed up on the doors of the Court-houses, and the Clerk of the Rolls was pushing on the arrangements for the installation.

“Let it be on the Tuesday of Easter week,” he wrote, “and of course at Castle Rushen. The retiring Governor is ready to return for that day to deliver up his seals of office and to receive your commission.”

“P. S.—Private. And if you think that soft-voiced girl has been long enough 'At Her Majesty's pleasure,' I will release her. Not that she is taking any harm at all, but we had better get these little accounts squared off before your great day comes. Meantime you may wish to provide for her future. Be liberal, Christian; you can afford to treat her liberally. But what am I saying? Don't I know that you will be ridiculously over-generous?”

Philip answered this letter promptly. “The Tuesday of Easter week will do as well as any other day. As to the lady, let her stay where she is until the morning of the ceremony, when I will myself settle everything.”

Philip's correspondence was now plentiful, and he had enough work to cope with it The four towns of the island vied with each other in efforts to show him honour. Douglas, as the scene of his career, wished to entertain him at a banquet; Ramsey, as his birthplace, wanted to follow him in procession. He declined all invitations.

“I am in mourning,” he wrote. “And besides, I am not well.”

“Ah! no,” he thought, “nobody shall reproach me when the times comes.”

There was no pause, no pity, no relenting rest in the world's kindness. It began to take shapes of almost fiendish cruelty in his mind, as if the devil's own laughter was behind it.

He inquired about Pete. Hardly anybody knew anything; hardly anybody cared. The spendthrift had come down to his last shilling, and sold up the remainder of his furniture. The broker was to empty the house on Easter Tuesday. That was all. Not a word about the divorce. The poor neglected victim, forgotten in the turmoil of his wrongdoer's glory, had that last strength of a strong man—the strength to be silent and to forgive.

Philip asked about the child. She was still at Elm Cottage in the care of the woman with the upturned nose and the shrill voice. Every night he devised plans for getting possession of Kate's little one, and every morning he abandoned them, as difficult or cruel or likely to be spurned.

On Easter Monday he was busy in his room at Ballure, with a mounted messenger riding constantly between his gate and Government offices. He had spent the morning on two important letters. Both were to the Home Secretary. One was sealed with his seal as Deemster; the other was written on the official paper of Government House. He was instructing the messenger to register these letters when, through the open door, he heard a formidable voice in the hall. It was Pete's voice. A moment afterwards Jem-y-Lord came up with a startled face.

“He's here himself, your Excellency. WhateveramI to do with him?”

“Bring him up,” said Philip.

Jem began to stammer. “But—but—and then the Bishop may be here any minute.”

“Ask the Bishop to wait in the room below.”

Pete was heard coming upstairs. “Aisy all, aisy! Stoop your lil head, bogh. That's the ticket!”

Philip had not spoken to Pete since the night of the drinking of the brandy and water in the bedroom. He could not help it—his hand shook. There would be a painful scene.

“Stoop again, darling. There you are.”

And then Pete was in the room. He was carrying the child on one shoulder; they were both in their best clothes. Pete looked older and somewhat thinner; the tan of his cheeks was fretted out in pale patches under the eyes, which were nevertheless bright. He had the face of a man who had fought a brave fight with life and been beaten, yet bore the world no grudge. Jem-y-Lord and the messenger were gone from the room in a moment, and the door was closed.

“What d'ye think of that, Phil? Isn't she a lil beauty?”

Pete was dancing the child on his knee and looking sideways down at it with eyes of rapture.

“She's as sweet as an angel,” said Philip in a low tone.

“Isn't she now?” said Pete, and then he rattled on as if he were the happiest man alive. “You've been wanting something like this yourself this long time, Phil. 'Deed you have, though. It would be diverting you wonderful. Ter'ble the fun there is in babies. Talk about play-actorers! They're only funeral mutes where babies come. Bittending this and bittending that—it's mortal amusing they are. You'd be getting up from your books, tired shocking, and ready for a bit of fun, and going to the stair-head and shouting down, 'Where's my lil woman?' Then up she'd be coming, step by step, houlding on to the bannisters, dot and carry one. And my gracious, the dust there'd be here in the study! You down on the carpet on all fours, and the lil one straddled across your back and slipping down to your neck. Same for all the world as the man in the picture with the world atop of his shoulders. And your own lil world would be up there, too, laughing and crowing mortal. And then at night, Phil, at night—getting up from your summonses and your warrantees, and going creeping to the lil one's room tippie-toe, tippie-toe, and 'Is she sleeping comfor'bly?' thinks you; and listening at the crack of the door, and hearing her breathing, and slipping in to look, and everything quiet, and the red fire on her lil face, and 'Grod bless her, the darling!' says you, and then back to your desk content. Aw, you'll have to be having a lil one of your own one of these days, Phil.”

“He has come to say something,” thought Philip.

The child wriggled off Pete's knee and began to creep about the floor. Philip tried to command himself and to talk easily.

“And how have you been yourself, Pete?” he asked.

“Well,” said Pete, meddling with his hair, “only middling, somehow.” He looked down at the carpet, and faltered, “You'll be wondering at me, Phil, but, you see “—he hesitated—“not to tell you a word of a lie——” then, with a rush, “I'm going foreign again; that's the fact.”

“Again?”

“Well, I am,” said Pete, looking ashamed. “Yes, truth enough, that's what I'm thinking of doing. You see,” with a persuasive air, “when a man's bitten by travel it's like the hydrophobia ezactly, he can't rest no time in one bed at all. Must be running here and running there—and running reg'lar. It's the way with me, anyway. Used to think the ould island would be big enough for the rest of my days. But, no! I'm longing shocking for the mines again, and the compound, and the niggers, and the wild life out yonder. 'The sea's calling me,' you know.” And then he laughed.

Philip understood him—Pete meant to take himself out of the way. “Shall you stay long?” he faltered.

“Well, yes, I was thinking so,” said Pete. “You see, the stuff isn't panning out now same as it used to, and fortunes aren't made as fast as they were in my time. Not that I'm wanting a fortune, neither—is it likely now? But, still and for all—well, I'll be away a good spell, anyway.”

Philip tried to ask if he intended to go soon.

“To-morrow, sir, by the packet to Liverpool, for the sailing on Wednesday. I've been going the rounds saying 'goodbye' to the ould chums—Jonaique, and John the Widow, and Niplightly, and Kelly the postman. Not much heart at some of them; just a bit of a something stowed away in their giblets; but it isn't right to be expecting too much at all. This is the only one that doesn't seem willing to part with me.”

Pete's dog had followed him into the room, and was sitting soberly by the side of his chair. “There's no shaking him off, poor ould chap.”

The dog got up and wagged his stump.

“Well, we've tramped the world together, haven't we, Dempster? He doesn't seem tired of me yet neither.” Pete's face lengthened. “But there's Grannie, now. The ould angel is going about like a bit of a thunder-cloud, and doesn't know in the world whether to burst on me or not. Thinks I've been cruel, seemingly. I can't be explaining to her neither. Maybe you'll set it right for me when I'm gone, sir. It's you for a job like that, you know. Don't want her to be thinking hard of me, poor ould thing.”

Pete whistled at the child, and halloed to it, and then, in a lower tone, he continued, “Not been to Castletown, sir. Got as far as Ballasalla, and saw the castle tower. Then my heart was losing me, and I turned back. You'll say good-bye for me, Phil Tell her I forgave—no, not that, though. Say I left her my love—that won't do neither.You'llknow best what to say when the time comes, Phil, so I lave it with you. Maybe you'll tell her I went away cheerful and content, and, well, happy—why not? No harm in saying that at all. Not breaking my heart, anyway, for when a man's a man—H'm!” clearing his throat, “I'm bad dreadful these days wanting a smook in the mornings. May I smook here? I may? You're good, too.”

He cut his tobacco with his discoloured knife, rolled it, charged his pipe, and lit it.

“Sorry to be going away just before your own great day, Phil. I'll get the skipper to fire a round as we're steaming by Castletown, and if there's a band aboord I'll tip them a trifle to play 'Myle Charaine.' That'll spake to you like the blackbird's whistle, as the saying is. Looks like deserting you, though. But, chut! it would be no surprise to me at all. I've seen it coming these years and years. 'You'll be the first Manxman living,' says I the day I sailed before. You've not deceaved me neither. D'ye remember the morning on the quay, and the oath between the pair of us? Me swearing you same as a high bailiff—nothing and nobody to come between us—d'ye mind it, Phil? And nothing has, and nothing shall.”

He puffed at his pipe, and said significantly, “You'll be getting married soon. Aw, you will, I know you will, I'm sarten sure you will.”

Philip could not look into his face. He felt little and mean.

“You're a wise man, sir, and a great man, but if a plain common chap may give you a bit of advice—aw, but you'll be losing no time, though, I'll not be here myself to see it. I'll be on the water, maybe, with the waves washing agen the gun'ale, and the wind rattling in the rigging, and the ship burrowing into the darkness of the sea. But I'll be knowing it's morning at home, and the sun shining, and a sort of a warm quietness everywhere, and you and her at the ould church together.”

The pipe was puffing audibly.

“Tell her I lave her my blessing. Tell her—but the way I'm smooking, it's shocking. Your curtains will be smelling thick twist for a century.”

Philip's moist eyes were following the child along the floor.

“What about the little one?” he asked with difficulty.

“Ah I tell you the truth, Phil, that's the for I came. Well, mostly, anyway. You see, a child isn't fit for a compound ezactly. Not but they're thinking diamonds of a lil thing out there, specially if it's a girl. But still and for all, with niggers about and chaps as rough as a thornbush and no manners to spake of——”

Philip interrupted eagerly—“Will you leave her with Grannie!”

“Well, no, that wasn't what I was thinking. Grannie's a bit ould getting and she's had her whack. Wanting aisement in her ould days, anyway. Then she'll be knocking under before the lil one's up—that's only to be expected. No, I was thinking—what d'ye think I was thinking now?”

“What?” said Philip with quick-coming breath. He did not raise his head.

“I was thinking—well, yes, I was, then—it's a fact, though—I was thinking maybe yourself, now——”

“Pete!”

Philip had started up and grasped Pete by the hand, but he could say no more, he felt crushed by Pete's magnanimity. And Pete went on as if he were asking a great favour. “'She's been your heart's blood to you, Pete,' thinks I to my-. self, 'and there isn't nobody but himself you could trust her with—nobody else you would give her up to. He'll love her,'. thinks I; 'he'll cherish her; he'll rear her as if she was his own; he'll be same thing as a father itself to her'——”

Philip was struggling to keep up.

“I've been laving something for her too,” said Pete.

“No, no!”

“Yes, though, one of the first Manx estates going. Cæsar had the deeds, but I've been taking them to the High Bailiff, and doing everything regular. When I'm gone, sir——”

Philip tried to protest.

“Aw, but a man can lave what he likes to his own, sir, can't he?”

Philip was silent. He could say nothing. The make-believe was to be kept up to the last tragic moment.

“And out yonder, lying on my hunk in the sheds—good mattresses and thick blankets, Phil, nothing to complain of at all—I'll be watching her growing up, year by year, same as if she was under my eye constant. 'She's in pinafores now' thinks I. 'Now she's in long frocks, and is doing up her hair.' 'She's as straight as an osier now, and red as a rose, and the best looking girl in the island, and the spitting picture of what her mother used to be.' Aw, I'll be seeing her in my mind's eye, sir, plainer nor any potegraph.”

Pete puffed furiously at his pipe. “And the mother, I'll be seeing herself, too. A woman every inch of her, God bless her. Wherever there's a poor girl lying in her shame she'll be there, I'll go bail on that. And yourself—I'll be seeing yourself, sir, whiter, maybe, and the sun going down on you, but strong for all. And when any poor fellow has had a knock-down blow, and the world is darkening round him, he'll be coming to you for light and for strength, and you'll be houlding out the right hand to him, because you're knowing yourself what it is to fall and get up again, and because you're a man, and Grod has made friends with you.”

Pete rammed his thumb into his pipe, and stuffed it, still smoking, into his waistcoat pocket. “Chut!” he said huskily. “The talk a man'll be putting out when he's going away foreign! All for poethry then, or something of that spacious. H'm! h'm!” clearing his throat, “must be giving up the pipe, though. Not much worth for the voice at all.”

Philip could not speak. The strength and grandeur of the man overwhelmed him. It cut him to the heart that Pete could never see, could never hear, how he would wash away his shame.

The child had crawled across the room to an open cabinet that stood in one corner, and there possessed herself of a shell, which she was making show of holding to her ear.

“Well, did you ever?” cried Pete. “Look at that child now. She's knowing it's a shell. 'Deed she is, though. Aw, crawling reg'lar, sir, morning to night. Would you like to see the prettiest sight in the world, Phil?” He went down on his knees and held out his arms. “Come here, you lil sandpiper. Fix that chair a piece nearer, sir—that's the ticket. Good thing Nancy isn't here. She'd be on to us like the mischief. Wonderful handy with babies, though, and if anybody was wanting a nurse now—a stepmother's breath is cold—but Nancy! My gough, you daren't look over the hedge at her lammie but she's shouting fit for an earth wake. Stand nice, now, Kitty, stand nice, bogh! The woman's about right, too—the lil one's legs are like bits of qualebone. 'Come, now, bogh, come?”

Pete put the child to stand with its back to the chair, and then leaned towards it with his arms outspread. The child staggered a step in the sea of one yard's space that lay between, looked back at the irrecoverable chair, looked down on the distant ground, and then plunged forward with a nervous laugh, and fell into Pete's arms.

“Bravo! Wasn't that nice, Phil? Ever see anything prettier than a child's first step? Again, Kitty, bogh! But go to yournewfather this time. Aisy, now, aisy!” (in a thick voice). “Grive me a kiss first!” (with a choking gurgle). “One more, darling!” (with a broken laugh). “Now face theotherway. One—two—are you ready, Phil?”

Phil held out his long white trembling hands.

“Yes,” with a smothered sob.

“Three—four—and away!”

The child's fingers slipped into Philip's palm; there was another halt, another plunge, another nervous laugh, and then the child was in Philip's arms, his head was over it, and he was clasping it to his heart.

After a moment, Philip, without raising his eyes, said, “Pete!”

But Pete had stolen softly from the room.

“Pete! where are you?”

Where was he? He was on the road outside, crying like a boy—no, like a man—at thought of the happiness he had left upstairs.

The town of Peel was in a great commotion that night. It was the night of St. Patrick's Day, and the mackerel fleet were leaving for Kinsale. A hundred and fifty boats lay in the harbour, each with a light in its binnacle, a fire in its cabin, smoke coming from its stove-pipe, and its sails half-set. The sea was fresh; there was a smart breeze from the northwest, and the air was full of the brine. At the turn of the tide the boats began to drop down the harbour. Then there was a rush of women and children and old men to the end of the pier. Mothers were seeing their sons off, women their husbands, children their fathers, girls their boys—all full of fun and laughter and joyful cries.

One of the girls remembered that the men were leaving the island before the installation of the new Governor. Straightway they started a game of make-believe—the make-believe of electing the Governor for themselves.

“Who are you voting for, Mr. Quayle?”—“Aw, Dempster Christian, of coorse.”—“Throw us your rope, then, and we'll give you a pull.”—“Heave oh, girls.” And the rope would be whipped round a mooring-post on the quay, twenty girls would seize it, and the boat would go slipping past the pier, round the castle rocks, and then away before the north-wester like a gull.

“Good luck, Harry!”—“Whips of money coming home, Jem!”—“Write us a letter—mind you write, now Î “—“Goodnight, father!”

No crying yet, no sign of tears—nothing but fresh young faces, bright eyes, and peals of laughter, as one by one the boats slid out into the fresh, green water of the bay, and the wind took them, and they shot into the night. Even the dogs on the quay frisked about, and barked as if they were going crazy with delight.

In the midst of this happy scene, a man, wearing a monkey-jacket and a wide-brimmed soft hat, came up to the harbour with a little misshapen dog at his heels. He stood for a moment as if bewildered by the strange midnight spectacle before him. Then he walked through the throng of young people, and listened awhile to their talk and laughter. No one spoke to him, and he spoke to no one. His dog followed with its nose at his ankles. If some other dog, in youthful frolic, frisked and barked about it, it snarled and snapped, and then croodled down at his master's feet and looked ashamed.

“Dempster, Dempster, getting a bit ould, eh?” said the man.

After a little while he went quietly away. Nobody missed him; nobody had observed him. He had gone back to the town. At a baker's shop, which was still open for the convenience of the departing fleet, he bought a seaman's biscuit. With this he returned to the harbour by way of the shore. At the slip by the Rocket House he went down to the beach and searched among the shingle until he found a stone like a dumb-bell, large at the ends and narrow in the middle. Then he went back to the quay. The dog followed him and watched him.

The last of the boats was out in the bay by this time. She could be seen quite plainly in the moonlight, with the green blade of a wave breaking on her quarter. Somebody was carrying a light on her deck, and the giant shadow of a man's figure was cast up on the new lugsail. There were shouts and answers across the splashing water. Then a fresh young voice on the boat began to sing “Lovely Mona, fare thee well.” The women took it up, and the two companies sang it in turns, verse by verse, the women on the quay and the men on the boat, with the sea growing wider between them.

An old fisherman on the skirts of the crowd had a little girl on his shoulder.

“You'll not be going to Kinsale this time, mate?” said a voice behind him.

“Aw, no, sir. I've seen the day, though. Thirty years I was going, and better. But I'm done now.”

“Well, that's the way, you see. It's the turn of the young ones now. Let them sing, God bless them! We're not going to fret, though, are we? There's one thing we can always do—we can always remember, and that's some constilation, isn't it.”

“I'm doing it reg'lar.” said the old fisherman.

“After all, it's been a good thing to live, and when a man's time comes it'll not be such a darned bad thing to die neither. Don't you hould with me there, mate?”

“I do, sir, I do.”

The last boat had rounded the castle rock, and its topsail had diminished and disappeared. On the quay the song had ended, and the women and children were turning their faces with a shade of sadness towards the town.

“Well,” with a deep universal inspiration, “wasn't it beautiful?”— “Wasn't it?”—“Then what are you crying about?”

The girls laughed at each other with wet eyes, and went off with springless steps. The mothers picked up their children and carried them home whimpering; and the old men went a way with drooping heads and shambling feet.

When all was gone, and the harbour-master had taken his last look round, the man with the dog went to the end of the empty quay, and sat on the mooring post that had served for the running of the ropes. All was quiet enough now. The voices, the singing, the laughter were lost. There was no sound but the gurgle of the ebbing tide, which was racing out with the river's flow between the pier and the castle rock.

The man looked at his dog, stooped to it, gave it the biscuit, and petted it and stroked it while it munched its supper. “Dempster, bogh! Dempster! Getting ould, eh? Travelled far together, haven't we? Tired a bit, aren't you? Couldn't go through another rough journey, anyway. Hard to part, though, Machree! Machree!”

He took the stone out of his pocket, tied it to one end of the string, made a noose on the ether end, slipped it about the dog's neck, and without warning, picked up the dog and stone at once, and dropped them over the pier. The old creature gave a piteous cry as it descended; there was a splash, and then—the racing of the water past the pier.

The man had turned away quickly, and was going heavily along the quay.

It had been a night of pain to Philip. All the world seemed to be conspiring to hold him back from what he had to do. “Thou shalt not” was the legend that appeared to be written everywhere. Four persons had learnt his secret, and all four seemed to call upon him to hide it. First, the Clerk of the Rolls, who had heard the divorce proceedings within closed doors; next Pete, who might have clamoured the scandal on all hands, and plucked him down from his place, but had chosen to be silent and to slip away unseen; then Cæsar, whose awful self-deception was an assurance of his secrecy; and, finally. Auntie Nan, whose provision for Kate's material welfare had been intended to prevent the necessity for revelation. All these had seemed to say to him, whether from affection or from fear, “Hold your peace. Say nothing. The past is the past; it is dead; it does not exist. Go on with your career. It is only beginning. What right have you to break it up? The island looks to you, waits for you. Step forward and be strong.”

Thank God, it was too late to be moved by that temptation. Too late to be bought by that bribe. Already he had taken the irrevocable course, he had made the irrevocable step. He could not now go back.

But the awful penalty of the island's undeceiving! The pain of that moment when everybody would learn that he had deceived the whole world! He was a sham—a whited sepulchre. Every step he had gone up in his quick ascent had been over the body of some one who had loved him too well. First Kate, who had been the victim of the Deemstership, and now Pete, who was paying the price that made him Governor.

He could see the darkened looks of the proud; he could hear the execration of the disappointed; he could feel the tears of the true-hearted at the downfall of a life that had looked so fair. In the frenzy of that last hour of trial, it seemed as if he was contending, not with man and the world, but with the devil, who was using both to make this bitter irony of his position—who was bribing him with worldly glory that he might damn his soul forever.

And therein lay a temptation that sat closer at his side—the temptation to turn his face and fly away. It was midnight. The moon was shining on the boundless plain of the sea. He was in the slack water of the soul, when the ebb is spent, before the tide has begun to flow. Oh, to leave everything behind—the shame and the glory together!

It was the moment when the girls on Peel Quay were pulling the rope for the men on the boats who were ready to vote for Christian.

The pains of sleep were yet greater. He thought he was in Castletown, skulking under the walls of the castle. With a look up towards Parliament House and down to the harbour, he fumbled his private key into the lock of the side entrance to the council chamber. The old caretaker heard him creep-down the long corridor, and she came clattering out with a candle, shaded behind her hand. “Something I've forgotten,” he said. “Pardon, your Honour,” and then a deep courtesy.

He opened noiselessly the little door leading from the council chamber to the keep, but in the dark shadow of the steps the turnkey challenged him. “Who's there? Stop!”—“Hush!”—“The Deemster! Beg your Honour's pardon.”—“Show me the female wards.”—“This way your Honour.”—“Her cell.” “Here, your Honour.”—“The key; your lantern. Now go back to the guard-room.” He was with Kate. “My love, my love!”—“My darling!”— “Come, let us fly away from the island. I cannot face it. I thought I could, but I cannot. I've got the child too. Come!” And then Kate—“I would go anywhere with you, Philip, anywhere, anywhere. I only want your love. But is this worthy of a man like you? Leave me. We have fallen too low to drop into a pit like that. Away with you! Go!” And he slunk out of the cell, before the wrathful love that would save him from himself. He, the Deemster, the Governor, had slunk out like a dog.

It was only a dream. When he awoke, the birds were singing and the day was blue over the sea. The temptation was past; it was under his feet. He could hesitate no longer; his cup was brimming over; he would drink it to the dregs.

Jem-y-Lord came with his mouth full of news. The town was decorated with bunting. There was to be a general holiday. A grand stand had been erected on the green in front of the Court-house. The people were not going to be deterred by the Deemster's refusals. He who shrank from honours was the more worthy of being honoured. They intended to present their new Governor with an address.

“Let them—let them,” said Philip.

Jem looked up inquiringly. His master's face had a strange expression.

“Shall I drive you to-day, your Excellency?”

“Yes, my lad. It may be for the last time, Jemmy.”

What was amiss with the Governor? Had the excitement proved too much for him?

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