Chapter XVIII: Part V: Man and Man (2)

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, “I _was_ looking 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.

VII.

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 say _five_” said the postman from the half of his mouth that was clear.

“Five,” said Pete emphatically. “Aw, they're well up.”

“If _you_ say 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. _You_ shan'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't_ right.' 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 bonnet
for 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 church
window'--”

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 Joe
and Auntie Joney. Give the pair of them my fond love and
best respects. We're getting on beautiful, and I'm as happy
as a sandboy. Sometimes Grannie gets a bit down with
longing, and so does Nancy, but I tell them you'll be home
for their funeral sarmon, anyway, and then they're comforted
wonderful.'”

“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 a
trawl-boat, fishing up the little texes. The Dempster's
putting a sight on us reg'lar, and you're not forgot at him
neither. 'Deed no, but thinking of you constant, and
trusting 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 you
keep me without a wife much longer they'll be taxing me for
a 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 nor
at Kimberley (_cough_). When I'm going to bed, 'Where is she
to-night?' I'm saying. And when I'm getting up, 'Where is
she now?' I'm thinking. And in the dark midnight I'm asking
myself, 'Is she asleep, I wonder?' (_Cough, cough_.) Come
home 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 a
welcome from everybody, and nobody saying anything but the
good and the kind. So come home soon, my true lil wife,
before the foolish ould heart of your husband is losing
him'----”

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.”

VIII.

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, but _this_ will 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.

IX.

Next morning the Deemster was still sleeping while the sun was shining into his room. He was awakened by a thunderous clamour, which came as from a nail driven into the back of his head. Opening his eyes, he realised that somebody was knocking at his door, and shouting in a robustious bass--

“Christian, I say! Ever going to get up at all?”

It was the Clerk of the Rolls. Under one of his heavy poundings the catch of the door gave way, and he stepped into the room.

“Degenerate Manxman!” he roared. “In bed on Tynwald morning. Pooh! this room smells of dead sleep, dead spirits, and dead everything. Let me get at that window--you pitch your clothes all over the floor. Ah! that's fresher! Headache? I should think so. Get up, then, and I'll drive you to St. John's.”

“Don't think I'll go to-day, sir,” said Philip in a feeble whimper.

“Not go? Holy saints! Judge of his island and not go to Tynwald! What will the Governor say?”

“He said last night he would excuse my absence.”

“Excuse your fiddlesticks! The air will do you good. I've got the carriage below. Listen! it's striking ten by the church. I'll give you fifteen minutes, and step into your breakfast-room and look over the _Times_.”

The Clerk rolled out, and then Philip heard his loud voice through the door in conversation with Jem-y-Lord.

“And how's Mrs. Cottier to-day?”

“Middling, sir, thank you, sir.''

“You don't let us see too much of her, Jemmy.”

“Not been well since coming to Douglas, sir.”

Cups and saucers rattled, the newspaper creaked, the Clerk cleared his throat, and there was silence.

Philip rose with a heavy heart, still in the torment of his great temptation. He remembered the vision of the night before, and, broad morning as it was, he trembled. In the Isle of Man such visions are understood to foretell death, and the man who sees them is said to “see his soul.” But Philip had no superstitions. He knew what the vision was: he knew what the vision meant.

Jem-y-Lord came in with hot water, and Philip, without looking round, said in a low tone as the door closed, “How now, my lad?”

“Fretting again, your Honour,” said the man, in a half whisper. He busied himself in the room a moment, and then added, “Somehow she gets to know things. Yesterday evening now--I was taking down some of the bottles, and I met her on the stairs. Next time I saw her she was crying.”

Philip said in a confused way, fumbling the razor. “Tell her I intend to see her after Tynwald.”

“I have, your Honour. 'It's not that, Mr. Cottier,' she answered me.”

“My wig and gown to-day, Jemmy,” said Philip, and he went out in his robes as Deemster.

The day was bright, and the streets were thronged with vehicles. Brakes, wagonettes, omnibuses, private carriages, and cadger's carts all loaded to their utmost, were climbing out of Douglas by way of the road to Peel. The town seemed to shout; the old island rock itself seemed to laugh.

“Bless me, Christian,” said the Clerk of the Rolls, looking at his watch, “do you know it's half-past ten? Service begins at eleven. Drive on, coachman. You've eight miles to do in half an hour.”

“Can't go any faster with this traffic on the road, sir,” said the coachman over his shoulder.

“I got so absorbed in the newspaper,” said the Clerk, “that---- Well, if we're late, we're late, that's all.”

Philip folded his arms across his breast and hung his head. He was fighting a great battle.

“No idea that the fisherman affair was going to be so serious,” said the Clerk. “It seems the Governor has ordered out every soldier and pensioner. If I know my countrymen, they'll not stand much of that.”

Philip drew a long breath: there was a cloud of dust; the women in the brakes were laughing.

“I hear a whisper that the ringleader is a friend of yours, Christian--'an irregular relative of a high official,' as the reporter says.”

“He is my cousin, sir,” said Philip.

“What? The big, curly-pated fellow you took home in the carriage?... I say, coachman, no need to drive _quite_ so fast.”

Philip's head was still down. The Clerk of the Rolls sat watching him with an anxious face.

“Christian, I am not so sure the Governor wasn't right after all. Is this what's been troubling you for a month? You're the deuce for a secret. If there's anything good to tell, you're up like the sun; but if there's bad news going, an owl is a poll-parrot compared with you for talking.”

Philip made some feeble effort to laugh, and to say his head was still aching. They were on the breast of the steep hill going up to Greeba. The road ahead was like a funnel of dust; the road behind was like the tail of a comet.

“Pity a fine lad like that should get into trouble,” said the Clerk. “I like the rascal. He got round an old man's heart like a rope round a capstan. One of the big, hearty dogs that make you say, 'By Jove, and I'm a Manxman, too.' He's in the right in this affair, whatever the Governor may say. And the Governor knows it, Christian--that's why he's so anxious to excuse you. He can overawe the Keys; and as for the Council, we're paid our wages, God bless us, and are so many stuffed snipes on his stick. But you--you're different. Then the man is your kinsman, and blood is thicker than water, if it's only---- Why, what's this?”

There was some whooping behind; the line of carriages swirled like a long serpent half a yard near the hedge, and through the grey dust a large covered car shot by at the gallop of a fire-engine. The Clerk-sat bolt upright.

“Now, what in the name of----”

“It's an ambulance waggon,” said Philip between his set teeth.

A moment later a second waggon went galloping past, then a third, and finally a fourth.

“Well, upon my---- Ah! good day. Doctor! Good day, good day!”

The Clerk had recognised friends on the waggons, and was returning their salutations. When they were gone, he first looked at Philip, and then shouted, “Coachman, right about face. We're going home again--and chance it.”

“We can't be turning here, sir,” said the coachman. “The vehicles are coming up like bees going a-swarming. We'll have to go as far as Tynwald, anyway.”

“Go on,” said Philip in a determined voice.

After a while the Clerk said, “Christian, it isn't worth while getting into trouble over this affair. After all, the Governor is the Governor. Besides, he's been a good friend to you.”

Philip was passing through a purgatorial fire, and his old master was feeding it with fuel on every side. They were nearing Tynwald, and could see the flags, the tents, and the crowd as of a vast encampment, and hear the deep hum of a multitude, like the murmur of a distant sea.

X.

Tynwald Hill is the ancient Parliament ground of Man. It is an open green in the midst of the island, with hills on three of its sides, and on the fourth a broad plain dipping to the coast. This green is of the shape of a guitar. Down the middle of the guitar there is a walled enclosure of the shape of a banjo. At the end stands a church. The round drum is the mount, which has four circles, the topmost being some six paces across.

The carriage containing the Deemster and the Clerk of the Bolls had drawn up at the west gate of the church, and a policeman had opened the door. There came the sound of singing from the porch.

“A quarter late,” said the Clerk of the Rolls, consulting his watch. “Shall we go in, your Honor?”

“Let us take a turn round the fair instead,” said Philip.

The carriage door was shut back, and they began to move over the green. The open part of it was covered with booths, barrows, stands, and show-tents. There were cheap jacks with shoddy watches, phrenologists with two chairs, fat women, dwarfs, wandering minstrels, itinerant hawkers of toffee in tin hat-boxes, and other shiny and slimy creatures with the air and grease of the towns. There were a few oxen and horses also, tethered and lanketted, and kicking up the dust under the dry turf.

The crowd was dense already, and increasing at every moment. As the brakes arrived, they drove up with a swing that sent the people surging on either side. Some brought well-behaved visitors, others brought an eruption of ruffians.

Down the neck of the enclosure, and round the circular end of it, stood a regiment of soldiers with rifles and bayonets. The steps to the mount were laid down with rushes. Two armchairs were on the top, under a canopy hung from a flagstaff that stood in the centre. These chairs were still empty, and the mount and its approaches were kept clear.

The sun was overhead, the heat was great, the odour was oppressive. Now and again the sound of the service within the church mingled with the crack of the toy rifle-ranges and the jabber of the cheap jacks. At length there was another sound--a more portentous sound--the sound of bands playing in the distance. It came from both south and west, from the direction of Peel, and from that of Port St. Mary.

“They're coming,” said the Clerk, and Philip's face, when he turned his head to listen, quivered and grew yet more pale.

As the bands approached they ceased to play. Presently a vast procession of men from the west came up in silence to the skirt of the hill, and turned off in the direction from which the men from the south were seen to be coming. They were in jerseys and sea-boots, marching four deep, and carrying nothing in their brawny hands. One stalwart fellow walked firmly at the head of them.. It was Pete.

Philip could support the strain no longer. He got out of the carriage. The Clerk of the Rolls got out also, and followed him as he walked with wavering, irregular steps.

Under a great tree at the junction of three roads, the two companies of fishermen met and fell into a general throng. There was a low wall around the tree-trunk, and, standing on this, Pete's head was clear above the rest.

“Boys,” he was saying, “there's three hundred armed soldiers on the hill yonder, with twenty rounds of ball-cartridge apiece. You're going to the Coort because you've a right to go. You're going up peaceable, and, when you're getting there, you're going to mix among the soldiers, three to every man, two on either side and one behind. Then your spokesmen are going to spake out your complaint. If they're listened to, you're wanting no better. But if they're not, and if the word is given to fire on them, then, before there's time to do it, you're going to stretch every man of the three hundred on his back and take his weapon. Don't hurt the soldiers--the poor soldiers are only doing what they're tould. But don't let the soldiers hurt you neither. You're going there for justice. You're not going there to fight. But if anybody fights you, let him never forget the day he done it. Break up every taffy stand in the fair, if you can't find anything better. And if blood is shed, lave the man that orders it to me. And now go up, boys, like men and like Manxmen.”

There was no cheering, no shouting, no clapping of hands. Only broken exclamations and a sort of confused murmur. “Come,” whispered the Clerk of the Rolls, putting his hand through Philip's quivering arm. “Little does the poor devil think that, if blood is shed, he will be the first to fall.” “God in heaven!” muttered Philip.

XI.

The crowd on Tynwald had now gathered thick down the neck of the enclosure and dense round the mount. To the strains of the National Anthem, played by the band of the regiment, the Governor had come out of the church. He was in cocked hat and with sword, and the sword of state was carried upright before him. With his Keys, Council, and clergy, he walked to the hill-top. There he took one of the two chairs under the canopy; the other, was taken by the Bishop in his lawn. Their followers came behind, and broke up on the hill into an indiscriminate mass. A number of ladies were admitted to the space on the topmost round. They stood behind the chairs, with their parasols still open.

There are men that the densest crowd will part and make way for. The crowd had parted and made way for Philip. As the court was being “fenced,” he appeared with his companion at the foot of the mount. There he was recognised by many, but he scarcely answered their salutations. The Governor made a deferential bow, smiled, and beckoned to him to come up to his side. He went up slowly, pausing at every other step, like a man who was in doubt if he ought to go higher. At length he stood at the Governor's right hand, with all eyes upon him, for the favourite of the great is favoured. He was then the highest figure on the mount, the Governor and the Bishop being seated. The people could see him from end to side of the Tynwald, and he could see the people as they stood closely packed on the green below.

The business of the Court began. It was that of promulgating the laws. Philip's senior colleague, the old Deemster of the happy face, read the titles of the laws in English.

Then the Coroner of the premier sheading began to recite the same titles in Manx. Nobody heard them; hardly anybody listened. The ladies on the mount chatted among themselves, the Keys and the clergy intermingled and talked, the officials of the Council looked at the crowd, and the crowd itself, having nothing to hear, no more to see, indifferent to doings they could not understand, resumed their amusements among the frivolities of the fair.

There were three persons in that assembly of fifteen thousand who were following the course of events with feverish interest. The first of these was the Governor, whose restless eyes were rolling from side to side with almost savage light; the second was the captain of the regiment, who was watching the Governor's face for a signal; the third was Philip, who was looking down at the crowd and seeing something that had meaning for himself alone.

The fishermen came up quietly, three thousand strong. Half a hundred of them lounged around the magazine--the ammunition was at their command. The rest pushed, edged, and elbowed their way through the people until they came to the line of the guard. Wherever there was a red coat, behind it there were three jerseys and stocking-caps, Philip saw it all from his elevation on the mount. His face was deadly pale, his eyelids wavered, his lower lip trembled, his hand twitched; when he was spoken to, he hardly answered; he was like a man holding counsel with himself, and half in fear that everybody could read his hidden thoughts. He was in the last throes of his temptation. The decisive moment was near. It was heavy with the fate of his after life. He thought of Pete and the torture of his company; of Kate and the unending misery of her existence; of himself and the deep duplicity to which he was committed. From all this he could be freed for ever--by what? By doing nothing, having already done his duty? Only let him command himself, and then--relief from an existence enthralled by torment--from constant alarm and watchfulness--peace--sleep--love--Kate!

Somebody was speaking to him over his shoulder. It was nothing--only the quip of a witty fellow, descendant of a Spanish freebooter. Ladies caught his eye, smiled and bowed to him. A little man, whose swarthy face showed African blood, reached up and quoted something about the bounds of freedom wide and wider.

The Coroner had finished, the proceedings were at an end--there was a movement--something had happened--the Governor had half risen from his chair. Twelve men in sea-boots and blue jerseys had passed the line of the guard, and were standing midway across the steps of the mount. One of them was beginning to speak. It was Pete.

“Governor,” he said; but the captain of the regiment was abreast of him in a moment, and a score of the soldiers were about his companions at the next breath. The fishermen stood their ground like a wall, and the soldiers fell back. There was hardly any scuffle.

“Governor,” said Pete again, touching his cap.

The Governor was twisting in his seat. Looking first at Pete, and then at the captain, he was in the act of lifting his hand when suddenly it was held by another hand at his side, and a low voice whispered at his ear, “No, sir; for God's sake, no!”

It was Philip. The Governor looked at him with amazement. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” said Philip, still whispering over him hotly and impetuously, “that there's only one way back to Government House, but if you lift your hand it will be one too many; I mean that if blood is shed you'll never live to leave this mount; I mean that your three hundred soldiers are only as three hundred rabbits in the claws of three thousand crows.”

At the next instant he had left the Governor, and was face to face with the fishermen.

“Fishermen,” he cried, lifting both hands before him, “let there be no trouble here to-day, no riot, for God's sake, no bloodshed. Listen to me. I am the grandson of a fisherman; I have been a fisherman myself; I love the fishermen. As long as I live I will stand by you. Your rights shall be my rights, your sins my sins, and where you go I will go too.”

Then, swinging back to the Governor, he bowed low, and said in a deferential voice--

“Your Excellency, these men mean no harm; they wish to speak to you; they have a petition to make; they will be loyal and peaceable.”

But the Governor, having recovered from his first fear, was now in a flame of anger.

“No,” he said, with the accent of authority; “this is no time and no place for petitions.”

“Forgive me, your Excellency,” said Philip, with a deeper bow; “this is the time of all times, the place of all places.”

There had been a general surging of the Keys and clergy towards the steps, and now one of them cried out of their group, “Is Tynwald Court to be turned into a bear-garden?” And another said in a cynical voice, “Perhaps your Excellency has taken somebody else's seat.”

Philip raised himself to his full height, and answered, with his eyes on the speakers, “We are free-born men on this island, your Excellency. We did not come to Tynwald to learn order from the grandson of a Spanish pirate, or freedom from the son of a black chief.”

“Hould hard, boys!” cried Pete, lifting one hand against his followers, as if to keep them quiet. He was boiling with a desire to shout till his throat should crack.

The Governor had exchanged rapid looks and low whispers with the captain. He saw that he was outwitted, that he was helpless, that he was even in personal danger. The captain was biting his leg with vexation that he had not reckoned more seriously with this rising--that he had not drawn up his men in column.

“Your Excellency will hear the fishermen?” said Philip.

“No, no, no,” said the Governor. He was at least a brave man, if a vain and foolish one.

There was silence for a moment. Then, standing erect, and making an effort to control himself, Philip said, “May it please your Excellency, you fill a proud position here; you are the ruler of this island under your sovereign lady our Queen. But we, your subjects, your servants, are in a prouder position still. We are Manxmen. This is the Court of our country.”

“Hould hard,” cried Pete again.

“For a thousand years men with our blood and our names have stood on this hill to hear the voice of the people, and to do justice between man and man. That's what the place was meant for. If it has lost that meaning, root it up--it is a show and a sham.”

“Bravo!” cried Pete; he could hold himself in no longer, and his word was taken up with a shout, both on the hill and on the green beneath.

Philip's voice had risen to a shrill cry, but it was low and meek as he added, bowing yet lower while he spoke--

“Your Excellency will hear the fishermen?”

The Governor rolled in his seat. “Go on,” he said impatiently.

The men made their petition. Three or four of them spoke briefly and to the point. They had had harbours, their fathers' harbours, which had been freed to them forty years before; don't ask them to pay harbour dues until proper harbours were provided:

The Governor gave his promise. Then he rose, the band struck up “God save the Queen,” and the Legislature filed back to the chapel.

Philip went with them. He had fought a great battle, and he had prevailed. Through purging fires the real man had emerged, but he had paid the price of his victory. His eye burned like live coal, his cheek-bones seemed to have upheaved. He walked alone; his ancient colleague had stepped ahead of him. But now and again, as he passed down the long path to the church-door, fishermen and farmers pushed between the rifles of the guards, and said in husky voices, “Let me shake you by the hand, Dempster.”