Chapter XXI: Part VI: Man and God (1)

I.

The summer had gone, the gorse had dried up, the herring-fishing had ended, and Pete had become poor. His Nickey had done nothing, his last hundred pounds had been spent, and his creditors in scores, quiet as mice until then, were baying about him like bloodhounds. He sold his boat and satisfied everybody, but fell, nevertheless, to the position of a person of no credit and little consequence. On the lips of the people he descended from “Capt'n Pete” to Peter Bridget. When he saluted the rich with “How do!” they replied with a stare, a lift of the chin, and “You've the odds of me, my good man.” To this he replied, with a roll of the head and a peal of laughter, “Have I now? But you'll die for all.”

Ballajora Chapel had been three months rehearsing a children's cantata entitled “Under the Palms,” and building an arbour of palm branches on a platform for Pete's rugged form to figure in; but Cæsar sat there instead.

Still, Pete had his six thousand pounds in mortgage on Ballawhaine. Only three other persons knew anything of that--Cæsar, who had his own reasons for saying nothing; Peter Christian himself, who was hardly likely to tell; and the High Bailiff, who was a bachelor and a miser, and kept all business revelations as sacred as are the secrets of another kind of confessional. When Pete's evil day came and the world showed no pity, Cæsar became afraid.

“I wouldn't sell out, sir,” said he. “Hould on till Martinmas, anyway. The first half year's interest is due then. There's no knowing what'll happen before that. What's it saying, 'He shall give His angels charge concerning thee.' The ould man has had a polatic stroke, they're telling me. Aw, the Lord's mercy endureth for ever.”

Pete began to sell his furniture. He cleared out the parlour as bare as a vault. “Time for it, too,” he said. “I've been wanting the room for a workshop.”

Martinmas came, and Cæsar returned in high feather. “No interest,” he said. “Give him the month's grace, and hould hard till it's over. The Lord will provide. Isn't it written, 'In the world ye shall have tribulation'? Things are doing wonderful, though. Last night going home from Ballajora, I saw the corpse-lights coming from the big house to Kirk Christ's Churchyard, with the parson psalming in front of them. The ould man's dying---I've seen his soul. To thy name, O Lord, be all the glory.”

Pete sold out a second room, and turned the key on it. “Mortal cosy and small this big, ugly mansion is getting, Nancy,” he said.

The month's grace allowed by the deed of mortgage expired, and Cæsar came to Elm Cottage rubbing both hands. “Turn him out, neck and crop, sir. Not a penny left to the man, and six thousand goolden pounds paid into his hands seven months ago. But who's wondering at that? There's Ross back again, carrying half a ton of his friends over the island, and lashing out the silver like dust. _Your_ silver, sir, _yours_. And here's yourself, with the world darkening round you terrible. But no fear of you now. The meek shall inherit the earth. Aw, God is opening His word more and more, sir, more and more. There's that Black Tom too. He was talking big a piece back, but this morning he was up before the High Bailiff for charming and cheating, and was put away for the Dempster. Lord keep him from the gallows and hell-fire! Oh, it's a refreshing saison. It was God spaking to me by Providence when I tould you to put money on that mortgage. What's the Scripture saying, 'For brass I bring thee goold'? Turn him out, sir, turn him out.”

“Didn't you tell me that ould Ballawhaine had a polatic stroke?” said Pete.

“I did; but he's a big man; let him pay his way,” said Cæsar.

“Samson was a strong man, and Solomon was a wise one, but they couldn't pay money when they hadn't got it,” said Pete.

“Let him look to his son then,” said Cæsar”.

“That's just what he's going to do,” said Pete. “I'll let him die in his bed, God forgive him.”

The winter came, and Pete began to think of buying a Dandie, which being smaller than a Nickey, and of yawl rig, he could sail of himself, and so earn a living by fishing the cod. To do this he had a further clearing of furniture, thereby reducing the size of the house to three rooms. The featherbed left his own bedstead, the watch came out of his pocket, and the walls of the hall-kitchen gaped and yawned in the places where the pictures had been.

“The bog-bane to the rushy curragh, say I, Nancy,” said Pete. “Not being used of such grandeur, I was taking it hard. Never could remember to wind that watch. And feathers, bless you! Don't I remember the lil mother, with a sickle and a bag, going cutting the long grass on the steep brews for the cow, and drying a handful for myself for a bed. Sleeping on it? Never slept the like since at all.”

The result of Pete's first week's fishing was twenty cod and a gigantic ling. He packed the cod in boxes and sent them by Crow and the steam-packet to the market in Liverpool. The ling he swung on his back over his oilskin jacket and carried it home, the head at his shoulder and the tail dangling at his legs.

“There!” he cried, dropping it on the floor, “split it and salt it, and you've breakfas'es for a month.”

When the remittance came from Liverpool it was a postal order for seven-and-sixpence.

“Never mind,” said Pete; “we're bating Dan Hommy anyway--the ould muff has only made seven-and-a-penny.”

The weather was rough, the fishing was bad, the tackle got broken, and Pete began to extol plain living.

“Gough bless me,” he said, “I don't know in the world what's coming to the ould island at all. When I was for a man-servant with Cæsar the farming boys were ateing potatoes and herrings three times a day. But now! butcher's mate every dinner-time, if you plaze. And tay! the girls must be having it reg'lar--and taking no shame with them neither. My sake, I remember when the mother would be whispering, 'Keep an eye on the road, boy, while I'm brewing myself a cup of tay.' Truth enough, Nancy. An ounce a week and a pound of sugar, and people wondering at the woman for that.”

The mountains were taken from the people, and they were no longer allowed “to cut turf for fuel; coals were dear, the winter was cold, and Pete began to complain of a loss of appetite.

“My teeth must be getting bad, Nancy,” he whined. They were white as milk and faultless as a negro's. “Don't domesticate my food somehow. What's the odds, though I Can't ate suppers at all, and that's some constilation. Nothing like going to bed hungry, Nancy, if you're wanting to get up with an appetite for breakfast. Then the beautiful drames, woman! Gough bless me, the dinners and the feasts and the bankets you're ateing in your sleep! Now, if you filled your skin like a High Bailiff afore going to bed, ten to one you'd have a buggane riding on your breast the night through and drame of dying for a drink of water. Aw, sleep's a reg'lar Radical Good for levelling up, anyway.”

Christmas approached, servants boasted of the Christmas boxes they got from their masters, and Pete remembered Nancy.

“Nancy,” said he, “they're telling me Liza Billy-ny-Clae is getting twenty pound per year per annum at her new situation in Douglas. She isn't nothing to yourself at cooking. Mustn't let the lil one stand in your way, woman. She's getting a big girl now, and I'll be taking her out in the Dandie with me and tying her down on the low deck there and giving her a pig's bladder, and she'll be playing away as nice as nice. See?”

Nancy looked at him, and he dropped his eyes before her.

“Is it wanting to get done with me, you are, Pete?” she said in a quavering voice. “There's my black--I can sell it for something--it's never been wore at me since I sat through the sarvice with Grannie the Sunday after we got news of Kirry. And I'm not a big eater, Pete--never was--you can clear me of that anyway. A bit of bread and cheese for my dinner when you are out at the fishing, and I'm asking no better----”

“Hould your tongue, woman,” cried Pete. “Hould your tongue afore you break my heart I've seen my rich days and I've seen my poor days. I've tried both, and I'm content.”

II.

Meantime, Philip in Douglas was going from success to success, from rank to rank, from fame to fame. Everything he put his hand to counted to him for righteousness. When he came to himself after the disappearance of Kate, his heart was a wasted field of volcanic action, with ashes and scoriae of infernal blackness on the surface, but the wholesome soil beneath. In spite of her injunction, he set himself to look for her. More than love, more than pity, more than remorse prompted and supported him. She was necessary to his resurrection, to his new birth. So he scoured every poor quarter of the town, every rookery of old Douglas, and this was set down to an interest in the poor.

An epidemic broke out on the island, and during the scare that followed, wherein some of the wealthy left their homes for England, and many of the poor betook themselves to the mountains, and even certain of the doctors found refuge in flight, Philip won golden opinions for presence of mind and personal courage. He organised a system of registration, regulated quarantine, and caused the examination of everybody coming to the island or leaving it. From day to day he went from house to house, from hospital to hospital, from ward to ward. No dangers terrified him; he seemed to keep his eye on each case. He was only looking for Kate, only assuring himself that she had not fallen victim to the pest, only making certain that she had not come or gone. But the divine madness which seizes upon a crowd when its heart is touched laid hold of the island at the sight of Philip's activities. He was worshipped, he was beloved, he was the idol of the poor, almost everybody else was forgotten in the splendour of his fame; no committee could proceed without him; no list was complete until it included his name.

Philip was ashamed of his glories, but he had no heart to repudiate them. When the epidemic subsided, he had convinced himself that Kate must be gone, that she must be dead. Gone, therefore, was his only hold on life, and dead was his hope of a moral resurrection. He could do nothing without her but go on as he was going. To pretend to a new birth now would be like a death-bed conversion; it would be like renouncing the joys of life after they have renounced the renouncer.

His colleague, the old Deemster, was stricken down by paralysis, and he was required to attend to both their duties. This made it necessary at first that all Deemster's Courts should be held in Castletown, and hence Ramsey saw him rarely. He spent his days in the Court-house of the Castle and his nights at home. His fair hair became prematurely white, and his face grew more than ever like that of a man newly risen from a fever.

“Study,” said the world, and it bowed its head the lower.

Yet he was seen to be not only a studious man, but a melancholy one. To defeat curiosity, he began to enter a little into the life of the island, and, as time went on, to engage in some of the social duties of his official position. On Christmas Eve he gave a reception at his house in Athol Street. He had hardly realised how it would tear at the tenderest fibres of memory. The very rooms that had been Kate's were given over to the ladies who were his guests. All afternoon the crush was great, and the host was the attraction. He was a fascinating figure--so young, yet already so high; so silent, yet able to speak so splendidly; and then so handsome with that whitening head, and that smile like vanishing sunshine.

In the midst of the reception, Philip received a letter from Ramsey that was like the cry of a bleeding heart:--

“My lil one is ill theyr sayin shes Diein cum to me for gods. sake.--Peat.”

The snow was beginning to fall as the guests departed. When the last of them was gone, the clock on the bureau was striking six, and the night was closing in. By eight o'clock Philip was at Elm Cottage.

III.

Pete was sitting at the foot of the stairs, unwashed, uncombed, with his clothes half buttoned and his shoes unlaced.

“Phil!” he cried, and leaping up he took Philip by both hands and fell to sobbing like a child.

They went upstairs together. The bedroom was dense with steam, and the forms of two women were floating like figures in a fog.

“There she is, the bogh,” cried Pete in a pitiful wail.

The child lay outstretched on Grannie's lap, with no sign of consciousness, and hardly any sign of life, except the hollow breathing of bronchitis.

Philip felt a strange emotion come over him. He sat on the end of the bed and looked down. The little face, with its twitching mouth and pinched nostrils, beating with every breath, was the face of Kate. The little head, with its round forehead and the silvery hair brushed back from the temples, was his own head. A mysterious throb surprised him, a great tenderness, a deep yearning, something new to him, and born as it were in his breast at that instant. He had an impulse, never felt before, to go down on his knees where the child lay, to take it in his arms, to draw it to him, to fondle it, to call it his own, and to pour over it the inarticulate babble of pain and love that was bursting from his tongue. But some one was kneeling there already, and in his jealous longing he realised that his passionate sorrow could have no voice.

Pete, at Grannie's lap, was stroking the child's arm and her forehead with the tenderness of a woman.

“The bogh millish! Seems aisier now, doesn't she, Grannie? Quieter, anyway? Not coughing so much, is she?”

The doctor came at the moment, and Cæsar entered the room behind him with a face of funereal resignation.

“See,” cried Pete; “there's your lil patient, doctor. She's lying as quiet as quiet, and hasn't coughed to spake of for better than an hour.”

“H'm!” said the doctor ominously. He looked at the child, made some inquiries of Grannie, gave certain instructions to Nancy, and then lifted his head with a sigh.

“Well, we've done all we can for her,” he said. “If the child lives through the night she may get over it.”

The women threw up their hands with “Aw, dear, aw, dear!” Philip gave a low, sharp cry of pain; but Pete, who had been breathing heavily, watching intently, and holding his arms about the little one as if he would save it from disease and death and heaven itself, now lost himself in the immensity of his woe.

“Tut, doctor, what are you saying?” he said. “You were always took for a knowledgable man, doctor; but you're talking nonsense now. Don't you see the child's only sleeping comfortable? And haven't I told you she hasn't coughed anything worth for an hour? Do you think a poor fellow's got no sense at all?”

The doctor was a patient man as well as a wise one--he left the room without a word. But, thinking to pour oil on Pete's wounds, and not minding that his oil was vitriol, Cæsar said--

“If it's the Lord's will, it's His will, sir. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children--yes, and the mothers, too, God forgive them.”

At that Pete leapt to his feet in a flame of wrath.

“You lie! you lie!” he cried. “God doesn't punish the innocent for the guilty. If He does, He's not a good God but a bad one. Why should this child be made to suffer and die for the sin of its mother? Aye, or its father either? Show me the _man_ that would make it do the like, and I'll smash his head against the wall. Blaspheming, am I? No, but it's you that's blaspheming. God is good, God is just, God is in heaven, and you are making Him out no God at all, but worse than the blackest devil that's in hell.”

Cæsar went off in horror of Pete's profanities. “If the Lord keep not the city,” he said, “the watchman waketh in vain.”

Pete's loud voice had aroused the child. It made a little cry, and he was all softness in an instant. The women moistened its lips with barley-water, and hushed its fretful whimper.

“Come,” said Philip, taking Pete's arm.

“Let me lean on you, Philip,” said Pete, and the stalwart fellow went tottering down the stairs.

They sat on opposite sides of the fireplace, and kept the staircase door open that they might hear all that happened in the room above.

“Get thee to bed, Nancy,” said the voice of Grannie. “Dear knows how soon you'll be wanted.”

“You'll be calling me for twelve, then, Grannie--now, mind, you'll be calling me.”

“Poor Pete! He's not so far wrong, though. What's it saying? 'Suffer lil childers'----”

“But Cæsar's right enough this time, Grannie. The bogh is took for death as sure as sure. I saw the crow that was at the wedding going crossing the child's head the very last time she was out of doors.” Pete was listening intently. Philip was gazing passively into the fire.

“I couldn't help it, sir--I couldn't really,” whispered Pete across the hearth. “When a man's got a child that's ill, they may talk about saving souls, but what's the constilation in that? It's not the soul he's wanting saving at all, it's the child--now, isn't it, now?”

Philip made some confused response.

“Coorse, I can't expect you to understand that, Philip. You're a grand man, and a clever man, and a feeling man, but I can't expect you to understand that--now, is it likely? The greenest gall's egg of a father that isn't half wise has the pull of you there, Phil. 'Deed he has, though. When a man has a child of his own he's knowing what it manes, the Lord help him. Something calls to him--it's like blood calling to blood--it's like... I don't know that I'm understanding it myself, neither--not to say _understand_ exactly.”

Every word that Pete spoke was like a sword turning both ways. Philip drew his breath heavily.

“You can feel for another, Phil--the Lord forbid you should ever feel for yourself. Books are _your_ children, and they're best off that's never having no better. But the lil ones--God help them--to see them fail, and suffer, and sink--and you not able to do nothing--and themselves calling to you--calling still--calling reg'lar--calling out of mercy--the way I am telling of, any way--O God! O God!”

Philip's throat rose. He felt as if he must betray himself the next instant.

“Perhaps the doctor was right for all. Maybe the child isn't willing to stay with us now the mother is gone; maybe it's wanting away, poor thing. And who knows? Wouldn't trust but the mother is waiting for the lil bogh yonder--waiting and waiting on the shore there, and 'ticing and 'ticing---I've heard of the like, anyway.”

Philip groaned. His brain reeled; his legs grew cold as stones. A great awe came over him. It was not Pete alone that he was encountering. In these searchings and rendings of the heart, which uncovered every thought and tore open every wound, he was entering the lists with God himself.

The church bell began to ring.

“What's that?” cried Philip. It had struck upon his ear like a knell.

“_Oiel Verree_,” said Pete. The bell was ringing for the old Manx service for the singing of Christmas carols. The fibres of Pete's memory were touched by it. He told of his Christmases abroad--how it was summer instead of winter, and fruits were on the trees instead of snow on the ground--how people who had never spoken to him before would shake hands and wish him a merry Christmas. Then from sheer weariness and a sense of utter desolation, broken by the comfort of Philip's company, he fell asleep in his chair.

The night wore on; the house was quiet; only the husky rasping of the child's hurried breathing came from the floor above.

An evil thought in the guise of a pious one took possession of Philip. “God is wise,” he told himself. “God is merciful. He knows what is best for all of us. What are we poor impotent grasshoppers, that we dare pray to Him to change His great purposes? It is idle. It is impious.... While the child lives there will be security for no one. If it dies, there will be peace and rest and the beginning of content. The mother must be gone already, so the dark chapter of our lives will be closed at last God is all wise. God is all good.”

The child made a feeble cry, and Philip crept upstairs to look. Grannie had dozed off in her seat, and little Katherine was on the bed. A disregarded doll lay with inverted head on the counterpane. The fire had slid and died down to a lifeless glow, and the kettle had ceased to steam. There was no noise in the room save the child's galloping breathing, which seemed to scrape the walls as with a file. Sometimes there was a cough that came like a voice through a fog.

Philip crept in noiselessly, knelt down by the bed-head, and leaned over the pillow. A candle which burned on the mantelpiece cast its light on the head that lay there. The little face was drawn, the little pinched nostrils were beating like a pulse, the little lip beneath was beaded with perspiration, the beautiful round forehead was damp, and the silken silvery hair was matted.

Philip thought the child must be dying, and his ugly piety gave way. There was a movement on the bed. One little hand that had been clenched hard on the breast came over the counterpane and fell, outstretched and open before him. He took it for an appeal, a dumb and piteous appeal, and the smothered tenderness of the father's heart came uppermost. _Her_ child, his child, dying, and he there, yet not daring to claim her!

A new fear took hold of him. He had been wrong--there could be no security in the child's death, no peace, no rest, no content. As surely as the child died he would betray himself. He would blurt it all out; he would tell everything. “My child! my darling! my Kate's Kate!” The cry would burst from him. He could not help it. And to reveal the black secret at the mouth of an open grave would be terrible, it would be horrible, it would be awful, “Spare her, O Lord, spare her!”

In a fear bordering on delirium he went downstairs and shook Pete by the shoulders to awaken him. “Come quickly,” he said.

Pete opened his eyes with a bewildered look» “She's better, isn't she?” he asked.

“Courage,” said Philip.

“Is she worse?”

“It's life or death now. We must try something that I saw when I was away.”

“Good Lord, and I've been sleeping! Save her, Philip! You're great; your clever----”

“Be quiet, for God's sake, my good fellow! Quick, a kettle of boiling water--a blanket--some hot towels.”

“Oh, you're a friend, you'll save her. The doctors don't know nothing.”

Ten minutes afterwards the child made a feeble cry, coughed loosely, threw up phlegm, and came out of the drowsy land which it had inhabited for a week. In ten minutes more it was wrapped in the hot towels and sitting on Pete's knee before a brisk are, opening its little eyes and pursing its little mouth, and making some inarticulate communication.

Then Grannie awoke with a start, and reproached herself for sleeping. “But dear heart alive,” she cried, with both hands up, “the bogh villish is mended wonderful.”

Nancy came back in her stockings, blinking and yawning. She clapped and crowed at sight of the child's altered face. The clock in the kitchen was striking twelve by this time, the bells had begun to ring again, the carol singers were coming out of the church, there was a sound on the light snow of the street like the running of a shallow river, and the waits were being sung for the dawn of another Christmas.

The doctor looked in on his way home, and congratulated himself on the improved condition. The crisis was passed, the child was safe.

“Ah! better, better,” he said cheerily. “I thought we might manage it this time.”

“It was the Dempster that done it,” cried Pete. He was cooing and blowing at little Katherine over the fringe of her towels. “He couldn't have done more for the lil one if she'd been his own flesh and blood.”

Philip dared not speak. He hurried away in a storm of emotion. “Not yet,” he thought, “not yet.” The time of his discovery was not yet. It was like Death, though--it waited for him somewhere. Somewhere and at some time--some day in the year, some place on the earth. Perhaps his eyes knew the date in the calendar, perhaps his feet knew the spot on the land, yet he knew neither. Somewhere and at some time--God knew where--God knew when--He kept his own secrets.

That night Philip slept at the “Mitre,” and next morning he went up to Ballure.

IV.

The Governor could not forget Tynwald. Exaggerating the humiliation of that day, he thought his influence in the island was gone. He sold his horses and carriages, and otherwise behaved like a man who expected to be recalled.

Towards Philip he showed no malice. It was not merely as the author of his shame that Philip had disappointed him.

He had half cherished a hope that Philip would become his son-in-law. But when the rod in his hand had failed him, when it proved too big for a staff and too rough for a crutch, he did not attempt to break it. Either from the instinct of a gentleman, or the pride of a strong man, he continued to shower his favours upon Philip. Going to London with his wife and daughter at the beginning of the new year, he appointed Philip to act as his deputy.

Philip did not abuse his powers. As grandson of the one great Manxman of his century, and himself a man of talents, he was readily accepted by the island. His only drawback was his settled melancholy. This added to his interest if it took from his popularity. The ladies began to whisper that he had fallen in love, and that his heart was “buried in the grave.” He did not forget old comrades. It was remembered, in his favour, that one of his friends was a fisherman, a cousin across the bar of bastardy, who had been a fool and gone through his fortune.

On St. Bridget's Day Philip held Deemster's Court in Ramsey. The snow had gone and the earth had the smell of violets. It was almost as if the violets themselves lay close beneath the soil, and their odour had been too long kept under. The sun, which had not been seen for weeks, had burst out that day; the air was warm, and the sky was blue. Inside the Court-house the upper arcs of the windows had been let down; the sun shone on the Deemster as he sat on the dais, and the spring breeze played with his silvery wig. Some^ times, in the pauses of rasping voices, the birds were heard to sing from the trees on the lawn outside.

The trial was a tedious and protracted one. It was the trial of Black Tom. During the epidemic that had visited the island he had developed the character of a witch doctor. His first appearance in Court had been before the High Bailiff, who had committed him to prison. He had been bailed out by Pete, and had forfeited his bail in an attempt at flight. The witnesses were now many, and some came from a long distance. It was desirable to conclude the same day. At five in the evening the Deemster rose and said, “The Court will adjourn for an hour, gentlemen.”

Philip took his own refreshments in the Deemster's room--Jem-y-Lord was with him--then put off his wig and gown, and slipped through the prisoners' yard at the back and round the corner to Elm Cottage.

It was now quite dark. The house was lit by the firelight only, which flashed like Will-o'-the-wisp on the hall window. Philip was surprised by unusual sounds. There was laughter within, then singing, and then laughter again. He bad reached the porch and his approach had not been heard. The door stood open and he looked in and listened.

The room was barer than he had ever seen it--a table, three chairs, a cradle, a dresser, and a corner cupboard. Nancy sat by the fire with the child on her lap. Pete was squatting on the floor, which was strewn with rushes, and singing--

“Come, Bridget, Saint Bridget, come in at my door,
The crock's on the bink, and the rush is on the floor.”

Then getting on to all fours like a great boy, and bobbing his head up and down and making deep growls to imitate the terrors of a wild beast, he made little runs and plunges at the child, who jumped and crowed in Nancy's lap and laughed and squealed till she “kinked.”

“Now, stop, you great omathaun, stop,” said Nancy. “It isn't good for the lil one--'deed it isn't.”

But Pete was too greedy of the child's joy to deny himself the delight of it. Making a great low sweep of the room, he came back hopping on his haunches and barking like a dog. Then the child laughed till the laughter rolled like a marble in her little throat.

Philip's own throat rose at the sight, and his breast began to ache. He felt the same thrill as before--the same, yet different, more painful, more full of jealous longing. This was no place for him. He thought he would go away. But turning on his heel, he was seen by Pete, who was now on his back on the floor, rocking the child up and down like the bellows of an accordion, and to and fro like the sleigh of a loom.

“My faith, the Dempster! Come in, sir, come in,” cried Pete, looking over his forehead. Then, giving the child back to Nancy, he leapt to his feet.

Philip entered with a sick yearning and sat down in the chair facing Nancy.

“You're wondering at me, Dempster, I know you are, sir,” Said Pete, “'Deed, but I'm wondering at myself as well. I thought I was never going to see a glad day again, and if the sky would ever be blue I would be breaking my heart. But what is the Manx poet saying, sir? 'I have no will but Thine, O God.' That's me, sir, truth enough, and since the lil one has been mending I've never been so happy in my life.”

Philip muttered some commonplace, and put his thumb into the baby's hand. It was sucked in by the little fingers as by the soft feelers of the sea-anemone.

Pete drew up the third chair, and then all interest was centred on the child. “She's growing,” said Philip huskily.

“And getting wise ter'ble,” said Pete. “You wouldn't be-lave it, sir, but that child's got the head of an almanac. She has, though. Listen here, sir--what does the cow say, darling?”

“Moo-o,” said the little one.

“Look at that now!” said Pete rapturously.

“She knows what the dog says too,” said Nancy. “What does Dempster say, bogh?”

“Bow-wow,” said the child.

“Bless me soul!” said Pete, turning to Philip with amazement at the child's supernatural wisdom. “And there's Tom Hommy's boy--and a fine lil fellow enough for all--but six weeks older than this one, and not a word out of him yet.”

Hearing himself talked of, the dog had come from under the table. The child gurgled down at it, then made purring noises at its own feet, and wriggled in Nancy's lap.

“Dear heart alive, if it's not like nursing an eel,” said Nancy. “Be quiet, will you?” and the little one was shaken back to her seat.

“Aisy all, woman,” said Pete. “She's just wanting her lil shoes and stockings off, that's it.” Then talking to the child. “Um--am-im--lum--la--loo? Just so! I don't know what that means myself, but she does, you see. Aw, the child is taiching me heaps, sir. Listening to the lil one I'm remembering things. Well, we're only big children, the best of us. That's the way the world's keeping young, and God help it when we're getting so clever there's no child left in us at all.”

“Time for young women to be in bed, though,” said Nancy, getting up to give the baby her bath.

“Let me have a hould of the rogue first,” said Pete, and as Nancy took the child out of the room, he dragged at it and smothered its open mouth with kisses.

“Poor sport for you, sir, watching a foolish ould father playing games with his lil one,” said Pete.

Philip's answer was broken and confused. His eyes had begun to fill, and to hide them he turned his head aside. Thinking he was looking at the empty places about the walls, Pete began to enlarge on his prosperity, and to talk as if he were driving all the trade of the island before him.

“Wonderful fishing now, Phil. I'm exporting a power of cod. Gretting postal orders and stamps, and I don't know what. Seven-and-sixpence in a single post from Liverpool--that's nothing, sir, nothing at all.”

Nancy brought back the child, whose silvery curls were now damp.

“What! a young lady coming in her night-dress!” cried Pete.

“Work enough! had to get it over her head, too,” said Nancy. “She wouldn't, no, she wouldn't. Here, take and dry her hair by the fire while I warm up her supper.”

Pete rolled the sleeves of his jersey above his elbows, took the child on his knee, and rubbed her hair between his hands, singing--

“Come, Bridget, Saint Bridget, come in at my door.”

Nancy clattered about in her clogs, filled a saucepan with bread and milk, and brought it to the fire.

“Give it to me, Nancy,” said Philip, and he leaned over and held the saucepan above the bar. The child watched him intently.

“Well, did you ever?” said Pete. “The strange she's making of you, Philip? Don't you know the gentleman, darling? Aw, but he's knowing you, though.”

The saucepan boiled, and Philip handed it back to Nancy.

“Go to him then--away with you,” said Pete. “Gro to your godfather. He'd have been your name-father too if it had been a boy you'd been. Off you go!” and he stretched out his hairy arms until the child touched the floor.

Philip stooped to take the little one, who first pranced and beat the rushes with its feet as with two drumsticks, then trod on its own legs, swirled about to Pete's arms, dropped its lower lip, and set up a terrified outcry.

“Ah! she knows her own father, bless her,” cried Pete, plucking the child back to his breast.

Philip dropped his head and laughed. A sort of creeping fear had taken possession of him, as if he felt remotely that the child was to be the channel of his retribution.

“Will you feed her yourself, Pete?” said Nancy. She was coming up with a saucer, of which she was tasting the contents. “He's that handy with a child, sir, you wouldn't think 'Deed you wouldn't.” Then, stooping to the baby as it ate its supper, “But I'm saying, young woman, is there no sleep in your eyes to-night?”

“No, but nodding away here like a wood-thrush in a tree,” said Pete. He was ladling the pobs into the child's mouth, and scooping the overflow from her chin. “Sleep's a terrible enemy of this one, sir. She's having a battle with it every night of life, anyway. God help her, she'll have luck better than some of us, or she'll be fighting it the other way about one of these days.”

“She's us'ally going off with the spoon in her mouth, sir, for all the world like a lil cherub,” said Nancy.

“Too busy looking at her godfather to-night, though,” said Pete. “Well, look at him. You owe him your life, you lil sandpiper. And, my sakes, the straight like him you are, too!”

“Isn't she?” said Nancy. “If I wasn't thinking the same myself! Couldn't look straighter like him if she'd been his born child; now, could she? And the curls, too, and the eyes! Well, well!”

“If she'd been a boy, now----” began Pete.

But Philip had risen to return to the Court-house, and Pete said in another tone, “Hould hard a minute, sir--I've something to show you. Here, take the lil one, Nancy.”

Pete lit a candle and led the way into the parlour. The room was empty of furniture; but at one end there was a stool, a stone mason's mallet, a few chisels, and a large stone.

The stone was a gravestone.

Pete approached it solemnly, held up the candle in front of it, and said in a low voice, “It's for her. I've been doing it myself, sir, and it's lasted me all winter, dark nights and bad days. I'll be finishing it to-night, though, God willing, and to-morrow, maybe, I'll be taking it to Douglas.”

“Is it----” began Philip, but he could not finish.

The stone was a plain slab, rounded at the top, bevelled about the edge, smoothed on the face, and chiselled over the back; but there was no sign or symbol on it, and no lettering or inscription.

“Is there to be no name?” asked Philip at last.

“No,” said Pete.

“No?”

“Tell you the truth, sir, I've been reading what it's saying in the ould Book about the Recording Angel calling the dead out of their graves.”

“Yes?”

“And I've been thinking the way he'll be doing it will be going to the graveyards and seeing the names on the gravestones, and calling them out loud to rise up to judgment; some, as it's saying, to life eternal, and some to everlasting punishment.”

“Well?”

“Well, sir, I've been thinking if he comes to this one and sees no name on it”--Pete's voice sank to a whisper--“maybe he'll pass it by and let the poor sinner sleep on.”

Stumbling back to the Court-house through the dark lane Philip thought, “It was a lie _then_, but it's true _now_. It _must_ be true. She must be dead.” There was a sort of relief in this certainty. It was an end, at all events; a pitiful end, a cowardly end, a kind of sneaking out of Fate's fingers; it was not what he had looked for and intended, but he struggled to reconcile himself to it.

Then he remembered the child and thought, “Why should I disturb it? Why should I disturb Pete? I will watch over it all its life. I will protect it and find a way to provide for it. I will do my duty by it. The child shall never want.”

He was offering the key to the lock of the prisoners' yard when some one passed him in the lane, peered into his face, then turned about and spoke.

“Oh, it's you, Deemster Christian?”

“Yes, doctor. Good-night!”

“Have you heard the news from Ballawhaine? The old gentleman had another stroke this morning.”

“No, I had not heard it. Another? Dear me, dear me!”

Back in his room, Philip resumed his wig and gown and returned to the Court-house. The place was now lit up by candlelight and densely crowded. Everybody rose to his feet as the Deemster stepped to the dais.

V.

“Come, Bridget, Saint Bridget, come in at my door,
The crock's on the bink and the rush----”

“She's fast,” said Nancy. “Rocking this one to sleep is like waiting for the kettle to boil. You may try and try, and blow and blow, but never a sound. And no sooner have you forgotten all about her, but she's singing away as steady as a top.”

Nancy put the child into the cradle, tucked her about, twisted the head of the little nest so that the warmth of the fire should enter it, and hung a shawl over the hood to protect the little eyelids from the light. “Will you keep the house till I'm home from Sulby, Pete?”

“I've my work, woman,” said Pete from the parlour.

“I'll put a junk on the fire and be off then,” said Nancy.

She pulled the door on to the catch behind her and went crunching the gravel to the gate. There was no sound in the house now but the gentle breathing of the sleeping child, soft as an angel's prayer, the chirruping of the mended fire like a cage of birds, the ticking of the clock, and, through the parlour wall, the dull pat-put, pat-put of the wooden mallet and the scrape of the chisel on the stone.

Pete worked steadily for half an hour, and then came back to the hall-kitchen with his tools in his hands. The cob of coal had kindled to a lively flame, which flashed and went out, and the quick black shadows of the chairs and the table and the jugs on the dresser were leaping about the room like elves. With parted lips, just breaking into a smile, Pete went down on one knee by the cradle, put the mallet under his arm, and gently raised the shawl curtain. “God bless my motherless girl,” he said, in a voice no louder than a breath. Suddenly, while he knelt there, he was smitten as by an electric shock. His face straightened and he drew back, still holding the shawl at the tips of his fingers.

The child was sleeping peacefully, with one of its little arms over the counterpane. On its face the flickering light of the fire was coming and going, making lines about the baby eyes and throwing up the baby features. It is in such lights that we are startled by resemblances in a child's face. Pete was startled by a resemblance. He had seen it before, but not as he saw it now.

A moment afterwards he was reaching across the cradle again, his arms spread over it, and his face close down at the child's face, scanning every line of it as one scans a map. “'Deed, but she is, though,” he murmured. “She's like him enough, anyway.”

An awful idea had taken possession of his mind. He rose stiffly to his feet, and the shawl flapped back. The room seemed to be darkening round him. He broke the coal, though it was burning brightly, stepped to the other side of the cradle, and looked at the child again. It was the same from there. The resemblance was ghostly.

He felt something growing hard inside of him, and he returned to his work in the parlour. But the chisel slipped, the mallet fell too heavily, and he stopped. His mind fluctuated among distant things. He could not help thinking of Port Mooar, of the Carasdhoo men, of the day when he and Philip were brought home in the early, morning.

Putting his tools down, he returned to the room. He was holding his breath and walking softly, as if in the presence of an invisible thing. The room was perfectly quiet--he could hear the breath in his nostrils. In a state of stupor he stood for some time with bis back to the fire and watched his shadow on the opposite wall and on the ceiling. The cradle was at his feet. He could not keep his eyes off it. From time to time he looked down across one of his shoulders.

With head thrown back and lips apart, the child was breathing calmly and sleeping the innocent sleep. This angel innocence reproached him.

“My heart must be going bad,” he muttered. “Your bad thoughts are blackening the dead. For shame, Pete Quilliam, for shame!”

He was feeling like a man who is in a storm of thunder and lightning at night. Familiar things about him looked strange and awful.

Stooping to the cradle again, he turned back the shawl on to the cradle-head as a girl turns back the shade of her sun-bonnet Then the firelight was full on the child's face, and it moved in its sleep. It moved yet more under his steadfast gaze, and cried a little, as if the terrible thought that was in his mind had penetrated to its own.

He was stooping so when the door was opened and Cæsar entered violently, making asthmatic noises in his throat. Pete looked up at him with a stupefied air. “Peter,” he said, “will you sell that mortgage?”

Pete answered with a growl.

“Will you transfer it to me?” said Cæsar.

“The time's not come,” said Pete.

“What time?”

“The time foretold by the prophet, when the lion can lie down with the lamb.”

Pete laughed bitterly. Cæsar was quivering, his mouth was twitching, and his eyes were wild. “Will you come over to the 'Mitre,' then?”

“What for to the 'Mitre'?”

“Ross Christian is there.”

Pete made an impatient gesture. “That stormy petrel again! He's always about when there's bad weather going.”

“Will you come and hear what the man's saying?”

“What's he saying?”

“Will you hear for yourself?”

Pete looked hard at Cæsar, looked again, then caught up his cap and went out at the door.

VI.

With two of his cronies the man had spent the day in a room overlooking the harbour, drinking hard and playing billiards. Early in the afternoon a messenger had come from Ballawhaine, saying, “Your father is ill--come home immediately.” “By-and-bye,” he had said, and gone on with the game.

Later in the afternoon the messenger had come again, saying, “Your father has had a stroke of paralysis, and he is calling for you.” “Let me finish the break first,” he had replied.

In the evening the messenger had come a third time, saying, “Your father is unconscious.” “Where's the hurry, then?” he had answered, and he sang a stave of the “Miller's Daughter”--

“They married me against my will,
When I was daughter at the mill.”

Finally, Cæsar, who had been remonstrating with the Ballawhaine at the moment of his attack, came to remonstrate with Ross, and to pay off a score of his own as well.

“Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days----” cried Cæsar, with uplifted arm and the high pitch of the preacher. “But your days will not be long, anyway, and, if you are the death of that foolish ould man, it won't be the first death you're answerable for.”

“So you believe it, too?” said Ross, cue in hand. “You believe your daughter is dead, do you, old Jephthah Jeremiah? Would you be surprised to hear, now----” (the cronies giggled) “that she isn't dead at all?----Good shotr-cannon off the cushion. Halloa! Jephthah Jeremiah has seen a ghost seemingly. Saw her myself, man, when I was up in town a month ago. Want to know where she is? Shall I tell you? Oh, you're a beauty! You're a pattern! You know how to train up a child in the way----Pocket off the red----It's you to preach at my father, isn't it? She's on the streets of London--ah, Jeremiah's gone----

'They married me against my will '--

There you are, then--good shot--love--twenty-five and nothing left.”

Pete pushed through to the billiard-room. Fearing there might be violence, hoping there would be, yet thinking it scarcely proper to lend the scene of it the light of his countenance, Cæsar had stayed outside.

“Halloa! here's Uriah!” cried Ross. “Talk of the devil--just thought as much. Ever read the story of David and Uriah? Should, though. Do you good, mister. David was a great man. Aw” (with a mock imitation of Pete's Manx), “a ter'ble, wonderful, shocking great man. Uriah was his henchman. Ter'ble clavar, too, but that green for all, the ould cow might have ate him. And Uriah had a nice lil wife. The nice now, you wouldn't think. But when Uriah was away David took her, and then--and then” (dropping the Manx) “it doesn't just run on Bible lines neither, but David told Uriah that his wife was dead--ha! ha! ha!----

'Who saw her diet
I said the fly,
I saw her----'

Stop that--let go--help----You'll choke me--help! help!”

At two strides Pete had come face to face with Ross, put one of his hands at the man's throat and his leg behind him, doubled him back on his knee, and was holding him there in a grip like that of a vice.

“Help!--help!--oo--ugh!” The fellow gasped, and his face grew dark.

“You're not worth it,” said Pete. “I meant to choke the life out of your dirty body for lying about the living and blackening the dead, but you're not worth hanging for. You've got the same blood in you, too, and I'm ashamed for you. There! get up.”

With a gesture of indescribable loathing, Pete flung the man to the ground, and he fell over his cue and broke it.

The people of the house came thronging into the room, and met Pete going out of it. His face was hard and ugly. At first sight they mistook him for Ross, so disfigured was he by bad passions.

Cæsar was tramping the pavement outside. “Will you let me do it now?” he said in a hot whisper.

“Do as you like,” said Pete savagely.

“The wicked is snared in the work of his own hand. Higgaion. Selah,” said Cæsar, and they parted by the entrance to the Court-house.

Pete went home, muttering to himself, “The man was lying--she's dead, she's dead!”

At the gate of Elm Cottage the dog came up to him, barking with glee. Then it darted back to the house door, which stood open. “Some one has come,” thought Pete. “She's dead. The man lied. She's dead,” he muttered, and he stumbled down the path.

VII.

While the Deemster was stepping up to the dais, and the people in the court were rising to receive him, a poor bedraggled wayfarer was toiling through the country towards the town. It was a woman. She must have walked far, her step was so slow and so heavy. From time to time she rested, not sitting, but standing by the gates of the fields as she came to them, and holding by the topmost bar.

When she emerged from the dark lanes into the lamplit streets her pace quickened for a moment; then it slackened, and then it quickened again. She walked close to the houses, as if trying to escape observation. Where there was a short cut through an ill-lighted thoroughfare, she took it. Any one following her would have seen that she was familiar with every corner of the town.

It would be hard to imagine a woman of more miserable appearance. Not that her clothes were so mean, though they were poor and worn, but that an air of humiliation sat upon her, such as a dog has when it is lost and the children are chasing it. Her dress was that of an old woman--the long Manx cloak of blue homespun, fastened by a great hook close under the chin, and having a hood which is drawn over the head. But in spite of this old-fashioned garment, and the uncertainty of her step, she gave the impression of a young woman. Where the white frill of the old countrywoman's cap should have shown itself under the flange of the hood, there was a veil, which seemed to be suspended from a hat.

The oddity and incongruity of her attire attracted attention. Women came out of their houses and crossed to the doors of neighbours to look after her. Even the boys playing at the corners looked up as she went by.

She was not greatly observed for all that. An unusual interest agitated the town. A wave of commotion flowed down the streets. The traffic went in one direction. That direction was the Court-house.