Complete works of hall c.., p.259
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 259
“It’s no use thinking hard of anybody, is it, sir?” he said. “We can’t crawl into another person’s soul, as the saying is.”
After that he asked many questions — about Kate’s illness, about the doctor, about the funeral, about everything except the man — of him he asked nothing. Philip was compelled to answer. He was like a prisoner chained at the galleys — he was forced to go on. They crossed the bridge over the top of Ballaglass, which goes down to the mill at Cornaa.
“There’s the glen, sir,” said Pete. “Aw, the dear ould days! Wading in the water, leaping over the stones, clambering on the trunks — aw, dear! aw, dear! Bareheaded and barefooted in those times, sir; but smart extraordinary, and a terble notion of being dressy, too. Twisting ferns about her lil neck for lace, sticking a mountain thistle, sparkling with dew, on her breast for a diamond, twining a trail of fuchsia round her head for a crown — aw, dear! aw, dear! And now — well, well, to think! to think!”
There was laughter on the other side of the coach.
“What do you say, Capt’n Pete?” shouted Crow.
“What’s that?” asked Pete.
The fisherman had treated the driver and the farmer at the Hibernian, and was being rewarded with robustious chaff.
“I’m telling Dan Johnny here these childers that’s coming when a man’s away from home isn’t much to trust. Best put a sight up with the lil one to the wise woman of Glen Aldyn, eh? A man doesn’t like to bring up a cuckoo in the nest — what d’ye say, Capt’n?”
“I say you’re a dirty ould divil, Crow; and I don’t want to be chucking you off your seat,” said Pete; and with that he turned back to Philip. *
The driver was affronted, but the farmer pacified him by an appeal to his fear. “He’d be coarse to tackle, the same fellow — I saw him clane out a tent with one hand at Tyn-wald.”
“It’s a wonder she didn’t come home for all,” said Pete at Philip’s ear— “at the end, you know. Couldn’t face it out, I suppose? Nothing to be afraid of, though, if she’d only known. I had kept things middling straight up to then. And I’d have broke the head of the first man that’d wagged a tongue. But maybe it was myself she was freckened of! Freckened of me! Poor thing! poor thing!”
Philip was in torment. To witness Pete’s simple grief, to hear him breathe a forgiveness for the erring woman, and to be trusted with the thoughts of his heart as a father might be trusted by a young child — it was anguish, it was agony, it was horror. More than once he felt an impulse to cast off his load, to confess, to tell everything. But he reflected that he had no right to do this — that the secret was not his own to give away. His fear restrained him also. He looked into Pete’s face, so full of manly sorrow, and shuddered to think of it transformed by rage.
“Sit hard, gentlemen. Breeches’ work here,” shouted Crow.
They were at the top of the steep descent going down to Laxey. The white town lay sprinkled over the green banks of the glen, and the great water-wheel stood in the depths of the mountain gill behind it.
“She’s there! She’s yonder! It’s herself at the door. She’s up. She’s looking out for the coach,” cried the fisherman, clambering up on to the seat.
“Aisy all,” shouted Crow.
“No use, Mr. Crow. Nothing will persuade me but that’s herself with the lil one in a blanket at the door.”
Before the coach had drawn up at the bridge, the fisherman had leapt to the ground, shouldered his keg, shouted “Good everin’ all,” and disappeared down an alley of the town.
The driver alighted. A crowd gathered around. There were parcels to take up, parcels to set down, and the horses to water. When the coach was ready to start again, the farmer with his dogs had gone, but there was a passenger for an inside place. It was a girl, a bright young thing, with a comely face and laughing black eyes. She was dressed smartly, after her country fashion, in a hat covered with scarlet poppies, and with a vast brooch at the neck of her bodice. In one hand she carried a huge bunch of sweet-smelling gilvers. A group of girl companions came to see her off, and there was much giggling and chatter and general excitement.
“Are you forgetting the pouch and pipe, Emma?”
“Let me see; am I? No; it’s here in my frock.”
“Well, you’ll be coming together by the coach at nine, it’s like?”
“It’s like we will, Liza, if the steamer isn’t late.”
“Now then, ladies, off the step! Any room for a lil calf’ in the straw with you, missy? Freckened? Tut! Only a lil calf, as clane as clane — and breath as swate as your own, miss. There you are — it’ll be lying quiet enough till we get to Douglas. All ready? Ready we are then. Collar work now, gentlemen. Aise the horse, sir. Thank you! Thank you! Not you, your Honour — sit where you are, Dempster.”
XXII.
Pete got down to walk up the hill, but Philip, though he made some show of alighting also, was glad of the excuse to remain in his seat. It relieved him of Pete’s company for a while, at all events. He had time to ask himself again why he was there, where he was going to, and what he was going to do. But his brain was a cloudy waste. Only one picture emerged from the maze. It was that of the burial of the nameless waif in the grave at the foot of the wall. If he was conscious of any purpose, it was a vague idea of going to that grave. But it lay ahead of him only as an ultimate goal. He was waiting and watching for an opportunity of escape. If it came, God be praised! If it did not come, God help and forgive him!
Meanwhile Pete walked behind, and caught fragments of a conversation between the girl and Crow.
“So you’re going to meet himself coming home, miss, eh?”
“My faith, how d’ye know that? But it’s yourself for knowing things, Mr. Crow. Has he been sailing foreign? Yes, sir; and nine months away for a week come Monday. But spoken at Holyhead in Tuesday’s paper, and paid off in Liverpool yesterday. That’s his ‘nitials, if you want to know — J. W. I worked them on the pouch myself. I’ve spun him a web for a jacket, too. Sweethearting with the miner fellows while Jemmy’s been away? Have I, d’ye say? How people will be talking!”
“Aw, no offence at all. But sorry you’re not keeping another string to your bow, missy. These sailor lads aren’t partic’lar, anyway. Bless your heart, no; but getting as tired of one swateheart as a pig of brewer’s grain. Constant? Chut! When the like of that sort is away foreign, he lays up of the first girl he comes foul of.”
The girl laughed, and shook her head bravely, but the tears were beginning to trickle from her eyes, and the hand that held the flowers was trembling.
“Don’t listen to the man, my dear,” said Pete. “There’s too much comic in these ould bachelor bucks. Your boy is dying to get home to you. Go bail on that, Emma. The packet isn’t making half way enough for him, and he’s bad dreadful wanting to ship aloft and let out the topsail.”
At the crest of the hill Pete climbed back to Philip’s side, and said, “The heart’s a quare thing, sir. Got its winds and tides same as anything else. The wind blows contrary ways in one day, and it’s the same with the heart itself. Changeable? Well, maybe! We shouldn’t be too hard on it for all.... If I’d only known now.... She wasn’t much better than a child when I left for Kimberley... and then what was I? I was only common stuff anyway... not much fit for the likes of herself, when you think of it, sir.... If I’d only guessed when I came back.... I could have done it, sir — I was loving the woman like life, but if I’d only known, now.... Well, and what’s love if it’s thinking of nothing but itself? If I’d thought she was loving another man by the time I came home, I could have given her up to him — yes, I could; I’m persuaded I could — so help me God, I could.”
Philip was wasting on that journey like a piece of wax. Pete saw his face melting away till it looked more like a skeleton than the face of a man really alive.
“You mustn’t be taking it so bad at all, Phil,” said Pete. “She’ll be middling right where she’s gone to, sir. She’ll be right enough yonder,” he said, rolling his head sideways to where the sun was going round to its setting. And then softly, as if half afraid she might not be, he muttered into his beard, “God be good to my poor broken-hearted girl, and forgive her sins for Christ’s sake.”
An elderly gentleman got on the coach at Onchan.
“Helloa, Deemster!” he cried. “You look as sober as an old crow. Sober! Old Crow! Ha, ha!”
He was a facetious person of high descent in the island.
“Crow never goes home without getting off the box once or twice to pick up the moonlight on the road — do you, Crow?”
“That’ll do, parson, that’ll do!” roared Crow. And then his reverence leaned across the driver and directed the shaft of his wit at Philip.
“And how’s the young housekeeper, Deemster?”
Philip shuddered visibly, and made some inarticulate reply —
“Good-looking young woman, they’re telling me. Jem-y-Lord’s got taste, seemingly. But take care, your Honour; take care! ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his ox, nor his ass’ — —”
Philip laughed noisily. The miserable man was writhing in his seat.
“Take an old fiddler’s advice, Deemster — have nothing to do with the women. When they’re young they’re kittens to play with you, but when they’re old they’re cats to scratch you.”
Pete twisted his body until the whole breadth of his back blocked the parson from Philip’s face.
“A fortnight ago, you were saying, sir?”
“A fortnight,” muttered Philip.
“There’ll be daisies growing on her grave by this time,” said Pete softly.
The parson had put up his nose-glasses. “Who’s this fellow, Crow? Captain — what? His honour’s cousin? Cousin? Oh, of course — yes — I remember — Tynwald — ah — h’m!”
The coach set down its passengers in the market-place. Pete inquired the hour of its return journey, and was told that it started back at six. He helped the girl to alight, and directed her to the pier, where a crowd of people’ were awaiting the arrival of the steamer. Then he rejoined Philip, who led the way through the town.
The Deemster was observed by everybody. As he passed along the streets there was much whispering and nudging, and some bowing and lifting of hats. He responded to none of it He recognised no one. He, who was famous for courtesy, renowned for gracious manners, beloved for a smile like sunshine — the brighter and more winsome when it broke as from a cloud — returned no man’s salutation that day, and replied to no woman’s greeting. His face was set hard like a marble mask. It passed along without appearing to see.
Pete walked one step behind. They did not speak as they went through the town. Not a word or a sign passed between them. Philip turned into a side street, and drew up at an iron gate which opened on to a churchyard. They were at the churchyard of St. George’s.
“This is the place,” said Philip huskily.
Pete took off his hat.
The gate was partly open. It was Saturday, and the organist was alone in the church practising hymns for Sunday’s services. They passed through.
The churchyard was an oblong enclosure within high walls, overlooked on its long sides by rows of houses. One of these rows was Athol Street, and one of the houses was the Deemster’s.
It was late afternoon by this time. Long shadows were cast eastward from the tombstones; the horizontal sunlight was making the leaves very light.
Philip walked noisily, jerkily, irregularly, like a man conscious of weakness and determined to conquer it. Pete walked behind, so softly that his foot on the gravel was hardly to be heard. The organist was playing Cowper’s familiar hymn —
“God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.”
There was a broad avenue, bordered by railed tombs, leading to the church-door. Philip turned out of this into a narrow path which went through a bare green space, that was dotted with pegs of wood and little unhewn slabs of slate, like an abandoned quoit ground. At the farthest corner of this space he stopped before a mound near to the wall. It was the new-made grave. The scars of the turf were still unhealed, and the glist of the spade was on the grass.
Philip hesitated a moment, and looked round at Pete, as if even then, even there, he would confess. But he saw no escape from the mesh of his own lies, and with a deep, breath of submission he pointed down, turned his head over his shoulder, and said in a strange voice —
“There.”
The silence was long and awful. At length Pete said in a broken whisper —
“Lave me, sir, lave me.”
Philip turned away, breathing audibly. A moment longer Pete stood where he was, gripping his hat with both hands in front of him. Then he went down on his knees. “Oh, forgive me my hard thoughts of thee,” he said. “Jesus, forgive me my hard thoughts of my poor Kirry.”
Philip heard no more. The organ was very loud and triumphant.
“Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.”
A red shaft of sunlight tipped down on Pete’s uncovered head from the top of the wall. The blessed tears had come to him. He was sobbing aloud; he was alone with his love at last.
He was alone with her indeed. At that moment Kate was looking down from the window of her room. She saw him kneeling and praying by another’s grave.
Philip never knew how he got out of the churchyard. He crawled out — creeping along by the wall, and slinking through the gate — heart-sick and all but heart-dead. When he came to himself, he was standing in Athol Street, and a company of jolly fellows in a jaunting-car, driving out of the golden sunset, were rattling past him with shouts and peals of laughter.
XXIII.
Kate was standing in her room with the door open, beating her hands together in the first helpless stupor of fear, when she saw a man coming up the stairs. His legs seemed to be giving way as he ascended; he was bent and feeble, and had all the look of great age. As he approached he lifted his face, which was old and withered. Then she saw who it was. It was Philip.
She made an involuntary cry, and he smiled upon her — a hard, frozen, terrible smile. “He is lost,” she thought. Her scared expression penetrated to his soul. He knew that she had seen everything. At first he tried to speak, but he could utter nothing. Then a mad desire seized him to lay hold of her — by the arms, by the shoulders, by the throat. Conquering this impulse, he stood motionless, passing his hands through his hair. She dropped her eyes and hung her head. Their abasement in each other’s eyes was complete. He was ashamed before her, she was ashamed before him. One moment they faced each other thus, in silence, in pitiless and awful silence, and then slowly, very slowly, stupefied and crushed, he turned away and crept out of the house.
“It is the end — the end.” What was the use of going farther? He had fallen too low. His degradation was abject. It was hopeless, irreparable, irremediable. “End it all — end it all.” The words clamoured in his inmost soul.
Halting down the quay, he made for the ferry steps, where boats were waiting for hire. He had lately hired one of an evening, and pulled round the Head for the sake of the breath and the silence of the sea.
“Going far out this evening, your Honor?” the boatman asked.
“Farther than ever,” he answered.
Pull, pull! Away from the terrible past. Away from the horrible present. The steamer had arrived, and had discharged her passengers. She was still pulsing at the end of the red pier like a horse that pants after running a race.
A band was playing a waltz somewhere on the promenade. Pleasure boats were darting about the bay. Sea-birds were sitting on the water where the sewers of the gay little town empty into the sea.
Pull, pull! He was flying from remorse, from despair, from the deep duplicity of a double life, from the lie that had slain the heart of a living man. How low he had fallen! Could he fall lower without falling into crime?
Pull, pull! He would be a criminal next. When a man had been degraded in his own eyes, and in the eyes of her he loved, crime stood beckoning him. He might try, but he could not resist; he must yield, he must fall. It was the only degradation remaining. Better end everything before dropping into that last abyss.
Pull, pull! He was the judge of his island, and he had outraged justice. Holding a false title, living on a false honour, he was safe of no man’s respect, secure of no woman’s goodwill. Exposure hung over him. He would be disgraced, the law would be disgraced, the island would be disgraced. Pull, pull, pull, before it is too late; out, far out, farther than tide returns, or sea tells stories to the shore.
He had rowed like a slave escaping from his chains, in terror of being overtaken and dragged back. The voices of the harbour were now hushed, the music of the band was deadened, the horses running along the promenade seemed to creep like ants, and the traffic of the streets was no louder than a dull subterranean rumble. He had shot out of the margin of smooth blue water in which the island lay as on a mirror, and out of the shadow of the hill upon the bay. The sea about him now was running green and glistening, and the red sun-? light was coming down on it like smoke. Only the steeples and towers and glass domes of the town reached up into luminous air. He could see the squat tower of St. George’s silhouetted against the dying glory of the sky. Seven years he had been its neighbour, and it had witnessed such happy and such cruel hours. All the joy of work, the sweetness of success, the dreams of greatness, the rosy flushes of love, and then — the tortures of conscience, the visions, the horror, the secret shame, the self-abandonment, and, last of all, the twofold existence as of husband with wife, hidden, incomplete, unfulfilled, yet full of tender ties which had seemed like galling bonds so many a time, but were now so sweet when the hour had come to break them.
