Complete works of hall c.., p.261
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 261
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.
