The Manxman

"Do as you like," said Pete savagely.

"The wicked is snared in the work of his own hand. Higgaion. Selah,"

said Caesar, 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 f.l.a.n.g.e 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.

The Court-house square was thronged on three of its sides by people who were gathered both on the pavement and on the green inside the railings.

Its fourth side was the dark lane at the back going by the door to the prisoners' yard and the Deemster's entrance. The windows were lit up and partly open. Some of the people had edged to the walls as if to listen, and a few had clambered to the sills as if to see. Around the wide doorway there was a close crowd that seemed to cling to it like a burr.

The woman had reached the first angle of the square when the upper half of the Court-house door broke into light over the heads of the crowd. A man had come out. He surged through the crowd and "came down to the gate with a tail of people trailing after him and asking questions.

"Wonderful!" he was saying. "The Dempster's spaking. Aw, a Daniel come to judgment, sir. Pity for Tom, though--the man'll get time. I'm sorry for an ould friend--but the Lord's will be done! Let not the ties of affection be a snare to our feet--it'll be five years if it's a day, and (D.V.) he'll never live to see the end of it."

It was Caesar. He crossed the street to the "Mitre." The woman trembled and turned towards the lane at the back. She walked quicker than ever now. But, stumbling over the irregular cobbles of the paved way, she stopped suddenly at the sound of a voice. By this time she was at the door to the prisoners' yard, and it was standing open. The door of the corridor leading by the Deemster's chamber to the Court-house was also ajar, as if it had been opened to relieve the heat of the crowded room within.

"Be just and fear not," said the voice. "Remember, whatever unconscious misrepresentations have been made this day, whatever deliberate false-swearing (and G.o.d and the consciences of the guilty ones know well there have been both), truth is mighty, and in the end it will prevail."

The poor bedraggled wayfarer stood in the darkness and trembled. Her hands clutched at the breast of the cloak,

And he was standing in the shadow of the dark lane under the prisoners'

wall.

The woman was Kate. It was true that she had been to London; it was false that she had lived a life of shame there. In six months she had descended to the depths of poverty and privations. One day she had encountered Ross. He was fresh from the Isle of Man, and he told her of the child's illness. The same night she turned her face towards home. It was three weeks since she had returned to the island, and she was then low in health, in heart, and in pocket. The snow was falling. It was a bitter night. Growing dizzy with the drifting whiteness and numb with the piercing cold, she had crept up to a lonely house and asked shelter until the storm should cease.

The house was the home of three old people, two old brothers and an old sister, who had always lived together. In this household Kate had spent three weeks of sickness, and the Manx cloak on her back was a parting gift which the old woman had hung over her thinly-clad shoulders.

Back in the roads Kate had time to tell herself how foolish was her journey. She was like a sailor who has alarming news of home in some foreign port and hears nothing afterwards until he comes to harbour. a month had pa.s.sed. So many things might have happened. The child might be better; it might be dead and buried. Nevertheless she pushed on.

When she left London she had been full of bitterness towards Philip. It was his fault that she had ever been parted from her baby. She would go back. If she brought shame upon him, let him bear it. On coming near to home this feeling of vengeance died. Nothing was left but a great longing to be with her little one and a sense of her own degradation.

Every face she recognised seemed to remind her of the change that had been wrought in herself since she had looked on it last. She dare not ask; she dare not speak; she dare not reveal herself.

While she stood in the shadow of the prisoners' yard listening to Philip's voice, and held by it as by a spell, there was a low hiss and then a sort of white silence, as when a rocket breaks in the air. The Deemster had finished; the people in the court were breathing audibly and moving in their seats.

A minute later she was standing by her old home, hers no longer, and haunted in her mind by many bitter memories. It was dark and cheerless.

A candle had been burning in the parlour, but it was now spluttering in the fat at the socket. As she looked into the room, it blinked and went out.

During the last mile of her journey she had made up her mind what she would do. She would creep up to the house and listen for the sound of a child's voice. If she heard it, and the voice was that of a child that was well, she would be content, she would go away. And if she did not hear it, if the child was gone, if there was no longer any child there, if it was in heaven, she would go away just the same--only G.o.d knew how, G.o.d knew where.

The road was quiet. With trembling fingers she raised the latch of the gate, and stepped two paces into the garden. There was no sound from within. She took two steps more and listened intently. Nothing was audible. Her heart fell yet lower. She told herself that when a child lived in a house the very air breathed of its presence, and its little voice was everywhere. Then she remembered that it was late, that it was night, that even if the child were well it would now be bathed and in bed. "How foolis.h.!.+" she thought, and she took a few steps more.

She had meant to reach the hall window and look in, b.u.t.t before she could do so, something came scudding along the path in her direction.

It was the dog, and he was barking furiously. All at once he stopped and began to caper about her. Then he broke into barking again, this time with a note of recognition and delight, shot into the house and came back, still barking, and making a circle of joyful salutation in the darkness round her.

Quaking with fear of instant discovery, she crept under the old tree and waited. n.o.body came from the house. "There's no one at home," she told herself, and at that thought the certainty that the child was gone fell on her as an oppression of distress.

Nevertheless she stepped up to the porch and listened again. There was no sound within except the ticking of the clock. Making a call on her courage, she pushed the door open with the tips of her fingers. It made a rustle as the bottom brushed over the rushes. At that she uttered a faint cry and crept back trembling. But all was silence again in an instant. The fire gave out a strong red glow which spread over the walls and the ceiling. Her mind took in the impression that the place was almost empty, but she had no time for such observations. With slow and stiff motions she slid into the house.

Then she heard a sleepy whimper and it thrilled her. In an instant she had seen the thing she looked for--the cradle, with its hood towards the door and its foot to the fire. At the next moment she was on her knees beside it, doubled over it and crying softly to the baby, looking so different, smelling of milk and of sleep, "My darling! my darling!"

That was the moment when Pete was coming up the path. The dog was frisking and barking about him. "She's dead," he was saying. "The man lied. She's dead." With that word on his lips he heaved heavily into the house. As he did so he became aware that some one was there already.

Before his eye had carried the news to his brain, his ear had told him.

He heard a voice which he knew well, though it seemed to be a memory of no waking moment, but to come out of the darkness and the hours of sleep. It was a soft and mellow voice, saying, "My beautiful darling! My beautiful, rosy darling I My darling! My darling!"

He saw a woman kneeling by the cradle, with both arms buried in it as though they encircled the sleeping child. Her hood was thrown back, and her head was bare. The firelight fell on her face, and he knew it. He pa.s.sed his hand across his eyes as if trying to wipe out the apparition, but it remained. He tried to speak, but his tongue was stiff. He stood motionless and stared. He could not remove his eyes.

Kate heard the door thrown open, and she lifted her head in terror. Pete was before her, with a violent expression on his face. The expression changed, and he looked at her as if she had been a spirit. Then, in a voice of awe, he said, "Who art thou?"

"Don't you know me?" she answered timidly.

It seemed as if he did not hear. "Then it's true," he muttered to himself; "the man did not lie."

She felt her knees trembling under her. "I haven't come to stay," she faltered. "They told me the child was ill, and I couldn't help coming."

Still he did not speak to her. As he looked, his face grew awful. The dew of fear broke out on her forehead.

"Don't you know me, Pete?" she said in a helpless way.

Still he stood looking down at her, fixedly, almost threateningly.

"I am Katherine," she said, with a downcast look.

"Katherine is dead," he answered vacantly.

"Oh! oh!"

"She is in her grave," he said again.

"Oh, that she were in her grave indeed!" said Kate, and she covered her face with her hands.