The Deemster Part 42

"Listen. That creek under the Head of Orrisdale is known to the fisher-folk as the Lockjaw. Do you need to be told why? Because there is only one road out of it. My son went into the creek, but he never left it alive."

"How is this known, Thorkell?"

"How? In this way. Almost immediately my son had gone from my house Jarvis Kerruish went after him, to overtake him and bring him back. Not knowing the course, Jarvis had to feel his way and inquire, but he came upon his trace at last, and followed Ewan on the road he had taken, and reached the creek soon after the parish clock struck five. Now, if my son had returned as he went, Jarvis Kerruish must have met him."

"Patience, Thorkell, have patience," said the Bishop. "If Ewan found Dan at the Lockjaw Creek, why did not the young man Jarvis find both of them there?"

"Why?" the Deemster echoed, "because the one was dead, and the other in hiding."

The Bishop was standing at that moment by the table, and one hand was touching something that lay upon it. A cry that was half a sigh and half a suppressed scream of terror burst from him. The Deemster understood it not, but set it down to the searching power of his own words. Shuddering from head to foot the Bishop looked down at the thing his hand had touched. It was the militia belt. He had left it where it had fallen from his fingers when the men brought it to him. Beside it, half hidden by many books and papers, the two small daggers lay.

Then a little low cunning crept over the heart of that saintly man, and he glanced up into his brother's face with a dissembled look, not of inquiry, but of supplication. The Deemster's face was imperious, and his eyes betrayed no discovery. He had seen nothing.

"You make me shudder, Thorkell," the Bishop murmured, and while he spoke he lifted the belt and dagger furtively amid a chaos of loose papers, and whipped them into the door of a cabinet that stood open.

His duplicity had succeeded; nor even the hollow ring of his voice had awakened suspicion, but he sat down with a crushed and abject mien. His manhood had gone, shame overwhelmed him, and he ceased to contend.

"I said there was only one way out of the creek," said the Deemster, "but there are two."

"Ah!"

"The other way is by the sea. My son took that way, but he took it as a dead man, and when he came ash.o.r.e he was wrapped for sea-burial--by ignorant bunglers who had never buried a body at sea before--in a sailcloth of the 'Ben-my-Chree.'"

The Bishop groaned, and wiped his forehead.

"Do you ask for further evidence?" said the Deemster, in a relentless voice. "If so, it is at hand. Where was the 'Ben-my-Chree' last night?

It was on the sea. Last night was Christmas Eve, a night of twenty old Manx customs. Where were the boat's crew and owner? They were away from their homes. To-day was Christmas Day. Where were the men? Their wives and children were waiting for some of them to eat with them their Christmas dinner and drink their Christmas ale. But they were not in their houses, and no one knew where they were. Can circ.u.mstances be more d.a.m.ning? Speak, and say. Don't wring your hands; be a man, and look me in the face."

"Have mercy, Thorkell," the Bishop murmured, utterly prostrate. But the Deemster went on to lash him as a brutal master whips a broken-winded horse.

"When the 'Ben-my-Chree' came into harbor to-night what was the behavior of crew and owner? Did they go about their business as they are wont to do when wind and tide has kept them too long at sea? Did they show their faces before suspicion as men should who have no fear? No. They skulked away. They fled from question. At this moment they are being pursued."

The Bishop covered his face with his hands.

"And so I ask you again," resumed the Deemster, "what do you intend to do with the murderer of my son?"

"Oh, Dan, Dan, my boy, my boy!" the Bishop sobbed, and for a moment his grief mastered all other emotions.

"Ah, see how it is! You name your son, and you know that he is guilty."

The Bishop lifted up his head, and his eyes flashed. "I do not know that my son is guilty," he said in a tone that made the Deemster pause. But, speedily recovering his self-command, the Deemster continued, in a tone of confidence, "Your conscience tells you that it is so."

The Bishop's spirit was broken in a moment.

"What would you have me do, Thorkell?"

"To present your son for murder in the court of your barony."

"Man, man, do you wish to abase me?" said the Bishop. "Do you come to drive me to despair? Is it not enough that I am bent to the very earth with grief, but that you of all men should crush me to the dust itself with shame? Think of it--my son is my only tie to earth, I have none left but him; and, because I am a judge in the island as well as its poor priest, I am to take him and put him to death."

Then his voice, which had been faint, grew formidable.

"What is it you mean by this cruel torture? If my son is guilty, must his crime go unpunished though his father's hand is not lifted against him? For what business are you yourself on this little plot of earth?

You are here to punish the evil-doer. It is for you to punish him if he is guilty. But no, for you to do that would be for you to be merciful.

Mercy you will not show to him or me. And, to make a crime that is terrible at the best thrice shameful as well, you would put a father as judge over his son. Man, man, have you no pity? No bowels of compa.s.sion?

Think of it. My son is myself, life of my life. Can I lop away my right hand and still keep all my members? Only think of it. Thorkell, Thorkell, my brother, think of it. I am a father, and so are you. Could you condemn to death your own son?"

The sonorous voice had broken again to a sob of supplication.

"Yes, you are a father," said the Deemster, unmoved, "but you are also a priest and a judge. Your son is guilty of a crime--"

"Who says he is guilty?"

"Yourself said as much a moment since."

"Have I said so? What did I say? They had no cause of quarrel--Dan and Ewan. They loved each other. But I can not think. My head aches. I fear my mind is weakened by these terrible events."

The Bishop pressed his forehead hard, like a man in bodily pain, but the Deemster showed no ruth.

"It is now for you to put the father aside and let the priest-judge come forward. It is your duty to G.o.d and your Church. Cast your selfish interests behind you and quit yourself like one to whom all eyes look up. The Bishop has a sacred mission. Fulfil it. You have punished offenders against G.o.d's law and the Church's rule beforetime. Don't let it be said that the laws of G.o.d and Church are to pa.s.s by the house of their Bishop."

"Pity, pity! have pity," the Bishop murmured.

"Set your own house in order, or with what courage will you ever again dare to intrude upon the houses of your people? Now is your time to show that you can practise the hard doctrine that you have preached. Send him to the scaffold--yes, to the scaffold--"

The Bishop held up his two hands and cried: "Listen, listen. What would it avail you though my son's life were given in forfeit for the life of your son? You never loved Ewan. Ah! it is true, as Heaven is my witness, you never loved him. While I shall have lost two sons at a blow. Are you a Christian, to thirst like this for blood? It is not justice you want; it is vengeance. But vengeance belongs to G.o.d."

"Is he not guilty?" the Deemster answered. "And is it not your duty and mine to punish the guilty?"

But the Bishop went on impetuously, panting as he spoke, and in a faint, broken tone:

"Then if you should be mistaken--if all this that you tell me should be a fatal coincidence that my son can not explain away? What if I took him and presented him, and sent him to the gallows, as you say, and some day, when all that is now dark became light, and the truth stood revealed, what if then I had to say to myself before G.o.d, 'I have taken the life of my son?' Brother, is your heart brazed out that you can think of it without pity?"

The Bishop had dropped to his knees.

"I see that you are a coward," said the Deemster, contemptuously. "And so this is what your religion comes to! I tell you that the eyes of the people of this island are on you. If you take the right course now their reverence is yours; if the wrong one, it will be the worst evil that has ever befallen you from your youth upward."

The Bishop cried, "Mercy, mercy--for Christ's sake, mercy!" and he looked about the room with terrified eyes, as if he would fly from it if he could.

But the Deemster's lash had one still heavier blow.

"More, more," he said--"your Church is on its trial also, and if you fail of your duty now, the people will rise and sweep it away."

Then a great spasm of strength came to the Bishop, and he rose to his feet.

"Silence, sir!" he said, and the Deemster quailed visibly before the heat and flame of his voice and manner.

But the spasm was gone in an instant, for his faith was dead as his soul was dead, and only the galvanic impulse of the outraged thing remained.