The Deemster Part 16

She stopped; she trembled and glowed; her eyes were close to his.

"Don't look at me like that," he said.

She dropped his hands, and at the next instant he was gone from the house.

Dan found the Bishop at Bishop's Court, and told him all. The Bishop had heard the story already, but he said nothing of that. He knew when Dan hid his provocation and painted his offense at its blackest. With a grave face he listened while Dan accused himself, and his heart heaved within him.

"It is a serious offense," he said; "to strike a minister is a grievous offense, and the Church provides a censure."

Dan held his face very low, and clasped his hands in front of him.

"The censure is that on the next Sabbath morning following, in the presence of the congregation, you shall walk up the aisle of the parish church from the porch to the communion behind the minister, who shall read the 51st Psalm meantime."

The Bishop's deep tones and quiet manner concealed his strong emotion, and Dan went out without another word.

This was Friday, and on the evening of the same day Ewan heard what had pa.s.sed between Dan and the Deemster and between Dan and the Bishop, and with a great lump in his throat he went across to Bishop's Court to pray that the censure might be taken off.

"The provocation was mine, and he is penitent," said Ewan; and with heaving breast the Bishop heard him out, and then shook his head.

"The censures of the Church were never meant to pa.s.s by the house of the Bishop," he said.

"But he is too deeply abased already," said Ewan.

"The offense was committed in public, and before the eyes of all men the expiation must be made."

"But I, too, am ashamed--think of it, and remove the censure," said Ewan, and his voice trembled and broke.

The Bishop gazed out at the window with blurred eyes that saw nothing.

"Ewan," he said, "it is G.o.d's hand on the lad. Let it be; let it be."

Next day the Bishop sent his sumner round the parish, asking that every house might send one at least to the parish church next morning.

On Sunday Ewan's young wife kept her bed; but when Ewan left her for the church the shock of her nerves seemed in a measure to have pa.s.sed away.

There was still, however, one great disaster to fear, and Mona remained at the bedside.

The meaning of the sumner's summons had eked out, and long before the hour of service the parish church was crowded. The riff-raff that never came to church from year's end to year's end, except to celebrate the Oiel Verree, were there with eager eyes. While Willas-Thorn tolled the bell from the rope suspended in the porch, there was a low buzz of gossip, but when the bell ceased its hoa.r.s.e clangor, and Will-as-Thorn appeared with his pitch-pipe in the front of the gallery, there could be heard, in the silence that followed over the crowded church, the loud tick of the wooden clock in front of him.

Presently from the porch there came a low, tremulous voice reading the Psalm that begins, "Have mercy upon me, O G.o.d, after Thy great goodness: according to the mult.i.tude of Thy mercies do away mine offenses."

Then the people who sat in front turned about, and those who sat at the side strained across, and those who sat above craned forward.

Ewan was walking slowly up the aisle in his surplice, with his pale face and scarred forehead bent low over the book in his hand, and close behind him, towering above him in his great stature, with head held down, but with a steadfast gaze, his hat in his hands, his step firm and resolute, Dan Mylrea strode along.

There was a dead hush over the congregation.

"Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my faults; and my sin is ever before me."

The tremulous voice rose and fell, and nothing else broke the silence except the uncertain step of the reader, and the strong tread of the penitent behind him.

"Against Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight--"

At this the tremulous voice deepened, and stopped, and went on and stopped again, and when the words came once more they came in a deep, low sob, and the reader's head fell into his breast.

Not until the Psalm came to an end, and Ewan and Dan had reached the communion, and the vicar had begun the morning prayer, and Will-as-Thorn had sent out a blast from his pitch-pipe, was the hard tension of that moment broken.

When the morning service ended, the Deemster rose from his pew and hurried down the aisle. As usual, he was the first to leave the church.

The ghostly smile with which he had witnessed the penance that had brought tears to the eyes of others was still on the Deemster's lip, and a chuckle was in his throat when at the gate of the churchyard he met Hommy-beg, whose face was livid from a long run, and who stood for an instant panting for breath.

"Well, well, well?" said the Deemster, sending the words like small shot into Hommy-beg's deaf ear.

"Terrible, terrible, terrible," said Hommy-beg, and he lifted his hands.

"What is it? What? What?"

"The young woman-body is dead in child-bed."

Then the ghostly smile fled from the Deemster's face.

CHAPTER XIII

HOW EWAN MOURNED FOR HIS WIFE

What pa.s.sed at the new Ballamona on that morning of Dan's penance was very pitiful. There, in the death-chamber already darkened, lay Ewan's young wife, her eyes lightly closed, her girlish features composed, and a faint tinge of color in her cheeks. Her breast was half open, and her beautiful head lay in a pillow of her soft brown hair. One round arm was stretched over the counterpane, and the delicate fingers were curved inward until the thumb-nail, like an acorn, rested on the inner rim of a ring. Quiet, peaceful, very sweet and tender, she lay there like one who slept. After a short, sharp pang she had died gently, without a struggle, almost without a sigh, merely closing her eyes as one who was weary, and drawing a long, deep breath. In dying she had given premature birth to a child, a girl, and the infant was alive, and was taken from the mother at the moment of death.

When the Deemster entered the room, with a face of great pallor and eyes of fear, Mona was standing by the bed-head gazing down, but seeing nothing. The Deemster felt the pulse of the arm over the counterpane with fingers that trembled visibly. Then he shot away from the room, and was no more seen that day. The vicar, the child-wife's father, came with panting breath and stood by the bedside for a moment, and then turned aside in silence. Ewan came, too, and behind him Dan walked to the door and there stopped, and let Ewan enter the chamber of his great sorrow alone. Not a word was said until Ewan went down on his knees by the side of his wife, and put his arms about her, and kissed her lips, still warm, with his own far colder lips, and called to her softly by her name, as though she slept gently, and must not be awakened too harshly, and drew her to his breast, and called again, in a tenderer tone that brushed the upturned face like a caress:

"Aileen! Aileen! Aileen!"

Mona covered her eyes in her hands, and Dan, where he stood at the door, turned his head away.

"Aileen! Ailee! Ailee! My Ailee!"

The voice went like a whisper and a kiss into the deaf ear, and only one other sound was heard, and that was the faint cry of an infant from the room below.

Ewan raised his head and seemed to listen; he paused and looked at the faint color in the quiet cheeks; he put his hand lightly on the heart, and looked long at the breast that did not heave. Then he drew his arms very slowly away, and rose to his feet.

For a moment he stood as one dazed, like a man whose brain is benumbed, and, with the vacant light still in his eyes, he touched Mona on the arm and drew her hand from her eyes, and he said, as one who tells you something that you could not think, "She is dead!"

Mona looked up into his face, and at sight of it the tears rained down her own. Dan had stepped into the room noiselessly, and came behind Ewan, and when Ewan felt his presence, he turned to Dan with the same vacant look, and repeated in the same empty tone, "She is dead!"

And never a tear came into Ewan's eyes to soften their look of dull torpor; never again did he stretch out his arms to the silent form beneath him; only with dazed, dry eyes, he looked down, and said once more, "She is dead!"

Dan could bear up no longer; his heart was choking, and he went out without a word.