Part 109 (1/2)

X.

In that stripped and naked house there was one room still untouched. It was the room that had been kept for the Deemster. Philip lay on the bed, motionless and apparently lifeless. Jem-y-Lord stood beating his hands at the foot. Pete sat on a low stool at the side with his face doubled on to his knees. Nancy, now back from Sulby, was blowing into the bars of the grate to kindle a fire. A little group of men stood huddled like sheep near the door.

Some one said the Deemster's heart was beating. They brought from another room a little ivory hand-gla.s.s and held it over the mouth. When they raised it the face of the mirror was faintly blurred.

That little cloud on the gla.s.s seemed more bright than the s.h.i.+ning tread of an angel on the sea. Jem-y-Lord took a sponge and began to moisten the cold forehead. One by one the people behind produced their old wife's wisdom. Somebody remembered that his grandmother always put salts to the nostrils of a person seemingly dead; somebody else remembered that when, on the very day of old Iron Christian's death, his father had been thrown by a colt and lay twelve hours unconscious, the farrier had bled him and he had opened his eyes instantly.

The doctor had been half an hour gone to Ballaugh, and a man had been put on a horse and sent after him. But it was a twelve-miles' journey; the night was dark; it would be a good hour before he could be back.

They touched Pete on the shoulder and suggested something.

”Eh?” he answered vacantly.

”Dazed,” they told themselves. The poor man could not give a wise-like answer. He had had a shock, and there was worse before him. They talked in low voices of Kate and of Ross Christian; they were sorry for Pete; they were still more sorry for the Deemster.

The Deemster's wig had been taken off and tossed on to the dressing-table. It lay mouth upwards like any old woman's night-cap.

His hair had dragged after it on the pillow. The black gown had not been removed, but it was torn open at the neck so that the throat might be free. One of Philip's arms had dropped over the side of the bed, and the long, thin hand was cold and green and ethereal as marble.

Pete was crouching on his low stool beside this hand. He needed no softening to touch it now. The chill fingers were in his palm, and his hot tears were falling on them. Remembering the crime that he had so nearly committed, he was holding himself in horror. His friend! His life-long friend! His only friend! The Deemster no longer, but only the man. Not the man either, but the child. The cruel years had rolled back with all their burden of trouble. Forgotten days were come again--days long buried under the _debris_ of memory. They were boys together again.

A little, sunny fellow in velvet, and a bigger lad in a stocking-cap; the little one talking, always talking; the big one listening, always listening; the little one proposing, the big one agreeing; the little one leading, the big one following; the little one looking up and yet a little down, the big one looking down and yet a little up. Oh, the happy, happy times, before anger and jealousy and rage and the mad impulse of murder had darkened their sun s.h.i.+ne!

The memories that brought the tenderest throb to Pete as he sat there fingering the lifeless hand were of the great deeds that he had done for Philip--how he had fought for him, and been licked for him, and taken b.l.o.o.d.y noses for him, and got thrashed for it by Black Tom. But there were others only less tender. Philip was leaving home for King William's, and Pete was cudgelling his dull head what to give him for a parting gift. Decision was the more difficult because he had nothing to give. At length he had hit on making a whistle--the only thing his clumsy fingers had ever been deft at. With his clasp-knife he had cut a wondrous big one from the bough of a willow; he had pared it; he had turned it; it blew a blast like a fog-horn. The morning was frosty, and his feet were bare, but he didn't mind the cold; he didn't feel it--no, not a ha'p'orth. He was behind the hedge by the gate at Ballure, waiting for the coach that was to take up Philip, and pa.s.sing the time by polis.h.i.+ng the whistle on the leg of his s.h.i.+ning breeches, and testing its tone with just one more blow. Then up came Crow, and out came Philip in his new peaked cap and leggings. Whoop! Gee-up! Away! Off they went without ever seeing him, without once looking back, and he was left in the p.r.i.c.kly hedge with his blue feet on the frost, a look of dejection about his mouth, and the top of the foolish whistle peeping out of his jacket-pocket.

The thick sob that came of these memories was interrupted by a faint sound from the bed. It was a murmur of delirium, as soft as the hum of bees, yet Pete heard it.

”Cover me up, Pete, cover me up!” said Philip, dreaming aloud.

Philip was a living man! Thank G.o.d! Thank G.o.d!

A whisper goes farther than a shout. The people behind whispered the news to the pa.s.sage, the pa.s.sage to the stairs, the stairs to the hall, and the hall to the garden, where a crowd had gathered in the darkness to look up at the house over which the angel of death was hovering.

In a moment the room was croaking like a frog-pond. ”Praise the Lord!”

cried one. ”His mercy endureth for ever,” cried another. ”What's he saying?” said a third. ”Rambling in his head, poor thing,” said a fourth.

Pete turned them out--all except Jem-y-Lord, who was still moistening the Deemster's face and opening his hands, which were now twitching and tightening.

”Out of this! Out you go!” cried Pete hoa.r.s.ely.

”No use taking the anger with him--the man's tried,” they muttered, and away they went.

Jemmy was loth to see them go. He was afraid to be left alone with Pete--afraid that the Deemster should be at the mercy of this wild creature with the flaming eyes.

And now that Philip was a living man Pete began to feel afraid of himself. At sight of life in Philip's face, his gnawing misery returned.

He thought his hatred had been overcome, but he was wrestling in the throes of forgiveness again. Here was the man who had robbed him of wife and child and home! In another moment he might have held him in the grip of his just wrath.

It is an inscrutable and awful fact, that just at that moment when a man's good angel has conquered, but is spent, his evil angel is sure to get the advantage of chance. Philip's delirium set in strong, and the brute beast in Pete, going through its final struggle, stood over the bed and watched him. In his violence Philip tore at his breast, and dragged something from beneath his s.h.i.+rt. A moment later it fell from his graspless fingers to the floor. It was a lock of dark hair. Pete knew whose hair it was, and he put his foot on it, and that instant the mad impulse came again to take Philip by the throat and choke him. Again and again it came. He had to tread it down even amid his sobs and his tears.

But love cannot be killed in an instant. It does not drop down dead.