Part 116 (1/2)

At midnight Philip crept noiselessly to the bedroom. The condition was unaltered. He was going to lie down, but wished to be awakened if there was any change.

It was long before he dropped off, and he seemed to have slept only a moment when there was a knocking at his door. He heard it while he was still sleeping. The dawn had broken, the streamers of the sun were rising out of the sea. A sparrow in the garden was hacking the air with its monotonous chirp.

Auntie Nan was far spent, yet the dragging expression of pain was gone, and a serenity almost angelic overspread her face. When she recognised Philip she felt for his hand, guided it to her heart, and kept it there.

Only a few words did she speak, for her breath was short. She commended her soul to G.o.d. Then, with a look of pallid suns.h.i.+ne, she beckoned to Philip. He stooped his ear to her lips, and she whispered, ”Hush, dearest! Never tell any one, for n.o.body ever knew--ever dreamt--but I loved your father--and--_G.o.d gave him to me in you._”

The dear old dove had delivered herself of her last great secret. Philip put his lips to her cheek, iced already over the damps and chills of death. Then the eyes closed, the sweet old head slid back, the lips changed their colour, but still lay open as with a smile. Thus died Auntie Nan, peacefully, hopefully, trustfully, almost joyfully, in the fulness of her love and of her pride.

”O G.o.d,” thought Philip, ”let me go on with my task. Give me strength to withstand the temptation of love like this.”

Her love had tempted him all his life His father had been twenty years dead, but she had kept his spirit alive--his aims, his ambitions, his fears, and the lessons of his life. There lay the beginnings of his ruin, his degradation, and the first cause of his deep duplicity. He had recovered everything that had been lost; he had gained all that his little world could give; and what was the worth of it? What was the price he had paid for it? ”What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

Philip put his lips to the cold forehead. ”Sweet soul, forgive me! G.o.d strengthen me! Let me not fail at this last moment.”

XV.

Philip did not go back to Elm Cottage. He buried Auntie Nan at the foot of his father's grave. There was no room at either side, his mother's sunken grave being on the left and the railed tomb of his grandfather on the right. They had to remove a willow two feet nearer to the path.

When all was over he returned home alone, and spent the afternoon in gathering up Auntie Nan's personal belongings, labelling some of them and locking them up in the blue room. The weather had been troubled for some days. Spots had been seen on the sun. There were magnetic disturbances, and on the night before the aurora had pulsed in the northern sky. When the sun was near to sinking there was a brilliant lower sky to the west, with a bank of rolling cloud above it like a thick thatch roof, and a shaft of golden light dipping down into the sea, as if an angel had opened a door in heaven. After the sun had gone a fiery red bar stretched across the sky, and there were low rumblings of thunder.

Pausing in his work to look out on the beach, Philip saw a man riding hard on horseback. It was a messenger from Government Offices. He drew up at the gate. A moment later the messenger was in Philip's room handing him a letter.

If anybody had seen the Deemster as he took that letter he must have thought it his death-warrant. A deadly pallor came to his face when he broke the seal of the envelope and drew out the contents. It was a commission from the Home Office. Philip was appointed Governor of the Isle of Man. ”My punishment, my punishment!” he thought. The higher he rose, the lower he had to fall. It was a cruel kindness, a painful distinction, an awful penalty. Truly the steps of this Calvary were steep. Would he ever ascend it?

The messenger was bowing and smirking before him. ”Thousand congratulations, your Excellency!”

”Thank you, my lad. Go downstairs. They'll give you something to eat.”

A moment later Jem-y-Lord came into the room on some pretence and hopped about like a bird. ”Yes, your Excellency--No, your Excellency--Quite so, your Excellency.”

Martha came next, and met Philip on the landing with a courageous smile and a courtesy. And the whole house, lately so dark and sad, seemed to lighten and to laugh, as when, after a sleepless night, you look, and lo! the daylight is on the blind; you listen and the birds are twittering in their cages below the stairs.

”_She_ will hear it too,” thought Philip.

He wrote her two lines of a letter, the first that he had penned since his illness--

”Keep up heart, dear; I will be with you soon.”

This, without signature or superscription, he put into an envelope, and addressed. Then he went out and posted it himself.

There was lightning as he returned. He felt as if he would like to wander away in it down to Port Mooar, and round by the caves, and under the cliffs, where the sea-birds scream.

XVI.

The night had fallen, and he was sitting in his room, when there was a clamour of loud voices in the hall. Some one was calling for the Deemster. It was Nancy Joe. She was newly returned from Sulby. Something had happened to Caesar, and n.o.body could control him.

”Go to him, your Honour,” she cried from the doorway. ”It's only yourself that has power with him, and we don't know in the world what's doing on the man. He's got a ram's horn at him, and is going blowing round the house like the mischief, calling on the Lord to bring it down, and saying it's the walls of Jericho.”