Before he had been five days in Michael and on the Curraghs the sickness began to abate. The deaths were fewer, and some of the sick rose from their beds. Then the people plied him with many questions, and would have overwhelmed him with their rude gratitude. To their questions he gave few answers, and when they thanked him he turned and left them.
They said that their Bishop, who was grown feeble, the good ould angel, thought it strange that he had not yet visited him. To this he answered briefly that before leaving the parish he would go to Bishop's Court.
They told him that Mistress Mona, daughter of the Deemster that was, bad cess to him, had been seeking him high and low. At this his lip trembled, and he bent his head.
"The good man's face plagues me mortal," said old Billy-the-Gawk. "Whiles I know it, and other whiles I don't."
VII
Only another day did the stranger remain in Michael, but the brief times was full of strange events. The night closed in before seven o'clock. It was then very dark across the mountains, and the sea lay black beyond the cliffs, but the Curraghs were dotted over with the many fires which had been kindled about the infected houses.
Within one of these houses, the home of Jabez Gawne, the stranger stood beside the bed of a sick woman, the tailor's wife. Behind him there were anxious faces. Davy Fayle, always near him, leaned against the door-jamb by the porch.
And while the stranger wrapped the sweltering sufferer in hot blankets, other sufferers sent to him to pray of him to come to them. First there came an old man to tell of his grandchild, who had been smitten down that day, and she was the last of his kin whom the Sweat had left alive. Then a woman, to say that her husband, who had started again with the boats but yesterday, had been brought home to her that night with the sickness. He listened to all who came, and answered quietly, "I will go."
At length a young man ran in and said, "The Dempster's down. He's shouting for you, sir. He sent me hot-foot to fetch you."
The stranger listened as before, and seemed to think rapidly for a moment, for his under lip trembled, and was drawn painfully inward. Then he answered as briefly as ever, and with as calm a voice, "I will go."
The man ran back with his answer, but presently returned, saying, with panting breath, "He's rambling, sir; raving mad, sir; and shouting that he must be coming after you if you're not for coming to him."
"We will go together," the stranger said, and they went out immediately. Davy Fayle followed them at a few paces.
VIII
Through the darkness of that night a woman, young and beautiful, in cloak and hood like a nun's, walked from house to house of the Curraghs, where the fires showed that the sickness was still raging. It was Mona. These three days past she had gone hither and thither, partly to tend the sick people, partly in hope of meeting the strange man who had come to cure them. Again and again she had missed him, being sometimes only a few minutes before or after him.
Still she passed on from house to house, looking for him as she went in at every fresh door, yet half dreading the chance that might bring them face to face.
She entered the house where he had received her father's message almost on the instant when he left it. The three men had gone by her in the darkness.
Jabez, the tailor, who sat whimpering in the ingle, told her that the priest had that moment gone off to Ballamona, where the Dempster that was – hadn't she heard the newses? – was new down with the Sweat.
Her delicate face whitened at that, and after a pause she turned to follow. But going back to the hearth, she asked if the stranger had been told that the Bishop wanted to see him. Jabez told her yes, and that he had said he would go up to Bishop's Court before leaving the parish.
Then another question trembled on her tongue, but she could not utter it. At last she asked what manner of man the stranger was to look upon.
"Aw, big and sthraight and tall," said Jabez.
And Billy-the-Gawk, who sat at the opposite side of the ingle, being kin to Jabez's sick wife, said, "Ay, and quiet like, and solemn extraordinary."
"A wonderful man, wonderful, wonderful," said Jabez, still whimpering. "And wherever he comes the Sweat goes down before him with a flood."
"As I say," said Billy-the-Gawk, "the good man's face plagues me mortal. I can't bethink me where I've seen the like of it afore."
Mona's lips quivered at that word, and she seemed to be about to speak; but she said nothing.
"And the strong he is!" said Jabez: "I never knew but one man in the island with half the strength of arm as him."
Mona's pale face twitched visibly, and she listened as with every faculty.
"Who d'ye mane?" asked Billy-the-Gawk.
At that question there was a moment's silence between the men. Then each drew a long breath, dislodged a heavy burden from his throat, glanced significantly up at Mona, and looked into the other's face.
"Him," said Jabez, in a faint underbreath, speaking behind his hand.
"Him?"
Billy-the-Gawk straightened his crooked back, opened wide his rheumy eyes, pursed up his wizened cheeks, and emitted a low, long whistle.
"Lord A'mighty!"
For an instant Jabez looked steadily into the old mendicant's face, and then drew himself up in his seat —
"Lord a-massy!"
Mona's heart leaped to her mouth. She was almost beside herself with suspense, and felt an impulse to scream.
IX
Within a week after old Thorkell had conversed with the Bishop about the rumor that the wells had been charmed, his terror of the sickness had grown nigh to madness. He went to church no longer, but shut himself up in his house. Night and day his restless footstep could be heard to pass from room to room, and floor to floor. He ate little, and such was his dread of the water from his well that for three days together he drank nothing. At length, burning from thirst, he went up the Dhoon Glen and drank at a pool, going down on hands and knees to lap the water like a dog. Always he seemed to be mumbling prayers, and when the bell of the church rang, no matter for what occasion, he dropped to his knees and prayed audibly. He forbade the servants of the house to bring him news of deaths, but waited and watched and listened at open doors for their conversation among themselves. At night he went to the front windows to look at the fires that were kindled about the infected houses on the Curraghs. He never failed to turn from that sight with bitter words. Such work was but the devil's play; it was making a mock of God, who had sent the sickness to revenge Himself on the island's guilty people. Thorkell told Jarvis Kerruish as much time after time. Jarvis answered contemptuously, and Thorkell retorted angrily. At length they got to high words, and Jarvis flung away.
One morning Thorkell called for Hommy-beg. They told him that Hommy had been nursing his wife. The blind woman was now dead, and Hommy was burying her. At this Thorkell's terror was appalling to look upon. All night long he had been telling himself that he despised the belief in second sight, but that he would see if Kerry pretended to know whether he himself was to outlive the scourge. No matter, the woman was dead. So much the better!
Later the same day, Thorkell remembered that somewhere on the mountains there lived an old farmer who was a seer and bard. He would go to see the old charlatan. Yes, he would amuse himself with the superstition that aped religion. Thorkell set out, and found the bard's lonely house far up above the Sherragh Vane. In a corner of the big fireplace the old man sat, with a black shawl bound about his head and tied under his chin. He was past eighty years of age, and his face was as old a face as Thorkell had ever looked upon. On his knee a young child was sitting, and two or three small boys were playing about his feet. A brisk middle-aged woman was stirring the peats and settling the kettle on the chimney-hook. She was the old man's wife, and the young brood were the old man's children.
Thorkell began to talk of carvals, and said he had come to hear some of them. The old bard's eyes brightened. He had written a carol about the sickness. From the "lath" he took a parchment pan, full of papers that were worn, thumb-marked, and greasy. From one of these papers he began to read, and Thorkell tried to listen. The poem was an account of a dream. The dreamer had dreamt that he had gone into a church. There was a congregation gathered, and a preacher was in the pulpit. But when the preacher prayed the dreamer heard nothing of God. At length he discovered that it was a congregation of the dead in the region of the damned. They had all died of the Sweat. Every man of them had been warned by wise men and women in this world. The congregation sang a joyless psalm, and when their service was done they began to break up. Then the dreamer recognized some whom he had known in the flesh. Among them was one who had killed his own son, and he was afflicted with a burning thirst. To this unhappy man the dreamer offered a basin of milk-and-water, but the damned soul could not get the basin to his parched lips, struggle as he might to lift it in his stiff arms.
At first Thorkell listened with the restless mind of a man who had come on better business, and then with a feverish interest. The sky had darkened since he entered the house, and while the old bard chanted in his sing-song voice, and the children made their clatter around his feet, a storm of heavy rain pelted against the window-pane.
The ballad ended in the grim doggerel of a harrowing appeal to the sinner to shun his evil courses:
"O sinner, see your dangerous state,
And think of hell ere 'tis too late;
When worldly cares would drown each thought,
Pray call to mind that hell is hot.
Still to increase your godly fears
Let this be sounding in your ears,
Still bear in mind that hell is hot,
Remember, and forget it not."
Thus, with a swinging motion of the body, the old bard of the mountains chanted this rude song on the dangers of damnation. Thorkell leaped up from the settle and sputtered out an expression of contempt. What madness was this? If he had his way he would clap all superstitious people into the Castle.
The next morning, when sitting down to breakfast, Thorkell told Jarvis Kerruish that he had three nights running dreamt the same dream, and it was a terrible one. Jarvis laughed in his face, and said he was a foolish old man. Thorkell answered with heat, and they parted on the instant, neither touching food. Toward noon Thorkell imagined he felt feverish, and asked for Jarvis Kerruish; but Jarvis was at his toilet and would not be disturbed. At five o'clock the same day Thorkell was sweating from every pore, and crying lustily that he had taken the sickness. Toward seven he ordered the servant – a young man named Juan Caine, who had come to fill Hommy's place – to go in search of the Romish priest, Father Dalby.
When the stranger came, the young man opened the door to him, and whispered that the old master's wits were gone. "He's not been wise these two hours," the young man said, and then led the way to Thorkell's bedroom. He missed the corridor, and the stranger pointed to the proper door.
Thorkell was sitting up in his bed. His clothes had not been taken off, but his coat – a blue coat, laced – and also his long yellow vest were unbuttoned. His wig was perched on the top of a high-backed chair, and over his bald head hung a torn piece of red flannel. His long hairy hands, with the prominent blue veins, crawled over the counterpane. His eyes were open very wide. When he saw the stranger he was for getting out of bed.
"I am not ill," he said; "it's folly to think that I've taken the sickness. I sent for you to tell you something that you should know."
Then he called to the young man to bring him water. "Juan, water!" he cried; "Juan, I say, more water."
He turned to the stranger. "It's true I'm always athirst, but is that any proof that I have taken the sickness? Juan, be quick – water!"
The young man brought a pewter pot of cold water, and Thorkell clutched at it, but as he was stretching his neck to drink, his hot lips working visibly, and his white tongue protruding, he drew suddenly back. "Is it from the well?" he asked.
The stranger took the pewter out of his hands, unlocking his stiff fingers with his own great bony ones. "Make the water hot," he said to the servant.
Thorkell fell back to his pillow, and the rag of red blanket dropped from his bald crown. Then he lifted himself on one elbow and began again to talk of the sickness. "You have made a mistake," he said. "It is not to be cured. It is God's revenge on the people of this sinful island. Shall I tell you for what offense? For superstition. Superstition is the ape of religion. It is the reproach of God. Juan! Juan, I say, help me off with this coat. And these bedclothes also. Why are there so many? It's true, sir – Father, is it? – it's true, Father, I'm hot, but what of that? Water! Juan, more water – Glen water, Juan!"
The stranger pushed Thorkell gently back, and covered him closely from the air.
"As I say, it is superstition, sir," said Thorkell again. "I would have it put down by law. It is the curse of this island. What are those twenty-four Keys doing that they don't stamp it out? And the clergy – what are they wrangling about now, that they don't see to it? I'll tell you how it is, sir. It is this way. A man does something, and some old woman sneezes. Straightway he thinks himself accursed, and that what is predicted must certainly come about. And it does come about. Why? Because the man himself, with his blundering, doddering fears, brings it about. He brings it about himself – that's how it is! And then every old woman in the island sneezes again."
Saying this, Thorkell began to laugh, loudly, frantically, atrociously. Jarvis Kerruish had entered while he was running on with his tirade. The stranger did not lift his eyes to Jarvis, but Jarvis looked at him attentively.
When Thorkell had finished his hideous laugh, he turned to Jarvis and asked if superstition was not the plague of the island, and if it ought not to be put down by law. Jarvis curled his lips for answer, but his form of contempt was lost on old Thorkell's dim eyes.
"Have we not often agreed that it is so?" said Thorkell.
"And that you," said Jarvis, speaking slowly and bitterly, "are the most superstitious man alive."
"What? what?" Thorkell cried.
The stranger lifted his face, and looked steadily into Jarvis's eyes. "You," he said, calmly, "have some reason to say so."
Jarvis reddened, turned about, stepped to the door, glanced back at the stranger, and went out of the room.
Thorkell was now moaning on the pillow. "I am all alone," he said; and he fell to a bout of weeping.
The stranger waited until the hysterical fit was over, and then said, "Where is your daughter?"
"Ah!" said Thorkell, dropping his red eyes.
"Send for her."
"I will. Juan, go to Bishop's Court. Juan, I say, run fast and fetch Mistress Mona. Tell her that her father is ill."
As Thorkell gave this order Jarvis Kerruish returned to the room.
"No!" said Jarvis, lifting his hand against the young man.
"No?" cried Thorkell.
"If this is my house, I will be master in it," said Jarvis.
"Master! your house! yours!" Thorkell cried; and then he fell to a fiercer bout of hysterical curses. "Bastard, I gave you all! But for me you would be on the roads – ay, the dunghill!"
"This violence will avail you nothing," said Jarvis, with hard constraint. "Mistress Mona shall not enter this house."
Jarvis placed himself with his back to the door. The stranger stepped up to him, laid one powerful hand on his arm, and drew him aside. "Go for Mistress Mona," he said to the young man. "Knock at the door on your return. I will open it."
The young man obeyed the stranger. Jarvis stood a moment looking blankly into the stranger's face. Then he went out of the room.
Thorkell was whimpering on the pillow. "It is true," he said, with laboring breath, "though I hate superstition and loathe it, I was once its victim – once only. My son Ewan was killed by my brother's son, Dan. They loved each other like David and Jonathan, but I told Ewan a lie, and they fought, and Ewan was brought home dead. Yes, I told a lie, but I believed it then. I made myself believe it. I listened to some old wife's balderdash, and thought it true. And Dan was cut off – that is to say, banished, excommunicated; worse, worse. But he's dead now. He was found dead in the snow." Again Thorkell tried to laugh, a poor despairing laugh that was half a cry. "Dead! They threatened me that he would push me from my place. And he is dead before me! So much for divination! But tell me – you are a priest – tell me if that sin will drag me down to – to – But then, remember, I believed it was true – yes, I – "
The stranger's face twitched, and his breathing became quick.
"And it was you who led the way to all that followed" he said, in a subdued voice.
"It was; it was – "
The stranger had suddenly reached over the bed and taken Thorkell by the shoulders. At the next instant he had relinquished his hard grasp, and was standing upright as before, and with as calm a face. And Thorkell went jabbering on:
"These three nights I have dreamt a fearful dream. Shall I tell you what it was? Shall I? I thought Dan, my brother's son, arose out of his grave, and came to my bedside, and peered into my face. Then I thought I shrieked and died; and the first thing I saw in the other world was my son Ewan, and he peered into my face also, and told me that I was damned eternally. But, tell me, don't you think it was only a dream? Father! Father! I say, tell me – "
Thorkell was clambering up by hold of the stranger's coat.
The stranger pushed him gently back.
"Lie still; lie still – you, too, have suffered much," he said. "Lie quiet – God is merciful."
Just then Jarvis Kerruish entered, in wild excitement. "Now I know who this man is," he said, pointing to the stranger.
"Father Dalby," said Thorkell.
"Pshaw! – it is Dan Mylrea."
Thorkell lifted himself stiffly on his elbow, and rigidly drew his face closely up to the stranger's face, and peered into the stranger's eyes. Then he took a convulsive hold of the stranger's coat, shrieked, and fell back on to the pillow.
At that moment there was a loud knocking at the door below. The stranger left the room. In the hall a candle was burning. He put it out. Then he opened the door. A woman entered. She was alone. She passed him in the darkness without speaking. He went out of the house and pulled the door after him.
X
An hour later than this terrible interview, wherein his identity (never hidden by any sorry masquerade) was suddenly revealed, Daniel Mylrea, followed closely at his heels by Davy Fayle, walked amid the fires of the valley to Bishop's Court. He approached the old house by the sea-front, and went into its grounds by a gate that opened on a footpath to the library through a clump of elms. Sluggish as was Davy's intellect, he reflected that this was a path that no stranger could know.
The sky of the night had lightened, and here and there a star gleamed through the thinning branches overhead. In a faint breeze the withering leaves of the dying summer rustled slightly. On the meadow before the house a silvery haze of night-dew lay in its silence. Sometimes the croak of a frog came from the glen; and from the sea beyond (though seemingly from the mountains opposite) there rose into the air the rumble of the waves on the shore.
Daniel Mylrea passed on with a slow, strong step, but a secret pain oppressed him. He was walking on the ground that was dear with a thousand memories of happy childhood. He was going back for some brief moments that must be painful and joyful, awful and delicious, to the house which he had looked to see no more. Already he was very near to those who were very dear to him, and to whom he, too – yes, it must be so – to whom he, too, in spite of all, must still be dear. "Father, father," he whispered to himself. "And Mona, my Mona, my love, my love." Only the idle chatter of the sapless leaves answered to the yearning cry of his broken spirit.
He had passed out of the shade of the elms into the open green of the meadow with the stars above it, when another voice came to him. It was the voice of a child singing. Clear and sweet, and with a burden of tenderness such as a child's voice rarely carries, it floated through the quiet air.
Daniel Mylrea passed on until he came by the library window, which was alight with a rosy glow. There he stood for a moment and looked into the room. His father, the Bishop, was seated in the oak chair that was clamped with iron clamps. Older he seemed to be, and with the lines a thought deeper on his massive brow. On a stool at his feet, with one elbow resting on the apron in front of him, a little maiden sat, and she was singing. A fire burned red on the hearth before them. Presently the Bishop rose from his chair, and went out of the room, walking feebly, and with drooping head.
Then Daniel Mylrea walked round to the front of the house and knocked. The door was opened by a servant whose face was strange to him. Everything that he saw was strange, and yet everything was familiar. The hall was the same but smaller, and when it echoed to his foot a thrill passed through him.
He asked for the Bishop, and was led like a stranger through his father's house to the door of the library. The little maiden was now alone in the room. She rose from her stool as he entered, and, without the least reserve, stepped up to him and held out her hand. He took her tender little palm in his great fingers, and held it for a moment while he looked into her face. It was a beautiful child-face, soft and fair and oval, with a faint tinge of olive in the pale cheeks, and with yellow hair – almost white in the glow of the red fire – falling in thin tresses over a full, smooth forehead.
He sat and drew her closer to him, still looking steadily into her face. Then, in a tremulous voice he asked her what her name was, and the little maiden, who had shown no fear at all, nor any bashfulness, answered that her name was Aileen.
"But they call me Ailee," she added, promptly; "everybody calls me Ailee."
"Everybody? Who?"
"Oh, everybody," she answered, with a true child's emphasis.
"Your mother?"
She shook her head.
"Your – your – perhaps – your – "
She shook her head more vigorously.
"I know what you're going to say, but I've got none," she said.
"Got none?" he repeated.
The little maiden's face took suddenly a wondrous solemnity, and she said, "My father died a long, long, long time ago – when I was only a little baby."
His lips quivered, and his eyes fell from her face.
"Such a long, long while ago – you wouldn't think. And auntie says I can't even remember him."
"Auntie?"
"But shall I tell you what Kerry said it was that made him die? – shall I? – only I must whisper – and you won't tell auntie, will you? – because auntie doesn't know – shall I tell you?"
His quivering lips whitened, and with trembling hands he drew aside the little maiden's head that her innocent eyes might not gaze into his face.
"How old are you, Ailee ven?" he asked, in a brave voice.
"Oh, I'm seven – and auntie, she's seven too; auntie and I are twins."
"And you can sing, can you not? Will you sing for me?"
"What shall I sing?"
"Anything, sweetheart – what you sang a little while since."
"For grandpa?"
"Grandpa?"
"Kerry says no, it's uncle, not grandpa. But that's wrong," with a look of outraged honor; "and besides, how should Kerry know? It's not her grandpa, is it? Do you know Kerry?" Then the little face saddened all at once. "Oh, I forgot —poor Kerry."
"Poor Kerry?"
"I used to go and see her. You go up the road, and then on and on and on until you come to some children, and then on and on and on until you get to a little boy – and then you're there."
"Won't you sing, sweetheart?"
"I'll sing grandpa's song."
"Grandpa's?"
"Yes, the one he likes."
Then the little maiden's dimpled face smoothened out, and her simple eyes turned gravely upward as she began to sing:
"O, Myle Charaine, where got you your gold?
Lone, lone, you have left me here.
O, not in the curragh, deep under the mold,
Lone, lone, and void of cheer."
It was the favorite song of his own boyish days; and while the little maiden sang it seemed to the crime-stained man who gazed through a dim haze into her cherub face, that the voice of her dead father had gone into her voice. He listened while he could, and when the tears welled up to his eyes, with his horny hands he drew her fair head down to his heaving breast, and sobbed beneath his breath, "Ailee ven, Ailee ven."
The little maiden stopped in her song to look up in bewilderment at the bony, wet face that was stooping over her.
At that moment the door of the room opened, and the Bishop entered noiselessly. A moment he stood on the threshold, with a look of perplexity. Then he made a few halting steps, and said:
"My eyes are not what they were, sir, and I see there is no light but the firelight; but I presume you are the good Father Dalby?" Daniel Mylrea fell to his knees at the Bishop's feet.
"I come from him," he answered.
"Is he not coming himself?"
"He can not come. He charged me with a message to you."
"You are very welcome. My niece will be home presently. Be seated, sir."
Daniel Mylrea did not sit, but continued to stand before his father, with head held down. After a moment he spoke again.
"Father Dalby," he said, "is dead."
The Bishop sunk to his chair. "When – when – "
"He died the better part of a month ago."
The Bishop rose to his feet.
"He was in this island but yesterday."
"He bade me tell you that he had fulfilled his pledge to you and come to the island, but died by the visitation of God the same night whereon he landed here."
The Bishop put one hand to his forehead.
"Sir," he said, "my hearing is also failing me, for, as you see, I am an old man now, and besides, I have had trouble in my time. Perhaps, sir, I did not hear you aright?"
Then Daniel Mylrea told in few words the story of the priest's accident and death, and how the man at whose house he died had made bold to take the good priest's mission upon himself.
The Bishop listened with visible pain, and for a while said nothing. Then, speaking in a faltering voice, with breath that came quickly, he asked who the other man had been. "For the good man has been a blessing to us," he added, nervously.
To this question there was no reply, and he asked again:
"Who?"
"Myself."
The Bishop lifted with trembling fingers his horn-bridged spectacles to his eyes.
"Your voice is strangely familiar," he said. "What is your name?"
Again there was no answer.
"Give me your name, sir – that I may pray of God to bless you."
Still there was no answer.
"Let me remember it in my prayers."
Then in a breaking voice Daniel Mylrea replied:
"In your prayers my poor name has never been forgotten."
At that the Bishop tottered a pace backward.
"Light," he said, faintly. "More light."
He touched a bell on the table, and sank quietly into his chair. Daniel Mylrea fell to his knees at the Bishop's feet.
"Father," he said in a fervent whisper, and put his lips to the Bishop's hand.
The door was opened, and a servant entered with candles. At the same moment Daniel Mylrea stepped quickly out of the room.
Then the little maiden leaped from the floor to the Bishop's side.
"Grandpa, grandpa! Oh, what has happened to grandpa?" she cried.
The Bishop's head had dropped into his breast and he had fainted. When he opened his eyes in consciousness Mona was bathing his forehead and damping his lips.
"My child," he said, nervously, "one has come back to us from the dead."
And Mona answered him with the thought that was now uppermost in her mind:
"Dear uncle," she said, "my poor father died half an hour ago."