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The Manxman: A Novel, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 6. Man And God - Chapter 22 |
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_ PART VI. MAN AND GOD CHAPTER XXII It was remarked that his face was fearfully worn, and that it looked the whiter for the white wig above it and the black gown beneath. His large eyes flamed as with fire. "The sword too keen for the scabbard," whispered somebody. There is a kind of aloofness in strong men at great moments. Nobody approaches them. They move onward of themselves, and stand or fall alone. Everybody in court rose as Philip entered, but no one offered his hand. Even the ex-Governor only bowed from the Governor's seat under the canopy. Philip took his customary place as Deemster. He was then at the right of the Governor, the Bishop being on the left. Behind the bishop sat the Attorney-General, and behind Philip the Clerk of the Rolls. The cheers that had greeted Philip on his entrance ended with the clapping of hands, and died off like a wave falling back from the shingle. Then he rose and turned to the Governor. "I do not know if you are aware, your Excellency, that this is Deemster's Court-day?" The Governor smiled, and a titter went round the court. "We will dispense with that," he said. "We have better business this morning." 34 "Excuse me, your Excellency," said Philip; "I am still Deemster. With your leave we will do everything according to rule." There was a slight pause, a questioning look, then a cold answer. "Of course, if you wish it; but your sense of duty----" The ladies in the galleries bad ceased to flutter their fans, and the members of the House of Keys were shifting in their seats in the well below. The Clerk of the Deemster's Court pushed through to the space beneath the bench. "There is only one case, your Honour," he whispered up. "Speak out, sir," said Philip. "What case is it?" The Clerk gave an informal answer. It was the case of the young woman who had attempted her life at Ramsey, and had been kept at Her Majesty's pleasure. "How long has she been in prison?"--"Seven weeks, your Honour." "Give me the book and I will sign the order for her release." The book was handed to the bench. Philip signed it, handed it back to the Clerk, and said with his face to the jailor-- "But keep her until somebody comes to fetch her." There had been a cold silence during these proceedings. When they were over, the ladies breathed freely. "You remember the case--left her husband and little child--divorced since, I'm told--a worthless person."--"Ah! yes, wasn't she first tried the day the Deemster fell ill in court?"--"Men are too tender with such creatures." Philip had risen again. "Your Excellency, I have done the last of my duties as Deemster." His voice had hoarsened. He was a worn and stricken figure. The ex Governor's warmth had been somewhat cooled by the unexpected interruption. Nevertheless, the pock-marks smoothed out of his forehead, and he rose with a smile. At the same moment the Clerk of the Rolls stepped up and laid two books on the desk before him--a New Testament in a tattered leather binding, and the _Liber Juramentorum_, the Book of Oaths. "The regret I feel," said the ex-Governor, "and feel increasingly, day by day, at the severance of the ties which have bound me to this beautiful island is tempered by the satisfaction I experience that the choice of my successor has fallen upon one whom I know to be a gentleman of powerful intellect and stainless honour. He will preserve that autonomous independence which has come down to you from a remote antiquity, at the same time that he will uphold the fidelity of a people who have always been loyal to the Crown. I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may attend his administration, and that, if the time ever comes when he too shall stand in the position I occupy to-day, he may have recollections as lively of the support and kindness he has met with, and regrets as deep at his separation from the little Manx nation which he leaves behind." Then the Governor took the staff of office, and gave the signal for rising. Everybody rose. "And now, sir," he said, turning to Philip with a smile, "to do everything, as you say, according to rule, let us first take Her Majesty's commission of your appointment." There was a moment's pause, and then Philip said in a cold clear voice-- "Your Excellency, I have no commission. The commission which I received I have returned. I have, therefore, no right to be installed as Governor. Also, I have resigned my office as Deemster, and, though my resignation has not yet been accepted, I am, in reality, no longer in the service of the State." The people looked at the speaker with eyes that were full of the stupefaction of surprise. Somebody bad risen at the back of the bench. It was the Clerk of the Rolls. He stretched out his hand as if to touch Philip on the shoulder. Then he hesitated and sat down again. "Gentlemen of the Council and of the Keys," continued Philip, "you will think you have assembled to see a man take a leap into an abyss more dark than death. That is as it may be. You have a right to an explanation, and I am here to make it. What I have done has been at the compulsion of conscience. I am not worthy of the office I hold, still less of the office that is offered me." There was a half-articulate interruption from behind Philip's chair. "Ah! do not think, old friend, that I am dealing in vague self depreciation. I should have preferred not to speak more exactly, but what must be, must be. Your Excellency has spoken of my honour as spotless. Would to God it were so; but it is deeply stained with sin." He stopped, made an effort to begin afresh, and stopped again. Then, in a low tone, with measured utterance, amid breathless silence, he said-- "I have lived a double life. Beneath the life that you have seen there has been another--God only knows how full of wrongdoing and disgrace and shame. It is no part of my duty to involve others in this confession. Let it be enough that my career has been built on falsehood and robbery, that I have deceived the woman who loved me with her heart of hearts, and robbed the man who would have trusted me with his soul." The people began to breathe audibly. There was the scraping of a chair behind the speaker. The Clerk of the Rolls had risen. His florid face was violently agitated. "May it please your Excellency," he began, faltering and stammering, in a husky voice, "it will be within your Excellency's knowledge, and the knowledge of every one on the island, that his Honour has only just risen from a long and serious illness, brought on by overwork, by too zealous attention to his duties, and that--in fact, that--well, not to blink the plain truth, that----" A sigh of immense relief had passed over the court, and the Governor, grown very pale, was nodding in assent. But Philip only smiled sadly and shook his head. "I have been ill indeed," he said, "but not from the cause you speak of. The just judgment of God has overtaken me." The Clerk of the Rolls sank back into his seat. "The moment came when I had to sit in judgment on my own sin, the moment when she who had lost her honour in trusting to mine stood in the dock before me. I, who had been the first cause of her misfortunes, sat on the bench as her judge. She is now in prison and I am here. The same law which has punished her failing with infamy has advanced me to power." There was an icy quiet in the court, such as comes with the first gleam of the dawn. By that quick instinct which takes possession of a crowd at great moments, the people understood everything--the impurity of the character that had seemed so pure, the nullity of the life that had seemed so noble. "When I asked myself what there was left to me to do, I could see but one thing. It was impossible to go on administering justice, being myself unjust, and remembering that higher bar before which I too was yet to stand. I must cease to be Deemster. But that was only my protection against the future, not my punishment for the past. I could not surrender myself to any earthly court, because I was guilty of no crime against earthly law. The law cannot take a man into the court of the conscience. He must take himself there." He stopped again, and then said quietly, "My sentence is this open confession of my sin, and renunciation of the worldly advantages which have been bought by the suffering of others." It was no longer possible to doubt him. He had sinned, and he had reaped the reward of his sin. Those rewards were great and splendid, but he had come to renounce them all. The dreams of ambition were fulfilled, the miracle of life was realised, the world was conquered and at his feet, yet he was there to give up all. The quiet of the court had warmed to a hush of awe. He turned to the bench, but every face was down. Then his own eyes fell. "Gentlemen of the Council, you who have served the island so long and so honourably, perhaps you blame me for permitting you to come together for the hearing of this confession. But if you knew the temptation I was under to fly away without making it, to turn my back on my past, to shuffle, my fault on to Fate, to lay the blame on Life, to persuade myself that I could not have acted differently, you would believe it was not lightly, and God knows, not vainly, that I suffered you to come here to see me mount my scaffold." He turned back to the body of the court. "My countrymen and countrywomen, you who have been so much more kind to me than my character justified or my conduct merited. I say good-bye; but not as one who is going away. In conquering the impulse to go without confessing, I conquered the desire to go at all. Here, where my old life has fallen to ruin, my new life must be built up. That is the only security. It is also the only justice. On this island, where my fall is known, my uprising may come--as is most right--only with bitter struggle and sorrow and tears. But when it comes, it will come securely. It may be in years, in many years, but I am willing to wait--I am ready to labour. And, meantime, she who was worthy of my highest honour will share my lowest degradation. That is the way of all women--God love and keep them!" The exaltation of his tones infected everybody. "It may be that you think I am to be pitied. There have been hours of my life when I have been deserving of pity. But they have been the hours, the dark hours, when, in the prodigality of your gratitude, you have loaded me with distinctions, and a shadow has haunted me, saying, 'Philip Christian, they think you a just judge--you are not a just judge; they think you an upright man--you are not an upright man.' Do not pity me now, when the dark hours are passed, when the new life has begun, when I am listening at length to the voice of my heart, which has all along been the voice of God." His eyes shone, his mouth was smiling. "If you think how narrowly I escaped the danger of letting things go on as they were going, of covering up my fault, of concealing my true character, of living as a sham and dying as a hypocrite, you will consider me worthy of envy instead. Good-bye! good-bye! God bless you!" Before any one appeared to be aware that his voice had ceased he was gone from the bench, and the Deemster's chair stood empty. Then the people turned and looked into each other's stricken faces. They were still standing, for nobody had thought of sitting down. There was no further speaking that day. Without a word or a sign the Governor descended from his seat and the proceedings came to an end. Every one moved towards the door. "A great price to pay for it, though," thought the men. "How he must have loved her, after all," thought the women. At that moment the big Queen Elizabeth clock of the Castle was striking twelve, and the fishermen on Irish waters were raising a cheer for their friend at home. A loud detonation rang out over the town. It was the report of a gun. There was another, and then a third. The shots were from a steamer that was passing the bay. Philip remembered--it was Pete's last farewell. _ |
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