Sir Hall Caine

“ By the light of Danny's fire it was but too easy to see from whence they came. Jammed between two huge protruding horns of rock a fishing-boat was laboring hard in the heavy sea, rearing with a creak on the great waves, and plunging down with a crash and groan on the sharp teeth of the shoal beneath her.
The men on deck could be seen hacking at the mast to lighten her, and cutting away the gunwale forward to ease her off the horns that held her like a vise. But every fresh wave behind drove her head deeper into the cleft. The men shouted in mingled rage and fear. ”

“ The dapple-gray clouds that scudded across the leaden sky, the chill wind that scattered the salt spray and whistled along the gunwale of his boat, the mist, the scream of the sea-bird—all these spoke to his desolate heart in an inarticulate language that was answered by tears.
Poor Danny, a hurricane had uprooted the only idol of your soul, and for you the one flower of life, the flower of love, was torn up and withered forever!
Love? Yes, even the image of a happy love had at length stood up for one moment before his mind, even before his mind. ”

“ Christian answered the half-uttered question.
"Ruby is as much my daughter as Rachel was the daughter of Laban, and you are even now as much my wife as she was the wife of Jacob."
Mona glanced up into his face. "Can this be Christian?" she thought.
"Where one man sets himself apart for one woman," he continued, "there is true marriage, whether the mystic symbol of the Church be used or not. No; I've feared the world too long. I mean to face it now."
"I'm afraid I don't understand, Christian," answered Mona. "But surely to defy the world is foolishness, and marriage is a holy thing." ”

“ Mona's anxiety was greatest now that her hope seemed least. Rescue the men—Christian being one of them—she must, God helping her. Like a sorceress, whose charm has worked only too fatally, Mona's whole soul was engaged to break her own deadly spell. She conceived a means of escape, but she could not without help bring her design to bear. Would this lad help her? Danny? She had seen the agony of his despair wither up the last gleam of sunshine on his poor, helpless face.
"Did you say that Mr. Kinvig is to be with the men in the castle?" ”

“ Danny himself was thrown out on the shingle. "No use, man," shouted many voices, and the lad was compelled to desist.
The wind clamored louder every minute. Timbers cut away from the fishing-boat were swept up with every wave. The surf around the rocks was like snow. The water was beaten into seething foam around the boat also; between the billows the long swell was red with the reflection of the fire, but the sea was black as ink beyond the line of the Castle Isle, save where, at the farthest line of wave and sky, a streak of ashen light shone in the darkness. ”

“ Though clean and sweet, it is not even yet much of a place to look at with its nooks and corners, its blind lanes and dark alleys, its narrow, crooked, crabbed streets. Thirty-five years ago it was a poor little hungry fishing port, chill and cheerless enough, staring straight out over miles and miles of bleak sea. To the north of Peel stretches a broad shore; to the south lies the harbor with a rocky headland and bare mountain beyond. In front—divided from the mainland by a narrow strait—is a rugged island rock, on which stand the ruins of a castle. ”

“ A broad grin crossed the face of Kerruish Kinvig as he added:
"But I tell you what, when you get your white choker under your gills, and you do come down among the like of these people with your tracts, and your hymns, and all those rigs, and your face uncommon solemn, and your voice like a gannet—none of your sweethearting, my man. Look at that girl Mona, now. It isn't reasonable to think you're not putting notions into the girl's head. It's a shame, man."
"You're right, Mr. Kinvig," said Christian, under his breath, "a cursed shame." ”

“ After an hour had passed, Kisseck popped his head out of the hatchways, and cried, "Try the look-on."
The warp was hauled in until the first net was reached. It came up as black as coal, save for a dog-fish or two that had broken a mesh here and there.
"Too much moon to-night," said Kisseck; "they see the nets, and the 'cute they are extraordinary."
Half an hour later the moon went out behind a thick ridge of cloud that floated over the land. The sky became gray and leaden, and a rising breeze ruffled the sea. Some of the men on deck began to sing. ”

“ Mona could trace the line of white breakers around the Castle Isle. If a boat's sail came close to the coast, she could see that also. The darkness of the night might aid her. There was light enough for her movements, but too little for the movements of the four strangers behind her.
Mona saw the boat leave the shore that carried Kinvig and his four assistants across the strait to the castle. In a moment she lost it in the black shadow. Then she heard the grating of its keel on the shingle, and the clank of the little chain that moored it.
Now everything depended on Danny. ”

“ The tide was flowing and near the top. It never rose higher than four or five feet in this channel. A man might cross it if the swell did not sweep him back.
Through the boiling surf, piercingly cold, Christian struggled bravely. He was young and strong. He reached the boat at last. It was prancing like an unbroken horse. But waiting for a receding wave, he rushed in, laid firm hold of the first man at hand, and carried him back to the shore. The man had lain in his arms a dead weight. Was he dead indeed?
Mona stooped and looked into his face. "It is Danny Fayle," she cried. ”

“ As the lad was dragged over the gunwale the pistol dropped from his hand and fell with a splash into the sea. A word of explanation ensued, and once more they were standing out to sea, with their dread freight of horror and crime.
The wind was fresh outside. It was on their starboard quarter as they now made for the north. They saw the fire burning to leeward. It sent a long, red sinuous track of light across the black water that flowed between them and the land. Danny stood forward, never speaking, never spoken to, gazing fixedly at that sinuous track. ”

“ A soft boom came up to them from the sea, where the unruffled waters rested under the morning sun.
"Yes, we have both suffered," said Christian. "What I have suffered God knows. Yes, yes; the man who lives two lives knows what it is to suffer. Talk of crime! no need of that, as the good, goody, charitable world counts crime. Let it be only a hidden thing, that's enough. Only a secret, and yet how it kills the sunshine off the green fields!" Christian laughed—a hollow, hard, cynical laugh. ”

“ The idea of love had itself been hard to realize, but much harder to understand was the strange and solemn idea of unrequited passion. Twenty times had Mona tried in vain to convey this idea to his mind without doing violence to the tenderness of the lad's nature. But that which no artifice could achieve time itself accomplished. Danny began to stay away from the cottage on the "brew," and when, in pity for that unspeakable sorrow which Mona herself knew but too well, the girl asked him why he did not come up as often as before, he answered, "I'm thinking it's not me you're wanting up there." ”

“ Christian had swimming eyes and a big heart as he raised himself on to the topmost stay that crossed the shaft, and clutched the long tussacs of the clinging gorse. Then, at the last spring, he heard a creak—another—louder—the timbers were breaking beneath his feet. At the same moment he heard a half-stifled cry—saw a face—it was Mona's face—there was a breathless instant of bewildered consciousness. ”

“ At one moment, as they stood by the ruined end of the pier, and Danny's gorse fire glowed red over the Lockjaw Creek, and the moon broke through a black rain-cloud over the town, the sorrowing man turned calmly to Mona and said, with a strange resignation: "I will be quiet. Christian is dead. Surely I shall quiet myself as a child that is weaned of its mother. Yes, my soul is even as a weaned child."
Just then two of the police who had been on the cliff-head came up and spoke. ”

“ As he did so Mona and Christian came up. Christian stood opposite his father on the other side of the corpse; the old man on his knees, the son on his feet, the dead man between them.
The others stood around. None spoke. Then Mona, motioning Christian to silence, stepped up to Balladhoo and knelt beside him. It was better that he should realize the truth by degrees and not too suddenly. He would see the face, and know that it was not the face of his son. Mona, on her part, knew it would be Danny's face. And the boy was dead. The beating of her heart fell low. ”

“ Mona glanced sometimes at Danny's listless face as they walked together along the shore with the child between them. His look was dull and at certain moments even silly. Once she thought she saw a tear glistening in his eye, but he had turned his head away in an instant. There were moments when her heart bled for him. People thought her harsh and even cynical. "Aw, allis cowld and freezin' is the air she keeps about her," they would say. Perhaps some bitter experience of the past had not a little to do with this. Nothing so sure to petrify the warmer sensibilities as neglect and wrong. ”

“ He fell back with a low moan. But the good God sent the stricken old man the gift of tears. He wept aloud, and cried that he could better have borne poverty than such disgrace. "Oh, my son, my son! how have you shortened my days; how you have clothed me with shame; oh, my son, my son!" But love was uppermost even in that bitter hour.
It was not for this that Mona had made her way to Balladhoo. She wanted help. She must find where Christian was, and whether in truth he had been one of the four who passed her on the mountain-path.
Together she and Mylrea Balladhoo set off for Kisseck's cottage. ”

“ Thus despair took hold of them and drove all fear away. Each hard man, with despair seated on his rugged face, longed, like a sick child, to lay his head in the lap of home.
"What's it saying?" muttered the old man Quilleash, "'A green hill when far away; bare, bare when it is near.'"
It was some vague sense of their hopelessness that was floating through the old man's mind as he recalled the pathetic Manx proverb. The others looked down at the deck with a stony stare.
Danny still lay forward. ”

“ Christian had walked to the window. "Hark," he said, turning to Mona, "the wind is rising. What of those poor fellows outside?" The melancholy sough of the wind could be heard above the low moan of the distant sea. Mona thought of Danny, and the tears came again into her eyes.
It was time for the girl to return home. Christian put on his hat to accompany her, and when they left the house together he laughed, dejected though he was, at the bewildered look on the face of Kerruish Kinvig as he glanced in stupid silence from Balladhoo to them, and from them back to Balladhoo. ”

“ The harbor-master shook his head, apparently more in sorrow than in anger, and whispered Bill Kisseck that, as "the good ould book" says, "Bad is the man that has never no music in his sowl."
It was one of Tommy-Bill-beg's peculiarities of mental twist that he was full of quotations, and never by any chance failed to misascribe, misquote, and misapply them.
The fishing-boats were rolling gently with the motion of the rising tide. ”

“ Kisseck and his men had gone. They were no doubt out at sea by this time if, as the police said, the boats had been taken from the creek. Christian remembered now that the voices he had heard first were those of Corteen and Danny Fayle. This recovered consciousness enabled him to recall the fearful memory of what had been said. Cold as he was, the sweat stood in big drops on Christian's forehead. One of their own men was dead; one of the companions in this night's black adventure. A bad man perhaps, or perhaps merely a weak victim, but his own associate, whatever else he had been. ”

“ And now the anguish of the girl was not less than that of the old man himself. Where was Christian? Did he know what Kisseck had done? It must have been Kisseck. But God would punish him. Had Christian gone out to sea?
Mona set off for the Lockjaw Creek, thinking that some trace of Christian might perhaps be found there.
She took the high path. The sun had risen, and the gorse fire burned blue. When she came by the mouth of the old mine she was thinking both of Danny and of Christian. "He will be cold now; he will be in heaven," she muttered to herself. ”

“ What's a magistrate for at all if private people are to be moidered like yonder? But come, I'll show you the sweet action of this loom in unwinding. Look now—see—keep your eye on those hooks."
And Kerruish Kinvig rattled on with his explanation to a deaf ear.
"Mr. Kinvig," interrupted Christian, "I happened to know that father is not risen yet this morning. That bailiff—"
"More shame for him; let him be roused anyhow. See here, though, press your hand on that level—so. Now when Mona puts down that other level—do you see? No! Why don't you look closer?" ”

“ But over these indications of poverty there was an extraordinary display of curious wealth. The little window behind Christian in his "elber-chair" was glazed with a rich piece of stained glass that had the Madonna and child for subject. The elbow-chair itself was of old oak deeply carved and bound with clamps of engraved brass. Bill Kisseck, who by virtue of his office sat at the opposite end of the table, occupied a small settee covered with gorgeous crimson velvet. On the mantelpiece were huddled in luxurious confusion sundry brass censers, medieval lamps, and an ivory crucifix. ”

“ Gilded by the sun's rays, the waters to the west made a floor of bleared red. The fishing-boat had drifted nearly ten miles to the south. If she should drift two miles more she must float into the southeasterly current that flows under Contrary Head. The crew lay half-frozen on the deck. No one cared to go below. All was still around them, and silence was in their midst. At last a man lifted his head, and asked if any one could say what had become of Christian. No one knew. Old Quilleash thought he must have come by some mischief, and perhaps be captured or even dead. ”

“ As Mona stood at the angle of the mountain-path and the road leading to the door of Kisseck's cottage, she saw four men pass her and run into the house. She recognized Danny and his uncle, but not Christian. Perhaps the darkness deceived her, but she thought the other two were Corteen and Killip. After a few minutes she heard loud voices from the cottage, mingled with terrific oaths. If the police returned suddenly, and were made witnesses of this turmoil, discovery and conviction were certain. Mona crept up, meaning to warn the men and get them to put out to sea. ”

“ They had placed the body of the master by the hatchways, and again and again they turned their heads toward it in the darkness. It was as though the body might even yet stand up in their midst, and any man at any moment might find it face to face with him, eye to eye. The certainty that it was dead had not taken hold of all of them. It still bled, and one of the crew, Quilleash, an old man reputed to possess a charm to stop blood, knelt down beside Kisseck, and whispered in his ear. ”

“ In a large room facing the sea a dozen hand-looms for the manufacture of drift-nets had been set up. Each loom was worked by a young woman, and she had three levers to keep in action—one with the hand and the others with the feet.
Kinvig explained, with all the ardor of an enthusiast, the manifold advantage of the new loom over the old one with which Christian was familiar; dwelt on the knots, the ties and the speed; exhibited a new reel for the unwinding of the cotton thread from the skein, and described a new method of barking when the nets come off the looms. ”