The Deemster Part 63

"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 h.o.r.n.y 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 G.o.d 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.