As he spoke, the Deemster pointed contemptuously with the handle of his walking-cane to the thing that lay between them.
Then the hard tension of the people's silence was broken; they began to mutter among themselves and to propose and demur to something. They saw the Deemster's awful error, and that he thought the dead man was Dan.
The Bishop still stood immovable, with not the sign of a tear on his white face, but over it the skin was drawn hard.
"And let me tell you one thing more," said the Deemster. "Whoever he may be that brought matters to this pass, he shall not suffer. I will not lift a finger against him. The man who brings about his own death shall have the burden of it on his own head. The law will uphold me."
Then a hoarse murmur ran from lip to lip among the people who stood around, and one man, a burly fellow, nerved by the Deemster's error, pushed forward and said:
"Deemster, be merciful, as you hope for mercy; you don't know what you're saying."
At that the Deemster turned about hotly and brought down his walking-cane with a heavy blow on the man's breast.
The stalwart fellow took the blow without lifting a hand. "God help you! Deemster," he said, in a thick voice. "God help you! you don't know what you're doing. Go and look at it, Deemster. Go and look, if you've the heart for it. Look at it, man, and may the Lord have mercy on you, and on us all in our day of trouble, and may God forgive you the cruel words you've spoken to your own brother this day!"
There was then a great silence for a moment. The Deemster gazed in a sort of stupor into the man's face, and his stick dropped out of his hand. With a look of majesty and of suffering the Bishop stood at one side of the body, quiet, silent, giving no sign, seeing nothing but the thing at his feet, and hardly hearing the reproaches that were being hurled at him in the face of his people. The beating of his heart fell low.
There was a moment of suspense, and then, breathing rapid, audible breath, the Deemster stooped beside the body, stretched out a half-palsied hand, and drew aside the loose canvas, and saw the face of his own son Ewan.