Passing his people in the hall and on the stairs, where, tortured by suspense, bewildered, distracted, they put their doubts and rumors together, the Bishop went up to the little room above the library that had once been little Danny's room. The door was locked, but the key was where it had been for many a day—though Dan in his headstrong waywardness had known nothing of that—it was in the Bishop's pocket. Inside the muggy odor was of a chamber long shut up. The little bed was still in the corner, and its quilted counterpane lay thick in dust. Dust covered the walls, and the floor also, and the table under the window was heavy with it. Shutting himself in this dusty crib, the Bishop drew from under the bed a glass-covered case, and opened it, and lifted out one by one the things it contained. They were a child's playthings—a whip, a glass marble, a whistle, an old Manx penny, a tomtit's mossy nest with three speckled blue eggs in it, some pearly shells, and a bit of shriveled seaweed. And each poor relic as it came up awoke a new memory and a new grief, and the fingers trembled that held them. The sense of a boy's sport and a boy's high spirits, long dumb and dead, touched the old man to the quick within these heavy walls.
The Bishop replaced the glass-covered case, locked the room, and went down to his library. But the child ghost that lived in that gaunt old house did not keep to the crib upstairs. Into this book-clad room it followed the Bishop, with blue eyes and laughter on the red lips; with a hop, skip, and a jump, and a pair of spectacles perched insecurely on the diminutive nose.
Ten years had rolled back for the broken-hearted father that night, and Dan, who was lost to him in life, lived in his remembrance only as a beautiful, bright, happy, spirited, innocent child that could never grow older, but must be a child forever.
The Bishop could endure the old house no longer. It was too full of spectres. He would go out and tramp the roads the long night through. Up and down, up and down, through snow or rain, under the moonlight or the stars until the day dawned, and the pitiless sun should rise again over the heedless sleeping world.
CHAPTER XXIX
BY BISHOP'S LAW OR DEEMSTER'S
The Bishop had gone into the hall for his cloak and hat when he came face to face with the Deemster, who was entering the house. At sight of his brother his bewildered mind made some feeble efforts to brace itself up.
"Ah, is it you, Thorkell? Then you have come at last! I had given you up. But I am going out to-night. Will you not come into the library with me? But perhaps you are going somewhere?"
It was a painful spectacle, the strong brain of the strong man tottering visibly. The Deemster set down his hat and cane, and looked up with a cold, mute stare in answer to his brother's inconsequent questions. Then, without speaking, he went into the library, and the Bishop followed him with a feeble, irregular step, humming a lively tune—it was "Salley in our Alley"—and smiling a melancholy, jaunty, bankrupt smile.