CHAPTER XII
DAN'S PENANCE
Dan rose to his feet a sobered man, and went out of the smoky pot-house without a word to any one, and without lifting his bleared and bloodshot eyes unto any face. He took the lane to the shore, and behind him, with downcast eyes, like a dog at the heels of his master, Davy Fayle slouched along. When they reached the shore Dan turned toward Orris Head, walking within a yard or two of the water's edge. Striding over the sands, the past of his childhood came back to him with a sense of pain. He saw himself flying along the beach with Ewan and Mona, shouting at the gull, mocking the cormorant, clambering up the rocks to where the long-necked bird laid her spotted eggs, and the sea-pink grew under the fresh grass of the corries. Under the head Dan sat on a rock and lifted away his hat from his burning forehead; but not a breath of wind stirred his soft hair.
Dan rose again with a new resolve. He knew now what course he must take. He would go to the Deemster, confess to the outrage of which he had been guilty, and submit to the just punishment of the law. With quick steps he strode back over the beach, and Davy followed him until he turned up to the gates of the new Ballamona, and then the lad rambled away under the foot of Slieu Dhoo. Dan found the Deemster's house in a tumult. Hommy-beg was rushing here and there, and Dan called to him, but he waved his arm and shouted something in reply, whereof the purport was lost, and then disappeared. Blind Kerry was there, and when Dan spoke to her as she went up the stairs, he could gather nothing from her hurried answer except that some one was morthal bad, as the saying was, and in another moment she, too, had gone. Dan stood in the hall with a sense of impending disaster. What had happened? A dread idea struck him at that moment like a blow on the brain. The sweat started from his forehead. He could bear the uncertainty no longer, and had set foot on the stairs to follow the blind woman, when there was the sound of a light step descending. In another moment he stood face to face with Mona. She colored deeply, and his head fell before her.
"Is it Ewan?" he said, and his voice came like a hoarse whisper.
"No, his wife," said Mona.
It turned out that not long after daybreak that morning the young wife of Ewan, who had slept with Mona, had awakened with a start, and the sensation of having received a heavy blow on the forehead. She had roused Mona, and told her what seemed to have occurred. They had looked about and seen nothing that could have fallen. They had risen from bed and examined the room, and had found everything as it had been when they lay down. The door was shut and there was no hood above the bed. But Mona had drawn up the window blind, and then she had seen, clearly marked on the white forehead of Ewan's young wife, a little above the temple, on the spot where she had seemed to feel the blow, a streak of pale color such as might have been made by the scratch of a thorn that had not torn the skin. It had been a perplexing difficulty, and the girls had gone back to bed, and talked of it in whispers until they had fallen asleep in each other's arms. When they had awakened again, the Deemster was rapping at their door to say that he had taken an early breakfast, that he was going off to hold his court at Ramsey, and expected to be back at midday. Then half-timidly, Mona had told her father of their strange experience, but he had bantered them on their folly, and they had still heard his laughter when he had leaped to the saddle in front of the house, and was cantering away over the gravel. Reassured by the Deemster's unbelief, the girls had thrown off their vague misgivings, and given way to good spirits. Ewan's young wife had said that all morning she had dreamed of her husband, and that her dreams had been bright and happy. They had gone down to breakfast, but scarcely had they been seated at the table before they had heard the click of the gate from the road.
Then they had risen together, and Ewan had come up the path with a white bandage about his head, and with a streak of blood above the temple. With a sharp cry, Ewan's young wife had fallen to the ground insensible, and when Ewan himself had come into the house they had carried her back to bed. There she was at that moment, and from a peculiar delicacy of her health at the time, there was but too much reason to fear that the shock might have serious results.
All this Mona told to Dan from where she stood, three steps up the stairs, and he listened with his head held low, one hand gripping the stair-rail, and his foot pawing the mat at the bottom. When she finished, there was a pause, and then there came from overhead a long, deep moan of pain.
Dan lifted his face; its sudden pallor was startling. "Mona," he said, in a voice that was husky in his throat, "do you know who struck Ewan that blow?"