But encircling everything was the figure of a man going round and round with great plunging strides, over the road, across the river, and through the mill-pond behind, blowing a horn in fierce, unearthly blasts, and crying in a voice of triumph and mockery, first to this worker and then to that, “No use, I tell thee. Thou can never put it out. It's fire from heaven. Didn't I say I'd bring it down?”
It was Cæsar. His eyes glittered, his mouth worked convulsively, and his cheeks were as black with the flying soot as the “colley” of the pot.
When he saw Philip, he came up to him with a terrible smile on his fierce black face, and, pointing to the house, he cried above the babel of voices, the roar of the thunder, and crackle of the fire, “An unclean spirit lived in it, sir. It has been tormenting me these ten years.”
He seemed to listen and to hear something. “That's it roaring,” he cried, and then he laughed with wild delight.
“Compose yourself, Mr. Cregeen,” said Philip, and he tried to take him by the arm.
But Cæsar broke away, blew a terrific blast on his ram's horn, and went striding round the house again. When he came back the next time there was a deep roll of thunder in the air, and he said, “It's the Ballawhaine. He had the stone five years, and he used to groan so.”
Again Philip entreated him to compose himself. It was useless. Round and round the burning house he went, blowing his horn, and calling on the workers to stop their ungodly labour, for the Lord had told him to blow down the walls of Jericho, and he had burnt them down instead.
The people began to be afraid of his frenzy. “They'll have to put the man in the Castle,” said one. “Or have him chained up in an outhouse,” said another. “They kept the Kirk Maug-hold lunatic fifteen years on the straw in the gable loft, and his children in the house grew up to be men and women.” “It's the girl that's doing on Cæsar. Shame on the daughters that bring ruin to their old fathers!”
Still Cæsar went careering round the fire, blowing his ram's horn and crying, “No use! It's the Lord God!”
The more the fire blazed, the more it resisted the efforts of the people to subdue it, the more fierce and unearthly were Cæsar's blasts and the more triumphant his cries.