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The Manxman: A Novel, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 6. Man And God - Chapter 16 |
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_ PART VI. MAN AND GOD CHAPTER XVI The night had fallen, and he was sitting in his room, when there was a clamour of loud voices in the hall. Some one was calling for the Deemster. It was Nancy Joe. She was newly returned from Sulby. Something had happened to Caesar, and nobody could control him. "Go to him, your Honour," she cried from the doorway. "It's only yourself that has power with him, and we don't know in the world what's doing on the man. He's got a ram's horn at him, and is going blowing round the house like the mischief, calling on the Lord to bring it down, and saying it's the walls of Jericho." Philip sent for a carriage, and set off for Sulby immediately. The storm had increased by this time. Loud peals of thunder echoed in the hills. Forks of lightning licked the trunks of the trees and ran like serpents along the branches. As they were going by the church at Lezayre, the coachman reached over from the box, and said, "There's something going doing over yonder, sir. See?" A bright gleam lit up the dark sky in the direction they were taking. At the turn of the road by the "Ginger," somebody passed them running. "What's yonder?" called the coachman. And a voice out of the darkness answered him, "The 'Fairy' is struck by lightning, and Caesar's gone mad." It was the fact. While Caesar in his mania had been blowing his ram's horn around his public-house under the delusion that it was Jericho, the lightning had struck it. The fire was past all hope of subduing. A great hole had been burnt into the roof, and the flames were leaping through it as through a funnel. All Sulby seemed to be on the spot. Some were dragging furniture out of the burning house; others were running with buckets to the river and throwing water on the blazing thatch. 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 Caesar. 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 Caesar 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 Caesar. Shame on the daughters that bring ruin to their old fathers!" Still Caesar 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 Caesar's blasts and the more triumphant his cries. At last Grannie stepped out and stopped him. "Come home, father," she whimpered. He looked at her with bewildered eyes, then he looked at the burning house, and he seemed to recover himself in a moment. "Come home, bogh," said Grannie tenderly. "I've got no home," said Caesar in a helpless way. "And I've got no money. The fire has taken all." "No matter, father," said Grannie. "We had nothing when we began; we'll begin again." Then Caesar fell to mumbling texts of Scripture, and Grannie to soothing him after her simple fashion. "'My soul is passing through deep waters. I am feeble and sore broken. Save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul, I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing.'" "Aw, no Caesar, we're on the road now. It's dry enough here, anyway." "'Many bulls have compassed me; great bulls of Bashan have beset me round. Save me from the lion's mouth; for Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorn.'" "Never mind the lion and the unicorn, father, but come and we'll change thy wet trousers." "'Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.'" "Aw, yes, we'll wash thee enough when we get to Ramsey. Come, then, bogh." He had dropped his ram's horn somewhere, and she took him by the hand. Then he suffered himself to be led away, and the two old children went off into the darkness. _ |
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