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He was making for the lane which goes down to the shore at the foot of Ballure Glen. "No denying it," he thought. "It must be true for all. The trouble in her head has driven her to it. Poor girl, poor darling!" He had been fighting against an awful idea, and the quagmire of despair had risen to his throat at last.
At the door of a draper's she got down from the gig, and told her father not to wait for her on going home. Cæsar moistened his forefinger and held it in the air a moment. "Then don't be late," said he, "there's weather coming." A few minutes afterwards she was walking rapidly up Ballure. Passing Ballure House, she found herself treading softly. It was like holy ground.
He was thinking of his grandfather, old Iron Christian, brought into relation with his mother's father, Capt. Billy Ballure, of the dainty gentility of Auntie Nan and the unctuous vulgarity of the father of Kate. Cæsar grumbled himself to sleep at last, and then Philip was alone with the girl, and riding on her side of the gig. She was quiet at first, but a joyous smile lit up her face.
Never heard that grandfather fainted on the bench? He did, though, and he didn't recover either. How well I remember it! Word broke over the town like a clap of thunder, 'The Deemster has fallen in the Court-house. Father heard it up at Ballure and ran down bareheaded. Grandfather's carriage was at the Courthouse door, and they brought him up to Ballawhaine.
Outside Ballure House there was a crowd which covered the garden, the fence, the high-road, and the top of the stone wall opposite. The band had ceased to play, and the people were shouting, clapping hands, and cheering. At the door which was open Philip stood bareheaded, and a shaft of the light in the house behind him lit up a hundred of the eager faces gathered in the darkness.
Oh, for what might have been! Useless regrets! Pull, pull, and forget. But the home of his childhood! Ballure Auntie Nan his father's death brightened by one hope the last, but ah! how vain! Port Mooar Pete, "The sea's calling me." Pull, pull! The sea was calling him indeed. Calling him to the deep womb that is death, not birth. He was far out.
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