CHAPTER XXXII DIVINATION Well satisfied with this day's work the Deemster drove from the Ramsey court-house to midday dinner with his father-in-law, the old archdeacon, taking Jarvis Kerruish with him. Mona he sent home in the lumbering car driven by the coroner. It suited well with the girl's troubled mind to be alone, and when night fell in and the Deemster had not returned, the grim gloom of the lonely house on Slieu Dhoo brought her no terrors. But toward nine o'clock the gaunt silence of the place was broken, and from that time until long after midnight Ballamona was a scene of noise and confusion. First came blind Kerry, talking loudly along the passages, wringing her hands, and crying, "Aw, dear! oh, mam! oh, goodness me!" Mastha Dan was no longer in prison, he had been kidnapped; four men and a boy had taken him by main force; bound hand and foot he had been carried through the mountains to a lonely place; and there at daybreak to-morrow he was to be shot. All this and more, with many details of place and circumstance, Kerry had seen as in a flash of light, just as she was raking the ashes on the fire preparatory to going to bed. Mona had gone through too much to be within touch of the blind woman's excitement. "We must not give way to these fancies, Kerry," she said. "Fancies, mam? Fancies you're saying? Scoffers may mock, but don't you, mam--brought up with my own hand, as the saying is." "I did not mean to mock, Kerry; but we have so many real troubles that it seems wicked to imagine others--and perhaps a little foolish, too." At that word the sightless face of Kerry grew to a great gravity. "Foolish, mam? It is the gift--the gift of the good God. He made me blind, but he gave me the sights. It would have been hard, and maybe a taste cruel, to shut me up in the dark, and every living craythur in the light; but he is a just God and a merciful, as the saying is, and he gave me the gift for recompense." "My good Kerry, I am so tired to-night, and must go to bed." "Aw, yes, and well it has sarved me time upon time--" "We were up before six this morning, Kerry." "And now I say to you, send immadient, mam, or the Lord help--" The blind woman's excitement and Mona's impassibility were broken in upon by the sound of a man's voice in the hall asking sharply for the Deemster. At the next moment Quayle, the coroner, was in the room. His face was flushed, his breath came quick, and his manner betrayed extreme agitation. "When the Deemster comes home from Kirk Andreas tell him to go across to Bishop's Court at once, and say that I will be back before midnight." So saying, the coroner wheeled about without ceremony, and was leaving the room. "What has happened at Bishop's Court?" Mona asked. "Nothing," he said, impatiently. "Then why should I tell him to go there?" The tone of the question awakened the curmudgeon's sense of common policy.