Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 711
In the blank stupor of the moment, every eye being on the two that stood in the midst, no one had observed until then that another had entered the patio. It was Naomi. How long she had been there no one knew, and how she had come unnoticed through the corridors out of the streets scarce anyone — even when time sufficed to arrange the scattered thoughts of the Makhazni, the guard at the gate — could clearly tell. She stood under the arch, with one hand at her breast, which heaved visibly with emotion, and the other hand stretched out to touch the open iron-clamped door, as if for help and guidance. Her head was held up, her lips were apart, and her motionless blind eyes seemed to stare wildly. She had heard the hot words. She had heard the sound of the blow that followed them. Her father was smitten! Her father! Her father! It was then that she uttered the cry. All eyes turned to her. Quaking, reeling, almost falling, she came tottering down the patio. Soul and sense seemed to be struggling together in her blind face. What did it all mean? What was happening? Her fixed eyes stared as if they must burst the bonds that bound them, and look, and see, and know!
At that moment God wrought a mighty work, a wondrous change, such as He had brought to pass but twice or thrice since men were born blind into His world of light. In an instant, at a thought, by one spontaneous flash, as if the spirit of the girl tore down the dark curtains which had hung for seventeen years over the windows of her eyes, Naomi saw!
Katrina, the Kaid’s wife, pretends to see in this nothing but imposture. Telling her husband that Naomi’s defects have been assumed, she imparts her own rage to him, and he sentences both Israel and his daughter to be put out of the town.
“Guards, take both of them. Set the man on an ass, and let the girl walk barefoot before him; and let a crier cry beside them:— ‘So shall it be done to every man who is an enemy of the Kaid, and to every woman who is a play-actor and a cheat!’ Thus let them pass through the streets and through the people until they are come to a gate of the town, and then cast them forth from it like lepers and like dogs!”
In the now driving rain Naomi and Israel are thus paraded in the streets, and all the townsfolk mass themselves to follow in a huge, howling, jeering procession. Naomi walks with closed eyes, not being able to bear the light, and for several days she seeks shade and darkness, almost in terror, Once out of the town, they find people who are kind to them, giving them food and garments; and they settle in a hut among their new-found friends. Israel’s little remaining money is expended on a few sheep and oxen, and a living is found from the sale of wool, butter and milk, which they send into the town with the neighbours’ market produce. They live in happiness for some months until a crushing blow falls. One of Israel’s last acts of mercy while in office was to liberate a number of prisoners. The knowledge of this has now come to the Kaid’s ears, and he orders the arrest of Ben Olid. Israel is hurried away to a distant prison, and Naomi is left alone, a child in knowledge both of the world and of the dangerous people around her. The thought of the evil that may come to her preys upon Israel’ mind in his helplessness, and gradually reduces him to insanity. His comrades, in their sympathy, do all they can to arouse him, and fresh prisoners as they arrive tell of the Kaid’s tyrannies, and of how the people of Tetuan regret their treatment of Israel, wishing him back among them. The kindly efforts are useless, until the wit of the prison tells a harrowing tale in the hope of bringing Israel to tears.
That same night, when darkness fell over the dark place, and the prisoners tied up their cotton handkerchiefs and lay down to sleep, Tarby sat beside Israel’s place with sighs and moans and other symptoms of a dejected air.
“Sidi, master,” he faltered, “I had a little brother once, and he was blind. Born blind, Sidi, my own mother’s son. But you wouldn’t think how happy he was for all that? You see, Sidi, he never missed anything, and so his little face was like laughing water! By Allah! I loved that boy better than all the world! Women? Why — well, never mind! He was six and I was eighteen, and he used to ride on my back! Black curls all over, Sidi, and big white eyes that looked at you for all they couldn’t see. Well, a bleeder came from Soos — curse his great-grandfather! Looked at little Hosain—’ Scales!’ said he — burn his father!— ‘Bleed him and he’ll see!’ So they bled him, and he did see. By Allah! yes, for a minute — half a minute!— ‘Oh, Tarby,’ he cried — I was holding him; then he — he— ‘Tarby,’ he cried faint, like a lamb that’s lost in the mountains — and then — and then— ‘Oh, oh, Tarby,’ he moaned. Sidi, Sidi, I paid that bleeder — there and then — this way! That’s why I’m here!”
It was a lie, but Tarby acted it so well that his voice broke in his throat, and great drops fell from his eyes on to Israel’s hand.
Tarby is successful, and with his tears the old man’s madness leaves him. Hardly has he regained his sanity when the order comes for his release, and Israel in joy and thankfulness hurries away to rejoin his child.
In the meanwhile, much has befallen Naomi. At first she clings to her lonely hut, refusing the neighbours’ hospitality; but little by little she gathers from their talk some idea of what her father’s life in prison must be, and finally determines to follow the custom expected from prisoners’ friends and relatives, in carrying food to him. She sets out with a pannier of loaves and another of eggs on either side of her borrowed mule, paying no heed to the expostulations of the good people around her. But as her journey progresses her heart begins to sink. Knowing nothing of evil, and expecting friendliness from all men, she is disheartened by the knowledge that now forces itself upon her, and as, by theft, and in payment for her lodging, her stock of food diminishes, she almost resolves to turn back. By this time she has reached Tetuan, and close to the town gates she is met and recognised by a former servant of Israel.
The two might have passed unknown, for Habeebah was veiled, but that Naomi had forgotten her blanket and was uncovered. In another moment the poor frightened girl, with all her brave bearing gone, was weeping on the black woman’s breast.
“Whither are you going?” said Habeebah.
“To my father,” Naomi began. “He is in prison; they say he is starving; I was taking food to him, but I am lost, I don’t know my way, and besides—”
“The very thing!” cried Habeebah.
Habeebah had her own little scheme. It was meant to win emancipation at the hands of her master, and paradise for her soul when she died. Naomi, who was a Jewess, was to turn Muslima. That was all. Then her troubles would end, and wondrous fortune would descend upon her, and her father who was in prison would be set free.
Now, religion was nothing to Naomi; she hardly understood what it meant. The differences of faith were less than nothing, but her father was everything, and so she clutched at Hebeebah’s bold promises like a drowning soul at the froth of a breaker.
“My father will be let out of prison? You are sure — quite sure?” she asked.
“Quite sure,” answered Habeebah stoutly.
Naomi’s hopes of ever reaching her father were now faint, and her poor little stock of eggs and bread looked like folly to her new-born worldliness.
“Very well,” she said. “I will turn Muslima.”
The two go together to the Kaid, who, seeing Naomi’s beauty, resolves to ward off the threatened displeasure of the Sultan by making a gift of her at the coming royal feast. But in the interim, Naomi’s former nurse has found her and told her, that to embrace Mahometanism would mean separation from her father. The girl halts long in her distress. She is sent to the harem, and from the harem to the prison. She is given her choice of Mahometanism or death, and is finally overborne by the Jews of Tetuan, who, coming to her prison bars, entreat her to renounce her religion.
That night the place under the narrow window in the dark lane was occupied by a group of Jews. “Sister,” they whispered, “sister of our people, listen. The Basha is a hard man. This day he has robbed us of all we had that he may pay for the Sultan’s visit. Listen! We have heard something. We want Israel ben Oliel back among us. He was our father, he was our brother. Save his life for the sake of our children, for the Basha has taken their bread. Save him, sister, we beg, we entreat, we pray.”
Thus it comes to pass that Israel is released from prison, and hastens in his ignorance to the place where he had left Naomi, only to find it empty. He is told that she is in the women’s apartments at the Kaid’s palace, and the news breaks down his reason; he stays, in the childishness of insanity, in the home of his former happiness.
The Sultan enters Tetuan amid much outward pomp, but there is an undercurrent of treachery. A rumour of the coming of the Mahdi, Mohammed of Mequinez, is in the air, and beneath that, a feeling of something more — of the revolt which shall abet the Spaniards in their expected siege of the town. The Mahdi comes, and demands the freedom of Naomi, but without success. Leaving the palace, he decides to follow the plan at which he had before hesitated, the plan of co-operation with the Spaniards. This plot has been contrived by Ali, the boy whom Israel had trained from childhood; and he has gained the promise of support from all the principal townspeople.
Ali’s stout heart stuck at nothing. He was for having the Spaniards brought up to the gates of the town on the very night when the whole majesty and iniquity of Barbary would be gathered in one room; then, locking the entire kennel of dogs in the banqueting hall, firing the Kasbah and burning it to the ground, with all the Moorish tyrants inside of it like rats in a trap.
One danger attended this bold adventure, for Naomi’s person was within the Kasbah walls. To meet this peril Ali was himself to find his way into the dungeon, deliver Naomi, lock the Kasbah gate, and deliver up to another the key that should serve as a signal for the beginning of the great night’s work.
Also one difficulty attended it, for while Ali would be at the Kasbah there would be no one to bring up the Spaniards at the proper moment for the siege — no one in Tetuan on whom the strangers could rely not to lead them blindfold into a trap. To meet this difficulty Ali had gone in search of the Mahdi, revealed to him his plan, and asked him to help in the downfall of his master’s enemies by leading the Spaniards at the right moment to the gates that should be thrown open to receive them.
Evening falls, and Ali proceeds to carry out his plans. He passes into the palace, finds Naomi, and leads her to the Mahdi. Then he joins the Spaniards, but forgets to lock the doors of the banqueting hall; and when the town gates open to the enemy, news is carried to the palace and the guests scatter, most of them escaping. Ali, in his hatred, hunts the deserted palace for the Kaid, and in so doing meets with his death. The Kaid, having stayed behind to secure his money-bags, finds himself entrapped, and is stoned to death by the enraged townspeople.
Meanwhile the Mahdi has taken Naomi to her dying father; and over the deathbed of Israel they are betrothed. So ends The Scapegoat.
It will be seen that to carry out such a plot as this, with its almost miraculous crises, needs a high standard of literary skill. That the writer has succeeded there can be no doubt, for Naomi stands out, a creature of living flesh and blood, in whom nature and circumstance work to perfection through suffering. Israel’s character is followed in its development, with convincing truth: the sudden rush of joy that elates the man, the reaction that depresses him, the acts of mercy that soften him — all lead irrevocably to the final scene of a soul reconciled to its God. In this novel, as in all the best work of Mr Caine, the keynote is suffering, but suffering that of itself ennobles and purifies.
Whilst writing The Scapegoat, Mr Caine suffered severely from neurasthenia; his illness, of course, had effect upon his work, making it more sombre and gloomy than it might otherwise have been. When the work was published he received an urgent request from the Chief Rabbi asking him to visit Russia and write about the persecutions of the Jews in that country. He went in 1892, armed with signed documents from Lord Salisbury and the Chief Rabbi which were calculated to gain his admittance wherever he sought to go. The novelist was most warmly received wherever he went; but he was never able to make use of his experiences in the form of a novel. The subject, he felt, was altogether too vast for his experience: it would require years of study which he could not give. On his return to London, he lectured before the Jewish Workmen’s Club in the East End, “in a hall crammed to suffocation. I shall never forget that audience, the tears, the laughter, the applause, the wild embraces to which I was subjected by some of those poor exiles of humanity.”
CHAPTER IX. THE MANXMAN
IN The Manxman, Hall Caine sounds the depths of humanity, and brings up the cry of living men and women to our ears. The sacred powerfulness of Love is his theme, the depths of spiritual degradation in which Love, twisted, distorted, makes its own punishment — the ennobling beauty of carrying out its great Unselfishness in simple fearlessness. And this is shown in the three characters, Kate, Pete and Philip, which, as they develop, touch every chord of sympathy in the reader’s gamut of sensibility.
Kate and Pete are children of one generation. Life is theirs and the light of the sun; yesterday has no hold over them, neither has to-morrow. Philip is the aristocrat, knowing his fathers, and his fathers’ father, heavy with the knowledge of their follies and sins; the world calls to him, for him there is a great To-morrow. Into the complexity of his nature comes love — love for a girl who is “of the people” — Kate; and the alternate yielding to and resisting his love makes the tragedy of the three lives.
The scene is laid entirely in the Isle of Man. Manx characteristics, humours, eccentricities and pathos making up the atmosphere so exclusively that when we are introduced for the moment to an assemblage chiefly English, we feel ourselves to be in a foreign element.
Philip Christian is brought up by his aunt, who in dread lest the principal weakness of their house should appear in him, makes it her task to keep in his remembrance the misery of his father’s life, who, in marrying beneath him, ruined his career and lost his self-respect. We are carried through Philip’s childhood with its love for little peasant Pete, until, with Pete’s child-sweetheart, Kate, the miller’s daughter, the three stand together on the borderland of the mystery of manhood and womanhood. Then Pete, leaving Manxland to seek a fortune which shall make him acceptable in the eyes of Kate’s parents, commits his sweetheart to Philip’s care and toils his youth away in South Africa. Philip in his rôle of protector and letter-carrier, visits the inn of Sulby, Kate’s home, now frequently, now infrequently, as his hidden love for Kate or the thought of treason to his friend surges uppermost. And Kate’s child-love for Pete fades, passes into woman’s passion for Philip. Understanding nothing of Philip’s feelings, but knowing his love for her, and caring for nothing else, she rebels at his silence and sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, uses all her power to tempt him to break it.
After the lapse of some months, in which Philip had not been seen at Sulby, she wrote him a letter. It was to say how anxious she had been at the length of time since she had last heard from Pete, and to ask if he had any news to relieve her fears. The poor little lie was written in a trembling hand which shook honestly enough, but from the torment of other feelings.
Philip answered the letter in person. Something had been speaking to him day and night, like the humming of a top, finding him pretexts on which to go; but now he had to make excuses for staying so long away. It was evening. Kate was milking, and he went out to her in the cowhouse.
“We began to think we were to see no more of you,” she said, over the rattle of the milk in the pail.
“I’ve — I’ve been ill,” said Philip.
The rattle died to a thin hiss. “Very ill?” she asked.
“Well, no — not seriously,” he answered.
“I never once thought of that,” she said. “Something ought to have told me. I’ve been reproaching you, too.”
Philip felt ashamed of his subterfuge, but yet more ashamed of the truth; so he leaned against the door and watched in silence. The smell of hay floated down from the loft, and the odour of the cow’s breath came in gusts as she turned her face about. Kate sat on the milking-stool close by the ewer, and her head, on which she wore a sun-bonnet, she leaned against the cow’s side.
“No news of Pete, then? No?” she said.
“No,” said Philip.
Kate dug her head deeper in the cow, and muttered, “Dear Pete! So simple, so natural.”
“He is,” said Philip.
“So good-hearted, too.”
“Yes.”
“And such a manly fellow — any girl might like him,” said Kate.
“Indeed, yes,” said Philip.
There was silence again, and two pigs which had been snoring on the manure heap outside began to snort their way home. Kate turned her head so that the crown of the sun-bonnet was toward Philip, and said, —
“Oh, dear! Can there be anything so terrible as marrying somebody you don’t care for?”
“Nothing so bad,” said Philip.
The mouth of the sun-bonnet came round. “Yes, there’s one thing worse, Philip.”
“No?”
“Not having married somebody you do,” said Kate, and the milk rattled like hail.
Kate began to hate the very name of Pete. She grew angry with Philip also. Why couldn’t he guess? Concealment was eating her heart out. The next time she saw Philip, he passed her in the market-place on the market-day, as she stood by the tipped-up gig, selling her butter. There was a chatter of girls all round as he bowed and went on. This vexed her, and she sold out at a penny a pound less, got the horse from the “Saddle,” and drove home early.
