Summaries

Synopsis

For six generations the eldest son of the Christian family of Ballawhaine, Isle of Man, had held the office of Deemster. The Deemstership is practically the highest office to which a Manxman can aspire, and the Christians of Ballawhaine naturally occupied a unique position on the island. The family name had become a synonym for those high qualities the Manxmen demand of their highest magistrate, who is sworn to execute the laws of the island justly betwixt party and party, "as indifferently as the herring backbone does lie in the middle of the fish." The sixth member of the Christian family to hold the honored position was popularly known as Iron Christian, and his eldest son well-nigh broke the old man's heart by marrying beneath him, then sinking to the level of the wretched woman he took as his wife, who bore him a son, Philip. Iron Christian's younger son, Peter, married to please his father soon after Thomas' banishment. Peter's cold personality made him no friends, and only one soul on the island was ever known to have loved him, the golden-haired daughter of a poor fisherman. Peter discarded her before his marriage, and while the islanders gossiped mightily, the girl said nothing, only wrapping her love closer about a curly headed little one she called Pete. Between Pete and Philip, these two of the same blood, there arose a firm boyhood friendship, Pete destined to bear the stain of illegitimacy all his days, and Philip, whose task in life was to be the retrieving of the caste and position his father had lost. In manhood their friendship grew the firmer and the intimacy between Pete, now a fisherman, and Philip, a brilliant lawyer, was spoken of all over the island. And now the woman. She is Kate Cregeen, daughter of the owner of a little country inn, and she grows up from childhood with Pete, but as the girl becomes a woman she loves Philip. But she has promised to marry Pete, and so she does. Both men love Kate, but both men loved each other none the less dearly on this account. The story of Kate fairly epitomizes the great story of sex, hers is the struggle, the fleeting happiness, the misery that is sometimes the heritage of woman, and greatly she loves, suffers and endures. As it moves toward its close, when Pete makes the great sacrifice, when Philip turns aside from all the high honors that might have been his, the story grows ever stronger and stronger in its poignant intensity, finally reaching a climax of mighty pathos and power.