The Principal was in his Library, a well-carpeted room, warmed by a
large fire and lighted by a red-shaded lamp. His half-yearly
examination had just finished and his desk was piled high with
examination papers, but he could not settle himself to his work on
them. He was harking back to the event of the morning, and was not
too pleased with himself. He had lost his temper again; he had
inflicted a degrading punishment on a senior boy, and to protect the
good name of the school he had allowed himself to be intimidated by
the police into a foolish and ineffectual public inquiry.
"Wretched! Wretched! Wretched!" he thought, rising for the
twentieth time from his chair before the fire and pacing the room in
a disorder.
He thought of Stowell with a riot of mingled anger and affection. He
had always liked that boy---a fine lad, with good heart and brain in
spite of obvious limitations. He had shown the boy some indulgence,
too, and this was how he had repaid him! Defying him in the face of
the whole school! Provoking him with his prevarication, the proud
curl of his lip and his damnable iteration: "If _you_ say so,
Sir...." It had been maddening. Any master in the world might have
lost his temper.
Of course the boy was guilty! But then he was no sneak or coward.
Good gracious, no, that was the last thing anybody would say about
him. Quite the contrary! Only too apt to take the blame of bad
things on himself when he might make others equally responsible.
That was one reason the under-masters liked him and the boys
worshipped him. Then why, in the name of goodness, hadn't he spoken
out, made some defence, given some explanation? After all the first
offence was nothing worse than being out after hours for a little
foolish sweethearting. The Principal saw Stowell making a clean
breast of everything, and himself administering a severe admonition
and then fighting it all out with the police for school and scholar.
But that was impossible now--quite impossible!
"Wretched! Wretched! Wretched!"
He thought of the boy's father--the senior judge or Deemster of the
island, and easily the first man in it. One of the trustees of the
college also, to whom serious matters were always mentioned. This
had become a serious matter. Even if nothing worse happened to that
young blackguard in the hospital the police might insist on
expulsion. If so, what would be the absolute evidence against the
boy? Only that he had been out of school when the disgraceful
incident had happened! The Deemster, who was cool and clear-headed,
might say the boy could have been out on some other errand. Or
perhaps that some other boy might have been out at the same time.
But that couldn't be! Good heavens, no! Stowell wasn't a fool. If
he had been innocent, why on earth should he have taken his degrading
punishment lying down? No, no, he had been guilty enough. He had
admitted that he was out after hours, and, having nothing else to say
even about that (why or by whose permission), he had tried to carry
the whole thing off with a sort of silent braggadocio.
"Wretched! Wretched! Wretched!"
The Principal had at length settled himself at his desk, and was
taking up some of the examination papers, when he uncovered a small
white packet. Obviously a chemist's packet, sealed with red wax and
tied with blue string. Not having seen it before he picked it up,
and looked at it. It was addressed to himself, and was marked "By
Passenger Train--to be called for."
The Principal felt his thin hair rising from his scalp. Something he
had forgotten had come back upon him with the force and suddenness of
a blow. Off and on for a week he had suffered from nervous
headaches. Somebody had recommended an American patent medicine and
he had written to Douglas for it. The Douglas chemist had replied
that it was coming by the afternoon steamer, and he would send it on
to Castletown by the last train. The letter had arrived when he was
in class, and Jamieson the valet, being out of reach, he had asked
Stowell, who was at hand, to go to the Station for the parcel after
preparation and leave it on his Library table. And then the headache
had passed off, and in the pressure of the examination he had
forgotten the whole matter!
The Principal got up again. His limbs felt rigid, and he had the
sickening sensation of his body shrinking into insignificance. At
that moment there came a knocking at his door. He could not answer
at first and the knocking was repeated.
"Come in then," he said, and Gell entered, his face flooded with
tears.
He knew the boy as one who was nearly always in trouble, and his
first impulse was to drive him out.
"Why do you come here? Go to your house-master, or to your head,
or...."
"It's about Stowell himself, Sir. He's innocent," said Gell.
"Innocent?"
"Yes, Sir--it was I," said Gell. And then came a flood of words,
blurted out like water from an inverted bottle. It was true that he
was with the girl last night, but it was a lie that he had made a
practice of walking out with her. She came from the north of the
island, a farm near his home, and he hadn't known she was living in
Castletown until he met her in the town yesterday afternoon. They
were on the Darby Haven Road, just beyond the college cricket ground,
about nine o'clock, when the blackguards dropped out on them from the
Hango Hill ruins and started to rag him. It was true he smashed them
and he would do it again, and worse next time, but it was another lie
that he had done it with a stick. _They_ had the stick, and it was
just when he was knocking out one of them that the other aimed a blow
at him which fell on his chum instead and tumbled him over
insensible. The girl had gone off screaming before that, and seeing
the police coming up he had leapt into the cricket ground and got
back into school by the lavatory window.
"But why, boy .... why .... why didn't you say all this in school
this morning?"
"I was afraid, Sir," said Gell, and then came the explanation he had
given to Stowell. He had been afraid his father would get to know,
and the girl's father, too--that was to say her step-father. Her
step-father was a tenant of his own father's; they were always at
cross purposes, and he had thought if the girl got into any trouble
at the High Bailiff's and it came out that he had been the cause of
it, her step-father....
"Who is he? What's his name?"
"Dan Collister--but they call him Baldromma after the farm, Sir."
"That wind-bag and agitator who is always in the newspapers?"
"Yes, Sir."
"But, good heavens, boy, don't you see what you've done for
me?--allowed me to punish an innocent person?"
"Yes, I know," said Gell, and then, through another gust of sobs,
came further explanations. It had all been over before he had had
time to think. The Principal had said that nobody knew, and he had
thought he had only to hold his tongue and nothing would be found
out. But if he had known that Stowell knew, and that he had been out
himself....
"And did he know?"
"Yes, Sir. He saw me with Bessie Collister as he was going to the
station and he thought he couldn't get out of this himself without
letting me in for it."
"Do you mean to tell me that he took that punishment to .... to save
you from being discovered?"
Gell hesitated for a moment, then choked down his sobs, and said with
a defiant cry:
"Yes, he did--to save me, and the school, and .... and you, too, Sir."
The Principal staggered back a step, and then said: "Leave me, boy,
leave me."
He did not go to bed that night, or to school next day, or the day
after, or the day after that. On the fourth day he wrote a long
letter to the Deemster, telling him with absolute truthfulness what
had happened, and concluding:
"That is all, your Honour, but to me it is everything. I have not
only punished an innocent boy, but one who, in taking his punishment,
was doing an act of divine unselfishness. I am humiliated in my own
eyes. I feel like a little man in the presence of your son. I can
never look into his face again.
"My first impulse was to resign my post, but on second thoughts I
have determined to leave the issue to your decision. If I am to
remain as head of your school you must take your boy away. If he is
to stay I must go. Which is it to be?"