The Speaker had only just returned from Douglas. There had been a
sitting of the Keys that day and he had hurried home to tell his wife
an exciting story. It was about the Deemster. The big man was
down--going down anyway!
Archibald Gell was a burly, full-bearded man of a high complexion.
Although he belonged to what we called the "aristocracy" of the
island, the plebeian lay close under his skin. Rumour said he was
subject to paralysing brain-storms, and that he could be a
foul-mouthed man in his drink. But he was generally calm and nearly
always sober.
His ruling passion was a passion for power, and his fiercest lust was
a lust of popularity. The Deemster was his only serious rival in
either, and therefore the object of his deep and secret jealousy. He
was jealous of the Deemster's dignity and influence, but above all
(though he had hitherto hidden it even from himself) of his son.
Stooping over the fire in the drawing-room to warm his hands after
his long journey, he was talking, with a certain note of
self-congratulation, of what he had heard in Douglas. That ugly
incident at King William's had come to a head! The Stowell boy had
been expelled, and the Deemster had had to drive into town to fetch
him home. He, the Speaker, had not seen him there, but Cæsar
Qualtrough had. Cæsar was a nasty customer to cross (he had had
experience of the man himself), and in the smoking-room at the Keys
he had bragged of what he could have done. He could have put the
Deemster's son in jail! Yes, ma'am, in jail! If he had had a mind
for it young Stowell might have slept at Castle Rushen instead of
Ballamoar to-night. And if he hadn't, why hadn't he? Cæsar wouldn't
say, but everybody knew--he had a case coming on in the Courts
presently!
"Think of it," said the Speaker, "the first Judge in the island in
the pocket of a man like that!"
Mrs. Gell, who was a fat, easy-going, good-natured soul, with the
gentle eyes of a sheep (her hair was a little disordered at the
moment, for she had only just awakened from her afternoon sleep, and
was still wearing her morning slippers), began to make excuses.
"But mercy me, Archie," she said, "what does it amount to after
all--only a schoolboy squabble?"
"Don't talk nonsense, Bella," said the Speaker. "It may have been a
little thing to begin with, but the biggest river that ever plunged
into the sea could have been put into a tea-cup somewhere."
This ugly business would go on, until heaven knew what it would come
to. The Deemster, who had bought his son's safety from a blackguard
without bowels, would never be able to hold up his head again--he,
the Speaker never would, he knew that much anyway. As for the boy
himself, he was done for. Being expelled from King William's no
school or university across the water would want him, and if he ever
wished to be admitted to the Manx Bar it would be the duty of his own
father to refuse him.
"So that's the end of the big man, Bella--the beginning of the end
anyway."
Just then the peacocks screamed in the courtyard---they always
screamed when visitors were approaching. Mrs. Gell looked up and the
Speaker walked to the window and looked out without seeing anybody.
But at the next moment the drawing-room door was thrust open and
their eldest daughter, Isabella, with wide eyes and a blank
expression was saying breathlessly,
"It's Alick. He has run away from school."
Alick came behind her, a pitiful sight, his college cap in his hand,
his face pale, drawn and smudged with sweat, his hair disordered, his
clothes covered with dust, and his boots thick with soil.
"What's this she says--that you've run away?" said the Speaker.
"Yes, I have--I told her so myself," said Alick, who was half crying.
"Did you though? And now perhaps you will tell me something--why?"
"Because Stowell had been expelled, and I couldn't stay when he was
gone."
"Couldn't you now? And why couldn't you?"
"He was innocent."
"Innocent, was he? Who says he was innocent?"
"I do, Sir, because .... it was _I_."
It was a sickening moment for the Speaker. He gasped as if something
had smitten him in the mouth, and his burly figure almost staggered.
"You did it .... what Stowell was expelled for?" he stammered.
"Yes, Sir," said Alick, and then, still with the tremor of a sob in
his voice, he told his story. It was the same that he had told twice
before, but with a sequel added. Although he had confessed to the
Principal, they had expelled Stowell. Not publicly perhaps, but it
had been expelling him all the same. Four days they had kept him in
his study, without saying what they meant to do with him. Then this
morning, while the boys were at prayers they had heard carriage
wheels come up to the door of the Principal's house, and when they
came out of Chapel the Study was empty and Stowell was gone.
"And then," said the Speaker (with a certain pomp of contempt now),
"without more ado you ran away?"
"Yes, Sir," answered the boy, "by the lavatory window when we were
breaking up after breakfast."
"Where did you get the money to travel with?"
"I had no money, Sir. I walked."
"Walked from Castletown? What have you eaten since breakfast?"
"Only what I got on the road, Sir."
"You mean .... begged?"
"I asked at a farm by Foxdale for a glass of milk and the farmer's
wife gave me some bread as well, Sir."
"Did she know who you were?"
"She asked me--I had to answer her."
"You told her you were my son?"
"Yes, Sir."
"And perhaps--feeling yourself such a fine fellow, what you were
doing there, and why you were running away from school?"
"Yes, Sir."
"You fool! You infernal fool!"
The Speaker had talked himself out of breath and for a moment his
wife intervened.
"Alick," she said, "if it was you, as you say, who walked out with
the girl, who was she?"
"She was .... a servant girl, mother."
"But who?"
"Tut!" said the Speaker, "what does it matter who? .... You say you
confessed to the Principal?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Then if he chose to disregard your confession, and to act on his own
judgment, what did it matter to you?"
"It was wrong to expel Stowell for what I had done and I couldn't
stand it," said the boy.
"You couldn't stand it! You dunce! If you were younger I should
take the whip to you."
The Speaker was feeling the superiority of his son's position, but
that only made him the more furious.
"I suppose you know what this running away will mean when people come
to hear of it?"
Alick made no answer.
"You've given the story a fine start, it seems, and it won't take
long to travel."
Still Alick made no answer.
"Stowell will be the martyr and you'll be the culprit, and that ugly
incident of the boy with the broken skull will wear another
complexion."
"I don't care about that," cried Alick.
"You don't care!"
"I had to do my duty to my chum, Sir."
"And what about your duty to me, and to your mother and to your
sisters? Was it your 'duty' to bring disgrace on all of us?"
Alick dropped his head.
"You shan't do that, though, if I can help it. Go away and wash your
dirty face and get something on your stomach. You're going back to
Castletown in the morning."
"I won't go back to school, Sir," said Alick.
"Won't you, though? We'll see about that. I'll take you back."
"Then I'll run away again, Sir."
"Where to, you jackass? Not to this house, I promise you."
"I'll get a ship and go to sea, Sir."
"Then get a ship and go to sea, and to hell, too, if you want to.
You fool! You damned blockhead!"
After the Speaker had swept the boy from the room, his mother was
crying. "Only eighteen years for harvest," she was saying, as if
trying to excuse him. And then, as if seeking to fix the blame
elsewhere, she added,
"Who was the girl, I wonder?"
"God's sake, woman," cried the Speaker, "what does it matter who she
was? Some Castletown huzzy, I suppose."
The peacocks were screaming again; they had been screaming for some
time, and the front-door bell had been ringing, but in the hubbub
nobody had heard them. But now the parlour-maid came to tell the
Speaker that Mr. Daniel Collister of Baldromma was in the porch and
asking to see him.