The Deemster had not intended to sit at the next Court of General
Gaol Delivery, and had already arranged for the second Deemster to
take his place, but when, next morning at breakfast, he heard from
Fenella that Victor was to plead, he determined to preside.
"I must hear Victor's first case at the General Gaol," he said.
"We shall have to be careful, then," said Dr. Clucas. "No
excitement, your Honour! No more heart-strain!"
On the morning of the trial he was up early. Janet heard him humming
to himself in the conservatory as he cut the flowers for the vase in
front of his young wife's picture. When he was ready to go she
helped him on with his overcoat, turning up the collar and putting a
muffler about his neck. And when young Robbie came round with the
dog-cart he stepped up into it with surprising strength.
And then Janet, who had smuggled a brandy-flask into the luncheon
basket at the back of the dog-cart, stood with a swollen heart and
watched the old man as he went off in the morning mist, with the
awakened rooks cawing over the unseen tops of the trees.
Three hours later, the Deemster arrived at Castletown. The sun was
up, and there was a crowd at the castle gate. All hats were off as
he passed through the Judge's private passage-way to the dark
robing-room with its deeply recessed window. The Governor, in
General's uniform, was there already, for he sat also in the high
court of the island.
A few minutes later they were in the Court-house. It was densely
crowded, and all rose as they entered. But at that moment the
Deemster was conscious of one presence only--his own youth in wig and
gown (himself as he used to be forty years before) in the curved
benches for the advocates immediately below. It was Victor.
Then the prisoner was brought in--a forlorn-looking creature of three
or four-and-twenty, not without traces of former comeliness, but now
a rag of a woman, ill-clad and slatternly.
When asked to plead she said nothing, therefore the customary plea of
Not Guilty was made for her, and without more ado the
Attorney-General embarked on the history of her crime.
It was not a case for refinement; the crime was palpable; it had no
redeeming feature, and for the protection of life in the island it
called for the extreme penalty of the law.
Then, with the usual long pauses, the woman's story was raked out of
the witnesses--her neighbours in the low streets that crept under the
Castle walls, the police and the doctor. She had been an orphan from
her birth, brought up at the expense of the parish by a woman who had
ill-treated her. As a young servant-girl she had been "taken
advantage of" in the big house she lived in, perhaps by the footman,
more probably by an officer of the regiment then garrisoned in the
town. Finally she had married the dead man, lived a cat-and-dog life
with him (there was a dark record of drink and assaults) and at last
stabbed him to the heart in a fatal quarrel and been found standing
over his body with a table-knife in her hand.
Stowell's cross-examination consisted of three questions only. When
the dead man was found had he anything in his hand? "Yes, a poker,"
said the policeman. When the prisoner was arrested were there any
wounds on her? "Yes, three on the head," said the doctor. Were
there any wounds on the dead man's body except the heart-stab from
which he died? "None whatever."
"Ah!" said the Deemster, and he reached forward to make a note.
When the Court adjourned for luncheon, the case for the Crown was
over, and it almost seemed as if the rope of the hangman were already
about the prisoner's neck.
Stowell did not leave the Court-house. He sat in his place with
folded arms and closed eyes. Tommy Vondy, the gaoler, looked in on
him sitting alone, and presently returned (from the direction of the
Deemster's room) with a plate of sandwiches and something in a glass,
but he sent back both untouched.
When the Court resumed it appeared to be still more crowded and
excited than before. As the Deemster took his seat, he saw that his
son's face was strongly illumined by the sun (which was now streaming
from a lantern light in the roof) and that it was pale and drawn.
Immediately behind Victor a lady was sitting--it was Fenella Stanley.
Then Stowell rose for the defence. There was a hush, and the
Deemster found himself breathing audibly and wishing that he could
pour something of himself into his son--himself as he used to be in
the old days when God had given him strength.
But that was only for a moment. Stowell began slowly, almost
nervously, but was soon speaking with complete command, and the
Deemster, who had been bending forward, leaned back.
He did not intend to call witnesses. Neither would he put the
prisoner into the box. He would content himself with the evidence
for the Crown. He knew no more about the crime than the jury did.
The accused had told him nothing, and degraded as they might think
her, he had not thought it right to invade the sanctity of a woman's
soul. That she had killed her husband was clear. If killing him was
a crime she was guilty. But was it a crime? To answer that let the
jury follow him while he did his best to piece together, from the
evidence before them, the torn manuscript of this poor creature's
story.
Then followed such speaking as none could remember to have heard in
that court before. Flash after flash of spiritual light seemed to
recreate the stages of the prisoner's life. First, as the child, who
should have been happy as the birds and bright as the flowers, but
had never known one hour of the love and guidance of her natural
protectors. Next, as the young girl, pretty perhaps, with the light
of love dawning on her, but betrayed and abandoned. Next, as the
deserted creature, braving out her disgrace with "Wait! only wait!
My gentleman will come back and marry me yet!" Next, as the badgered
and shame-ridden woman, with all hope gone, saying to her despairing
heart, "What do I care what happens to me now? Not a toss!" and then
marrying (as the last cover for a hunted dog) the brute who
afterwards had beaten her, brutalized her, cursed her, taught her to
drink, and brought her down, down, down to .... what they saw.
Kill him? Yes, she had killed him--there couldn't be a doubt about
that. But if she had three wounds on her body, and he had only the
wound from which he died, was it not clear as noonday that she had
been the victim of a murderous assault, and had struck back to save
her life? If so her act was not murder and the only righteous
verdict would be Not Guilty.
For the last passage of his defence Stowell faced full upon the jury,
and spoke in a ringing and searching voice:
"Long ago, in Galilee, out of the supreme compassion which covered
with forgiveness the transgressions of one who had sinned much but
loved much, it was said, 'Let him that is without sin among you cast
the first stone.' We have all done something we would fain forget,
and when we lay our heads on our pillow we pray that the darkness may
hide it. But does anybody doubt that if the all-seeing Justice could
enter this Court this day another figure would be standing there in
the dock by the side of that unhappy woman--a man in scarlet uniform
perhaps, with decorations on his breast, and that the Deemster would
have to say to him, 'You did this, for you were the first.' Mercy,
then--mercy for the beaten, the broken, the scapegoat, the sinner."
People said afterwards that Stowell was a full half minute in his
seat before anybody seemed to be aware that he was no longer speaking.
The spectators had listened without making a sound; the jury (a panel
of stolid Manx farmers) had sat without moving a muscle; the prisoner
had raised her head for the first time during the trial and then
dropped it lower than before and her shoulders had shaken as if from
inaudible sobs; the Governor, who had all day been drawing
geometrical patterns on the sheet of foolscap in front of him, had
let his pencil fall and stared down at the paper, and the Deemster
had looked up at the lantern light from which the sunlight (it had
moved on) was now streaming upon his face, showing at last a solitary
tear that was rolling slowly down his cheek to the end of his
firm-set mouth.
Then there was a rustle, as if the windows of a room on the edge of
the sea had suddenly been thrown open. The Attorney-General was
speaking again. After the defence they had just listened to (there
being no evidence to rebut) he would waive his right of reply--the
Crown desired justice, not revenge.
The Deemster's summing-up was the shortest that had ever been heard
from him. There were legal reasons which justified the taking of
human life, but the cases to which they applied were few. If the
jury thought the prisoner had wilfully killed her husband they would
find her Guilty. If they were satisfied from what they had heard
that she had reasonable grounds for thinking that a felony was being
committed upon her which endangered her own life they would find her
Not Guilty.
Without leaving their box the jury promptly gave a verdict of Not
Guilty; and then the Deemster in a loud, clear, almost triumphant
voice said:
"Let the prisoner be discharged."
A few minutes later there was a scene of excitement on the green
within the Castle walls. The spectators, being turned out of the
Court-house with difficulty, were waiting for the chief actors in the
life-drama to come down the stone steps, and from the private door to
the Deemster's room.
"Wonderful! He snatched the woman out of the jaws of death, Sir!"
"The Deemster's a grand man, but he'll have to be looking to his
laurels!" "Man alive, that was a speech that must have been dear to
a father's heart, though!"
Stowell was one of the first to appear. He looked pale, almost ill,
and was carrying his soft felt hat in his hand, for the Courthouse
had been close and there was perspiration on his forehead still. A
way was made for him and he passed through the courtyard without
speaking or making sign, until he came under the arch of the
Portcullis and there he was stopped by someone. It was Fenella. She
was waiting for the Governor and hoping she might come upon Stowell
also. Her eyes were red and swollen.
"How magnificent you were!" she said. And then with a half-tremulous
laugh: "But how could you see into a woman's heart like that? I
shall always be afraid of you in future, Sir!"
The Deemster came next. He was muffled in his great-coat and scarf,
and was walking heavily on his stick, but there was a proud look in
his uplifted face. With his left hand he grasped Victor's right, but
he did not look at him, and he passed on without a word. Fenella
followed, offering her arm, but he insisted on giving his--the grand
old gentleman to the last.
But this time the Attorney-General had taken possession of Stowell.
He had lost his case, but one of his "boys" had won it. "I've just
been telling your father I always knew the root of the matter was in
you," he said, and then others gathered around.
The Governor came last, having had documents to sign, and taking
Stowell's arm, he carried him away, saying, "Come along--they'll kill
you."
The Deemster's dog-cart had now gone, but the Governor's carriage was
at the gate, with Fenella inside.
"Don't forget your promise about Ballamoar," she said.
"I'm going to-morrow," said Stowell.
Just then there was a commotion among the crowd. The liberated woman
was coming out of the Castle, surrounded by a tumultuous company of
her friends from the back streets. She saw Stowell by the carriage
door, and breaking away from her companions she rushed up to him,
threw herself at his feet, laid hold of his hand and covered it with
kisses.
"That settles it," said Fenella, in a thick voice, after the woman
had been carried off. "Now you know what the future of your life is
to be--that of the champion of wronged and helpless women."
At the railway station, and in the railway carriage, Stowell's fellow
advocates overwhelmed him with congratulations, but he hardly heard
them. At last he folded his arms and closed his eyes, and, thinking
he was tired, they left off troubling him.
On arriving at Ramsey his pulses were beating fast, and on going down
the High Street, past the Old Plough Inn, he hardly felt the ground
under his feet.
Clashing his door behind him he went into his bedroom and threw
himself down on his bed. An immense joy had taken possession of him.
Ambition, dead so long, had been restored to vivid life under
Fenella's last words.
And then came a shock. Turning to the table by his bedside, his eyes
fell on the photograph that stood upon it.
Bessie Collister!