"Come in, my boy. Sit down. Take a cigarette. I have important
news for you."
The Governor had returned from London and was calling Stowell into
his smoking-room.
"First, about that recommendation to mercy. It has gone through.
The death sentence has been commuted to ten years' imprisonment."
"I am glad, Sir--very glad."
"Next, your speech, deputizing for the Attorney, was reported--part
of it--in the London newspapers and made a good impression."
"I'm very proud, Sir."
"I dined with the Home Secretary the following night, and the Lord
Chief Justice, who was among the guests, was warm in his approval.
Acid old fellow with noisy false teeth, but quite enthusiastic about
your defence of law and order. Crime was contagious like disease,
and there was an epidemic of violence in the world now. If society
was to be saved from anarchy then law alone could save it. Some of
their English courts--judges as well as juries--had been criminally
indulgent to crimes of passion. Our little Manx court had shown them
a good example."
"That is very encouraging, Sir."
"Very! And now the last thing I have to tell you is that Tynwald
Court this morning voted a sum for a memorial to your father, leaving
the form of it to me. I've decided on a portrait by Mylechreest,
your Manx artist, to be hung in the Court-house at Castle Rushen.
Mylechreest knew the Deemster (saw him at his last Court, in fact)
and thinks he can paint the portrait from memory. But if you have
any photographs let him have them without delay. And now off you go!
Somebody's waiting for you in the drawing-room."
During the next six months Stowell worked as he had never worked
before. Four hours a day at his office or in the Courts, and
uncounted hours at home. Janet used to say she could never look out
of her bedroom window at night without seeing his light from the
library on the lawn.
Nevertheless he was at Government House every day, and Fenella and he
had their cheerful hours together.
Winter came on. It was such a winter as nobody in the island could
remember to have seen before. First wind that lashed the sea into
loud cries about the coast, blew over the Curraghs with a perpetual
wailing, ran up the glen with a roar, and brought the "boys" out of
their beds to hold the roofs on their houses by throwing ropes over
the thatch and fastening them down, with stones.
Then rain that deluged the low-lying lands, so that women had to go
to market in boats; and then mist that hid the island for a week and
brought more ships ashore than anybody had seen since the days of the
ten black brothers of Jurby who (long suspected of wrecking) were
caught stuffing the box tombs in the churchyard with rolls of Irish
cloth.
But neither wind, nor rain, nor mist, kept Stowell from Fenella.
Clad in boots up to his thighs, with an oilskin coat tightly belted
about the waist and a sou'wester strapped down from crown to chin, he
would cross the mountains on his young chestnut mare, with the island
roaring about him like a living thing, and arrive at Fenella's door
with his horse's flanks steaming and his own face ablaze.
After the wind and the rain came a long frost, which laid its unseen
hand on the rivers and waterfalls, making a deep hush that was like a
great peace after a great war. In the middle of the island (the
valley of Baldwin) there was a tarn into which the mountains drained,
and as soon as this was frozen over Stowell and Fenella skated on it.
What a delight! The ice humming under their feet like a muffled
drum; the air ringing to their voices like a cup; the sun sparkling
in the hoar frost on the bare boughs of the trees; the blue sky
sailing over the hilltops, capped with white clouds that looked like
soft lamb's wool.
God, how good it was to be alive!
Then came a great snow that brought a still deeper silence, broken at
Ballamoar only by the skid of the steel runners of the stiff carts,
whose wheels had been removed, and the smothered calling of the
cattle which had been shut up in the houses.
But what rapture! Every morning the farmers looked out of their
windows, thick with ice, to see if the snow had gone, but as Stowell
drew his blind and the snow light of the winter's sun came pouring in
upon him, he thought only of another joyous day with Fenella.
Then up to Injebreck in white sweaters and woollen helmets to fly
down the long slopes on ski, with all the world around them robed and
veiled like a bride.
There was a broad ridge on the top, a great divide, separating the
north of the island from the south, and as they skimmed across it
from sight of eastern to sight of western sea, it was just as if they
were sailing through the sky with the white round hills for clouds
and the earth lying somewhere far below.
They were doing this one day when Stowell came upon a place where the
snow was honeycombed with holes.
"Helloa! There's something here!" he cried.
Digging into the snow he found a buried sheep, still alive but unable
to stand. So, taking it by its front and back legs he swung it over
his head on to his shoulders and carried it to a shepherd's hut a
mile away, where a turf fire was burning, and dogs, with snow on
their snouts, were barking about a pen of bleating sheep that had
been similarly recovered.
His delight at this rescue was so boisterous that he went back and
back for hours and brought in other and other sheep.
Fenella, who followed him with his ski staffs, was in raptures. This
was a new side of Victor Stowell, and she had a woman's joy in it.
He was not only clever, he was strong. He could not only make
speeches (as nobody else in the world could), he could ride and skate
and ski, and (if he liked) he could lift a woman in his arms and
throw her over his shoulder. Something would come of this some
day--she was sure it would.
They were at the top of the pass, stamping the snow off their ski,
and shaking it out of their gloves, before going down to the
Governor's carriage which (also on runners) was waiting for them at
the inn at the bottom of the hill. The sun was setting and the red
light of it was flushing Fenella's face. She looked sideways at
Stowell with a mischievous light in her eyes and said,
"Now I know what you are, Sir."
"Yes?"
"You are not a lawyer, really."
"No?"
"You're an old Viking, born a thousand years after your time."
"You don't say."
"Yes," she said, making ready for flight, "one of those sea robbers
you told me of, who came to take possession of the island and capture
its women."
"Really?"
"I dare say you're sorry you're not back with your ridiculous old
ancestors, catching a woman for your wife."
"Not a bit! I've caught one already."
"Eh? What? If you mean .... Don't be too sure, Sir! You've not
caught me yet!"
"Haven't I? Look out then--I'm going to catch you now."
"Catch me!" she cried, and away she flew down the slopes, laughing,
screaming, rocking, reeling, and leaping over the drifts, until at
length she tumbled into a deep one, with head down and ski in air,
and came up half blind, with Stowell's arms about her and his lips
kissing the snow off her chin and nose.
What a winter! Could there be any sorrow or sin or crime in the
world at all? And what did it want its prisons and courts for?
But the thaw came at length, and then the noises of the garrulous old
island began again with the rattle of the cart wheels, the rumble of
the rivers running to the sea, and the mooing and bleating of the
liberated cattle and sheep, coming out of their Ark and going back to
the discoloured grass of the fields.
Stowell and Fenella felt as if they were descending to a world of
reality from a world of dreams.
"Good-night!"
They were in the porch at Government House after the last of their
winter expeditions. He was crushing her in his arms again, to the
ruin of her beautiful hair, and whispering of the time that was
coming when there would be no need for such partings.
"Three months yet, Sir!"
"Heavens, what an age!"
And then home to Ballamoar, with his young chestnut under him
sniffing the night air, and over his head a paradise of stars.