Stowell, in spite of Dr. Clucas, got up next morning. He was sitting
before the fire in the library when Janet came in to say that Mrs.
Collister of Baldromma was asking to see the Deemster. She had come
to plead for her daughter--that girl who was to be tried for killing
her baby.
"I told her she shouldn't have come here and that the old Deemster
would never have seen her. But it's pitiful to see the poor thing.
She is lame, too, and has walked all the way. What am I to say to
her?"
Stowell struggled with himself for a moment, and then, with an
embarrassed utterance said,
"Let her come in."
"This is very wrong of you, Mrs. Collister" (he was trying to keep a
firm lip and to speak severely); "you know it is against all rule."
The old woman, trembling and wiping her eyes, said she knew it was,
but she had known his father. There had been none like him--no, not
the whole island over. He had been every poor person's friend. If
anybody had been injured she had only to draw to him for refuge and
he had protected her. And if any poor girl had gone wrong, and
broken the law, perhaps, it was the big man himself who was always
there to show her mercy.
"That's why I thought maybe his son, if he had his father's heart
.... and people are saying he has too .... maybe his son wouldn't
send a poor mother away when she's in trouble and has nobody else to
go to."
"Sit down, Mrs. Collister."
The old woman sat in the chair which Janet turned for her, and began
on her story.
"It's about Bessie."
She had always been a good girl. No mother ever had a better. And
if people were saying she had been in trouble before, might the Lord
forgive them when their own time came, for it was lies they were
putting on the girl.
"And if she's in trouble now, your Honour, it's like it's not all her
own fault neither."
First there was her father. He had been shocking hard on the girl,
shutting her out of the house in the dark of night and so throwing
her into the way of temptation.
"Until they lay me under the sod I'll never get it out of my ears,
Sir---the sound of her foot going off on the street."
And when the girl came home again, looking that weak that it seemed
as if the world wasn't willing to stand under her, the father had
taunted her with coming back to eat them up, and maybe bringing
another mouth to feed.
"So if she did the terrible shocking thing they're saying .... I
don't know if she did, your Honour .... I don't know if she ever left
the dairy loft from the minute I took her up to it until Cain the
constable (may the Lord forgive him!) came dragging her down .... but
if she did, it's like it was because the poor child was alone in the
dark midnight, and out of herself entirely, and not knowing what she
was doing, and perhaps freckened of what the old man would be saying
in the morning."
Stowell was silent. The old woman cried softly to herself for a
moment and then said,
"Nobody knows what that is, your Honour, except them that has gone
through it."
Then she wiped her eyes, one after another, and said she could not
sleep "a wink on the night," lying in her white bed and thinking of
Bessie where she was now. And having read "in class" last evening
how the Lord heard the cry of Hagar for her son in the wilderness she
had thought his Honour might hear her cry for her daughter.
Stowell knew that his feelings as a man were getting the better of
his duty as a Judge, so he tried to be severe with the old woman,
telling her she had no right to come to him, and that he had done
wrong to listen to her.
"In fact I could not have received you at all but for one thing--I am
not going to try your daughter's case."
The old woman was appalled.
"Do you mean, Sir, that you'll not be trying Bessie?"
"No, Deemster Taubman will probably do so."
At that the old woman broke into a flood of tears.
"Aw dear! Aw dear! And me praying on my knees on the kitchen floor
that the Lord would bring you back in time from London--someones
being so hard on poor girls in trouble!"
Again Stowell was silent, and for some moments nothing was heard but
the woman's broken sobs. At length, unable to bear any longer the
sight of the old mother's disappointment, he said he would do what he
could for her. If he could not sit on her daughter's case he would
write to Deemster Taubman, explaining her condition and describing
her temptations.
"God bless you for that," cried the old woman. And then Janet said
it was time to go, his Honour being unwell.
"May the Lord give him health and strength and long life, ma'am!"
People were right when they were telling her he had his father's
heart. He had too. She was going out of the room with hope kindled,
when she said,
"You must excuse a poor woman if she did wrong in coming to you, Sir."
"We'll say no more about that now," said Stowell. "Go home and rest,
mother."
At that word the old woman broke down utterly. But after a moment
her weak eyes shone and she said,
"Bessie is not your quality, Sir, but if she gets off she'll write to
thank you."
"No, no! She must never do that," said Stowell.
"Come now, Mrs. Collister," said Janet.
But having reached the door, the old woman turned her wet face, and
seeing the portrait of Stowell's mother on the wall, and mistaking it
for that of Fenella, she said,
"They're telling me you're to be married soon, your Honour. May the
Lord give you peace and love in your own home, and that's better than
gold or lands, Sir."
Stowell tried to reply, but he could only wave his hand and turn to
the window as the old woman left the room.
Why not? What sin against God would it be to unite this suffering
woman to her suffering daughter, if he could do so without wronging
Justice?
A moment afterwards Janet came back wiping her eyes.
"Oh, these mothers! They're fit enough to break one's heart, Victor."