"Don't be afraid. Remember, your daughter's liberty, perhaps her
life, are in peril. Tell the Jury what happened on the day she left
home."
Then nervously, fearfully, looking round the Court-house as if in
terror of being seen or heard, the old woman told the story of the
first Saturday in August.
"So your husband deliberately shut the girl out of the house in the
middle of the night, knowing well she had nowhere else to go to?"
"Yes, if you plaze, Sir."
"It's a lie--a scandalous lie!" cried somebody at the back of the
court.
"Who's that?" asked the Governor, and he was told by the Inspector of
Police (who was already laying hold of the interrupter) that it was
the husband of the witness.
"A respectable man's character is being sworn away," cried Dan. "Put
me in the box and I'll swear it's a lie."
In the tumult that followed the Deemster raised his hand.
"This Court has been fenced," he said severely, "and if anybody
attempts to brawl here...."
"Then let me be sworn. I'm only a plain Manxman, blood and bone, but
I can tell the truth as well as some that make a bigger mouth."
"Behave yourself!"
"Give me a chance to save my character and fix the disgrace of these
bad doings where it belongs."
"I give you fair warning...."
"Put the saddle on the right horse, Dempster. He's near enough to
yourself, anyway."
"Silence!"
"Why doesn't he come out into the open, not hide behind the skirts of
a girl with a by-child?"
"Remove that man to the cells, and keep him there until the trial is
over."
"What?" cried Dan, in a loud voice.
"Remove him!" cried the Deemster, in a voice still louder, and at the
next moment, Dan, shaking his fist at the prisoner and cursing her,
was hustled out of Court.
When the tempestuous scene was over and silence had been restored,
the witness was trembling and covering her face in her hands and
Hudgeon was on his feet to cross-examine her.
"I think your father was the late John Corteen, the Methodist?"
"Yes, sir."
"He was a good man, wasn't he?"
"As good a man as ever walked the world, Sir."
"He had a reputation for strict truthfulness--isn't that so?"
"'Deed it is, Sir. The old Dempster would take his word without
asking him to swear to it."
"You were much attached to him, were you not?"
The old woman wiped her eyes, which were wet but shining.
"That's truth enough, Sir."
"And now he's dead and I daresay you sometimes pray for the time when
you'll see him again?"
"Morning and night, every day of my life since I closed the man's
dying eyes for him."
The advocate turned his gleaming eyes to the Jury and the side of his
powerful face to the witness.
"You are a Methodist yourself, aren't you?"
"Such as I am, Sir."
"And as a Methodist you are taught to believe that truth is sacred
and that a lie (no matter under what temptation told) is a thing of
the devil and no good can come of it?"
The old woman faltered something that was barely heard, and then the
big advocate turned quickly round on her, and said in a stern voice,
looking full into her timid eyes,
"Mrs. Collister, as you are a Christian woman and expect to meet your
father some day, will you swear that when your daughter returned home
on the fifth of April you did not see at a glance that she was about
to become a mother of a child?"
The old woman shuddered as if she had been smitten by an invisible
hand, breathed audibly, tried to speak, stopped, then closed her
eyes, swayed a little and laid hold of the bar in front of her.
"Inspector, see to the witness quickly," cried the Deemster.
At the next moment the old woman was being helped out of the
witness-box and borne towards the door, where, realising what she had
done for her daughter, she broke into a fit of weeping, which rent
the silence of the Court until the door had closed behind her.
"In that cry," said the advocate, "the Jury has heard the answer to
my question. It is proof enough that the prisoner had a child, and
that her mother knew it."
"If so, it is proof of something else," cried Gell (he had leapt to
his feet and was speaking in a thrilling voice), "that a strong man
can find it in his heart to use his great forensic skill to crush a
poor weak woman who is fighting for the life of her child. All his
life through he has been doing the same thing--driving people into
prison and dragging them to the gallows. He has made his name and
grown rich and fat on it. God save me from a life like that! I am
only a young lawyer and he is an old one, but may I live in poverty
and die in the streets rather than outrage my humanity and degrade my
profession by using the lures of the procurator and the arts of the
hangman."
There was a sensation in Court. One of the younger advocates was
heard to say, "My God, who thought Alick Gell was a fool?" And
another who remembered the "Fanny" case in the Douglas police-courts,
said, "He's got a bit of his own back, anyway."
When the commotion subsided, Hudgeon, with a face of scarlet,
appealed to the Court:
"Your Honour, I ask your protection against this outrageous slander."
"Since you appeal to me," said the Deemster (whose own face was
aflame), "I can only say that you deserved every word of it."
Hudgeon tried to speak, but could not, his voice being choked in his
throat. And seeing that the Attorney-General had come back to Court
(he had just returned with Cain the constable, who was carrying a
parcel) he picked up his bag and fled.
Gell's time had come at last--the great moment he had been waiting
for so long. Although he had been shaken for an instant by Mrs.
Collister's silence he was not afraid now. He was going to play his
last and greatest card--put the prisoner in the box to demolish for
ever the monstrous accusation that had been intended to ruin the life
of an innocent woman. The Deemster trembled as he saw Gell look
round the Court with a confident smile before he called his witness.
Bessie, whose big eyes had flamed with fury during her mother's
cross-examination, passed with a firm step from the dock to the
witness-box. In answer to Gell's questions she repeated the evidence
she had given before the High Bailiff, only more emphatically and
with a certain note of defiance.
When the Attorney-General rose to cross-examine her, it was observed
that he, too, had an air of confidence, as if something had become
known to him since morning.
"Do you adhere to your plea?" he asked.
"Indeed I do. Why shouldn't I?" said Bessie.
"Think again before it is too late. Do you still say that you have
never had a child, and therefore never killed and never buried one?"
"Certainly I say so," said Bessie. "I don't know what you are
talking of."
"Constable," said the Attorney, turning to Cain, "open your parcel."
There was a whispering among the spectators in Court, while the
constable was cutting the string and opening the brown-paper parcel.
The Deemster was shuddering, Gell's lower lip was trembling, and
Fenella (who was sitting, as before, in front of the dock) was
breathing deeply. The prisoner alone was unmoved. The sun (it was
now going round to the West) was shining down on her from the lantern
light. It lit up with pitiful vividness her thin white face with its
look of confidence and contempt.
"Do you know what this is?" asked the Attorney, holding up a portion
of a white silk scarf.
Bessie started as if she had seen a ghost. Then, recovering herself
and turning her eyes away, she said, remembering what Gell had told
her,
"I know nothing about it."
"You have never seen it before?"
"I know nothing about it."
The Attorney-General put the scarf outstretched on the table in front
of him, and held up a narrower strip of the same material.
"Do you know anything about this, then?"
Bessie gasped and was silent for a moment. Then she said again, but
with a stammer,
"I know nothing about it."
"Will you swear that it never belonged to you?"
A stabbing memory came back to Bessie. She remembered what she had
heard about "a remnant" when the constables were ranging her room,
and seeing no way of escape by further denial she said,
"Oh yes, I remember it now. I found it on the road when I was on my
way home and bound it about my hat to keep it from blowing off in the
wind."
The silence which had fallen upon the Court was broken by an audible
drawing of breath. Gell, who had risen and leaned forward, dropped
back.
"But if you found it on the road, how do you account for the fact
that it has your name stamped on the corner of it? See--_Bessie_."
Bessie was speechless for another moment. Then she said,
"Bessie is a common name, isn't it?"
"But how do you account for the further fact that these two pieces
fit each other exactly?" asked the Attorney--laying the narrow strip
by the broader portion.
Bessie became dizzy and confused.
"I can't account for it. I know nothing about it," she said.
The Deemster, who was breathing with difficulty, asked the Attorney
what he suggested by the exhibits. The Attorney answered,
"The larger piece, your Honour, is the scarf which the body of the
child was found in, while the narrower one was discovered in the
prisoner's room, and the suggestion is that, taken together, they
form a chain of convincing evidence that she is guilty of the crime
with which she is charged."
Gell leapt to his feet. He had recognised the scarf as a present of
his own on Bessie's last birthday, and his great faith in the girl
was breaking down, yet in a husky voice he said,
"Give her time, your Honour. She may have some explanation."
The Deemster signified assent, and then Gell, stepping closer to the
witness-box, said,
"Be calm and think again. Don't answer hastily. Everything depends
on your reply. Are you sure the scarf was not yours and that you
lost the larger piece of it? Think carefully, I beg, I pray."
The advocate was losing himself, yet nobody protested. At length
Bessie, with the wild eyes of a captured animal, broke into violent
cries.
"Oh, why are you all torturing me? Wasn't it enough to torture my
mother? I know nothing about it."
Gell dropped back to his seat. There was a profound silence. The
great clock of the Castle was heard to strike four. The Deemster
felt as if every stroke were beating on his brain. At length he said,
"A new fact has been introduced by the prosecution and it is only
right that the defence should have time to consider it. It is now
four o'clock. The Court will adjourn until morning. It is not for
me to anticipate the evidence which the accused may give when the
Court resumes, but if in the interval she can remember anything which
will put a new light on the serious fact the Attorney-General has
just disclosed, nothing she has said in her agitation to-day shall
prejudice what she may say to-morrow."
He paused for a moment and then (with difficulty maintaining an equal
voice) he added,
"It sometimes happens that a young woman in the position of the
accused mistakes concealment for the much more serious crime of
murder."
He paused again and then said,
"Whatever the facts in this unhappy case may prove to be, if I may
speak to that mystery of a woman's heart which is truly said to be
sacred even in its shame, I will say, 'Tell the truth, the whole
truth; it will be best for you, best for everybody.'"
"The Court stands adjourned until eleven in the morning," said the
Governor. "Meantime, let the advocate for the defence see the
accused and give her the benefit of his legal advice and assistance.
Jailer, look to the Jury that they are properly lodged in the Castle,
and see that they hold no communication with persons outside."