"Forgive you? Never while that girl lies in prison as the
consequence of your sin."
The words beat on Stowell's brain with the paralysing effect of a
muffled drum. He was driving up the mountain road. Char-à-bancs,
full of English visitors (who were laughing and singing in chorus),
were coming down. The drivers shouted at him from time to time.
This irritated him until he realised that his motor-car was
oscillating from side to side of the road.
When he reached the top, where the road turns towards the glen, all
the heart was gone out of him. The great scene no longer brought the
old joyousness. With love lost and hope quenched the soul of the
world was dead, and the heavens were dark above him.
At the bottom of the glen, where it dips into the Curragh, he came
upon a group of bare-headed women, with their arms under their
aprons, surrounding a little person with watery eyes, in a poke
bonnet and a satin mantle. Mrs. Collister had returned from
Castletown, and her neighbours were taking her home.
"Never mind, woman! It will be all set right at the judgment. And
then the man will be found out and punished, too!"
At the corner of the cross roads Dan Baldromma threw himself in front
of the car, to draw it up, and in his raucous voice he fell on
Stowell with a torrent of abuse.
"You've been locking up a respectable man, Dempster, but you can't
lock up his tongue, and the island is going to know what justice in
the Isle of Man can be."
Stowell made no answer. Any poor creature could insult him now.
Janet was waiting for him at Ballamoar, with a fire in the library,
and the tea-tray ready. But the sweet home atmosphere only made him
think of the happiness that had been so nearly within his reach.
Seeing that something was amiss, Janet assumed her cheeriest tone,
brought out two patterns of damask, laid them over chairs, and asked
which Fenella would like best for her boudoir.
"I don't know. I can't say. But .... it doesn't matter now."
Janet gathered up her patterns and went out of the room without a
word.
"Forgive you? Never while that girl lies in prison." The stinging
words followed him to his bedroom. They broke up his sleep. They
rang like the screech of an owl through the darkness of the night.
Next day, not trusting himself to drive his car, he returned to
Castletown by train. There were only two first-class compartments
and both were full. He was about to step into a third-class carriage
when a voice cried,
"This way, Deemster. Always room enough for you."
There was to be a sitting of the Keys that day and the compartment
was full of northside members. The talk was about yesterday's trial,
and Stowell realised that his management of the case had created a
favourable impression. Merciful to the prisoner? Yes, until her
guilt was established, but then just, even at the expense of
friendship.
This led to talk about Gell as the girl's fellow-sinner.
"Shocking! But it's not the first time he has been mixed up with a
woman."
Stowell felt an intolerable shame at Gell's undeserved obloquy and
his own unmerited glory, but he could say nothing.
"It will kill the old man," said one of the Keys. The train had
drawn up at a side station and his voice was loud in the vacant air.
"Hush!"
The Speaker was in the next compartment.
When the train started again a little man with the face of a ferret
began to make facetious references to "Fanny." Stowell's hands were
itching to take the ribald creature by the throat and fling him out
of the window, but something whispered, "Who are you to be the
champion of virtue?"
At Court that day, and the day following, he found it hard to
concentrate. At one moment an advocate said,
"Perhaps your Honour is not well this morning?"
"Oh no! I heard you. You were saying...."
The rapidity of his mind enabled him to make up for his lapses in
attention, and when his time came to sum up he was always ready.
He was indulgent to the accused. All the other prisoners were
acquitted--the fat woman for the reason that, bad as her character
might be, the characters of her drunken sailors were yet worse
(therefore no credit could be attached to their evidence), and the
boy who had embezzled on the ground that his superiors at the bank
had been guilty of almost criminal negligence, and the four months he
had been in prison already were sufficient to satisfy the claims of
justice.
The boy's mother, who was standing at the back, threw her arms about
him and kissed him when he stepped out of the dock, and then, turning
her streaming face up to the bench, she cried,
"God bless you, Deemster! May you live long and every day of your
life be a happy one."
Back at home, Stowell plunged into the task of drawing up the report
for the English authorities which was to accompany the recommendation
to mercy. In two days (having his father's library to fall back
upon) he knew more about the grounds upon which the prerogative of
the Crown could properly be exercised than anybody in the island had
ever before been required to learn, and when he had finished his task
he had no misgivings.
Bessie's sentence would be commuted to imprisonment. And then (life
for the poor soul being at an end in the Puritanical old island) he
must find some secret means of sending her away.
"Never while that girl...." But wait! Only wait!
Being legislator as well as Judge, he attended the first meeting of
Tynwald Court after his appointment. The Governor administered the
oath to him in a private room, and then, taking his arm, led the way
to the legislative chamber.
"Do you know it's six days since you were at Government House, my
boy? What is Fenella to think of you?"
"Has she .... has she been asking for me, Sir?"
"Well, no, not to say asking, but still .... six days, you know."
Stowell sat on a raised daïs between the Attorney-General and
Deemster Taubman, who was sufficiently recovered to hobble in on two
sticks. The proceedings were of the kind that is usual in such
assemblies, the Manx people being the children of their mothers,
loving to talk much and about many things.
He found it difficult to fix his attention, and was watching for an
opportunity to slip away, when the vain repetitions which are called
debate suddenly ceased and the Governor called on an Inspector by
Police to carry round a Bill which had to be signed by all.
In the interval of general conversation that followed, Deemster
Taubman, a gruff and grizzly person, leaned back in his seat, put his
thumbs in the armholes of his soiled white waistcoat and talked to
Stowell.
"You did quite right in that case of the girl Collister, Sir. In
fact you were only too indulgent. I have no pity for the huzzies who
run away from the consequences of their misconduct. Murder is
murder, and there is no proper punishment for it but death."
"But the Jury recommended the girl to mercy, and her sentence will be
commuted," said Stowell.
"Eh? Eh? Then you haven't heard what has happened?"
"What?"
"The Governor has reported against the recommendation."
"Reported against it?"
"Certainly. And as the authorities in London are not likely to read
the report and are sure to act on the Governor's advice, the girl
will go to the gallows."
Stowell felt as if he had been struck over the eyes by an unseen
hand. As soon as he had signed the Bill (in a trembling scrawl) he
whispered to the Attorney-General that he was unwell and fled from
the chamber.
"Humph!" said Taubman, looking after him. "That young man is going
to break down, and no wonder. His appointment as Deemster was the
maddest thing I ever knew."