"AND GOD MADE MAN OF THE DUST OF THE GROUND"
Stowell had travelled far by this time.
When he left Government House in the heat and flame of his anger he
was at war with God and man. There was a kind of self-defence in
thinking that, however deep his own wrong-doing, the whole world was
full of infamy.
He found that news of the forthcoming execution had reached Fort Anne
before he returned to it. To avoid the whispering groups in the
public rooms he packed his bag and took the afternoon train to
Ballamoar.
Alone in the railway carriage he had time to review the situation.
His visit to the Governor had been a wretched failure. But even if
it had been a success what would have been the result to Bessie
Collister? Substitution of the jail for the gallows. Instead of
death, three years, five years, perhaps ten years' imprisonment.
Thank God he had not succeeded!
"But what am I to do now?" he asked himself.
Appeal to London? Useless! The Home officials would support the
resident authority, and, having made a hideous error, they would be
reluctant to correct it.
"Then what can I do?" he thought.
Suddenly he saw that every argument he had used with the Governor
against putting Bessie to death applied equally to keeping her in
prison. This was not a question of degrees of guilt--of murder or
manslaughter. Either Bessie was guilty of murder and ought to be
executed or she was not guilty (not being responsible) and ought to
be set at liberty.
"Then the law under which she has been condemned is a crime," he
thought.
This terrified him. All his inherited instinct of reverence for the
justice and majesty of the law revolted.
"The law a crime! Good heavens, what am I thinking about?"
And yet why not? Why had there been so much misery in the world?
Was it because of the crimes committed against the law? No, but
chiefly because of the crimes committed by the law. Yes, that was
the real key to the long martyrdom of man throughout the ages.
"If a law is a crime it ought to be broken," he told himself.
But how! There was only one proper way in a free country--through
Parliament and by the slow uprising of the human conscience. But
that was a long process, and meantime what would happen in this case?
Bessie would be dead and buried! That must not be! No, the law that
had condemned Bessie Collister must be broken at once--now!
"But who is to break it?"
He trembled at that question, but found only one answer. It shivered
at the back of his mind like the white water over a reef at the neck
of a narrow sea, and it was not at first that he dared to think of
it. But at length he saw that since he had been the instrument of
the law in dooming Bessie to death it was he who must set her free.
When he reached this point on his dark way he was horrified.
"What? A Judge break the law!"
He thought of his oath as Deemster and of the execration that would
fall on him if found out. He remembered his father's motto: "Justice
is the most sacred thing on earth." No, no, it was impossible! His
honour as a Judge forbade it.
But, as the train ran on, the call of nature conquered and he asked
himself what, after all, was his honour as a Judge compared with that
poor girl's life?
"Nothing! Nothing!"
Bessie Collister must not die! She must not remain in prison! She
must escape! He must help her to do so. Secretly, though, nobody
knowing, not even the girl herself or Fenella.
At St. John's, a junction between the north of the island and the
south, the Bishop of the island stepped into Stowell's compartment.
He had been holding a confirmation service at a neighbouring church,
and a company of young girls, in white muslin frocks, were seeing him
off from the platform. While the carriages were being coupled he
stood at the open door and said good-bye to them.
"And now go home, dear children, and have your suppers and get to
bed. Home, sweet home, you know!"
But the children would not go until they had sung again in their
sweet young voices the hymn they had just been singing in
church--"Now the day is over." By the time the engine whistled and
the train was moving out of the station, they had reached the verse--
"_Comfort every sufferer,
Watching late in pain,
Those who plan some evil
From their sin restrain._"
Stowell dare not look at them. He was thinking of the girl in Castle
Rushen and picturing to himself a similar scene of joy and innocence
which might have taken place only a few years before in the station
by the glen.
"Ah!" said the Bishop, settling himself in his seat.
He was a short, dapper, almost dainty little man, who talked
continually like the brook that often runs behind a Manx cottage and
fills it with cheerful chatter.
"I suppose you've heard the news, Deemster?"
He produced a small evening newspaper.
"That poor young person in Castle Rushen is to be executed after all!
Terrible, isn't it?"
Stowell bent his head.
"I really thought that after your address to the Jury she would have
been pardoned. But who am I to set up my opinion against that of the
King's advisers? And then think of the effect of bad example! Those
dear children, for instance, they are not too young to remember. And
if that unhappy girl had got off who knows what effect...."
Stowell, nursing the fires of his rebellion, hardly heard the running
stream of commonplace.
"And then Holy Wedlock! I always say that every act of carnal
transgression is a sin against the marriage altar."
The train was running along the western coast; the sun was setting;
the Irish mountains were purple against the red glow of the sky
behind them.
"And then think of the poor soul herself! It may be best for her
too! God knows to what depths she might have descended!"
Stowell wanted to burst out on the Bishop, but a secret voice within
him whispered, "Hold your tongue! Say nothing!"
"All the same, I'm sorry for the poor creature, and only yesterday I
was using my influence to get her into a Refuge Home for Fallen Women
across the water."
The train drew up at the station for Bishop's Court, and the Bishop,
after a cheerful adieu, hopped like a bird along the platform to
where his carriage stood waiting for him, with its two high-stepping
horses and its coachman in livery.
Stowell's heart was afire.
"Refuge Home! Send some of your fashionable women to your Refuge
Homes! Holy Wedlock! There are more fallen women inside your Holy
Wedlock than outside of it!"
At the station for the glen Stowell got out himself, and there he saw
a different spectacle--an elderly woman in a satin mantle, surrounded
by a group of other elderly women in faded sun-bonnets.
It was Mrs. Collister again. In one hand she held her blackthorn
stick, and in the other she carried a small bundle in a print
handkerchief--probably containing her underclothing.
Stowell understood. The news about Bessie had reached her home, and
the heart-broken (almost brain-broken) old mother was waiting for the
south-going train to Castletown.
A hush fell on the women when Stowell stepped out of the railway
carriage, but as he made his way to his dog-cart at the gate, he
heard one of them say,
"It's a wicked shame! But you'll be with the poor bogh at the end
and that will comfort her."
A kind of savage pride had taken possession of Stowell.
"Not yet! Not yet!" he thought.
The law was wrong, therefore it was right to resist the law. It was
more than right--it was a kind of sacred duty.