From that time forward the Judge went about like a criminal.
He stayed at home the following day to think out his plans. All his
schemes revolved about Castle Rushen. The great, grey, bastioned
fortress--how was he to get the prisoner out of it?
His first idea was to use the jailer, who was a simple soul and had
obligations to his family. But he abandoned this thought rather from
fear of the old man's garrulous tongue than from qualms of conscience.
It was Tuesday, and Bessie's execution had been fixed for the Monday
following, but the day passed without bringing any better thought to
him.
Somewhere in the dark reaches of Wednesday morning an idea flashed
upon him. It was usual for one of the Deemsters to make an annual
examination of the prisons of the island, the time being subject to
his own convenience. Stowell determined to make his examination of
Castle Rushen now.
At eleven o'clock he was going round the Castle with the jailer.
There were two sides to the prison, a debtor side and a criminal
side, and they went over both--the jailer complaining of decaying
doors and rusty padlocks, and the Deemster, with a sense of shame,
pretending to make notes of them, while his eyes and his mind were on
other matters.
"Not much chance of a prisoner escaping from a place like this, Mr.
Vondy."
"Not a ha'porth! Those old Normans knew how to keep people out--and
in too, Sir. But there's one cell you haven't looked at yet, your
Honour--the girl Collister's."
"We'll leave her alone, Mr. Vondy. How is she now, poor creature?"
"Wonderful! That cheerful and smart you wouldn't believe, Sir."
"Then she doesn't know...."
"'Deed she does, Sir. But she thinks Mr. Gell, the advocate, is up
in London getting her pardon, and she's listening and listening for
his foot coming back with it."
Stowell went to bed on Wednesday night also without any scheme for
Bessie Collister's escape. But in the grey dawn of Thursday morning,
when the world was awakening from a heavy sleep, another idea came to
him. The Antiquarian Society of the island had made him a
Vice-President when he became a Deemster, and having opened up
certain portions of the Castle that were outside the precincts of the
prison, they had asked him to inspect their discoveries.
With another spasm of hope, Stowell returned to Castletown.
"Give me your lantern, and let me wander about by myself, Mr. Vondy."
"'Deed I will, Sir. Your Honour knows the Castle as well as I do."
There was said to be a subterranean passage under the harbour for
escape in case of siege. Stowell found it (a noisome, slimy,
rat-infested place, dripping with water) but the further end of it
had been walled up.
There was a foul dungeon in which a Bishop had been confined when he
came into collision with the civil authorities, and tradition had it
that he had preached through a window to his people on the quay.
Stowell found that also, but the window was narrow and barred.
There were ramparts round the four-square walls, but on one side they
looked down into the back yards of the little houses that lay against
the great fortress and on the other three sides they were exposed to
the market-place, the Parliament-square and the harbour.
For the second time Stowell went home in the lowering nightfall with
a heavy heart. As the time approached for the execution his
agitation increased, and on Thursday night also he tossed about,
thinking, thinking. At length he remembered something. He had a key
to the Deemster's private entrance to the Castle, and though the door
was always bolted on the inside, a plan of escape occurred to him.
On Friday morning he was in the jailer's room. It had been the
guard-room of the Castle and was hung about with souvenirs of earlier
times--maps, plans, a cutlass that had been captured in a fight with
Spanish pirates, a blunderbuss that had been used by Manx Fencibles,
a keyboard, a line of handcuffs, and a rope, in a glass case, that
had been used in the hanging of a Manx criminal.
"You haven't many prisoners in the Castle now, Mr. Vondy?"
"Aw, no! Didn't your Honour discharge all but one at the last
General Gaol?"
"And not much company?"
"Only Willie Shimmin, the turnkey, and he's a drunken gommeral,
always wanting out, and never sure of coming back at all."
"What about your female warder?"
"Mrs. Mylrea? A dying woman, Sir. Not been here since the trial,
and if it wasn't for Miss Stanley...."
"Does she come often?"
"Nearly every day now, Sir."
At that moment there was the clang of a bell.
"There she is, I'll go bail," said the jailer, and snatching a big
key from the keyboard he turned to go.
In the collapse of his better nature Stowell was afraid to meet
Fenella, knowing well she would see through him.
"Don't trouble about me, or mention that I'm here," he said, and
picking up his lantern he made a show of going on with his researches.
But as soon as the jailer had disappeared he turned rapidly to the
Deemster's door and had opened it and stepped out and closed it
behind him, before the jailer and Fenella (whose voices he could
hear) had emerged from the Portcullis into the court-yard.
It was done! Light had fallen on him at last. Now he knew how
Bessie Collister was to escape from Castle Rushen.
But it was not enough that Bessie should escape from her prison; she
must escape from the island also; and to do so by means of the
regular steam packet from Douglas to England was impossible. Was
this to be another and still greater difficulty?
The tide was up in the harbour and the fishing-boats were making
ready to go out for the night. As Stowell walked down the quay he
saw a blue-coated and brass-buttoned elderly man coming up with
unsteady steps--the harbour-master. A sudden thought came to him.
Why not by a fishing-boat?
He remembered his night with the herrings on the Governor's yacht,
when, lying off the Carlingford sands, he had seen the lights of
Dublin. Why could not a fishing-boat steal away in the darkness and
put Bessie ashore in Ireland?
It was the very thing! Only it must not be a Castletown boat, lest
she should be missed when the fleet came back to port in the morning.
Why not a Ramsey boat, or, better still, a boat from Peel?
After dinner that night he walked on the gravelled terrace in front
of the house. The moon was shining in a pale sky and the bald crown
of old Snaefell was visible through the motionless trees. He drew up
on the spot on which he had first parted from Fenella, and a warm
vision of the scene of so many years ago returned to him. Then came
the memory of their last parting and of the scorching words with
which she had driven him away from her.
"But wait! Only wait!" he thought.
He was satisfied with himself. He was sure he was doing right. He
even believed God was using him as an instrument of His divine
justice, to correct the infamy of the world by a signal action. It
was one of those lulls between the wings of a circling storm which
come to the soul of man as well as to nature.
He was almost happy.