Next day was Sunday. It was a blind day at Ballamoar, with a chill
air and white mists sweeping up from the sea.
In the morning Stowell went to church. In the afternoon he sat in
the Library, reading in many volumes the stories of prison-breakings
and escapes. He saw that in nearly every case of failure chance had
played a part at the last moment, and he thought hard to foresee
every possible contingency.
Towards evening he brought his car round from the garage and told
Janet not to wait up for him. She had delivered Fenella's message
("Tell him to come back to me") and thought she knew where he was
going to. He was going to Government House. The sweet old soul was
very happy.
"I'll leave the piazza door on the catch, dear," she said, as he was
going off into the moving shadows of the trees.
By the time he reached Castletown the mist had deepened to a fog.
The broad tower of the Castle looked monstrously large and forbidding
against the gloom of the sky, and the fog-horn of the light-house on
Langness was blowing with a measured and melancholy sound across the
unseen sea.
Coming upon a tholthan (a ruined cottage) by the roadside he ran his
car into it, and then walked into the town.
The little place was once the capital of the island, and still
retained many of its primitive characteristics. There were no lamps
in the streets, which were therefore quite dark. Only a few of the
houses gave out light, for the younger children were already in bed,
and their parents were trooping to church or chapel.
The church bells were ringing. Save for that, and the footsteps of
his fellow pedestrians who walked in the darkness beside him, Stowell
heard nothing but the blowing of the far-off fog-horn. Everything
favoured his design. "It was meant to be," he told himself.
Nevertheless he was conscious of making his steps light and of trying
to escape observation. He took the least frequented thoroughfares,
so that he might walk fast and not be recognised, but in a narrow
lane that ran along under the Castle he came upon a pitiful spectacle
and was compelled to stop.
An elderly woman, wearing little except her nightdress, with her feet
bare and her long grey hair hanging loose, was kneeling on the paved
way and praying.
"Oh Lord, as Thou didst send Thine angel to take Peter out of prison,
send him now to take my poor girl out of the Castle."
By a dull light from a curtained window, Stowell saw who the poor
demented creature was. It was Mrs. Collister. Little as he desired
it, he had to pick her up and take her home.
"Come, mother," he said, raising her to her feet.
She looked into his face with awe, and permitted herself to be led
away by the hand like a child. A group of boys and girls who had
gathered round told him where she lived and that she was the mother
of the woman who was to be "hangt" in the morning.
Just then the people, a man and his wife, with whom she lodged, came
hurrying up, saying they had left her in bed while they went into
their yard on some errand and on returning to the kitchen they had
missed her.
In a few moments they were all at the open door of the house, a tiny
place two steps down from the street, with a lamp burning on the
table.
Finding the light on his face Stowell said Good-evening and hurried
away, but not before the man and his wife had seen him.
"That must be the young Dempster," said the man.
"It was his father," said Mrs. Collister.
"But his father is dead, woman," said the wife.
"It was his father, I tell thee," said Mrs. Collister, and they let
her have her way.
Still the church-bells rang, the fog-horn blew and Stowell stepped
lightly through the dark streets of the little town. He passed the
new Methodist chapel with the dark figure of the pew-opener against
the coloured glass screen of the vestibule; the barracks, with the
sentinel pacing outside and a number of red-coated soldiers in a bare
room within, smoking and playing cards. The market-square was ablaze
with light from the windows of the church (the same at which Bessie
had kept Oie'l Verree) and the shadowy forms of the congregation were
passing in at the porch.
At length he reached the quay with its smell of rock-salt and tar.
The _Dan O'Connell_ was lying under the Castle gates, lazily getting
up steam, and the Captain was smoking by the gangway.
"Everything right, Captain?"
"Everything, Sir."
"Will the fog interfere?"
"Not a ha'porth, yer Honour."
"What about the Harbour-master?"
"In church with the wife, but I'm to have supper with him after the
sarvice and take a bottle of something."
"And the Turnkey?"
"Blind polatic at the 'Manx Arms,' Sir."
There came a dull hammering from the inside the Castle. Stowell
shivered.
"Will they be gone in time?"
"Going back by the last train they're telling me."
"You'll whistle when you're clear away?"
"Shure!"
As Stowell crossed the foot-bridge at the back of the Church, he
heard the congregation singing the opening hymn ("Nearer, my God, to
Thee") and thought he knew the subject of the forthcoming sermon.
The melancholy blowing of the fog-horn was coming through the
blindness of the sea; the revolving light was blinking in and out on
Langness.
A quarter of an hour later he was at Derby Haven. Most of the houses
of the little port were dark, but the window of one of them gave out
a faint light. Stowell tapped at it and Gell opened the door.
For two hours they sat together in the old maids' stuffy
sitting-room, talking in whispers. Stowell gave Gell his last
instructions.
"You remember that there are two gates to the Castle?"
"Yes."
"At eleven o'clock exactly, the moment the clock has ceased striking,
you'll ring at the big gate, and then step round to the Deemster's."
"Yes!"
"Somebody will open the gate. It will be the jailer. If he calls
you'll make no answer."
"Yes?"
"Yes?"
"As soon as he has closed the big gate the little one will be opened
and Bessie will be brought out to you."
"Yes?"
"That's all. You know the rest."
After that there was a cold silence, quite unlike the warmth of
yesterday. Each was thinking of the cruel thing which had come
between them, and neither dared to talk about. At length Gell,
taking something from his pocket, said,
"I owe you some money."
"No, you don't. Remember the terms I lent it on."
"Then take this anyway," said Gell, handing Stowell a sealed envelope.
After that there was another long silence, and then Gell said, in a
thick voice,
"When we're far enough away I'll write."
"No, no!"
"Do you mean that I'm never to write to you?"
"Never."
"But I will .... I must...."
"Don't be a damned fool, man. Can't you see you never can?"
There was a pause.
"Victor," said Gell, "that's the first unkind word you have ever said
to me."
"Alick," said Stowell, "it shall be the last."
The wash of the tide (it was near to the flood) on the stones of the
shore, the monotonous blowing of the fog-horn and the deliberate
ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece were the only sounds they
heard except the irregular heave of their own breathing.
The two men were alternately watching the fingers of the clock and
gazing down at the pattern of the carpet. At a few minutes to ten
Stowell got up and said,
"I must go now."
"I'll walk down the road with you," said Gell.
They walked side by side in the mist until they came to the ruins of
Hango Hill (where long before Alick had had his fight with the
townsmen) and were breast to breast with King William's College.
"You had better go back now. We must not be seen together," said
Stowell.
They stood for some moments without speaking. The clock in the
school tower was striking ten. The school itself was in darkness.
Another generation of boys were lying asleep in it now.
"I suppose we've got to say good-bye," said Gell.
Stowell made no reply, but he took Gell's hand and there was a long
handclasp. Then they separated, Stowell going on towards the town,
and Gell turning back to Derby Haven. Each had walked a few paces
when Gell stopped and called,
"Vic!"
"What is it?"
There was a pause, and then, in a thick voice,
"Nothing! S'long!"
And so they parted.
There was loud laughter and a voice with a brogue from a house on the
quay with the blind down but the top sash of the window partly open.
The church was dark and the market-place silent, save for the
measured tread of the sentry.
But as Stowell crossed the square he heard a light step and saw
through the thick air the shadowy form of a woman coming from the
direction of the Castle and going towards the hotel opposite.
He hung back until she had passed, and when the door of the hotel
opened to her knocking, and the light from within rushed out on her,
he saw who it was.
It was Fenella. Stowell understood. She had come from the cell of
the condemned woman, and was sleeping in Castletown that night in
order to be with her in the morning.
"But wait! Only wait!"
In spite of his certainty that Providence was on his side he stepped
more lightly than ever as he went down to the quay.
The funnel of the Irish steamer was now throbbing hard, and a few
sailors on the forward deck were swearing. Save for this and the
wash of the tide against the sides of the harbour, all was still.
Stowell looked around and listened for a moment. Then he stepped up
to the Deemster's door and pulled the bell, and heard its clang
inside the walls.