A little later Stowell was brought up for trial at a special sitting
of the Court of General Gaol Delivery held in Douglas.
"This wretched case has injured the credit of the island in England,"
said the Governor to the Attorney-General. The sooner it was over
and done with the better.
For a long half-hour before the proceedings began the courthouse was
dark with men. Indignation against Stowell had succeeded to
astonishment. Piecing things together (from Fenella's outburst in
Court to Gell's threat of personal violence against the Deemster)
people had arrived at something like the truth. The lips which a few
days before had saluted Stowell with cries of worshipful lover were
ready to break into shouts of execration.
The scoundrel! The traitor! Poor young Gell! And then that girl
Collister was not so bad as they had thought her.
Stowell's enemies had been crowing with satisfaction. "Well, what
did I tell you?" said Hudgeon, the advocate. And Qualtrough, M.H.K.,
repeated what he had said in the smoking-room of the Keys--you had
only to give the rascal rope and he would hang himself.
His friends were yet more deadly. Nearly all had deserted him. The
good things they had said had been forgotten. Every bad thing they
could remember was revived, as far back as his reckless days at Mount
Murray as a young man and his expulsion from King William's as a boy.
He was a man of straw. It was surprising what people had seen in
him, and astonishing that the Governor had recommended him for the
position of Deemster.
The press had been silent, from fear of the penalties of contempt,
but the pulpit (Sunday having intervened) had been loud with
platitudes, inspired by the text, "Be sure your sin will find you
out."
When the time came for the Judges to enter the court-house the
atmosphere was rank with evil passions and the acid odour of
perspiring people.
Taubman was the Deemster. Although tortured by rheumatism he had
dragged himself out of bed, having scented an opportunity of gaining
favour with the Governor.
The Governor presided, as it was his duty to do, but it was remarked
that except for one moment on taking his seat, when he looked round
at the open-mouthed spectators with an expression which seemed to
say, "What a race!" he never raised his eyes.
It was a short trial, and rarely had there been a more irregular one.
Taubman was notorious for his legal deficiencies. In earlier days
Stowell, in one of his "Limericks," had christened him "Old
Necessity," because "necessity knew no law." He had long been
jealous of Stowell's popularity and particularly of his rapid rise to
a position which he had had to wait forty years for. Now he had the
"upstart" in his hand at last.
When the case was called Stowell was brought up by two policemen and
placed in the dock. His cheeks were very pale and his eyes heavy as
with unshed tears. It was almost as if his youth had stepped with
one stride into age. But suffering gives a certain sublimity, and it
was said afterwards that never before had he looked so strong and
noble.
The spectators saw nothing of that now. His calm seemed to them to
be callousness. He did not appear to see the scorching glances they
cast at him. The last time they had seen him in Court he was on the
bench, now he was in the dock, and they would have been better
pleased if, in the dread certainty of his fate, he had betrayed the
fellness of terror. But except for one moment, when he turned slowly
round to look at them, and their murmurs ceased suddenly at full
sight of his face, he seemed to them to have forgotten the shame of
the place he stood in.
Taubman, in a rasping voice, read out the charge to the prisoner and
called on him to plead.
"How say you, are you Guilty or Not Guilty?"
"Guilty," said Stowell in a clear voice, and then, after a moment of
merciless silence, there was a deep drawing of breath.
"Had you any accomplices?"
"None."
"Humph! And what was your motive in committing this crime?"
Again there was a moment of merciless silence, and then Stowell,
speaking very slowly, said,
"I had seduced the prisoner and was therefore the first cause of her
crime."
Ah! There was another long indrawing of breath among the spectators.
It was a wonder the man didn't fall dead with shame!
"And what, if you please, was your reason for making this confession?"
"I could not allow an innocent person to suffer for my crime."
"Was that your only reason?"
The silence became breathless. After a pause Stowell said, in a low
voice,
"That is a question I will answer to a higher tribunal."
"Indeed!" said Taubman, with a sneer, and then the silence was broken
by a cowardly titter which passed through the court-house.
The Attorney-General rose to summarise the facts. His face was white
and decomposed; his thin hair was disordered, and the linen slip
under his chin was awry.
Only once before since leaving Government House had he been out of
doors--to visit Stowell at the Police-station and receive the letter
which had been found on him. He, too, had dragged himself from bed
to come to Court, being afraid to leave the prosecution of the son of
his old friend, the boy brought up in his own office, to the Deputy
whom the Governor was sure to appoint in his place--Hudgeon, who sat
by his side.
His speech did not please either the Court or the spectators. It
gave the impression of being a plea for the prisoner. And indeed
there were moments when the Attorney seemed to forget that he was
there to prosecute.
Speaking in a tremulous voice, and never once looking towards the
dock, he said it would seem incredible that anyone in the position of
the accused could be guilty of the crime with which he was charged.
But the lucidity of his confession, and its correspondence to the
facts as they knew them, made it inconceivable that he had told a
lie. There could be no doubt he was guilty, and being so he came
under the condemnation of the law.
"Ha!"
"But," said the old man, flashing his moist eyes on the glistening
eyes behind him, "the Crown stands for Justice, not revenge."
The Court would remember that the prisoner had made a voluntary
confession, that nothing would have been known of his crime if he had
not of himself disclosed it, and before the sublime spectacle of a
man who was making the only reparation in his power to the Justice he
had sullied, it would be touched by the fire of a great renunciation.
A murmur of dissent passed through the court-house.
Again, the Court would remember that the prisoner had confessed to
the secret sin which had tempted him to his crime. If he had been a
scoundrel he could have concealed it, but he had put conscience
before liberty, before reputation, perhaps before life.
"Oh!"
Once more the Court would remember that the prisoner had surrendered
to Justice because another was in danger of arrest, and it would not
be human if it were not moved by the sight of a man giving himself up
to the law so that an innocent man might not suffer in his stead.
Finally, the Court would remember the youth of the prisoner, his
undoubted talents, his brilliant promise, his high position, and the
revered memory of his father, and if, moved by these considerations,
it decided to impose a nominal penalty, the Crown would be satisfied.
"Ah!"
"But whatever the punishment the Court thinks fit to impose on the
prisoner," said the Attorney, "it can be as nothing to that which he
has inflicted upon himself. Never in this island has there been so
great a downfall, and rarely can suffering for sin have been more
terrible since the Veil of the Temple was rent in twain and darkness
covered the land."
It was impossible for the spectators not to be hushed to awe by the
daring words and quivering tones with which the old Attorney closed
his speech, but Taubman, in the ferocity of his malice, was unmoved.
"Humph!" he said. "All that means, I suppose, that a man may be
innocent and guilty at the same time."
And then another cowardly titter ran through the court-house.
The time had come for judgment. Taubman leaned over the bench,
clasped his bony fingers in front of him, and said,
"Victor Stowell, stand up."
Stowell rose, and stood with his hands interlaced, and his heavy eyes
fixed steadfastly on his Judge.
"Have you anything to say why judgment should not be pronounced upon
you?"
"Nothing."
It needs no skill to wound the defenceless, and for the next few
minutes Taubman seemed to glory in the exercise of his power.
"Prisoner at the bar," he said, "you have confessed to the crime of
breaking prison to effect the escape from custody of a young woman
you had first debauched and then abandoned."
"Ha!"
"It has been said on your behalf (strangely enough by the public
servant whose duty it was to arraign you) that your confession was
voluntary. Nothing of the kind. It was made when the hand of the
law was upon you, when the warrant for the arrest of an innocent man
was about to be issued, and you were face to face with the certainty
of exposure and punishment."
"Ha!"
"It has been also been said that the confession of your private sin
shows the operation of your conscience. But your conscience would
have been better employed when you sat in judgment on your own
victim--a deliberate offence that is probably without precedent in
the history of criminal jurisprudence.
"Finally it has been argued that your high position and family
connections ought to mitigate your punishment. On the contrary, they
ought to increase it, as showing your disregard of your
responsibilities, and especially your ingratitude to the head of the
judiciary, his Excellency" (here Taubman bowed to the Governor),
"whose favours you have so ill requited."
"Ah!"
"Your crime is clear. It is without a particle of justification.
You have disgraced your name, your profession, and your island.
Therefore the Court can only mark its sense of the enormity of your
offence by inflicting the maximum penalty prescribed by the law--two
years' imprisonment in Castle Rushen."
Hardly had the last words been spoken when the spectators broke into
frenzied shouts of approval. Neither the police nor the Judge made
any attempt to repress them. The Governor rose hastily and hurried
off the bench, and Taubman, gathering up his papers, his spectacles
and his two walking-sticks, hobbled after him.
The shouting went on. It surged about Stowell as he stepped out of
the dock and passed with slow stride through the door that led down
to the prison. The deadened sound of it followed him while he
descended the stairs, and when he reached the cell it mingled with
yet wilder shouting from the streets, where a tumultuous crowd had
been waiting for the verdict. The delight of the mob seemed
delirious. Some women from the meaner streets by the quay were
dancing on the pavement.
Meantime, in his robing-room with the Governor, Taubman was
congratulating himself on his travesty of Justice. Taking his wig
off his stubbly grey hair he said,
"I think I gave my gentleman his deserts for his bad treatment of
your Excellency. Eh? What?"
And then the Governor spoke for the first time that day.
"Maybe so," he said, "but all the same you are not fit to wipe his
boots, Sir."