THE COURT OF GENERAL JAIL DELIVERY
From Christmas-tide onward through the dark months, until a "dream of
spring" came once again on the slumbering face of winter, the six men
lay in Castle Rushen. Rumors from within the gray walls of the jail told
that some of them were restive under their punishment, and that the
spirits of others sank under it, but that Dan bore up with the fortitude
of resignation, and, though prone to much sadness, with even the
cheerfulness of content. It was the duty of each man to take his turn at
cleaning the cell, and it was said that Dan's turn seemed by his own
counting to come frequently. Reproaches he bore with humility, and on
one occasion he took a blow from Crennell, who was small of stature and
had a slight limp in one leg. Constant bickerings were rife among them,
and Dan was often their subject of quarrel, and still oftener their
victim; but they had cheerful hours, too, and sometimes a laugh
together.
Such were some of the reports that made gossip outside, where public
curiosity and excitement grew keener as the half-yearly sitting of the
Court of General Jail Delivery drew nearer. Copper riots and felonies of
all descriptions, disputes as to tithe, and arbitrations as to the modes
of counting the herrings, sank out of sight in prospect of the trial of
Dan and his crew. From Point of Ayr to the Calf of Man it was the
engrossing topic, and none living could remember a time when public
feeling ran so high. The son of the Bishop was to be tried for the
murder of the son of the Deemster, and a bigger issue could no man
conceive. Variable enough was the popular sympathy--sometimes with Dan,
sometimes against him, always influenced by what way the wave of feeling
flowed with regard to the Deemster and the Bishop. And closely were
these two watched at every turn.
The Deemster showed uncommon animation, and even some sprightliness. He
was more abroad than at any time for fifteen years before, and was
usually accompanied by Jarvis Kerruish. His short laugh answered oftener
to his own wise witticisms than at any time since the coming to the
island of his brother, the Bishop; but people whispered that his good
spirits did not keep him constant company within the walls of his own
house. There his daughter, Mona, still soft as the morning dew and all
but as silent, sat much alone. She had grown "wae," as folk said, rarely
being seen outside the gates of Ballamona, never being heard to laugh,
and showing little interest in life beyond the crib of her foster-child,
Ewan's orphaned daughter. And people remembered her mother, how silent
she had been, and how patient, and how like to what Mona was, and they
said now, as they had said long ago, "She's going down the steep
places."
The Bishop had kept close to Bishop's Court. Turning night into day, and
day into night, or knowing no times and seasons, he had been seen to
wander at all hours up and down the glen. If any passed him as he
crossed the road from the glen back to the house he had seemed not to
see. His gray hair had grown snowy white, his tall figure drooped
heavily from his shoulders, and his gait had lost all its spring.
Stricken suddenly into great age, he had wandered about mumbling to
himself, or else quite silent. The chapel on his episcopal demesne he
had closed from the time of the death of Ewan, his chaplain. Thus had he
borne himself shut out from the world, until the primrose had come and
gone, and the cuckoo had begun to call. Then as suddenly he underwent a
change. Opening the chapel at Bishop's Court he conducted service there
every Sunday afternoon. The good souls of the parish declared that never
before had he preached with such strength and fervor, though the face
over the pulpit looked ten long years older than on the Christmas
morning when the 'longshoremen brought up their dreadful burden from the
Mooragh. Convocation was kept on Whit-Tuesday as before, and the Bishop
spoke with calm and grave power. His clergy said he had gathered
strength from solitude, and fortitude from many days spent alone, as in
the wilderness, with his Maker. Here and there a wise one among his
people said it might look better of him to take the beam out of his own
eye than to be so very zealous in pointing out the motes in the eyes of
others. The world did not stand still, though public interest was in
suspense, and now and again some girl was presented for incontinence or
some man for drunkenness. Then it was noticed that the censures of the
Church had begun to fall on the evil-doer with a great tenderness, and
this set the wise ones whispering afresh that some one was busy at
sweeping the path to his own door, and also that the black ox never trod
on his own hoof.
The day of the trial came in May. It was to be a day of doom, but the
sun shone with its own indifference to the big little affairs of men.
The spring had been a dry one, and over the drought came heat. From
every corner of the island the people trooped off under the broiling sun
to Castletown. The Court of General Jail Delivery was held in Castle
Rushen, in the open square that formed the gateway to the prison chapel,
under the clear sky, without shelter from any weather. There the narrow
space allotted to spectators was thronged with hot faces under beavers,
mutches, and sun-bonnets. The passages from the castle gate on the quay
were also thronged by crowds who could not see, but tried to hear. From
the lancet windows of the castle that overlooked the gateway eager faces
peered out, and on the lead flat above the iron staircase and over the
great clock-tower were companies of people of both sexes, who looked
down and even listened when they could. The windows of the houses around
the castle gate were thrown up for spectators who sat on the sills. In
the rigging of the brigs and luggers that lay in the harbor, close under
the castle walls, sailors had perched themselves to look on, and crack
jokes and smoke. Nearly the whole floor of the market-place was
thronged, but under the cross, where none could see or hear, an old
woman had set up ninepins, tipped with huge balls of toffee, and a score
of tipsy fellows were busy with them amid much laughter and noise. A
line of older men, with their hands in their pockets, were propped
against the castle wall; and a young woman from Ballasalla, reputed to
be a prophetess, was standing on the steps of the cross, and calling on
the careless to take note that, while they cursed and swore and forgot
their Maker, six men not twenty yards away were on the brink of their
graves.
The judges were the Governor of the island (who was robed), the Clerk of
the Rolls, the two Deemsters (who wore wigs and gowns), the Water
Bailiff, the Bishop, the Archdeacon, the Vicars-General, and the
twenty-four Keys. All these sat on a raised platform of planks. The
senior and presiding Deemster (Thorkell Mylrea), who was the mouthpiece
of the court, was elevated on a central dais.
Thorkell was warm, eager, and even agitated. When the Bishop took his
seat, amid a low murmur of the spectators, his manner was calm, and his
quiet eyes seemed not to look into the faces about him.
The prisoners were brought in from the cell that opened to the left of
the gateway. They looked haggard and worn, but were not wanting in
composure. Dan, towering above the rest in his great stature, held his
head low; his cheeks were ashy, but his lips were firm. By his side,
half clinging to his garments, was the lad Davy, and at the other end of
the line was old Quilleash, with resolution on his weather-beaten face.
Crennell and Corkell were less at ease, but Teare's firm-set figure and
hard-drawn mouth showed the dogged determination of a man who meant that
day to sell his life dear. Sixty-eight men were present, summoned from
the seventeen parishes of the island to compose a jury of twelve to be
selected by the prisoners. Over all was the burning sun of a hot day in
May.
When the officer of the court had made the presentment, and was going on
to ask the prisoners to plead, the proceedings were suddenly
interrupted. The steward of the spiritual barony of the Bishop, now sole
baron of the island, rose to a point of law. One of the six prisoners
who were indicted for felony was a tenant of the Bishop's barony, and as
such was entitled to trial not by the civil powers of the island, but by
a jury of his barony, presided over by the proper president of his
barony. The prisoner in question was Daniel Mylrea, and for him the
steward claimed the privilege of a remand until he could be brought up
for trial before the court of the lord of the barony under which he
lived.
This claim created a profound sensation in the court. Dan himself raised
his eyes, and his face had a look of pain. When asked by the Deemster if
the claim was put forward by his wish or sanction he simply shook his
head. The steward paid no attention to this repudiation. "This court,"
he said, "holds no jurisdiction over a tenant of the Bishop's barony;"
and forthwith he put in a document showing that Daniel Mylrea was tenant
of a farm on the episcopal demesne, situate partly in Kirk Ballaugh and
partly in Kirk Michael.
The Deemster knew full well that he was powerless. Nevertheless he made
a rigid examination of the prisoner's lease, and, finding the document
flawless, he put the point of law to the twenty-four Keys with every
hampering difficulty. But the court was satisfied as to the claim, and
allowed it. "The prisoner, Daniel Mylrea, stands remanded for trial at
the court of his barony," said the Deemster, in a tone of vexation; "and
at that trial," he added, with evident relish, "the president of the
barony shall be, as by law appointed, assisted by a Deemster."
Dan was removed, his name was struck out of the indictment, and the
trial of the five fishermen was proceeded with. They pleaded "Not
guilty." The Attorney-General prosecuted, stating the facts so far as
they concerned the remaining prisoners, and reflecting at the evidence
against the prisoner who was remanded. He touched on the evidence of the
sailcloth, and then on the mystery attaching to a certain bundle of
clothes, belts, and daggers that had been found in the prison at Peel
Castle. At this reference the steward of the barony objected, as also
against the depositions that inculpated Dan. The witnesses were fewer
than at the Deemster's inquest, and they had nothing to say that
directly criminated the fishermen. Brief and uninteresting the trial
turned out to be with the chief prisoner withdrawn, and throughout the
proceedings the Deemster's vexation was betrayed by his thin, sharp,
testy voice. Some efforts were made to prove that Dan's disappearance
from Peel Castle had been brought about by the Bishop; but the steward
of the barony guarded so zealously the privileges of the ecclesiastical
courts that nothing less than an open and unseemly rupture between the
powers of Church and State seemed imminent when the Deemster, losing
composure, was for pressing the irrelevant inquiry. Moreover, the Keys,
who sat as arbiters of points of law and to "pass" the verdict of the
jury, were clearly against the Deemster.
The trial did not last an hour. When the jury was ready to return a
verdict, the Deemster asked in Manx, as by ancient usage, "_Vod y
fer-carree soie?_" (May the Man of the Chancel [the Bishop] sit?). And
the foreman answered "_Fod_" (He may); the ecclesiastics remained in
their seats; a verdict of "Not guilty" was returned, and straightway the
five fishermen were acquitted.
Later the same day the Deemster vacated his seat on the dais, and then
the Bishop rose and took it with great solemnity. That the Bishop
himself should sit to try his own son, as he must have tried any other
felon who was a tenant of his barony, made a profound impression among
the spectators. The Archdeacon, who had hoped to preside, looked
appalled. The Deemster sat below, and on either side were the
ecclesiastics, who had claimed their right to sit as judges in the civil
court. Another jury, a jury of the barony, was impaneled. The sergeant
of the barony brought Dan to the bar. The prisoner was still very calm,
and his lips were as firm, though his face was as white and his head
held as low as before. When a presentment was read over to him, charging
him with causing the death of Ewan Mylrea, deacon in holy orders, and he
was asked to plead, he lifted his eyes slowly, and answered in a clear,
quiet, sonorous voice, that echoed from the high walls of the gateway,
and was heard by the people on the clock tower, "Guilty."
As evidence had been taken at the Deemster's inquest, no witnesses were
now heard. The steward of the barony presented. He dwelt on the
prisoner's special and awful criminality, in so far as he was the son of
the Bishop, taught from his youth up to think of human life as a holy
thing, and bound by that honored alliance to a righteous way in life.
Then he touched on the peculiar duty of right living in one who held the
office of captain of his parish, sworn to preserve order and to protect
life.
When the steward had appended to his statement certain common-places of
extenuation based on the plea of Guilty, the Deemster, amid a dead hush
among the spectators, put questions to the prisoner which were intended
to elicit an explanation of his motive in the crime, and of the
circumstances attending it. To these questions Dan made no answer.
"Answer me, sir," the Deemster demanded, but Dan was still silent. Then
the Deemster's wrath mastered him.
"It ill becomes a man in your position to refuse the only amends that
you can make to justice for the pains to which you have put this court
and another."
It was an idle outburst. Dan's firm lip was immovable. He looked
steadily into the Deemster's face, and said not a word.
The steward stepped in. "The prisoner," he said, "has elected to make
the gravest of all amends to justice," and at that there was a deep
murmur among the people. "Nevertheless, I could wish," said the steward,
"that he would also make answer to the Deemster's question."
But the prisoner made no sign.
"There is some reason for thinking that, if all were known, where so
much is now hidden, the crime to which the prisoner pleads guilty would
wear a less grievous aspect."
Still the prisoner gave no answer.
"Come, let us have done," said the Deemster, twisting impatiently in his
seat. "Pronounce the sentence, and let your sergeant carry it into
effect."
The murmur among the people grew to a great commotion, but in the midst
of it the Bishop was seen to rise, and then a deep hush fell on all.
The Bishop's white head was held erect, his seamed face was firm as it
was pale, and his voice, when he spoke, was clear and full. "Daniel
Mylrea," he said, "you have pleaded guilty to the great crime of murder.
The sergeant of your barony will now remove you, and on the morning of
this day next week he will take you in his safe custody to the Tynwald
Hill, in the centre of the island, there in the eye of light, and before
the faces of all men, to receive the dreadful sentence of this court,
and to endure its punishment."