SECOND BOOK THE RECKONING (continued 2)

"She loves me! She loves me! She loves me!"

Ah, here were the cliffs of the Calf, with their hoary heads in the flying sky and their feet in the thunder of the sea! And here was the brown-belted lighthouse of the Chicken Rock, which Fenella and he had picked up last night! And here was the shoulder of Spanish Head, and here was the belly of the Chasms, ringing with the cry of ten thousand sea fowl!

"She loves me! She loves me! She loves me!"

Suddenly there came a shock. They were opening the bay of Port St. Mary, with the little fishing town lying asleep along its sheltered arm, when he saw across the Poolvaish (the pool of death) the grey walls of Castle Rushen, and the long reach of Langness. And then memory flowed back on him like a tidal wave.

Derby Haven! The old maids' house! The girl burning her candle in her bedroom to educate herself that she might become worthy to be his wife!

"Oh God! Oh God!"

If Fenella loved him he had stolen her love. He had no right to it, being married already, virtually married—bound by every tie that could hold an honourable man.

He felt like a traitor—a traitor to Fenella now. He recalled what he had said last night. One step more and——

Thank God, he had gone no farther! If he had allowed Fenella to engage herself to him, and then the facts about Bessie Collister had become known, as they might have done through Dan Baldromma——

He must go. He must go immediately. His miserable mistake must not bring disgrace on Fenella also.

The yacht was sliding into the slack water of the bay, and the row-boats of the fish-buyers, each flying its little flag, were coming out to meet the fishing boats, when Stowell went down to the saloon—still dark with its blue silk curtains over skylight and portholes.

He took off his fisherman's clothes, put on his own, and sat down at the table to scribble a note to the Governor:

"Excuse me! I must go up to Douglas by the first train. Have just remembered an important engagement.

Hope to call at Government Office to-morrow."

As he was leaving the saloon he looked back towards the cabin in which Fenella lay asleep. His eyes were wet, his heart throbbed painfully, he felt as if he were being banished from her presence as by a curse. Renunciation—life-long renunciation—that was all that was left to him now.

The fleet were in harbour when he went on deck, a hundred boats huddled together. And when he stepped ashore the fish salesmen were selling the night's catch by auction, and the bronze-faced and heavy-bearded fishermen, in their big boots, were counting their herrings in mixed English and Manx:

"Nane, jeer, three, kiare, quieg .... warp, tally!"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE WOMAN'S SECRET

When Stowell awoke next morning at Ballamoar a flock of sheep, liberated from a barn, were bleating before a barking dog. He had passed a restless night. All his soul revolted against the renunciation he had imposed upon himself. It was like life-long imprisonment. Yet what was he to do? He must decide and decide quickly.

Suddenly he thought of the Governor. The strong sense and practical wisdom of the Governor might help him to a decision. But Fenella's father! How could he tell his story to Fenella's father?

At last an idea came to him whereby he could obtain the Governor's counsel without betraying his secret. He was at the crisis. On what he did now the future of his life depended. And not his own life, only, but Fenella's also, perhaps, and .... Bessie Collister's.

At three o'clock he was at the Government offices in Douglas. Police inspectors were at the door and moving about in the corridors. One of them took him up to the Governor's room—a large chamber overlooking the street and noisy from the tram-cars that ran under the windows. The Governor's iron-grey head was bent over a desk-table.

"Sit down—I shall not be long."

Stowell felt his heart sink in advance. Never would he be able to say what he had come to say.

"Well, you gave us the slip nicely, didn't you?" said the Governor, raising his head from his papers.

"I'm sorry, Sir," said Stowell (he felt his lip trembling). "It was an important matter, and I've come to town to-day to ask your advice on it."

"Something you've been consulted about?"

"Well .... yes."

"I'm no authority on law, you know."

"It's not so much a matter of law, Sir, as of morality—what an honourable man ought to do under difficult circumstances."

The Governor looked up sharply. Stowell struggled on.

"A client .... I should say a friend .... engaged himself to a young woman awhile ago, and now, owing to circumstances which have arisen since, he finds it difficult to decide whether it is his duty to marry her."

"Manxman?"

"Yes."

"What class?"

Stowell felt his voice as well as his lips trembling. "Oh, good enough class, I think."

The Governor picked up his pipe from the table, charged it, lighted it, turned his chair towards the fireplace, threw his leg over the rail-fender and said:

"Fire away."

Then trembling and ashamed, but making a strong call on his resolution, Stowell told his own story—as if it had been that of another man.

When he had come to an end there was a long silence. The Governor pulled hard at his pipe and there was no other sound in the room except the rattle of the tram-cars in the street.

Stowell felt hot, his lips felt dry, and pushing back his black hair, he found sweat on his forehead.

"It was a shocking blunder, of course," he said. "My man doesn't defend himself. Still he thinks the circumstances...."

"You mean it wasn't deliberate?"

"Good Lord, no!"

"In fact a kind of accident?"

"One might say so."

"Any harm done?"

"Harm?" Stowell turned white and began to stammer. "I .... no, that is to say .... no, I've never heard...."

"And yet he promised to marry the girl?"

"He felt responsible for her. He couldn't be a scoundrel."

"Did he care for her—love her?"

"I can't say that, Sir. He might have thought he did."

"And now he loves another woman?"

"With all his heart and soul, Sir."

"But" (the Governor was puffing placidly) "he has promised to marry the little farm girl, and she's away somewhere educating herself to become his wife?"

"That's it, Sir," said Stowell (his head was down), "and now he is asking himself what it is his duty to do. I have told him it is his duty as a man of honour to carry out his promise—to marry the girl, whatever the consequences to himself. Am I right, Sir?"

There was another moment of silence, and then the Governor, taking his pipe out of his mouth, and bringing his open palm down on the table, said:

"No!"

"No?"

"It would be marrying the wrong woman, wouldn't it?"

"Well .... yes, one might say that, Sir."

"Then it would be a crime."

"A crime?"

"A three-fold crime."

The Governor rose, crossed the floor, then drew up in front of Stowell and spoke with sudden energy.

"First, against the girl herself. She's an attractive young person, I suppose, eh?"

Stowell nodded.

"But uneducated, illiterate, out of another world, as they say?"

Stowell nodded again.

"Then does your man suppose that by sending her to school for a few months he will bridge the gulf between them? Is that how he expects to make her happy? Ten to one the girl will be a miserable outsider in her husband's house to the last day of her life. But that's not the worst, by a long way."

"No?"

"If he marries her it will out of a sense of duty will it not?"

"Ye-es."

"Well, what woman on God's earth wants to be married out of a sense of duty? And if he loves another woman do you think his wife will not find it out some day? Of course she will! And when she does what do you think will happen? I'll tell you what will happen. If she's one of the sensitive kind she'll feel herself crushed, superfluous, and pine away and die of grief and shame, or perhaps take a dose of something .... we've heard of such happenings, haven't we? And if she's a woman of the other sort she'll go farther."

"You mean...."

"Suspicion, jealousy, envy! She may not care a brass farthing about her husband, but her pride as a wife will be wounded. She won't give him a day's peace, or herself either. He'll never be an hour out of her sight but she'll think he's with the other woman. And then—what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander! If he has another woman as likely as not she'll have another man—we've heard of that, too, haven't we?"

Stowell dropped his head. His heart was beating high, and he was afraid his face was betraying it. The Governor touched him on the shoulder, and continued,

"In the next place, it would be a crime against the man himself. He's a young fellow of some prospects, I suppose?"

"I .... I think so."

"And the girl has some family, hasn't she?"

"Yes."

"They may be good and worthy folk of whom he would have no reason to be ashamed. But isn't it just as likely that they are people of quite another kidney? Sisters and brothers and cousins to the tenth degree? Some vulgar and rapacious old father, perhaps, who hasn't taken too much trouble to keep the girl out of temptation while she has been at home, but freezes on to her fast enough after she has made a good marriage. Possible, isn't it?"

"Quite possible, sir."

"Well, what are your man's own friends going to do with him with a menagerie like that at his heels? No, he has fettered himself for life to failure as well as misery, and while his wife is railing at him about the other woman he is reproaching her with standing in his light. So the end of his noble endeavour is that he has set up a little private hell for himself in the house he calls his home."

Stowell was wincing at every word, but all the same he knew that his eyes were shining. The Governor looked sharply up at him for a moment, lit his pipe afresh and said,

"Then there's the other woman. I suppose her case is worthy of some consideration?"

"Indeed, yes."

"If she cares for the man...."

"I can't say that, Sir."

"Well, if she does, she too will suffer, will she not? And what has she done to deserve suffering? Nothing at all! She's the innocent scapegoat, isn't she?"

"That's true."

"Fine woman, I suppose?"

"The finest woman in the world, Sir."

"Just so! But your man would doom her to renunciation—a solitary life of sorrow and regret. And so the only result of his praiseworthy principles, his sense of duty, as you say, and all the rest of it, is that he will have ruined three lives—the life of the woman he marries and does not love, the life of the woman he loves and does not marry, and his own life also."

"Then you think, Sir .... you think he should stop even yet?"

"Even at the church door, at the altar-steps—if there's no harm done, and he is sure she is the wrong woman."

Stowell felt as if the vapours which had clouded his brain so long had been swept away as by a mountain breeze, but he thought it necessary to keep up the disguise.

"I feel you must be right, sir," rising to go. "At all events I cannot argue against you. But I think you'll agree that .... that if my man can wipe out this bad passage in his life without injury to anybody and without scandal .... I think you will agree that his first duty is to tell the woman he loves...."

"Eh? What the deuce .... Good heavens, no!"

"But surely he couldn't ask a pure-minded girl...."

"To take the other woman's leavings? Certainly he couldn't if she knew anything about it. But why should she? Why should a pure-minded girl, as you say, be told about something that happened before she came on to the scene?"

Stowell's scruples were overcome. He had argued against himself, but he knew well that he had wished to be beaten. He was going off when the Governor, following him to the door, laid a hand on his shoulder and said,

"When a man has done wrong the thing he has got to do next is to say nothing about it. That's what your man has got to do now. It's the woman secret, isn't it? Very well, he must never reveal it to anybody—never, under any circumstances—never in this world!"

II

Next day, at Ballamoar, after many fruitless efforts to begin, Stowell was writing to Bessie Collister.

"DEAR BESSIE,—I am sorry to send you this letter and it is very painful for me to write it. But I cannot allow you to look forward any longer to something which can never happen.

"The truth is—I must tell you the truth, Bessie—since you went to Derby Haven I have found that I do not love you as I ought, to become your husband. That being so, I cannot do you the great wrong of marrying you. It would not be either for your good or for mine. And since I cannot marry you I feel that we must part. I am miserable when I say this, but I see that in justice to you, as well as to myself, nothing else can be...."

He could go no further. A wave of tenderness towards Bessie came over him. He had visions of the girl receiving and reading his letter. It would be at night in her little bedroom, perhaps—the room in which she burnt her candle to learn her lessons.

No, it would be too cruel, too cowardly. He would not write—he would go to Derby Haven and break the news to the girl himself.

But that evoked other and more fearful visions. They would be walking along the sandy path at Langness with the stark white lighthouse at the end of it. "Bessie," he would be saying, "We must part; it will be better for both of us. It has all been my fault. You have nothing to reproach yourself with. But you must try to forget me, and if there is anything else I can do...." And then the reproaches, the recriminations, the tears, the supplications, the appeals: "Don't throw me over! You promised to stand up for me, you know. I will be good."

It would be terrible. It would make his heart bleed. Nevertheless he must bear it. It was a part of his punishment.

He had torn up his letter and was putting his hand on the bell to order the dog-cart to be brought round to take him to the railway station, when a servant came into the room and said,

"Mr. Alick Gell to see you, sir."

Gell came in with a gloomy and half-shamefaced look. His tall figure was bent, his fair hair was disordered, and his voice trembled as he said,

"Can't we take a walk in the wood, old fellow? I have something to say."

"I don't know how to tell you," he began. They were crossing the lawn towards the plantation. "Its about Bessie."

"Bessie?"

"I .... I'm madly in love with her."

Stowell stopped and looked without speaking into Gell's twitching face.

"I knew you wouldn't be able to believe it, but don't look at me like that."

"Tell me," said Stowell.

And then, stammering and trembling, Gell told his story. He didn't know how it began. Perhaps it was pity. He had been sorry for the girl, over there in that lonely place, so he went down at first just to cheer her up. Then he had found himself going frequently, buying her presents and taking her out for walks. When he had realised how things were he had tried to pull up, but it was too late. He had struggled to be loyal—to strengthen himself by talking of Stowell—praising him to the girl, excusing him for not coming to see her—but it was useless. His pity had developed into love, and before he had known what he was doing Bessie was in his arms. At the next instant he had felt like a traitor. He was frantically happy and yet he wanted to kill himself.

"It was terrible," he said. "I couldn't sleep at night for thinking of it. Bessie wanted you to be told. In fact she wrote you a letter, saying we couldn't help loving each other, and asking you to release her. But I couldn't let her go that far. 'Then go to Ballamoar and tell him yourself,' she said. And at last I've come. And now .... now you know."

Stowell listened in silence. His first feeling was one of wounded pride. He had really been a great fool about the girl! What fathomless depths of conceit had led him to think she would break her heart if he gave her up? And then the long struggle between his love and his duty—what a mountebank Fate seemed to have made of him! But his next feeling was one of relief—boundless, inexpressible relief. The iron chain he had been dragging after him had been broken. He was free!

Gell, who was breathing hard, was watching Stowell from under his cap, which was pulled down over his forehead. They were walking in a path that was thick with fallen leaves, and there was no sound for some moments but that of the rustling under their feet.

"Why don't you speak, old fellow? I've behaved like a cad, I know. But for God's sake, don't torture me. Strike me in the face with your fist. I would rather that—upon my soul, I would."

"Alick," said Stowell, putting his arm through Gell's. "I'm going to tell you something."

"What?"

"Do you know what I was on the point of doing when you came? Going down to Derby Haven to ask Bessie to let me off."

"Is that true? You're not saying it merely to .... But why?"

"Because what's happened to her has happened to me also—I love somebody else."

"No? Really? .... But who .... who is the other girl? .... Is it .... It's Fenella, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"How splendid! I'm glad! And of course I congratulate you .... No? .... You've not asked her yet? But that will be all right—of course it will!"

Taking off his cap to fan himself with, Gell broke into fits of half hysterical laughter. Then he said:

"You don't mind my saying something now that it's all over? No? Well, to tell you the truth I could never believe you really cared for Bessie. I thought you were only marrying her as a sort of duty, having got her into trouble with Dan Baldromma. And it was so—partly so—wasn't it? That didn't excuse me, though, did it? Lord, what a relief! I feel as if you had lifted ten tons off my head."

A dark memory came to Stowell. "Has she told him?"

"Bessie will be relieved, too, and just as glad as I am. Do you know, there's a heart of gold in that girl. She's never had a dog's chance yet. Not much education, I admit, but such spirit, such character! Such a woman too—you said so yourself, remember."

A still darker memory of something the Governor had said came to Stowell. "Didn't you say Bessie had written to me?" he asked.

"Yes, she did, yesterday; but I destroyed her letter."

"Do you know, I wrote to Bessie to-day, and I destroyed my letter also."

"No? What fun if your letters had crossed in the post," said Gell, and tossing his cap into the air, he broke into still louder peals of laughter.

Again Stowell felt immense relief. It was impossible that Bessie could have told him. And if she hadn't, why should he? Why injure the girl in Gell's eyes? Why tarnish his faith in her? It was the woman's secret, therefore he must never reveal it—never in this world.

They were walking on. Gell with a high step was kicking up the withered leaves.

"What about your people?" asked Stowell.

"Ah, that's what I've got to find out. I'm going home now to tell them. My mother is always advising me to marry and settle down, but of course she'll jib at Bessie, and the sisters will follow suit. As for my father, he has only one son, as he says, and I must have a better allowance. He cut it down after that affair in the Courts, you know."

They were at the gate to the road, and pulling it open, Gell said:

"Phew! How different I feel from what I did when I was coming in here half an hour ago! I thought you would kick me out the minute I had told you. But now we're going to be better friends than ever, aren't we?"

"Good-bye and good luck, old fellow," said Stowell.

"Good-bye, and God bless you, old chap," said Gell.

Stowell stood at the gate and watched him going off with long strides, his shoulders working vigorously.

"Never again! We can never be the same friends again," thought Stowell, as he turned back to the house.

He was feeling like a man who in a moment of passion has secretly wronged his life-long friend and can never look straight into his eyes again.

But the sense of a barrier between Gell and himself was soon wiped out by the memory of Fenella. He was free to love her at last! No more hypocrisy! No more self-denial! No more struggles between passion and duty! The past was dead. Life from that day forward was beginning again for all of them.

"Was that Alick Gell in the wood with you?" asked Janet, who had come to the door to call Stowell in to tea.

"Yes."

"Goodness me! He must be a happy boy. He was laughing enough, anyway."

III

Stowell went to bed early that night, slept soundly and was up with the coming of light in the morning.

The farm lads were not yet astir, but going round to the stable he saddled a horse for himself (a young chestnut mare that had been born on one of his own birthdays) and set off for a ride to relieve the intoxication of his spirits.

The air was keen, but both he and his horse sniffed it with delight. As they passed out of Ballamoar the sun rose and played among the red and yellow leaves of the plantation, for the summer was going out in a blaze of glory. They crossed the Curragh, dipped into the glen, and climbed the corkscrew path to the mountain.

Stowell thought he had never felt so well. And the little mare, catching the contagion of his high spirits, snorted and swung her head at every stride and dug her feet into the ringing ground.

"Helloa, Molly, here we are at the top!"

Looking hack he saw the flat plain below, dotted over with farms, each with its little farmhouse surrounded by its clump of sheltering trees. God, how good to think that every one of them was a home of love! Love! That was the great uniter, the great comforter, the great liberator, the great redeemer!

And to think that all this had been going on since the beginning of the world! That generation after generation some boy had come up this lovely glen to court his girl! Lord, what a glorious place the world was, after all!

His eyes were beaming like the sunshine, and to make his joy complete he galloped over the mountain-tops until he came to a point at which he could look down on Douglas and catch a glimpse of Fenella's home in the midst of its trees.

Then back to Ballamoar at a brisk canter, with the air musical with the calls of cattle, the bleating of sheep and the songs of birds. And then breakfast for a hungry man—cowrie and eggs and fresh butter and honey and junket, which the Manx called pinjean.

At three o'clock in the afternoon he was on his way to Government House, and by that time the intoxication of his high spirits had suffered a check.

What had Fenella thought of his flight from the yacht? Had she believed his excuse for it? What interpretation had she put upon his intention of calling at Government Offices the following day? And the Governor—had he seen through the thin disguise of that story?

But the cruellest question of all, and the hardest to answer, was whether after all, even now that he was free, he had any right to ask Fenella to become his wife? He, a sin-soiled man, and she a stainless woman!

He felt as if he ought to purge his soul by telling Fenella everything. Yet how could he do that without inflicting an incurable wound on her faith in him? And then what had the Governor said? "Never under any circumstances."

As he walked up the carriage drive to Government House he saw the Governor's tall figure, and the Attorney-General's short one, through the windows of the smoking-room. The Governor came to the door to meet him.

"The very man we were talking about. Come in! Sit down. We have something to propose to you."

The Governor was going up to London on urgent business at the Home Office and the Attorney had to go with him. In these circumstances it had been necessary to arrange that the Court of General Gaol Delivery (interrupted by the Deemster's death, but now summoned to resume) should sit without the Governor, and the Attorney had been suggesting that Stowell should represent him in an important case.

"What is it, Sir?" asked Stowell.

"Murder again, my boy; but of a different kind this time."

A Peel fisherman had killed his wife with shocking brutality, yet everybody seemed to sympathise with him, and there was a danger that a Manx jury might let him off.

"Splendid opportunity to uphold law and order! You'll take the case?"

"With pleasure!"

"Good! The Attorney will send you the papers. And now, I suppose, you would like to see Fenella?"

"May I?"

"Why not? You'll find her in the drawing-room."

On his way to the drawing-room Stowell met Miss Green coming out of it. She smiled at him, and said, in a half-whisper,

"I think you are expected."

When he opened the door he saw Fenella sitting with her back to him at a little desk on one side of the bay window, with a glint of its light on her bronze-brown hair.

"Who is it?" she said as he entered. But at the next moment she seemed to know, and, rising, she turned round to him and smiled.

He thought she had never looked so beautiful. He wanted to crush her in his arms, and at the same time to fall at her feet and kiss the hem of her dress.

There was a moment of passionate silence. He stepped towards her but stopped when two or three paces away. A riot of conflicting emotions were going on within him. He felt strong, he felt weak, he felt brave, he felt cowardly, he felt proud, he felt ashamed.

Still nothing was said by either of them. Her eyes were glistening, she was breathing quickly and her bosom was heaving. He saw her moving towards him. Her hand was trailing along the desk. He felt as if she were drawing him to her, and by a nervous, but irresistible impulse he held out his arms.

"Fenella," he said, hardly audibly.

At the next moment, as in a flash of light, she sprang upon his breast, and at the next her arms were about his neck, his own were around her waist, her mouth was to his mouth, and the world had melted away.

Ten minutes later, with faces aflame, they went, hand in hand, into the smoking-room. The Governor wheeled about on his revolving chair to look at them.

"Well," he said, "it's easy to see what you two have come about. But not for six months! I won't agree to a day less, remember."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN AT THE SPEAKER'S

Before Alick Gell reached his father's house another had been there on the same errand.

Earlier in the afternoon Dan Baldromma, while running his hands through the ground flour in the mill, with the wheel throbbing and the stones groaning about him, had been struck by a new idea.

"Liza," he said, returning to the dwelling house and standing with his back to the fire and his big hands behind him, "that young wastrel ought to be freckened into marrying the girl, and I'm thinking I know the way to do it, too."

"It's like thou do, Dan," said Mrs. Collister.

Dan's device was of the simplest. It was that of sending the mother of Bessie Collister to the mother of Alick Gell to threaten and intimidate her.

"But sakes alive, man, that's an ugly job, isn't it?"

"It's got to be done, woman, or there'll be worse to do next, I tell thee. Thou don't want to see thy daughter where her mother was before her."

"Well, well, if I must, I must," said Mrs. Collister. "But, aw dear, aw dear! If thou hadn't thrown the girl into the way of temptation by shutting the door on her...."

"Hould thy whist, woman, and do as I tell thee, and that will be the best night's work I ever done for her."

Half an hour later, having swept the earthen floor, hung the kettle on its sooty chain, and laid the table for Dan's tea, Mrs. Collister toiled upstairs to dress for her journey, and came down in the poke bonnet and satin mantle which she wore to chapel on Sunday.

Meantime Dan had harnessed the old mare to the stiff cart and brought it round to the door. Having helped his wife over the wheel and put the rope reins in her hands, he gave her his parting instructions.

"See thou stand up for thy rights, now! This is thy chance and thou's got to make the best of it!"

"Aw well, we'll see," said the old woman, and then the stiff cart rattled over the cobbled "street" on its way to the Speaker's.

In her comfortable sitting-room, thickly carpeted and plentifully cushioned, Mrs. Gell was awakened from her afternoon nap by the scream of the peacocks.

"It's Mistress Daniel Collister of Baldromma to see you, ma'am," said the maid.

At the next moment, Mrs. Collister, with a timid air, hobbled into the room on her stick, and the two mothers came face to face.

"You wish to speak to me," said Mrs. Gell.

"If you plaze, ma'am," said Mrs. Collister, huskily.

Isabella Gell, a sour-faced young woman, came into the room and stood behind her mother's chair. Mrs. Collister took the seat that was assigned to her, and fumbled the ribbons of her bonnet to loosen them.

"It's about my daughter, ma'am."

"Well?"

"My daughter and your son, ma'am."

"Eh?"

"Cæsar Qualtrough of the Kays has seen them together. They're living down Castletown way, they're saying."

"Living .... my son and your daughter?"

"So they're saying, ma'am."

"I don't believe it! I don't believe a word of it!"

"I wish in my heart I could say the same, ma'am. But it's truth enough, I'm fearing."

"And if it is—I don't say it is, but if it is—why have you come to me?"

Then trembling all over, Mrs. Collister continued her story. Her poor girl was in trouble. When a girl was in trouble the world could be cruel hard on her. Nobody would think the cruel hard it could be. If a girl did wrong it was because somebody she was fond of had promised to marry her. What else would she do it for? When a young man had behaved like that to a poor girl he ought to keep his word to her. And if he had a mother, and she was a good Christian woman....

Mrs. Gell, who was beating her foot on the carpet, broke in impatiently.

"In short, you think my son ought to marry your daughter?"

"It's nothing but right, ma'am."

"And you've come here to ask me to tell him to do so?"

"If you plaze, ma'am."

"Well, I never!" said Isabella.

"She's a mother herself, I was thinking, and if one of her own girls was in the same position...."

"The idea!" said Isabella.

"Mrs. Collister," said Mrs. Gell, with a proud lift of her head, "I was sorry when I heard of the trouble your daughter had brought on you, but what you are doing now is a piece of great assurance."

"But Bessie is a good girl, ma'am. And if she married your son you would never have raison to be ashamed of her."

"Good indeed! If a girl isn't ashamed to be living with a young man the less said about her goodness the better."

"Aw well, ma'am," said Mrs. Collister (her faltering tongue had become firmer and her timid eyes had begun to flash), "if she's living with the young man, he's living with her, and the shame is the same for both, I'm thinking."

Mrs. Gell drew herself up in her chair.

"I'm astonished at you, Mrs. Collister! A woman yourself, and not seeing the difference."

"Aw yes, difference enough, ma'am! And when a young man doesn't keep his word it's the woman that's knowing it best by the trouble that's coming on her."

Mrs. Gell, whose anger was rising, lifted her chin again and said, "If your daughter is in trouble, Mrs. Collister, how are we to know that she had not brought it on her own head, just to get Alick to marry her?"

"The creature!" said Isabella.

"And how are we to know that you and your husband have not encouraged the girl in her wickedness just to get our son for your son-in-law?"

"Aw well, ma'am," said Mrs. Collister (she was fumbling at the strings of her bonnet to tighten them), "if you are thinking as bad of me as that...."

"You talk of the danger to your daughter if my son doesn't marry her," said Mrs. Gell. "But what of the danger to my son if he does? His life will be ruined. He will never be able to raise his head in the island again. His father will disown him. Marry your daughter indeed! Not only will I not ask him to marry her, but if I see the slightest danger of his doing anything so foolish I will do everything I can to prevent it."

"Aw well, we'll say no more, ma'am," said Mrs. Collister, and she shuffled to her feet.

But Mrs. Gell was up before her.

"Alexander Gell, son of the Speaker and grandson of Archdeacon Mylechreest, married to the step-daughter of Dan Baldromma and the nameless offspring of Liza Collister....

"Ma'am!"

Mrs. Collister had hobbled to the door, and was going out, humbled and beaten, when Mrs. Gell's last words cut her to the quick. For more than twenty years she had taken the punishment of her own sin and bowed her head to the lash of it, but at this insult to her child the weak and timid creature turned about, as brave as a lion and as fierce as a fury.

"I'm not your quality, I know that, ma'am," she said, breathing quickly, "but a day is coming, and maybe it's near, when we'll be standing together where we'll both be equal. Just two old mothers, and nothing else between us. If you've loved your son, I've loved my daughter, whatever she is, ma'am. And when the One who reads all hearts is after asking me what I did for my child in the day of her trouble, I'll be telling Him I came here to beg you on my knees to save her from a life of sin and shame, and you wouldn't, because your worldly pride prevented. And then it's Himself, ma'am, will be judging between us!"

II

There had been a sitting of the Keys that day, and when the Speaker returned home he found his wife on the sofa with a damp handkerchief over her forehead and a bottle of smelling-salts in her hand. She told him what had happened.

"Well, well," he said, "so that's what it means. But there's no knowing what hedge the hare will jump from."

His figure was less burly than before, his head was more bald and his full beard was whiter, but his eyes flashed with the same ungovernable fire.

"That girl must be a thoroughly bad one," said Mrs. Gell. "It's not the first time she has got our Alick into trouble, remember. We must save our son from the designing young huzzy."

"Tut! It's not the girl I'm troubling about."

"Who else, then?"

"The man! I might have expected as much, though!"

Coming home in the train he had had some talk with Kerruish, his advocate and agent. Dan Baldromma, who was back with his rent, was refusing to pay, and saying "Let the Spaker fetch me to Coort, and I'll tell him the raison."

"Then can't you settle with the man, Archie?"

"Settle with Dan? I'll settle with Alick first, Bella, and if he has given that scoundrel the whip hand of me I'll break every bone in his body."

"But it may not be true. It cannot be true. Unless Alick tells me so himself I'll never believe a word of it."

They were at tea in the dining-room, country fashion, the Speaker at the head of the table with a plate of fish before him, and his wife and daughters at either side, when Alick entered.

"Helloa!" he cried, with a forced gaiety. But only his mother responded to his greeting and made room for him by her side. She saw that he was paler and thinner, and that his hand trembled when he took his cup.

The Speaker, who had turned his rough shoulder to his son, tried to restrain himself from breaking out on him until the meal would be over and he could take him into his own room, but before long his impatience overcame him.

"What's this we're hearing about you—that you are carrying on with a girl?"

"Do you mean Bessie Collister, Sir?" said Alick.

"Certainly I mean Bessie Collister. And I thought you gave me your word that you would see no more of her."

"But that was the promise of a boy, Sir. Did you expect it to bind the man also?"

"The man? The man!" said the Speaker, mimicking his son's voice in a mincing treble. "Do you call yourself a man, bringing disgrace on your name and family."

"What disgrace, Sir?"

"What disgrace? All the island seems to have heard of it. Is it necessary to tell you? Living secret, so they say, with a woman who isn't fit company for your mother and sisters."

"If anybody told you that, Sir," said Alick (his lower lip was trembling), "he told you a lie—a damned lie, Sir!"

"There!" cried Mrs. Gell, turning to her husband. "What did I say? It isn't true, you see."

"Of course it isn't true, mother; and the best proof that I'm not behaving dishonourably to Bessie Collister is that I intend to marry her."

It was a sickening moment for Mrs. Gell, and the Speaker, for an instant, was dumbfounded.

"Eh? What? You intend to marry...."

"Yes, Sir; and that's why I'm here to-day—to bring you the news, and to ask you to restore the allowance you cut down in the spring, you know."

"That .... that .... that bast—...."

"Archie!" cried Mrs. Gell, indicating their daughters.

"Bessie is a good girl, father," said Alick. "What happened before she was born wasn't her fault, Sir."

"So you've come to bring us the news and to ask me to double your allowance?

"If you please, Sir. You couldn't wish your son and his wife...."

"His wife! There you are, Bella! That's what I've been working day and night thirty years for—to see my son throw half my earnings—all that I can't will away from him—into the hands of a man like Dan Baldromma!"

"But Alick will be reasonable," said Mrs. Gell. "He'll give the girl up."

"He'll have to do that, and quick too, or I'll cut off his allowance altogether."

"Do you mean it, Sir?" said Alick—he was pushing his chair back.

"Do I mean it? Certainly I mean it. You'll give the girl up or never another penny of mine shall you see as long as I live!"

"All right," said Alick, rising from the table, "I'll earn my own living."

The Speaker broke into a peal of scornful laughter. "You earn your living! That's rich!"

"Give her up?" cried Alick. "I'll break stones on the highway or porter on the pier before I'll give up her little finger!"

"You fool! You confounded fool! But no fear! She'll give you up when she finds you've lost your income."

"Will she? I'll trust her for that, Sir."

"Then get away back to her—you'll not be the first by a long way."

Alick, who had been trying to laugh, stopped his laughter suddenly, and said, "What do you mean by that, Sir?"

"Mean? Do you want me to tell you what I mean?"

"Archie," cried Mrs. Gell, and again she indicated their daughters.

"Get out of this, will you?" cried the Speaker to the girls, who had been sitting with their noses in their teacups.

The girls fled from the room, but stood outside to listen.

"Father," said Alick, "you must tell me what you mean."

"Mean! Mean! Don't stand there cross-examining your own father. You know what I mean! If half they say about the young b— .... is true she's fit enough for it, anyway."

"If any other man had said that," said Alick, quivering, "I should have knocked him down, Sir."

"What's that? You threaten me?" cried the Speaker. His voice was like the scream of a sea-gull, and making a step towards Alick he lifted his clenched fist to him.

Mrs. Gell intervened, and Alick retreated a pace or two.

"Take care, Sir," he said. "You can't treat me like that now. I'm not a child any longer."

"Then get away to your woman .... and to hell, if you want to."

"There was no need to tell me twice, Sir. I'm going. And as God is my witness, I'll never set foot in this house again."

At the next moment the peacocks were screaming outside, and the Speaker, who had thrown up the window, was shouting through it in a broken roar,

"Alick! Alick Gell! Come back, you damned scoundrel! Alick! Alexander...."

They had to carry him upstairs and send for Dr. Clucas. It had been another of his paralysing brain-storms. It was not to be expected that he could bear many more of them.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN THE BURNING BOAT

Two days later, Gell was stepping into the train for Castletown on his way to Derby Haven.

"Give me up because my income is gone? Not Bessie! Not Bessie Collister!"

But Bessie had gone through deep waters since he had seen her last.

From the first Victor Stowell had disappointed her. To live in the dark—hidden away, unrecognised, suppressed—it had not been according to her expectations. Her pride, too, had been wounded by being sent back to school. It was true that without being asked, Mr. Stowell had promised to marry her at some future time, but perhaps that was only because he was the son of the Deemster and therefore afraid of her step-father and of the cry there would be all over the island if anything became known.

If it had only been Alick! Alick would not have been ashamed of her. He would have taken her just as she was and never seen any shortcomings.

After the first days at Derby Haven she had found herself looking forward to Alick's visits. When she knew he was coming everything brightened up in her eyes and even her tiresome lessons became delightful. Before long she felt her heart leap up whenever the Misses Brown called, "Bessie, a gentleman to see you!"

It is easy to kindle a fire on a warm hearth. Alick had been Bessie's first sweetheart, perhaps her only one. Suddenly a wonderful thing happened to her. She found herself in love. She had thought she had always been in love with somebody, but now she realized that she had never been in love before. She was in love with Alick Gell. And she wished to become his wife.

That altered everything. She began to see how ignorant she was compared with Alick and how much she was beneath him. She remembered his three tall sisters who held their heads so high at anniversaries and bazaars, and thought what a shocking thing it would be if they were able to look down on her. How she worked to be worthy of him!

She had no qualms about Stowell. Her only anxiety was about Alick. She was certain that he loved her, yet what a fight she had for him! He was always talking about Stowell, and praising him up to her. When he excused his friend for not coming to see her she was quite sure it was all nonsense. And when he gave her presents and said they were from Stowell she knew where they came from.

One day he brought a wrist-watch with the usual message, and after he had put it on (how his hands were trembling!) she tried to thank him, but didn't know how to do so.

At last an idea occurred to her. They were walking on the Langness, just by the ruin of a windmill, whose walls and roof had been carried away by a gale.

"Alick," she said, "I wonder if my new watch is right by the clock at Castle Rushen?"

Alick put his hands to his eyes like blinkers (for the sun was setting) and looked across the bay. While he did so, Bessie slipped off on tiptoe and hid behind the walls of the windmill. As soon as she was missed there was a laugh and a shout and then a chase. Bessie dodged and Alick doubled, Bessie dodged again, but at length she slipped into a hole, and at the next moment Alick caught her up and kissed her.

"Now, what have you done?" she said, and her face was suffused with blushes.

After that there could be no disguise between them. Bessie felt no shame, and it never occurred to her that she had been guilty of treason. But Gell talked about disloyalty and said he would never be at ease until she had made a clean breast of it to Stowell.

"Then go and tell him we couldn't help loving each other," she said.

When he was gone she was very happy. Mr. Stowell would give her up. Of course he would. What had happened between them was dead and buried. Whatever else he was Victor Stowell was a gentleman. He would say nothing to Alick.

Then came a shock. On the following morning she felt unwell. She had often felt unwell since she came to Derby Haven, and the Misses Brown, simple old maids, seeing no cause except the change in the girl's way of life, wanted to send for a doctor. But doctors were associated in Bessie's mind with death. If you saw a doctor going into a farmhouse one day you saw a coffin going in the next.

Chemists were not open to the same objection. Often on market days, after she had sold out her basket of butter and eggs, she had called at the chemist's at Ramsey for medicine for her mother. So, saying nothing to her housemates, she slipped round to the chemist's at Castletown and asked for a bottle of mixture.

The chemist, an elderly man with a fatherly face, smiled at her, and said:

"But what is it for, miss?"

Bessie described her symptoms, and then the smiling face was grave.

"Are you a married woman, ma'am?" asked the chemist.

Bessie caught her breath, stared at the man for a moment with eyes full of fear, and then turned and fled out of the shop.

All that day she felt dizzy and deaf. The earth seemed to be slipping from under her. Memories of what she had heard from older women came springing to the surface of her mind, and she asked herself why she had not thought of this before. For a long time she struggled to persuade herself that the chemist was wrong, but conviction forced itself upon her at last.

Then she asked herself what she was to do, and remembering what she had learned as a child at home of her mother's miserable life before her marriage, she found only one answer to that question. She must ask Mr. Stowell to marry her. The thought of parting from Alick was heart-breaking. But the most terrible thing was that she found herself hoping that Stowell would refuse to release her.

It had been a wretched day, dark and cheerless, with driving mist and drizzling rain. Towards nightfall the old maids lighted a fire for her in the sitting-room, which was full of quaint nicknacks and old glass and china. The tide, which was at the bottom of the ebb, was sobbing against the unseen breakwater, and the gulls on the cobbles of the shore were calling continually.

Bessie was crouching over the fire with her chin in her hand when she heard the sneck of the garden gate, a quick step on the gravel, a light knock at the front door, a familiar voice in the lobby, and then old Miss Ethel saying behind her:

"A gentleman to see you, Bessie."

Her heart did not leap up as before, and she did not rise with her former alacrity, but Alick Gell came into the room like a rush of wind.

"What's this—unwell?" he cried.

"It's nothing! I shall be better in the morning," she said.

"Of course you will."

And then, after a kiss, Gell sat on a low stool at Bessie's feet, stretched his long legs towards the fire, and began to pour out his story.

He had seen Stowell and the matter had turned out just as she had expected. Splendid fellow! Best chap in the world, bar none!

"But what do you think, Bess? The most extraordinary coincidence! Dear old Vic, he has been busy falling in love, too! Fact! Fenella Stanley, daughter of the Governor! Magnificent girl, and Vic is madly in love with her! So there's to be no heart-breaking on either side, and that's the best of it. Makes one think there must be something in Providence, doesn't it?"

He was laughing so loud that the china in the room rang, but Bessie was turning cold with terror.

"And .... what about your father?" she faltered.

"My father?"

"Well .... to tell you the truth there was a bit of a breeze there," he said, and then followed the story of the scene at the Speaker's.

"But no matter! I'm not without money, so we can be married at once, and the sooner the better."

"But Alick," she said (he was stroking her hand and she was trying to draw it away), "do you think it's best?"

"Best? Why, of course I think it's best. Don't you?"

She did not reply.

"Don't you?" he said again, and then, getting no answer, he became aware that she, who had been so eager for their marriage before he went to Ballamoar, was now holding back.

"Bessie," he said, "has anything happened while I've been away?"

"No! Oh no!"

"You're .... you're not thinking of the loss of the income, are you?"

"No, no; 'deed!, no!"

"I knew you wouldn't. When my father taunted me with that, saying you would give me up as soon as you knew my allowance was gone, I said, 'Not Bessie! I'll trust her for that, Sir.'"

Bessie began to cry. Alick was bewildered.

"What is it, then? Tell me! Are you .... are you thinking of Stowell?"

At that name she was seized by the mad impulse which comes to people on dizzy heights when they wish to throw themselves over—she wanted to blurt out the truth, to confess everything. But before she could speak Alick was saying,

"I shouldn't blame you if you were. I'm not his equal—I know that, Bessie. But even if he were free I shouldn't give you up to him now. No, by God, not to him or to anyone."

His voice was breaking. She looked at him. There were tears in his eyes. She could bear up no longer. With the cry of a drowning soul she flung her arms about him and sobbed on his breast.

An hour later, having comforted and quietened her, Gell was going off with swinging strides through the mist to catch the last train back to Douglas.

"She was thinking of me—that was it," he was telling himself. "Thought I would come to regret the sacrifice and wanted to save me from being cut off by my family. So unselfish! Never thinking of herself, bless her!"

And Bessie, in her bedroom was saying to herself, "He's that fond of me that he'll forgive me, whatever happens."

She lay a long time awake, with her arms under her head, looking up at the ceiling.

"Yes, Alick will forgive me, whatever happens," she thought.

And then she blew out her candle, buried her head in her pillow, and fell asleep.

II

When Gell reached the railway-station he found the carriages waiting at the platform, half-full of impatient passengers. A trial, which was going on in the Castle, was nearing its close, and the station-master had received orders that the last train to town was to be kept back for the Judges and advocates.

"The Peel fisherman," thought Gell. And, remembering that this was the case in which Stowell was to represent the Attorney-General, he walked over to the Court-house, whose lantern-light was showing like a hazy white cloud above the Castle walls.

The little place was thick with sea mist, hot with the acid odour of perspiration, and densely crowded but breathlessly silent. The trial was over, the prisoner had been found guilty, and the Deemster (it was Deemster Taubman, sitting with the Clerk of the Rolls as Acting Governor) was beginning to pronounce sentence:

"Prisoner at the bar, it will be my duty to communicate to the proper quarter the Jury's recommendation to mercy, but I can hold out no hope that it will be of any avail. You have been found guilty of the wilful murder of your wife, therefore I bid you prepare...."

And then followed those dread words in that dead stillness, which bring thoughts of the day of doom.

Gell caught one glimpse of the prisoner, as he stood in the dock, in his fisherman's guernsey, looking steadfastly into the face of his Judge, and another glimpse as a way was cleared through the spectators and he walked with a strong step to the door leading to the cells.

Then the court-house cleared to a low rumble that was like the muffled murmuring that is heard after a funeral.

Gell asked for Stowell, and was told that his friend had gone down to the Deemster's room with one of the advocates for the defence to draw up the terms of the recommendation. Therefore he returned to the station with a group of his fellow advocates, and on the way back he heard the story of the trial—little knowing how close it was to come to him.

The prisoner (his name was Morrison) had married the murdered woman in the winter. She had been a comely girl who had always borne a good character. On their wedding morning they had received many presents, one of them being a fishing-boat. This had been the gift of a distant relation of the bride's, a middle-aged man who had since married a rich widow.

At Easter, Morrison had gone off with the fleet to the mackerel fishing at Kinsale, and while there he had received an anonymous letter. It told him that his young wife had given birth, less than six months after their marriage, to a still-born child.

Morrison had said nothing about the letter, but he had made inquiries about the man who had given him the boat, and been told that he had borne a bad reputation.

At the end of the mackerel season Morrison had returned to the island with the rest of the fleet, and for everybody else there had been the usual joyful homecoming.

It had been late at night on the first of June, when the stars were out and the moon was in its first quarter. As soon as the boats had been sighted outside the Castle Rock the sound signal had gone up from the Rocket House, and within five minutes the fishermen's wives had come flying down to the quay, with their little shawls thrown over their heads and pinned under their chins.

Then, as the boats had come gliding into harbour, there had been the shrill questions of the women ashore and the deep-toned answers of the man afloat:

"Are you there, Bill?" "Is it yourself, Nancy?"

Some of the younger women, who had had babies born while their husbands had been away, had brought them down with them, and one young wife, holding up her little one for her man to see, by the light of the moon and the harbour-master's lantern, had cried:

"Here he is, boy! What do you think of him?"

Almost before the boats could be brought to their moorings the fishermen had leapt ashore in their long boots and gone off home with their wives, laughing and talking.

Morrison had not gone. His wife had not been down to meet him. Somebody had shouted from the quay that she was still keeping her bed and was waiting at home for him. But he had been in no hurry to go to her. When everything was quiet he had shouldered his boat to the top of the harbour, unstepped her mast, and run her ashore on the dry bank above the bridge.

Then going back to the quay, which was now deserted, he had broken the padlock of an open yard for ship's stores, taken possession of a barrel of pitch, rolled it down to the bank by the bridge, fixed it under his boat, pulled out its plug, applied a match to it, and then waited until both barrel and boat were afire and burning fiercely.

After that he had walked home through the little sleeping town to his house in the middle of a cobweb of streets at the back of the beach. Opening the door (it had been left on the latch for him) he had bolted it on the inside, and then going to the bedroom and finding his young wife in bed, with a frightened look under a timid smile, he had charged her with her unchastity, compelled her to confess to it, and then strangled her to death with his big hands—the marks of his broad thumbs, black with tar, being on her throat and bosom.

In the middle of the night the fishermen who lived in the streets nearest to the harbour, awakened by a red glow in their bedrooms, had said to their wives:

"What for are they burning the gorse on Peel hill at this time of the year?"

But others, who were neighbours of Morrison's, having heard cries from his house in the night, had gathered in front of his door in the morning, and, getting no answer to their knocking, had burst it open and found the woman lying dead on the bed and the man huddled up on the floor at the foot of it. And when they had pushed him and roused him he had lifted his haggard face and said,

"I've killed my sweetheart."

Such was the fisherman's story, and when the defence had concluded their case, asking for an acquittal on the ground of unbearable moral provocation, and saying that never could there have been better grounds for the application of the unwritten law, the Jury was obviously impressed, and somebody at the back of the court was saying,

"If they hang him for that they'll hang a man for anything."

Against this sympathy for the accused, Stowell had risen to make his reply for the Crown.

He did not deny the dead woman's transgression. It was true that she must have known when she married the prisoner that she was about to become the mother of a child by another man. But if that moral fact could be urged against the wife, was there nothing of the same kind that could be advanced in her favour?

She had been cruelly betrayed and abandoned. Looking to the future she had seen the contempt of her little world before her. What had happened? In the dark hour of her desertion the prisoner had come with the offer of his love and protection. It was in evidence that for a time she had held back and that he had pressed himself upon her. None could know the secret of the dead woman's soul, but was it unreasonable to think that standing between the two fires of public scorn and the prisoner's affection she had said to herself, as poor misguided women in like cases did every day: "He loves me so much that he will forgive me whatever happens."

But had he forgiven her? No, he had killed her, wilfully, cruelly, brutally, not in the heat of blood, but after long deliberation—he, the big powerful brute and she the weak, helpless, half-naked woman—the woman who had been faithful to him since the day he married her, the woman he had sworn to love and cherish until death parted them.

No, the plea of moral justification was rotten to the heart's core, and had nothing to say for itself in a Court of Law. The defence had urged that it was founded on the laws of nature—that marriage implied chastity on the woman's part, and this woman had come to her husband unchaste. On the contrary, it was founded on the barbarous law of man—the infamous theory that a wife was the property of her husband and he was at liberty to do as he liked with her.

A wife was not the property of her husband. He was not at liberty to do as he liked with her. There was no such thing as the unwritten law. What was not written was not law. And if, as the result of the verdict in that court, it should go forth that any man had a right to kill his wife in any circumstances—to be judge and jury and accuser and executioner over her—the reign of law and order in this island would be at an end, no woman's life would be secure, the daughter of no member of that jury would any longer be safe, and human society would dissolve into a welter of civilised savagery—the worst savagery of all.

The effect of Stowell's reply had been overwhelming. The jury had either been frightened or convinced, and even the prisoner himself, during the more intimate passages, had held down his head as if he felt himself to be the vilest scoundrel on earth.

Among the advocates (they had reached the station by this time, got into their carriages, and lit up their pipes) opinion was more divided. The younger men were enthusiastic, but some of the older ones thought the closing speech for the Crown had been false in logic and bad in law.

One of the latter, with a special cock of the hat, (it was old Hudgeon, the young men called him "Fanny" now), sat with his shaven chin on the top of his stick and said:

"Well, it's a big gospel the young man has got to live up to, with all his tall talk about women. But we'll see! We'll see!"

Gell, who was wildly excited by his friend's success, was walking to and fro on the platform waiting for Stowell's arrival. When he came (he was the last to come) he had a graver look on his face than Gell had ever seen there before, except once, and he seemed to be painfully preoccupied.

"Ah, is it you?" he had said, when Gell laid hold of him—he had started as if he had seen a ghost.

They got into the train together and had a carriage to themselves. Gell began with his congratulations, but Stowell brushed them aside, and said:

"What happened with your father?"

Gell told his story as he had told it at Derby Haven—that the Speaker had cut up badly and turned him out of the house.

"But what do I care? Not a ha'porth! Best thing that ever happened to me, perhaps."

"And Bessie?"

"Oh, Bessie? Well, that's all right now. A bit troubled at first about my being cut off by the family and losing my income. Just like a woman! So unselfish!"

There was silence for some time after that save for the rumble of the carriage wheels. Then Gell said he was sorry he had told Bessie about the loss of the income. She would always be thinking he would regret the sacrifice he had made for her. If he could only find some way of showing her it didn't matter, because he could always get plenty of money....

"And why can't you?" said Stowell.

"How?"

"It's two pounds a week you draw on me for Miss Brown, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll make it ten on condition that you don't pay me back a penny until I ask for it."

"What a good chap...." But Gell could get no farther—his eyes were full and his throat was hurting him.

On arriving at Douglas he saw Stowell across the platform to the northern train, and just as it was about to start, he said:

"By the way, old man, you don't mind my saying something?"

"Not a bit! What is it?"

"You've hanged that poor devil of a Peel fisherman, and I suppose he deserved it. But I caught a glimpse of him as he was going down to the cells, and I thought he looked a fine fellow."

"He is a fine fellow."

"Do you say that? He made a big mistake in killing the wife, though, didn't he? If I had been in his place do you know what I should have done?"

"What?"

"Killed the other man."

Stowell drew back in his seat and at the next moment the train started.

As it ran into the country a black thought, a vague shadow of something, was swirling like a bat in the darkness of Stowell's brain. That was not the first time it had come to him. It had come to him in Court, while he was speaking, startling him, stifling him, almost compelling him to sit down.

"But Bessie's case was different," he thought. "She was not deserted. She sent Alick to me herself. Therefore it's impossible, quite impossible."

Nevertheless, he slept badly that night, and as often as he awoke he had the sense of a red glow in his bedroom and of being blinded by the fierce glare from a burning boat.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN THE GREAT WINTER

"Come in, my boy. Sit down. Take a cigarette. I have important news for you."

The Governor had returned from London and was calling Stowell into his smoking-room.

"First, about that recommendation to mercy. It has gone through. The death sentence has been commuted to ten years' imprisonment."

"I am glad, Sir—very glad."

"Next, your speech, deputizing for the Attorney, was reported—part of it—in the London newspapers and made a good impression."

"I'm very proud, Sir."

"I dined with the Home Secretary the following night, and the Lord Chief Justice, who was among the guests, was warm in his approval. Acid old fellow with noisy false teeth, but quite enthusiastic about your defence of law and order. Crime was contagious like disease, and there was an epidemic of violence in the world now. If society was to be saved from anarchy then law alone could save it. Some of their English courts—judges as well as juries—had been criminally indulgent to crimes of passion. Our little Manx court had shown them a good example."

"That is very encouraging, Sir."

"Very! And now the last thing I have to tell you is that Tynwald Court this morning voted a sum for a memorial to your father, leaving the form of it to me. I've decided on a portrait by Mylechreest, your Manx artist, to be hung in the Court-house at Castle Rushen. Mylechreest knew the Deemster (saw him at his last Court, in fact) and thinks he can paint the portrait from memory. But if you have any photographs let him have them without delay. And now off you go! Somebody's waiting for you in the drawing-room."

During the next six months Stowell worked as he had never worked before. Four hours a day at his office or in the Courts, and uncounted hours at home. Janet used to say she could never look out of her bedroom window at night without seeing his light from the library on the lawn.

Nevertheless he was at Government House every day, and Fenella and he had their cheerful hours together.

Winter came on. It was such a winter as nobody in the island could remember to have seen before. First wind that lashed the sea into loud cries about the coast, blew over the Curraghs with a perpetual wailing, ran up the glen with a roar, and brought the "boys" out of their beds to hold the roofs on their houses by throwing ropes over the thatch and fastening them down, with stones.

Then rain that deluged the low-lying lands, so that women had to go to market in boats; and then mist that hid the island for a week and brought more ships ashore than anybody had seen since the days of the ten black brothers of Jurby who (long suspected of wrecking) were caught stuffing the box tombs in the churchyard with rolls of Irish cloth.

But neither wind, nor rain, nor mist, kept Stowell from Fenella.

Clad in boots up to his thighs, with an oilskin coat tightly belted about the waist and a sou'wester strapped down from crown to chin, he would cross the mountains on his young chestnut mare, with the island roaring about him like a living thing, and arrive at Fenella's door with his horse's flanks steaming and his own face ablaze.

After the wind and the rain came a long frost, which laid its unseen hand on the rivers and waterfalls, making a deep hush that was like a great peace after a great war. In the middle of the island (the valley of Baldwin) there was a tarn into which the mountains drained, and as soon as this was frozen over Stowell and Fenella skated on it.

What a delight! The ice humming under their feet like a muffled drum; the air ringing to their voices like a cup; the sun sparkling in the hoar frost on the bare boughs of the trees; the blue sky sailing over the hilltops, capped with white clouds that looked like soft lamb's wool.

God, how good it was to be alive!

Then came a great snow that brought a still deeper silence, broken at Ballamoar only by the skid of the steel runners of the stiff carts, whose wheels had been removed, and the smothered calling of the cattle which had been shut up in the houses.

But what rapture! Every morning the farmers looked out of their windows, thick with ice, to see if the snow had gone, but as Stowell drew his blind and the snow light of the winter's sun came pouring in upon him, he thought only of another joyous day with Fenella.

Then up to Injebreck in white sweaters and woollen helmets to fly down the long slopes on ski, with all the world around them robed and veiled like a bride.

There was a broad ridge on the top, a great divide, separating the north of the island from the south, and as they skimmed across it from sight of eastern to sight of western sea, it was just as if they were sailing through the sky with the white round hills for clouds and the earth lying somewhere far below.

They were doing this one day when Stowell came upon a place where the snow was honeycombed with holes.

"Helloa! There's something here!" he cried.

Digging into the snow he found a buried sheep, still alive but unable to stand. So, taking it by its front and back legs he swung it over his head on to his shoulders and carried it to a shepherd's hut a mile away, where a turf fire was burning, and dogs, with snow on their snouts, were barking about a pen of bleating sheep that had been similarly recovered.

His delight at this rescue was so boisterous that he went back and back for hours and brought in other and other sheep.

Fenella, who followed him with his ski staffs, was in raptures. This was a new side of Victor Stowell, and she had a woman's joy in it. He was not only clever, he was strong. He could not only make speeches (as nobody else in the world could), he could ride and skate and ski, and (if he liked) he could lift a woman in his arms and throw her over his shoulder. Something would come of this some day—she was sure it would.

They were at the top of the pass, stamping the snow off their ski, and shaking it out of their gloves, before going down to the Governor's carriage which (also on runners) was waiting for them at the inn at the bottom of the hill. The sun was setting and the red light of it was flushing Fenella's face. She looked sideways at Stowell with a mischievous light in her eyes and said,

"Now I know what you are, Sir."

"Yes?"

"You are not a lawyer, really."

"No?"

"You're an old Viking, born a thousand years after your time."

"You don't say."

"Yes," she said, making ready for flight, "one of those sea robbers you told me of, who came to take possession of the island and capture its women."

"Really?"

"I dare say you're sorry you're not back with your ridiculous old ancestors, catching a woman for your wife."

"Not a bit! I've caught one already."

"Eh? What? If you mean .... Don't be too sure, Sir! You've not caught me yet!"

"Haven't I? Look out then—I'm going to catch you now."

"Catch me!" she cried, and away she flew down the slopes, laughing, screaming, rocking, reeling, and leaping over the drifts, until at length she tumbled into a deep one, with head down and ski in air, and came up half blind, with Stowell's arms about her and his lips kissing the snow off her chin and nose.

What a winter! Could there be any sorrow or sin or crime in the world at all? And what did it want its prisons and courts for?

But the thaw came at length, and then the noises of the garrulous old island began again with the rattle of the cart wheels, the rumble of the rivers running to the sea, and the mooing and bleating of the liberated cattle and sheep, coming out of their Ark and going back to the discoloured grass of the fields.

Stowell and Fenella felt as if they were descending to a world of reality from a world of dreams.

"Good-night!"

They were in the porch at Government House after the last of their winter expeditions. He was crushing her in his arms again, to the ruin of her beautiful hair, and whispering of the time that was coming when there would be no need for such partings.

"Three months yet, Sir!"

"Heavens, what an age!"

And then home to Ballamoar, with his young chestnut under him sniffing the night air, and over his head a paradise of stars.

II

"Come immediately. Important news for you."

It was a telegram from the Governor, who had been in London again. Stowell went up to Douglas by the first train.

"It's about the Deemstership."

"Ah!"

"Old Taubman, as you know, has been complaining of overwork ever since your father died. The winter had crippled him and he is down with rheumatism. Fortnightly courts being postponed, cases in arrears—it was necessary to do something. So I went up to Whitehall last week and told them a successor would have to be appointed. They asked me to recommend a name and I recommended yours."

"Mine, Sir?"

"Yours! It was all right, too, until I had to tell them your age, and then—phew! A judge and not yet thirty! I stood to my ground, said this was the age of youth, quoted the classical examples. Anyhow, there was my recommendation—take it or leave it."

"And what was the result, Sir?"

"The result was that the Lord Chief was consulted, and then our insignificance saved us. Yes, there was precedent enough for young judges in colonies and dependencies. And this being a case of a worthy son succeeding a worthy father .... and so on and so forth."

"Well?"

"Well, the end of it is that you are to go up to see the Home Secretary after the House has risen at Easter."

Stowell's heart was beating high, yet he hardly knew whether he was more proud than afraid. He mumbled something about the claims of his seniors at the bar.

"Oh yes, I know! All the old stick-in-the-muds! But keep your end up in London and I'll keep mine up here."

"You are very good, Sir. You have always been good to me."

The Governor, who had been rattling on, in a rush of high spirits, suddenly became grave and spoke slowly.

"Not at all," he said. "And I'm not thinking of you as .... what you are going to be. I'm thinking of you as your father's son, and expecting you to live up to your traditions. We want the spirit of the great Deemster in the island these days. Violence! Violence! Violence! I agree with the Lord Chief. It seems as if the world is getting out of hand. Justice is the only thing that can save it from anarchy—utter anarchy and ruin. Let's have no more recommendations to mercy! When people commit crime let them suffer. When they take life—no matter who or what they are—let them die for it."

"And by the way" (Stowell was leaving the room), "your father's portrait is finished. We must unveil it before you go up to London."

Trembling all over, Stowell went into the library to tell Fenella.

"How splendid!" she said. She was glowing with excitement. "You've done magnificent work for women as an advocate, but only think what you will be able to do as a judge! There isn't a poor, wronged girl in the island who won't know that she has a friend on the Bench!"

END OF SECOND BOOK