It was Joshua Scarff.
"Sorry to trouble you at this hour, your Honour, but I had to come and tell you what has happened."
"What is it, Joshua?"
"There has been a fearful outbreak of lawlessness in Douglas this evening—breaking of shop-windows, looting of the houses of well-to-do people, assaults and outrages of all kinds."
"What is the reason of it?"
"Mob reason, and you know what that is, your Honour. They say justice in the island is corrupt. If you are rich you get whatever you want. If you are poor you get nothing. A guilty man and a guilty woman have been allowed to escape. Why? Because the man belongs to a family of 'the big ones' and is a friend of the Deemster."
"Who say that?"
"Old Qualtrough and Dan Baldromma."
"Baldromma? If his step-daughter has escaped what has he to complain of?"
"Nothing, but that's not the worst, Sir."
"What is?"
"The Governor has telegraphed for soldiers from across the water. They are to come over by the first boat in the morning. It's a frightful blunder, Sir."
Beads of perspiration were rolling down from Joshua's bald crown.
"There'll be bloodshed, and Manxmen won't stand for that. They've been their own masters for a thousand years. The Governor can't treat them as if they were Indian coolies."
"What do you think ought to be done?"
"That's what I've come to say, Sir. I had gone to bed but I couldn't take rest, so I got Willie Dawson to drive me over. The people may be wrong about justice, but the only way to pacify them is to prove it."
"How?"
"The guilty man in this case must give himself up."
"Give himself up?"
Joshua took off his coloured spectacles and wiped the damp off them.
"I thought your Honour might know where he was. He can't be far away, Sir."
"Well?"
"He ought to be told to deliver himself up to the Courts to save the island from ruin. And if he won't he ought to be denounced."
"Denounced?"
"It will be a terrible ordeal—I know that, Sir. Your friend! Your life-long friend! Pity! Great pity!"
For a perceptible time Stowell did not speak. Then, in a voice which Joshua had never heard before, he said,
"Go home and go to bed, Joshua. I'll see what can be done."
Joshua had gone, the door had closed behind him and his wheels were dying away down the drive, but Stowell continued to stand in the hall, candle in hand and stiff as a statue. At length he returned to the dining-room, put the candle on the table and sat before the empty hearth.
It was all over! The plan he had made for himself was impossible. There could be no resigning in secret and stealing away from the island.
He had done harm to something. He had done harm to Justice. If Justice fell down what stood up? The man who took the law into his own hands was a criminal, and as a criminal he ought to be punished.
Punished? The shock was terrible. Was he then to give himself up? To confess publicly?
He saw himself pleading guilty to having broken prison. He heard the whole wretched tale of his relation to the unhappy prisoner, and of his trying and condemning her, coming out in open Court. He heard the howls of execration from the people who had hitherto loved and cheered him.
"Is there no other way?" he asked himself.
He saw himself in prison, in prison clothes, in the prison cell, on the prison bed. Above all he saw another Deemster going upstairs to sit on the bench while he lay in the vaults below.
He thought of his father and his family—four hundred years of the Ballamoars and not a stain on the name of one of them until now. He thought of Fenella—the cruel shame he would bring on her. Granted he was guilty, and deserved punishment, had he any right to punish Fenella also?
The clock on the landing struck one. An owl shrieked in the plantation. He got up and strode about the room. The impulses of the natural man began to fight for safety.
"Good God, what am I thinking about?" he asked himself.
What had he done to deserve all this? He had broken a wicked law which had no right to exist, but did that require that he should denounce himself, go to prison, degrade his father's name, break Fenella's heart and put himself up on a gibbet for every passer-by to jeer at and spit upon?
"What madness! What rank madness!"
He thought of the thousands of "great" men in all ages of the world who had broken bad laws, and yet lived in honour and died in glory. Why should he suffer for doing the same thing? Why he and not the others? He laughed in scorn of his own weakness, but at the next moment a mocking voice within him seemed to say,
"Go on! Go on! Issue that warrant! Let the unhappy girl who trusted you be brought back and executed. Let the friend who loved you be arrested and tried and sent to jail for the crime you have committed. Go through all that duplicity again. Let the whole community be submerged in anarchy as the consequence of your sin. But remember, when you come out of it all, you will be a devil, and your soul will be damned."
That terrified him and he sat down by the empty hearth once more. After a while he found his hands wet under his face. He heard a soft, caressing voice pleading with him,
"Victor, my darling heart! Resist this great temptation and peace will come to you. Do the right, and no matter how low you may fall in the eyes of men, you will look upon the face of God."
It was Fenella's voice—he was sure of that. Across the mountain and through the darkness of the night her pure soul was speaking to him.
The candle had burnt to the socket by this time, but a new light came to him. For more than a year he had been a slave, dragging a chain of sin behind him. At every step in his wrong-doing his chain had lengthened. He must break it and be free.
"Yes, I will go up to Government House in the morning," he thought, "confess everything and take my punishment."
It was only right, only just. And when the cruel thought came that the next time he entered the court-house it would be to stand in the dock, with the dread certainty of his doom, he told himself that that would be right too—the Judge also must be judged.
II
Groping his way upstairs in the darkness he entered his bedroom and locked the door behind him. He found a fire burning, the sofa drawn up in front of it, a lamp burning on the bureau that stood at one side, and at the other the high-backed arm-chair in which his father used to undress for bed. He was surprised to see that the fire had been newly made up, but hearing footsteps in the adjoining bedroom he understood.
"Poor Janet!" he thought.
His thoughts were thundering through his brain like waves in a deep cavern. He was convinced that he would never survive the ordeal that was before him. When men lived through long imprisonments it was because they had hope that the beautiful days would come again. He had no such hope, so, sitting at his bureau, he began to sort and arrange his papers like one who was going away on a long journey.
After that he wrote a letter to the Attorney-General:
"DEAR MASTER,—When this letter comes to your hand you will know the occasion for it. I am aware that it cannot have the authority of a will, but (in the absence of a more regular document) I trust the Clerk of the Rolls may find a way to act upon it as an expression of my last wishes.
"I desire that Janet Curphey should be suitably provided for as long as she lives. She has been a mother to me all my life, the only mother I have ever known.
"I desire that Mrs. Collister of Baldromma may have such a provision made for her as will liberate her from the tyrannies of her husband.
"I desire that Thomas Vondy, formerly the jailer at Castle Rushen, should be taken care of in any way you may consider best.
"Finally, if I do not live to return home, I desire that everything else of which I die possessed should be offered to Fenella Stanley as a mark of my deep love and devotion.
"I think that is all."
Having signed, sealed and inscribed his letter he put it in his breast pocket. Then taking a drawer out of the bureau he carried it to the sofa, intending to destroy the contents of it.
The first thing that came to his hand was the letter which Alick Gell had given him at Derby Haven. It was marked "To be opened after we have gone," and turned out to be a memorandum to his father's executors, telling them he was leaving the island with no intention of returning to it, and asking (as his only request) that in the event of an inheritance becoming due to him, seven hundred pounds, which had been advanced to him at various times, should be repaid to Deemster Victor Stowell—"the best friend man ever had."
Feeling a certain twinge, Stowell hesitated for a moment, with the memorandum shaking in his hand, and then threw it into the fire.
There were other papers of the same kind (I O U's and the like) which shared the same fate, and then up from the bottom of the drawer, came a leather-bound book. It was "Isobel's Diary." He had decided to destroy that also. As the sanctuary of his father's soul he could not allow it to be looked into by other eyes.
But, never having looked at it himself since the night of his father's death, he could not resist the temptation to glance through it once more before committing it to the flames. It fell open at the page which said,
"So it's all well at last, Isobel. Your son can do without me now. He needs his father no longer. With that brave woman by his side he will go up and up. They will marry and carry on the traditions of the Ballamoars. It is the dearest wish of my heart that they should do so."
His throat throbbed. Ah, those hopes, all wrecked and dead! Going down on one knee before the fire, and holding the book on the other, he tore out page by page and burnt it, feeling as if he were burning his right hand also. He was afraid of tears and had rarely given way to them, but he was weeping like a heart-broken woman before the last page had been consumed.
Then, taking Fenella's letters from his pocket-book, he prepared to burn them too. They brought a faint perfume, a feeling of warmth, a sense of her physical presence. Most of them were notes of no consequence—appointments to ride, drive, fish, skate, all touched by her gay raillery ("eight o'clock in the morning—is that too early for you, Victor, dear?")—he had preserved every scrap in her hand-writing. But one was the letter she wrote to him when he was in London, and with palpitating tenderness he held it under the lamp to read it again:
"Victor, when I think of the life that is so surely before you, and that I shall walk through it by your side, perfectly united with you, sharing the same hopes and aims and desires, enjoying the same sunshine and weathering the same storms, I have a vision of happiness that makes me cry with joy."
His heart swelled like a troubled sea, and to conquer his emotion he thrust the letter hurriedly into the flames. But before it was more than scorched he snatched it back and was preparing to return it to his pocket when he bethought himself how soon it must pass into other hands with everything he carried about him. And then, turning his head away, and feeling as if he were burning his heart also, he put it into the fire.
After that he dropped back on to the sofa with feelings about Fenella that found no relief in tears. One by one the joyous hours of their love returned to his memory. They seemed to ring in his ears with the melancholy sound of far-off bells. It was a cruel pleasure.
All at once came a moment of fierce rebellion. When he had told himself downstairs that in making the great renunciation of his public office he must renounce Fenella also he had not realised what it meant. It meant that never again, for as long as he lived (Fenella being impossible to him), would Woman take any part in his existence.
A cold fear took possession of him at that thought. He was a man—was he for the rest of his life, if he survived his imprisonment, to be cut off from his kind, separated, alone?
Better be dead than live such a life!
Then another and still more startling thought came to him—why not? A letter to the Governor, exonerating Gell, and then it would all be over. No warrant! No trial! Why not?
Outside the night was dark. Not a breath of wind was stirring. In the silence of earth and sky he could hear the "swish, swish" of the sea on the shingle at the top of the shore. It must be high water.
"Why not? Why not?"
His head was dizzy. He was thinking of a boat that lay among the lush grass on the sandy bank above the beach. Alick and he had often gone fishing in her. She was heavy, but he was strong—he could push her into the water.
He saw himself pulling out to sea, far out, beyond the Point, to where the Gulf Stream in its long race round half the world swept by the island to the coast of Iceland. And then, as the dawn broke in the eastern heavens, he saw himself scuttling the boat and going down with her.
No one would know. The boat would lie at the bottom of the sea until she fell to pieces, and he—he would go north on the way of the great waters until he came to the feet of the frozen Jokulls, where nobody would be able to say who he was or where he came from.
No scandal! No outcry! No vulgar sensation! Just a pang to Fenella, and then the darkness of death over all.
Thinking the lamp was burning low he was reaching out his hand to turn up the wick when a sense came of somebody being in the room with him. He looked round. All was silent.
"Is anybody there?" he asked aloud.
There was no answer. The dread of miscarrying for ever if he died by his own act began to struggle on the battle field of his soul with the fear of being cut off from the living who live in God's peace. He shivered and was trying to rise when again he had the sense of somebody else in the bedroom.
"Who is it?"
At the next moment, raising his eyes, he thought he saw his father in the arm-chair where he had seen him so often. The august face was the same as when he saw it last in that room, except that the melancholy eyes were now open.
"I'm ill," he thought, and he closed his eyes and put his hand over them.
But when he opened his eyes again his father was still there, looking at him with tenderness and compassion. His brain reeled and he fell face down on the cushions of the sofa.
Then he heard his father speaking to him, gently, affectionately, but firmly, just as he used to do when he was alive.
"My son! My dear son! I know what you are thinking of doing, and I warn you not to do it. No man can run away from the consequences of his sins. If he flies from them in this life he must meet them in the life hereafter, and then it will be a hundred-fold more terrible to be swept from the face of the living God."
"Father!"
Stowell tried to cry aloud but could not. His father's voice ceased and at the next moment a vision flashed before him. A line of miserable-looking men were standing before an awful tribunal. He knew who they were—the unjust judges of the world who had corrupted justice. All the grandeur in which they had clothed themselves on earth was gone, and they were there in the nakedness of their shame crying,
"Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!"
Stowell felt as if he were falling off the world into a void of unfathomable night. Then blindness fell upon the eyes of his mind and he knew no more.
"Victor! Victor!"
It was Janet's voice outside the door.
"Eh?"
"Six o'clock. Didn't you want to catch the first train in town, dear?"
"Oh yes! All right. I'll be down presently."
Stowell found it difficult to recover consciousness. He was lying on the sofa, and he looked around. There was the armchair—it was empty. But the lamp on the bureau was still burning. He must have slept, for he was feeling refreshed and even strong.
Leaping to his feet he blew out the lamp and pulled back the window curtains. It was a beautiful morning, tranquil as the sky and noiseless as the dew. Over the tops of the tall trees the bald crown of old Snaefell was bathed in sunshine.
He was like another man. Life had no terrors for him now. It was just as if a curse had fallen from him in the night. No more visions! No more spectres! He knew what he had to do and he would do it. He had a sense of immense emancipation. He felt like a slave who had broken the chain which he had dragged after him for years. He was a free man once more.
Throwing off coat and waistcoat he washed—lashing the cold water over face and head and neck as if he were diving into one of the dubs in the glen—and then went downstairs with a strong step.
Breakfast was not quite ready, so he stepped out over the piazza, to the farm-yard. The cheerful place was full of its morning activities. Cows were mooing their way to the grass of the fields before barking dogs, and milkmaids were carrying their frothing pails across to the dairy.
He saluted everybody he came upon. "Good-morning, Betty!"
"Good-morning, Mary!" The girls smiled and looked proud, but they said afterwards that the young master's voice sounded as if he were saying good-bye to them.
Unconsciously he was going about like one who was taking a last look round before setting out on a long journey. He went into the stable, and Molly, his young chestnut mare, turned her head and neighed at him. He went into the empty cow-house, and four young calves in boxes licked, with their long moist tongues, the hand he held down to them.
On the way back to the house he met Robbie Creer, who was full of another story of Mrs. Collister of Baldromma. She had taken the ground with the ebb tide, poor woman. They had put her into the asylum. The doctors said her case was incurable. She was always saying the old Dempster had come from the dead to take her Bessie out of prison.
"But what a blessed end," said Stowell. "She'll think her daughter is in heaven, so she'll always be happy."
"It's like she will, Sir," said Robbie, looking puzzled, and going indoors for his morning bowl of porridge he said to his wife,
"A mortal quare thing to say, though, and the woman in the madhouse."
Stowell ate with an appetite (Janet plying him with coffee and eggs and toasted muffins), and then young Robbie brought round the dog-cart. Janet helped him on with his light loose overcoat and went to the door with him.
He paused there, pulling on his driving-gloves and thinking what cruel pain the dear soul would suffer when she heard that night what he had done during the day. At last he threw his arms about her and kissed her, saying with a gulp,
"Good-bye, mother! God bless you!"
And then he sprang up into the cart, snatched at the reins, pulled them taut, and (after the young mare had leapt on her forelegs) darted away.
As he approached the turn of the drive where the house was hidden by the trees he turned and looked back at it—what a home to lose!
Janet, who was still at the porch, smoothing her silvery hair, thought he had looked back at her, and she waved her hand to him. Nobody had said a word to her, yet she knew he had been suffering as a result of some terrible wrong-doing. She thought she knew what it was, too, and she had wept bitter tears over it. But he had not a fault in her eyes now.
Her boy! Hers all the way up since he was a child and used to run about the lawn in pinafores. Heaven bless him! He was the best thing God had ever made.
II
The train to town was full to overflowing. The northside people, having heard of yesterday's doings, were going up to see for themselves "what them toots in Douglas" were doing.
In spite of the guard's deferential protests Stowell stepped into an open third-class carriage. It had been humming like a beehive until then, but except for a general salutation it became silent when he entered.
A draper's assistant who sat opposite handed him an English newspaper, two days old, with an article on the escape from Castle Rushen. The incident was a disgrace to the insular administration, and if the Governor could not offer a satisfactory explanation the sooner the island's Home Rule came to an end the better for Justice.
One or two of the passengers tried to draw Stowell into conversation about the article, but he said little or nothing. Then some black-coated persons (well-to-do farmers and the like) gave the talk another turn.
"Still and for all," said one, "that doesn't justify such doings as there are in Douglas!" "Chut!" said another. "It isn't justice the agitators are wanting, it's robbery." "Truth enough," said a third, "it's the land they're after, and if the Governor isn't doing something soon, there'll be not an acre left at the one of us." "Give them a pig of their own sow," said a fat farmer. "Men like Qualtrough and Baldromma ought to be taken to say and dropped overboard."
Again the passengers tried to draw Stowell into conversation, and when they found they could not get him to speak to them they spoke at him.
"Where's the big men of the island that they're not telling the people they're bringing it to wreck and ruin?"
"When a man is claver—claver uncommon—and mighty with the tongue, he ought to be showing the ignorant gommerals the way they're going."
"Yes," said a little man (he was a local preacher), "when a man has the gift it's his duty to the Lord to use it."
"He must be a right man though," said the fat farmer, "straight as a mast himself, same as some we've had at Ballamoar in the good ould days gone by."
There was silence for a moment after this, and then an old man by the opposite window was heard to whisper,
"Lave him alone, men; he knows what hour the clock is striking."
When the train reached Douglas, Stowell went off with a heavy face. It was remarked that he had not shaken hands—his father used to shake hands with everybody.
"He's his father's son for all," said the old man by the window.
Stowell took the cable-car at the bottom of the Prospect Hill which is at the foot of the town. Douglas was still in a state of agitation and the driver had as much as he could do to forge his way, without accidents, through the tumultuous throngs in the thoroughfare.
A cordon of red-coated soldiers from Castletown surrounded Government office, and a noisy crowd (including women with children) were jeering at them from the middle of the street, and shouting up at the windows, under the impression that the Governor was within.
The shops bore signs of yesterday's rioting—-many having their shutters up, while the windows of others were barricaded with new boarding.
Stowell got out of the car at the terminus and made the rest of his journey afoot. At the top of the hill, where the road turns towards the Governor's house, he came upon a mass meeting. From a horseless lorry, decorated with banners, a burly old ruffian with shaggy grey hair (Qualtrough, M.H.K.) was speaking in a voice of thunder, while, on the cross-seat by his side, Dan Baldromma was sitting with the air of a martyr.
"There's a man on this platform who has gone to prison for his principles. That's what Justice in the Isle of Man is. And that's what they would like to be doing with the lot of ye, the big ones of the island. But, gentlemen and ladies, their rotten ould ship is floating on the pumps and she'll soon be sinking."
When Stowell reached the Governor's gate he paused, being out of breath and not so strong as he had imagined. From that point he could see a broad stretch of the coast, as well as the shadowy outlines of the English hills on the other side of the channel. A steamer was sailing into the bay. Perhaps she was bringing the English cavalry the Governor had sent for.
Life is sweet when death is at the door. At that last moment, although he had thought his mind was made up, Stowell found that his heart was failing him. Must he go on? Deliberately destroy himself? No outside power compelling him? The world was wide—why not leave all this wreck and ruin behind him and in some other country begin life anew?
The moment of weakness passed and he went on. Half way up the drive, where the trees broke clear and the long white façade of Government House became visible, he dropped his head. He was thinking of the last time he had been there and remembering again the stinging words with which Fenella had driven him away. But there was strength in the thought that he was about to break the chain which he had dragged after him so long, and save his people at the same time.
When the maid opened the door, he asked for the Governor.
"Yes, your Honour," said the maid, "but Miss Fenella wishes to see you first, Sir."
His heart was beating hard when he stepped into the house.
Three times during breakfast that morning Fenella had seen somebody coming up the drive. The first to come was the Major from Castletown, riding at a fast trot. On being shown into the breakfast-room, with spurs clanking, he told the Governor that a mob had gathered about Government Office and were very threatening.
"Tell the Mayor to read the Riot Act, and then do what is necessary for the protection of life and property," said the Governor.
The second to come was the Chief Constable, driving rapidly in a hackney carriage. On entering the room with his heavy step, he said the steamer from England was in sight and the soldiers would be landed at the pier within half an hour.
"If the thoroughfares are still thronged with riotous mobs at that time," said the Governor, "tell the cavalry to ride through them."
The last to come up the drive was a solitary man afoot, walking slowly and pausing at intervals as if his strength had failed him.
Fenella knew who it was, and rising hastily from the table she went into the drawing-room.
When Stowell was brought in to her she was shocked at the change in his appearance. He looked ten years older. His dark hair had become white about the temples and his eyes were full of a strange light.
"How he must have suffered," she thought, and an almost overpowering desire took possession of her to put her arms about him and comfort him.
He looked at her and the same thought and the same impulse came to him. But they were afraid of each other, and with the surging ocean of their love between them they stood apart, but trembling. At length, trying not to look into each other's faces, they began to speak.
"Fenella!"
"Victor!"
"You know why I have been sent for?"
"Yes, and that is why I want to speak to you before you see my father. There are things you ought to know."
"Yes?"
"Mr. Vondy, the jailer from Castle Rushen, was here two days ago, to be examined by the Governor, the Attorney-General and the Chief Constable."
"Did he say anything?"
"Not to them."
"To you, perhaps?"
"Yes. I brought him in here. He told me what occurred after I left the Castle."
"Then you know?"
She dropped her head and answered "Yes."
"I had to do it, Fenella—I thought I had to."
A moment passed.
"He asked me to tell you that he would keep his word to you, whatever happened."
"Did he say that?"
"Yes."
A spasm in Stowell's throat seemed to be stifling him.
"I did wrong, Fenella, terribly wrong, but there is one thing I will ask of you."
"What is it, Victor?"
"Not to judge me until you know what I've come to do to-day."
Fenella, deeply affected, thought she caught a glimpse of his meaning.
"Do you intend to resign, Victor?"
"Yes, but that is not all."
"What is, Victor?" She was thinking of his exile, his possible banishment.
"Perhaps I am speaking to you for the last time, Fenella. That's why I am glad you have given me this opportunity of seeing you."
She trembled, thinking he meant suicide, and said in a choking voice,
"You don't mean that you intend to take your .... No, no, that is impossible. Think of your father."
Stowell did not speak for a moment. Then he said,
"I saw him last night, Fenella."
"Who?"
"My father. I was thinking of that as a way out of all this miserable wrong-doing, when he came to warn me."
"How he must have suffered," thought Fenella.
"But perhaps you think it was only a delusion?"
"Indeed no! If the spirits of our dear ones may not come back to speak to us in our times of temptation...."
"But my father was not the only one who spoke to me last night, Fenella."
"Who else did, Victor?"
"You. I heard you as plainly as I hear you now."
Fenella's bosom was heaving. "When was that?" she asked.
"In the middle of the night. But perhaps you were in bed and asleep at that time."
"No .... no, I did not sleep until after daybreak. In the middle of the night I was" .... (she was breathing audibly) "I was praying."
He looked up at her with his heavy eyes.
"Were you praying for me, Fenella?"
She cast down her eyes and answered "Yes."
Another moment passed, and then in a husky voice he said,
"Fenella, what did you pray for for me?"
"That you might have strength to do what was right, whatever it might cost you."
He reached forward and grasped her hands.
"Did you know what that meant, Fenella—whatever it might cost me?"
"Yes," she said, raising her eyes, "and at length an answer came to me."
"What answer?"
"That if you did, and made atonement, however low you might fall in the eyes of men you would look upon the face of God."
Stowell gasped, dropped her hands and for a while was speechless. Then he said,
"And do you think I will?"
"I am sure you will, Victor. I had a sign from God."
"Do you, after all, believe in God, Fenella?"
"Indeed yes. And you—don't you??"
"My father did. He used to kneel by his bed like a little child every night and every morning."
She saw that he did not speak for himself, and a great wave of love and compassion for the sin-laden man stormed her heart.
"Victor," she said, tears springing to her eyes, "you must try to forgive me. I've not been what I ought to have been to you—I see that now. Whatever you have done I should have clung to you, not driven you away from me, and let you go on from sin to sin, doubting God's mercy and forgiveness. Let me do so now. We belong to each other, Victor. There can never be anybody else for either of us as long as we live. Let us go together."
She had seized his hands. The hands of both were trembling.
"Would to God you could, Fenella. But it is too late for that now. I have gone too far for you to follow me. Where I go now I must go alone."
"Don't say that."
"Wait until I have seen your father."
At that moment the maid came into the room to tell the Deemster that the Governor, having heard that he was in the house, wished to see him immediately.
Stowell was turning to go, when Fenella put a trembling hand on his shoulder and said in a whisper,
"Victor, whatever happens with my father, promise me that you will never do that."
"But if the Governor...."
"Never mind about the Governor now, promise me."
There was a moment of silence and then he said, "I promise," and with head down passed out of the room.
Being alone, Fenella tried in vain to compose herself. The fear that Stowell might kill himself (as a result of the public exposure and humiliation which the Governor would impose upon him) threw her into violent agitation.
Unable to support the strain of her anxiety she could not resist the temptation to listen at the door of her father's room. She heard the two voices within—Stowell's in tones of pitiful supplication, her father's in accents of fierce expostulation. At length she heard her own name mentioned and then she could contain herself no longer.
Opening the door noiselessly she entered the room. The two men were face to face, looking at each other with flaming eyes.
II
"Come in, Stowell. I'm glad you're early. I wanted a word with you before the others arrived. Sit down."
The Governor too was violently agitated. He was striding about the room. His grey hair, usually brushed down with military precision, was loose and disordered, as if he had been running his hands through it, and his pipe, still alight and as if forgotten, was smoking on the arm of his chair.
"You came by train?"
"Yes."
"Then you saw the soldiers. I had to do it. I couldn't allow this raggabash to take possession of the island. There may be casualties, but the shortest way is the most merciful—that's my experience. Sit down. Why don't you sit down?"
But the Governor went on walking and Stowell continued to stand.
"They say this rioting is the sequel to the escape from Castle Rushen. Only an excuse, of course, but that makes no difference. If we are to justify our administration of Justice in the eyes of the authorities across the water we must re-capture those runaways. The man—the guilty man in particular—must be locked up in prison. The Attorney and the Colonel will be here presently. You'll be able to help them to the personal description they want—nobody better—and then issue the warrant."
Stowell, who had been clutching the back of a chair behind which he was standing with a fixed stare, said in a quivering voice,
"I'm sorry, your Excellency. I cannot do that."
"Eh? Cannot do what?"
"I cannot issue the warrant for the arrest of Alick Gell for breaking prison because...."
"Well?"
Stowell swallowed something in his throat and continued .... "because I did it."
The Governor drew up sharply and said,
"What's the matter with you? Are you ill?"
Stowell, who had recovered himself, answered,
"No, I am not ill, your Excellency."
"Then you must be mad—stark mad. It's impossible. You can never have done such a thing."
"I am not mad either, Sir. What I tell you is the truth—it is God's truth, Sir."
And then, excusing nothing, extenuating nothing, Stowell told the Governor what he had done, and how he had done it.
"I used my official position to effect the escape of the prisoner, and I arranged for her flight, with her companion, to a foreign country."
The Governor listened without drawing breath.
"But why .... why did you .... was it because I refused to remit...."
"No, I did it because I came to see that the law which permitted you to order the execution of that girl was a crime, and that a higher law called upon me to undo it."
"A crime? Good Lord, what if it was? What had you to do with that?"
"I had tried and condemned her. And besides, I had my personal reasons for wishing the prisoner to escape punishment."
"But damn it all, man, when you were doing all this for the girl, didn't you see what you were doing for yourself?"
"Not then. But now I see that in preventing the law from committing a crime I committed a crime against the law, and am no longer fit to be a Judge. That's why I'm here now, Sir—not to issue that warrant, but to resign my judgeship."
"Resign your judgeship?"
"Yes, but that's not all—to ask you to order my arrest and commit me to prison."
The Governor, who had been half stupefied, took possession of himself at last.
"Commit you to prison? Good heavens, what are you saying? A Deemster in prison! Whoever heard of such a thing!"
"I am guilty of a crime against Justice...." began Stowell, but the Governor bore him down.
"Tush! I don't care for the moment whether you are or are not. Neither do I care whether the law which condemned the prisoner to death, was or was not a crime. What I have to deal with is the present situation. You say you want me to order your arrest—is that it?"
"Yes, you said yourself the guilty man ought to be in prison."
"But heavens alive, man, can't you see the disgrace? Gell is a private person, while you are a Judge, the Judge who tried and condemned the prisoner. What is to happen to Justice in the island if a Judge is condemned and imprisoned?"
Stowell tried to speak, but again the Governor bore him down.
"Oh, I know what you'll say—you'll talk about your conscience. But what is your conscience to me against the honour of the public service and the welfare of the whole community?"
"The honour of the public service cannot rest on a lie, Sir," said Stowell. "It would be a living lie if I continued to be a Judge, and the only way to save the island is to tell it the truth, no matter what...."
"Don't talk damned nonsense."
Stowell drew himself up.
"Do you wish me, then, to issue that warrant against Alick Gell now that you know that I am myself the guilty man?"
The Governor flinched for a moment, then smote the top of his desk and said,
"I know nothing of the kind, Sir, and don't want to know. I believe you're mad—made mad by the ordeal you have lately gone through. Nothing will make me believe the contrary."
There was silence after that for several minutes. Then the Governor, who had thrown himself in his chair, said in a softer tone,
"Stowell, listen to me. I partly understand you. But even if you did this unbelievable thing, and are satisfied you did it from a good motive, why can't you hold your tongue about it?"
"I have thought of that, Sir," said Stowell, with a tremor in his voice. "I have fought it all out with myself. Believe me I would have given all I have in the world not to have had to come here on this errand. But the life of a Judge would be impossible to me with a lie like that for its foundation. My work cannot be a mockery, Sir. I cannot allow another to suffer for what I have done."
The Governor leapt up from his seat.
"You talk about others suffering for what you have done—have you forgotten how many others must suffer if I allow you to do what you want to do now? Think of your island—your native island—do you want to cover it with dishonour? Think of your profession—do you want to load it with disgrace? Think of your father, who loved you as no father ever loved a son. We put up his portrait in the court-house the other day—do you want to pull it down? And then think of me—I suppose I ran some risk when I recommended you for your position...."
Stowell was trying to speak, but again the Governor put up his hand..
"Oh, you needn't thank me. Perhaps I wasn't acting altogether unselfishly. I may have been wanting somebody to stand by me now that I'm growing old, somebody like your father—able to fight these rascals who are trying to ruin everything. And when you came along, you whom I had known since you were a boy, the son of my old friend, who was to be my son some day...."
The Governor, startled by the emotion that was coming over him, broke away and crossed the room, saying,
"But damn it all, why need I talk of myself? There's Fenella—have you forgotten Fenella?"
It was at this moment that Fenella entered the room. Neither of the men saw her. She stood noiselessly at the door.
"If I do what you want, order your arrest, what's the first question the Court will ask you—why did you help the prisoner to escape? Then the whole wretched story of your relations with the girl Collister will come out. And what will be the result? Fenella's name will become a byword. It will be the common talk of every slut in the island that she came second after your woman .... your offal."
Stowell flamed up with anger for a moment, and then choked with tears. After a short silence he said,
"I can never be sufficiently grateful to you, Sir, for what you've done for me. As for Fenella, I can hardly trust myself to speak. The thought of her suffering is the bitterest part of my own. I would live out the rest of my life on my knees if I could undo the wrong I have done her. But I cannot bring her down with me. I cannot take up again my life as a Judge after it has been so hideously disfigured and ask her to share it. Let me go to prison...."
Sobbing in his throat Stowell could go no further. Fenella, sobbing in her heart, crept noiselessly out of the room.
The Governor, in spite of himself, was visibly affected.
"Look here, my boy," he said. "I'll tell you what I'll do. It's going far, perhaps too far for the safety of the public service, but to prevent worse things happening I'll take the risk. I'll stop that warrant and hush up this miserable scandal on one condition—that you say nothing, take leave of absence on grounds of ill-health, go abroad and never come back again."
Stowell shook his head.
"Why not? Good gracious, why not? The guilty ones have gone. Your secret is safe. Except ourselves, nobody knows it. Why shouldn't you?"
"I dare not," said Stowell.
"Dare not?"
"I have committed a crime. If I do not pay for it in this life I must do so hereafter. Therefore I ask for my punishment now."
The Governor got the better of his emotion.
"So you wish to resign your office and ask me to order your arrest? Well, I won't do it. I am the only authority to whom you can resign and I decline to accept your resignation—I refuse to transmit it to the Home Authorities. What you wish to do would undermine the stability of law and the authority of Government. It would humiliate me and destroy my daughter's happiness. Therefore I not only refuse to receive your resignation. I forbid it."
Stowell hesitated for a moment and then said,
"In that case, your Excellency, you will force me to denounce myself."
"Denounce....? You mean in open Court?"
"Yes, it will be my duty, and I shall be compelled to do it."
The Governor's wrath became rage. With a ring of sarcasm in his voice he said,
"Very well! Very well! I cannot prevent you. Denounce yourself in open Court if you are so unwise, so insane. But understand—if you are compelled to do your duty, I shall be compelled to do mine also. After you have made your public confession and the Courts have dealt with you, I shall issue the warrant just the same. You say the fugitives have gone to a foreign country, but no foreign country will refuse to give up a condemned murderess. The woman shall be brought back and executed according to the sentence you pronounced upon her. More than that, your friend, your confederate, shall be brought back also, and dealt with according to his crime. Therefore your public confession will be of no avail. It will be an empty farce, ruining three lives that might otherwise have been saved."
Stowell trembled, his lips became white.
"I beg you not to do that, Sir."
"I will! I take God to witness that I will. Now choose for yourself which it is to be—your course or mine?"
Stowell breathed hard for a moment and then smiled—but such a smile!
"Your Excellency," he said, "for your own sake I beg of you not to do it."
"My sake?" said the Governor, drawing up sharply—he had been striding about the room again.
"Yes, yours," said Stowell. "One of those two was my victim, the other was merely the subject of my will. I alone am guilty, and if I cannot meet my punishment without bringing such consequences on the innocent I must meet something else."
"What else?"
"Death. Then, in the eyes of heaven, the crime against the law will be your crime and I shall not live to witness it."
There was a breathless silence. The Governor was dumb-founded. Stowell stepped towards the door and said in a low voice,
"God forgive you, Sir. You will never see me again."
At that moment the maid entered the room to announce the Attorney-General and the Chief Constable, who came in immediately behind her.
"Ah, Victor, how are you?" said the Attorney. "Your Excellency, we have brought the Warrant."
"And here," said the Chief Constable, with an obsequious bow to Stowell, "is the Deemster ready to issue it."
Nobody spoke, and the Chief Constable, taking a paper out of a long envelope, proceeded to read it:
"This is to command you to whom this Warrant is addressed forthwith to apprehend Alexander Gell...."
"That will do. Give it to me," said the Governor.
When the Warrant had been given to him he tore it up and threw it into the fire. The two men were aghast.
"Your Excellency, what .... what...."
"This damnable thing must go no further. Let me hear no more about it."
After saying this the Governor's strength seemed to leave him. He dropped into a chair before the fire and gazed at the blazing paper.
Stowell's trembling hand was on the handle of the door.
"I thank you for what you've done, Sir," he said, "and wish to God the matter could end there. But it cannot .... it cannot."
He went out. The two men looked into each other's faces. A flash of understanding passed between them, and, without a word more, they stepped out of the room.
Meantime, Stowell, going down the corridor, felt a hand that had been stretched out from the drawing-room, taking hold of his arm and drawing him in. It was Fenella's. Her face was utterly broken up. Flinging her arms about him she kissed him passionately.
"Victor," she said, "do as your heart bids you. Don't think of me any longer. I am with you in life or death. If you have to go to prison I will go with you, and if...."
Unable to say more she broke away from him and hurried into an inner room.
The front door rang as Stowell pulled it after him, and when he walked down the drive with a high step his head was up and his ravished face aglow.
END OF SIXTH BOOK
There had been wild doings in Douglas since the Chief Constable's visit to Government House. Stones had been thrown and windows broken. At length the Mayor, not without personal risk, had read the Riot Act from the steps of the Town Hall.
The result had been the reverse of what the Governor expected. The police, a small force, had charged the mob with their batons, but they had soon been overpowered. Then the soldiers from Castletown, a little company of eighty, had attempted to intimidate the crowd with their rifles, but twice as many stalwart fishermen, coming up behind, had disarmed them. After that the people had surged through the streets in delirious triumph.
At ten o'clock the throng was densest outside Government Office, which stands midway on the steep declivity of the Prospect Hill. The police and the soldiers had as much as they could do to guard the doors of the building. The space in front of it was packed with people of both sexes and all ages. They were squirming about like worms on an upturned sod. There were loud shouts and derisive cries.
"Down with the Governor!"
"Tell him the steamer leaves for England at nine in the morning."
Suddenly, with the rapidity of a desert wind, word went through the crowd that mounted soldiers from England had just been landed at the pier, and were riding up the principal thoroughfares, driving everything before them.
A cold fear came, culminating in terror. Presently the cavalry were seen to turn the bottom of the hill. They were swinging the flats of their swords to scatter the crowd. The people screamed and ran in frantic haste to the parapets on either side of the street. In a moment the broad space in front of Government Office was clear.
Clear, save for one tiny object. It was a child, a little girl of four, who had been clinging to her mother's skirts and in the scramble had lost her hold of them.
The cavalry were now coming up the hill at a gallop and the little one's danger was seen by all.
"Save the child," people shouted, and more than one ran out a few paces and then ran back, for the horses seemed to be almost upon them. The mother was screaming and trying to break into the open, but women were holding her back.
At that moment a man, whom nobody recognised at first, pushed his way through the crowd with powerful arms, and darted out in the direction of the child.
"Come back; you'll be killed," cried someone, but the others held their breath.
At the next instant the man was lost to sight in the midst of the cavalry. In the confused movement that followed one of the horses was seen to rear and swing aside, as if it had been struck in the mouth by a strong hand.
When the crowd were conscious of what happened next the cavalry had galloped past, with its clang of hoofs and rattle of steel, and the broad space was once more empty.
Empty save for the man. His head was bare, his hand was bleeding, and the skirt of the loose overcoat he wore was torn as if a sword had accidentally slashed it. But in his arms was the child—unhurt and untouched.
Then the people saw who he was. He was the Deemster, and they crowded about him. He gave the little one back to its mother, who had a still younger child at her breast, and was too breathless from fright to thank him.
He tried to conceal himself in the crowd, but they followed him—down the hill to Athol Street, where the Court-house is—a long train, chiefly of women and children, with wet eyes and open mouths, crying to him and to each other,
"The Deemster! God bless him!"
They thought he was going to the Court-house to sit on the bench as Judge, but when he came to the big portico he passed it, and, turning down a side street, he stopped at a little black door and knocked.
The door was opened by a police sergeant who was not wearing his helmet. The Deemster stepped into the vault-like place within and the door was closed behind him.
It was the Douglas prison.
II
The High Bailiff of Douglas held a Court that day. The court-house was almost empty. Not more than six or seven persons sat in the places assigned to the public. Three young reporters yawned over their note-books in their box beside the wall. In the well allotted to Counsel there were only two advocates in wig and gown.
A few bare-headed policemen stood near the bench and the Clerk of the Court sat under it. There was nobody else in the court-house except the High Bailiff himself, an elderly man with a red face and a benevolent expression.
He was trying a number of petty cases, chiefly of larceny and drunkenness. The light was low and the voices echoed in the vacant chamber. But from time to time a deadened rumble came from the streets outside—the clang of horses' hoofs, the derisive cries of a crowd, the loud shout of a commanding officer, and then a scamper of feet that was like heavy rain pelting down on the pavement.
Behind the Jury-box, which was empty, there was a door that led to the prison below. The last case was being heard when this door was opened and the Chief Constable came up into Court, followed by Stowell and a policeman. The Chief Constable took a seat in the advocates' well; Stowell and the policeman sat on the public benches.
When the High Bailiff, who was a great respecter of authority, saw the Deemster enter, he sent a policeman to ask him to come up to a seat by his side on the bench, but Stowell shook his head.
The case being tried was that of a farmer who was charged with driving his country cart on the high road without a stern light. The defence was that the lamp was alight when he left town, and had been put out by a high wind that was blowing. On this issue there was a long questioning and cross-questioning by the advocates, but at length the case came to a close.
"Half-a-crown and costs," said the High Bailiff; and then reaching over to his clerk he asked if that was the last case for the day.
"Yes, your Worship," said the Clerk, and the High Bailiff was pushing back his chair, when the Chief Constable rose with an air of importance.
"Your Worship, I have a serious charge to make."
He beckoned to the policeman at the back, who opened the door of the dock and Stowell stepped into it.
"I charge his Honour Deemster Victor Stowell, on his own confession, with breaking prison on Sunday night last between the hours of ten and twelve, to effect the escape from custody of a prisoner lying there under sentence of death."
The High Bailiff seemed to be stupefied and the charge had to be repeated to him.
"Eh? What? God bless my soul! On his own confession, you say? Is the Deemster well? What conceivable motive...."
"I will give formal evidence, your Worship, and ask for a committal to General Gaol, when the question of motive will be fully gone into."
"Well, well! Good gracious me! If it must be it must. It is my painful duty to put the Deemster back for trial. But I suggest that a doctor be asked to see him immediately. And meantime" (the High Bailiff turned to the reporters, who were now busy enough over their note-books), "may I request the representatives of the press to publish nothing about this painful matter at present?"
It was all over in a few minutes. The door behind the Jury-box was opened again and Stowell and the policeman returned to the cells.
In less than half-an-hour the news was all over the town. Special editions of the newspapers (single sheets) had been run off in furious haste, and the newsboys were shouting through the streets,
Arrest of Deemster Victor Stowell.
The news fell on the public like a thunderbolt. It eclipsed their interest in the soldiers.
III
Like lightning out of a thunder-cloud the news fell on Government House also. On hearing it the Governor, who had been thinking less about the riot than about Stowell's last words if him, broke into uncontrollable rage.
"The fool! The infernal fool! After I had given him such a chance, too!"
With a determined step he went into the library, where Fenella was writing letters, and broke the news to her with a kind of fierce joy. At first her eyes filled with tears and then a proud smile shone through them.
"You were right after all, Fenella. I see now that you must throw the man up," said the Governor.
"On the contrary," said Fenella. "Now I must stand by him."
"What on earth do you mean?"
"I mean that Victor has justified himself."
"Justified himself?"
"Yes. The only thing I was afraid of was that he might take his life to escape from his dishonour. But now that he has made his choice I have made mine also."
"Your choice?"
"I cannot cut him out of my heart because he has been brave enough to face the consequences of his crime."
"But good heavens, girl, don't you see that he will be brought up for trial, and then all the wretched story of the Collister girl will come out?"
"I'm prepared for that, father."
"Fenella," said the Governor, white with the passion that was mastering him, "if you were my son instead of my daughter do you know what I should do with you?"
"You mean you would turn me out of the house? There will be no need for that—I will go of myself, father."
"Fenella! Fenella!" cried the Governor, recovering himself, but Fenella had gone from the room.
The Governor returned to his smoking-room. For a long half-hour he ranged about, kicking things out of his way, ringing bells and snapping at the servants. What was Fenella doing? Could it be possible that she was taking him at his word? Unable to contain himself any longer he sent for Miss Green. He got nothing out of the old lady except lamentations.
"Oh, dear, oh dear, what is the world coming to?"
At length, with an air of authority, he went up to Fenella's bedroom, and found her on her knees before an open trunk into which she was packing her clothes.
"Fenella," he said, "this is nonsense. It cannot be."
"I'm afraid it must be, father."
"Look here, girl, when a man's angry he doesn't always mean what he says. I never meant you were to go."
"It's better that I should, father."
The Governor struggled hard with his pride and said,
"Listen. Don't make me ridiculous in the eyes of the whole island, Fenella. I may not have acted wisely in relation to Stowell and the advice I gave him—I see that now. But if so perhaps it was because I was thinking less of the public service than of you. If you were a father you would understand that. But you cannot wish to leave me. You are my only child. I am your father, remember. What, after all, is this man to you?"
Fenella leaned back on her heels and her eyelids quivered for a moment. Then she said,
"We are told that a man must leave father and mother and cling to his wife, and surely it's the same with a woman and her husband. Victor is my husband, or soon will be."
"Good Lord, what are you saying, girl?"
"I promised myself to him, and I intend to keep my promise."
"But he's a prisoner, and if the governing authority objects...."
"In that case I'll wait until he is a prisoner no longer, and then .... then I'll marry him."
"That you never shall. Not in this island anyway. No clergyman here will marry you to that man against my wish."
"Then I'll go to him just the same."
"What?"
"Yes, I'm prepared even for that sacrifice."
"You're mad. You're both mad—stark mad."
Again the Governor returned to his smoking-room. After a while he heard a hackney carriage coming up the drive to the porch, and then old John, the watchman, lugging a trunk along the corridor. A moment later, looking through the window, he saw Fenella, in the blue and white costume of her Settlement (the same in which, with so much pride, he had brought her up to the house from the pier in his big landau), stepping into the coach.
Then his anger and emotion together burst all bounds. He tore open his door with the intention of countermanding Fenella's orders and driving the hackney carriage off his grounds. But before he could bring himself to do so he heard the door of the carriage close and saw its wheels moving away.
Miss Green came back to the house with her handkerchief to her eyes, saying,
"She was crying as if her heart would break, poor darling!"
The Governor went slowly back to his room once more. The masterful man, who had never known before what it was to have tears in his eyes, was utterly broken. He had lost his daughter; he was to be a childless man henceforward; he was to spend the rest of his life alone. But after a while he thought of Stowell as the man who had taken Fenella from him, and his anger rose again.
"He wants punishment, does he? Very well, he shall have it, and damned quick too."
Two hours later Fenella was at Castle Rushen, in the living-room of the new jailer and his wife.
"I hear you want a female warder, and I've come to offer myself," she said.
The new jailer, who was embarrassed, stammered something about menial labour, but Fenella was not to be gainsaid.
"I'm a trained nurse, and have experience in managing people—will you take me?"
"Well .... if the Governor doesn't .... for the present, perhaps."
"For good," said Fenella.
Within a few minutes she was settled in her new quarters—a large, dark, cell-like chamber, of irregular shape, with a deeply-recessed window, a piece of cocoa-nut matting, a deal table, a chair, a wash-stand and a truckle bed.
Two hundred years before it had been the 'tiring room of the greatest of her ancestors, Charlotte de la Tremouille (Countess of Derby), when, in the absence of her husband, she held the fortress for weeks against the siege of Cromwell's forces.
The blood of the Stanleys was in it still.