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

_THIRD BOOK_

THE CONSEQUENCE