Chapter TWENTY-FIVE: The Deemster's Oath

It was the morning of the day of the swearing-in of the new Deemster at Castle Rushen. The Bishop had asked permission to solemnise the ceremony with a religious service--a custom long unobserved.

The service was held in a groined chamber of moderate size within walls thirty feet thick, once the banqueting-hall of the Kings of Man, now the jail chapel, with an atmosphere that seemed to be compounded equally of the intoxicated laughter of the old revellers and the moans of the condemned prisoners.

For the event of the day the chill place had been suitably decorated. Flags hung on the tarred walls, red cushions from the neighbouring church had been laid on the bare benches; a carpet had been stretched down the aisle of the flagged floor; a white embroidered altar-cloth covered the plain communion table, from which the light of four candles in silver candlesticks flickered on the faces of the small congregation--chiefly officials, with their wives and daughters.

Shortly before eleven, the hour fixed for the service, Stowell entered, wearing for the first time the wig and gown of a judge, and he was led to one of three arm-chairs at the front. A little later there came through the thick walls the sound of soldiery clashing arms outside the Castle, and at the next moment the Governor arrived in General's uniform of red and gold, with Fenella behind him in a large spring hat (her face glowing with animation), and they took the two remaining chairs. Then the Bishop in his scarlet robes came in, preceded by his crozier, and the service began.

It was short but solemn. First a psalm of David ("He shall judge thy people with righteousness and thy poor with judgment"); then an epistle to the Romans ("Owe no man anything"); and then an improvised prayer by the Bishop, asking the Almighty to grant His strength and wisdom to His servant who was shortly to take the solemn oath of his great office, that he might deliver the poor and needy, deal faithfully with all men, and show mercy to such as had erred and sinned. Then came the hymn "Thou Judge of quick and dead," and finally the Benediction.

Stowell was strongly affected. He knelt at the prayer, and when the service was at an end and it was time to go, Fenella had to touch his shoulder.

The sun was bright outside, and they blinked their eyes as they crossed the courtyard to the Court-house.

The stately little chamber was full, save for the seats that had been reserved for the officials. There was a flash of faces, a waft of perfume, a flutter of handkerchiefs and a hum of whispering as the Governor stepped up to the scarlet dais, with Stowell following him and taking for the first time the seat of the Judge.

People who had been talking of the youth of the new Deemster were heard to say that in his judge's wig he seemed older than they had expected and so like the portrait on the wall that one could almost fancy that his father was looking through the windows of his eyes.

The proceedings began with the Governor calling upon Stowell for his Commission, and then reading it aloud--"Our trusty and well-beloved Victor Stowell to be Deemster of this isle."

After that everybody stood while the new Judge took the oath of fealty to the King. Then the Deemster's clerk, Joshua Scarff, in his coloured spectacles, handed up a quarto copy of the Bible and a deep hush fell on the assembly, for the time had come for the Deemster's oath.

The Governor and Stowell rose again, but all others remained seated. Each laid one hand on the open Book, and the Governor read the oath, clause by clause in loud, strong tones that seemed to smite the walls as with blows. And, clause by clause, Stowell repeated it after him in a lower voice that was sometimes barely audible:

"_By this Book and the holy contents thereof...._"

"_By this Book and the holy contents thereof...._"

"_And by all the wonderful works which God hath miraculously wrought in heaven and on the earth beneath in six days and seven nights, I, Victor Christian Stowell...._"

"_I, Victor Christian Stowell, do swear that I will, without respect or fear or friendship, love or gain, consanguinity or affinity, envy or malice, execute the laws of this isle justly betwixt our Sovereign Lord the King and his subjects within the isle, and betwixt party and party, man and man, man and woman...._"

"_.... man and woman ...._"

"_.... as indifferently as the herring bone doth lie down the middle of the fish._"

There was a deep silence until the oath was ended and then a general drawing of breath.

The Governor and the new Deemster sat and the Clerk of the Rolls handed up the Liber Juramentorum, the Book of Oaths, a large volume in faded leather with leaves of discoloured parchment.

It was observed, and afterwards remarked upon, that when Stowell took up the pen to sign he hesitated for a moment, and then wrote his name rapidly and nervously, and that, in the silence, a diamond ring which he wore on his right hand (it was a present from Fenella) clashed with a discordant sound against the glass tray as he threw the pen back.

The business being over, the Bishop gave out the hymn that is sung at the close of nearly all Manx festivals, "O God, our help," and all rose and sang.

Stowell rose with the rest, but he did not sing. He was no longer conscious of the eyes that were on him. The emotion which he had been struggling to repress had at length conquered his self-control. While the Court-house throbbed with the singing he was thinking of the Judges who had stood in the same place and taken that oath before him. There had been a thousand years of them.

He turned to the eastern wall and his father's melancholy eyes seemed to look at him. "Yes, you too," they seemed to say, "must now do the right, whatever it may cost you. You are no longer yourself only. The souls of all your predecessors have this day entered into your soul. You must consider yourself no more. You must be just--or perish."

The hymn came to an end and there was a shuffling of feet like the pattering of water in the harbour at the top of the tide. The next thing Stowell knew was that he was unrobed and going down the Deemster's private staircase to the Court-yard of the Castle.

A large company was there waiting to congratulate him. Janet (he had ordered that a front seat should be reserved for her) was holding a little court of elderly ladies, to whom she was relating wonderful stories of his childhood. She broke away from them to kiss him. And then she kissed Fenella also and whispered,

"Don't forget to send him home in time, dear."

"I'll not forget," said Fenella.

And then she, on her part, with a face aflame, whispered something to the Governor, who, shaking hands all round, was making ready to go.

"What? You want to return in the automobile? Very well, off you go! The Attorney will take pity on your forsaken father."

Outside the gate there was a great crowd, behind a regiment of red-coated soldiers, and when the Governor and the Attorney-General drove off they broke into a cheer which drowned the clash of steel and the first bars of the National Anthem.

But that was as nothing compared with the demonstration when Stowell went off in his car, sitting at the wheel, with Fenella beside him.

"Long live the new Deemster--hip, hip--hip!"

The great shout, the mighty roar of voices, brought a surging to Stowell's throat and a tightening to his breast. It followed his car, going off in the sunshine, until it shot over the bridge that crossed the harbour, and there Fenella turned back her glistening wet eyes and bowed.

* * * * * * *

Others heard it. The prisoners in their dark cells, rising from their plank beds and hunching their shoulders in the chill air, listened to the joyous sounds from without, which broke the usual silence of their gloomy walls, and said to themselves,

"What are they doing now, I wonder?"

There were seven prisoners in the Castle that day. One of them was Bessie Collister.

II

"Addio! See you at supper!"

Fenella was waving to the Governor and the Attorney, and laughing at their slow speed, as she and Stowell shot past them before they had left the town.

The morning was beautiful, the sky blue, the sea glistening under a fresh breeze. They were running, bounding, leaping along the roads, and talking loudly above the hum of the car. Stowell had caught the contagion of Fenella's high spirits and awakened from his long trance.

"Well, what did you think of it?"

"The ceremony? Lovely!"

"But you were crying all the time!"

"It must have been through looking at you, then. There was everybody doing you honour, and you looked like a man going to execution."

He laughed; she laughed; they laughed together, but they had their serious moments for all that. One of them came when she spoke of the Oath, saying how quaint and amusing it was.

"A little frightening, though," said Stowell.

"Frightening?"

"Well, yes, I thought so. Made one feel as if old Job had had something to say for himself. Who was I to judge others, having done wrong myself?"

"Really! You wicked fellow! I wasn't aware you had so many sins to answer for. But _I_ know!"

And then, in flash after flash, each sparkling like a diamond, came pictures of his predecessors. The solemn judge; the jesting judge; the judge who suspected all men of lying; the judge who believed everybody told the truth; the sour, dour, swearing and hanging judge, who served Justice as if she had been a Juggernaut, and the gay Judge who bought and sold her as he did his mistresses.

"What a procession! And the question was, which kind were you going to belong to--eh?"

Again he laughed; they both laughed; and the car flew on. Another serious moment came. He mentioned the Book of Oaths, saying that while turning over its leaves with their faded ink he had been seized with a sudden fear of writing his name, whereupon Fenella, with a mischievous look of gravity, cried again,

"_I_ know. You thought you were signing your death-warrant."

Yet another serious moment came when she asked him if he had not been proud of the send-off his countrymen had given him at the Castle gate. He replied that he would have been so but for the wretched thought that if anything happened to him their love would as suddenly turn to hate, and they would howl as loudly as they had cheered.

"But what nonsense!" cried Fenella. "Love--what I call love--is not like that. It never dies and never changes."

"Never?"

"Never! If I loved anybody and anything happened, I should fight the world for him."

"Even if he were in the wrong?"

"Goodness yes! Where would be the merit of fighting for him if he were in the right?"

"Darling!" cried Stowell, and, the road being clear, and nobody in sight, he had to slow down the car to kiss her.

After that he threw off the solemnity of the ceremony and gave himself up to the intoxication of love. With Fenella by his side, looking up at him with her beaming eyes, and laughing with her gay raillery, what else could he think about? A few miles out of Castletown he said,

"Let us take the old road back--it's longer."

"Yes, it's longer."

Every fresh mile was a fresh delight. How the Spring was coming on! Look at the gorse, already in its glory! And the lambs just born and still trembling on their doddering limbs! And the tragic old hens with their fluffy yellow broods! And then the cottages, half buried in their big fuchsias! And the farmers whitewashing their farmhouses to wipe out the stains of winter!

"What a jolly old world it is, isn't it?" he cried.

"Isn't it?" she answered, and without looking to see if the way was clear, he had to slow down the car and kiss her again.

A few miles south of Douglas they turned into a road that ran like a shelf along the edge of the cliffs, with the sea surging on the grey rocks below, and nothing but its round rim against the sky. The breeze was stronger out there, but every gust was a joy. Stowell took off his hat and threw it to the bottom of the car. Fenella unpinned hers and held it on her knee. His black hair tumbled over his forehead, and her bronze-brown hair, loosened from its knot, flew about her head like a flag.

More than ever now they had the sense of flying. The sun danced on the breakers; the foam floated in trembling flakes into the blue sky; the sea-fowl screamed about them. With the taste of the brine on their lips, and the sting of it in their blood, they shouted at every sight and sound.

"Look at that white horse down there! See how he rears his head and plunges forward. Ah, he has had enough! No, he's coming on again with a roar!"

"But look at the sea-holly and the wild thyme! And the rabbits scuttling into their holes! And the goats on the peaks of the cliffs!"

"Lord! What a jolly old world it is, though!"

"Didn't you say that before, Victor?"

"Did I? Well, I'm going to say it every blessed day of my life to come."

"No, no! Take care! We're on the edge of the cliff. We'll be over!"

"No matter--another kiss!"

The wind was from the south, and the sea, breaking along the broken line of the coast, was making a sound like that of the ringing of bells. It was the phenomenon of nature which gave rise to the tradition that a town lies buried under the sea at that point, so that Manx fishermen, coming back from their fishing-ground at sunrise, will sometimes say, "The wedding bells are ringing!"

Stowell heard them now, over the roar of the waves in their mad welter, and he cried,

"Listen to the bells!"

"What bells?"

"Our bells!" he cried.

And then at the full power of their lungs, over the hum of the engine and the boom of the breakers, they sang a verse of the song of the submerged city:

"_Here where the ocean is whitened with foam,
Here stood a city, an altar, a home.
Hark to the bells that ring under the sea,
Salve Regina! Salve Regina!
Love is the Queen for you and for me,
Salve, Salve Regina!_"

After that they laughed again, and in sheer gaiety of heart, sang every nonsensical thing they could think about, until, being breathless and hoarse and compelled to stop, Fenella said,

"I wonder what those people in the Court-house would think if they could see their great man now! But I suppose there has never been a great man since the beginning of the world but some woman has known him for what he really is--just a big boy!"

At three o'clock in the afternoon luncheon was over at Government House; the Governor and the Attorney-General had gone off to smoke; Miss Green, like a wise woman, had betaken herself to her room, and Fenella and Stowell were alone.

"Now you must get away to Ballamoar. I promised Janet to send you back in time. Some kind of welcome home, you know."

But Stowell stood over her (she was at the piano) and whispered,

"When?"

She pretended not to understand him, and again, and in a more emphatic voice, he demanded,

"When?"

She was compelled to comprehend at last, and said that if all went well, and he behaved himself, and her father approved, a month that day, perhaps .... no, two months....

"Done!"

A few minutes later they were in the porch for their last parting. He was holding her in a long embrace. He felt like Jacob who had waited so long for Rachel. He would never be entirely happy until she was wholly his.

She laughed--a nervous and palpitating laugh.

"Rachel indeed? Take care it isn't Leah in the morning, Sir."

But seeing the cloud that crossed his face at that word, she kissed him of herself, saying they belonged to each other already and nothing could ever separate them.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing!"

And then a long tremulous kiss and he was gone.

III

Home!

He had reached the top of the mountain road, and the setting sun was striking him full in the face. To right and left, before and behind, across the broad waters, stood the dim ghosts of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. But what did he care for these greater scenes? Down yonder was Ballamoar, and to him, as to his father, it was enough to be Deemster of Man and Judge of his own people.

News of his home-coming had been telegraphed from Douglas, and when his car shot out of the glen the church bells were ringing all over the Curagh. People working in the fields climbed the hedges to wave as he went by, and feeble old men came to the doors of the cottages to lift up the hooked handles of their sticks to him.

On reaching the entrance to Ballamoar he found a crowd waiting at the gate, and a streamer from post to post, saying--

WELCOME TO
HIS FATHER'S SON.

The hum of the automobile awakened the colony of rooks in the tall trees, and, swirling above the lawn, they raised a deafening clamour. This brought from the porch Janet (back from Castletown) with a flutter of black frocks and white aprons behind her.

A great company of the people of the parish were at tea in the hall, chiefly women, but of all classes, from the nervous wife of the Vicar to the widow of the cowman.

"Don't get up," cried Stowell.

He had entered with a shout, tossing his hat on to the settle and saluting everybody by name, just as he used to do when he was a boy and annexed them all for relations.

"Sit here, Auntie Kitty. This is your seat, Alice. Parson, won't you take the bottom of the table? And, Dad" (this to Robbie Creer in his Sunday homespun), "take my place by Mrs. Creer while I help Jane with the teacups."

"Did thou hear that, mistress?" said Robbie behind his hand to Janet, who was turning the tap of the tea urn. "They may make him Dempster, but he doesn't forget his old friends for all."

In a moment everybody was talking and laughing. It was just as if a fresh breeze had come down from the mountains on a hot day in harvest.

During tea Joshua Scarff arrived with a green portfolio under his arm.

"I've brought some documents you'll wish to look at before the Court sits, your Honour."

"Good! Put them on the desk in the library and then come back and have some tea."

The twilight deepened and the company prepared to go. Stowell stood at the door, with Janet beside him, while the young girls of the choir of the Methodist chapel ranged themselves in front of the house and sang in their sweet young voices, which floated through the gathering gloom, "God be with you till we meet again."

"Good-night, all!"

"Good-night, your Honour!"

Night! The great day had dropped asleep; the clock on the landing was striking nine; dinner was over; Janet (she had "a head") had gone to her room, and Stowell was stepping on to the piazza.

The wind had fallen and the night was silent, almost breathless. The revolving light on the Point of Ayre was answering to the gleam on Galloway; and the moon, which was almost at the full, was glistening on the waters that rolled between.

How beautiful, how limpid! It was just such a night as that on which Fenella and he had sat out there together. He could still see her as she was then--the slim young girl in a white dress and satin slippers, with her intoxicating face in the frame of the silk handkerchief which she had bound about her head. And now she was to become his wife!

A great new vista was opening out to him. Life was about to begin in earnest. With that splendid woman by his side he was going to rise (if God would be so good to him) out of the muddy imperfections of his lower nature. His breast swelled; his throat tightened; his heart sang; he was entirely happy.

Suddenly he remembered Alick Gell. He had not seen him at Castletown that day, or at all since he returned from London. Why was that? Could it be possible that the matter they had spoken about on the steamer ....

No, no! Still he must fulfil his promise. He would step into the library and write a line saying he was ready to go down to Derby Haven if necessary.

As he passed through the dining-room he framed the words of his letter: "Where were you, you old scoundrel, that you were not at the Swearing-in? I suppose the matter you mentioned has righted itself since I went away, but if not and you still want me...."

IV

The house was very quiet. He felt an unaccountable chill coming over him. On the threshold of the library he paused. He had the sense of a mysterious presence in the room. The log fire had burnt low; the lamp on the desk, under his mother's portrait, had been turned down; deep shadows lay around.

Making an effort he entered, stepping softly, yet hardly knowing why he did so. On reaching the desk he turned up the light and then his eye fell on the green portfolio which he had last seen under Joshua Scarff's arm. It bore a label on which was written:

"_Calendar of Cases to be tried at the Spring Session of the
Court of General Gaol Delivery. Presiding Deemster_--DEEMSTER
VICTOR STOWELL."

Then came a moral thunderclap. Opening the Calendar he read these words on the first page of it:

_REX _v._ CORTEEN
FOR MURDER
DEPOSITIONS._

_That Elizabeth Corteen, commonly called Bessie Collister, on or
about the fifth day of April--in the parish of Ballaugh, in the
Isle of Man, feloniously, wilfully, and of her malice
aforethought, did kill and murder a certain male child, contrary
to the form of the Statute in such cases made and provided, and
against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his Crown and
dignity._

A mist rose before Stowell's eyes. He could not read any more, but stood for a moment looking down at the writing. Life seemed to run out of him in a pounding rush. The walls of the room, and particularly the picture of his mother, began to reel about in a rapidly increasing vertigo. He put his hand on a chair but felt nothing. At the next moment darkness came and he knew no more.

END OF THIRD BOOK

FOURTH BOOK

THE RETRIBUTION