VII.
While the Deemster was stepping up to the dais, and the people in the court were rising to receive him, a poor bedraggled wayfarer was toiling through the country towards the town. It was a woman. She must have walked far, her step was so slow and so heavy. From time to time she rested, not sitting, but standing by the gates of the fields as she came to them, and holding by the topmost bar.
When she emerged from the dark lanes into the lamplit streets her pace quickened for a moment; then it slackened, and then it quickened again. She walked close to the houses, as if trying to escape observation. Where there was a short cut through an ill-lighted thoroughfare, she took it. Any one following her would have seen that she was familiar with every corner of the town.
It would be hard to imagine a woman of more miserable appearance. Not that her clothes were so mean, though they were poor and worn, but that an air of humiliation sat upon her, such as a dog has when it is lost and the children are chasing it. Her dress was that of an old woman—the long Manx cloak of blue homespun, fastened by a great hook close under the chin, and having a hood which is drawn over the head. But in spite of this old-fashioned garment, and the uncertainty of her step, she gave the impression of a young woman. Where the white frill of the old countrywoman's cap should have shown itself under the flange of the hood, there was a veil, which seemed to be suspended from a hat.
The oddity and incongruity of her attire attracted attention. Women came out of their houses and crossed to the doors of neighbours to look after her. Even the boys playing at the corners looked up as she went by.
She was not greatly observed for all that. An unusual interest agitated the town. A wave of commotion flowed down the streets. The traffic went in one direction. That direction was the Court-house.
The Court-house square was thronged on three of its sides by people who were gathered both on the pavement and on the green inside the railings. Its fourth side was the dark lane at the back going by the door to the prisoners' yard and the Deemster's entrance. The windows were lit up and partly open. Some of the people had edged to the walls as if to listen, and a few had clambered to the sills as if to see. Around the wide doorway there was a close crowd that seemed to cling to it like a burr.
The woman had reached the first angle of the square when the upper half of the Court-house door broke into light over the heads of the crowd. A man had come out. He surged through the crowd and “came down to the gate with a tail of people trailing after him and asking questions.
“Wonderful!” he was saying. “The Dempster's spaking. Aw, a Daniel come to judgment, sir. Pity for Tom, though—the man'll get time. I'm sorry for an ould friend—but the Lord's will be done! Let not the ties of affection be a snare to our feet—it'll be five years if it's a day, and (D.V.) he'll never live to see the end of it.”
It was Cæsar. He crossed the street to the “Mitre.” The woman trembled and turned towards the lane at the back. She walked quicker than ever now. But, stumbling over the irregular cobbles of the paved way, she stopped suddenly at the sound of a voice. By this time she was at the door to the prisoners' yard, and it was standing open. The door of the corridor leading by the Deemster's chamber to the Court-house was also ajar, as if it had been opened to relieve the heat of the crowded room within.