"Do you mean to tell me that he took that punishment to .... to save you from being discovered?"
Gell hesitated for a moment, then choked down his sobs, and said with a defiant cry:
"Yes, he did—to save me, and the school, and .... and you, too, Sir."
The Principal staggered back a step, and then said: "Leave me, boy, leave me."
He did not go to bed that night, or to school next day, or the day after, or the day after that. On the fourth day he wrote a long letter to the Deemster, telling him with absolute truthfulness what had happened, and concluding:
"That is all, your Honour, but to me it is everything. I have not only punished an innocent boy, but one who, in taking his punishment, was doing an act of divine unselfishness. I am humiliated in my own eyes. I feel like a little man in the presence of your son. I can never look into his face again.
"My first impulse was to resign my post, but on second thoughts I have determined to leave the issue to your decision. If I am to remain as head of your school you must take your boy away. If he is to stay I must go. Which is it to be?"
CHAPTER TWO
THE BOYHOOD OF VICTOR STOWELL
Deemster Stowell was the only surviving member of an old Manx family. They had lived for years beyond memory at Ballamoar (the Great Place) an estate of nearly a thousand acres on the seaward angle of the Curragh lands which lie along the north-west of the island. The fishermen say the great gulf-stream which sweeps across the Atlantic strikes the Manx coast at that elbow. Hence the tropical plants which grow in the open at Ballamoar, and also the clouds of snow-white mist which too often hang over it, hiding the house, and the lands around, and making the tower of Jurby Church on the edge of the cliff look like a lighthouse far out at sea.