But at that moment he wasn't thinking about any of them. He knew—although, of course, he did not look—that in the middle of the people in the pavilion, who were all on their feet and waving their handkerchiefs, there was Fenella Stanley, with glistening eyes and cheeks aglow. Perhaps she thought he would salute her now, or even stop and speak. But no, not likely! He doffed his cap to the Governor as he ran past, but took no more notice of the Governor's winsome daughter than if she had been a crow.
IV
After that—nothing! Neither of the boys distinguished himself at college. This was a matter of no surprise to the masters in Gell's case, but in Stowell's it was a perpetual problem. Their favourite solution was that the David-and-Jonathan friendship between two boys of widely differing capacity was at the root of the trouble—Gell being slow and Stowell unwilling to shame him.
As year followed year without tangible results the rumour came home to Ballamoar that the son of the Deemster was not fulfilling expectations. "Traa de liooar" (time enough) said Robbie Creer of the farm; but Dan Baldromma, of the mill-farm in the glen, who prided himself on being no respecter of persons, and made speeches in the market-place denouncing the "aristocraks" of the island, and predicting the downfall of the old order, was heard to say he wasn't sorry.
"If these young cubs of the Spaker and the Dempster," said Dan, "hadn't been born with the silver spoon in their mouths we should be hearing another story. When the young birds get their wings push them out of the nest, I say. It's what I done with my own daughter—my wife's, I mane. Immajetly she was fifteen I packed her off to sarvice at the High Bailiff's at Castletown, and now she may shift for herself for me."
The effect on the two fathers was hardly less conflicting. The Speaker stormed at his son, called him a "poop" (Anglo-Manx for numskull), wondered why he had troubled to bring a lad into the world who would only scatter his substance, and talked about making a new will to protect his daughters and to save the real estate which the law gave his son by heirship.
The Deemster was silent. Term by term he read, without comment, the Principal's unfavourable reports, with the "ifs" and "buts" and "althoughs," which were intended to soften the hard facts with indications of what might have been. And he said not a word of remonstrance or reproach when the boy came home without prizes, though he wrote in his leather-bound book that he felt sometimes as if he could have given its weight in gold for the least of them.
At seventeen and a half Stowell became head of the school, not so much by scholastic attainment as by seniority, by proficiency in games and by influence over the boys. But even in this capacity he had serious shortcomings. Gell had by this time developed a supernatural gift of getting into scrapes, and Stowell, as head boy, partly responsible for his conduct, often allowed himself to become his scapegoat.
Then the rumour came home that Victor was not only a waster but a wastrel. Janet wouldn't believe a word of it, 'deed she wouldn't, and "Auntie Kitty" said the boy was the son of the Deemster, and she had never yet seen a good cow with a bad calf. But Dan Baldromma was of another opinion.
"The Dempster may be a grand man," said Dan, "but sarve him right, I say. Spare the rod, spoil the child! Show me the man on this island will say I ever done that with my own child—my wife's, I mane."