Then the court-house cleared to a low rumble that was like the muffled murmuring that is heard after a funeral.
Gell asked for Stowell, and was told that his friend had gone down to the Deemster's room with one of the advocates for the defence to draw up the terms of the recommendation. Therefore he returned to the station with a group of his fellow advocates, and on the way back he heard the story of the trial—little knowing how close it was to come to him.
The prisoner (his name was Morrison) had married the murdered woman in the winter. She had been a comely girl who had always borne a good character. On their wedding morning they had received many presents, one of them being a fishing-boat. This had been the gift of a distant relation of the bride's, a middle-aged man who had since married a rich widow.
At Easter, Morrison had gone off with the fleet to the mackerel fishing at Kinsale, and while there he had received an anonymous letter. It told him that his young wife had given birth, less than six months after their marriage, to a still-born child.
Morrison had said nothing about the letter, but he had made inquiries about the man who had given him the boat, and been told that he had borne a bad reputation.
At the end of the mackerel season Morrison had returned to the island with the rest of the fleet, and for everybody else there had been the usual joyful homecoming.
It had been late at night on the first of June, when the stars were out and the moon was in its first quarter. As soon as the boats had been sighted outside the Castle Rock the sound signal had gone up from the Rocket House, and within five minutes the fishermen's wives had come flying down to the quay, with their little shawls thrown over their heads and pinned under their chins.
Then, as the boats had come gliding into harbour, there had been the shrill questions of the women ashore and the deep-toned answers of the man afloat:
"Are you there, Bill?" "Is it yourself, Nancy?"
Some of the younger women, who had had babies born while their husbands had been away, had brought them down with them, and one young wife, holding up her little one for her man to see, by the light of the moon and the harbour-master's lantern, had cried: