Finally came a report of the incident on the Darby-Haven road. John Cæsar, a "lump" of a lad, son of Qualtrough, the butcher (a respectable man and a member of the Keys), had been brutally assaulted while doing his best to protect a young nurse-girl from the unworthy attentions of a college boy. The culprit was Victor Stowell, and the father of the victim had demanded his prosecution with the utmost rigour of the law. But out of respect for the Deemster, and regard for the school, he was not to be arrested on condition that he was to be expelled.
For three days this circumstantial story was on everybody's lips, yet the Deemster never heard it. But he was one of those who learn ill tidings without being told, and see disasters before they happen, so when the Principal's letter came he showed no surprise.
Janet saw him coming downstairs dressed for dinner (he had dressed for dinner during his married days and kept up the habit ever afterwards, though he nearly always dined alone) just as old Willie Killip, the postman, with his red lantern at his belt, came through the open porch to the vestibule door. Taking his letter and going into the Library, he had stood by the writing desk under the "Stranger's" picture, while he opened the envelope and looked at the contents of it. His face had fallen after he read the first page, and it was the same as if the sun was setting on the man, but when he turned the second it had lightened, and it was just as if the day was dawning on him.
Then, without a moment's hesitation, he sat at the desk and wrote a telegram for old Willie to take back. It was to the Principal at King William's, and there was only one line in it—
"Send him home—Stowell."
After that—Janet was ready to swear on the Holy Book to it—he rose and looked up into the "Stranger's" face and said, in a low voice that was like that of a prayer:
"It's all right, Isobel—it is well."
CHAPTER THREE
FATHERS AND SONS
Next day the Deemster drove to Douglas to meet his son coming back. The weather was cold, he had to leave home in the grey of morning, and he was driving in an open dog-cart, but the Deemster knew what he was doing. Ten minutes before the train came in from Castletown he had drawn up in the station yard. The passengers came through from the platform and saw him there, and he sainted some of them. Cæsar Qualtrough was among them, a gross-bodied and dark-faced man, darker than ever that day with a look of animosity and scorn.