"Don't talk nonsense, Bella," said the Speaker. "It may have been a little thing to begin with, but the biggest river that ever plunged into the sea could have been put into a tea-cup somewhere."
This ugly business would go on, until heaven knew what it would come to. The Deemster, who had bought his son's safety from a blackguard without bowels, would never be able to hold up his head again—he, the Speaker never would, he knew that much anyway. As for the boy himself, he was done for. Being expelled from King William's no school or university across the water would want him, and if he ever wished to be admitted to the Manx Bar it would be the duty of his own father to refuse him.
"So that's the end of the big man, Bella—the beginning of the end anyway."
Just then the peacocks screamed in the courtyard—-they always screamed when visitors were approaching. Mrs. Gell looked up and the Speaker walked to the window and looked out without seeing anybody. But at the next moment the drawing-room door was thrust open and their eldest daughter, Isabella, with wide eyes and a blank expression was saying breathlessly,
"It's Alick. He has run away from school."
Alick came behind her, a pitiful sight, his college cap in his hand, his face pale, drawn and smudged with sweat, his hair disordered, his clothes covered with dust, and his boots thick with soil.
"What's this she says—that you've run away?" said the Speaker.
"Yes, I have—I told her so myself," said Alick, who was half crying.
"Did you though? And now perhaps you will tell me something—why?"
"Because Stowell had been expelled, and I couldn't stay when he was gone."