She did so, disclosing her thin white face and large eyes. And then in a voice so low that it would have been scarcely audible but for the strained silence in the court-house, the Deemster said,
"Elizabeth Corteen, stand up."
Bessie rose without embarrassment and fixed her eyes on the Deemster. And then he charged her.
"It is charged against you that on or about the fifth day of April—in the parish of Ballaugh, in the Isle of Man, feloniously, wilfully and of your malice aforethought, you did kill and murder a certain male child, contrary to the form of the Statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his Crown and dignity. How say you, are you guilty or not guilty?"
Without hesitation or halting, looking straight into the eyes of the Judge and speaking in a voice so clear that it resounded through the silent Court-house, Bessie answered,
"Not Guilty."
Her tone and bearing had gone against her. "The huzzy!" whispered one of the female spectators. "She might have more shame for her position, anyway. And did you see the way the forward piece looked up at the Deemster?"
II
It was not until Stowell had stepped on to the bench that he had realized what he had done for himself.
When he had asked for the prisoners to be brought in, and Bessie had come at the end of the short line and taken her place in the dock with the constable behind her, he had been seized with a feeling of choking shame.