It was said afterwards, when the events of that day had a fierce light cast back upon them, that when Fenella stepped up to the witness-box, and stood side by side with the prisoner, ready to take her oath, the Deemster seemed scarcely able to recite the familiar words to her.
"Please tell the Court, as nearly as possible in her own words, what the prisoner told you," said Gell.
There was a deep and concentrated silence. Never before had anybody witnessed so strange a scene. Speaking calmly and firmly, Fenella told Bessie's story as Bessie herself had told it—her journey from the south of the island, the birth and death of her child, and the burying of it under the Clagh-ny-Dooiney.
When she had finished, and Bessie, who was stifling her sobs, had bowed her head in reply to a question from Gell that she assented to what had been said on her behalf, the Attorney-General rose to cross-examine.
"Does the prisoner deny," he said, "that when she returned home she told her mother of her condition?"
"Yes, her mother knew nothing about it."
"Does she deny that by keeping her condition secret from the person most proper to know of it, she deliberately intended to put her child away by violence?"
"No, she does not deny that, but says that when her baby came the instinct of motherhood came too, and from that moment onward the idea of taking its life was far from her heart."
"Does the prisoner wish the Court to believe that—in spite of her subsequent conduct in concealing the birth and death of her child and in secretly burying it?"
"Yes, she does, and if a court of men cannot believe it, a court of women would, because...."