The scoundrel! The traitor! Poor young Gell! And then that girl Collister was not so bad as they had thought her.
Stowell's enemies had been crowing with satisfaction. "Well, what did I tell you?" said Hudgeon, the advocate. And Qualtrough, M.H.K., repeated what he had said in the smoking-room of the Keys—you had only to give the rascal rope and he would hang himself.
His friends were yet more deadly. Nearly all had deserted him. The good things they had said had been forgotten. Every bad thing they could remember was revived, as far back as his reckless days at Mount Murray as a young man and his expulsion from King William's as a boy. He was a man of straw. It was surprising what people had seen in him, and astonishing that the Governor had recommended him for the position of Deemster.
The press had been silent, from fear of the penalties of contempt, but the pulpit (Sunday having intervened) had been loud with platitudes, inspired by the text, "Be sure your sin will find you out."
When the time came for the Judges to enter the court-house the atmosphere was rank with evil passions and the acid odour of perspiring people.
Taubman was the Deemster. Although tortured by rheumatism he had dragged himself out of bed, having scented an opportunity of gaining favour with the Governor.
The Governor presided, as it was his duty to do, but it was remarked that except for one moment on taking his seat, when he looked round at the open-mouthed spectators with an expression which seemed to say, "What a race!" he never raised his eyes.
It was a short trial, and rarely had there been a more irregular one. Taubman was notorious for his legal deficiencies. In earlier days Stowell, in one of his "Limericks," had christened him "Old Necessity," because "necessity knew no law." He had long been jealous of Stowell's popularity and particularly of his rapid rise to a position which he had had to wait forty years for. Now he had the "upstart" in his hand at last.
When the case was called Stowell was brought up by two policemen and placed in the dock. His cheeks were very pale and his eyes heavy as with unshed tears. It was almost as if his youth had stepped with one stride into age. But suffering gives a certain sublimity, and it was said afterwards that never before had he looked so strong and noble.
The spectators saw nothing of that now. His calm seemed to them to be callousness. He did not appear to see the scorching glances they cast at him. The last time they had seen him in Court he was on the bench, now he was in the dock, and they would have been better pleased if, in the dread certainty of his fate, he had betrayed the fellness of terror. But except for one moment, when he turned slowly round to look at them, and their murmurs ceased suddenly at full sight of his face, he seemed to them to have forgotten the shame of the place he stood in.