They were of two classes. The larger and noisier class consisted of raw youths and young men to whom the trial of the Deemster had been mainly a subject for lewd jests about Bessie Collister.
One of them, with the small eyes of a sow and the thick lips of a cod, wore a butcher's apron and a steel attached to a belt about his waist. This was John Qualtrough (son of Cæsar), the lusty ruffian whose skull had been cracked in his boyhood by the blow from the stick which had been intended for Alick Gell.
The Castle walls were low by the gate, and off the shoulders of a comrade Qualtrough clambered to a seat on the battlements. From that elevation he beguiled the time of waiting by conducting a chorus of his companions on the ground, using his steel for baton. He selected the crudest of the old Manx ditties, and amid shrieks of laughter, he emphasised the doubtful lines by frequent repetition.
"I'm not engaged to any young man I solemnly do swear,
For I mane to be a vargin and still the laurels wear.
For I mane to be a vargin and still the laurels wear."
The other class, consisting chiefly of women, demure and severe, occupied themselves with serious talk about Fenella. That splendid young woman! It was shocking the way Sto'll had treated her—worse than the other in a manner of speaking.
"They're telling me she wasn't at the trial in Douglas yesterday."
"What wonder if she wasn't, poor thing! I wouldn't trust but she'll never show her face in public again."
"It's no use talking, the man has brought shame on the lot of us and is a disgrace to the name of a Manxman."
Suddenly, over the loud clamour there came a wild shout from the battlements.
"Here he is!"