And then Fenella, unable to say more, put her arms about the timid old thing, who had submerged her own life in the wrecked life of her husband, and kissed her.
II
Stowell had been four days in prison and his depression had deepened to despair. The sense of being buried alive was crushing. Even when he was taken into the court-yard for exercise, and the white birds sailed through the blue sky, he had the sensation of being in a roofless tomb.
Yet he did not spare himself. He had a right to certain indulgences, but asked for none. They put him into an upstairs room, which had once been the armoury of the Castle, but he said, "Put me in the cell that was occupied by Bessie Collister."
He might have continued to wear his own clothes, but said,
"Give me the same clothes as any other prisoner"—a rough tweed, uncombed and undyed, just as it had come from the back of the sheep.
The silence was terrible. The first night was calm, and the only sound that reached him through the thick walls was the monotonous wash of the waves on the shore, which lay empty and alone under the dark sky.
Next morning he heard the clamour of the gulls, and knew that the boats had come in from their night's fishing and the birds were fighting for the refuse thrown overboard. A little later he heard the deadened sound of hammering at a distance—they were caulking the deck of a new vessel in the shipyard across the bay. The world was going on as usual, yet there he was in a silence like that of the grave.
"Don't people sometimes go mad in a place like this?" he asked the jailer.
On the second night the sea was loud, but over the wailing of the waves he heard a raucous voice outside. It was the voice of Dan Baldromma, who, ranging round the Castle walls like an evil spirit, was calling up his taunting message at every lancet window, not knowing which was the window of Stowell's cell.