Read Ebook: The Master of Man: The Story of a Sin by Caine Hall Sir

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Ebook has 5856 lines and 182254 words, and 118 pages

"Oh, it's you, is it? I thought you'd come."

Stowell did not answer. He had neither turned nor looked up, and Gell, standing behind him, tugged at his shoulders and said again,

"I know."

"You know? How do you know? When did you know? Did you know this morning?"

"I knew last night."

Going into town he had seen Gell on the opposite side of the road. Yes, it was true enough he was out after hours. The Principal himself had sent him! Early in the day he had told him that after "prep" he was to go to the station for something.

"Good Lord! Then he must have forgotten all about it!"

"He had no business to forget."

"Why didn't you tell him?"

"Not I--not likely!"

"But being out after hours wasn't anything. It wasn't knocking those blackguards about. Why didn't you deny that anyway?"

"Oh, shut up, Alick."

Again Gell tugged at his shoulders and said,

"But why didn't you?"

"If you must know, I'll tell you--because they would have had you for it next."

Mrs. Gale had found the big window of the lavatory open at a quarter-past nine, and when she sent Jamieson down he saw Gell closing it.

"Do you mean that.... that to save me, you allowed yourself to...."

"Shut up, I tell you!"

There was silence for a moment and then Gell began to cry openly, and to pour out a torrent of self-reproaches. He was a coward; a wretched, miserable, contemptible coward--that's what he was and he had always known it. He would never forgive himself--never! But perhaps he had not been thinking of saving his own skin only.

"That was little Bessie Collister."

"I know."

"Dan Baldromma, you know what he is, Vic?"

"Oh, yes, there would have been the devil to pay all round."

"Wouldn't there?"

"The College, too! Dan would have had something to say to old Peacock on that subject also."

Yes, that was what Gell had thought, and it was the reason why he had stood silent when the Principal challenged them. Nobody knew anything except the girl. The Police didn't know; the Principal didn't know. If he kept quiet the inquiry would end in nothing and there would be no harm done to anybody--except the town ruffians, and they deserved all they got. How was he to guess that somebody else was out after hours, and that to save him from being exposed, perhaps expelled, his own chum, like the brick he was and always had been....

"Hold your tongue, you fool!"

Gell made for the door. "Look here," he said, "I'm going to tell the Principal that if you were out last night it was on an errand for him--that can't hurt anybody."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am--certainly I am."

"If you do, I'll never speak to you again--on my soul, never."

"But he's certain to remember it sooner or later."

"Let him."

"And when he does, what's he to think of himself?"

"That's his affair, isn't it? Leave him alone."

Gell's voice rose to a cry. "No, I will not leave him alone. And since you won't let me say that about you, I'll tell him about myself. Yes, I will, and nobody shall prevent me! I don't care what happens about father, or anybody else, now. I can't stand this any longer. I can't and I won't."

"Alick! Alick Gell! Old fellow...."

But the door had been slammed to and Gell was gone.

The Principal was in his Library, a well-carpeted room, warmed by a large fire and lighted by a red-shaded lamp. His half-yearly examination had just finished and his desk was piled high with examination papers, but he could not settle himself to his work on them. He was harking back to the event of the morning, and was not too pleased with himself. He had lost his temper again; he had inflicted a degrading punishment on a senior boy, and to protect the good name of the school he had allowed himself to be intimidated by the police into a foolish and ineffectual public inquiry.

"Wretched! Wretched! Wretched!" he thought, rising for the twentieth time from his chair before the fire and pacing the room in a disorder.

Of course the boy was guilty! But then he was no sneak or coward. Good gracious, no, that was the last thing anybody would say about him. Quite the contrary! Only too apt to take the blame of bad things on himself when he might make others equally responsible. That was one reason the under-masters liked him and the boys worshipped him. Then why, in the name of goodness, hadn't he spoken out, made some defence, given some explanation? After all the first offence was nothing worse than being out after hours for a little foolish sweethearting. The Principal saw Stowell making a clean breast of everything, and himself administering a severe admonition and then fighting it all out with the police for school and scholar. But that was impossible now--quite impossible!

"Wretched! Wretched! Wretched!"

He thought of the boy's father--the senior judge or Deemster of the island, and easily the first man in it. One of the trustees of the college also, to whom serious matters were always mentioned. This had become a serious matter. Even if nothing worse happened to that young blackguard in the hospital the police might insist on expulsion. If so, what would be the absolute evidence against the boy? Only that he had been out of school when the disgraceful incident had happened! The Deemster, who was cool and clear-headed, might say the boy could have been out on some other errand. Or perhaps that some other boy might have been out at the same time.

But that couldn't be! Good heavens, no! Stowell wasn't a fool. If he had been innocent, why on earth should he have taken his degrading punishment lying down? No, no, he had been guilty enough. He had admitted that he was out after hours, and, having nothing else to say even about that , he had tried to carry the whole thing off with a sort of silent braggadocio.

"Wretched! Wretched! Wretched!"

The Principal felt his thin hair rising from his scalp. Something he had forgotten had come back upon him with the force and suddenness of a blow. Off and on for a week he had suffered from nervous headaches. Somebody had recommended an American patent medicine and he had written to Douglas for it. The Douglas chemist had replied that it was coming by the afternoon steamer, and he would send it on to Castletown by the last train. The letter had arrived when he was in class, and Jamieson the valet, being out of reach, he had asked Stowell, who was at hand, to go to the Station for the parcel after preparation and leave it on his Library table. And then the headache had passed off, and in the pressure of the examination he had forgotten the whole matter!

The Principal got up again. His limbs felt rigid, and he had the sickening sensation of his body shrinking into insignificance. At that moment there came a knocking at his door. He could not answer at first and the knocking was repeated.

"Come in then," he said, and Gell entered, his face flooded with tears.

He knew the boy as one who was nearly always in trouble, and his first impulse was to drive him out.

"Why do you come here? Go to your house-master, or to your head, or...."

"It's about Stowell himself, Sir. He's innocent," said Gell.

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