But as the six men were pushing their way through the people, and leaping the cobble wall of the churchyard, the Deemster picked from the ground a piece of slate-stone that had come up from the vault, and scraped his initials upon it with a pebble. "Take this token, and go after them," he said to Jarvis Kerruish, and instantly Jarvis was following the coroner and his constables, with the Deemster's legal warranty for their proceedings. It was the work of a moment, and the crowd that had stood with drooping heads about the Bishop had now broken up in confusion. The Bishop himself had not spoken; a shade of bodily pain had passed over his pale face, and a cold damp had started from his forehead. But hardly had the coroner gone, or the people recovered from their bewilderment, when the Bishop lifted one hand to bespeak silence, and then said, in a tone impossible to describe: "Can any man say of his own knowledge that my son was on the 'Ben-my-Chree' last night?" The Deemster snorted contemptuously, but none made answer to the Bishop's question. At that moment there came the sound of a horse's hoofs on the road, and immediately the old archdeacon drew up. He had been preaching the Christmas sermons at Peeltown that day, and there he had heard of the death of his grandson, and of the suspicions that were in the air concerning it. The dour spirit of the disappointed man had never gone out with too much warmth to the Bishop, but had always been ready enough to cast contempt on the "moonstruck ways" of the man who had "usurped" his own place of preferment; and now, without contrition or pity, he was ready to strike his blow at the stricken man. "I hear that the 'Ben-my-Chree' has put into Peel harbor," he said, and as he spoke he leaned across his saddle-bow, with his russet face toward where the Bishop stood. "Well, well, well?" cried the Deemster, rapping out at the same time his oath of impatience as fast as a hen might have pecked. "And that the crew are not likely to show their faces soon," the archdeacon continued. "Then you're wrong," said the Deemster imperiously, "for they've done as much already. But what about their owner? Was he with them? Have you seen him? Quick, let us hear what you have to say." The archdeacon did not shift his gaze from the Bishop's face, but he answered the Deemster nevertheless. "Their owner was with them," he said, "and woe be to him. I had as lief that a millstone were hung about my neck as that I stood before God as the father of that man." And with such charity of comfort the old archdeacon alighted and walked away with the Deemster, at the horse's head. The good man had preached with unwonted fervor that day from the Scripture which says, "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."