Others were to have spoken but the Governor closed up the proceedings quickly, and then there was a general conversazione. The officials were talking in groups:--"Wonderful! The Governor and the old Attorney were grand, but the young man was wonderful!" "We might go farther and fare worse." "Like his father, you say?" (it was the Attorney-General) "so like what his father was at his age that sometimes when I look at him I think I'm a young man myself again, and then it's a shock to go home and see an old man's face in the glass." A group of old ladies had gathered about Fenella, whose great eyes were ablaze. "It was beautiful, my dear, but there was just one other person who ought to have been here to hear it." "Who?" "The old Deemster himself, dear." "But he was," said Fenella. The Governor drew Stowell aside. "It's all right, my boy! Must have been instinct, but you touched your people on their tenderest place. Pretty hard on you, perhaps, but I knew what I was doing. The opposition in the island is as dead as a door nail already. Get into the saddle in London and you'll never hear another word about it." There were only two dissentients. "Aw well, we'll see, we'll see," said the Speaker--he was going out of the Castle (head down and his big beard on his breast), with old Hudgeon the advocate. As he passed through the outer gate his son Alick came running hotfoot up to it. It was a cruel moment. II Victor Stowell left the island for London at nine o'clock next morning. The first bell of the steamer had been rung, the mails were aboard, and the more tardy of the passengers were hurrying to the gangway, with their porters behind them, when the Governor's carriage drew up and Stowell leapt out of it. A large company of the younger advocates (all former members of the "Ellan Vannin") were waiting for him. "Come to see me off? Yes? Jolly good of you," said Stowell, and he stood talking to them at the top of the pier steps till the second bell had been rung. Down to that moment nobody had said a word about the object of his journey, although every eye betrayed knowledge of it. But just as he was crossing the gangway to the steamer one of the advocates (a little fat man with the reputation of a wag) cried, with a broad smatch of the Anglo-Manx, "Bring it back in your bres' pockat, boy"--meaning the King's commission for the Deemstership. "You go bail," said Stowell, and there was general laughter. He was settling himself with his portmanteau in the deck cabin that had been reserved for him when somebody darkened the doorway. "Helloa!" It was Gell. His cheeks were white, his face looked troubled, and he was breathing rapidly as if he had been running. "What's amiss?" said Stowell. "Something has happened to you. What is it?" Gell stepped into the cabin, and with a suspicion of tears both in his eyes and voice, told his story.