"But Manx girl are hot young huzzies," said Dan, "and the half of them ought to be ducked in the mill pond.... What did you expect this one would do for you, girl, after you had been colloquing and cooshing and kissing with him in the dark roads? Marry you? Make you the mistress of Ballamoar? Bessie Corteen, the by-child of Liza Collister? You toot! You booby! You boght! You damned idiot!" Just then there was the sound of wheels on the road, and Dan walked to the door to look out. It was the Deemster's dog-cart, coming down the glen, with father and son sitting side by side. The women heard the Deemster's steady voice saluting the miller as he went by. "Fine day, Mr. Collister!" "Middlin', Dempster, middlin'," said Dan, in a voice that was like a growl. And then, the dog-cart being gone, he faced back to the girl and said, with a bitter snort: "So that's your man, is it--driving with the Dempster?" "No, no," said the girl, lifting her face from the table. "No? Hasn't he been flung out of his college for it--for what came of it, I mane? And isn't the Dempster taking him home in disgrace?" "It was a mistake--it wasn't the Dempster's son," said Bessie. "Then who was it?" There was no reply. "Who was it?" "I can't tell you." "You mean you won't. We'll see about that, though," said Dan, and returning to the fireplace, he took a short, thick leather strap from a nail inside the ingle. At sight of this the girl got up and began to scream. "Father! Father! Father!" "Don't father me! Who was it?" said Dan. The blood was rising in the mother's pallid face. "Collister," she cried, "if thou touch the girl again, I'll walk straight out of thy house." "Walk, woman! Do as you plaze! But I must know who brought disgrace on my name. Who was it?" "Don't! Don't! Don't!" cried the girl. The mother stepped to the door. "Collister," she repeated, "for fourteen years thou's done as thou liked with me, and I've been giving thee lave to do it, but lay another hand on my child..." "No, no, don't go, mother. I'll tell him," cried the girl. "It was .... it was Alick Gell." "You mean the son of the Spaker?" "Yes." "That's good enough for me," said Dan, and then, with another snort, half bitter and half triumphant, he tossed the strap on to the table, went out of the house and into the stable. An hour afterwards, in his billycock hat and blue suit of Manx homespun, he was driving his market-cart up the long, straight, shaded lane to the Speaker's ivy-covered mansion-house, with the gravelled courtyard in front of it, in which two or three peacocks strutted and screamed. III The Speaker had only just returned from Douglas. There had been a sitting of the Keys that day and he had hurried home to tell his wife an exciting story. It was about the Deemster. The big man was down--going down anyway!