Then Stowell, calling back the constables, confused them, made them contradict themselves, and each other, and step down at last like men whose brains had fallen into their boots. After that he called Gell and caused him to look like a harmless innocent who had strayed out of a sheepfold into a shambles. And finally he called Fanny, and getting quickly on the woman's side of her, he so coaxed and cajoled and flattered and then frightened her, that she seemed to be on the point of blurting out the whole plot, and giving away the names of half the big men in the island. His Worship of the Nunnery closed up the case quickly, saying "young men will be young men," but regretting that the eminent talents exhibited in the defence were not being employed in the service of the island. The Court-house emptied to a babel of talking and a burst of irrepressible laughter, and that was the end of the "Ellan Vannin." But the one ineffaceable effect of the incident, most material to this story, was that Alick Gell, who was still as innocent as the baby of a girl, had acquired a reputation for dark misdoings (especially with women) whereof anything might be expected in the future. After the insular newspapers had dwelt with becoming severity on this aspect of the "distressing proceedings," the Speaker walked over in full-bearded dignity to remonstrate with the Deemster. "Your son is dragging my lad down to the dirt," he said, "and before long I shall not be able to show my face anywhere." "What do you wish me to do, Mr. Speaker?" asked the Deemster. "Do? Do? I don't know what I want you to do," said the Speaker. "I thought you didn't," said the Deemster, and then the full-bearded dignity disappeared. Concerning Victor, although he had made the island laugh (the shortest cut to popularity), opinions were widely divided. "There's only the breadth of a hair between that young man and a scoundrel," said Hudgeon, the advocate. "Lave him rope and he'll hang himself," said Cæsar Qualtrough, from behind his pipe in the smoking-room of the Keys. "Clever! Clever uncommon! But you'll see, you'll see," said the Speaker. "I've not lost faith in that young fellow yet," said the Governor. "Some great fact will awaken a sense of responsibility and make a man of him." The great fact was not long in coming, but few could have foreseen the source from which it came. III With the first breath of the first summer after their return to the island Stowell and Gell went up into the glen to camp. They had no tent; two hammocks swung from neighbouring trees served them for beds and the horizontal boughs of other trees for wardrobes.