"Yes, Sir--it was I," said Gell. And then came a flood of words, blurted out like water from an inverted bottle. It was true that he was with the girl last night, but it was a lie that he had made a practice of walking out with her. She came from the north of the island, a farm near his home, and he hadn't known she was living in Castletown until he met her in the town yesterday afternoon. They were on the Darby Haven Road, just beyond the college cricket ground, about nine o'clock, when the blackguards dropped out on them from the Hango Hill ruins and started to rag him. It was true he smashed them and he would do it again, and worse next time, but it was another lie that he had done it with a stick. _They_ had the stick, and it was just when he was knocking out one of them that the other aimed a blow at him which fell on his chum instead and tumbled him over insensible. The girl had gone off screaming before that, and seeing the police coming up he had leapt into the cricket ground and got back into school by the lavatory window. "But why, boy .... why .... why didn't you say all this in school this morning?" "I was afraid, Sir," said Gell, and then came the explanation he had given to Stowell. He had been afraid his father would get to know, and the girl's father, too--that was to say her step-father. Her step-father was a tenant of his own father's; they were always at cross purposes, and he had thought if the girl got into any trouble at the High Bailiff's and it came out that he had been the cause of it, her step-father.... "Who is he? What's his name?" "Dan Collister--but they call him Baldromma after the farm, Sir." "That wind-bag and agitator who is always in the newspapers?" "Yes, Sir." "But, good heavens, boy, don't you see what you've done for me?--allowed me to punish an innocent person?" "Yes, I know," said Gell, and then, through another gust of sobs, came further explanations. It had all been over before he had had time to think. The Principal had said that nobody knew, and he had thought he had only to hold his tongue and nothing would be found out. But if he had known that Stowell knew, and that he had been out himself.... "And did he know?" "Yes, Sir. He saw me with Bessie Collister as he was going to the station and he thought he couldn't get out of this himself without letting me in for it." "Do you mean to tell me that he took that punishment to .... to save you from being discovered?" Gell hesitated for a moment, then choked down his sobs, and said with a defiant cry: "Yes, he did--to save me, and the school, and .... and you, too, Sir." The Principal staggered back a step, and then said: "Leave me, boy, leave me." He did not go to bed that night, or to school next day, or the day after, or the day after that. On the fourth day he wrote a long letter to the Deemster, telling him with absolute truthfulness what had happened, and concluding: