CHAPTER XXI

JACK IN DISGRACE.

“I S’POSE my nag is gitting a little mite impatient,” remarked the constable. “Shall we be driving along? Put on your shoes, sonny; not your Sunday-go-to-meeting pair; these and the other things will have to go to court with you, to be put into the evidence.”

“Hearken to me one moment!” said Mrs. Chatford, laying one hand protectingly on Jack’s shoulder, and holding her husband’s arm with the other. “Both of you! Don’t be too hard on this unfortunate boy! You know, husband, how he came to us; he was the victim of a false accusation then. Appearances are often deceitful. Remember, Squire Peternot, how you were once on the point of having his dog shot for a fault which another dog had committed. We are all liable, under the most favorable circumstances,—sometimes—to make mistakes.”

“If you think there is any mistake here, Mis’ Chatford,” answered the squire, “I must say you show a failin’ judgment.”

“I don’t doubt his taking the money. And I don’t approve of the course he took to get it, either. But forgive me if I say I think you drove him to it. It’s the old story over again,—the rich man with large flocks and herds taking the poor man’s one little lamb. Much as I condemn him for breaking into your house, I’d rather at this moment be in his place than in yours, Squire Peternot!”

“Wife! wife!” expostulated the deacon, mildly; while Peternot stood silently champing the bit of mortified pride and resentment.

“I hope to be pardoned here and hereafter, if I speak anything unjustly or in anger,” Mrs. Chatford went on; “but I must say what is in my heart. The boy has done wrong; but consider, he is but a boy. Think what he was when he was brought here, what bad influences had been about him all his life, and then acknowledge that he has turned out better than could ever have been expected of him. He has been steady, industrious, truthful, well behaved,—as good as most boys who have had the best of training. And now to cast him off for one offence,” appealing to her husband; “you will regret it as long as you live, if you do! And for you,” turning again to the squire, “at your years, with your wealth, and your knowledge of our blessed Saviour’s teachings, to drive this poor, ignorant child to transgress the law in the maintenance of his rights, in the first place, and then to execute the vengeance of the law upon him without mercy,—as I said before, I’d rather be in his place, in the eyes of Heaven, than in yours!”

Jack, who had stood sullen, despairing, full of hatred and a sense of wrong, a minute before, burst into a wild fit of sobbing and weeping at the sound of these gracious words. The deacon was touched; and even Phin looked conscience-smitten,—white about the mouth, and scared and excited about the eyes,—as he thought of his share in Jack’s disgrace.

“Mrs. Chatford,” said Mrs. Pipkin, wiping her tears with her apron, “you’ve spoken my sentiment, and you’ve spoken it better than I could, because you’re a better woman!”

“So she has, by hokey!” added the sincere Mr. Pipkin.

“I wish you could be prevailed upon to let the matter rest at present, squire,” said the deacon. “The boy has certainly done well, since he has been with us, till this unfortunate affair came up.”

“You haven’t known him!” said Peternot, striking his heavy cane upon the floor. “What’s bred in the bone will stay long in the flesh. You can’t wash a black sheep white in a day. He can put on a smooth outside, but he’s corrupt at heart as he ever was. If you could have been present with him in the woods yesterday! I never heard such profanity from the lips of mortal man!”

“Jack!” said the deacon, “do you swear?”

“I swore at him; he was robbing me; I couldn’t help it, he made me so mad!” Jack acknowledged.

“Then his leaguing himself with midnight marauders, whose names he is ashamed to confess, shows what he is!” continued Peternot. “A boy is known by the company he keeps.”

“Isn’t a man as much?” retorted Jack, blazing up again. “What company did you keep yesterday? What _day_ marauders did you league yourself with, to get the money away from me? Wonder if you are ashamed!”

“Jack! Jack! don’t be saucy!” said Mrs. Chatford.

“Let him speak out; then mebby you’ll see what the boy is,” said Peternot, chafing with anger. “He has no respect for age. He sassed me to my face yisterday as you never heard the lowest blackguard on the canal sass another. I am amazed that anybody in this house should be found to excuse or stand up for such a profane, house-breakin’, hardened little villain!”

“I don’t stand up for anything he has said or done that is wrong. But there is good in the boy, for all that,” cried Mrs. Chatford, in tones and with looks full of deep emotion, “and that I stand up for, as I would wish another to stand up for a son of mine in his place. This may be a turning-point in the boy’s life. He may be saved, he can and will be saved, if we are just and charitable towards him; but I shudder to think what may become of him if we cast him off. I fear he will go back to his old ways, and that his last state will be worse than his first. Then who will be answerable for his soul?”

“I have no ill-feelin’ towards the boy,” said the squire, coming now to a subject which he had been waiting for a favorable moment to introduce. “And if he will show that he repents of his inikity by askin’ pardon for his wholesale blasphemy, and abuse of me in the woods yisterday, and—and—give up the plunder he took from my house last night,—I don’t know,—peradventur’ I may be prevailed upon to let him off.”

“What do you say to that, Jack?” asked the deacon, anxious to see the matter settled. “Come! show yourself a brave, honest boy now, and the squire won’t be too hard on you. Give up the money, and he’ll return a fair share of it to you, I’m confident,—all you could reasonably expect, after the course you have taken to get the whole; won’t you, squire?”

“Sartin, I’ll be liberal with him; though I can’t make any bargain with a malefactor till he names his accomplices and gives up his booty.”

“And recant your falsehood about Phineas; that has hurt me more than anything else,” added Mr. Chatford, as Jack was hesitating.

“How can I recant what wasn’t a falsehood?” replied Jack.

“Take care, take care, boy!” said the deacon, warningly. “Stand here face to face with Phineas. Now, did Phineas tell you I said you would be justified in taking that money wherever you could find it?—Did you say anything of the sort, Phineas?”

“No, I never opened my lips to him about it!” said Phin, with all the vehemence of earnest innocence. “But mabby he imagined I did.”

“I didn’t imagine it!” cried Jack. “Phin Chatford, you know you said it! You are lying at this minute, if you say you didn’t.”

“Jack, what motive could Phineas have to say such a thing to you in the first place, or to lie about it now? Your story is untrustworthy, on the face of it. And I beg of you to consider again; for I can do nothing for you, if you persist with a lie on your lips.”

“It isn’t a lie. If I say I lied then, I shall be lying now.”

“I have nothing more to say. Squire, I leave him to you.” And the deacon walked mournfully away.

“If saying I am sorry I swore yesterday in the woods will do any good,” Jack continued, “I’ll say it, for I am sorry. I had made up my mind never to swear again; and I never should, but you drove me to it.”

“Stubborn and hardened to the last!” said Peternot. “He is bound to find some excuse for his conduct, somebody to shift the blame on to. Still I accept his apology, such as it is. And now, if he will give up his ill-got plunder—”

“Plunder!” echoed Jack. “Was it _your_ ill-got plunder when you took it away from me? It is my money; but I wish now I had never seen it, for a thousand times as much couldn’t pay me for what I have lost! She has lost faith in me,”—looking through his streaming tears at the retreating form of Mrs. Chatford, following her husband from the room,—“and I can never again be in this house what I have been. But I can’t give up the money; I haven’t got it, and I don’t know where it is.”

“But you know who has it?” Jack would not reply to this or to any other question tending to bring out the names of his accomplices; and the squire, losing patience at last, exclaimed, “Well, Sellick! I see no use of dallyin’ any longer here.”

“He hasn’t had his breakfast yet,” said Mrs. Pipkin. “You’ll give him a chance to eat something, I guess!” her eyes sparkling as she glanced from Sellick to the squire.

“O, sartin!” said Sellick. “I never thought of that, having had a bite myself ’fore I started. I believe in a full stumick. Come, sonny! snatch a bite; you’ll feel better.”

But Jack was too full of grief to think of food. “I shall never eat anything in this house again!” he exclaimed, with short, convulsive sobs.

Upon this, little Kate, who had been looking on with wonder and sympathy, not understanding what the dreadful trouble was, ran up to him, and threw her arms about him, exclaiming passionately, “O Jack! you will! you must! I love you, if nobody else does! But we all do! You mustn’t go away! You have been better to me than my own brothers; they plague me, but you never do!—O Mr. Peternot! he ain’t a bad boy; Jack ain’t bad! Don’t take him off to jail!”

But there was no help for the poor lad then. Peternot was inexorable. Jack made no resistance. Mrs. Chatford, returning from a last fruitless appeal to her husband, kissed him tenderly, and said what comforting words she could. Mrs. Pipkin put something into his pocket, as she bent over him; and Mr. Pipkin told him to keep a stiff upper lip. Kate clung to him with affection and wild grief. But Mr. Chatford did not come to bid him good by; and he did not say good by to Phineas.