CHAPTER XXII

JACK AND THE JOLLY CONSTABLE.

SO Jack left the home and friends that for a brief season had been so pleasant and dear to him, and went out to take leave of another and older friend. This was Lion. He hugged and kissed the poor, faithful, affectionate creature; then, sending him to his kennel, he said to Kate, “See that he is taken good care of, won’t you? I—if I never—” But here he choked and could say no more.

“Come along, sonny,” said Sellick.

They walked on to the length of fence where the constable’s horse was hitched, mounted the wagon, and rode away, watched by more than one troubled and tearful face in the farm-house door.

Mrs. Pipkin set about her work with more than the usual fury which distinguished her on Monday mornings; while Mr. Pipkin went out to finish the milking Jack had begun.

Phin chained Lion to his kennel, saying guiltily to himself, “I ain’t to blame for his going to jail; I didn’t mean to lie; but I don’t care! folks were getting to think more of him than they do of me; and now I’ve got his dog!” Still his sense of triumph was no more like happiness than roiled and troubled waters are like some pure crystal fountain.

Mr. Chatford walked from the house to the barn and back again, and about the yard and stables, in an absent-minded way, frowning, and looking strangely uneasy in his mind. His wife, in the mean while, tried to forget her grief and anxiety in doing something for poor Jack,—packing a portmanteau of such clothes as she thought he would need if he went to jail, putting in a few books, a pin-cushion, a box of Mrs. Pipkin’s cookies, which he was fond of, and some cakes of maple-sugar, besides many little things for his comfort, or to remind him that he still had a friend.

“Now, husband!” she said, calling the deacon in to breakfast, “this must go to the Basin at once, or it may be too late. Shall Mr. Pipkin take it, or will you?”

“O, well, I suppose I will! Peternot said he would like to have me go over and identify the shoes and things; but I hate to! Strange the boy should have stuck to his lies so!” exclaimed the dissatisfied deacon. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done for him, if he’d shown a proper spirit.” And he sat down to eat a hurried breakfast before starting for the Basin. “I don’t see how the boy is going to get out of this scrape!”

“The best way I know o’ gittin out of a bad scrape,” remarked Mr. Pipkin, entering just then, “an’ it’s a way I’ve tried many a time—”

“How’s that?” asked the deacon.

“It’s to wake up, an’ find it’s all a dream,” replied Mr. Pipkin.

“Ah! I guess Jack would be glad enough to wake up and find this a dream, money and all!” said the deacon.

Sellick meanwhile, as he drove away with his prisoner, beguiled the time with pleasant talk.

“Don’t you think you’ve been a little too hard on our good neighbor Peternot? You shouldn’t try to git money away from a poor man like him, even if ’tis yours. A very poor man, the squire! I don’t suppose he’s wuth more ’n fifteen or twenty thousand dollars; and what’s that? If he had a hundred thousand, he’d still be the poorest man in town; for he hain’t got anything else but money and property to speak of. That’s what makes a man poor. Now, there’s Mr. and Mis’ Chatford, they would be rich with barely enough to live on. You might have robbed them, and no harm. But a poor old couple like the Peternots, for shame! Then you must consider, the squire hasn’t had the advantages of society, and a good bringing-up, and the light of the Gospil, and edication, that you’ve had. You ought to pity him, and forgive him. Good old man, the squire!”

In the midst of his wrongs and grief, Jack’s keen sense of humor was tickled by these facetious remarks, while their undertone of truth and friendliness warmed his heart.

“You’ve heard a good deal about his son Paul,” Sellick went on,—“a hard case, Paul. His great mistake was, he thought it his duty to be spending some of the money the old man was laying up. He couldn’t see the use of a great heap of gold stored away, and no good times at home; solid sunshine in the bank vaults, and gloom in the kitchen. So he went wild. The squire whipped him once, for calling him a fool, after he got to be twenty years old; tied him up to an apple-tree; I was going by, and heard the rumpus. ‘Call yer father a fool, will ye? when ye ought to say venerable father!’ says the old man, and lays on the lash. Every five or six strokes he’d stop and bawl out agin, ‘Call yer father a fool, will ye? when ye ought to say venerable father!’ Then, whack! whack! whack! ‘Call yer father a fool, will ye?’ over and over, till I got out of hearing. Not long after that the spendthrift son and the venerable father parted. Paul took to gambling for a living, and drinking for amusement,—business and pleasure combined. You brought the last news of him to town,—how he went to bed drunk one night at Wiley’s Basin, and set his room on fire, and was burnt to death, and you afterwards got his dog, that was singed trying to save his master. One would have thought the old man would feel a kindness towards you and the dog now, but—he’s a _poor man_, as I said. Paul’s bad end seemed to cut him up a good deal for a while, but now he’s taken home his nephew in his place. A plucky chap, the nephew! There’s courage for you! Me and you now wouldn’t want to go and live with—with such poor folks, ye know, and feed our souls on the old man’s hard corned beef and the old lady’s vinegar, not for any length of time, just in the hope of coming into their money when they die,—would we? Not that I wish to breathe a word agin the Peternots; dear me, no! Best kind of folks in their way, though mebby their way is a leetle mite peculiar. Hullo! there’s some of your folks!”

“It’s Mose!” said Jack, his heart swelling with a tumult of emotions as he thought of all that had happened since he watched Annie and her cousin disappear in the direction from which they were now returning.

“The schoolmarm with him, ain’t it? A re’l perty face! See! they know you. Shall we stop and talk?”

“No,—yes. O, I wish we hadn’t met them!” said Jack, wondering how he could bear to tell his dearest friend of the trouble and danger he was in, and take leave of her, in such a situation.

“Say nothing; I’ll make it all right,” said Sellick.—“Good morning, good morning, Mose! Good morning, Miss Felton. You’re having an early ride this morning; good for the appetite; makes rosy cheeks. Me and Jack’s riding out a little for our health too.”

“It makes his eyes red, if not his cheeks,” said Moses. “Where ye bound, Jack?”

“I’m going over to the Basin; Mr. Sellick asked me to ride,” replied Jack, with a smile. “They’ll tell you all about it at the house.”

“Can’t talk now; there’s Squire Peternot in the buggy close behind us,” observed Sellick. “He’ll complain of us for blocking the highway, if we keep two wagons standing abreast here when he wants to pass. Fresh for your school agin, hey, Miss Felton, this bright Monday morning? I wish we could keep you the year round. My little shavers never learned so fast or liked to go to school so well as they have this summer.”

“I couldn’t walk through the snow-drifts, to say nothing of governing the big boys,” replied Annie.

“I’ll resk the big boys!” cried Sellick. “You’d bring them to your feet, like so many whipped spaniels. Then you’ll have some smart boys on your side, to start with,—Moses, and Jack here.—You’ll go to school, I suppose, next winter?”

“If I am here; I had meant to,” faltered Jack. While Annie’s searching eyes seemed to look into his troubled heart.

“Jack! what is the matter?” she exclaimed.

“He may have engagements elsewhere,” said Sellick. “In fact, a little matter of business which he is too modest to mention,—that’s what takes us to the Basin, and it may lead to his accepting a situation. I haven’t time to explain. Good morning!” And the constable whipped up his horse just as the squire’s came close behind.

“Good by!” said Jack, as bravely as he could. Then, his grief mastering him again, as he thought how different life would be to him this pleasant morning if he had gone home with Annie in Moses’s place, as he might have done, he set his lips and teeth hard, pulled his hat fiercely over his eyes, and rode on, in his bodily form, to the Basin; while his mind travelled back, and witnessed in imagination the scene at the house, when Miss Felton and Moses should arrive and learn of his crime and his disgrace.