CHAPTER XXIII

BEFORE JUDGE GARTY.

SELLICK drove down the main street of the village, past the blacksmith-shop, the meeting-house, and the tavern, and turned up to a hitching-post near the canal. Just beyond was the high bridge, beneath which a line-boat was passing. A wild impulse seized Jack,—to run for his freedom, and return to his old life among the rude boatmen; for anything seemed to him better than going to jail. But Sellick said quietly, “I set a good deal by you, sonny. I want to keep you close by my side, for a few hours anyway. Don’t think of parting company with me; I couldn’t possibly bear you out of my sight.”

“If you were in my place, wouldn’t you want to part company?” said Jack.

“Naterally. And if you was in mine, you’d feel as I do. Now I take it you’re a sensible boy; and you know you are only a boy; while I have twice the strength, and can run twice as fast as you can. I don’t want to be obliged to tie ye; so I hope you’ll be quiet, while we are about town together. Set in the wagon now, while I hitch the hoss.”

So Jack remained in the wagon, and carefully watched the situation, determined to miss no opportunity of escape that might possibly occur. The wagon was standing before a grocery, on the corner of the street and the canal. On the other side of the canal was another grocery, of the lowest description, where he had more than once seen his former master, Jack Berrick, fill his whiskey jug or stand and drink at the bar. Near by were some old canal stables, about the doors of which three or four drivers were currying their horses, swearing and joking. He could hear their rough language to their horses and each other, and he thought, “O, I can’t go back and be one of them! But I’ll get away if I can.”

Judge Garty’s office was in the second story of the building before which Sellick hitched his horse. “Good arrangement,” remarked the jovial constable. “Boat hands and town loafers git drunk and break the peace in the grocery down stairs; take ’em to be fined or committed, before the judge up stairs. A very good business plan.”

“I should think,” said Jack, “’t would be hard to get a drunken man up that narrow flight; ’t would be more convenient if the judge had his office in one corner of the grocery.”

“A very good notion; I’ll suggest it to him,” said Sellick. “Come now, sonny! Re’ly, you must excuse me for calling you sonny; it comes so handy.”

The “narrow flight” to which Jack alluded was a staircase built up to the second story on the outside of the building. Up this the lame Peternot and his nephew went first; then came Jack and the constable, who stood on the upper landing, while the squire, in a narrow entry beyond, shook and pounded a door which appeared to be either locked or bolted.

“He ain’t here!” exclaimed the old man, impatiently.

But just as Jack, keenly watching everything, began to hope that some advantage to him might grow out of the absence of the magistrate, Sellick exclaimed, “There he is, over the way! He sees us.”

On the opposite corner was a country store and forwarding-house, with one side on the street and the other on the canal; from the door of which Jack saw a short-legged man hurrying towards them across the way. He mounted the stairs, passed Jack and the constable, and unlocked with a key from his pocket the door which Peternot had been shaking. As he led the way into the office, Jack, who noticed everything, noticed that the key was left sticking in the lock on the outside.

“Good morning. Walk in, gentlemen,” said the judge. And, seating himself before a sloping desk placed on a common pine table, he laid off his hat, exposing a big, bald head, adorned by a couple of light tufts of gray hair over the ears, and put on a pair of steel-bowed glasses, covering a pair of very light-colored and very weak eyes, which had a habit of winking constantly.

“A case of breaking and entering,” said Peternot, introducing the business. “As ’twas my house that was robbed, and as I am the complainant, I thought it best to have the prisoner brought before you.”

The judge winked many times at Jack through his glimmering glasses, examined Sellick’s warrant, winking hard over that too, and prepared to write. By this time several village loungers, with their usual keen scent for a criminal case, began to throng the room.

Peternot, being sworn, stated circumstantially how, on the previous evening, he had been interrupted during prayer-time by burglars breaking into his house, and had caught one by the heels as he was leaping from a window, and so forth. The bundle of clothes left behind was displayed; and Jack’s legs were about to undergo examination, when he saved the court that trouble by frankly confessing himself the person who had been caught.

“The clothes have been identified by the Chatfords,” said the squire. “They will also, if necessary, be sworn to by them, when the case comes up for trial. So any further evidence with regard to them might be dispensed with, since he has confessed his crime; though I told the deacon he might be wanted here as a witness, and I’m expectin’ him every minute. My nephew will corroborate my testimony.”

“Very well, as a mere formality; though your testimony is sufficient.”

Byron Dinks having given his evidence, in the presence of an ever-increasing crowd of spectators, the judge turned to Jack, winking extraordinarily hard at him, and said, “The complaint against you, I suppose you are aware, is of a very grave character. Is there any statement you wish to make?”

Winked at by the weak-eyed judge, stared at by the group of idle spectators, and frowned upon by the relentless Peternot, Jack, standing at Sellick’s right hand beside the desk, clutched the table with his nervous fingers, caught his breath quickly, and answered in a frank, firm voice, “All I have to say is, that the money I took belongs to me more than it does to him; and I believed I had a right to it. I found it in an old rotten log; and he had robbed me of it before I took it from him. I didn’t think it was housebreaking when I got into his window; the window was open; it was broken accidentally when I was getting the money out.”

“I’ll say here,” interposed Peternot, “what I’ve said to the boy before, that if he will give up his booty and name his accomplices,—though I know perty well who they be,—I’ll accept his apology, and withdraw my complaint.”

“That’s a fair proposition,” said Judge Garty, “and both as a friend and a magistrate I advise you to take up with it. You are young; there appear to be really some extenuating circumstances in the case, and it seems hard that you should be punished.”

“It is hard!” said Jack, his voice heaving, but not breaking. “I never had a chance for myself till just a few weeks ago; and I meant to make the most of it,—I meant to do right, and be honest and true; and now this is what it comes to! But I can’t give up what he calls my booty.” His eyes flashed out proudly and defiantly: there was something in his look that said, “I can be wronged, I can be trampled on, but I won’t give in to the tyrant!” “If the money is what he wants of me, he won’t get it. I’ll go to jail, if I must.”

The magistrate winked, the spectators stared, and Peternot frowned, harder than ever. After writing a few words, Judge Garty looked up again and said, “I don’t see but what I shall have to bind you over.”

Jack, who had never heard the legal term before, turned to Sellick with a bewildered look. “Bind me over? I haven’t been bound at all yet!”

There was a general titter at his expense; and Sellick laughingly replied: “He means, you must give bonds; that is, get somebody to pledge a certain sum of money that you won’t run away, but that you’ll appear for trial when your case comes up before the county court.”

“I know!” said Jack, blushing. “That’s what you call bailing a fellow.”

“Exac’ly! Now if you can git bail, you’ll be let off till you’re wanted for trial. But if you can’t, you must stand committed,—that is, go to jail and wait there till you’re wanted.”

Judge Garty conferred in low tones with Squire Peternot,—whom Jack overheard to mutter, “Hardened little wretch! desperate character!” and then announced that he had fixed the amount of the required bonds at five hundred dollars.

“Do you know anybody who will be security for you?” he asked, winking at the prisoner.

Jack thought of Mr. Chatford,—but Mr. Chatford had lost faith in him, and could not be expected now to show him any favors. So he answered, faintly, “No, sir.” And the judge resumed his writing.