CHAPTER XXXII

A STARLIGHT WALK WITH ANNIE FELTON.

WITHOUT removing the bar, Aunt Patsy called out, “Who’s there? What do you want?”

“I want to see you, Aunt Patsy,” answered a sweet feminine voice.

“Is it you, Miss Felton? Bless me!” And the old woman hastily unbarred the door. “To think of my keepin’ you standin’ outside! Come in, come in, you darlin’!”

In walked Annie, fresh and smiling, but casting nevertheless an anxious and wistful glance about the room.

“I have just run over from my aunt’s,” she said; “really, I can’t sit down. I thought you might have some news of our friend Jack.”

“Jack?” said the old lady, in a voice loud enough to be heard in the wood-shed. “What about Jack?”

“Has no one told you? I didn’t know but he himself—O Jack!” exclaimed Annie, joyfully, taking a quick step towards the door through which the youngster at that moment advanced into the room, “I am so glad to see you! I heard how you had got away, and I was afraid we might never see you again!”

“I couldn’t go without seeing you once more!” said Jack, trembling with emotion at this unexpected meeting. “Though I wasn’t sure you would care to see me.”

“O Jack! why not? Whatever you may have done, I shall always feel an interest in you.”

“An interest in me!” said Jack, chokingly. “Bad as I am, that’s kind!” He spoke bitterly, and drew back from her with a look of disappointment.

“My dear Jack! you are not angry with me?”

“No! you might say what you like, I could never be angry with you. But I didn’t think you would believe anything so very bad of me, just from what other people say. I hoped at least you would wait and hear my story first.” And Jack, still turning from her, wiped his quivering eyes with his sleeve.

“Have I said I believed anything very bad of you?” asked Annie, softly.

“No, but _whatever I might have done_, you said. That is, you don’t quite give me up, in spite of my awful conduct!”

“Don’t you see, Miss Felton,” cried Aunt Patsy, “he’s been so put upon and misused, he can’t be satisfied without his friends take his part in downright ’arnest? That’s nat’ral. Half-way words won’t suit him.”

“I know!” added Jack, with a passionate outburst; “Phin’s her cousin; he’s a saint, and I am a liar and a villain, of course, if he says so!”

“You know very well I don’t think Phin a saint,” replied Annie, with gentle dignity, “any more than I think you a villain. You are both boys, with the faults of boys. From all I hear, you have not done perfectly right in every respect; and I don’t think you will claim that you have. If you expected me just to pat you on the back, and say, ‘Poor Jack! good Jack! how they have abused you!’ why, then, you haven’t known what a real friend I am to you. I came here this evening, hoping to find you, and to do something for you. But if this is the way you meet me, I suppose I might as well have stayed at home.” And now _she_ turned away.

“Don’t go!” Jack entreated. “O Miss Felton! forgive me if I am unreasonable! But it seems so hard to know that _you_ think my enemies are in the right! Do you believe I would break into a house and steal; that I would make up a lie, to shift the blame to Phin or his father or any one else? I can bear to have others think so meanly of me, but not you!” And the boy’s passion broke forth in uncontrollable sobs.

She took his hand with one of hers, and laid the other kindly and soothingly upon his shoulder.

“There, there, Jack!” she said, her own voice full of emotion; “I don’t believe you would deliberately steal or make up such a lie. I know you wouldn’t!”

“And as for the money,” sobbed Jack, “I did just what Peternot’s own nephew, who is studying law, said he should advise any one to do who found treasure on another man’s land; he said, ‘Pocket it and say nothing about it; keep possession, any way; fight for it.’ That’s what I tried to do. Then after I had been robbed of it, I went to take it again, and that’s the cause of all my trouble.”

“I regard Squire Peternot’s course very much as you do,” said Annie, still soothing the lad, with one hand pressing his own and the other on his shoulder, “though I’m not so angry at him. He has acted according to his nature; not according to the Golden Rule, very sure. But how few people act according to the Golden Rule, Jack! If we were to quarrel with all who fail in that respect, I am afraid we should find ourselves in difficulty with nearly the whole world. No, Jack; it’s useless to fly into a passion with everybody we see acting selfishly and meanly. It is much better to look carefully after our own conduct, and see what we may be doing that is wrong. Now I want you to walk home with me, and tell me your story by the way; then we will see what had better be done. Aunt Patsy will leave her door unbarred, so that you can come back and see her again.”

They went out together, and talked long in low tones as they walked under the starlit sky across the fields.

“Now, Jack,” said Annie, when they had reached Mr. Chatford’s orchard, and stopped beside the little brook that kept up its low liquid babble in the dark shadows that half concealed it, “I have heard your own story, and I can’t say that I blame you very much for anything you have done. You have acted naturally, but not always wisely. No doubt so much money appeared a great fortune to you, and of course something very desirable. But I am by no means sure it would have been a good thing for you to have. I’m afraid your head would have been turned by it. You were doing well enough before. You were sure of a good living, a good home, and a chance for yourself, as I have heard you say with honest pride so many times.”

“This is what my chance has finally come to!” said Jack,—“no home, no future, but a constable at my heels!”

“I can think of something that might be worse for you than all that,—_getting rich too fast_. That’s what ruins many. You were happy in slowly working your way up the ladder, happier than you could ever be again if you should suddenly find yourself at the top. The money might not have harmed you, but I am sure you could have done very well without it. Don’t regret it if it is lost. And, of all things, don’t associate yourself with bad companions or adopt unjustifiable means to gain even justifiable ends. Better submit to a little wrong. If your enemies succeed in overreaching you, so much the worse for them. Wouldn’t you rather be robbed than feel that you have robbed another? I know you would, Jack!”

“You talk just like Percy Lanman!” said the boy, his heart beginning to feel warmed and comforted.

“The young man who dove for you in the pond? I heard Mr. Chatford tell about him.”

“I saw him in the fields afterwards, and he lent me some money. He talked just as you do!” Jack declared.

“Now, Jack,” said Annie, leaning tenderly on his shoulder and looking into his face by the pale starlight, while her touch and the tones of her voice set a little stream of joy dancing and singing in his heart, like the shadowy brook at their feet, “I’m going to be frank with you; hear what I say. Don’t run away. Don’t hide. Don’t try to shirk the consequences of what you have done, but go home with me now.”

“To Mr. Chatford’s?” said Jack with a start.

“Yes, just as if nothing had happened. Aunt’s folks will receive you kindly, I know, from what they have said.”

“Never!” said Jack. “I never can enter that house again as long as there’s a lie between me and Phin. It may be natural for his father to believe him instead of me; but it’s something I never can get over. No!” he added, as she would have urged him; “I can go anywhere else, and suffer anything, before I can go back there. Besides, how long before Sellick would be after me again, and carry me off to jail?”

“Worse things than that might happen to you,” Annie replied.

“What?” said Jack.

“To go back to your former life and associates, to fall again under bad influences, and lose all the good you have gained since you have been with Uncle Chatford’s folks; that would be worse. I don’t want you to go to jail, but I’d rather see you go there innocent, than run away as if you were guilty. How proud I should be of you, if you could stand up and say, ‘I may have done wrong, but I didn’t mean to; now here I am, put me in jail if you want to!’ You would be proud of yourself too! Your face would shine as it never did before.”

“O Miss Felton!” said Jack, “that’s just the way Percy Lanman talked!”

“Get rid of all rash thoughts of revenge and wild living, and put your trust in Providence, and in your own integrity,” she went on. “Be yourself, your better self, always, and you’ll come off victorious over everything. That’s my advice, dear Jack; and if Percy Lanman gave you the same, I honor him for it. Now will you come in with me?”

“I’ll go as far as the door with you,” said Jack, “but I can’t go in; I can’t!”

As they emerged from the orchard and approached the house, they could see through a lighted window the family sitting round the evening lamp; Mrs. Chatford sewing, the deacon reading, Mr. Pipkin holding a skein of thread for Mrs. Pipkin to wind, and Phin and Moses playing “fox-and-geese,” while little Kate stood by looking over the board,—a picture of quiet domestic enjoyment that reminded poor Jack of what he had lost, and wrung his heart with grief.

“Everything is just as it was before; nobody thinks of me, nobody cares for me!” he exclaimed. “Good night!” And, moved by a wild and passionate sorrow, he broke from her gentle, restraining touch, and disappeared in the orchard.