CHAPTER XL

THE SQUIRE’S TRIUMPH.

THEY found Judge Garty in his office; and soon after the deacon and Squire Peternot arrived. Once more Jack, but now with a lighter heart than before, stood before the weak-eyed, hard-winking magistrate, who supposed that the prisoner, having been retaken, was now to be admitted to bail.

“Not exac’ly that,” said Peternot, while Jack listened with a trembling interest. “New sarcumstances have come to light, havin’ a bearin’ on the case. I’ve an understandin’ with the boy; I’m satisfied he didn’t intend burglary; it turns out to be re’ly a trivial offence; so I’ve ventur’d to bring the officer back with him, and I want you to recall your _mittimus_, assume jurisdiction in the case, and discharge the prisoner.”

“That’ll suit him, I’ve no doubt,” said Judge Garty, winking placidly at Jack about forty times.

“It’ll suit me to be discharged,” replied Jack, with a smile, “though I can’t say I understand his talk about it.”

“A justice of the peace can’t decide in anything so serious as a burglary case,” said the deacon. “But since the complainant is convinced that it wasn’t intentional housebreaking, it is different. The justice can assume jurisdiction, that is, take the case in hand, and decide it.”

“’T will be a little irregular,” remarked Judge Garty, rubbing the top of his bald head with the feather end of his quill pen, and winking wonderfully fast. “Moreover, there’s the costs. I suppose the complainant will in this case pay the costs?”

“Sartin, sartin,” said the squire, thinking he would thus discharge all obligations to the boy he had persecuted.

Judge Garty accordingly went through the formality of putting Peternot under oath again, hearing the case, and pronouncing the prisoner discharged, all in about three minutes’ time. Then Peternot, with a grimace and a twinge, pulled out his pocket-book, and paid the following bill:—

Costs of court $2.35

Mittimus, and binding over witnesses .50

Witnesses’ fees and travel (2 miles each, 5 cts. a mile) 1.20

Sheriff’s fee 2.50

Lock broken by sheriff after prisoner had locked up the .25 court, and it became necessary for the court to get out

Window broken by ladder .37

_____

Total $7.17

As Peternot and his nephew were the witnesses, the squire’s actual expenditures in the case amounted to five dollars and ninety-seven cents.

“Now!” said he, eager to be consoled for what had caused him such a pang, “for _your_ part of the agreement, deacon!”

“Well, come with me,” said Mr. Chatford, with a peculiar smile. “The _treasure_ ain’t far off.”

And, leading the way down the office stairs, to his buggy standing at the foot of them, he pulled up the seat, lifted a horse-blanket, and pulled from beneath it the squire’s meal-bag and its heavy freight of coin. Peternot grasped it eagerly.

“I must say, deacon, you’ve played this perty well! I’d no idee you had it with ye! I ’most wish you hadn’t made it quite so public, though,” for the usual village crowd had assembled. “I’m afraid—I—I ruther think I’ll take it over to the store and have it locked up in the safe.”

“You haven’t settled with the boy; what ye going to give the boy?” cried Sellick, comfortably patting his fee in his trousers-pocket.

“The boy!” echoed Peternot, a frown of displeasure clouding the sunshine which played for a moment over the barren and rocky waste of his features. “Arter all the trouble and expense he’s put me to? I said I’d be liberal, and I have been liberal. I’ve paid the costs of court, and got him off; for which he may thank his stars, and think himself lucky. I won’t be hard, though.” The squire put his hand into the bag, as if about to present Jack one of the rusty half-dollars; but changed his mind, and thrusting his hand into his pocket, took out a silver quarter. “Here! take that! I’ve nothin’ else to give ye.”

Jack laughed, took the coin, and immediately presented it to a shabby little old man in the crowd, who received it with quaint surprise.

“You are Mr. Canning, I believe,” said Jack.

“That’s my name, that’s my name. But what’s this for? What’s this?”

“I had to borrow a hat from your scarecrow, and take a few ears of your corn to roast, yesterday,” said Jack. “I’ve returned the hat, and this is to settle for the corn. I’m going to begin life new, and I want to begin right with everybody.”

“That’s right, that’s right! You’re welcome to the corn, though; welcome to a few ears of corn, to be sure! to be sure!” cried the shabby old man, pocketing the money, however, and walking off with it, looking, in his old-fashioned, long-tailed, tattered coat, like one of his own scarecrows out taking a little exercise.

“Come, Jack, where are you going?” cried the deacon.

“Back into the office, to find the hat I left there when I ran away.”

“I carried that home. Now let’s be going. There’ll be an outburst in a minute,” said the deacon, casting an anxious glance after Peternot, who was carrying his bag of coin into the jeweller’s shop.

“Jack is going home with me; me and him’s struck a bargain,” said Sellick.

“Fie, fie! nonsense!” said the deacon. “We can’t spare Jack; he’s going with _me_.”

“I’ll ride with you. I’d like to talk with you a little, and go home and say good by—and—and get my dog,” faltered Jack; “but you know—”

“Yes, yes! that misunderstanding between you and Phineas. O, never mind about that!”

“I must!” said Jack. “He is your son, and of course you don’t want—”

“I want what’s right, son or no son. Come along!” And the good deacon half lifted Jack into the buggy. “There’s Peternot now!”

It was Peternot, indeed, rushing out of the jeweller’s shop with wrath in his countenance and several spurious half-dollars in his hand.

“Wait! wait!” he shouted, advancing towards the buggy as fast as his limp would allow. “Deacon! how’s this? You’ve desaived, you’ve ruined me!”

“Deceived! ruined you! how so?” asked the deacon, calmly.

“He says you brought him a half-dollar to test, but not one of these!” cried the excited squire.

“Yes, yes; a blunder of mine; I was telling you how dreadful absent-minded I am, you remember.”

“These are counterfeit!”

“Are they, indeed? Well, I’m not surprised.”

“But you never told me!”

“No, squire; I’d done so much mischief by telling that the coin was genuine, I thought I’d hold my tongue, after I found out what a mistake I’d made. But I don’t see that you are ruined. You’ve given yourself some trouble and expense, in order to get the treasure into your hands, that’s all. You’ve done one good thing, though, in getting this boy off, and we appreciate it.”

“I’ll have him up agin!” said the squire, furiously.

“O no, neighbor! I hardly think you will. No ‘new circumstances’ have come to light in his case since you swore to your last statement; and for you to complain of him again would plainly be a case of malicious prosecution. He ain’t to blame for my blunder. _I_ deceived _him_ with regard to the coin; he hasn’t deceived anybody. Didn’t know but what it was good till this minute; did you, Jack?”

“Yes,” said Jack, with a grin. “Aunt Patsy told me last night it was some of Sam Williams’s bogus. But I thought it just as well not to say anything about it. I wanted to see how liberal he was!”

The deacon smiled, the spectators laughed, and Peternot, turning angrily on his heel, stalked back to the jeweller’s shop, where he had left his bag of “treasure.”

“Well, now we’ll go home,” said the deacon, touching up old Maje.