Abominable

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Abominable

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.
 “I don’t know why you should help me milk,” said Jack, as Sellick
was getting a pail and stool.
“’T will keep me out of mischief, while I’m waiting. Satan finds
some mischief still for idle hands to do. Which cow kicks? I don’t
want anything to do with a kicking cow. I used to have one, a fust-
class kicker. Hit me once; thought the lightning had struck the
haystack! I tried tying her leg. Tied it to an old sleigh under the
shed; she kicked that to pieces. Tied it to the sill of the barn; and by
George! she started to kick the barn down. Tied it then to an old
grin’stone lying in the yard; and at the fust kick she sent it like a
pebble from a sling right over the kitchen chimbly, quarter of a mile
at least; fell into Welby’s bog; sunk so deep I’ve never thought ’t
would pay to fish it out.”
“What did you do with her then?” Jack asked, trying to forget his
troubles in listening to this nonsense.
“What could I do but kill her? One pail she kicked over full of milk,
we never saw or heard of agin; but Dyer’s folks, live over on the
North Road, about a mile off, said they had quite a little shower of
milk at their house that morning,—wondered where it come from. I
had a pair of boots made out of her hide; but I never could wear
’em. I was always kicking somebody, and gitting hauled up for ’sault
’n’ battery.”
Mr. Chatford now came into the yard, and saw with surprise his
neighbor Sellick milking one of his cows.
“Haven’t you any milking to do at home, Sellick?”
“Yes, but the boys can do that. I’ve invited Jack here to go and
ride with me; and I thought I would help him a little about his
chores fust.”
“Go and ride? I haven’t heard anything about it!” said Jack.
“Didn’t I mention it? Wal, that was an oversight!”
“I thought you had come to see Mr. Chatford. You asked for him.”
 “Did I? Mebby I wanted to ask him if he was willing you should go,
—we must keep the right side o’ the deacon! I left my wagon at the
fence below here; didn’t take it along to the gate, thinking Squire
Peternot might want to hitch there.”
Jack turned pale. But the deacon said, “What nonsense are you up
to now, Sellick?”
“What! do you call it nonsense for a neighbor to come and take
your boy to ride? Here, Phin, come and finish this cow; she’s done,
all but stripping. I wouldn’t begin another, Jack. We must be
starting.”
“Squire Peternot’s at the house, wants to see ye,” said Phin to his
father.
“Come, has he?” laughed Sellick. “I felt sure he would want to
hitch to that post! Wal, Jack! me an’ you’s got to go over to the
Basin with the squire, on business. I’m a constable, you know. Didn’t
think of that, did ye? Strip her clean, Phin; it dries up a cow like
Sancho, to leave a little milk in her bag.”
“Sellick!” cried the deacon, while Jack stood white and dumb with
consternation, “what’s the meaning of this?”
“I’ve a writ for the boy’s arrest,” replied Sellick. “Sorry for it. A
little diffikilty between him and the squire. Nice man, the squire! As
it’s on his own complaint, he thought it more properer that the boy
should be taken before some other justice;—a very nice man,
Peternot! Him and his nephew is going over to the Basin with us,—
witnesses in the case,—before Judge Garty. You shouldn’t have
picked a quarrel with the old man, my son,—nice man!”
“Come, Sellick!” cried the deacon, impatiently. “No more joking. I
can’t believe Peternot has taken any such step; there’s no ground for
it! Why, he’s the party at fault, if anybody! What’s the charge?”
“Breaking a winder, I believe,” replied Sellick, winking at Jack.
“Mis’ Peternot thought a good deal of that winder. Nice old lady, Mis’
Peternot!”
 “Jack! have you been smashing their windows?”
“No!” faltered Jack.
And before he could catch his breath, to enter into explanations,
the deacon exclaimed, indignantly, “Where is the squire? I’ll see
what he means by following up the boy in this way!” And he strode
towards the house, more angry than Jack had ever seen him before.
Sellick followed with Jack; and Phin went last, looking strangely
excited, if not delighted, and calling to Mr. Pipkin at the barn,
“Hurrah, Pip! come and see the fun!”
 CHAPTER XX

HOW THE SHOES AND STOCKINGS CAME HOME.

Mrs. Chatford met her husband at the door, her kind face full of
motherly solicitude. “Do tell me, what is the matter! He is in the
sitting-room. O Jack! I hope you haven’t been getting into any
serious trouble.”
They found the squire sitting stiffly in a straight-backed chair, with
his horn-headed cane between his knees, and his hat and an odd-
looking bundle on the floor beside him.
“What is all this about, squire?” the deacon demanded, as poor
Jack was brought in, face to face with his grim accuser. “Haven’t you
got through persecuting this boy? I felt that your treatment of him
yesterday was wholly unwarrantable,—tyrannical and unjust; and
though I thought a little differently of it, after my talk with your
nephew last night, still I am not satisfied, and I sha’n’t be, till you
have done the right thing. That he said you would do; but this don’t
look like it. What great crime has Jack committed, that you should
send an officer of the law after him?”
“You know nothing of what you are sayin’!” replied Peternot. “If
you stan’ up for the boy arter I’ve made my statements, you’re not
the man I take you for. I believe you to be a respecter of the laws,
and no friend of rascality. If you don’t believe what I say, there’s my
nephew out there in the wagon, ready to corroborate; and if you
won’t credit our words, peradventur’ you’ll be convinced by this.”
 A CONVINCING ARGUMENT.

He took up the odd-looking bundle from the floor, untied the

corners of the coarse plaid handkerchief that enclosed it, and pulled
out a pair of stockings, which he held up and shook before the eyes
of the wondering group.
“Do ye know them stockin’s, Mis’ Chatford?”
 “Why—sure—they—they are Jack’s stockings!” said the good
woman, sadly puzzled to know how they had come into Peternot’s
possession.
“And them shoes,—does anybody recognize ’em?”
“They’re Jack’s shoes!” exclaimed Phin, having taken a near view,
—“his Sunday pair!”
“Now for this hat,” said the squire, holding it up on the end of his
cane, “whose hat is it? Anybody know the hat?”
“I believe that and the other things all belong to Jack,” said the
deacon. “What is the mystery? Come to the point at once! Jack,
what is it? Why don’t you speak? Have you lost your tongue?”
The evidence against him appeared so overwhelming, and he
really seemed to himself so guilty,—not because he had taken the
money, but because he had made use of such means and such
companions in accomplishing his object,—that poor Jack could not
yet utter an intelligible word in self-defence. He was faltering out
some weak denial or excuse, when Peternot interrupted him:—
“If this ain’t enough, pull off the shoes he has on and look at his
feet. If you don’t find some marks of rough treatment about the
ankles, I miss my calkelation.” Sellick placed the culprit in a chair,
and began to take off his shoes.
“The mystery is no mystery, Neighbor Chatford,” the squire went
on. “My house was broke into and robbed last night. I ketched one
of the thieves by the heels as he was jumpin’ from the winder, and
these stockin’s come off in my hands, as he got away; which he did
by the help of his accomplices, though not till his feet and shins got
some hard rubs on the winder-sill, as ye can see there now!”—Sellick
at that moment holding up one of Jack’s legs, variegated with black-
and-blue marks and bloody scratches, to the view of his horrified
friends.
“I found the hat and shoes under the winder, when I run out arter
the burglars. I looked agin with a lantern, and found tracks too big
for the shoes, showing he had older confederates. He had two or
three with him, at least. I’m glad to learn that Moses is away, so he
couldn’t ’a’ been one on ’em; and Phineas, his mother tells me, was
in bed by eight o’clock.”
“Jack!” said the deacon, fixing a terrible look on the boy.
“I haven’t robbed his house!” Jack broke forth, vehemently. “I only
took what was my own. I took the money, which he had robbed me
of before!”
“Broke into his house for it!”
“I got in.”
“Who helped you?”
“I can’t tell. It wouldn’t be fair for me to tell.”
“Where is the money?” demanded the squire.
“I can’t tell that, either. It was my money, and I took it. And I did
only what your nephew, who knows so much about the law, advised
me to do, and what Mr. Chatford himself said I would have a right to
do.”
The deacon, who was inclined to condemn the boy’s fault all the
more severely because he had taken his part before, regarded him
with stern astonishment and displeasure.
“Did I ever say you would have a right to go to housebreaking, to
get possession of what you claimed?—Don’t think, Squire, that I for
a moment encouraged the boy to any such course. I didn’t approve
your course, I tell you frankly. I thought you ought to have used
different means for carrying your point. But I don’t uphold him. I
told him expressly and repeatedly to let the matter drop until this
morning, when I would see you about it.”
“You said I would be justified in taking the money wherever I
could lay hands on it!” cried Jack, now fully roused to speak in his
own behalf.
 “Boy! Jack!” replied the deacon, regarding him with a look of
mingled amazement, grief, and stern reprobation. “Take care what
you say! Don’t make the matter worse by lying about it.”
“You said so—to—to Mrs. Pipkin!” said Jack, trying to remember
what he seemed to be trying to invent.
“Did I say anything of the kind to you? Give the boy the benefit of
it, if I did,” said the deacon, turning to Mrs. Pipkin.
“I didn’t hear you,” replied that lady, precisely. “You didn’t say as
much as I hoped you would say; for you knew I hadn’t words to
express my opinion of Squire Peternot’s conduct.”
“Good!” said Mr. Pipkin, in a low but earnest voice, from the
kitchen door. “I’m glad you said that!”
“And I shall say more, before the matter is settled!” said Mrs.
Pipkin, compressing her thin lips. “For a man like Squire Peternot to
come over here, and have Jack taken up for carrying off the money,
no matter how he got it, is a sin and a shame! One of the richest
farmers in town, and a member of the church! I believe you’d follow
a penny rolling down hill to the very edge of Tophet, and burn your
fingers getting it out!”
“Good agin, by hokey!” said Mr. Pipkin, at the door.
“Silence!” said the deacon, authoritatively. “Abuse is no argument.
I’m trying to find out what I really said to give Jack encouragement
in his iniquity, or to expose his lying.”
“Perhaps it was what Mrs. Pipkin said; he may have got it turned
about a little,” said Mrs. Chatford, anxiously trying to shield the
miserable culprit.
“No, it wasn’t!” Jack maintained stoutly. “He said it. I didn’t hear
him, but Phin did; Phin came out when I was milking and told me.”
All eyes were now turned upon Phin; and—either because he had
intentionally deceived Jack, or because, which is more probable,
having confounded what Mrs. Pipkin said with what his father said,
he was afraid to confess the blunder and assume his share of the
responsibility—that treacherous-hearted youngster put on an air of
outraged innocence, and exclaimed loudly, “O, I never said such a
thing! I never said a word to him about it! Hope to die this minute if
I did!”
“You did! you know you did!” And Jack, driven to desperation,
advanced, shaking his fist at Phin, and passionately accusing him of
falsehood.
“That will do,” said Deacon Chatford. “I’ve nothing more to say.
His trying to get out of the scrape by lying, and shifting the blame
first on to me and then on to somebody else, seems to me worse
than the thing itself. He must take the consequences!”
 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.
 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.
 GOOD BY, OLD FRIEND!

“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.
 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.”