There was a package for Walter, who had now been some months in
California,--a package of letters and papers both,--and with a beating
heart he sat down to read, taking Mr. Graham's letter first, for that
might have a message from Jessie.
It was glorious news which the letter contained, and it wrung a cry of
delight from Walter, which was heard by the captain, who turned to see
what it was that thus affected his companion.
"Listen, Captain Murdock," Walter exclaimed, "listen to this. _My father
is proved innocent. Heyward was the robber,--he came back and confessed
it the night before he died_, and----"
He did not finish the sentence, for, like a wild beast startled from its
lair by a sudden fright, Captain Murdock bounded to his side, and,
snatching the letter from him, devoured its contents at a glance then
striking his hands together, he fairly screamed:
"Thank God! the year of jubilee has come,--the day I've waited for so
long!"
Earnestly and half fearfully Walter gazed up into the marble face, and
into the eyes that burned like coals of fire, seeing in them now, for
the first time, a look like his grandfather. Then a suspicion of truth
burst upon him, and springing up he caught the gray-haired captain by
the arm, demanding faintly:
"Who are you? Tell me, or I shall die."
"I am your father, boy," and, opening his arms, the father received to
his embrace his fainting son.
The news and the surprise combined were too much for Walter, and for
some little time he lay upon the bed, whither his father had borne him,
unconscious of the caresses, the words of love, the whispered blessings
showered on him by one who felt now that he trod a different earth, and
breathed a different air from what he had done for twenty-four long
years.
"_Father_,"--how like music that word sounded in his ear when Walter
said it at last, and how it wrung tears from eyes which, until recently,
were unused to weep.
"Say it again, my son. Call me father often. 'Tis the name I've thirsted
for, but never expected to hear," and the strong man, weak now as a
woman, kissed lovingly the face of the handsome boy.
"Read it aloud," Walter said, pointing to the crumpled letter lying on
the floor.
Mr. Marshall complied, and read in tremulous tones how Ralph Heyward,
after an absence of eighteen years, had again asked shelter at the
farm-house, saying he was tired and sick. His request was granted, and
when the morning came he was too ill to leave his bed, but lay there for
many days, kindly cared for by the deacon, to whom he made a full
confession of his guilt, saying that _he_, and not Seth Marshall, robbed
the Deerwood Bank; that it was what he intended to do when he came there
that night, feigning drunkenness the better to cover his design.
He knew that Seth kept the keys in his pocket, and when sure that the
household were asleep, he arose, and putting on his victim's coat, cap
and shoes, left the house stealthily, committed the theft, hid the
money, and then as cautiously returned to his room, and was settling
himself a second time into an apparently drunken sleep, when he heard
some one up, looking, as he supposed, for the cause of the disturbance
he had made in accidentally upsetting a chair as he left Seth Marshall's
room. Then he was still again until the morning came, and the arrest was
made.
At the examination, when he saw the terrible anguish of the young wife,
he was half tempted to confess, but dared not, for fear of what might
follow; so he kept his own counsel, and for a few years remained in the
vicinity of Deerwood, hoping to hear something of the man he had so
wronged, and then he went away to the West, wandering up and down with
that burden of guilt upon his soul, until at last, knowing that he must
die, he returned to Deerwood, and seeking out the farm-house, asked
permission to lay his head again beneath its hospitable roof. This done,
he acknowledged to the father how he had sinned against the son, and
after making an affidavit of his guilt, died a penitent and, it was to
be hoped, a better man.
"And now," wrote Mr. Graham in conclusion, "I wish I could convey to you
some little idea of the present excitement in Deerwood. Everybody is
talking of the disclosure, and of your father, who, were he here, would
be a greater lion even than Lafayette in his day. And I wish that he
were here. Poor Seth! God forgive me that I testified against him. I
verily believed him guilty up to the hour when Heyward proved him
innocent. Oh, if he only could come back to me again, and to the home
where your aged grandfather prays continually that his sun may not go
down until he has seen once more the face of his boy. Poor old man, it
is a touching sight to see his lips move continually, and hear the words
he whispers: 'God send him back, God send him back.' You know Aunt Debby
always said, 'Seth allus was a good boy;' she repeats it now with
ten-fold earnestness, as if it were a fact in which everybody concurred.
It may be that your father is dead, and if so he cannot return; but if
still living, I am sure we shall see him again, for I shall take means
to have the story inserted in the papers far and near, so that it will
be sure to meet his eye.
"Meanwhile, Walter, come home as soon as you are able to bear the
journey. We want you here to share in our great joy. Leave the business,
if it is not arranged, and come. We are waiting anxiously for you, and
none more anxiously than Jessie. She has been wild with delight ever
since I told her your father was innocent. Mrs. Bellenger, too, shares
the general joy, and were yourself and your father here our happiness
would be complete."
"We will go, too," cried Walter, "you as Captain Murdock at first, to
see if they will know you. Oh, I wish it were now that we were there,"
and Walter's dark eyes danced as he anticipated the meeting between the
deacon and his son.
"Yes, we will go," Mr. Marshall answered, and then, after looking over
the papers which Mr. Graham had sent, and which contained Heyward's
confession, he sat down by Walter and told of his wanderings since that
dreadful night when he left his home, branded as a thief and robber.
"But first," said he, "let me tell you how I chanced to run away. I
should never have done it but for Mr. Graham, who begged and entreated
me to go."
"Mr. Graham!" exclaimed Walter. "Why, he, I thought, was your bail."
"So he was," returned the father, "but he wished me to come away for all
that. He would rather lose all his fortune, he said, than know I was in
prison, and sent there on his testimony. So he urged me to leave,
contriving a way for me to do so, and even carrying me himself, that
stormy night, many miles from Deerwood. I dreaded the State prison. I
believe I would rather have been hung, and I yielded to his
importunities on one condition only. I knew his father would be very
indignant, and that people would censure him severely, too, if it were
known he was in my secret, and, as I would not have him blamed, I made
him promise to me solemnly that he would never tell that he first
suggested my going and then helped me away. He has kept his promise, and
it is well. I have ample means, now, for paying him all I owe, and many
a time I have thought to send it to him, but I have been dead to all my
friends so long that I decided to remain so. I wrote to him from Texas,
asking for you all, and learning from him of Ellen's death, and of your
birth. You were a feeble child, he said, and probably would not live. I
had never seen you, my son, and when I heard that my darling was
gone,--my mother, too,--and that my father and best friend still
believed me guilty, I felt a growing coldness toward you all. I would
never write home again, I said. I would forget that I ever had a home,
and for a time I kept this resolution, plunging into vices of every
kind,--swearing, gambling, drinking----"
"Oh father,--father!" said Walter, with a shudder. "You do not tell me
true."
"It's all true, my boy, and more," returned the father, "but I was
overtaken at last, by a terrible sickness, the result of dissipation in
New Orleans. A sister of charity saved my life, and opened my heart to
better things. Her face was like Ellen's, and it carried me back to
other days, until I wept like a little child over my past folly. From
that sick bed, I arose a different man, and then for years I watched the
Northern papers to see if they contained anything like what we have just
read. But they did not, and I said I cannot go home yet. I sometimes saw
Mr. Graham's name, and knew that he was living, but whether you were
dead or alive I could not even guess. Here, in California, where I have
been for the last ten years, I have never met a single person from the
vicinity of Deerwood. At first I worked among the mines, amassing money
so fast as even to astonish myself. At length, weary of the labor, I
left the mines and came to the city, where I am known as Captain
Murdock, the title having been first given to me in sport by some of my
mining friends. Latterly I have thought of going home, for it is so long
since the robbery, that I had no fears of being arrested, and I was
about making up my mind to do so, when chance threw you in my way, and
it now remains for you to say when we both shall start."
"At once,--at once," said Walter, who had listened intently to the
story, giving vent to an occasional exclamation of surprise. "We will go
in the very next steamer. I shall not have a chance to write, but it
will be just as well. I wish to see if grandpa or Mr. Graham will
recognize you."
Mr. Marshall had no objections to testing the recollections of his
father, and he readily consented to go, saying to his friends that as
New England was his birthplace he intended accompanying his young friend
home.
"I can write the truth back to them," he thought, "and save myself much
annoyance."
Thus it was arranged, and the next steamer for New York which left the
harbor of San Francisco, bore on its deck the father and his son, both
eager and expectant and anxious to be at the end of the voyage.