SQUIRE WRIGGS AT WOODVILLE.
Bertha was deeply pained at the reckless wrong which her _protege_ had
done, and more deeply by the cool indifference with which he carried
himself after his voluntary confession. There was little to hope for
while he manifested not a single sign of contrition for the crime
committed. He was truly sorry for the grief he had caused her; but for
his own sin he did not speak a word of regret.
"I suppose I am to be a tinker now," said Noddy to her, with a smile,
which looked absolutely awful to Bertha, for it was a token of depravity
she could not bear to look upon.
"I must leave you now, Noddy, for you are not good," replied Bertha,
sadly.
"I am sorry you feel so bad about me, Miss Bertha," added Noddy.
"I wish you would be sorry for yourself, instead of me."
"I am--sorry that you want to make a tinker of me;" and Noddy used this
word to express his contempt of any mechanical occupation.
He did not like to work. Patient, plodding labor, devoid of excitement,
was his aversion; though handling a boat, cleaning out a gutter on some
dizzy height of the mansion, or cutting off a limb at the highest point
of the tallest shade tree on the estate, was entirely to his taste, and
he did not regard anything as work which had a spice of danger or a
thrill of excitement about it. He was not lazy, in the broad sense of
the word; there was not a more active and restless person on the estate
than himself. A shop, therefore, was a horror which he had no words to
describe, and which he could never endure.
"I want to see you in some useful occupation, where you can earn your
living, and become a respectable man," said Bertha. "Don't you want to
be a respectable man, Noddy?"
"Well, I suppose I do; but I had rather be a vagabond than a respectable
tinker."
"You must work, Noddy, if you would win a good name, and enough of this
world's goods to make you comfortable. Work and win; I give you this
motto for your guidance. My father told me to lock you up in your room."
"You may do that, Miss Bertha," laughed Noddy. "I don't care how much
you lock me in. When I want to go out, I shall go. I shall work, and win
my freedom."
Noddy thought this application of Bertha's motto was funny, and he had
the hardihood to laugh at it, till Bertha, hopeless of making any
impression on him at the present time, left the room, and locked the
door behind her.
"Work and win!" said Noddy. "That's very pretty, and for Miss Bertha's
sake I shall remember it; but I shan't work in any tinker's shop. I may
as well take myself off, and go to work in my own way."
Noddy was tired, after the exertions of the day; and so deeply and truly
repentant was he for the wrong he had done, that he immediately went to
sleep, though it was not yet dark. Neither the present nor the future
seemed to give him any trouble; and if he could avoid the miseries of
the tinker's shop, as he was perfectly confident he could, he did not
concern himself about any of the prizes of life which are gained by
honest industry or patient well doing.
When it was quite dark, and Noddy had slept about two hours, the
springing of the bolt in the lock of his door awoke him. He leaped to
his feet, and his first thought was, that something was to be done with
him for burning the boat-house. But the door opened, and, by the dim
light which came through the window, he recognized the slight form of
Fanny Grant.
"Noddy," said she, timidly.
"Well, Miss Fanny, have you come to let me out of jail?"
"No; I came to see you, and nobody knows I am here. You won't expose
me--will you?"
"Of course I won't; that isn't much like me."
"I know it isn't, Noddy. What did you say that you set the fire for?"
"Because I thought that was the best way to settle the whole thing. Ben
saw you come out of the boat-house, and told your father he believed you
set the building on fire. That was the meanest thing the old man ever
did. Why didn't he lay it to me, as he ought to have done?"
"I suppose he knew you didn't do it."
"That don't make any difference. He ought to have known better than tell
your father it was you."
"I am so sorry for what you have done!"
"What are you sorry for? It won't hurt me, any how; and it would be an
awful thing for you. They were going to make a tinker of me before, and
I suppose they will do it now--if they can. I wouldn't care a fig for it
if Miss Bertha didn't feel so bad about it."
"I will tell her the truth."
"Don't you do it, Miss Fanny. That wouldn't help me a bit, and will
spoil you."
"But I must tell the truth. They don't suspect me even of going on the
water."
"So much the better. They won't ask you any hard questions. Now, Miss
Fanny, don't you say a word; for if you do, it will make it all the
worse for me."
"Why so, Noddy?"
"Because, according to my notion, I did set the building afire. If I
hadn't said what I did, you never would have thought of doing it. So I
was the fellow that did it, after all. That's the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth."
"But you didn't set it afire, and you didn't mean to do any such thing."
"That may be; but you wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been for me. It
was more my fault than it was yours; and I want you to leave the thing
just where it is now."
"But it would be mean for me to stand still, and see you bear all the
blame."
"It would be enough sight meaner for you to say anything about it."
"I don't think so."
"I do; for don't you see it is a good deal worse for me to put you up to
such a thing than it was for me to do it myself? Your father would
forgive me for setting the fire sooner than they would for making you do
it. I'm bad enough already, and they know it; but if they think I make
you as bad as I am myself, they would put me in a worse place than a
tinker's shop."
Noddy's argument was too much for the feminine mind of Miss Fanny, and
again she abandoned the purpose she had fully resolved upon, and decided
not to confess her guilt. We must do her the justice to say, that she
came to this conclusion, not from any fear of personal consequences, but
in order to save Noddy from the terrible reproach which would be cast
upon him if she did confess. Already, in her heart and before God, she
had acknowledged her error, and was sorrowfully repenting her
misconduct. But she could not expose Noddy to any penalty which he did
not deserve. She knew that he did not mean to set the fire; that his
words were idle, petulant ones, which had no real meaning; and it would
be wrong to let her father and Bertha suppose that Noddy had instigated
her to the criminal act.
Fanny had not yet learned that it is best to cleave unto the truth, and
let the consequences take care of themselves.
She yielded her own convictions to those of another, which no person
should ever do in questions of right and wrong.
She sacrificed her own faith in the simple truth, to another's faith in
policy, expediency.
The question was settled for the present, and Fanny crept back to her
chamber, no easier in mind, no better satisfied with herself, than
before. Noddy went to sleep again; but the only cloud he saw was the
displeasure of Bertha. He was simply conscious that he had got into a
scrape. He had not burned the boat-house, and he did not feel guilty.
He had not intended to induce Fanny to do the deed, and he did not feel
guilty of that. He was so generous that he wished to save her from the
consequences of her error, and the deception he used did not weigh very
heavily on his conscience.
He regarded his situation as merely a "scrape" into which he had
accidentally fallen, and his only business was to get out of it. These
thoughts filled his mind when he awoke in the morning. He was too
restless to remain a quiet prisoner for any great length of time; and
when he had dressed himself, he began to look about him for the means of
mitigating his imprisonment, or bringing it to a conclusion, as the case
might require. The window would be available at night, but it was in
full view of the gardeners in the daytime, who would be likely to report
any movement on his part. The door looked more hopeful.
One of the men brought his breakfast, and retired, locking the door
behind him. While he was eating it,--and his appetite did not seem to be
at all impaired by the situation to which he had been reduced,--he saw
Mr. Grant on the lawn, talking with a stranger. His interest was at once
excited, and a closer examination assured him that the visitor was
Squire Wriggs, of Whitestone. The discovery almost spoiled Noddy's
appetite, for he knew that the squire was a lawyer, and had often been
mixed up with cases of house-breaking, horse-stealing, robbery, and
murder; and he at once concluded that the legal gentleman's business
related to him.
His ideas of lawyers were rather confused and indistinct. He knew they
had a great deal to do in the court-house, when men were sent to the
penitentiary and the house of correction for various crimes. He watched
the squire and Mr. Grant, and he was fully satisfied in his own mind
what they were talking about when the latter pointed to the window of
his chamber. He had eaten only half his breakfast, but he found it
impossible to take another mouthful, after he realized that he was the
subject of the conversation between Mr. Grant and the lawyer.
It seemed just as though all his friends, even Miss Bertha, had suddenly
deserted him. That conference on the lawn was simply a plot to take him
to the court-house, and then send him to the penitentiary, the house of
correction, or some other abominable place, even if it were no worse
than a tinker's shop. He was absolutely terrified at the prospect.
After all his high hopes, and all his confidence in his supple limbs,
the judges, the lawyers, and the constables might fetter his muscles so
that he could not get away--so that he could not even run away to sea,
which was his ultimate intention, whenever he could make up his mind to
leave Miss Bertha.
Noddy watched the two gentlemen on the lawn, and his breast was filled
with a storm of emotions. He pictured the horrors of the prison to which
they were about to send him, and his fancy made the prospect far worse
than the reality could possibly have been. Mr. Grant led the way towards
the building occupied by the servants. Noddy was desperate. Squire
Wriggs was the visible manifestation of jails, courts, constables, and
other abominations, which were the sum of all that was terrible. He
decided at once not to wait for a visit from the awful personage, who
was evidently coming into the house to see him.
He raised the window a little, intending to throw it wide open, and leap
down upon the lawn, when his persecutor entered the door. There was not
a man or boy at Woodville who could catch him when he had the use of
his legs, and the world would then be open to him. But the gentlemen
paused at the door, and Noddy listened as a criminal would wait to hear
his sentence from the stern judge.
"Thirty thousand dollars is a great deal of money for a boy like him,"
said Mr. Grant. "Of course he must have a guardian."
"And you are the best person in the world for that position," added
Squire Wriggs.
"But he is a young reprobate, and something must be done with him."
"Certainly; he must be taken care of at once."
"I'm afraid he will burn my house down, as he did the boat-house. My
daughter is interested in him; if it wasn't for her, I would send him to
the house of correction before I slept again."
"When you are his guardian, you can do what you think best for him."
"That will be no easy matter."
"We will take the boy over to the court now, and then--"
Noddy did not hear any more, for the two gentlemen entered the house,
and he heard their step on the stairs. But he did not want to know
anything more. Squire Wriggs had distinctly said they would take him
over to the court, and that was enough to satisfy him that his worst
fears were to be realized. The talk about thirty thousand dollars, and
the guardian, was as unintelligible to him as though it had been in
ancient Greek, and he did not bestow a second thought upon it. The "boy
like him," to whom thirty thousand dollars would be a great deal of
money, meant some other person than himself. The court was Noddy's
peculiar abomination; and when he heard the words, he clutched the sash
of the window with convulsive energy.
Mr. Grant and Squire Wriggs passed into the house, and Noddy Newman
passed out. To a gymnast of his wiry experience, the feat was not
impossible, or even very difficult. Swinging out of the window, he
placed his feet on the window-cap below, and then, stooping down, he got
hold with his hands, and slipped down from his perch with about the same
ease with which a well-trained monkey would have accomplished the
descent.
He was on the solid earth now, and with the feeling that the court-house
and a whole regiment of constables were behind him, he took to his
heels. A stiff-kneed gardener, who had observed his exit from the
house, attempted to follow him; but he might as well have chased a
northwest gale. Noddy reached the Glen, and no sound of pursuers could
be heard. The phantom court-house had been beaten in the race.