A very few words more, reader, and my story is done.
The trial of Medlock and Shanklin took place in due time, and among the
witnesses the most important, but the most reluctant, was Reginald
Cruden. It was like a hateful return to the old life to find himself
face to face with those men, and to have to tell over again the story of
their knavery and his own folly. But he went through with it like a
man.
The prisoners, who were far more at their ease than the witness,
troubled him with no awkward cross-examination, and when presently the
jury retired, he retired too, having neither the curiosity nor the
vindictiveness to remain and hear their sentence.
On his way out a familiar voice accosted him.
"Cruden, old man, will you shake hands? I've been a cad to you, but I'm
sorry for it now."
It was Blandford, looking weak and pale, with one arm still in a sling.
Reginald took his proffered hand eagerly and wrung it.
"I've been bitten over this affair, as you know," continued Blandford,
"and I've paid up for my folly. I wish I could come out of it all with
as easy a conscience as you do, that's all! Among them all I've lost a
good deal more than money; but if you and Horrors will take me back in
your set there'll be a chance for me yet. I'm going to University
College, you know, so I shall be staying in town. Harker and I will
probably be lodging together, and it won't be my fault if it's far away
from your quarters."
And arm in arm the old schoolfellows walked, with their backs on the
dark past and their faces turned hopefully to the future.
Had Reginald remained to hear the end of the trial, he would have found
himself the object of a demonstration he little counted on.
The jury having returned with their expected verdict, and sentence
having been passed on the prisoners, the counsel for the prosecution got
up and asked his lordship for leave to make one observation. He spoke
in the name of the various victims of the sham Corporation when he
stated that his clients desired to express their conviction that the
former secretary of the Corporation, whose evidence that day had mainly
contributed to the exposure of the fraud, was himself entirely clear of
any imputation in connection with the conspiracy.
"I should not mention this, my lord," said the counsel, "had not a
certain magistrate, in another place, at an earlier stage of this
inquiry, used language--in my humble opinion harsh and unwarranted--
calculated to cast a slur on that gentleman's character, if not to
interfere seriously with his future prospects. I merely wish to say, my
lord, that my clients, and those of us who have gone fully into the
case, and may be expected to know as much about it even as a north-
country magistrate, are fully convinced that Mr Cruden comes out of
this case with an unsullied character, and we feel it our duty publicly
to state our opinion to that effect."
The counsel sat down amid signs of approval from the Court, not unmixed
with amusement at the expense of the north-country magistrate, and the
judge, calling for order, replied, "I make no objection whatever to the
statement which has just fallen from the lips of the learned counsel,
and as it commends itself entirely to my own judgment in the matter, I
am glad to inform Mr Cruden, if he be still in court, that he will quit
it to-day clear of the slightest imputation on his character unbecoming
an upright but unfortunate gentleman."
Reginald was not in court, but he read every word of it next day with
grateful and overflowing heart.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three months have passed. The winter has given way to spring, and
Number 3, Dull Street is empty. Jemima Shuckleford still nurses her
sorrow in secret, and it will be a year or two yet before the happy man
is to turn up who shall reconcile her to life, and disestablish the
image of Reginald Cruden from her soft heart. Meanwhile she and her
mother are constant visitors at the little house in Highbury where the
Crudens now live, and as often as they go they find a welcome. Samuel
writes home from the country that he is doing great things, and expects
to become Lord Chancellor in a few years. Meanwhile he too contemplates
matrimony with a widow and four children, who will probably leave him
among them very little leisure for another experiment in the amateur
detective business.
The Shuckleford ladies were invited, but unfortunately were unable to
go, to a little quiet house-warming given by the Crudens on the occasion
of their taking possession of the new house.
But though they could not go, Miss Crisp could, and, as a matter of
course, Mr Booms, in all the magnificence of last year's spring
costume. And Waterford came too, and young Gedge, as did also the
faithful Harker, and--with some little trepidation--the now sobered
Blandford.
The company had quite enough to talk about without having to fall back
on shouting proverbs or musical chairs. Indeed, there were several
little excitements in the wind which came out one by one, and made the
evening a sort of epoch in the lives of most of those present.
For instance, young Gedge was there no longer as a common compositor.
He had lately been made, youth as he was, overseer in the room of Durfy;
and the dignity of his new office filled him with sobriety and good-
humour.
"It's no fault of mine," said he, when Mrs Cruden congratulated him on
his promotion. "If Cruden hadn't stood by me that time he first came to
the _Rocket_, I should have gone clean to the dogs. I mean it. I was
going full tilt that way."
"But I went off and left you after all," said Reginald.
"I know you did; and I was sorry at the time you hadn't left that cab-
horse to finish his business the evening you picked me up. But Horace
here and Mrs Cruden--"
"Picked you up again," said Waterford. "Regular fellow for being picked
up, you are. All comes of your habit of picking up types. One of
nature's revenges--and the last to pick you up is the _Rocket_. What an
appetite she's got, to be sure!"
"I should think so from the way she swallows your and Horace's
lucubrations every week," says Gedge, laughing. "Why, I actually know a
fellow who knows a fellow who laughed at one of your jokes."
"Come, none of your chaff," said Horace, looking not at all displeased.
"You never laughed at a joke, I know, because you never see one."
"No more I do. That's what I complain of," replied the incorrigible
young overseer.
"Never mind, we shall have our revenge when he has to put our joint
novel in print," said Waterford. "Ah, I thought you'd sit up there, my
boy. Never mind, you'll know about it some day. The first chapter is
half done already."
"Jolly work that must be," says Harker. "More fun than higher
mathematics and Locke on the Understanding, eh, Bland?"
"Perhaps they would be glad to change places with us before they are
through with it, though," observes Blandford.
"Never knew such a beggar for grinding as Bland is turning out," says
Harker. "He takes the shine out of me; and I'm certain he'll knock me
into a cocked hat at the matric.."
"You forget I've lost time to make up," replies Blandford, gravely; "and
I'm not going to be content if I don't take honours."
"Don't knock yourself up, that's all," says Reginald, "especially now
cricket's beginning. We ought to turn out a good eleven with four old
Wilderhams to give it a backbone, eh?"
And at the signal the four chums somehow get together in a corner, and
the talk flies off to the old schooldays, and the battles and triumphs
of the famous Wilderham Close.
Meanwhile Booms and Miss Crisp whisper very confidentially together in
another corner. What they talk about no one can guess. It may be
collars, or it may be four-roomed cottages, or it may be only the
weather. Whatever it is, Booms's doleful face relaxes presently into a
solemn smile, and Miss Crisp goes over and sits by Mrs Cruden, who puts
her arm round the blushing girl and kisses her in a very motherly way on
the forehead. It is a curious piece of business altogether, and it is
just as well the four young men are too engrossed in football and
cricket to notice it, and that Gedge and Waterford find their whole
attention occupied by the contents of the little bookcase in the corner
to have eyes for anything else.
"Jolly lot of books you've got," says Waterford, when presently the
little groups break up and the big circle forms again. "I always think
they are such nice furniture in a room, don't you, Mrs Cruden?"
"Yes, I do," says Mrs Cruden; "especially when they are all old
friends."
"Some of these seem older friends than others," says Waterford, pointing
to a corner where several unbound tattered works break the ranks of
green-cloth gilt-lettered volumes. "Look at this weatherbeaten little
fellow, for instance, a bit of a _Pilgrim's Progress_. That must be a
very poor relation; surely you don't count him in?"
"Don't I," says Reginald, taking the book in his hands, and speaking in
a tone which makes every one look up at him. "This little book is worth
more to me than all the rest put together."
And as he bends his head over the precious little relic, and turns its
well-thumbed pages one by one, he forgets where he is, or who is looking
on. And a tear steals into his eyes as his mind flies far away to a
little green grave in the north country over which the soft breezes of
spring play lovingly, and seem to whisper in a voice he knows and loves
to remember--"Come there too, guv'nor."