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.
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