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.”
Byron Dinks having given his evidence, in the presence of an
ever-increasing crowd of spectators, the judge turned to Jack, winking
extraordinarily hard at him, and said, “The complaint against you, I
suppose you are aware, is of a very grave character. Is there any
statement you wish to make?”
Winked at by the weak-eyed judge, stared at by the group of idle
spectators, and frowned upon by the relentless Peternot, Jack, standing
at Sellick’s right hand beside the desk, clutched the table with his
nervous fingers, caught his breath quickly, and answered in a frank,
firm voice, “All I have to say is, that the money I took belongs to me
more than it does to him; and I believed I had a right to it. I found it
in an old rotten log; and he had robbed me of it before I took it from
him. I didn’t think it was housebreaking when I got into his window; the
window was open; it was broken accidentally when I was getting the money
out.”
“I’ll say here,” interposed Peternot, “what I’ve said to the boy before,
that if he will give up his booty and name his accomplices,—though I
know perty well who they be,—I’ll accept his apology, and withdraw my
complaint.”
“That’s a fair proposition,” said Judge Garty, “and both as a friend and
a magistrate I advise you to take up with it. You are young; there
appear to be really some extenuating circumstances in the case, and it
seems hard that you should be punished.”
“It is hard!” said Jack, his voice heaving, but not breaking. “I never
had a chance for myself till just a few weeks ago; and I meant to make
the most of it,—I meant to do right, and be honest and true; and now
this is what it comes to! But I can’t give up what he calls my booty.”
His eyes flashed out proudly and defiantly: there was something in his
look that said, “I can be wronged, I can be trampled on, but I won’t
give in to the tyrant!” “If the money is what he wants of me, he won’t
get it. I’ll go to jail, if I must.”
The magistrate winked, the spectators stared, and Peternot frowned,
harder than ever. After writing a few words, Judge Garty looked up again
and said, “I don’t see but what I shall have to bind you over.”
Jack, who had never heard the legal term before, turned to Sellick with
a bewildered look. “Bind me over? I haven’t been bound at all yet!”
There was a general titter at his expense; and Sellick laughingly
replied: “He means, you must give bonds; that is, get somebody to pledge
a certain sum of money that you won’t run away, but that you’ll appear
for trial when your case comes up before the county court.”
“I know!” said Jack, blushing. “That’s what you call bailing a fellow.”
“Exac’ly! Now if you can git bail, you’ll be let off till you’re wanted
for trial. But if you can’t, you must stand committed,—that is, go to
jail and wait there till you’re wanted.”
Judge Garty conferred in low tones with Squire Peternot,—whom Jack
overheard to mutter, “Hardened little wretch! desperate character!” and
then announced that he had fixed the amount of the required bonds at
five hundred dollars.
“Do you know anybody who will be security for you?” he asked, winking at
the prisoner.
Jack thought of Mr. Chatford,—but Mr. Chatford had lost faith in him,
and could not be expected now to show him any favors. So he answered,
faintly, “No, sir.” And the judge resumed his writing.
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