THE SQUIRE’S TRIUMPH.
THEY found Judge Garty in his office; and soon after the deacon and
Squire Peternot arrived. Once more Jack, but now with a lighter heart
than before, stood before the weak-eyed, hard-winking magistrate, who
supposed that the prisoner, having been retaken, was now to be admitted
to bail.
“Not exac’ly that,” said Peternot, while Jack listened with a trembling
interest. “New sarcumstances have come to light, havin’ a bearin’ on the
case. I’ve an understandin’ with the boy; I’m satisfied he didn’t intend
burglary; it turns out to be re’ly a trivial offence; so I’ve ventur’d
to bring the officer back with him, and I want you to recall your
_mittimus_, assume jurisdiction in the case, and discharge the
prisoner.”
“That’ll suit him, I’ve no doubt,” said Judge Garty, winking placidly at
Jack about forty times.
“It’ll suit me to be discharged,” replied Jack, with a smile, “though I
can’t say I understand his talk about it.”
“A justice of the peace can’t decide in anything so serious as a
burglary case,” said the deacon. “But since the complainant is convinced
that it wasn’t intentional housebreaking, it is different. The justice
can assume jurisdiction, that is, take the case in hand, and decide it.”
“’T will be a little irregular,” remarked Judge Garty, rubbing the top
of his bald head with the feather end of his quill pen, and winking
wonderfully fast. “Moreover, there’s the costs. I suppose the
complainant will in this case pay the costs?”
“Sartin, sartin,” said the squire, thinking he would thus discharge all
obligations to the boy he had persecuted.
Judge Garty accordingly went through the formality of putting Peternot
under oath again, hearing the case, and pronouncing the prisoner
discharged, all in about three minutes’ time. Then Peternot, with a
grimace and a twinge, pulled out his pocket-book, and paid the following
bill:—
Costs of court $2.35
Mittimus, and binding over witnesses .50
Witnesses’ fees and travel (2 miles each, 5 cts. a mile) 1.20
Sheriff’s fee 2.50
Lock broken by sheriff after prisoner had locked up the .25
court, and it became necessary for the court to get out
Window broken by ladder .37
_____
Total $7.17
As Peternot and his nephew were the witnesses, the squire’s actual
expenditures in the case amounted to five dollars and ninety-seven
cents.
“Now!” said he, eager to be consoled for what had caused him such a
pang, “for _your_ part of the agreement, deacon!”
“Well, come with me,” said Mr. Chatford, with a peculiar smile. “The
_treasure_ ain’t far off.”
And, leading the way down the office stairs, to his buggy standing at
the foot of them, he pulled up the seat, lifted a horse-blanket, and
pulled from beneath it the squire’s meal-bag and its heavy freight of
coin. Peternot grasped it eagerly.
“I must say, deacon, you’ve played this perty well! I’d no idee you had
it with ye! I ’most wish you hadn’t made it quite so public, though,”
for the usual village crowd had assembled. “I’m afraid—I—I ruther think
I’ll take it over to the store and have it locked up in the safe.”
“You haven’t settled with the boy; what ye going to give the boy?” cried
Sellick, comfortably patting his fee in his trousers-pocket.
“The boy!” echoed Peternot, a frown of displeasure clouding the sunshine
which played for a moment over the barren and rocky waste of his
features. “Arter all the trouble and expense he’s put me to? I said I’d
be liberal, and I have been liberal. I’ve paid the costs of court, and
got him off; for which he may thank his stars, and think himself lucky.
I won’t be hard, though.” The squire put his hand into the bag, as if
about to present Jack one of the rusty half-dollars; but changed his
mind, and thrusting his hand into his pocket, took out a silver quarter.
“Here! take that! I’ve nothin’ else to give ye.”
Jack laughed, took the coin, and immediately presented it to a shabby
little old man in the crowd, who received it with quaint surprise.
“You are Mr. Canning, I believe,” said Jack.
“That’s my name, that’s my name. But what’s this for? What’s this?”
“I had to borrow a hat from your scarecrow, and take a few ears of your
corn to roast, yesterday,” said Jack. “I’ve returned the hat, and this
is to settle for the corn. I’m going to begin life new, and I want to
begin right with everybody.”
“That’s right, that’s right! You’re welcome to the corn, though; welcome
to a few ears of corn, to be sure! to be sure!” cried the shabby old
man, pocketing the money, however, and walking off with it, looking, in
his old-fashioned, long-tailed, tattered coat, like one of his own
scarecrows out taking a little exercise.
“Come, Jack, where are you going?” cried the deacon.
“Back into the office, to find the hat I left there when I ran away.”
“I carried that home. Now let’s be going. There’ll be an outburst in a
minute,” said the deacon, casting an anxious glance after Peternot, who
was carrying his bag of coin into the jeweller’s shop.
“Jack is going home with me; me and him’s struck a bargain,” said
Sellick.
“Fie, fie! nonsense!” said the deacon. “We can’t spare Jack; he’s going
with _me_.”
“I’ll ride with you. I’d like to talk with you a little, and go home and
say good by—and—and get my dog,” faltered Jack; “but you know—”
“Yes, yes! that misunderstanding between you and Phineas. O, never mind
about that!”
“I must!” said Jack. “He is your son, and of course you don’t want—”
“I want what’s right, son or no son. Come along!” And the good deacon
half lifted Jack into the buggy. “There’s Peternot now!”
It was Peternot, indeed, rushing out of the jeweller’s shop with wrath
in his countenance and several spurious half-dollars in his hand.
“Wait! wait!” he shouted, advancing towards the buggy as fast as his
limp would allow. “Deacon! how’s this? You’ve desaived, you’ve ruined
me!”
“Deceived! ruined you! how so?” asked the deacon, calmly.
“He says you brought him a half-dollar to test, but not one of these!”
cried the excited squire.
“Yes, yes; a blunder of mine; I was telling you how dreadful
absent-minded I am, you remember.”
“These are counterfeit!”
“Are they, indeed? Well, I’m not surprised.”
“But you never told me!”
“No, squire; I’d done so much mischief by telling that the coin was
genuine, I thought I’d hold my tongue, after I found out what a mistake
I’d made. But I don’t see that you are ruined. You’ve given yourself
some trouble and expense, in order to get the treasure into your hands,
that’s all. You’ve done one good thing, though, in getting this boy off,
and we appreciate it.”
[Illustration: THE SQUIRE’S TRIUMPH.]
“I’ll have him up agin!” said the squire, furiously.
“O no, neighbor! I hardly think you will. No ‘new circumstances’ have
come to light in his case since you swore to your last statement; and
for you to complain of him again would plainly be a case of malicious
prosecution. He ain’t to blame for my blunder. _I_ deceived _him_ with
regard to the coin; he hasn’t deceived anybody. Didn’t know but what it
was good till this minute; did you, Jack?”
“Yes,” said Jack, with a grin. “Aunt Patsy told me last night it was
some of Sam Williams’s bogus. But I thought it just as well not to say
anything about it. I wanted to see how liberal he was!”
The deacon smiled, the spectators laughed, and Peternot, turning angrily
on his heel, stalked back to the jeweller’s shop, where he had left his
bag of “treasure.”
“Well, now we’ll go home,” said the deacon, touching up old Maje.
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