"Wall, I"ll be condumbed, if that don"t beat all!" Peterkin exclaimed.
"Can"t be sent to prison! I swow! There ain"t no law or justice for n.o.body but _me_, and I must be kicked to the wall! I"ll give up, and won"t try to be n.o.body, I vurm!" And as he talked he walked away to ruminate upon the injustice of the law which could not touch Harold Hastings, but could throw its broad arms tightly around himself.
Meanwhile the Judge had ordered a carriage and taken Harold with him to his private room in the hotel, where the hardest part for Hal was yet to come.
"Now, my boy," the judge said, after he had made Harold lie down upon the couch and had locked the door, "now, tell me all about it. How came you by the diamond?"
It was such a pitiful, pleading, agonized face which lifted itself from the cushion and looked at Judge St. Claire, as Harold began:
"I cannot tell you now--I must not? but by and by perhaps I can. They were handed to me to keep by some one, just for a little while. I cannot tell you who it was. I think I would die sooner than do it. Certainly I would rather go to prison, as Peterkin wishes me to."
There was a thoughtful, perplexed look on the judge"s face as he said:
"This is very strange, Harold, that you cannot tell who gave them to you, and with some people will be construed against you."
"Yes, I know it; but I would rather bear it than have that person"s name brought in question," was Harold"s reply.
"Do you think that person took them?" the judge asked.
"No, a thousand times, no!" and Harold leaped to his feet and began to pace the floor hurriedly. "They never took them, never; I"d swear to that with my life. Don"t talk any more about it, please; I can"t bear it. I have gone through so much to-day, and last night I never slept a wink. Oh, I am so tired!" and with a groan he threw himself again upon the couch, and, closing his eyes, dropped almost instantly into a heavy slumber, from which the judge did not rouse him until after dinner, when he ordered some refreshments sent to his room, and himself awoke the young man, whose face looked pinched, and white, and haggard, and who could only swallow a cup of coffee and a part of a biscuit.
"I am so tired," he kept repeating; "but I shall be better in the morning;" and long before the night train had come he was in bed sleeping off the effects of the day"s excitement.
The next morning when he went down to the office he was surprised and bewildered at the crowd which gathered around him--the friends who had came on the train to stand by and defend him, if necessary; and as the home faces he had known all his life looked kindly into his, and the familiar voices of his boyhood told him of sympathy for and faith in him, while hand after hand took his in a friendly clasp, that of d.i.c.k St. Claire clinging to his with a grasp which said plainer than words could have done: "I believe in you, Hal, and am so sorry for you," the tension of his nerves gave way entirely, and, sinking down in their midst, he cried like a child when freed from some terrible danger.
He had not thought before that he cared for himself what people said, but he knew now that he did, and this a.s.surance of confidence from his friends unnerved him for a time; then, dashing away his tears and lifting up his face, on which his old winning smile was breaking, he said:
"Excuse me for this weakness; only girls should cry, but I have borne so much, and your coming was such a surprise. Thank you all. I cannot say what I feel. I should cry again if I did."
"Never mind, old boy," d.i.c.k"s cheery voice called out. "We know what you would say. We came to help you, just a few of us; but if anything had really happened to you, why, all Shannondale would have turned out to the rescue."
"Thank you, d.i.c.k," Harold said, the tears starting again; then, as his eye fell for the first time upon Tom, he exclaimed, with a glad ring in his voice, "and you, too, Tom!"
"Yes, I thought I"d come with the crowd and see the fun," Tom answered, indifferently, as he walked away by himself.
Tom had said very little, on the train, or after they had reached the hotel, but no one had listened with more eagerness to every detail of the matter than he had done, and all that morning he was busy gathering up every item of information, and listening to the guesses as to who the person could be who gave the diamonds to Harold.
The jewels had been identified by his father and by himself, although an identification was scarcely necessary as Harold had distinctly said:
"They are the Tracy diamonds, and the person who gave them, to me said so."
But who was the person? That was the question puzzling the heads of all the Shannondale people as the morning wore on, and each went where he liked. At last, toward noon, Tom found himself near Harold in front of the court-house, and going up to him, said:
"Hal, I wan"t to talk to you a little while."
"Yes," Hal said, a.s.sentingly, and selecting out a retired corner, Tom began:
"Hal, I"ve never shown any great liking for you, and I don"t s"pose I have any, but I don"t like to see a man kicked for nothing, and so I came over with the rest."
"Thank you, Tom," Harold replied, "I don"t think you ever did like me, and I don"t think I cared if you didn"t, but I"m glad you came. Is that all you wished to say to me?"
"So," Tom answered. "Jerrie is very sick--"
"Jerrie! Jerrie sick! Oh, Tom!"
It was a cry of almost despair as Harold thought, "What if she should die and the people never know."
"She had an awful headache when you left her in the lane, and I walked home with her, and the next morning she was raving mad--kind of a brain fever, I guess."
Harold was stupefied, but he managed to ask:
"Does she talk much? What does she say?"
There was alarm in his voice, which the sagacious Tom detected at once, and, strengthened in his suspicion, he replied:
"Nothing about the diamonds, and the Lord knows I hope she won"t."
"What do you mean!" Harold asked, in a frightened tone.
"Don"t you worry," Tom replied. "I wouldn"t harm Jerrie any more than you would, but--Well, Hal, you are a trump! Yes, you are, to hold your tongue and let some think you are the culprit. Hal, Jerrie gave you the diamonds. I saw her do it in the lane as I came up to you. I did not think of it at the time, but afterward it came to me that you took something from her and slipped it into your pocket, and that you both looked scared when you saw me. Jerrie was abstracted and queer all the way to the house, and had a bruise on her head, and she keeps talking of the Tramp House and Peterkin, who, she says, dealt the blow. I went to the Tramp House, and found the old table on the floor, with three of the legs on it; the fourth I couldn"t find. I thought at first that the old wretch had quarreled with her about you on account of the suit, and she had squared up to him, and he had struck her; but now I believe _he_ had the diamonds, and she got them from him in some way, and he struck her with the missing table-leg. If you say so, I"ll have him arrested."
Tom had told his story rapidly, while Harold listened breathlessly, until he suggested the arrest of Peterkin, when he exclaimed:
"No, no, Tom. No; don"t you see that would mix Jerrie"s name up with the diamonds, and that must not be. She must not be mentioned in connection with them until she speaks for herself; and, besides, I do not believe it was Peterkin who took them. It might have been your Uncle Arthur."
"Uncle Arthur?" Tom said, indignantly. "Why, he gave them to mother."
"I know he did," Harold continued; "but in a crazy fit he might have taken them away and secreted them and then forgotten it, and Jerrie might have known it, and not been able to find them till now. Many things go to prove that;" and very briefly Harold repeated some incidents connected with Jerrie"s illness when she was a child.
"That looks like it, certainly," Tom said; "but I am awfully loth to give up arresting the brute, and believe I shall do it yet for a.s.sault and battery. He certainly struck her. You will see for yourself the lump on her head."
So saying Tom arose to go away, but before he went made a remark quite characteristic of him and his feeling for Harold, to whom he said, with a laugh:
"Don"t for thunder"s sake, think us a kind of a Damon and Pythias twins, because I"ve joined hands with you against Peterkin and for Jerrie.
Herod and Pilate, you know, became friends, but I guess at heart they were Pilate and Herod still."
"No danger of my presuming at all upon your friendship for myself, though I thank you for your interest in Jerrie," Harold replied.
Then the two separated, Tom going his way and Harold his, until it was time for the afternoon train which was to take them home.
The suit had gone against Peterkin, and it was in a towering rage that he stood in the long depot, denouncing everybody, and swearing he would sell out Lubbertoo and every dumbed thing he owned in Shannondale and take his money away, "and then see how they"d git along without his capital to boost "em." At Harold he would not even look, for his testimony had been the most damaging of all, and he frowned savagely when on entering the car he saw his son in the same seat with him, talking in low, earnest tones, while Harold was evidently listening to him with interest. Small as he was and mean in personal appearance, there was more of true manhood in Billy"s finger than in his father"s whole body. The suit had been a pain and trouble to Billy, from beginning to end, for he knew his father was in the wrong, and he bore no malice toward Harold for his part in it, and when the diamonds came up, and his father was clamoring for a writ, he was the first to declare Harold"s innocence and to say he would go his bail. Now, there was in his mind another plan by which to benefit his friend, and rival, too--for Billy knew he was that; and the heart of the little man ached with a bitter pain and sense of loss whenever he thought of Jerrie, and lived over again the scene under the b.u.t.ternut tree by the river, when her blue eyes had smiled so kindly upon him and her hands had touched his, even while she was breaking his heart. When Billy reached his majority his father had given him $100,000, and thus he had business of his own to transact, and a part of this was just now centered in Washington Territory, where, in Tacoma, on Puget Sound, he owned real estate and had dealings with several parties. To attend to this an agent was needed for a while, and he said to himself;
"I"ll offer it to Hal, with such a salary that he cannot refuse it; that will get him out of the way until this thing blows over."
Billy knew perfectly well that although everybody said Harold was innocent and that nine-tenths believed it, there would still be a few in Shannondale--the sc.u.m whose opinions his father"s money controlled--who, without exactly saying they doubted him, would make it unpleasant for him in many ways; and from this he would save him by sending him to Tacoma at once, and thus getting him out of the way of any unpleasantness which might arise from his father"s persecutions or those of his clan. It was this which he was proposing to Harold, who at once thought favorably of it--not because he wished to escape from the public, he said, but because of the pay offered, and which seemed to him far more than his services would be worth.
"You are a n.o.ble fellow, Billy," he said. "I"ll think of the plan, and let you know after I"ve seen Jerrie and Judge St. Claire."
"A-all ri-right; he"ll a-advise you to go," Billy said, as they arose to leave the car, followed by Peterkin, who had been engaged in a fierce altercation with Tom, who had accused him of having struck Jerrie, and threatened to have him arrested for a.s.sault and battery the moment they reached Shannondale.