"I speak the truth. I did not set it afire, or even know that it was going to be set on fire."
Mr. Nason closed the door which he had opened to depart. The firm denial, as well as the tone and manner of the boy, arrested his judgment against him. He had learned to place implicit confidence in Harry"s word; for, though he might have told lies to others, he never told them to him.
"Who did burn the barn?" asked the keeper, looking sternly into the eye of the culprit.
Harry hesitated. A sense of honor and magnanimity pervaded his soul.
He had obtained some false notions; and he did not understand that he could hardly be false to one who had been false to himself--that to help a criminal conceal his crime was to conspire against the peace and happiness of his fellow-beings. Shabbily as Ben Smart had used him, he could not make up his mind to betray him.
"You don"t answer," added Mr. Nason.
"I didn"t do it."
"But who did?"
"I don"t like to tell."
"Very well; you can do as you like. After what I had done for you, it was a little strange that you should do as you have."
"I will tell you all about it, Mr. Nason, if you will promise not to tell."
"I know all about it. You and Ben Smart put your heads together to be revenged on the squire; you set his barn afire, and then stole Leman"s boat."
"No, sir; I didn"t set the barn afire, nor steal the boat, nor help to do either."
"You and he were together."
"We were; and if it wasn"t for being mean to Ben, I would tell you all about it."
"Mean to Ben! As soon as it was known that you and Ben were missing, everybody in the village knew who set the barn afire. All you have got to do is to clear yourself, if you can; Ben is condemned already."
"If you will hear my story I will tell you all about it."
Harry proceeded to narrate everything that had occurred since he left the house on the preceding night. It was a very clear and plausible statement. He answered all the questions which Mr. Nason proposed with promptness, and his replies were consistent.
"I believe you, Harry," said the keeper, when he had finished his examination. "Somehow I couldn"t believe you would do such a thing as set the squire"s barn afire."
"I wouldn"t," replied Harry, warmly, and much pleased to find he had re-established the confidence of his friend.
"But it is a bad case. The fact of your being with Ben Smart is almost enough to convict you."
"I shouldn"t have been with him, if I had known he set the barn afire."
"I don"t know as I can do anything for you, Harry; but I will try."
"Thank you."
Mr. Nason left him, and Harry had an opportunity to consider the desperate circ.u.mstances of his position. It looked just as though he should be sent to the house of correction. But he was innocent. He felt his innocence; as he expressed it to the keeper afterwards, he "felt it in his bones." It did not, on further consideration, seem probable that he would be punished for doing what he had not done, either as princ.i.p.al or accessory. A vague idea of an all-pervading justice consoled him; and he soon reasoned himself into a firm a.s.surance that he should escape unharmed.
He was in the mood for reasoning just then--perhaps because he had nothing better to do, or perhaps because the added experience of the last twenty-four hours enabled him to reason better than before. His fine scheme of getting to Boston, and there making a rich and great man of himself, had signally failed. He did not give it up, however.
"I have failed once, but I will try again," said he to himself, as the conclusion of the whole matter; and he picked up an old school book which lay on the table.
The book contained a story, which he had often read, about a man who had met with a long list of misfortunes, as he deemed them when they occurred, but which proved to be blessings in disguise.
"Oft from apparent ills our blessings rise, Act well your part; there all the honor lies."
This couplet from the school books came to his aid, also; and he proceeded to make an application of this wisdom to his own mishaps.
"Suppose I had gone on with Ben. He is a miserable fellow," thought Harry; "he would have led me into all manner of wickedness. I ought not to have gone with him, or had anything to do with him. He might have made a thief and a robber of me. I know I ain"t any better than I should be; but I don"t believe I"m as bad as he is. At any rate, I wouldn"t set a barn afire. It is all for the best, just as the parson says when anybody dies. By this sc.r.a.pe I have got clear of Ben, and learned a lesson that I won"t forget in a hurry."
Harry was satisfied with this logic, and really believed that something which an older and more devout person would have regarded as a special providence had interposed to save him from a life of infamy and wickedness. It was a blessed experience, and his thoughts were very serious and earnest.
In the afternoon Squire Walker came down to the poorhouse to subject Harry to a preliminary examination. Ben Smart had not been taken, and the pursuers had abandoned the chase.
"Boy," said the squire, when Harry was brought before him; "look at me."
Harry looked at the overseer with all his might. He had got far enough to despise the haughty little great man. A taste of freedom had enlarged his ideas and developed his native independence, so that he did not quail, as the squire intended he should; on the contrary, his eyes snapped with the earnestness of his gaze. With an honest and just man, his unflinching eye would have been good evidence in his favor; but the pompous overseer wished to awe him, rather than get at the simple truth.
"You set my barn on fire," continued the squire.
"I did not," replied Harry, firmly.
"Yes, you did. How dare you deny it?"
"I did not."
He had often read, and heard read, that pa.s.sage of Scripture which says, "Let your communication be Yea, yea, Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." Just then he felt the truth of the inspired axiom. It seemed just as though any amount of violent protestations would not help him; and though the squire repeated the charge half a dozen times, he only replied with his firm and simple denial.
Then Squire Walker called his hired man, upon whose evidence he depended for the conviction of the little incendiary.
"Is that the boy, John?" asked the squire, pointing to Harry.
"No, sir; it was a bigger boy than that," replied John, without hesitation.
"Are you sure?"
"O, very sure."
"It must be that this is the boy," persisted the squire, evidently much disappointed by the testimony of the man.
"I am certain it was a bigger boy than this."
"I feel pretty clear about it, Mr. Nason," added the squire. "You see, this boy was mad, yesterday, because I wanted to send him to Jacob Wire"s. My barn is burned, and it stands to reason he burned it."
"But I saw the boy round the barn night afore last," interposed John, who was certainly better qualified to be a justice of the peace than his employer.
"I know that; but the barn wasn"t burned till last night."
"But Harry couldn"t have had any grudge against you night before last," said Mr. Nason.