The Papers Again.
Mr. Foster went home in a terrible rage. His clerks could not imagine what had happened. He looked pale, worried, anxious and miserable. "I should not think," he said to himself, "that such a thing ever happened in the world before." His clients thought him bad tempered; he had the air of a man with whom everything had gone wrong—out of sorts with all the world.
"The man is mad," he said to himself, with a shrug of his shoulders; "neither more nor less than mad to fling away his life and disgrace his name. It is useless to think it will never be known; those stupid papers are sure to get hold of it, and then there is little chance of secrecy."
He went about his work with a very unsettled, wretched expression on his shrewd face. Something or other had evidently disturbed him very much. While on his part John Smith, with the same light in his face and the same fire in his eyes, went off in the prison van.
He heard very little of what was going on around him. He seemed to be quite apart in some dreamland, some world of his own. When the coarse suit of prison clothes was brought to him, instead of the disgust the attendants expected to see, there came over his face a smile. To himself he said: "I could almost kiss them for her sweet sake."
"That man is no thief," said one of the warders. "I do not care if they did catch him with the watch in his hand, he is no thief! I know the stamp!"
How he passed that first day and night was best known to himself. The jailer who brought his breakfast the next morning said, "You look tired."
He smiled and said to himself, "I would have gone to death for her sweet sake! This will be easy to bear."
When that same morning dawned Mr. Forster was all impatience for his newspaper. Twice he rang the bell and asked if it had come, and when the servant brought it up he looked at it eagerly.
"Give it to me quickly," he said. Then he opened it, and was soon engrossed in the contents. Suddenly he flung it down, and almost stamped upon it in his rage.
"I knew it would be so! Now it will be blazoned all over England! What can have possessed him?"
The paragraph that excited his attention and anger ran as follows:
"We are informed on good authority that the John Smith tried yesterday on the charge of stealing a watch is no less a person than Basil Carruthers, Esquire, the owner of Ulverston Priory, and head of one of the oldest families in England."
"What can I do?" cried Mr. Forster; "it will break his mother's heart; she can never forget it. He is ruined for life. For a lawyer, I am strangely unwilling to tell a lie; but it must be done! He must be saved at any price!" He went to his desk and wrote the following note:
"To the Editor of 'The Times':
"Sir: I beg to call your attention to a paragraph that appears in 'The Times' of today stating that a man, tried under the name of John Smith for stealing a watch, is no less a person than Basil Carruthers, Esq., of Ulverston Priory. As the solicitor of that family, and manager of the Ulverston property, I beg to contradict it. Mr. Carruthers, himself, informed me of his intention to go abroad. Without doubt his indignant denial will follow mine. I am, sir, etc.,
"Herbert Forster."
"That may help him," he said. "I do not like doing it, but I cannot see my old friend's son perish without trying to save him. I may fail, but I must try. Perhaps my lie may be blotted out, like Uncle Toby's oath. If I can persuade him to send a denial, and date it Paris or Vienna, he will be saved."
Mr. Forster lost no time in applying for an order to see the prisoner. It was granted at once.
Basil Carruthers—we may use his right name now—looked up in surprise when Mr. Forster, with the paper in his hand, entered the cell.
"Back again?" he said.
"Yes; it is just as I expected; the papers have got hold of your name, and there is a grand expose."
Basil held out his hand and read the paragraph.
"It is enough to make your father rise up from his grave," said the lawyer; "I cannot understand what madness, what infatuation, has come over you, to drag such a proud name as yours through the dust."
"So it is known," said Basil, slowly. "Well, I cannot help it."
"I have done my best," said Mr. Forster. "I have never yet asked you if you stole the watch—the idea is too absurd."
"They are so far right that I was found in the room; nothing else matters."
"I can only imagine that the same folly which has brought you here will keep you here," said Mr. Forster. "The only thing to be done is to send a denial to the papers. If you will write one, I will go to Paris myself to post it."
Basil Carruthers laughed contemptuously.
"I shield myself behind a lie!" he said. "Never!"
"You are too late," replied Mr. Forster; "I have already written, and sent, a very indignant denial, saying you have gone abroad."
Basil's face grew pale, as it had not done during that trial; then an angry fire flashed from his eyes.
"And you have dared to do this?" he cried. "You have dared to publish a lie to screen a Carruthers?"
"I would have dared a great deal more to have saved you from public ignominy," said Mr. Forster.
"Do not apply that word to me!" said Basil, angrily.
"If I do not, every one else will. Your position is ignominious, Mr. Carruthers; the paltry crime you are charged with is the same; and the name that for centuries has been honored in England will be low in the dust, sir. I would rather have been dead than have seen such a day."
The handsome young face changed slightly; evidently these thoughts had not occurred to him; he seemed to seek solace from some inward source of comfort of which the lawyer knew nothing.
"I must bear it," he said, unflinchingly.
"There is but one thing you can do," said Mr. Forster; "only one means of escape—write a letter at once containing a most indignant denial of the identity. I will go myself purposely to Paris and post it there."
"My dear Forster," said the young man with a smile of languid contempt, "I would not ransom my life, even, with a lie!"
"In my opinion," said the lawyer, bluntly, "you have done worse in pleading guilty—you have acted a lie, at least."
"I know my own motive. I am the best judge of my own actions."
"Certainly," was the sarcastic reply. "I should not think any young man of your prospects was ever in such a position before."
"Perhaps, as I said before, no man ever had the same motive," and a look of heroism and high resolve came over his face which astonished the lawyer.
"In the name of your dead father," he said, "who held the honor of his house so dear, I pray of you to write that letter!"
"Not to save my head from the block!" he replied. "I am here, and I must bear all that follows. I had hoped to preserve my incognito. If I cannot, well, I must bear the shame."
"And your mother?" asked the lawyer.
"My poor mother! Perhaps, after all, you had better go down to Ulverston and tell her! She will begin to wonder where I am. Besides, the London house must be attended to."
"If I know Lady Carruthers rightly," said the lawyer, "she will never get over the blow."
"Tell her that I am here, and why, but tell her also that I refuse to give an explanation to any human being. Tell her the honor of the Carruthers seals my lips; try to comfort her if she seems distressed; do all she wishes you."
"How am I to comfort a mother whose eldest and only son has thrown all prudence to the wind; who has disgraced himself so far as to stand in a felon's dock; who has wantonly laid his life bare and waste—for what?"
A strange smile came over the young face.
"Ah! for what! I know; no one else does. There is a reward, and it satisfies me."
"If ever a Carruthers went mad," said Mr. Forster, angrily, "I should say you were mad now!"
Basil paid no heed to the remark.
"The only thing I can do," he said, "I will do. I will go to Vienna as soon as I leave here. I will not remain in London one-half hour."
"I fear your compliance will be too late then," he said. "I must leave you, if I go to Ulverston this evening. I have several matters that I must attend to. Will any persuasion of mine induce you to alter your mind?"
"No; though I thank you for your interest."
And the lawyer left the young man's cell with something like a moan upon his lips.