JANET AT THE WINDOW.
"Tom, are you there? Did they give you any breakfast?" she faltered, startled and ready to cry at finding herself calling into a place so obscure and apparently so void.
"O Janet! is that you?" said Tom, putting his face to the grating. "You blessed little soul, you! But you must n't come to this dreadful place." And Tom tried to wipe his eyes with his sleeve.
"Yes, but I am sorry for you, Cousin Tom," she said, dropping to the ground again and turning her head on one side deprecatingly; "and I was afraid they wouldn't give you enough to eat. Here's three biscuits." She pulled them out of her pocket with difficulty and pushed them through the grating.
"Thank you, thank you," said Tom. "You are a dear loving little darling. But see here, Janet, you'd better not come here any more; and don't call me cousin. It's too bad you should have to be ashamed of your cousin."
"But I will call you cousin, an' I don' care what they say. Are you in there, too, Barbara? You didn't kill anybody, did you?"
"No; neither did Tom," said Barbara, leaning down to the window.
"Janet," said Tom, "d' you tell Uncle Tom and Aunt Charlotte that I didn't shoot anybody. They won't believe you, but it's a fact."
Janet had heard the news at the breakfast-table. Sheriff Plunkett, wishing to conciliate so influential a person as Thomas Grayson the elder, had sent him word very early of the unfortunate predicament in which Tom found himself, and had offered to comply with any wishes Mr. Grayson might express concerning his nephew, so far as the rigor of the law allowed. To steady-going people like the Graysons the arrest of Tom on such a charge was a severe blow; and his execution would compromise for all time their hitherto unsullied respectability in their little world. They drank their breakfast coffee and ate their warm biscuit and butter and fried ham and eggs with rueful faces. The comments they made on Tom's career were embittered by their own share of the penalty. Janet had listened till she had made out that Tom was in jail for killing somebody. Then, after hearing some rather severe remarks from her parents about Tom, she burst into tears, rose up and stamped her feet in passion, and stormed in her impotent, infantile way at her father and mother and the people who had locked up Tom in jail. When the first gust of her indignation had found vent, she fled into the garden to cool off, as was her wont. After awhile she came back and foraged in the kitchen, where she pounced upon three biscuits which had been left on a plate by the fire to keep them warm. With these she had made off through the back gate of the garden, thence down the alley and across the public square to the jail.
Meantime a lively discussion was carried on in the house.
"We've got to do something for Tom, I suppose," said Mrs. Grayson, after the question of his blameworthiness was exhausted. "He's your nephew, and we can't get around that. Goodness knows he's given us trouble enough, and expense enough, already." It was a favorite illusion with the Graysons that they had spent money on Tom, though he had earned all he had received.
"Yes," said Grayson reluctantly; "it'll be expected of us, Charlotte, to stand by him. He's got no father, you know. And I suppose George Lockwood was aggravating enough."
"The Lord knows I'm sorry for Tom; he was always good to Janet." This reminded Mrs. Grayson of her daughter, and she went to the open door of the dining-room and called, "Janet! O Janet! It's curious how she stands by Tom. She's off in the sulks, and won't answer a word I say. I suppose you'll have to go his bail," she said with apprehension.
"No, it's not bailable. They don't bail prisoners charged with capital offenses."
"That's a good thing, anyhow. I hate to have you go security."
"I suppose Martha'll be able to pay the lawyers," said Thomas Grayson. "She won't expect us to do any more for Tom. It's bad enough to have to stand the disgrace of it."
"Janet! Janet! O Janet!" called Mrs. Grayson anxiously. "I declare, I'm uneasy about that child; it's nearly half an hour since she went out. I wish you'd go and have a look for her."
But at that moment Janet rushed in breathless through the kitchen.
"O Pa! I've been over to the jail to see Tom."
"You've been to the jail!" said Grayson, recoiling in his heart from such an experience for Janet.
"Yes, an' they've put Barbara and Aunt Martha in there too, along with Tom." She was bursting with indignation.
"Thomas," said Mrs. Grayson, as she gathered up the hitherto neglected breakfast plates, "Martha and Barbara have come from home this morning."
"I suppose so," said Grayson, looking out of the window.
"Now it's not going to do for us to let them go without coming here to breakfast," said the wife. "People will say we're hardhearted; and when they once get to talking there's no knowing what they won't say. They might blame us about Tom, though the Lord knows we did our best for him."
"Will you go and ask Martha and Barbara to come over?" said Grayson, with a sneaking desire to escape the disagreeable duty.
"I can't bear to," said his wife. "I hate to go to the jail and see Tom there. Besides, if they're coming I must make some coffee."
Grayson stood still and looked out of the window.
"Will they let them come if you ask 'em?" inquired Janet.
"Let who come?" said her father abstractedly.
"Aunt Martha and Barbara and Tom."
"Of course they'll not keep your Aunt Martha nor Barbara. They haven't killed anybody."
"Neither has Tom. He told me to tell you he hadn't."
"I suppose they all talk that way. 'T ain't like Tom to lie about anything though. He generally faces it out, rain, hail, or shine. I wish to goodness he could prove that he didn't kill George. Where are you going, Janet?"
"To fetch Aunt Martha and Barbara. I wish they'd let Tom come too."
Grayson spent as much time as possible in getting his hat and looking it over before putting it on. Then, when he could think of no other pretext for delay, he started as slowly as possible, in order to give Janet time to fetch his relatives away from the jail before he should encounter them. Janet found her aunt coming out of the prison in order to allow the sheriff to go to breakfast.
"Aunt Martha," cried Janet, "Ma wants you an' Barbara to come to breakfast. She sent me to tell you."
"I don't like to go there," said Barbara to her mother in an undertone.
But Mason, who was behind, perceiving Barbara's hesitation, came up and whispered: "You'd better go, Barbara. Tom will need all the help he can get from your uncle's position. And I'll take the horse and put him into your uncle's stable."