“Ah, you never knew my poor Sam!” cried Mrs. Buckle, shaking her head, as she wiped away a tear to her husband’s memory. “He was the most aggravating man that ever was, and I ought to know, seeing that I bore with his infirmity for hard on twenty-nine years. And, my dear, if your grandfather didn’t do it, poor man, why should his axe, with his name branded on the handle, have been found lying on the ground close to the broken fence?”
“Was it found there?” breathed Pam in a cold horror, and from that moment the iron of a deep humiliation and disgrace entered into her very soul.
“Why, yes. Didn’t they tell you?” asked Mrs. Buckle. “But, there! I expect they kept it back just to spare your feelings, poor child!” The kindly woman came nearer as she spoke, and her work-worn hand dropped in a consoling fashion on to Pam’s arm. “But you must not blame the poor old man too much, for doubtless he was angered past bearing. Everyone knew that he had a violent temper, and he would be deaf and blind to the consequences when once he began to lay on. It is well when people learn to restrain themselves when they are young, for when they have come to years they lose control over their passions. I wish your grandfather had stayed to face the music, though. I am sure that the inquiry would have brought in that there were extenuating circumstances, and so he would have got off lighter. Now, he will have to face the very worst when they find him.”
“Oh, I do not think they will find him alive; it is his dead body that I am looking for!” said Pam, and her voice was sharp with pain.
Mrs. Buckle shook her head.
“You did not know your grandfather, and so you think of him as a feeble old man; but he was not, he was strong and vigorous. I saw him once knock Sam down as clean as if he were bowling a ninepin over, and I did not pity Sam either, for that time, at least, I knew very well he deserved all he got. From my heart I pity your grandfather now; it is cruel hard that a man at his time of life should have to be a wanderer.”
“Oh, it is dreadful, dreadful!” wailed Pam, hiding her face in her hands. The trouble had been bearable when she thought of her grandfather as dead, for then he at least would have been beyond the reach of hunger and cold; but if he had done this terrible thing of beating a fellow-man to death, and was forced by his crime to be a fugitive from justice, how the poor old man would suffer! She would never be at peace now, but would always be looking for him to come stealing back to his home for money, for food, and for shelter.
“Child, you must not take on like that!” said Mrs. Buckle, whose own tears were falling like rain. “You have just got to be bright and brave, and to keep your end up as best you can. It is hard lines for you to be pitchforked into a trouble of this sort, but just figure to yourself how much worse it would have been for the poor old man if you had not been at Ripple just now. The place would have been in the hands of strangers; there would have been no one to look after his interests or to keep the place going. Now he will most likely come creeping back some stormy night this fall, for he will want money to help him get clear away from parts where he is known. You must keep some handy for him when he comes. Have you got any?”
“Only a few shillings—I mean, dollars,” replied Pam, who had constantly to remind herself of the difference in currency.
“I thought as much!” muttered Mrs. Buckle. Telling Pam to sit still a minute, she went away to an inner room, whence she returned a minute later to thrust a bundle of dirty-looking papers into the girl’s hand. “Take that, my dear, it is only twenty dollars, but it is all I have to spare; and it may make the difference for him between starvation and security, for he is a man that can do with very little, from having lived alone so long.”