“Ah! are you there, sir?” exclaimed the other, reaching out a hand to the good man. “Then let me publicly say this: I made one terrible mistake in my life in trying to raise my boy by rod and rule alone. Please Heaven, with this dear grandchild, love is going to enter into the scheme. This confession is the only poor expiation I can make to poor Amos.”
He suddenly seemed to remember the two boys, for turning to Dick he went on to say:
“What do I not owe you, Dick Horner, and Leslie Capes, for your gallant conduct in saving these dear ones from a cruel death? After this hour I shall see boys in a different light from the past. Oh! I have been blind and foolish, wilfully so, but the boys of Cliffwood will never have occasion to look upon Jed Nocker as their enemy after this. I am a changed man.”
He shook their hands almost fiercely. Indeed, Leslie writhed under the pressure of those, bony digits of the excited deacon, and rubbed his crushed fingers for several minutes afterwards. This was the more singular because hitherto Mr. Nocker had been one of those cold men whose hand was apt to feel flabby when extended in greeting. He was certainly a changed man.
“I wonder what he’ll say,” remarked Leslie, a little later, as they stood and watched the fire laddies work like troopers in trying to save a part of the burning structure, “when they tell him what a big deal you engineered, Dick.”
“As how?” demanded the other, though doubtless he could give a pretty good guess.
“Why, about setting up Tilly in housekeeping in the old Brandon place, just so Billy could wander over, and get a grip on his granddaddy’s affections,” explained Leslie, with a chuckle.
“Oh! as far as that goes,” said Dick, instantly, with his usual generosity, “it strikes me a fellow named Leslie Capes is about as deep in the mire as I am in the mud.”
“Get out!” scoffed the other, indignantly. “Didn’t your mother send for Tilly to come to her house; and wasn’t this scheme pretty much your invention?”
“Yes,” admitted Dick, “but how about the way you joined in with me? Tell me what I could have done without your help? Didn’t you interest your Uncle Henry in the game, so as to make him put up all the money needed to hire this house for Tilly and her boy, so they could be right next door to Mr. Nocker?”