The old man turned his solemnly accusing green spectacles on Stebbins, and it seemed to Barney that he spoke with no less solemnly accusing a voice.
"He ought never to have been let in."
Stebbins replied, rather eagerly, Barney thought, "Why, there was enough against that boy to have clapped him in jail, and maybe convicted him, if this man hadn't turned State's evidence."
"We hed the fac's agin him,—dead agin him," chimed in Jim Dow.
"That just shows how much danger an innocent boy was in; it seems to me that somebody ought to have been more careful," the old man protested.
"That's so!" came in half a dozen voices from the crowd.
Barney was surprised to see how many friends he had now, when a moment before he had had none. But he ought to have realized that there is a great difference between being a young martyr, and seeming a young thief.
"I want to see the little fellow out of this," said the old man with the terrible spectacles.
He saw him out of it in a short while.
There was an examination before a magistrate, in which Barney was discharged on the testimony of Jeff Carew, who was produced and swore that he had never before seen the boy, that he was not among the gang of burglars who had robbed Blenkins's store and dwelling-house, and that he had had no part in helping to conceal the plunder. In opposition to this, the mere finding of a scrap of Barney's coat close to the Conscripts' Hollow seemed now of slight consequence, although it could not be accounted for.