He turned so as to look Philip in the face affectionately. Philip saw nothing but wakefulness in it; but it was a clear and not too excited look, after all.
“You see,” Touchtone continued, “the men—some of them—who did the burglary are probably living. They might be willing to tell more truth about it now than then. Or they might not. There always was more to get at; I know that.” There was a pause. “Did I ever tell you about the night my father died?” he asked, solemnly.
“No. Go on, please.”
“I was only a little fellow like you at the time. But father meant I should remember, and I have remembered perfectly. It had been an awfully cold day in January. My poor mother was almost worn out with anxiety, for father all at once sank terribly fast about nine o’clock, though the doctor had no idea that he wouldn’t last till morning. Did I ever drive you around by that cottage that we rented of Mr. Marcy, where we lived those years after we came? I dare say not; I’m not fond of the road. Well, father had mother bring me into the room where he was. I sat by the bed, just as I sit by yours this minute, letting him hold my hand and one of mother’s. Mr. Marcy was in New York. O, how tired and hollow-eyed and dying he looked. But he smiled a little at seeing us two there together beside him.
“‘That’s right,’ he said softly; ‘always keep with your mother, Philip, and remember, Hilda, nothing ought to separate you two but death. Philip,’ he went on, ‘you’re going to grow up to be a man, I hope and expect. I suppose that the best thing I can wish for you is that you may never hear the people you will meet talk of me, nor even read my name in a newspaper. But I want to say to you to-night (for I’m afraid I sha’n’t have many words to spare by morning) that I, your father, under the stain to-day of a crime, and believed by almost every body I ever knew in the world, or that you may know, to be a felon—am as innocent as you of what’s laid to my charge. Remember, I say this to you on what I believe is my dying-bed, and going before the great God who judges all the world, and who is sometimes the only Knower of what is the right and what the wrong of things, great or small.’
“I began to cry. My mother pressed my hand and said, firmly, ‘No; listen carefully to father, Philip! You will be glad of doing so some day.’ So I bit my lips and swallowed my sobs as well as I could, and kept my eyes on his in spite of the tears.
“‘It’s hard to have to ask such a young lad as you to go through a scene like this, Phil (he often called me Phil, and that’s the reason I never want any body to do it nowadays), and to stuff your head with such unhappy thoughts as may come. But it’s best. You’re my boy, and my name, good or bad, is yours. I was discharged and traduced and convicted almost altogether on the evidence of two men. One was Laverack, the ringleader of the thieves; the other, the watchman of the bank, Samuel Sixmith. Will you remember that—Laverack and Samuel Sixmith?’
“I nodded my head. Father went on: ‘Some day you can read all the falsehoods that Laverack and Sixmith swore to. Never mind them now. Only do not forget that I give to you, my son, once more, my dying word of honor that they were falsehoods; and that, besides Laverack’s having a reason of revenge to attack me as he did, there must have been some conspiracy between himself and the watchman, Sixmith. Possibly you may light on it before you die. I commit it to you and to God. If you do, you will clear my character before the world; and although it might come so late that the world will have little interest in it, still do it, if God opens the way, Phil. I believe that it will be opened by and by. I hope for your sake and your mother’s that it may not be long shut.’”
It is to be feared that Touchtone had forgotten Gerald’s fever and almost every thing else, in his story. The younger boy lay there looking at Philip in admiration and sympathy; and if his hot pulse could not but run higher at such a bit of his friend’s history, compassion and regret may have kept mere physical and mental excitement within a certain check.
“He talked a little more to me,” continued Philip, “and bade me recollect always that my mother and I would have a friend in Mr. Marcy. Then we all said the Lord’s Prayer together, and my father kissed me on the forehead and told mother to take me into the next room. She left me with our servant. Poor old Biddy Farrelly! I wonder if she’s alive now? She’d been crying as if her heart would break. I guess she’d been listening at the door a bit. Mother went back to father, and I was told to go to bed. I was too excited to sleep much in the first part of the night, and I lay there thinking over all that father had said. I haven’t forgotten a word of it, names or any thing, Gerald, and I never shall. Besides, mother and I often talked it all over quietly together; and she told me more that she knew about my father’s trial. I didn’t see him again. He died in the night, and wouldn’t allow me to be called. ‘I have bidden Phil good-bye,’ he said, ‘and I do not want him to forget what I said to him through any other farewell now.’ Poor father!”