Vivian's Lesson

by Elizabeth W. Grierson

They all stopped and gazed with wondering eyes in the direction in which Ralph was pointing. Sure enough, just leaving the lodge gates was one of the stalwart policemen who had been about the house all morning, and the lad whose arm he was holding with a not very friendly grasp was certainly Joe Flinders the lad who had worked under Hunter the gardener for more than a year, and who was a great favourite with the children. He was the only son of a widowed mother, and a nice, civil, obliging boy, with a cheery word for every one, and endless patience with little Claude, who would follow him for hours at a time with a wheelbarrow and spade which his father had bought for him.

As a rule, Joe was always whistling, and walked about with a certain self-satisfied swagger, with his cap on the back of his head; for was he not earning good wages, and did he not bid fair to become as good a gardener as Mr Hunter?

But to-day things were very different. He dragged his feet along with a hopeless slouch, and his cap was pulled right over his eyes, as if to hide his face from the passers-by.

With one accord the boys raced after them, and overtook the strangely mated couple just as they turned the corner at the grocer’s shop and turned up the path which led over the Heath to the police station.

‘What’s the matter, Joe?’ asked Ralph, who had been fairly startled out of his indifference by the events of the day, looking pityingly at Joe’s swollen and tear-stained eyes, for the big lad was crying like a baby.

‘They say that I had sommat to do with the robbery, Master Ralph,’ he sobbed, ‘because when master sent Mr Hunter to cut down the branches where Miss Isobel fell, in case some one else climbed up the tree and hurt themselves, he found a hole in one of the branches, and a pistol in it, which it seems had been lost, and it was wrapped up in one of my old caps, the one I spoilt with the white paint when I was a-painting the fence round the far paddock. I threw away the cap, and never thought about it again; but ’tis mine sure enough, though ’ow it came to be in the ’ole I don’t know no more than an infant. And now my situation and my character is gone, and who is to tell mother—she that trained me up always to be honest?’

Here poor Joe fairly broke down, and Ralph said indignantly, in his most grown-up way, ‘I don’t believe a word of it, policeman; there must be some mistake.’

‘Don’t you indeed, young sir?’ said the giant policeman, smiling contemptuously. ‘If you had lived as long as me you wouldn’t be so quick to say you didn’t believe things. Besides, I’m only taking him up on suspicion, so he needn’t be in such a taking. If he can prove that he is innocent, let him prove it. But it appears that this pistol must have been stolen out of the house, and it’s found hidden in a hole in a tree, wrapped in a cap which ’e owns is ’is, and to my mind it’s as plain that he stole it as that two and two make four, though as to connecting it with the robbery, well, that’s a different matter.’

‘It’s all the same,’ sobbed Joe, ‘whether I’m taken up on suspicion or whether they are sure of it. My character’s gone, for who will take a lad in who has been took up by the police? And who will look after my mother, for she is so bad with the rhumatiz that she can’t do anything for herself?’

‘Come, come,’ said the policeman, stepping forward a little quicker, for already a small crowd of children was gathering, and he did not want a scene. ‘Hold your tongue, and come along.—As for you, young gentlemen, I would advise you to go home. What he says may be true enough. He may know nothing about it, but that remains to be proved; and often the most innocent-looking ones are the most artful.’