"Your son has had a hard life, I fear, in your absence," said Mr. Fairfax, glancing curiously at the stranger, who did not look at all like a man capable of crime.
"Yes, sir," he answered somewhat bitterly; "it has pleased the Almighty to send me a heavy trial. First, I lost my wife; then I was accused, along with my fellow-workers in a brick-yard, of stealing fagots. I was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and my time would have been out next week. My boy, which he's one in a thousand—though he was that weakly he was hardly fit for work—he brought the little 'uns, five of 'em, all under fourteen, to this place. 'We shan't be known at Longcross, father,' he says, 'and I'll work for 'em all till you're out.' So he come here. And yesterday they come to me in the jail, and they says, 'Bennett, we find you're innocent. The man what took the fagots, he's up and confessed, and he says as you've had nothing to do with it.' So they wrote me this paper to say I'm pardoned, as they call it, and I come away; but they couldn't give me back the three months of my life."
"No," said Mr. Fairfax; "you have suffered indeed. But I trust that even yet you may find good come out of evil, as it so often does. We have come to know and respect Stephen, and as soon as he is well he shall be moved into a comfortable house, which I have now to let, and which is at your disposal, if you like to take it. Other help, too, I hope to be able to render you."
Thus talking, they arrived at the hospital. Stephen had not made much progress, and was still alarmingly weak. Scanty food and constant anxiety had told terribly on his delicate constitution. But when he saw his father, and heard that he had been set free, and declared innocent, a new life seemed to come into him.
"I shall get well now, father," he said; "I feel I shall—only my head's so bad where the blow came that I can't think much. But that doesn't matter now; you'll look after the little 'uns. 'Twas the having all them on me, and thinking about you, that seemed to crush me down; though I knew you was innocent, father—I knew it all along. Thank God for making it clear, though. I asked Him to do it, night and day, and He's done it."
"Now, Archie, my boy," said Mr. Fairfax, as he and his son walked back together, "you see how entirely wrong you were in your hasty judgment."
"Yes, father, I do see;" and the lad's voice was full of feeling. "Stephen may never lose the effects of this time of cruel hardship. I might have been his friend, and I was his enemy instead."
"If I had listened, or allowed the foreman to listen, to your guesses, he might have been turned off altogether. It should be a lesson to you, Archie, never to injure another person's character again without absolute certainty, and even then only if it is necessary for the general good. Once gone, it is sometimes impossible to win back."
"I know—I know, father. I will try to be careful, and not so hasty."