“Well, I had two reasons for it: In the first place, he showed himself to be a good fellow, and as true as steel; and I couldn’t stand by and see him punished. If I hadn’t spoken up, he would have been sent down for refusing to give our names.”
“That’s just what ought to have been done with him,” said Clarence.
“As the case now stands,” continued Tom, “he will, most likely, be let off easy, this being the first time that anything serious has been charged against him.”
“And what is to become of you and me?”
“You know what they told us the last time we were court-martialed, don’t you?”
“I should think I ought, for I have been reminded of it often enough. Don’t you know that by befriending Don you have got me into a terrible scrape? Don’t you remember that my father told me that he would put me on board the school-ship if I were sent down?”
It would have been strange if Tom had forgotten it, for Duncan had such a horror of that same school-ship that he talked about it every day. He had seen and conversed with boys who had been sent there because they would not behave themselves at home, and he had noticed that they all agreed on these two points—that the officers were very stern and severe, and that the life of a hod-carrier was easier and more respectable than that of a foremast hand. Clarence had a deep-rooted horror of the sea and every thing connected with it, and he looked forward to five years on the school-ship with feelings very near akin to those with which he would have looked forward to a term in the penitentiary.
“You went back on me, an old-time friend, for the sake of a boy you never saw or heard of until last winter,” continued Clarence. “I didn’t act the craven, I tell you. I stuck it out as long as I could.”
“Did they find you out?” asked Tom.
“I am under arrest, the same as you are; but they can’t prove anything against me.”