However, to have her memories of me mixed in with thoughts of the horse-trading cheat which I had connived at was reflection unendurable.
I went to the wood-shed and secured an ax. It occurred to me that when a horse had so many bumps on him, one more and a deadly bump on his forehead would not attract much attention; furthermore, my uncle seemed to think that the animal’s course was nearly run.
I faced the brute. His ears were hanging in despondency. His eyes were dropping tears; those blisters must have been stinging like the martyr’s skin under the shirt of fire. When I looked on that woe all my resolution left me. I dropped the ax. There were tears in my own eyes. I felt as if he were my brother in common sorrow. So I went to the cellar and fetched apples and carrots and fed them into his gratefully slobbering mouth until he sighed and spraddled his legs and went to sleep.
Constable Nute came for me during the day.
“There ain’t any subpeny to this, young Sidney,” he informed me. “If you feel too guilty to face Judge Kingsley, who is making an informal investigation, you needn’t come.”
“I am not guilty. I’m not afraid to face the judge.” And I went along. There was no one else in his office. He had been calling in persons and examining them one by one. I was alone with him after Nute left.
I gave in my version of what had happened the night before and declared that I had had nothing whatever to do with putting notions into the noddle of the village fool.
“But as to this society of young vandals which has been disgracing the village? Certain members of the gang have confessed to me that you are the organizer and the ringleader.”
“And I confess that I was leader at first,” I owned up to him, just as manfully as I could. Then I told him about Mr. Bird. “When I realized that I was making a mistake I stopped being leader. I have had nothing to do with the society since.”
He had a way of shooting speech out through his pinched nostrils with a sort of a jew’s-harp twang. He leaned back in his chair and gave me a good looking over.