“Well, yes, sir, I ’ave. But now, look ’ere; you expects me to criminate myself, do you?”
“It will probably go less hard with you,” said Squire Bidwell, “if you tell the whole story of your performances, and reveal what you know about this boy that you’ve put under such a grave suspicion.”
“All right, all right,” said the horse-thief. “You’ve got me, ’ard and tight, that’s sure, an’ I don’t see no way out o’ it, now. I can give Mr. Gaston information that will lead him to the boy and the ’oss, sir.”
Then the man told how he had seen Joe on the canal, driving the tow-horses.
“How do you know it was our son you saw?” inquired Mr. Gaston, sternly.
“Well, it was the same lad that went into the barn an’ came out of it again that lovely mornin’ in June. Besides, this ’ere gray ’oss was there, you know, and the ’oss knowed ’im, an’ ’e knowed the ’oss. W’y, w’en they see each other on the canal, they was that tickled they rubbed noses an’ cried,—both of ’em.”
“Papa,” exclaimed Jennie, “that was Joe! I know it was! It was Joe and Old Charlie!”
“To tell the truth,” said Callipers, “the lad didn’t look just to say swell. ’Is clothes, if I must remark on ’em, seemed to be summat the worse for wear. His jacket an’ trousers was jest about so-so. ’Is shoes ’ad give out in places too numerous to mention. An’ there was ’ardly enough left of the ’at ’e ’ad on to make it proper to speak of it.”
“Father,” exclaimed Mrs. Gaston, “we must get him at once. He is in want; he is suffering! He is honest, too. He has been foolish and headstrong, but he is honest, and we have wronged him in our thought every day for three months. Now he must come home!”
It had been many years since Mrs. Gaston had expressed herself in so positive a manner as this to her husband. But now it was not necessary. He was as impatient for Joe’s return as she.