Marshall saw that the sympathy of the audience, and possibly of the court, was with the child, and he desired to trace the moral, if not the actual responsibility for the deed back to shoulders that would not be spared. Dannie looked hopelessly down at his questioner, and then turned an appealing glance to his grandfather, who sat with bowed head and eyes fixed on the floor, and did not see him.
“I’d rather not answer that question,” he said, at last, and then added quickly: “If my grandfather’d had any idea of what I was goin’ to do, he’d ’a’ stopped me. I know he would. Why, I stole out o’ the house in my stockin’ feet, so he wouldn’t hear me. And I never told ’im what I’d done till I told ’im here to-day. Never! never! never!”
“There, Dannie; don’t get excited. Just keep cool and answer my question. Would you have gone out that night and removed those stakes if you had not heard your grandfather say it would be a good thing to do?”
Again the boy looked hopelessly down at the lawyer and was silent. He knew, in his heart, that it was his grandfather’s declaration that had started him on his midnight errand; but he would rather have faced the terrors of the jail than said so. He would not willingly shift any part of the burden of responsibility to other shoulders than his own. In the midst of the profound silence which followed Marshall’s question, Abner Pickett rose slowly to his feet.
“I’ll answer that,” he said. “The boy ain’t to blame. He simply did what he thought I wanted done. In his heart and soul the child is innocent. If any crime has been committed, I’m the one who is guilty of it.”
He spoke slowly, distinctly, yet with a tremor in his voice that betrayed his deep emotion. It was all out of order, this declaration of his, in the midst of the examination of another witness, but no one interrupted him; even court and counsel listened with close attention until he finished his appeal and dropped back into his chair. Then Dannie himself was the first to speak.
“Oh, no, Gran’pap!” he exclaimed; “oh, no! Maybe I wouldn’t ’a’ done it but for what you said; but I ought to ’a’ known you didn’t mean it. I ought to ’a’ known you wouldn’t ’a’ let me done it. I ought to ’a’ known you wouldn’t permit anything wrong. And that was wrong, and I knew it; only I didn’t stop to think. Oh, no, Gran’pap; I’m to blame! I’m to blame!”
He held out his hands appealingly as he spoke, gazing alternately at his grandfather and at the lawyer. Tears were coursing down the old man’s cheeks; and out in the court room many an eye was moist watching this little drama of love and protection, staged and played in the bar of the court.
It was plain to the dullest understanding that the boy was frank and truthful, and that the old man was not inclined to shirk his share of the responsibility. But Marshall was not yet satisfied. He wanted not only the truth, but the whole truth. It was due to his client that every fact should be brought out in detail. He took up again the regular order of examination.