“And did you think it necessary to come here at the risk of your life to make this acknowledgment?” asked Marshall.
“Why, I didn’t think just that way about it,” replied the boy; “but I knew I’d done wrong to keep it to myself so, an’ I felt that I ought to get here an’ tell about it as soon as I could. I wanted Gran’pap to know. I never kept anything from him before, an’ I wanted to tell him first, because he’s done more for me, an’ been kinder to me than anybody else. An’ then—an’ then I’d heard that the engineer who made the night survey had been accused o’ pullin’ out those stakes, or havin’ ’em pulled out; an’ I was afraid they’d try to prove it on ’im here, an’ maybe find ’im guilty of it before I could get here an’ set ’em right. And I wouldn’t ’a’ had that happen—why, I’d sooner ’a’ died in the snow than had ’em do that. He was so good to run his line around the graveyard. He was so gentle, an’ kind, an’—an’, oh, he couldn’t ’a’ been kinder an’ gentler an’ sweeter to me if he’d ’a’ been my own father.”
Charlie Pickett, sitting back among the spectators, felt the hot blood surge into his face, and the paternal passion flood his heart. He longed to take this boy at once in his arms,—this boy whose frank acknowledgment of his fault had brought tears to a hundred eyes, whose simple story of dreadful daring for conscience’ sake had thrilled every breast in the court room,—to take him at once into the shelter of his love, and keep him and protect him against all the world.
But Marshall was asking his last question.
“Have you anything more to say, Dannie, in extenuation of your conduct? I do not know what action, if any, the officers of the D. V. & E. will take against you. Your offence was certainly a serious one. But, in view of any possible punishment they may have in mind for you, I want to give you this opportunity for any further explanation you may wish to make.”
“I’ve nothing more to say,” replied Dannie, wearily; “I’ve told you all. I’m ready to be punished for what I’ve done. I made up my mind to that before I came here. I’m willin’ to go to jail; except that I’d be sorry for the disgrace I’d brought on Gran’pap an’ Aunt Martha. They brought me up to be honest an’ good. An’ I’d be sorry on account of my father, too, very sorry, if he should ever know about it. But I’ve no complaint to make, an’ I’ll try to stand whatever comes without cryin’.”
Yet even as he spoke, the boy’s lips trembled, and great tears filled his eyes. He could not help thinking of those gloomy and forbidding cells in the county jail.
A gentleman who had been sitting inside the bar, listening intently to the testimony, came over hurriedly and whispered to Marshall. The latter rose at once from his chair, and said to Dannie:—
“Mr. Rayburn, the general manager of the D. V. & E. just informs me that his company will not prosecute you for your offence against the law. He says he believes that your conscience, has already punished you with sufficient severity to say nothing of what you have endured in forcing your way here through this terrible storm to set us right on what has been, heretofore, an unexplainable mystery. Moreover, he wishes me to thank you for your frank and manly statement of the facts. That is all. You may leave the stand.”
But Dannie did not move. The revulsion of feeling on learning that, after all, he was not to be punished, that the iron doors of the grim old jail were not to open for his admittance, was too strong to be controlled. His face flushed with sudden joy, and then the color all went out and he grew white as death. The lashes of his eyelids drooped upon his cheeks, his hands fell to his sides, his chin sank upon his breast, and those who looked on him saw that he had been stricken with sudden faintness. A court attendant hurried into a side room for a glass of water. Abner Pickett and Marshall were on their feet in an instant hurrying toward the fainting boy. But before either of them could reach his chair, Charlie Pickett, with great strides, had swung himself from the bench where he was sitting to the boy’s side, and had caught him in his arms. He held him to his breast, looking about for an instant to see what he should do. Then, without waiting to follow any of the dozen suggestions that were given to him simultaneously by lawyers and officers of the court, he started with his burden down the crowded aisle. People gave way before him, looking with sympathetic eyes on the limp little body borne so tenderly in the strong parental arms. When he reached the long corridor, Charlie saw the door of a jury room standing invitingly open, and into that he hurried and laid the unconscious boy at full length on a convenient bench. A court attendant bustled in with a glass of water. A young physician, who had been sitting in the court room, hurried in and offered his services.