“No, sir.”
Pleadwell had established his own innocence, so far as Tom’s story was concerned at least, and he dismissed the boy from the witness-stand with a wave of his hand which was highly expressive of virtuous indignation.
Tom resumed his seat by the side of Sandy, whose mouth and eyes were still wide open with surprise and admiration, and who exclaimed, as he gave the boy’s hand a hearty grip,—
“Weel done, Tommy, ma lad! weel done! I’m proud o’ ye! an’ Bennie’n the mither’ll be prouder yet o’ ye!”
And then, for the first time since the beginning of his trouble, Tom put his face in his hands and wept. But he felt that a great load had been lifted from his conscience, and that now he could look any man in the eye.
There were two or three unimportant witnesses sworn in rebuttal and sur-rebuttal, and the evidence was closed.
Pleadwell rose to address the jury, feeling that it was a useless task so far as his client was concerned, but feeling, also, that he must exert himself to the utmost in order to rebut a strong presumption of questionable conduct on his own part.
He denounced Tom’s action in returning the money to him as a dramatic trick, gotten up by the prosecution for effect; and called particular attention to his own ignorance of the gift of any such money.
He declared Tom’s story of his meeting with Rennie, on the night of the fire, to be improbable and false, and argued that since neither the prosecution, nor the defence, nor any one else, had ever heard one word of it till it came out on the witness-stand, it must, therefore, exist only in the lad’s heated imagination.
He dwelt strongly on the probable falsity of the testimony of the so-called detective; went over carefully the evidence tending to establish an alibi for Rennie; spoke with enthusiasm of the man’s efforts and bravery in the work of rescue; lashed the corporations for their indifference to the wrongs of the workingmen; spoke piteously of the fact that the law denied to Rennie the right of being sworn in his own behalf; and closed with a peroration that brought tears into the eyes of half the people in the room.