[CHAPTER VI.]
THE FALL.
It was true. Carolan’s quick eye had noticed the opportunity for Rennie to escape, and his fertile brain had been swift in planning an immediate rescue. The few members of his order that he could find on the instant were gathered together; there was a sudden onslaught at a dark corner of the Court-House Square; the sheriff and his deputy lay prone upon the ground, and their prisoner was slipping away through the dark, foggy streets, with a policeman’s bullet whizzing past his ears, and his band of rescuers struggling with the amazed officers.
But the sheriff of Luzerne County never saw Jack Rennie again, nor was the hand of the law ever again laid upon him, in arrest or punishment.
As Tom walked home from the railroad station that night through the drizzling rain, his heart was lighter than it had been for many a day.
True, he was nervous and worn with excitement and fatigue, but there was with him a sense of duty done, even though tardily, which brought peace into his mind and lightness to his footsteps.
After the first greetings were had, and the little home group of three was seated together by the fire to question and to talk, Tom opened his whole heart. While his mother and Bennie listened silently, often with tears, he told the story of his adventure at the breaker on the night of the fire, of his temptation and fall at Wilkesbarre, of his mental perplexity and acute suffering, of the dramatic incidents of the trial, and of his own release from the bondage of bribery.
When his tale was done, the poor blind brother, for whose sake he had stepped into the shadow of sin, and paid the penalty, declared, with laughter and with tears, that he had never before been so proud of Tom and so fond of him as he was at that moment; and the dear, good mother took the big fellow on her lap, as she used to do when he was a little child, and held him up close to her heart, and rocked him till he fell asleep, and into his curly hair dropped now and then a tear, that was not the outcome of sorrow, but of deep maternal joy.