“I was a coward. I was afraid to say we’d been a-fightin’; I was afraid they’d say I murdered him. So I blastit doon a bit o’ roof, an’ fixed it like the top coal’d killit him; an’ I wasna suspeckit. But I could na stay there; an’ I wandered west, an’ I wandered east, an’ I took to drink, an’ to evil deeds, an’ at last I cam’ back, an’ I went in wi’ the Molly Maguires—Scotchman as I was—an’ I done desperate work for ’em; work that I oughtn’t to be alive to-night to speak aboot—but I ha’ suffered; O lad, I ha’ suffered!
“Mony an’ mony’s the nicht, as often as I ha’ slept an’ dreamed, that I ha’ fought over that fight i’ the dark, an’ felt that body a-slip, slippin’ oot o’ ma grasp. Oh, it’s been tarrible, tarrible!”
Jack dropped into his seat again and buried his face in his hands.
The man’s apparent mental agony melted Tom’s heart, and he sat down beside him and laid a comforting hand on his knee.
“I have naught against you,” he said, and repeated, “I have naught against you.”
After a while Jack looked up.
“I believe ye, lad,” he said, “an’ somehow I feel easier for the tellin’. But ye mus’ na tell the mither aboot it, Tom; I’ve a reason for that. I’ve a bit o’ money here, that I’ve saved along through the years, an’ I’ve neither kith nor kin that’s near enow to leave it wi’—an’ I want she should have it; an’ if she knew she might not tak’ it.”
As he spoke he drew, from an inner pocket, a folded and wrapped package, and gave it to Tom.
“It’s a matter o’ a thousan’ dollars,” he continued, “an’ I’d like—I’d like if a part o’ it could be used for gettin’ sight for the blin’ lad, gin he lives to get oot. I told him, one day, that he should have his sight, if money’d buy it—an’ I want to keep ma ward.”
Tom took the package, too much amazed, and too deeply moved to speak.