“Jack!” said the deacon, fixing a terrible look on the boy.
“I haven’t robbed his house!” Jack broke forth, vehemently. “I only took what was my own. I took the money, which he had robbed me of before!”
“Broke into his house for it!”
“I got in.”
“Who helped you?”
“I can’t tell. It wouldn’t be fair for me to tell.”
“Where is the money?” demanded the squire.
“I can’t tell that, either. It was my money, and I took it. And I did only what your nephew, who knows so much about the law, advised me to do, and what Mr. Chatford himself said I would have a right to do.”
The deacon, who was inclined to condemn the boy’s fault all the more severely because he had taken his part before, regarded him with stern astonishment and displeasure.
“Did I ever say you would have a right to go to housebreaking, to get possession of what you claimed?—Don’t think, Squire, that I for a moment encouraged the boy to any such course. I didn’t approve your course, I tell you frankly. I thought you ought to have used different means for carrying your point. But I don’t uphold him. I told him expressly and repeatedly to let the matter drop until this morning, when I would see you about it.”