“Take care, take care, boy!” said the deacon, warningly. “Stand here face to face with Phineas. Now, did Phineas tell you I said you would be justified in taking that money wherever you could find it?—Did you say anything of the sort, Phineas?”
“No, I never opened my lips to him about it!” said Phin, with all the vehemence of earnest innocence. “But mabby he imagined I did.”
“I didn’t imagine it!” cried Jack. “Phin Chatford, you know you said it! You are lying at this minute, if you say you didn’t.”
“Jack, what motive could Phineas have to say such a thing to you in the first place, or to lie about it now? Your story is untrustworthy, on the face of it. And I beg of you to consider again; for I can do nothing for you, if you persist with a lie on your lips.”
“It isn’t a lie. If I say I lied then, I shall be lying now.”
“I have nothing more to say. Squire, I leave him to you.” And the deacon walked mournfully away.
“If saying I am sorry I swore yesterday in the woods will do any good,” Jack continued, “I’ll say it, for I am sorry. I had made up my mind never to swear again; and I never should, but you drove me to it.”
“Stubborn and hardened to the last!” said Peternot. “He is bound to find some excuse for his conduct, somebody to shift the blame on to. Still I accept his apology, such as it is. And now, if he will give up his ill-got plunder—”
“Plunder!” echoed Jack. “Was it your ill-got plunder when you took it away from me? It is my money; but I wish now I had never seen it, for a thousand times as much couldn’t pay me for what I have lost! She has lost faith in me,”—looking through his streaming tears at the retreating form of Mrs. Chatford, following her husband from the room,—“and I can never again be in this house what I have been. But I can’t give up the money; I haven’t got it, and I don’t know where it is.”
“But you know who has it?” Jack would not reply to this or to any other question tending to bring out the names of his accomplices; and the squire, losing patience at last, exclaimed, “Well, Sellick! I see no use of dallyin’ any longer here.”