Roger repeated the words, which were received with incredulity.
“Stuff!” “Bosh!” “Can’t make me swaller that!” “Don’t believe it!” and such like expressions ran through the crowd, till, roused to a pitch of wild excitement, Frank sprang upon a box and harangued the multitude eloquently in his own defence.
“It is true,” he said. “I did try to burn the will, and would have done so if it had not been struck from my hand. I held a lighted match to it, and Roger will tell you that a part of it is yellow now with the smoke and flame.”
“Yellow with time more like,” a woman said, while a son of Erin called out, “Good for you, Misther Franklin, to defind yourself, but plase tell us who struck the match from yer hand.”
“An’ sure who would be afther doin’ the mane thing but his mither, bad luck to her,” interrupted another of Ireland’s sons, and Frank rejoined, “It was not my mother. Roger will tell you that it was some one whom you love and respect, and who was just as desirous that the will should be destroyed as I was, but who did not think it right and dared not do it. I am sorrier about it than you are, and I’ve tried to make Roger keep Millbank, and he refuses. I can no more help being the heir than I could help being born, and I do not want to be blamed. I want your good will more than anything else. I have not Roger’s experience, nor Roger’s sense; but I’ll do the very best I can, and you must stand by me and help me to be what Roger was.”
Frank was growing very eloquent, and his pale, boyish face lighted up and his eyes kindled as he went on telling what he meant to be if they would only help him instead of hindering and disliking him, until the tide began to set in his favor and the boys by the fence whispered to each other:
“Let’s go in for white hair, jest for fun if nothing more,—he talks reasonable, and maybe he’ll give us half holidays when the circus is in town. Mr. Irving never done that.”
“Yes, but he let us go to see the hanimals, and gin Bob ’Untley a ticket,” said a red-faced English youth.
But the circus clique carried the day, and there rose from that part of the green a loud huzza for “Mr. Franklin Irving,” while the faces of the older ones cleared up a little, and a few spoke pleasantly to Frank, who felt that he was not quite so obnoxious to the people as he had been. But they kept aloof from him, and followed their late master even to the gates of Millbank, assuring him of their readiness to go with him and work for him at lower rates than they were working now. And Roger, as he walked slowly up the avenue, felt that it was worth some suffering and trial to know that he stood so high in the estimation of those who had been employed by him so long.
All over town the same spirit prevailed, pervading the higher circles, and causing Mrs. Johnson to telegraph to Springfield for Lawyer Schofield, who she hoped might do something, though she did not know what. He came on the next train, and went at once to Millbank and was closeted with Roger for an hour and looked the ground over and talked with Hester Floyd and screamed to Aleck through an ear trumpet and said a few words to Frank and bowed coldly to Mrs. Walter Scott, and then went back to the group of ladies assembled in Mrs. Johnson’s parlor, and told them there was no hope. The will was perfectly good. Frank was the rightful heir, and Roger too proud to receive anything from him more than he had received. And then his auditors all talked together, and abused Mrs. Walter Scott and pitied Roger and spoke slightingly of Frank, and wondered if there was any truth in the rumor that Magdalen was to marry him. They had heard so, and the rumor incensed them against her, and when Lawyer Schofield said he thought it very possible, they pounced upon the luckless girl and in a very polite way tore her into shreds, without, however, saying a word which was not strictly lady-like and capable of a good as well as of a bad construction.