“This beats all. Seems as if we had stood about all we can stand,” the people said, as they talked the matter over, growing more excited, if possible, than they had been when Paul was first accused and arrested.
As is natural, many of them said they had known as well as they wanted to know that he was at the Ralston House. Others shook their heads, wondering why Tom Drake hadn’t managed to get him away, and predicting it would go hard with Paul, as giving himself up was a proof that he was guilty. Others took a different view, and thought he had done a magnanimous thing which would tell in his favor, and so the discussion went on, and Miss Hansford’s house was cleaned and her knees recovered their strength and she put a dollar in the contribution box two successive Sundays and did not appear at all disturbed about the coming trial.
CHAPTER XLII.
THE SECOND TRIAL.
The broken bars to the window of the jail had been repaired, and Paul was in his old quarters, to which a part of the furniture carried there before from the Ralston House had been returned. Tom did not show so much anxiety to fit up the room as he had done, nor was he as often there during the short time which elapsed between Paul’s surrender and his trial. His negligence, however, was in a measure made up by Sherry, who regularly every morning trotted through the town to the jail, giving first a loud bark as a greeting and then scratching on the door for admittance, and when that was refused lying down under the window from which Paul occasionally spoke to him. At noon he would go home for his dinner, play a little while with Beauty, the pug, whom Paul had bought in the early summer,—then going to Mrs. Ralston, who was now ill in bed with dread and apprehension, he would look at her with beseeching eyes, as if asking what had happened to take his master away and lick the hand with which she patted his head. This done he would trot back to the jail, bark to let Paul know he was there and stretch himself again under the window, growling if any one came near, as many did come, from curiosity to see the animal growing nearly as famous as Paul himself. At night he went home and staid there, but was back in the morning. Stevens tried two or three times to feed him and save him his long walks, but Sherry disdained the offered fare, preferring the exercise, which was not prolonged for any length of time.
The court was to be in session very soon after Paul’s return to prison, and, if the excitement was great before, it was greater now, with a desire to see again the man who had voluntarily given himself up, and to see Elithe, whose part in his escape had become known and was commented upon differently by different people. Some called her bold,—some plucky,—some that she did it to atone for her damaging testimony, and others that she was in love with Paul, and this had influenced her actions. Through whatever lens she was looked at, she was an object of great interest, and the people were eager to know if she would tell exactly the same story as before, and if Miss Hansford would treat them to a circus similar to the one at the first trial. Neither she nor Elithe shrank from meeting people, and the latter was quite ready to talk of Paul’s escape, keeping her own part in it in the background as much as possible, and dwelling upon Tom’s bravery and devotion. She was doing all she could for him by way of enlisting public opinion in his behalf. He tried to be cheerful and natural, but sometimes failed utterly, and there was a look on his face different from anything seen there before Paul’s second arrest.
“I ain’t going back on my word. I couldn’t, if I wanted to, with you and Miss Hansford both knowing it,” he said to Elithe; “but you can’t guess how homesick I am when I look round on the places I like so well and think how soon I’ll be shut away from them all.”
It was Elithe’s mission to comfort him just as he had comforted and encouraged Paul. The court would be very lenient, she said, and, possibly, take no action at all.
“I don’t know. I’ve been so cowardly mean that I ought to have a few years, any way,” Tom would say, wishing the time would come, and when it did, feeling tempted to drown himself and leave the clearing up to Miss Hansford and Elithe. “I could make my confession and leave it in my room,” he thought, as he busied himself with his usual duties before starting for the Court House.
It was a lovely November morning, warm and bright, with the Indian summer brightness, and as he looked out upon the water, smooth as glass, with white sails here and there and a big steamer passing in the distance, he changed his mind with regard to the confession and drowning.
“No, by jing!” he said; “this world’s too good to leave that way. A few years will soon pass and I know the Ralstons will take me back. I’ll face it. Hello, Sherry! you here? Why ain’t you at the jail?” he continued, as the dog came bounding towards him.