Meanwhile, at the Court House, the wildest excitement still prevailed. Paul was congratulated and shaken up and whirled round until he nearly lost his senses. A few of his young friends from Boston, who, unknown to him, had come from the city that morning, fought their way till they reached him, and, taking him up, carried him into the open air, which he sadly needed.
“We mean to carry you home if you will let us,” they said, keeping their arms around him.
“No, boys, don’t. Please put me down. Kindness and happiness sometimes kill, you know. Where’s father?” Paul said.
They put him down and brought the judge to him, turning their heads away from the meeting between the father and son. Paul was the more composed of the two because the more benumbed and bewildered.
“Paul, Paul,—my little boy. I’m glad to get you back. You’ve been away so long, and your mother is ill,” the judge said, talking as if Paul were a child again just coming home after a long absence.
It was growing dark as the people surged out from the court house, judge and jury, lawyers and witnesses, leaving Tom alone with Sherry.
“What am I to do? Arn’t previously you going to arrest me?” he called after them, and some one answered back: “Not by a jug full! Come along with us.”
Not at all certain as to what might happen to him, Tom went out and joined Paul, whom many hands were helping into the carriage, which had returned. Everybody wanted to do something for him, and when there was nothing they could do they sent up a shout which made the horses rear upon their hind feet and then plunge forward down the avenue, followed by cheer after cheer, in which Sherry’s bark could be plainly heard as he dashed after the horses, jumping first at their heads, then at Tom, who was driving them, and then at the window from which Paul was leaning to catch sight of the familiar places they were passing and the landmarks which told him he was near home and his mother. No one was present when Mrs. Ralston received her boy as if he had come back to her from the dead, crying over him until too much exhausted to speak or move.
Judge Ralston would have liked to have that evening in quiet with his wife and son, but the people did not will it so. They had done great injustice to Paul, and they could not wait before trying to make some amends. All the available material for a celebration in Oak City and Still Haven was collected;—bonfires were kindled in different parts of the island. The Ralston House was ablaze with light, from the Smuggler’s room in the basement to the look-out on the roof, from which rockets and Roman candles went hissing into the sky, and were seen on the mainland and by fishing boats far out to sea. Tom had but little to do with it all.
“I can’t,” he said. “I’m tuckered out, and feel as if the sand was all taken from me. Go ahead and let me rest.”