The pater walked over to the Court after tea, carrying the grievance of his destroyed plants to the Sterlings. In coming up Dyke Lane as he returned at night, where it was always darker than in other places because the trees hid the moonlight, somebody seemed to walk right out of the hedge upon him.
It was Roger Monk. He raised his hat to the Squire as a gentleman does—did not touch it as a gardener—and began pleading for clemency.
“Clemency, after destroying a whole hot-houseful of rare plants!” cried the Squire.
“I never did it, sir,” returned Monk, passionately. “On my word as a man—I will not to you say as a gentleman—if the plants were not injured by the candles, as I fully believe, I know not how they could have been injured.”
The pater was staggered. At heart he was the best man living. Suppose Monk was innocent?
“Look here, Monk. You know your name is——”
“Hush, sir!” interposed Monk, hastily, as if to prevent the hedges hearing the true name. “It is of that I have waited to speak to you; to beseech your clemency. I have no need to crave it in the matter of plants which I never harmed. I want to ask you to be silent, sir; not to proclaim to the world that I am other than what I appeared to be. A short while longer and I should have been able to prove my innocence; things are working round. But if you set the hue-and-cry upon me——”
“Were you innocent?” interposed the Squire.
“I was; I swear it to you. Oh, Mr. Todhetley, think for a moment! I am not so very much older than your son; he is not more innocent than I was; but it might happen that he—I crave your pardon, sir, but it might—that he should become the companion of dissipated young men, and get mixed up unwittingly in a disgraceful affair, whose circumstances were so complicated that he could only fly for a time and hide himself. What would you say if the people with whom he took refuge, whether as servant or else, were to deliver him up to justice, and he stood before the world an accused felon? Sir, it is my case. Keep my secret; keep my secret, Mr. Todhetley.”