But, after all had been said and done, he was not guilty. He had not set the boat-house on fire, and he did not even know who had done the malicious act. Noddy regarded this as a very happy thought; and while the reflection had a place in his mind, he pulled the oars with redoubled vigor. Yet it was in vain for him to rely upon the voice of an approving conscience for peace in that hour of trouble. If he had not, at that moment, been engaged in an act of disobedience, he might have been easy. He had been strictly forbidden by Mr. Grant, and by Bertha, ever to take Fanny out in a boat without permission; and Miss Fanny had been as strictly forbidden to go with him, or with any of the servants, without the express consent, each time, of her father or of Bertha.
It is very hard, while doing wrong in one thing, to enjoy an approving conscience in another thing; and Noddy found it so in the present instance. We do not mean to say that Noddy's conscience was of any great account to him, or that the inward monitor caused his present uneasiness. He had a conscience, but his vagabond life had demoralized it in the first place, and it had not been sufficiently developed, during his stay at Woodville, to abate very sensibly his anticipated pleasure at the circus. His uneasiness was entirely selfish. He had got into a scrape, whose probable consequences worried him more than his conscience.
By the time the runaways reached Whitestone, the boat-house was all burned up, and nothing but the curling smoke from the ruins visibly reminded the transgressors of the event which had disturbed them. Securing the boat in a proper place, Noddy conducted the young lady to the large tent in which the circus company performed, and which was more than a mile from the river. Fanny gave him the money, and Noddy purchased two tickets, which admitted them to the interior of the tent.
If Noddy had been entirely at ease about the affair on the other side of the river, no doubt he would have enjoyed the performance very much; but in the midst of the "grand entree of all the horses and riders of the troupe," the sorrowing face of Bertha Grant thrust itself between him and the horsemen, to obscure his vision and diminish the cheap glories of the gorgeous scene. When "the most daring rider in the world" danced about, like a top, on the bare back of his "fiery, untamed steed," Noddy was enthusiastic, and would have given a York shilling for the privilege of trying to do it himself.
The "ground and lofty tumbling," with the exception of the spangled tunics of the performers, hardly came up to his expectations; and he was entirely satisfied that he could beat the best man among them at such games. As the performance proceeded, he warmed up enough to forget the fire, and ceased to dread the rebuke of Bertha; but when all was over,—when the clown had made his last wry face, and the great American acrobat had achieved his last gyration, Bertha and the fire came back to him with increased power. Moody and sullen, he walked down to the river with Fanny, who, under ordinary circumstances, would have been too proud to walk through the streets of Whitestone with him. If he had been alone, it is quite probable that he would have taken to the woods, so much did he dread to return to Woodville.
He pushed off the boat, and for some time he pulled in silence, for Miss Fanny now appeared to have her own peculiar trials. Her conscience seemed to have found a voice, and she did not speak till the boat had reached the lower end of Van Alstine's Island.
"The fire is all out now," said she.
"Yes; but I would give a thousand dollars to know how it caught," added Noddy.
"I know," continued Fanny, looking down into the bottom of the boat.
"Who did it?" demanded Noddy, eagerly.