"There ain't no use in you talking with my girl, Harrington," put in Rudge, who had come back to the door. "And I don't want you coming here any more."
"How about that, May?" I asked. "Do you tell me to go?"
Her lips trembled, and she looked at me more kindly. Perhaps in another moment she would have answered and not failed me. But hot and heady as I was by nature, and smarting from all that had happened, I wanted a ready answer: I would not plead for myself.
"So you won't take my word for it?" I said, turning away.
"The word of a drunkard and a good-for-nothing!" the old man fired after me.
"Oh, father! don't," I heard May say. Then perhaps she called my name. But I was at the gate, and too proud to turn back.
I was discharged the next week. Although there was nothing against me except the fact that I had been seen about the barn previous to the fire, and the well-known enmity between me and the judge, it would have gone hard with me had it not been for the fact that in the ruins of the burned barn they found the remains of an old farm-hand, who had probably wandered in there while drunk and set the place on fire with his pipe.
When I was released my uncle said the folks were ready to have me back home; but without a word I started north on the county road in the direction of the great city.
"So," said his Honor, when I had finished my story in the dingy chamber of the police court, "you want me to believe that you really had no hand in firing that barn any more than you took this lady's purse?"