“Why, they saved your life, Jack,” said young Tim.
“That’s what,” said Harvey. “I owe them one for that. Here’s a chance to get square, if we can only make it in time.”
“And only to think,” muttered the man in the cabin, as he looked out at the stalwart but boyish figure at the wheel, “that I had that young fellow in the same boat with me at night in the middle of Samoset Bay! Well, if I had only done as I set out to, then, I wouldn’t be here now, that’s all. But how is a man to look ahead so far?”
CHAPTER XXI.
THE TRIAL
What one man knew in Mayville was every man’s property. Gossip always spread through the town like wildfire. So it happened that on the morning of the arrival of the Nancy Jane and the Spray there was a buzzing and a shaking of heads and a wagging of tongues; and before long the whole town knew that something of vast importance was about to take place up at Squire Ellis’s court.
“It’s those young fellows that set the hotel afire over across at Southport,” said a certain tall, gaunt individual, who happened to be the centre of an excited group on one of the street corners, near the town pump. “I hear as how Squire Barker is going to defend them, but they do say he’s got no case, because I heard Lem Stevens say as he heard Squire Brackett declare he saw them young chaps down in the billiard-room of the hotel along about midnight, and the fire started pretty quick after that.”
“Well, guess they’ll catch it if Squire Brackett is on their trail,” volunteered another of the group. “He ain’t given to showing kindness to anybody, much less to a lot of firebugs.”
“I don’t believe they ever done it, anyway,” ventured a third. “They don’t seem like that kind, from all I can learn, and they do say as how they pitched in and saved a lot of Colonel Witham’s boarders from being burned in their beds, when the flames was a-spreadin’ fast.”
And so the gossip waged, this way and that, while impatient knots of idlers hung around the entrance to Squire Ellis’s court, waiting for ten o’clock, when proceedings should begin.
Shortly before the old town clock beat out the ten solemn strokes that proclaimed the formal sitting of justice, a whisper ran along the line of loiterers, “Here he comes. It’s the judge.” And that person of great importance, a short, thick-set man, with a quick, nervous step, an energetic, sharp manner, but, withal, a kindly eye, entered the court-room. The next moment the clock announced his punctuality.