CHAPTER LIII
JASON’S STORY
The court was full of commotion. Pasco Pepperill had fallen, as though struck down by a hammer, and was insensible. He was carried out with difficulty, and with the crowd rushing about him and his bearers, unable to realise what had taken place, anxious to see if he were dead.
He was not dead: a doctor was hastily summoned to the house into which he was taken, and he pronounced the case to be one of apoplexy brought on by sudden and violent emotion.
Meantime, inside the court order was gradually restored.
The chairman made a feeling allusion to the sudden illness which had fallen on the most important witness in the case’which was the less to be wondered at, since the case was one that must deeply move Mr. Pepperill, as he had to appear against a member of his own family.
Then Mr. Pooke, with a mottled face, pushed up to the Bench, and whispered something in the ear of the chairman.
“I beg pardon, I do not understand,” said he.
“Sir,” said Mr. Pooke, “the real culprit has come to deliver himself up’Jason Quarm, who set fire to the rick, for which his daughter stands here accused wrongfully by the biggest rascal that ever breathed.”
“Call Jason Quarm!” said the magistrate.
Jason at once hobbled forward and pushed himself in beside Kate, who was trembling with emotions of the most varied nature. Jason cleared his throat and said’