“Dost want to be shut up in yon cupboard?” roared the hot-headed farmer. And the hint was quite enough.
Galloway House on that day turned a corner. Farmer Rosher, who had sore doubts in his own mind whether he had done good or harm by his interference, spoke his mind freely to his neighbours on the subject of Jonah Trimble, a proceeding in which his two sons heartily backed him up. The consequence was that that worthy young pedagogue found his scholastic labours materially lightened—for a dozen boys are easier to teach than fifty—and had time to wonder whether after all he would not have served his day and generation quite as well by looking after his own affairs, as after the most unprofitable affairs of somebody else.
Chapter Ten.
Tossed About.
Jeffreys, as the reader will have discovered, did not possess the art of doing himself common justice. He had brooded so long and so bitterly over his fatal act of violence at Bolsover, that he had come almost to forget that accident had had anything to do with poor Forrester’s injuries. And now, when confronted with his crime, even by a despicable wretch like Trimble, he had not the spirit to hold up his head and make some effort at any rate to clear himself of all that was charged against him.
Jeffreys was still a blunderer, or else his conscience was unusually sensitive. You and I, reader, no doubt, would have put a bold face on the matter, and insisted the whole affair was entirely an accident, and that we were to be pitied rather than blamed for what had happened. And a great many people would have pitied us accordingly. But Jeffreys claimed no pity. He saw nothing but his own ruthless fault; and he chose to take the whole burden of it, and the burden of the accident besides, on his own shoulders.
And so it was he left Galloway House without a word, and cast himself and his bad name once more adrift on a pitiless world.
But as he walked on he was not thinking of Galloway House, or Farmer Rosher, or Freddy or Teddy. The last words of Trimble rang in his ears, and deafened him to all beside.