Burnham Breaker Part 49

The sheriff was looking uneasily at his watch. "Come," he said, "we'll have to hurry to catch the train."

The good woman bent down and kissed the boy tenderly. "Good-by to ye, darlin'," she said, "an' the saints protict ye." Then she burst into tears, and, throwing her ap.r.o.n up before her face, she held it against her eyes and went, backward, into the house.

Ralph laid hold of Bachelor Billy's rough hand affectionately, and they walked rapidly away.

At the bend in the street, the boy turned to look back for the last time upon the cottage which had been his home. A happy home it had been to him, a very happy home indeed. He never knew before how dear the old place was to him. The brow of the hill which they were now descending hid the house at last from sight, and, with tear-blinded eyes, Ralph turned his face again toward the city, toward the misery of the court-room, toward the desolate and dreadful prospect of a life with Simon Craft.

CHAPTER XIX.

BACK TO THE BREAKER.

It was a dull day in the court-room at Wilkesbarre. The jury trials had all been disposed of, and for the last hour or more the court had been listening to an argument on a rule for a new trial in an ejectment case. It was a very uninteresting matter. Every one had left the court-room with the exception of the court officers, a few lawyers, and a half-dozen spectators who seemed to be there for the purpose of resting on the benches rather than with any desire to hear the proceedings before the court.

The lawyers on both sides had concluded their arguments, and the judge was bundling together the papers in the case and trying to encircle the bulky package with a heavy rubber band.

Then the court-room door was opened, and the sheriff came down the aisle, accompanied by Ralph and Bachelor Billy. A moment later, Simon Craft followed them to the bar. Sharpman, who was sitting inside the railing by a table, looked up with disgust plainly marked on his face as the old man entered and sat down beside him.

He had prepared the pet.i.tion for a writ of _habeas corpus_, at Craft's request, and had agreed to appear in his behalf when the writ should be returned. He shared, in some small degree, the old man's desire for revenge on those who had been instrumental in destroying their scheme.

But, as the day wore on, the matter took on a slightly different aspect in his mind. In the first place, he doubted whether the court would order Ralph to be returned into Craft's custody. In the next place, he had no love for his client. He had been using him simply as a tool; it was time now to cast him aside since he could be of no further benefit to him. Besides, the old man had come to be annoying and repulsive, and he had no money to pay for legal services. Then, there was still an opportunity to recover some of the personal prestige he had lost in his bitter advocacy of Craft's cause before the jury. In short, he had deliberately resolved to desert his client at the first opportunity.

The sheriff endorsed his return on the writ and filed it.

The judge looked at the papers, and then he called Bachelor Billy before him. "I see," he said, "that you have produced the body of the boy Ralph as you were directed to do. Have you a lawyer?"

"I ha' none," answered the man. "I did na ken as I needit ony."

"We do not think you do, either, as we understand the case. The prothonotary will endorse a simple return on the writ, setting forth the production of the boy, and you may sign it. We think that is all that will be necessary on your part. Now you may be seated."

The judge turned to Sharpman.

"Well, Mr. Sharpman," he said, "what have you to offer on the part of your client?"

Sharpman arose. "If the court please," he responded, "I would respectfully ask to be allowed, at this juncture, to withdraw from the case. I prepared and presented the pet.i.tion as a matter of duty to a client. I do not conceive it to be my duty to render any further a.s.sistance. That client, either through ignorance or deception, has been the means of placing me in a false and unenviable light before the court and before this community, in the suit which has just closed. I have neither the desire nor the opportunity to set myself right in that matter, but I do wish and I have fully determined to wash my hands of the whole affair. From this time forth I shall have nothing to do with it."

Sharpman resumed his seat, while Craft stared at him in astonishment and with growing anger.

He could hardly believe that the man who had led him into this scheme, and whose unpardonable blunder had brought disaster on them both, was now not only deserting him, but heaping ignominy on his head. Every moment was adding to his bitterness and rage.

"Well, Mr. Craft," said the judge, "what have you to offer in this matter? Your attorney seems to have left you to handle the case for yourself; we will hear you."

"My attorney is a rascal," said Craft, white with pa.s.sion, as he arose. "His part and presence in that trial was a curse on it from the beginning. He wasn't satisfied to ruin me, but he must now seek to disgrace me as well. He is--"

The judge interrupted him:--

"We do not care to hear your opinion of Mr. Sharpman; we have neither the time nor the disposition to listen to it. You caused this defendant to produce before us the body of the boy Ralph. They are both here; what further do you desire?"

"I desire to take the boy home with me. The judgment of this court is that he is my grandson. In the absence of other persons legally ent.i.tled to take charge of him, I claim that right. I ask the court to order him into my custody."

The old man resumed his seat, and immediately fell into his customary fit of coughing.

When he had recovered, the judge, who had in the meantime been writing rapidly, said:--

"We cannot agree with you, Mr. Craft, as to the law. Although the presumption may be that the jury based their verdict on the boy's testimony that he is your grandson, yet their verdict does not state that fact specifically, and we have nothing on the record to show it.

It would be necessary for you to prove that relation here and now, by new and independent evidence, before we could place the boy in your custody under any circ.u.mstances. But we shall save you the trouble of doing so by deciding the matter on other grounds. The court has heard from your own lips, within a few days, that you are, or have been, engaged in a business such as to make thieving and lying a common occurrence in your life. The court has also heard from your own lips that during the time this child was in your custody, you not only treated him inhumanly as regarded his body, but that you put forth every effort to destroy what has since proved itself to be a pure and steadfast soul. A kind providence placed it in the child's power to escape from you, and the same providence led him to the door of a man whose tenderness, whose honor, and whose n.o.bility of character, no matter how humble his station in life, marks him as one eminently worthy to care for the body and to minister to the spirit of a boy like this.

"We feel that to take this lad now from his charge and to place him in yours, would be to do an act so utterly repugnant to justice, to humanity, and to law, that, if done, it ought to drag us from this bench in disgrace. We have marked your pet.i.tion dismissed; we have ordered you to pay the cost of this proceeding, and we have remanded the boy Ralph to the custody of William Buckley."

Simon Craft said not a word. He rose from his chair, steadied himself for a moment on his cane, then shuffled up the aisle, out at the door and down the hall into the street. Disappointment, anger, bitter hatred, raged in his heart and distorted his face. The weight of years, of disease, of a criminal life, sat heavily upon him as he dragged himself miserably along the crowded thoroughfare, looking neither to the right nor the left, thinking only of the evil burden of his own misfortunes. Now and then some one who recognized him stopped, turned, looked at him scornfully for a moment, and pa.s.sed on. Then he was lost to view. He was never seen in the city of Wilkesbarre again.

He left no friends behind him there. He was first ridiculed, then despised, and then--forgotten.

It was two weeks after this before Ralph was able to return to his work. So much excitement, so much mental distress and bodily fatigue in so short a time, had occasioned a severe shock to his system, and he rallied from it but slowly.

One Monday morning, however, he went back to his accustomed work at the breaker.

He had thought that perhaps he might be ridiculed by the screen-room boys as one who had tried to soar above his fellows and had fallen ignominiously back to the earth. He expected to be greeted with jeering words and with cutting remarks, not so much in the way of malice as of fun. He resolved to take it calmly, however, and to give way to no show of feeling, hoping that thus the boys would soon forget to tease him.

But when he came among them that morning, looking so thin, and pale, and old, there was not a boy in all the waiting crowd who had the heart or hardihood to say an unpleasant word to him or to give utterance to a jest at his expense.

They all spoke kindly to him, and welcomed him back. Some of them did it very awkwardly indeed, and with much embarra.s.sment, but they made him to understand, somehow, that they were glad to see him, and that he still held his place among them as a companion and a friend. It was very good in them, Ralph thought, very good indeed; he could scarcely keep the tears back for grat.i.tude.

He took his accustomed bench in the screen-room, and bent to his task in the old way; but not with the old, light heart and willing fingers.

He had thought never to do this again. He had thought that life held for him some higher, brighter, less laborious work. He had thought to gain knowledge, to win fame, to satisfy ambition. But the storm came with its fierce blasts of disappointment and despair, and when it had pa.s.sed, hope and joy were engulfed in the ruins it left behind it.

Henceforth there remained nothing but this, this toilsome bending over streams of flowing coal, to-day, to-morrow, next week, next year. And in the remote future nothing better; nothing but the laborer's pick and shovel, or, at best, the miner's drill and powder-can and fuse. In all the coming years there was not one bright spot to which he could look, this day, with hope. The day itself seemed very long to him, very long indeed and very tiresome. The heat grew burdensome; the black dust filled his throat and lungs, the ceaseless noise became almost unendurable; the stream of coal ran down and down in a dull monotony that made him faint and dizzy, and the bits of blue sky seen from the open windows never yet had seemed to him to be so far and far away.

But the day had an end at last, as all days must have, and Ralph came down from his seat in the dingy castle to walk with Bachelor Billy to their home.

They went by a path that led through green fields, where the light of the setting sun, falling on the gra.s.s and daisies, changed them to a golden yellow as one looked on them from the distance.

When they turned the corner of the village street, they were surprised to see horses and a carriage standing in front of Mrs. Maloney's cottage. It was an unaccustomed sight. There was a lady there talking to Mrs. Maloney, and she had a little girl by her side. At the second look, Ralph recognized them as Mrs. Burnham and Mildred. Then the lady descended from her carriage and stood at the door waiting for Bachelor Billy and the boy to come to her. But Ralph, looking down at his black hands and soiled clothing, hesitated and stopped in the middle of the road. He knew that his face, too, was so covered with coal-dust as to be almost unrecognizable. He felt that he ought not to appear before Mrs. Burnham in this guise.

But she saw his embarra.s.sment and called to him.

"I came to see you, Ralph," she said. "I want to talk to you both. May I go into your house and find a chair?"

Both boy and man hurried forward then with kindly greetings, and Bachelor Billy unlocked the door and bade her enter.

She went in and sat in the big rocking-chair, looking pale and weak, while Ralph hurried away to wash the black dust from his face and hands.

"Ye were verra kind, Mistress Burnham," said the man, "to sen' Ralph the gude things to eat when he waur sick. An' the perty roses ye gie'd 'im,--he never tired o' watchin' 'em."

"I should have come myself to see him," she replied, "only that I too have been ill. I thought to send such little delicacies as might tempt his appet.i.te. I knew that he must be quite exhausted after so great a strain upon his nervous system. The excitement wore me out, and I had no such struggle as he had. I am glad he has rallied from the shock."