'As Gold in the Furnace' Part 19

Henning remembered the promise he had made to himself of silence on the night he had spent in the infirmary. On the other hand Garrett was becoming very much afraid of his cousin. He had never seen him so excited or determined before. What did Roy know? What could he tell to harm him? He knew that his record with the faculty, and with the boys too, was not an enviable one. Whatever Roy would do he would undoubtedly be believed, and he realized that he would have hard work to disprove any allegations Roy might make.

"You speak correctly when you say you can not," Andrew retorted.

"I do not! I can make you if I will. For other reasons I do not wish it. You must do it without compulsion."

"Do what?"

"Clear me. Clear me of all suspicion."

"It seems to me that in the present state of the boys' minds that would be impossible. In saying what I have said about you, Roy, I have only followed the lead of others. Things have been hinted so often that at last I began to believe some of them--at least partly believe them."

"You coward!" said Henning, now thoroughly angry. Both boys rose from the bench simultaneously and faced each other. By a singular chance each had his hands in his pockets. It appeared for an instant that they were coming to blows. So strained was the situation, that if either had at that moment taken his hand from his pocket it would have been a signal for a fight. Henning's face was white with anger.

Garrett's was red with apprehension and vexation.

"You are a coward," repeated Henning; "you know a great deal about this affair."

Garrett thought best to deny all knowledge.

"I do not."

"Indeed! and I suppose you know nothing of the loosened bars of the window of the committee-room?"

"No."

"I thought not. And I suppose you know nothing of the boy who was seen to have gone through that window on the night of the play?"

"No."

"Oh, no! Of course not. I suppose, too, there are half a dozen boys who sport sky-blue sweaters to make themselves conspicuous."

Henning waited a moment and Garrett said:

"It is no one's concern but my own what I wear."

"Well, my dear, affectionate cousin, that blue sweater was seen--seen, mind--that night to go through that window and come out again."

Garrett started violently. Henning took the motion for an admission of guilt, but Garrett had no intention of making such acknowledgment.

Indeed he became as angry as Henning was.

"Whether I am guilty or not, a question I absolutely decline to discuss, do you think, you jackanapes, that I would admit it to you?

Not if I know myself. Do you think I am going to swallow whole a story like that? You must think I am dreadfully green, or dreadfully afraid of you. If you have evidence, bring it forward. That you can, and will not, is to me, permit me to say, all buncombe. Bah! You weary me! Do what you can and what you dare!"

Snapping his fingers with a show of righteous indignation, Garrett walked away. If the boy were guilty, if it were he who was seen to enter the room through that window on the night of the theft, he now acquitted himself of a splendid piece of acting. If he were innocent, then his indignation were natural. Henning would then have to acknowledge that he had done him a gross injustice. But Roy was firmly convinced that his cousin had brazened the thing out. He regretted that he had let him know that he would not compel him to make an acknowledgment of his guilt. Roy had never expected that he would do so. All he required from his cousin was that he would speak in his favor and make an effort to turn the tide of opinion, trusting in his friends for the rest.

When Andrew Garrett moved away Roy's first impulse was to follow him and compel a confession. Suddenly the thought came to him that perhaps he had blundered. Under the new and annoying impression he stood motionless until Garrett had disappeared along the winding walk. Once more, as his anger left him, he sat down and, head in hands, meditated on the ugly position in which he found himself, made worse than before if he had blundered.

He began now to have doubts regarding the ident.i.ty of the thief. Was it not just possible that some other person possessed a blue sweater as well as his cousin? Could he have been mistaken, after all? The window from which he saw the thief was a hundred yards away. Could he, after all, positively identify a person at that distance at night? Was he not too much excited after the successful _Richelieu_ performance to be in a condition to be certain? He had taken only a casual glance at the figure, and it was more than twenty-four hours afterward that he had remembered the boy wore the fatal blue sweater, which he now began to realize was the one and only means of identifying his cousin.

Garrett must have some good grounds for his steady and persistent denials; yet that he should deny was not surprising to Roy for he knew his cousin fairly well.

The young man would have remained long in his unpleasant and disturbing meditations had he not heard some one approaching, and singing some ridiculous parody which had recently "caught" the yard, having been cleverly introduced into a recent debate on the relative importance of the Hibernians and the Anglo-Saxons in this country. It ran:

"There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin, The dew on his thin robe was beany and chill-- Ere the ship that had brought him had pa.s.sed out of hearin', He was Alderman Mike, introducing a bill."

It was Jack Beecham's happy voice, and his merry laugh echoed through the trees. At that moment, as he turned a bend in the walk, he caught sight of Roy.

"Shame on the false Etruscan who lingers in his home," he shouted.

"Come on, Roy; Tom Shealey and myself are going for a good long tramp in the woods. Why, man, you look as doleful as a November day. What's up? Come on; a good walk will drive the blues away."

The two friends took Henning for a good long tramp, which is the most satisfactory curative process for driving away depression of spirits, settling one's nerves, and banishing ill-temper.

CHAPTER XVII

GARRETT IS ANGRY

When Andrew left his cousin on the college walk he was in a very angry mood. He was quite sure that Henning did not know whether he was guilty or not, and he was satisfied that he had so guarded his words in his unexpected interview that Roy would not be able to take anything he had said as an admission of guilt. As soon as he discovered the drift of his cousin's remarks he made up his mind that he would not be betrayed into any speech that afterward might be used against him.

He had actually started out, as Henning had done, to find his cousin to talk with him. It will be remembered that he had used a very conciliatory tone, and spoke to his relative by his Christian name. He was acting at the moment under one of the few good impulses that came to him at that period of his life. But all this was most unfortunately frustrated by Henning's miserable ill-humor of the moment.

Returning to the yard after this stormy interview, he met the two boys, who, unfortunately, exercised the worst influence over him of any boys in the school, Smithers and Stockley. Nothing could have been more inopportune than their presence just when he was sore in spirit and angry. He was sore and more or less ashamed at the part he had played in regard to his cousin's reputation. He was not always without touches of compunction on this subject. He was angry, too, because of the recent interview. He knew that on account of this very anger he would very likely do more injury to Henning. His mind was in that state that made it ripe for any mischief these two worthies might suggest.

"We have been looking for you, Garrett. Where have you been?" said Smithers.

"Along the walk."

"Some one in the yard said you had gone hobn.o.bbing with your respectable relative," remarked Stockley.

"I was talking with him for a while, but not hobn.o.bbing, as you call it."

"What had he to say?" asked Smithers. There was an ugly, vindictive leer on Smithers' face which Garrett never liked and which in his better moments he detested. He really despised him, and all his life he had never a.s.sociated with this cla.s.s of boy. Not being in very good humor, he said:

"He had no compliments for you, at any rate."

"Didn't expect he had. It's not very likely that one hanging over a precipice with regard to his reputation, as he is, would have any compliments for any one. But what did he say, anyway?"

"Oh, nothing!" answered Garrett. "I find that he is more fully aware of the suspicions against him than I imagined. He is pretty sore under them, I can tell you."

Smithers' eyes glittered with satisfaction. By a strange perversion he was pleased that Henning was suffering. Why? The answer is difficult.

Because, perhaps, Henning had done him many a good turn. In time of necessity he was glad enough to receive a.s.sistance. When better times came for him, he promptly forgot. He lacked grat.i.tude. He was only one more exemplification of the old adage: "If you want to lose a friend, lend him money, and if you want to gain an enemy put some one under great obligations to you."

"Sore, is he? I can make him sorer still. Have you heard what has been found?" asked Smithers, looking first at Stockley and then at Garrett.

Had the latter been a little more observant he would have noticed Smithers' eyelids twitch in an unmistakably nervous way, and his fingers open and close spasmodically.

"No, I have not. Not the stolen money, I suppose," laughed Garrett mirthlessly.