“Jack! have you been smashing their windows?”
And before he could catch his breath, to enter into explanations, the deacon exclaimed, indignantly, “Where is the squire? I’ll see what he means by following up the boy in this way!” And he strode towards the house, more angry than Jack had ever seen him before.
Sellick followed with Jack; and Phin went last, looking strangely excited, if not delighted, and calling to Mr. Pipkin at the barn, “Hurrah, Pip! come and see the fun!”
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MRS. CHATFORD met her husband at the door, her kind face full of motherly solicitude. “Do tell me, what is the matter! _He_ is in the sitting-room. O Jack! I hope you haven’t been getting into any serious trouble.”
They found the squire sitting stiffly in a straight-backed chair, with his horn-headed cane between his knees, and his hat and an odd-looking bundle on the floor beside him.
“What is all this about, squire?” the deacon demanded, as poor Jack was brought in, face to face with his grim accuser. “Haven’t you got through persecuting this boy? I felt that your treatment of him yesterday was wholly unwarrantable,—tyrannical and unjust; and though I thought a little differently of it, after my talk with your nephew last night, still I am not satisfied, and I sha’n’t be, till you have done the right thing. That he said you would do; but this don’t look like it. What great crime has Jack committed, that you should send an officer of the law after him?”
“You know nothing of what you are sayin’!” replied Peternot. “If you stan’ up for the boy arter I’ve made my statements, you’re not the man I take you for. I believe you to be a respecter of the laws, and no friend of rascality. If you don’t believe what I say, there’s my nephew out there in the wagon, ready to corroborate; and if you won’t credit our words, peradventur’ you’ll be convinced by this.”
He took up the odd-looking bundle from the floor, untied the corners of the coarse plaid handkerchief that enclosed it, and pulled out a pair of stockings, which he held up and shook before the eyes of the wondering group.
“Do ye know them stockin’s, Mis’ Chatford?”
“Why—sure—they—they are Jack’s stockings!” said the good woman, sadly puzzled to know how they had come into Peternot’s possession.