Part 7 (2/2)

AN ESCAPE, AND A SUGGESTION.

I don't know whether I was any more cowardly than most boys of my age; but I certainly felt a curiously nervous sensation that morning, and I was not alone in it; for Esau had a strange scared look, and his fair hair did not curl nearly so tightly as usual.

”Eh?” he said, ”feel frightened?” in answer to a question. ”No, I don't think I do; but I wish they'd leave the door open so that a fellow could run.”

But there were no doors open for us to escape, and at last, after a weary time of waiting, the big policeman who had us in his charge bent down to us in the place where we were waiting, and said--

”Your case comes on next. There, hold up, my lads. Speak out, both of you, like men, and tell the whole truth. It's Sir Thomas Browning to-day.”

I listened to him, but I felt as if I was growing hopelessly confused, and that I should never be able to say a word in my defence, while when I looked at Esau, I found that he was looking at me with his forehead full of wrinkles.

”It's all very well for him to say 'hold up.' He haven't got to be tried,” he whispered. ”I'm 'fraid it's all up with us, Gordon. Wish we could be together when they sends us off.”

”Now then!” said the policeman, clapping me on the shoulder; ”it's us.

Don't you be scared. Sir Thomas is a good 'un.”

The next minute Esau and I were standing somewhere with our constable close by, and somewhere before us, in places that looked like pews, sat a number of gentlemen, some of whom wore wigs. Some were writing, and, seen as it were through a mist, a number of people looking on. Next, in a confused way, I saw a red-faced, white-headed gentleman, who took off his spectacles to have a good look at us, and put them on again to read a paper before him.

It was all dim and strange, and there was quite a singing in my ears, as I looked vacantly about while some talking went on, ending by a voice saying--

”Kiss the book.”

Then the white-headed old gentleman said--

”Well, Mr Dempster, what have you to say?”

At the name Dempster, I started and looked sharply about me, to see that my employer was a little way off, very carefully dressed, and with a glossy hat in his hand.

”That can't be _the_ hat,” I remember thinking, as I stared at him wildly.

The mist had cleared away now, and I stood listening to him as he went on speaking, in a very quiet subdued way, about the troubles he had had with the two defendants--boys whom he had taken into his service out of kindness.

”Yes, yes, yes, Mr Dempster,” said the old gentleman testily; ”but this isn't a sale of house property. There's a very long charge-sheet. You have given these two lads into custody on a charge of a.s.sault. Now, shortly, please, how did it happen?”

”The fact is, your wors.h.i.+p,” said Mr Dempster, ”I have had much trouble with both of them. The boy Dean is idle in the extreme, while Gordon is a lad of vile and pa.s.sionate temper.”

”Well, sir--well, sir?”

”I had occasion to speak to them yesterday about idling in my absence, the consequence being that a great many mistakes were made.”

”Allus careful as I could be,” said Esau, in an ill-used tone.

”Silence, sir! How dare you?” cried the old gentleman. ”You shall be heard presently. Now, Mr Dempster, please go on.”

”I was angry, Sir Thomas, and I scolded them both severely, when to my utter surprise--stop, I will be perfectly accurate--things had come to such a pa.s.s that I had threatened them with dismissal--when in a fit of pa.s.sion Dean struck my new hat from a chair on which it was laid, jumped upon it, and crushed it.”

<script>