 | CHAPTER VII.
A TOTAL ECLIPSE. The boy of Mount Rhigi |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
A TOTAL ECLIPSE.
“The sheriff and the watch are at the door. They are come to
search the house. Shall I let them in?”
Mrs. Davis and her husband returned earlier
than they were expected on the following
morning. Deputy Sheriff Parley, from whom she had
hired her conveyance, had told her that he was
obliged to take some debtors to the county jail on
that day, and he should be glad to have his wagon
as early as she could return. Mrs. Davis was glad
to have this plea with her husband, who was habitually
a late sleeper. “It was natural to the Davises,”
he said. She was saddened by her recent
loss, and desired to relieve her mind by plunging
into her usual occupations. She roused Davis before
the day dawned; and, just as the sun arose, she
stopped at the sheriff's gate to inform him of her
return. He was a bustling, prompt man; and, being
his prisoners, he jumped into the wagon, intending to
take possession of it at Davis's door. When they
arrived there, Mrs. Davis asked the sheriff to wait
till she could bring the money from the house to
pay him for the “team.” The children were still
asleep. She sighed heavily as she passed them,
thinking that she should never again see little Lucy
lying by them, and proceeded into the bed-room.
“I am sure I did not leave that window wide open,”
thought the careful mother, as the damp, morning
breeze blew on her. She opened the drawer, and was
struck with its confusion. The things were upturned,
and the purse not in its place. She uttered
an exclamation, and involuntarily called to Harry.
He sprang out of bed, wrapped a sheet round him,
and saying, “Dear, dear mother, are you here?” he
was in a moment at her side. Annie followed.
The loss was communicated, and Harry at once recurred
to what had happened in the night, and
related it. “There had been a thief in the house:
who could it be?” Mrs. Davis called in the sheriff,
He looked outside the window for tracks. The ground
was hard trodden there, and showed none. “The
window,” he remarked, “would scarcely admit a
man;” but, on measuring it, he concluded that one
narrow in the shoulders might get in. But who
could it be? No depredation of the sort had ever
been committed in Salisbury; and, though there was
scarcely a house in the place with a fastening on
its doors, none had been entered. There had been
pilfering of meat, hung in outer sheds and hen-roosts,
but they had all been traced to Norman Dunn,
and he could not get half his breadth into that window.
“To be sure,” added the sheriff, “there's his
boy, Clapham.”
“Clapham!” interrupted Harry, “it is not he!”
“No, no! indeed it is not!” echoed Mrs. Davis
and Annie.
“I do not believe it is,” said Sheriff Parley;
“the boy is a changed boy, regular and quiet.”
While he spoke, the sheriff was shuffling his foot
backward and forward: in doing so, he hit it against
cast his eye down, and just peeping from beneath
it, he saw a pocket-handkerchief. He knew it instantly.
It was the one Annie had given to Clapham. The
blood rushed up to the very roots of his hair. His
first impulse was to snatch and conceal it; but, before
he could make a movement, or think another thought,
the sheriff, who had seen his change of color, and
followed the direction of his eye, caught it up, and
shook it out, saying, “What is this? Here's a clew,
may be. `C. D.' — Clapham Dunn! The secret is
out!”
Mrs. Davis sat down, trembling. Annie turned
pale, and Davis said, “Yes; out, fully!”
“O, no, father!” said Harry; “you don't know
Clapham. You mistake, sir,” addressing the sheriff.
“Mother, Clapham was here all those two last days:
could he not have dropped it then?”
Mrs. Davis made no reply. A conviction that
Clapham was the guilty one, was stealing over her,
and her heart sank within her. She recalled his
standing by her when she took out the money to
the sheriff asked, “What was the situation of the room
when you left it, Mrs. Davis? Was it cleared up?”
“Yes.”
“Did you put it to rights yourself? Don't be
scared. You are not on oath.”
“That makes no difference. I must speak the
truth, though the poor boy should seem condemned by
it. I did put the room in order before I went away.”
“Might not the footstool have been turned over,
and you not seen it?”
“Yes, mother, I know it might!” exclaimed Harry.
Mrs. Davis shook her head. “Do you remember any
thing distinctly about the footstool?” pursued the
sheriff.
“Yes. It's little Lucy's. She always sat on it;
and for fear something might happen to it, I came
back after I went out to get into the wagon, and brought
it in from the kitchen, and placed it under the window,
where the table had stood with the coffin on it.”
“There is no need of further investigation, sheriff,”
interposed Davis. “I don't wish my family to shield
You know, mother, I never approved of Harry keeping
company with him. What's the next step, sheriff?”
The sheriff, after a moment's consideration, said that
he thought they had best jump into the wagon at once,
and proceed to Norman's; and Davis suggested that,
as they must call at Squire Baner's on their way, for
a search warrant, it would be best to get his boys
to go up with them, as Norman was an ugly customer
when he was mad. The prudent sheriff assented
to the propriety of this reënforcement, and they were
proceeding, when Harry said, “You can take but one
of the Baners, for I must go. I must hear the truth
from Clapham.”
“The truth from Clapham!” echoed Davis; “that's
a good one!—the truth from the thief.”
“I must go, sir,” replied Harry, with a calm decision,
that rather staggered his father; and he said,
winking at the same time slyly at Sheriff Parley,
“Well, it's the sheriff's wagon. What say you, Mr.
Sheriff?”
“I say that I can't take a supernumerary. I shall
speed, or the bird will have flown. Don't put your
finger in the pie, Harry Davis. It's a bad mess,—
depend on't.”
Harry begged, he entreated; but the sheriff was
resolute, and drove away at full speed. He was much
edified on the way by sundry remarks of Davis on the
impossibility of women taking care of money after
they had earned it, and on the obvious advantage of
their at once paying it over to their husbands!
We return to Norman's hut. He had awakened
from a short sleep, had watched in the day, and was
awaiting its advance impatiently. He feared to excite
suspicion if he should appear at the Furnace at an
unusually early hour, and he counted the minutes till
he could go, secure the rifle, and be off. Then he
cared not how much he was suspected or accused;
but, above all things, he dreaded confinement in a jail,
It was as intolerable to him as to a Pawnee.
Clapham was sleeping profoundly. It will be remembered
that the night preceding the theft he had lain
outside little Lucy's window. It had been one long
right purposes. How different had been the last night!
Sad, but not to the poor boy guilty. He had resolved
that as soon as morning came, and his father had gone,
he would go to the Davises, and make a full disclosure,
come what come would; and, feeling relieved by this
determination, he sank into a deep sleep.
The sheriff was obliged to leave the wagon a quarter
of a mile from Norman Dunn's, and ascend the mountain
with his companions by a foot-path. Norman
heard their footsteps, and was instantly aware of the
threatened danger. He had but one moment to consider,
and he obeyed the first suggestion of his evil
mind. He took the purse from under his pillow, and
thrust it through a hole of Clapham's ticking, amidst
the straw, and returned to his bed, where he affected
to be awakened from sound sleep. Clapham was
awakened too. He recognized the sheriff. He started
at the sight of Davis. He well knew the quest they
must be on, and he drew the ragged coverlet over
his head, and lay still.
Norman, having demanded, with the air of lord of
cerned tone, to “proceed,” kept up an under-current
of muttering. He thought people that did not meddle
nor make in the village might be left in quiet on
the mountain. Davis's money! Davis's was the last
house in the county he should go to to look for money.
Where did Tom Davis get it? Selling Self-churning
Churns! or Independent Washing Machines! He had
not been to Tom Davis's this ten years.
“But your boy has,” said Davis, “and we'll trouble
him to get up;” hoping to quiet the slurs which he felt
diverted his companions.
“Come, my lad,” he said, shaking Clapham; “up
with you. You are smart enough when you are
crawling into people's windows, at the dead of night.
Clapham uncovered his pale face, rose, and put on his
clothes. He looked miserable, but any thing but
guilty; and every one instinctively felt what a contrast
he was to the loathsome scene about him, and above
all to his father, whose eyes were blood-shot, his face
bloated, and black with a beard of a month's growth, and
his nose, like Bardolph's, “an everlasting bonfire light.”
“We must make a thorough search here,” said the
sheriff, “for here, as the children say, we are getting
hot.” He shook out the bed-clothes, and, saying it
would not hurt the musty straw to give it an airing,
he took the bed to the door, tore it open, and shook
it out. The purse rung, as it fell heavily on the
door-step. “Pretty well done, for a beginner!” he
said, picking up the purse, and then holding it up.
“There's one witness against you, my lad;” and then,
drawing out from his pocket Clapham's handkerchief,
“And here's another!” he added. “Truly, you are a
chip of the old block; though he don't look like it,
does he?” he added, in a lowered voice, appealing to
the standers-by. There was compassion in his voice,
— a compassion it was impossible not to feel. Clapham's
cheeks and lips were bloodless, but his eye
looked steadily up. “Give me that handkerchief,” he
said, faintly. It was given to him. It had been
steeped with tears of sympathy and love — tears for
little Lucy. Bitter tears now drenched it as he covered
his face, staggered against the wall, and said, in
a voice but just audible, “Ruined, ruined!”
Massy now crawled out of her lair, and began
crying aloud. “Why, Clapham! Clapham!” she said,
“I never would have thought it of you. Why, sheriff,
though he does belong to us, there never was an
honester boy. Clappy never stole in his life, but
when he made him. 'Twas only two days ago he refused
to spend a shilling for me, just 'cause I took it
out of his pocket.” This declaration made no impression
at the time, but it was afterwards remembered in
Clapham's favor. “Don't,” she continued, “don't, Mr.
Sheriff, snap him up. You've got the money; what
more do you want? He's young to shut up in a jail.
Them that's put there always comes out worse than
they go in. Norman always did.”
“Keep your breath to cool your porridge, old
woman,” said Norman. “Did you ever see a cat let a
mouse go? When you see that, you'll see a sheriff
open his clutch. Come, clear out; I don't want any
more powwowing here.”
The sheriff ordered Massy to tie up all the boy's
clothes, as it was not likely he would return very soon.
Clapham inquired whither he was to be conveyed.
going to transport some debtors from Canaan to the
prison at L—, and he should take him there for commitment.
“Can't I see Harry Davis before I go?”
asked Clapham, beseechingly.
“I will take upon me to answer that question,”
answered Davis, with an air of great authority. “You
cannot. You have had a little too much of seeing
Harry Davis.”
“Does Harry believe I stole the purse?”
“To be sure he does.”
“How can he? He does not know the purse is
found.”
“But he heard you in the night; he found the
window open; he saw the handkerchief; and he knows
you.”
Clapham said not another word. It was to him as
if there were no more light in the world.
| CHAPTER VII.
A TOTAL ECLIPSE. The boy of Mount Rhigi | |