University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
RALPH AND STEWEL ONCE MORE.

“That ar' tin box,” said Stewel, puffing his
cigar.

Ralph once more clad in his outcast rags,
confronted him with folded arms, and teeth set
together.

“What does thee mean!” asked a mild
sweet voice, as Martha Lott advanced from the
shadows. “Thou hadst better put thy pistol
and thy club into thy pocket again.”

Poor Hannah Marvin said nothing, but her
eyes expanded with a look of vague wonder.

“What do I mean?” said Stewel, as with
mace and pistol, he seemed to embody all the
plenitude of the Law, in his own corpulent
person: “Why it's enough to break a-body's
heart, so it is. Here's this young gallus been
robbin' a most respectable individual of a tin
box filled with valleyable papers. A parfic
burglar Ma'am!”

“Ralph what has thee to say to this?” said
Martha Lott laying her hand gently upon his
shoulder.

Ralph was silent. With knit brows and
compressed lips, he was endeavouring to solve
a singular problem, or rather a series of problems.
Had Stewel really taken him for a rich
man's son, whose name was Charles Augustus
Millikin? Or, had Stewel, knowing his residence
in Bonus Court, deliberately planned
the robbery, and aided him in his escape from
Brother Caleb's House? These queries were
passing through the mind of Ralph: he was
bewildered by a torrent of suspicions and surmises
which buzzed like a nest of bees, in his
brain.

“What do you mean? S-a-y?” he exclaimed,
determined to put a bold face upon the
matter: “I know nothin' o' yer tin box. Yer
mistaken in the person — you are.”

Stewel, pistol in one hand and mace in the
other, advanced a step, and whispered a few
words, audible only to the outcast boy.

“You see young man, I know'd you had
genus, and so I put the management o' this
little affair into your hands. I seed you often
with the Fairy boys, and I ses, ses I, here's
the young man, as can make his fortin by

helpin' the Constitooshun and Laws. You
take? I'm the Constitooshun and Laws; I
am. Well, my chick, when I heer'd these
covies were plannin' the robbery of Goodleigh's
house, I pitched upon you as the very
chap to settle their hash. I kidnapped you in
front of the Church, made believe that I thought
you was Charles Augustus Milliken, and put
you, in the dark, into Goodleigh's house.
Don't you take yit? Why bless your soul, I
know'd you'd git the tin box all the while —
you're so enterprizin'! And I know'd you'd
make a straight track for Bonus Court —
though I took keer not to tell you so. And
now my dear, I've killed two birds with one
stone. I've got the robbers safe in the lock-up,
and through you, I've got the tin box. D'ye
see? Jist pitch it over, and say no more
about it.”

Ralph heard this candid explanation with a
singular complication of emotions. It was
clear that Stewel himself had planned the
robbery. No less clear, that Stewel himself,
had entangled each one of the burglars, in a
plot to rob Goodleigh's house. And clearest
of all, that he, Ralph Jones, familiarly termed
“Jonesey the B'iler,” had been made the
scape-goat of Stewel's “speculation,” and the
dupe of Stewel's pleasant game of “Constitooshun
and Laws.”

Will Ralph give up the tin box, and thus put
the cap-stone to Stewel's magnificent scheme?
Let us listen.

“Go way from me,” growls Ralph squaring
his elbows: “You're gass-y man! What do
yer mean, by jawin' about a tin box? Get
out!”

Stewel cocked the pistol. Stewel brandished
the mace. “Come along,” he said mildly,
as he puffed his cigar — “We'll quit these
primises together. Moyamensin's the word.”

With one movement the Quaker woman
and the Millerite's daughter, advanced and interrupted
the scene, with their respective exclamations:

“Take care! you will shoot him!” cried
Hannah.

“Friend, thou art behaving exceedingly bad,”
said Martha Lott. “Fie! Shame on thee!
to brandish these weapons at the breast of a
defenceless child!”

“Let him come on,” growled Ralph: “If
he shoots he'll be hung. An' there 'aint been
a Polees Offisser hung for these fifty years.
Won't it be a sight? Crickey! How he'll
kick!”

And Ralph, as if inspired by the picture
drawn by his vivid fancy, burst into a hearty
fit of laughter. At the same time, eyeing Stewel
from head to foot, he added in a more
quiet tone —

“It 'll take a thunderin' rope, though!
Why you must weigh six hundred. Was you
ever 'sibited in a cattle show?”

Stewel was but human. Even the placid
current of his official temper was ruffled by
the taunts of the ruffian boy. He dashed the
cigar from his mouth.

“Now will you come, or won't you come?”
he brandished his mace before the eyes of
Ralph.

“Thee had better go with him,” said the
Quaker Woman. “Doubtless he is mistaken.
To-morrow all things can be made right.”

The mild voice, the calm face of the Quaker
woman, seemed to subdue the rugged spirit of
the young ruffian. His face changed; he
seemed to hesitate whether to make an attack
upon Stewel, or to submit quietly to his
guidance.

“Go, Ralph,” whispered Hannah: “in the
morning father will get you bail —”

“What if I give up the tin box?” said Ralph
suddenly — “That is, admittin' for argument
sake, that I've got the tin box?”

Stewel's face brightened.

“Why then my lad, I'll give you an even
ten dollars, and say no more about it.”

“An' if I won't give it up?”

“Then you snooze in Moyamensin' to-night
and come up afore Judge Choktaw at the next
Court —”

“Chocktaw?” echoed Martha Lott —
“Whom does thee call Chocktaw.”

Stewel cast upon the questioner a look of
bland condescension and replied:

“Chocktaw is an ornament to any Christ'en
community. He does things up brown, I tell
you. If you come before him, he just takes
a squint at your dress, and at a squint he
knows your character, and measures your punishment.
He's down on rags, I tell ye. Rags
always get a full dose in the Pennytensherry,
Rags does when Choktaw's on the bench. But

broadcloth — Lord! How he loves it, and
smoothes over its weakness, and remembers
what a good family it comes from! Choktaw's
one of 'em.”

“I gin in,” interrupted Ralph: “Come up
stairs. The tin box is yours.”

He moved toward the stairway, but Stewel
arrested his step with a levelled pistol.

“None of your attempts to escape,” he exclaimed:
“The first move o' that kind you
make, I fire. You know? Go ahead — I'm
at your heels.”

Ralph accordingly ascended the stairs, followed
close by Stewel, with mace and pistol
in his hand.

“Well!” cried Martha Lott, as they disappeared
— “This surprises me! Ralph has
not been up stairs, and therefore I conclude
that the tin box is not there.”

“And the poor Mother is alone there,
making confession to the Priest,” added Hannah.
“She will not last until to-morrow.
Where does Fanny stay?'

And with evident impatience the twain
awaited the re-appearance of Ralph and Stewel.