must rest on the uncertainty of circumstantial evidence, and the goodness of the prisoner’s previous character. A very vague and weak defence. However, I’ve engaged Mr. Clinton as counsel, and he’ll make the best of it. And now, my good fellow, I must wish you good-night, and turn you out of doors. As it is, I shall have to sit up into the small hours. Did you see my clerk as you came upstairs? You did! Then may I trouble you to ask him to step up immediately?”
After this Job could not stay, and, making his humble bow, he left the room.
Then he went to Mrs. Jones’s. She was in, but Charley had slipped off again. There was no holding that boy. Nothing kept him but lock and key, and they did not always; for once she had him locked up in the garret, and he had got off through the skylight. Perhaps now he was gone to see after the young woman down at the docks. He never wanted an excuse to be there.
Unasked, Job took a chair, resolved to wait Charley’s reappearance.
Mrs. Jones ironed and folded her clothes, talking all the time of Charley and her husband, who was a sailor in some ship bound for India, and who, in leaving her their boy, had evidently left her rather more than she could manage. She moaned and croaked over sailors, and seaport towns, and stormy weather, and sleepless nights, and trousers all over tar and pitch, long after Job had left off attending to her, and was only trying to hearken to every step and every voice in the street.
At last Charley came in, but he came alone.
“Yon Mary Barton has getten into some scrape or another,” said he, addressing himself to Job. “She’s not to be heard of at any of the piers; and Bourne says it were a boat from the Cheshire side as she went aboard of. So there’s no hearing of her till tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow morning she’ll have to be in court at nine o’clock, to bear witness on a trial,” said Job sorrowfully.
“So she said; at least somewhat of the kind,” said Charley, looking desirous to hear more. But Job was silent.
He could not think of anything further that could be done; so he rose up, and, thanking Mrs. Jones for the shelter she had given him, he went out into the street; and there he stood still, to ponder over probabilities and chances.
After some little time he slowly turned towards the lodging where he had left Mrs. Wilson. There was nothing else to be done; but he loitered on the way, fervently hoping that her weariness and her woes might have sent her to sleep before his return, that he might be spared her questionings.
He went very gently into the house-place where the sleepy landlady awaited his coming and his bringing the girl, who, she had been told, was to share the old woman’s bed.
But in her sleepy blindness she knocked things so about in lighting the candle (she could see to have a nap by firelight, she said), that the voice of Mrs. Wilson was heard from the little back-room, where she was to pass the night.
“Who’s there?”
Job gave no answer, and kept down his breath, that she might think herself mistaken. The landlady, having no such care, dropped the snuffers with a sharp metallic sound, and then, by her endless apologies, convinced the listening woman that Job had returned.
“Job! Job Legh!” she cried out nervously.
“Eh, dear!” said Job to himself, going reluctantly to her bedroom door. “I wonder if one little lie would be a sin, as things stand? It would happen give her sleep, and she won’t have sleep for many and many a night (not to call sleep), if things goes wrong tomorrow. I’ll chance it, any way.”
“Job! art thou there?” asked she again with a trembling impatience that told in every tone of her voice.
“Ay! sure! I thought thou’d ha’ been asleep by this time.”
“Asleep! How could I sleep till I know’d if Will were found?”
“Now for it,” muttered Job to himself. Then in a louder voice, “Never fear! he’s found, and safe, ready for tomorrow.”
“And he’ll prove that thing for my poor lad, will he? He’ll bear witness that Jem were with him? O Job, speak! tell me all!”
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” thought Job. “Happen one prayer will do for the sum total. Any rate, I must go on now. Ay, ay,” shouted he, through the door. “He can prove all; and Jem will come off as clear as a new-born babe.”
He could hear Mrs. Wilson’s rustling movements, and in an instant guessed she was on her knees, for he heard her trembling voice uplifted in thanksgiving and praise to God, stopped at times by sobs of gladness and relief.
And when he heard this, his heart misgave him; for he thought of the awful enlightening, the terrible revulsion of feeling that awaited her in the morning. He saw the shortsightedness of falsehood; but what could he do now?
While he listened, she ended her grateful prayers.
“And Mary? Thou’st found her at Mrs. Jones’s, Job?” said she, continuing her inquiries.
He gave a great sigh.
“Yes, she was there, safe enough, second time of going. God forgive me!” muttered he, “who’d ha’ thought of my turning out such an arrant liar in my old days.”
“Bless the wench! Is she here? Why does she not come to bed? I’m sure she’s need.”
Job coughed away his remains of conscience, and made answer—
“She was a bit weary, and o’erdone with her sail! and Mrs. Jones axed her to stay there all night. It was nigh at hand to the courts, where she will have to be in the morning.”
