“It can’t be good to be having words with father day after day.”
“But, Sam, I don’t think you can go away. You are bound by the magistrates’ orders. I don’t speak for myself, but I fear the police would be after you.”
“And is it to go on allays—that a chap can’t move to better hisself, because them fellows can’t catch the men as murdered old Trumbull? That can’t be law—nor yet justice.” Upon this there arose a discussion in which the Vicar endeavoured to explain to the young man that as he had evidently consorted with the men who were, on the strongest possible grounds, suspected to be the murderers, and as he had certainly been with those men where he had no business to be—namely, in Mr. Fenwick’s own garden at night—he had no just cause of complaint at finding his own liberty more crippled than that of other people. No doubt Sam understood this well enough, as he was sharp and intelligent; but he fought his own battle, declaring that as the Vicar had not prosecuted him for being in the garden, nobody could be entitled to punish him for that offence; and that as it had been admitted that there was no evidence connecting him with the murder, no policeman could have a right to confine him to one parish. He argued the matter so well, that Mr. Fenwick was left without much to say. He was unwilling to press his own responsibility in the matter of the bail, and therefore allowed the question to fall through—tacitly admitting that if Sam chose to leave the parish, there was nothing in the affair of the murder to hinder him. He went back, therefore, to the inexpediency of the young man’s departure, telling him that he would rush right into the Devil’s jaws. “May be so, Mr. Fenwick,” said Sam, “but I’m sure I’ll never be out of ’em as long as I stays here in Bullhampton.”
“But what is it all about, Sam?” The Vicar, as he asked the question had a very distinct idea in his own head as to the cause of the quarrel, and was aware that his sympathies were with the son rather than with the father. Sam answered never a word, and the Vicar repeated his question. “You have quarrelled with your father before this, and have made it up. Why should not you make up this quarrel?”
“Because he cursed me,” said Sam.
“An idle word, spoken in wrath! Don’t you know your father well enough to take that for what it is worth? What was it about?”
“It was about Carry, then.”
“What had you said?”
“I said as how she ought to be let come home again, and that if I was to stay there at the mill, I’d fetch her. Then he struck at me with one of the mill-bolts. But I didn’t think much o’ that.”
“Was it then he—cursed you?”
“No; mother came up, and I went aside with her. I told her as I’d go on speaking to the old man about Carry;—and so I did.”
“And where is Carry?” Sam made no reply to this whatever. “You know where she can be found, Sam?” Sam shook his head, but didn’t speak. “You couldn’t have said that you would fetch her, if you didn’t know where to find her.”
“I wouldn’t stop till I did find her, if the old man would take her back again. She’s bad enough, no doubt, but there’s others worse nor her.”
“When did you see her last?”
“Over at Pycroft.”
“And whither did she go from Pycroft, Sam?”
“She went to Lon’on, I suppose, Mr. Fenwick.”
“And what is her address in London?” In reply to this Sam again shook his head. “Do you mean to seek her now?”
“What’s the use of seeking her if I ain’t got nowhere to put her into. Father’s got a house and plenty of room in it. Where could I put her?”
“Sam, if you’ll find her, and bring her to any place for me to see her, I’ll find a home for her somewhere. I will, indeed. Or, if I knew where she was, I’d go up to London to her myself. She’s not my sister—!”
“No, sir, she ain’t. The likes of you won’t likely have a sister the likes of her. She’s a—”
“Sam, stop. Don’t say a bitter word of her. You love her.”
“Yes;—I do. That don’t make her not a bad ’un.”
“So do I love her. And as for being bad, which of us isn’t bad? The world is very hard on her offence.”
“Down on it, like a dog on a rat.”
“It is not for me to make light of her sin;—but her sin can be washed away as well as other sin. I love her too. She was the brightest, kindest, sauciest little lass in all the parish, when I came here.”
“Father was proud enough of her then, Mr. Fenwick.”
“You find her and let me know where she is, and I will make out a home for her somewhere;—that is, if she will be tractable. I’m afraid your father won’t take her at the mill.”
“He’ll never set eyes on her again, if he can help it. As for you, Mr. Fenwick, if there was only a few more like you about, the world wouldn’t be so bad to get on in. Goodbye, Mr. Fenwick.”
“Goodbye, Sam;—if it must be so.”
“And don’t you be afeared about me, Mr. Fenwick. If the hue-and-cry is out anyways again me, I’ll turn up. That I will—though it was to be hung afterwards—sooner than you’d be hurt by anything I’d been a doing.”
So they parted, as friends rather than as enemies, though the Vicar knew very well that the young man was wrong to go and leave his father and mother, and that in all probability he would fall at once into some bad mode of living. But the conversation about Carry Brattle had so softened their hearts to each other, that Mr. Fenwick found it impossible to be severe. And
