Sue, A Little Heroine by L. T. Meade (best way to read an ebook TXT) 📖

It is quite true that Pickles had put on the torture screw. Harris felt exceedingly uncomfortable as he walked home. It was a fact, then, that Sue had been caught and put in prison. That disagreeable boy had seen it all; he had witnessed her rapid flight; he had heard her protestations of innocence; he had seen her carried off to prison. Sue, so good and brave and honest, would be convicted of theft and would have to bear the penalty of theft—of another's theft, not her own. What a foolish girl she had been to run away! Of course, it made her guilt seem all the plainer. There was not a loophole of escape for her. She was certain to be found guilty; probably to-day she would be brought before the magistrate and sentence pronounced upon her. He wondered what magistrate would try her; how long her punishment would last. Had he dared he would have attended her trial. But he did not dare. That red-haired boy—that most unpleasant, impudent boy—would probably be there. There was no saying what things he might say. He would probably appear as a witness, and nothing would keep that giddy tongue of his quiet. What a very queer boy he was, and how strange were his suspicions! When any one else in all the world would have accepted Sue's guilt as beyond doubt or question, he persisted in declaring her innocent. Nay, more than that, he had even declared that the man who had gone with her into the shop was the guilty person. Harris knew there was no proof against the man. No one had seen him take the locket;128 no one had witnessed its transfer into Sue's pocket. The man was safe enough. No one living could bring his guilt home to him.

But stay a moment! A horrible fear came over him. Why did that boy speak like that? He saw Sue running away. Perhaps he had seen more than that. Perhaps he had come on the platform of events earlier in the narrative. Harris felt the cold sweat starting to his forehead as it occurred to him that that awful boy had reason for his talk—that he knew to whom he was speaking. When Harris took the locket he might have been flattening his nose against the window-pane at the pawnbroker's; he might have seen all that was taking place. What was to be done? He could not confess, and yet if he didn't he was in horrible danger; his present state was worse than any state he had been in before. Suppose Connie ever found out his meanness, his wickedness.

Harris was very fond of Connie just then. He had suffered during her absence. His home was pleasant to him—as pleasant as his guilty conscience would permit during those days, for little Giles was like no one else. Oh, could the awful moment ever come when Giles would look at him with reproachful eyes—when Giles would turn away from him? The miserable man felt that were such a time to arrive it would be almost as bad as the knowledge that God Himself could not forgive him. He was distracted, miserable; he must find a refuge from his guilty thoughts.

A public-house stood handy. He had not really taken too much for a long time now—not since that terrible night when, owing to drink, he had turned his child from his door. But he would forget his misery now in drink.

"That dreadful boy!" he muttered—"that dreadful, dreadful boy, with hair like a flame, and eyes that peered into you like gimlets!"

Harris passed through the great swing-doors. His good angel must almost have disappeared at that moment.

Meanwhile Connie and Giles watched and waited in vain for Sue. She was coming to-day—she was coming to-morrow. But the weary hours went by and no Sue arrived; there was no message from her. Harris went oftener and oftener to the public-house, and brought less and less of his wages home, and Giles faded and faded, and Connie also looked very sad and weary.

Once Connie said to Giles, when nearly a month had gone by:

"Yer'll 'ave to give up that notion 'bout the country, Giles, for 'tain't true."

"Yus, I believe I must give it up," said Giles.

"Ain't yer anxious now 'bout dear Sue?" asked Connie.

"Not wery," said Giles. "Ef she ain't in the country, the good Lord 'ave her safe somewhere else—that's wot I'm a-thinkin' of. Father John said to me we'en he come last as trials of this sort are good for me."129

"You 'ave nothing but trials, poor Giles!" said Connie.

"Oh no," answered Giles; "I ha' lots o' blessings—you and Big Ben, the beautiful Woice, you know. Connie, some'ow I think as my wings is growin' wery fast. I think w'en they're full-grown——"

"Wot then?" asked Connie.

"Why, I'll fly away. I can't 'ardly believe as a poor little lame boy like me could fly up higher than the stars, but that's wot 'ull 'appen. I picter it wery often—me no longer tied down to my bed, but with wings, flyin' about as strong as the angels. Only Father John says I'll be higher than the angels, for I'll be one o' the ransomed o' the Lord. I'll see Father John, too, an' you'll come after a bit, an' Sue 'ull come. I can't fret no, I can't."

After this Connie went for the doctor, and the doctor said that the boy was very ill—that he might linger a few weeks more, but his sufferings were growing less, and that Connie's kind care was effecting wonders for him.

The weeks went by. Harris grew accustomed to his sense of guilt, and Sue to her captivity. Pickles was anxiously looking forward to a crisis. Harris, after giving way to drink for several days, refrained again and worked steadily. He brought in, in consequence, good wages, and Connie and Giles wanted for nothing. It was the one salve to his conscience, this making of Giles comfortable; otherwise, notwithstanding the manifest amendment of his ways, he was scarcely happy. Indeed, Pickles took care that he should not be so. In the most unlikely and unexpected places this dreadful boy would dart upon him, and more and more certain was Harris that he not only knew his secret, but had witnessed his guilt. Harris would have fled miles from the boy, but the boy would not be fled from. He acted as a perpetual blister on the man's already sore conscience, and Harris almost hated him.

His first resolve to confide in Pickles and bribe him into silence had long ago died away. He dared not even offer to bribe him; the perfectly fearless and uncorrupt spirit which looked out of the eyes of the boy would be, he knew, proof against all that he could do in the matter of either rewards or punishments. No; all that Harris could do was to maintain as imperturbable a spirit as possible while Pickles expatiated upon the cruel fate of Sue. As far as he could dare question him, he learned from Pickles that Sue had not been yet tried even before the magistrate. He wondered greatly at this delay, and Pickles, who read his wonder in his eyes, remarked lightly that the reason of this long postponement was because the police were busy looking for the guilty party.

"Whether they finds him or not," concluded Pickles, "it must come off soon now, fur I'm told that the expense of keeping Sue is breaking that 'ere lock-hup. I 'spect as it 'ull be the finest bit o' a trial as have been fur many a day. I means to be there. And you'll come, won't yer, Mr. Harris?"

"I'm sick o' the subject," said Harris.

"Oh no, you ain't, Mr. Harris; you 'ave a wery quiet manner, as his only wot his right and becoming, but I can see yer hinterest in yer heyes. You can't keep that good-natured, human look out o' yer heyes, Mr. Harris; nor can yer help a-starting when yer sees me a-coming. Oh no, yer may say wot yer likes, but ye're real interested in that pore, misfort'nit Sue, I knows; so you will come to her shameful trial, won't yer?"

In despair, and fearing any other reply, Harris promised.