MEETING OF CAPTAIN BAYLEY AND MR. ADAMS.MEETING OF CAPTAIN BAYLEY AND MR. ADAMS.
"You have brought me the best news I have ever heard, sir; you cannot tell what a weight you have lifted from my shoulders, and how I feel indebted to you."
"Yes, uncle, and do you know that Mr. Adams has been travelling nearly two months to deliver the message, knowing how anxious Frank will be to hear how it was received. He went to Egypt after us, and finding we had left has been following us ever since."
"God bless you, sir!" Captain Bayley said, seizing Mr. Adams's hand and shaking it violently, "you are a friend indeed. Now in the first place, please tell me the message you have given my niece, for so far I have only heard that Frank declared that he is innocent; that was quite enough for me at first. I want to know why I was to be kept in the dark."
"The message will explain that," Mr. Adams replied, and he again repeated the message he had given Alice.
"Yes, that explains it," Captain Bayley said, when he had finished; "that's just like the boy of old. I like him for that. But why on earth did he not say he was innocent at first?"
"That I cannot tell you; I know no more of the past than the message I have given you, except he said that he had been wrongfully suspected of committing a crime, and that, although he was innocent, the case appeared absolutely conclusive against him, and that he saw no chance whatever of his being cleared, save by the confession of the person who had committed the offence."
"But why on earth didn't he say he was innocent?" Captain Bayley repeated, with something of his oldirritation. "What possessed him to run away as if he were guilty without making one protest to us that he was innocent?"
"I cannot tell you, sir. As I said, I know nothing whatever of the circumstance; I do not even know the nature of the accusation against him. I only know, from my knowledge of his character, that he is a noble and generous young man, and that he never could have been guilty of any dishonourable action."
"Nobody would ever have thought he would," Captain Bayley said sharply, "unless he had as much as said so himself by running away when this ridiculous accusation was brought forward. I should as soon have doubted my own existence as supposed he had stolen a ten-pound note had he not run away instead of facing it like a man. Until he bolted without sending me a word of denial or explanation. I would have knocked any man down who had said he believed him guilty. The evidence had no more weight in my mind than the whistling of the wind; my doubts are of his own creation. Thank God they are at an end now that he has declared he is innocent. He has behaved like a fool, but there are so many fools about that there is nothing out of the way in that. Still it was one of the follies I should not have expected of Frank. That he should get into a foolish scrape from thoughtlessness, or high spirits, or devilry, or that sort of thing, I could imagine; but I am astonished that he should have committed an act of folly due to cowardice."
"I won't hear you, uncle, any more," Alice exclaimed; "I know that you don't mean anything you say, and that you are one of the happiest men in the world this evening; but of course Mr. Adams does not know you as wedo, and does not understand that all this means that you are so relieved from the anxiety that you have felt for the last two years that you are obliged to give vent to your feelings somehow. Please, Mr. Adams, don't regard what my uncle says in the slightest, but tell us all about Frank. As to his going away, we know nothing about his motives, or why he went, or anything else, and I am quite sure he will be able to explain it when we see him; as to running away from cowardice, uncle knows as well as we do that the idea is simply ridiculous. So please go on, and if uncle interrupts we will go down to another sitting-room and he shall hear nothing about it."
Mr. Adams then told the story of his acquaintance with Frank; how, when all seemed dark, when he was lying prostrate with fever brought on by overexertion and insufficient food, Frank had come to his son and had insisted on helping him; how he had helped to nurse him, and how, finally, Frank and his companions had worked the claim and realised a fortune for him. He told how popular Frank was among his companions, how ready he was to do a kindly action to any one needing it, and finally repeated the conversation they had had together the last evening, and Frank's determination not to return to England until he had gained such a fortune that he could not be suspected of desiring to gain anything but his uncle's esteem when he presented himself before him and declared he was innocent.
"The young scamp," Captain Bayley growled, "thinking all the time of his own feelings and not of mine. It's nothing to him that I may be fretting myself into my grave in the belief of his guilt; nothing that I may be dead years and years before he comes home with thisprecious fortune he relies on making. Oh no! we are all to wait another twenty years in order that this jackanapes may not be suspected of being mercenary; three dozen at the triangles would do him a world of good, and if he were here I would——"
"You wouldn't do anything but shake his hand, and shout 'Frank, my boy, I am glad to see you back again,' so it's no use pretending that you would," Alice interrupted. "And now, Mr. Adams, it's past twelve, and I feel ashamed that we should have kept you so long; but I know you don't mind, and you have made us all very happy. You will come again in the morning, will you not? There is so much to ask about, and we have not yet even begun to tell you how deeply we are all obliged to you for your goodness in hurrying away from England directly you got home, and in spending weeks and weeks wandering about after us."
"I shall be glad to call again in the morning, Miss Hardy, but I shall start for England in the evening; I am anxious to be back now that my mission is fulfilled. My son is to be married in ten days' time, and he would like me to be present, although he said in his last letter that he quite agreed that the first thing of all was to find you and deliver the message, whether I got home or not. As I have several matters to arrange before his marriage, presents to get, or one thing or other, I shall go straight through."
"That is right," Captain Bayley said, "we will travel together, my dear sir; for of course we shall go straight back to England now. We have been dawdling about in this wretched country long enough. Besides, everything has to be arranged, and we have got to get to the bottom of this matter; so if you have no objection, we will travelhome together. If the young people here want to dawdle about any longer they can do so; I dare say they can look after themselves, or if not, I can make an arrangement with some old lady or other to act as Alice's chaperon."
"You silly old man," Alice said, kissing him, "as if we were not just as anxious to get home and to get to the bottom of the thing as you are."
So the next afternoon the party started in the diligence which was to take them over the St. Gothard to Lucerne.
Alice had by this time heard, somewhat to the confusion of her ideas, that Frank was no longer the lad she had always depicted him, but a tall, powerful young man, rough and tanned by exposure, and a fair match in strength for the wildest character in the mining camp.
By the time they reached London Mr. Adams and Captain Bayley had become fast friends, and the first thing the next morning, Captain Bayley drove with Alice to Bond Street and purchased the handsomest gold watch and chain he could find as a wedding-present for young Adams, and a bracelet as handsome for Alice to send to the bride; then he sent Alice home in the carriage and proceeded to his lawyer's. He returned home in the worst of tempers. Mr. Griffith had refused to admit that the receipt of Frank's message had in any way changed the position.
"I understood all along, Captain Bayley, that your nephew, when accused by his master, had denied the theft; the mere fact that he now, three years later, repeats the denial to you, does not, so far as I can see, alter the situation in the slightest. He says that he's not in a position to disprove any of the circumstances allegedagainst him. Of course you are at liberty to believe him now, just as you believed him at first, and as, on mature consideration, you disbelieved him afterwards; but that is a matter quite of individual opinion. You have announced to Mr. Barkley that you intend to leave him a third of your fortune, and it would be in the highest degree unjust to make any alteration now, without a shadow of reason for doing so. Personally, no doubt, it is a satisfaction to you to have recovered your belief in Frank's innocence, but that ought not to interfere in any way with the arrangements that you have made. My own belief is, as I have told you, that, pressed for money, and afraid of expulsion were his escapade of going out at night discovered, Frank yielded to a momentary temptation—a grievous fault, but not an irreparable one—one, at any rate, for which he has been severely punished, and for which he may well be forgiven. So far I am thoroughly with you, but I cannot and will not follow you in what I consider your absolutely unfounded idea that he is innocent, and that his cousin—against whom there is not a vestige of evidence, while the proof the other way is overwhelming—is the real offender."
Whereupon Captain Bayley had returned home in a state of fury.
"But, after all, uncle," Alice said, after listening for some time to his outburst against lawyers in general, and Mr. Griffith in particular, "it really is reasonable what Mr. Griffith says. You and I and Harry, who know Frank so well, are quite sure that he is innocent; but other people who don't know him in the same way might naturally take the other view, for, as Mr. Griffith says, the proofs were strong against him, and there was nothingwhatever to connect Fred Barkley with the crime. I have been talking it over with Harry since I came back, and he agrees with me that we must, as you say, get to the bottom of the whole affair before we go any further.
"Well, isn't that what we have been trying to do all along?" Captain Bayley exclaimed angrily. "How are we to get to the bottom of it? If you will tell me that I will grant that you have more sense in your head than I have ever given you credit for."
"My idea, grandfather, is this," Harry said. "We have not yet heard Frank's side of the story. I am convinced that if we heard that we should get some new light upon it; and my proposal is that you and I shall at once start for California and see Frank, and hear all about it. It seems to me that he has been silent because he has some mistaken idea that you believe in his guilt, and when you assure him that you have an absolute faith in his innocence, he will go into the whole matter, and in that case we shall probably find some clue which we can follow up and get at the truth."
"The very thing, Harry," the Captain exclaimed impetuously, "we will start by the first ship, you and I, and find this troublesome young rascal, and have it out with him."
"And I shall go too, of course, uncle," Alice Hardy exclaimed; "I am not going to be left behind by myself."
"Impossible, Alice! you don't know what the country is. You could not go wandering about up in the mountains, looking for him through all sorts of mining camps, with no decent place for a woman to sleep."
"No, uncle; but I could stay at San Francisco till you came back with him; there must be some sort of peoplethere you could leave me with. I am sure you would not be so unkind as to leave me in England in a state of anxiety all these months. You know I enjoy the sea, and you will want somebody to look after you during the voyage, and to see that you don't get into scrapes with that dreadful temper of yours. Besides, you must have some one to scold; you could not get on without it, and you don't scold Harry half so vigorously as you do me."
And so at last it was settled, and a week later Captain Bayley, his grandson, and Alice Hardy, sailed for Panama.
F
RANK was in splendid health, and his bones set rapidly. A fortnight after the encounter with the brigands he rode down to the camp on the Yuba with his arm in a sling. His attack single-handed upon the four stage-robbers had rendered him quite a noted character, and he was warmly greeted upon his arrival. As soon as he had got to the wooden shanty dignified by the name of the "hotel," a deputation waited upon him.
"We have come," the leader of the party said, "to congratulate you in the name of the hull of this mining camp on having pretty well cleared out that gang of stage-robbers. The safety of the roads air a matter of great importance to this camp, as well as to all the other camps in the State, seeing that we air obliged to pay a heavy rate of insurance on our gold being carried down, and have the risk of losing it all if we takes it down ourselves; therefore it air the opinion of this community that you have done them a considerable sarvice, and we are obliged to you."
The four members of the deputation then shook Frank solemnly by the hand.
"I can only say I am much obliged to you," Frank said, "and I only regret that one of the four got off safe. However, they had a lesson, and I hope the roads will be safer in future."
"Now," the spokesman of the deputation said, "let's liquor."
Five glasses were poured out by the bar-tender, and drunk off solemnly; this was considered to bring the ceremony to a close.
In the evening Frank was sitting around a fire with some of his acquaintances, when two persons were seen approaching.
"Can you tell me," one of them said, when he got up to the group, "whether Frank Norris is in the camp, and if so, where I can find him?"
Frank sprang to his feet with a cry of astonishment.
"Uncle," he exclaimed, "is it you, or am I dreaming?"
"My dear boy," Captain Bayley exclaimed, as he grasped Frank's hand, "thank God we have found you! We have been advertising and looking for you ever since you left, nearly three years ago."
For a minute or two they stood grasping each other's hand, their feelings being too full for further speech.
"Sit you down right here, Norris," one of the miners said, rising, "no doubt you will like a talk together, and we will leave you to yourselves."
The other miners rose, and with the real courtesy and kindness which lurked under the rough nature of the diggers, all left the spot. Captain Bayley was the first to speak.
"But here is some one else wants to shake your hand, Frank, an old friend too."
The fire was not burning very brightly, and although Frank seemed to know the young fellow who stood leaning lightly on two sticks, he could not recall where he had seen him before.
"Don't you remember me, Frank," he said, "the lad whom you took so much trouble with over his Homer."
"Harry Holl," Frank said in astonishment.
"It was as Harry Holl that you knew him, but we have since found out that he is my grandson, the son of my daughter Ella," Captain Bayley explained.
"Then you are my cousin," Frank said, advancing and shaking Harry's hand; "but how on earth have you and uncle come out here?"
"Let us sit down by the fire, Frank, for the evening is chilly, and then I will tell you all about it. But first, how about that enormous brute of a dog, who doesn't seem to have made up his mind whether the proper thing is not to devour us at once."
"Come, Turk, good dog, these are friends of mine."
Finding that the intentions of the new-comers were amicable, of which at first he had entertained some doubts, Turk threw himself down by the side of his master.
"First of all, uncle," Frank said, as he sat down, "has that affair been cleared up?"
"Well, not exactly cleared up, Frank, but we have our suspicions. Harry and I never for a moment thought it was you—that is not till you ran away instead of facing it out. I don't want to scold you now, but that was a foolish business."
"Then if you thought me innocent, uncle, why did you not answer my letter? I should never have dreamt ofrunning away if I had not been heart-broken at the thought that you believed me guilty."
"Letter!" Captain Bayley repeated in astonishment, "what letter? That was just the thing, if you had written me only one line to say you were innocent I should never have doubted you for a moment, and even your running away would have made no difference to me."
"But I did write, uncle; I wrote to you the very first thing, telling you that I was innocent, although appearances were all against me, and saying that I could bear anything if I knew that you believed in me, and I begged you to send me just one line by hand. I waited all day for the answer, and all the evening, and when night came and no letter I felt that you believed me guilty; I became desperate, and when Fred advised me to bolt, and offered me the money to take me away, I thought I might as well go at once as go after the disgrace of being publicly expelled before the whole school."
"But I never got the letter," Captain Bayley said, "never got a line from you, and it was that which shook my faith."
"I gave the letter to Fred Barkley to post, half an hour after I came down from school, that is before eleven o'clock, and he told me he posted it at once."
"I am afraid," Captain Bayley said sternly, "that Fred Barkley is a vile young scoundrel; we have had our suspicions of him, Harry and I, and this seems to confirm them. I believe that villain is at the bottom of the whole affair. Have you ever suspected him, Frank?"
"Such an idea has flitted across my mind, uncle, but I have never allowed it to rest there; it was too shocking to believe."
"I am afraid it must be believed," Captain Bayley said. "It was Harry who first pointed it out to me that, looking at the whole case, the matter really lay between him and you, and that it was just as probable that he took the note and sent it to you as that you should have taken it and sent it to yourself. Harry urged indeed that Fred had far greater motives for doing so than you; for whereas you had only to get out of a stupid scrape, he would be playing for the money which I was to leave, which was a heavy stake. On the other hand, he admitted that the crime of stealing the note for the purpose of ruining you would be infinitely greater than the taking of money in your case.
"I have nearly worried myself into a lunatic asylum over the matter. I have been away from England for upwards of a year—partly for the sake of Harry here, who has got rid of his box long ago, and now gets along very fairly on sticks, partly to avoid seeing Fred, for as long as this thing was unsettled, it was impossible that I could give him my hand.
"My heart has all along been with you, my boy, for you know I loved you as a son; but your silence and your running away were ugly weights in the scale against you. Now that I find that that villain suppressed your letter—for he must have done so, else I should have got it—and that it was he who urged you to fly to get you out of the way, I have no longer a shadow of doubt in my mind. I must tell you that Harry here never doubted you from the first; and as for Alice, she became a veritable little fury when the possibility of your guilt was suggested. We have had some rare battles and rows over that and her absolute refusal to speak to Fred, whom from thefirst she insisted was at the bottom of it, though how she arrived at that conclusion, except by instinct, is more than I can tell. Her joy when Harry here was found, and of course took the position I had intended for you, and her delight in Fred's discomfiture, were, as I told her several times, absolutely indecent. Not that she minded a farthing; she is the most insubordinate young person I ever came across. You will hardly know her again, Frank, she is growing fast into a young woman, and a very pretty one too."
"But how did you find me, uncle? Was it from Mr. Adams that you heard where I was?"
"Well, Frank, we advertised for you, for over two years, in the American and Colonial papers, and at last began almost to despair.
"About two months ago, when we were in Milan—for we have been wandering about Europe for the last eight or nine months—your friend Adams found us out; the good fellow had been hunting for us for two months."
"Ah! that explains why I have not heard from him," Frank interrupted. "I have been looking for a letter for the last two months, and had begun to conclude that as he had nothing pleasant to tell me he had not written, and that I should never hear now."
"Then you thought like a young fool," Captain Bayley said angrily. "Well, as soon as Adams had given your message to Alice—and why you should have supposed that Alice should have believed in your innocence any more than me, except that women never will believe what they don't want to believe, I don't know—well, of course, she told us about it at once, and we came back to Englandand talked it over, and settled that the best thing was for us all to come out and see you."
"All!" Frank repeated in surprise.
"Yes, all; the headstrong young woman would not be left behind, and she is at Sacramento now, that is if she hasn't been shot by some of these red-shirted miners, or come to her end some other way. We stayed two days at San Francisco. I have wandered about a good deal, but I thought before I saw Sacramento and these places, that city was the residence of the roughest and most dangerous set of rascals I ever met.
"We travelled by coach across the plains, and on going to the bank at Sacramento found that you had been just shooting some highwaymen, and had got your arm broken by a bullet. So we put Alice in charge of the landlady of the hotel, and dared her to stir out of the room till we got back; we came on to the place where they said you were stopping, but found that you had come on here this morning. So we took our places in the coach again, and here we are; and the sooner we get away from here the better, so I hope you will be ready to start early in the morning."
"But, my dear uncle," Frank began.
"Don't give me any of your buts, sir," Captain Bayley said peremptorily. "You have been hiding too long, now you must go back and take your place again."
"But I can't clear myself of this affair."
"Don't tell me, sir," the old officer said angrily "you have cleared yourself to me, and I will take good care that the truth is known. As for that rascal Fred, I deserve all the trouble that I have gone through for being such an old fool as to let him take me in. I want to get backas quickly as possible to make my will again. Ever since Harry put the idea into my mind I have been fretting about the one I had made leaving Fred a third of my property. I thought if anything happened to me before the matter was cleared up, and I found out in the next world—where I suppose people know everything—that I had been wrong, I should have been obliged to have asked for a furlough to come back again to set it straight. Alice will be fidgeting her life out, and we must set out at once; so let us have no more nonsense about delay."
Frank offered no further resistance, and agreed to start on the following morning.
"You look more like yourself now, Frank," his uncle said, "for, except by the tones of your voice, I should hardly have known you. You must have grown ten inches bigger round the shoulders than you were, and have grown into a very big man. You don't look so big here, where there are so many burly miners about, but when you get back to London people will quite stare at you. Your face at present is tanned almost black, and that beard, which I suppose is the result of exposure, makes you look half a dozen years older than you really are. I hope you will shave it off at once, and look like a civilised English gentleman."
"I suppose I must do so," Frank said, rather ruefully, "for one never sees a beard in London, except on a foreigner. I suppose some day men will be sensible and wear them."
They sat talking until late in the night, Frank hearing all particulars of the discovery of Harry's relationship to Captain Bayley, and the news of all that had taken place since he had left England. He arranged for sleeping accommodationfor them for the night in the hut of the storekeeper for whom he brought up provisions, judging that this was more comfortable and quiet for them than in the crowded and noisy plank edifice called the hotel. The next morning they started by the coach for Sacramento, Frank ordering the muleteers to follow with the animals at once. It was a twenty-four hours' drive; but it did not seem a long one to any of them, for Frank had so much to tell about his doings and adventures from the day when he last saw them, that there was scarce a pause in their talk, until at night Captain Bayley and Harry dozed in their corner of the coach, while Frank got outside and sat and smoked by the driver, being altogether too excited by the sudden arrival of his uncle, and the change in all his plans, to feel inclined for sleep. It was ten o'clock in the morning when they drove into Sacramento.
"I think, uncle, I will just go round to my house, for I keep one regularly here, and put on the garb of civilisation. Alice would not recognise me in this red shirt and high boots."
"Stuff and nonsense!" Captain Bayley said. "You had a wash-up when we breakfasted, and what do you want more? There, go up and see the girl at once, Harry and I will join you in a minute or two; according to my experience, these sort of meetings are always better without the presence of a third party," and the old officer winked at his grandson as Frank sprang up the stairs after the waiter whom Captain Bayley directed to show him to Miss Hardy's sitting-room.
Although Captain Bayley had told him that Alice had become a young woman, Frank had not realised the change that three years had produced in her. He had lefther a laughing girl—a dear little girl, Frank had always thought—but scarcely pretty, and he stood for a moment in astonishment at the tall and very beautiful young woman of eighteen who stood before him. Alice was no less astonished, and for a moment could scarcely credit that this broad muscular man was her old playfellow, Frank. The pause was but momentary on both parties, and with a cry of joy and welcome the girl ran into his arms as frankly and naturally as she had done as a child.
"There, that's enough, Frank," she said presently. "You mustn't do that any more, you know, because I am grown up, and you know we are not really even cousins."
"Cousins or not, Alice," Frank said, laughing, "I have kissed you from the time you were a child, and if you suppose I am going to give it up now, when there is a real pleasure in kissing you, you are mistaken, I can tell you."
"We shall see about that, sir," the girl said; "we are in California now, among wild people, but when we get back to England we must behave like civilised beings. But, O Frank, what a monster of a dog! Is he savage? He looks as if he were going to fly at me."
For Turk, to whom greetings of this sort were entirely new, was standing at the door, his bristles half-raised, doubtful whether Alice was to be treated as a friend or foe.
"Come here, Turk. He is the best of dogs, Alice, though it is well not to put him out, for he has killed two men, one in defence of our money, the other of myself; but he is the dearest of dogs, and I will tell you some day how I found him. Come here, Turk, and give your hand to this lady, she is a very great friend of your master."
Turk gravely approached and offered his paw, whichAlice took cautiously, Frank's report of his doings being by no means encouraging. Turk, satisfied now that there was no occasion for his interference, threw himself down at full length upon the hearthrug, and Alice turned to Frank.
"I am so glad you are coming home again."
"And I am glad to be coming home again," Frank said, "or rather I shall be when this matter is quite cleared up."
"I should not bother any more about it," Alice said decidedly. "Uncle Harry and I are all quite, quite sure that you had nothing to do with that horrible business, and that ought to be quite enough for you."
"It isn't quite enough, Alice," he said, "although it is a very great deal; but we need not talk about that now. Oh, here is uncle."
In the course of the day Alice heard of the new light which had been thrown on the matter by the discovery that Frank had written to protest his innocence, which letter had never come to hand, and that it was Fred who had urged Frank to fly and had supplied him with money to do so.
"I always knew he was at the bottom of it," Alice said decidedly. "I always said it was Fred. But I hope, Frank, you or uncle don't mean to take any steps to get him into trouble. I hate him, you know, and always have; still, I think he will be punished enough with the loss of the money he so wickedly tried to gain."
"I think so too, Alice; he has behaved like a scoundrel of the worst kind, but, for my part, I am quite content to leave him alone. Still, we must if possible prove that I was innocent."
"But we all know you are innocent, Frank. Uncle never would have doubted it if it had not been for the stories Fred told."
"Yes, Alice; but all the fellows at Westminster were told I was guilty. I shall be constantly meeting them in the world, and all my life this blot will hang to me if it is not set straight. When we get home I shall go back to the School and see if I cannot hit on some clue or other. Of course if Fred would confess it would be all right, but, after all, we have not a shadow of real proof against him. We have only our suspicion, and the fact that the letter did not come to hand; and if he faces it out, and declares he posted it all right, who is to gainsay him? Letters have gone wrong before now. I must clear myself if I can, but I promise you that I will not bring public disgrace upon him if it can possibly be avoided."
"He ought to be publicly disgraced," Captain Bayley roared, "the mean scoundrel, with his quiet voice and his treacherous lies. Not disgrace him? I would tie him up to a post in St. Paul's Churchyard, and hire a bellman to stand on a chair beside him and tell the story of what he has done every half-hour. Why, sir, he would have taken in St. Dunstan with his pretended hesitation to say anything to your disadvantage, and the affectation of pain with which he hinted that you had confessed your guilt to him. The scoundrel, the rascal, the hypocrite! When I think what his work has done, that you were disgraced at school, and sent wandering for three years—not that that has done you any harm, rather the contrary—to think that Alice has been wretched, and I have been on thorns and out of temper with myself and every one else for the same time, that for the last year we have been wanderingabout Europe like three sentimental travellers, wasting our lives, spending our money, and making fools of ourselves, I tell you, sir, if I was sitting as president of a court-martial on him, I would give him five hundred lashes, and then order him to be drummed out of the regiment."
Frank was about to speak, but Alice shook her head to him behind her uncle's back; she knew that his bark was much worse than his bite, and that, while contradiction would only render him obstinate, he would, if left alone, cool down long before the time for action arrived, and could then be coaxed into any course they might all agree upon.
The next morning the party started for San Francisco. Frank had already found a purchaser for his team of mules at a good price, had wound up all his affairs, and obtained an order from the bank on their agents in England for the amount standing to his credit, which came to seven thousand five hundred and sixty pounds.
His uncle was astounded when he heard how much Frank had earned in less than two years' work. "I shall look at these red-shirted ruffians with more respect in future, Frank; for, for aught I know, they may have tens of thousands standing to their credit at the bank."
"My luck has been exceptional, sir," Frank said. "I might dig for another fifty years without making so much. Of course, there are people who have made a good deal more in the same time, but then there are thousands who are no richer than when they began. We had done little more than keep ourselves when we went to work on Adams's claim. We had nearly four hundred apiece from him, besides what we made for our labour, for the horses pretty well kept us; then from the claim six hundredapiece. We had four thousand each out of the rich strike we made at the head of the gulch; the bank gave me two thousand more; the odd money represents the receipts of the rest of my digging and of my earnings with the mule team."
They started for Europe by the first steamer which left San Francisco for Panama, and reached home without adventure. The next morning Captain Bayley took Frank to Mr. Griffith, and told him the story as he had learned it from Frank.
"There, Griffith," he said triumphantly, when he had finished, "if you are not ready to admit that you are the most obstinate, pig-headed fellow that ever lived, I give you up altogether."
"I was wrong, I am glad to see," the lawyer said, smiling, "but I cannot admit that I was wrong as far as the evidence that was before me went; but certainly with the light our young friend has thrown upon the matter I cannot doubt that the view you took was the correct one. Still, remember there is still no actual proof such as a court of justice would go upon. Morally we may be convinced, but unless you obtain further evidence I do not think you are in a position openly to charge Fred Barkley with stealing that ten-pound note, nor do I see how you are to set about getting such evidence."
"We are going to try, anyhow," Captain Bayley said. "Frank and I are going down to Westminster to-morrow to open the investigation again, and with what we know now it is hard if we don't manage to get something."
T
HE following day, after lunch, Captain Bayley and Frank drove round to Westminster. Football was going on in Dean's Yard, and Frank recognised among the players many faces that he knew. It seemed strange to him to think that while he had gone through so much, and had grown from a boy into a man, that they had changed so little, and had been working away regularly at the old round of Euripides and Homer, Terence and Virgil. The carriage stopped at the entrance to Dean's Yard, and, alighting, they walked across to Mr. Richards'.
Captain Bayley had written a line to the master, asking him if possible to remain at home, as he wished particularly to see him, and he and Frank were ushered straight into the master's study. He shook hands with Captain Bayley, whose acquaintance he had made while Frank had boarded with him, and then looked at Frank; for a minute he did not recognise him, then he exclaimed in surprise, "Frank Norris!"
"Yes, it's I, sir," Frank said; "I don't ask you to take my hand, for you believe me guilty of the crime of which I was accused here. I can only say now, as I said then,that I am innocent. I know now that I was a fool to run away instead of facing it out, but I was desperate, because every one thought me guilty."
"Your schoolfellows did not, Norris," Mr. Richards said. "I don't think that I did, even at first; a few hours afterwards I almost knew you were innocent, and had you not run away I could have gone far to prove it."
Frank gave an exclamation of joy, and Captain Bayley exclaimed indignantly—
"Then why did you not prove it, sir? Why did you allow my nephew to remain with the foul disgrace on his name?"
"I did not act without consideration," Mr. Richards said calmly. "Norris had gone, and I resolved if he returned again to say what I had learned; but my proofs were not absolute. We had made, it seemed to me, a terrible mistake, and I did not wish to cause ruin to another boy unless it was absolutely necessary to do so to clear Norris. Now that he has returned I can no longer hesitate; but before I begin I must ask you both whether your suspicions have fallen on any one else?"
"It is not suspicion, sir, it is certainty," Captain Bayley said; "we have no doubt whatever that the whole thing was the work of Frank's rascally cousin, Fred Barkley. He was, you know, a sort of rival of Frank for my favour, and he had reason to believe that I had determined that Frank should inherit the larger portion of my property; thus he had a motive for bringing disgrace on him. It was just as probable that he should have stolen the money and sent it to Frank as that Frank should have stolen it himself; so far it seemed to me that it might lie between either of them.
"What has settled the case in my mind is that I have learned that Fred was intrusted with a letter by Frank to me, declaring his innocence, which, as you know, I never doubted until Frank left without writing to me. That letter I never received, and I believe that it was suppressed. In the second place it was Fred who persuaded his cousin to take that ruinous step of running away, and pressed upon him money to enable him to do so, although he had refused to lend him a halfpenny when Frank required it to pay that broken-nosed tailor to hold his tongue."
"Very well," Mr. Richards said, "then I can speak freely; my silence was caused to some considerable extent by regard for your feelings. You had lost one nephew, who had gone away with a cloud of disgrace surrounding him—for aught I could tell, Norris, in his despair, might have committed suicide, or he might have so cut himself off from you that you might never have heard from him again—thus, then, I felt that it would be cruel indeed to prove that your other nephew was a villain, unless by so doing I could restore Norris to you. So, after much thought and deliberation, I determined to hold my tongue until I heard that Norris had either returned or had been heard of.
"On the morning when it was discovered that Frank had fled, I called up one by one the whole of the boys in the house. Even after his flight I could not believe that Norris had done this thing, it was so absolutely contrary to all that I knew of his disposition, and I determined to sift the matter to the bottom. From the elder boys I learned nothing, although I questioned them most closely as to everything that had taken place in the house duringthe past week. I was not disappointed, for I had hardly expected to learn much from them.
"It was from the four boys who were the fags of the four who had been in Frank's secret that I hoped to learn something, and I was not mistaken. From the three in the house I learned nothing; but when I came to Pearson, who was Barkley's junior and fag, I met with even more success than I had expected. At first, of course, the boy did not like to say anything; but I told him that unless he answered my questions freely I should have him up before Doctor Litter, and he then told me all he knew about it.
"The more willingly, for, like most other boys in the School, he was fond of Norris, while Barkley was by no means a kind master. He said that twice Barkley had got into a rage with him about things which didn't seem of any importance. The first occasion was a week previous. He had gone into Barkley's study to ask him to explain some difficulty in his Cæsar; the door was not fastened, and as he had been working with his shoes off, Barkley did not hear him till he was close to the table. The boy noticed that he had a sheet of writing-paper before him, on which he was writing, not in his usual hand, but in printed characters. He would have thought nothing of it had not Barkley, on looking up and seeing him standing there, jumped up in a sudden rage and boxed his ears furiously, calling him a prying little sneak. The boy could not fix this to a day, but it was certainly just about the time when this letter was posted to you.
"The other affair had happened the day previously. He had gone into Barkley's room with his books oncoming down from school at twelve o'clock, and seeing on his table a letter stamped and ready for the post, he supposed that as usual he was to post it, and was running downstairs with it in his hand when he met Barkley coming up. 'What have you got there?' he asked. 'I am taking your letter to the post,' he said; whereupon Barkley flew into another rage, called him an officious little beast, gave him a box in the ear, and took the letter from him. I asked the boy if he noticed to whom the letter was directed. He said he had, and that it was to you. Knowing nothing about the suppression of a letter of Norris's, and thinking that perhaps Barkley had written to his uncle about the matter, and had then changed his mind about posting it, this second affair did not strike me as having any importance whatever. The first matter, however, seemed important, for that just at the time when a letter was sent to Norris written in printing characters Barkley should have been seen writing a letter of that sort, struck me as most remarkable; and although I did not know exactly how the two lads stood in reference to yourself, it struck me at once that it was at least possible that we had been wrong, and that it was Barkley after all who took the note.
"Had I suspected for an instant that he had done it to bring disgrace upon his cousin, I should at once have communicated with Dr. Litter, and have probed the affair from the bottom; but I thought that he had taken the note with the intention of helping his cousin out of his difficulty, and that when the note was traced, and the matter became public, he had in a base and cowardly manner allowed Frank to bear the blame. This would have been bad enough in all conscience, although comparativelyvenial to his deliberate attempt to bring disgrace upon Norris.
"However, the matter seemed bad enough to me as it stood; but, as I said, I shrunk from causing the ruin of another young fellow unless it was necessary to clear Norris. I hesitated for a long time whether, knowing as much as I did, I ought not to take some steps in the matter; but for the reasons I have told you I determined to wait, hoping that you would soon have Norris back again, and knowing that I should hear of his return from some of the boys who were his special friends. Barkley must have seen from my manner that there was something wrong between him and me; but he never asked me the reason for the change in my manner to him, and completely ignored my coolness. It was a relief to me when the time came for his going up to the University, for I then felt that some of the responsibility was off my shoulders, and that I was no longer shirking my duty to expose him.
"That is all, Captain Bayley; but I think that this, with what you have told me, is quite sufficient to bring the guilt home to the true party, and to completely clear Norris."
"Quite sufficient," Captain Bayley said, "and I am thankful indeed that you obtained the one missing link of evidence necessary to prove Frank's innocence. I am greatly obliged to you, Mr. Richards, for the kind and thoughtful manner in which you acted, which was indeed in every way for the best; for had I at the time been made aware that Fred was the culprit, I should have gone half out of my mind at the injustice we had done Frank, and at not knowing where to find him or how tocommunicate with him. And now what is to be done next? I do not want this unhappy lad to be punished, but at the same time it is absolutely necessary that Frank's innocence shall be publicly proclaimed. Fred will no doubt brazen it out."
There was silence for a minute or two, and then Mr. Richards said.
"If you like, Captain Bayley, I will take the matter in hand. I will write to Barkley and tell him that Norris has now come home, and that I must therefore take up the matter at the point at which I dropped it. I will recapitulate to him the reasons that there are for supposing that he stole the money,—first, his interest in Frank's disgrace; secondly, the fact that he was seen writing a letter in printed characters on the day on which the note was sent to Norris; thirdly, his suppression of the letter to yourself; fourthly, the part he took in persuading Norris to run away; lastly, the hints which you say he gave you that Norris had confessed his guilt.
"I shall tell him I have had this interview with you; that you are thoroughly convinced of his guilt and of Norris's innocence; and that while you are determined that Norris shall be vindicated, you are desirous that his act of treacherous villainy shall not be made public; if, then, he will write a confession, saying that he took it, this confession shall not be made public.
"I shall of course show it to the Doctor, and explain the whole circumstances to him, and ask him to make a public statement in school to the boys, to the effect that it has been found out that Norris was not guilty of the act of which two years ago he was charged, and that the real thief has been discovered, but that as he is no longerat school it is unnecessary now to mention his name, and that, moreover, he has been heavily punished for the crime—which indeed is the case—by his loss of your favour and of the fortune which he looked to obtain under your will.
"I shall tell Barkley that if he refuses to confess it will be necessary, in order to clear Norris, that the affair should be investigated in a Public Court, and that Dr. Litter will at once apply for a warrant for his apprehension on the charge of theft, and that the whole matter will then be gone into in a Police Court. I cannot doubt but that he will accept the first alternative, for the second will be ruin to him."
Captain Bayley cordially assented. Three days later Frank received a letter from Dr. Litter asking him to call upon him.
"I am truly sorry, Norris," the head-master said, as he entered, "for the injustice I did you; truly and heartily sorry. The affair caused me intense pain at the time; it has been on my mind ever since. Over and over again something has told me that you were innocent; and yet, thinking the case over again, my reason has always convinced me for the time of your guilt, for I could see no other possible solution of the mystery. I am glad indeed to find that I was mistaken, and that you were a victim of a piece of what I can only term villainy. The affair will be a lesson to me for my life, and henceforth I will never allow appearances, however apparently conclusive, to weigh against a uniformly excellent character. I trust that you will forgive my terrible error."
"I don't see that you could have acted otherwise, sir," Frank said, "for even at the time, although I knew that Iwas innocent, I perceived that the proofs against me were so overwhelmingly strong that my guilt must appear a certainty to every one. I am happy indeed that I am cleared at last; and, after all, it has done me no harm. I have, of course, lost the University education which I looked forward to; but I think, after all, that the three years I have spent in America have in many ways done me more good than the University could have done."
"Very likely, Norris," the doctor said; "they have in every sense of the word made a man of you, and a very fine man too, and I sincerely trust that no further cloud will ever fall upon your career. And now I want you to come up School with me, for I must publicly make amends for my error, and set you right before the School."
As Frank followed Dr. Litter into the great schoolroom he felt infinitely more nervous than he had done in any of the dangers he had passed through in his journey across the plains. When the head-master was seen to enter the School accompanied by a gentleman, a silence of surprise fell upon the boys, for such an event was altogether unprecedented there. As in the stranger, who stood nearly as tall and far broader than the doctor, many of the boys in the upper forms recognised Frank Norris, a buzz ran round the School, followed again by the silence of excited expectation. Dr. Litter walked to his table at the further end of the School and then turned.
"You will all stand up," he said. "Boys," he went on, "all of you in the Fifth Form, and those above it, and some of you in the under forms, will recognise in the gentleman who stands beside me your former schoolfellow Norris; those who do will be aware of the circumstances under which he left, and will be aware that I chargedhim with stealing a note of the value of ten pounds from my desk. I am happy to say that it has been proved that charge was entirely false."
A sudden burst of enthusiastic cheering broke from the upper forms. Norris's innocence had been a matter of faith among his schoolfellows, and even his running away had not sufficed to shake their trust in him. They stood upon the forms and cheered until they were hoarse. At last a wave of the doctor's hand restored silence, and he went on.
"I wish now, before you all, boys, to express my deep regret to Norris, and to apologise to him most heartily for the accusation which I made. I have now in my hand the confession of the real culprit. I shall not mention his name; he has long since ceased to be among you, and I may say that he has been punished severely, though to my mind most insufficiently, for his crime, and as Norris is desirous that the matter shall be dropped, the least I can do is to give in to his wishes. And now, as I think that after this you will scarcely do any useful work this afternoon, you may as well go down at once."
A fresh roar of cheering broke out, and then the boys who had been at school with Frank jumped from their forms and crowded round him, each striving to grasp his hand, and all shouting words of welcome and congratulation.
It was some time before Frank could reply to these greetings, so shaken was he by the scene. On emerging from the schoolroom his old house-mates urged him to go up to Richards', and the Sixth were invited to accompany him. Although contrary to the usual rules, an unlimited supply of shandy-gaff was sent for, and for an hour Franksat and chatted with his old schoolfellows, and to their great admiration gave them an outline of his adventures on the Mississippi, his journey across the plains, and as a gold-digger in California; then with a glad heart, and a feeling that he was at last cleared of the cloud which had so long hung over him, Frank returned to Eaton Square.
His path in life never afterwards crossed that of his cousin. The latter, after passing through the University with credit, entered the Bar. Somehow he was not successful there. That he was clever all allowed, but a cloud seemed to hang over him. The tale of Frank's reinstallation had gone up from Westminster to the University; his old schoolfellows there had talked the matter over, and although nothing was known for certain, somehow the belief that Barkley was the culprit spread among them.
He had never been popular, and now his old schoolfellows gradually drew aloof from him. Nothing was ever openly said. The thing was talked of in whispers, but even whispers, sometimes, are heard; and during his last year at the University Fred Barkley stood alone among his fellows. The whispers found their echo in town, and Fred Barkley found that a cloud rested on him which all his efforts were unable to dissipate. After some years of useless attempts to make his way, he was glad to accept the offer of a petty judgeship in India, and there, ten years later, he died, stabbed to the heart by a Mahomedan dacoit whom he had sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
A year after his return from America Frank married Alice. Turk, for some time after his arrival in England, had steadily declined all advances which she made to him, perceiving clearly in his heart that she was a rival in hismaster's affection. He had at last, however, the good sense to accept the situation; but to the end of his life, which was a long one, he never accorded her more than toleration, keeping all the affection of his great heart for his master, although in his old years he took to his master's children, and endured patiently, if not cordially, the affection which they bestowed upon him.
Frank sits in Parliament at present, as member for the county in which the broad estates which came to him with his wife are situated. It was rather a disappointment to her that he did not distinguish himself greatly in Parliament, but he was fonder of the country life of an English gentleman than of the squabbles at Westminster. He can always be depended upon to vote with his party, and he occasionally makes vigorous and indignant attacks against any policy which he believes to be lowering the prestige and position of his country; but, except upon occasions when subjects of national interest are being discussed, he is seldom to be found in the house, and his wife is now well content with his reputation as one of the best masters of fox-hounds, one of the best landlords, and one of the most popular country gentlemen in England.
Captain Bayley died but ten years ago, at a great age, and his grandson, long since able to dispense with his crutches, is one of the most prominent members in the House of Commons. He could, had he chosen, have long since had a place in the Ministry, but he declined, as it would have taken too much of his time from the favourite subject which occupies the chief part of his thoughts and life, namely the effort to ameliorate the condition of the poorer classes in the great towns.
Evan Holl is a distinguished engineer. The business of John Holl, Dust Contractor, is still carried on under that name by the children of John and Sarah, who died within a few days of each other, some twenty years since, full of happiness and contentment.