It was a dull day in the court-room at Wilkesbarre. The jury trials had all been disposed of, and for the last hour or more the court had been listening to an argument on a rule for a new trial in an ejectment case. It was a very uninteresting matter. Every one had left the court-room with the exception of the court officers, a few lawyers, and a half-dozen spectators who seemed to be there for the purpose of resting on the benches rather than with any desire to hear the proceedings before the court.

The lawyers on both sides had concluded their arguments, and the judge was bundling together the papers in the case and trying to encircle the bulky package with a heavy rubber band.

Then the court-room door was opened, and the sheriff came down the aisle, accompanied by Ralph and Bachelor Billy. A moment later, Simon Craft followed them to the bar. Sharpman, who was sitting inside the railing by a table, looked up with disgust plainly marked on his face as the old man entered and sat down beside him.

He had prepared the petition for a writ of habeas corpus, at Craft's request, and had agreed to appear in his behalf when the writ should be returned. He shared, in some small degree, the old man's desire for revenge on those who had been instrumental in destroying their scheme. But, as the day wore on, the matter took on a slightly different aspect in his mind. In the first place, he doubted whether the court would order Ralph to be returned into Craft's custody. In the next place, he had no love for his client. He had been using him simply as a tool; it was time now to cast him aside since he could be of no further benefit to him. Besides, the old man had come to be annoying and repulsive, and he had no money to pay for legal services. Then, there was still an opportunity to recover some of the personal prestige he had lost in his bitter advocacy of Craft's cause before the jury. In short, he had deliberately resolved to desert his client at the first opportunity.

The sheriff endorsed his return on the writ and filed it.

The judge looked at the papers, and then he called Bachelor Billy before him. "I see," he said, "that you have produced the body of the boy Ralph as you were directed to do. Have you a lawyer?"

"I ha' none," answered the man. "I did na ken as I needit ony."

"We do not think you do, either, as we understand the case. The prothonotary will endorse a simple return on the writ, setting forth the production of the boy, and you may sign it. We think that is all that will be necessary on your part. Now you may be seated."

The judge turned to Sharpman.

"Well, Mr. Sharpman," he said, "what have you to offer on the part of your client?"

Sharpman arose. "If the court please," he responded, "I would respectfully ask to be allowed, at this juncture, to withdraw from the case. I prepared and presented the petition as a matter of duty to a client. I do not conceive it to be my duty to render any further assistance. That client, either through ignorance or deception, has been the means of placing me in a false and unenviable light before the court and before this community, in the suit which has just closed. I have neither the desire nor the opportunity to set myself right in that matter, but I do wish and I have fully determined to wash my hands of the whole affair. From this time forth I shall have nothing to do with it."

Sharpman resumed his seat, while Craft stared at him in astonishment and with growing anger.

He could hardly believe that the man who had led him into this scheme, and whose unpardonable blunder had brought disaster on them both, was now not only deserting him, but heaping ignominy on his head. Every moment was adding to his bitterness and rage.

"Well, Mr. Craft," said the judge, "what have you to offer in this matter? Your attorney seems to have left you to handle the case for yourself; we will hear you."

"My attorney is a rascal," said Craft, white with passion, as he arose. "His part and presence in that trial was a curse on it from the beginning. He wasn't satisfied to ruin me, but he must now seek to disgrace me as well. He is—"

The judge interrupted him:—

"We do not care to hear your opinion of Mr. Sharpman; we have neither the time nor the disposition to listen to it. You caused this defendant to produce before us the body of the boy Ralph. They are both here; what further do you desire?"

"I desire to take the boy home with me. The judgment of this court is that he is my grandson. In the absence of other persons legally entitled to take charge of him, I claim that right. I ask the court to order him into my custody."

The old man resumed his seat, and immediately fell into his customary fit of coughing.

When he had recovered, the judge, who had in the meantime been writing rapidly, said:—

"We cannot agree with you, Mr. Craft, as to the law. Although the presumption may be that the jury based their verdict on the boy's testimony that he is your grandson, yet their verdict does not state that fact specifically, and we have nothing on the record to show it. It would be necessary for you to prove that relation here and now, by new and independent evidence, before we could place the boy in your custody under any circumstances. But we shall save you the trouble of doing so by deciding the matter on other grounds. The court has heard from your own lips, within a few days, that you are, or have been, engaged in a business such as to make thieving and lying a common occurrence in your life. The court has also heard from your own lips that during the time this child was in your custody, you not only treated him inhumanly as regarded his body, but that you put forth every effort to destroy what has since proved itself to be a pure and steadfast soul. A kind providence placed it in the child's power to escape from you, and the same providence led him to the door of a man whose tenderness, whose honor, and whose nobility of character, no matter how humble his station in life, marks him as one eminently worthy to care for the body and to minister to the spirit of a boy like this.

"We feel that to take this lad now from his charge and to place him in yours, would be to do an act so utterly repugnant to justice, to humanity, and to law, that, if done, it ought to drag us from this bench in disgrace. We have marked your petition dismissed; we have ordered you to pay the cost of this proceeding, and we have remanded the boy Ralph to the custody of William Buckley."

Simon Craft said not a word. He rose from his chair, steadied himself for a moment on his cane, then shuffled up the aisle, out at the door and down the hall into the street. Disappointment, anger, bitter hatred, raged in his heart and distorted his face. The weight of years, of disease, of a criminal life, sat heavily upon him as he dragged himself miserably along the crowded thoroughfare, looking neither to the right nor the left, thinking only of the evil burden of his own misfortunes. Now and then some one who recognized him stopped, turned, looked at him scornfully for a moment, and passed on. Then he was lost to view. He was never seen in the city of Wilkesbarre again. He left no friends behind him there. He was first ridiculed, then despised, and then—forgotten.

* * * * *

It was two weeks after this before Ralph was able to return to his work. So much excitement, so much mental distress and bodily fatigue in so short a time, had occasioned a severe shock to his system, and he rallied from it but slowly.

One Monday morning, however, he went back to his accustomed work at the breaker.

He had thought that perhaps he might be ridiculed by the screen-room boys as one who had tried to soar above his fellows and had fallen ignominiously back to the earth. He expected to be greeted with jeering words and with cutting remarks, not so much in the way of malice as of fun. He resolved to take it calmly, however, and to give way to no show of feeling, hoping that thus the boys would soon forget to tease him.

But when he came among them that morning, looking so thin, and pale, and old, there was not a boy in all the waiting crowd who had the heart or hardihood to say an unpleasant word to him or to give utterance to a jest at his expense.

They all spoke kindly to him, and welcomed him back. Some of them did it very awkwardly indeed, and with much embarrassment, but they made him to understand, somehow, that they were glad to see him, and that he still held his place among them as a companion and a friend. It was very good in them, Ralph thought, very good indeed; he could scarcely keep the tears back for gratitude.

He took his accustomed bench in the screen-room, and bent to his task in the old way; but not with the old, light heart and willing fingers. He had thought never to do this again. He had thought that life held for him some higher, brighter, less laborious work. He had thought to gain knowledge, to win fame, to satisfy ambition. But the storm came with its fierce blasts of disappointment and despair, and when it had passed, hope and joy were engulfed in the ruins it left behind it. Henceforth there remained nothing but this, this toilsome bending over streams of flowing coal, to-day, to-morrow, next week, next year. And in the remote future nothing better; nothing but the laborer's pick and shovel, or, at best, the miner's drill and powder-can and fuse. In all the coming years there was not one bright spot to which he could look, this day, with hope. The day itself seemed very long to him, very long indeed and very tiresome. The heat grew burdensome; the black dust filled his throat and lungs, the ceaseless noise became almost unendurable; the stream of coal ran down and down in a dull monotony that made him faint and dizzy, and the bits of blue sky seen from the open windows never yet had seemed to him to be so far and far away.

But the day had an end at last, as all days must have, and Ralph came down from his seat in the dingy castle to walk with Bachelor Billy to their home.

They went by a path that led through green fields, where the light of the setting sun, falling on the grass and daisies, changed them to a golden yellow as one looked on them from the distance.

When they turned the corner of the village street, they were surprised to see horses and a carriage standing in front of Mrs. Maloney's cottage. It was an unaccustomed sight. There was a lady there talking to Mrs. Maloney, and she had a little girl by her side. At the second look, Ralph recognized them as Mrs. Burnham and Mildred. Then the lady descended from her carriage and stood at the door waiting for Bachelor Billy and the boy to come to her. But Ralph, looking down at his black hands and soiled clothing, hesitated and stopped in the middle of the road. He knew that his face, too, was so covered with coal-dust as to be almost unrecognizable. He felt that he ought not to appear before Mrs. Burnham in this guise.

But she saw his embarrassment and called to him.

"I came to see you, Ralph," she said. "I want to talk to you both. May
I go into your house and find a chair?"

Both boy and man hurried forward then with kindly greetings, and
Bachelor Billy unlocked the door and bade her enter.

She went in and sat in the big rocking-chair, looking pale and weak, while Ralph hurried away to wash the black dust from his face and hands.

"Ye were verra kind, Mistress Burnham," said the man, "to sen' Ralph the gude things to eat when he waur sick. An' the perty roses ye gie'd 'im,—he never tired o' watchin' 'em."

"I should have come myself to see him," she replied, "only that I too have been ill. I thought to send such little delicacies as might tempt his appetite. I knew that he must be quite exhausted after so great a strain upon his nervous system. The excitement wore me out, and I had no such struggle as he had. I am glad he has rallied from the shock."

"He's not ower strang yet; ye ken that by lukin' at 'im; but he's a braw lad, a braw lad."

The lady turned and looked earnestly into Bachelor Billy's face.

"He's the bravest boy," she said, "the very bravest boy I ever knew or heard, of, and the very best. I want him, Billy; I have come here to-night to ask you if I may have him. Son or no son, he is very dear to me, and I feel that I cannot do without him."

For a minute the man was silent. Down deep in his heart there had been a spark of rejoicing at the probability that Ralph would stay with him now indefinitely. He had pushed it as far out of sight as possible, because it was a selfish rejoicing, and he felt that it was not right since it came as a result of the boy's misfortune.

And now suddenly the fear of loss had quenched it entirely, and the dread of being left alone came back upon him in full force.

He bit his lip before replying, to help hold back his mingled feeling of pleasure at the bright prospect opening for Ralph, and of pain for the separation which must follow.

"I dinna ken," he said at last, "how aught could be better for the lad than bein' wi' ye. Ye're ower kin' to think o' it. It'll be hard partin' wi' im, but, if the lad wishes it, he s'all gae. I ha' no claim on 'im only to do what's best for 'im as I ken it. He's a-comin'; he'll speak for 'imsel'."

Ralph came back into the room with face and hands as clean as a hurried washing could make them. "What thenk ye," said Bachelor Billy to him, "that the lady wants for ye to do?"

"I don't know," replied the boy, looking uneasily from one to the other; "but she's been very good to me, an', whatever it is, I'll try to do it."

"I want you to go home with me, Ralph," said Mrs. Burnham, "and live with me and be my son. I am not sure yet that you are not my child. We shall find that out. With the new light we have we shall make a new search for proofs of your identity, but that may take weeks, perhaps months. In the meantime I cannot do without you. I want you to come to me now, and, whatever the result of this new investigation may be, I want you to stay with me and be my son. Will you come?"

She had taken both the boy's hands and had drawn him to her, and was looking up into his face with tenderness and longing.

Ralph could not speak. He was dumb with the joy of hearing her kindly earnest words. A light of great gladness broke in upon his mind. The world had become bright and beautiful once more. He was not to be without home and love and learning after all. Then came second thoughts, bringing doubt, hesitancy, mental struggling.

Still he was silent, looking out through the open door to the eastern hills, where the sunlight lingered lovingly with golden radiance. On the boy's face the lights and shadows, coming and going, marked the progress of the conflict in his mind.

The lady put her arm around him and drew him closer to her, regardless of his soiled and dusty clothing. She was still looking into his eyes.

"You will come, will you not, Ralph? We want you so much, so very much; do we not, Mildred?" she asked, turning to her little daughter, who stood at the other side of her chair.

"Indeed we do," answered the child. "Mamma wants you an' I want you. I don't have anybody to play wiv me half the time, 'cept Towser; an' yeste'day I asked Towser if he wanted you, an' Towser said 'bow,' an' that means 'yes.'"

"There! you see we all want you, Ralph," said Mrs. Burnham, smiling; "the entire family wants you. Now, you will come, won't you?"

The boy had looked across to the little girl, over to Bachelor Billy, who stood leaning against the mantel, and then down again into the lady's eyes. It was almost pitiful to look into his face and see the strong emotion outlined there, marking the fierceness of the conflict in his mind between a great desire for honest happiness and a stern and manly sense of the right and proper thing for him to do. At last he spoke.

"Mrs. Burnham," he said, in a sharp voice, "I can't, I can't!"

A look of surprise and pain came into the lady's face.

"Why, Ralph!" she exclaimed, "I thought,—I hoped you would be glad to go. We would be very good to you; we would try to make you very happy."

"An' I'll give you half of ev'ry nice thing I have!" spoke out the girl, impetuously.

"I know, I know!" responded Ralph, "it'd be beautiful, just as it was that Sunday I was there; an' I'd like to go,—you don't know how I'd like to,—but I can't! Oh, no! I can't!"

Bachelor Billy was leaning forward, watching the boy intently, surprise and admiration marking his soiled face.

"Then, why will you not come?" persisted the lady. "What reason have you, if we can all be happy?"

Ralph stood for a moment in deep thought.

"I can't tell you," he said, at last. "I don't know just how to explain it, but, some way, after all this that's happened, it don't seem to me as though I'd ought to go, it don't seem to me as though it'd be just right; as though it'd be a-doin' what—what—Oh! I can't tell you. I can't explain it to you so'st you can understand. But I mus'n't go; indeed, I mus'n't!"

At last, however, the lady understood and was silent.

She had not thought before how this proposal, well meant though it was, might jar upon the lad's fine sense of honor and of the fitness of things. She had not realized, until this moment, how a boy, possessing so delicate a nature as Ralph's, might feel to take a position now, to which a court and jury had declared he was not entitled, to which he himself had acknowledged, and to which every one knew he was not entitled.

He had tried to gain the place by virtue of a suit at law, he had called upon the highest power in the land to put him into it, and his effort had not only ended in ignominious failure, but had left him stamped as a lineal descendant of one whose very name had become a by-word and a reproach. How could he now, with the remotest sense of honor or of pride, step into the place that should have been occupied by Robert Burnham's son?

The lady could not urge him any more, knowing what his thought was.
She could only say:—

"Yes, Ralph; I understand. I am very, very sorry. I love you just the same, but I cannot ask you now to go with me. I can only hope for a day when we shall know, and the world shall know, that you are my son. You would come to me then, would you not, Ralph?"

"Indeed I would!" he said. "Oh, indeed I would!"

She drew his head down upon her bosom and kissed his lips again and again; then she released him and rose to go. She inquired very tenderly about his health, about his work, about his likes in the way of books and food and clothing; and one could see that, notwithstanding her resolution to leave Ralph with Bachelor Billy, she still had many plans in her mind, for his comfort and happiness. She charged Billy to be very careful of the boy; she kissed him again, and Mildred kissed him, and then they stepped into the carriage and the restless brown horses drew them rapidly away.