CHAPTER XIX.

THE MISSING LINKS.

On the way, Perce Bucklin’s spirits did not rise, as a perfectly truthful boy’s spirits might have been expected to do, under the circumstances.

He had already felt, with some uneasiness of conscience, that his disingenuous treatment of his partners in the kelp-gathering was unworthy of the son of so upright a father. But he was now appalled by the thought of what might be the consequences of his conduct.

As they walked down the road together, Mr. Hatville asked:

“Was anybody with you on the beach when you found the watch?”

Perce had known very well that some such question must come, and he had been dreading it. He had tried to think what he should reply; but now he could only stammer:

“Yes;—that is, no;—the Elder boys had just gone off with a load of seaweed, and I was waiting for them to come back with the cart.”

“How far away were they? out of sight?” continued Mr. Hatville.

“No, not exactly. We were hauling the kelp into piles, just above high water;” explained Perce.

“Oh, yes! They were near you, then,” said Mr. Hatville, who had observed the heaps of seaweed on the shore. “So they’ll know all about it. Let me hear your story first; then I will hear theirs. Just how it was found, you understand.”

“It will be of no use for you to ask them,” said Perce.

“How so?” replied Mr. Hatville, with another of his sarcastic, incredulous smiles.

“They didn’t know anything about it,” Perce acknowledged miserably.

“So you mean to say that you found a valuable gold watch on the beach, and said nothing about it to your friends, who must have been within sight and hearing at the time? That’s a likely story!”

“I don’t wonder you think so,” said Perce in deep distress. “But I’ll tell you why I didn’t. We had gone into partnership for getting kelp and driftwood, and had made an agreement that we were to divide, half and half, everything we found—half for me and the team, which is my father’s, and half for them. Then, you see, when I found the watch, I was afraid they might claim a share in it, provided the owner didn’t turn up.”

“Very ingenious!” was Mr. Hatville’s skeptical comment.

“You may believe it or not; it’s true!” exclaimed Perce, in a broken and agitated voice. “I did a mean thing; and for that reason I’d rather you shouldn’t say anything to the Elder boys about it. But I suppose they will have to know it. I suppose everybody will have to know it!” And here his voice failed completely.

“I suppose the particulars will have to be known to several persons before we get through with this little business,” Mr. Hatville replied. “Have you anything more to say for yourself?”

The boy had nothing more to say, except to describe more particularly how he took the watch out of the dripping seaweed, and to protest again his innocence of any dishonest purpose; all of which, however, did not seem to make much impression upon Mr. Hatville.

They walked on in silence down the sandy road, Perce as deeply wretched as if he had been already on his way to the lock-up.

Even if he were spared that last humiliation, he felt that his good name was gone forever. The taking of the watch might not be publicly proved against him; but, unless the mystery of its disappearance from the owner’s room, and its re-appearance in the wave-tossed kelp on the shore—unless that could be explained, who would believe him guiltless? The suspicion might cling to him through life.

What would his father say? And how it would grieve his dear mother!

“We’ll not go to the beach now,” said Mr. Hatville, “since your friends can’t say anything to help you. I don’t see why I brought you away from the village, anyway. But never mind; we can trudge back there. And we’ll go to Mrs. Murcher’s first—now that we are so far on our way.”

Harsh as had been his treatment of a supposed culprit, under what seemed to him very great provocation, Mr. Hatville couldn’t help pitying the boy a little; and, now that his anger was cooled, he wished to reflect before deciding to turn so youthful an offender over to the officers of the law.

[Illustration: “‘HERE THEY ARE!’ SAID OLLY, AS HE HELD OUT THE EVIDENCE AGAINST HIMSELF.”]

He kept Perce by his side as he mounted the piazza steps.

“Yes, I’ve found him, and my watch, too,” he said to the boarders, who came out to hear the news. “It was in his possession.”

Glad as they were to hear of his good fortune, nothing but painful surprise and commiseration was expressed in the womanly and girlish faces that looked upon the unhappy boy.

“Oh, then! what shall we do with the money?” sighed Mrs. Merriman.

Whereupon it came out that the friends of Olly Burdeen had subscribed a small collection, to reward his rescuers. But, could they bestow it upon such a boy as this one had shown himself to be?

“Give it to the others!” cried Perce passionately. “I don’t want any pay for what I did. No, nor for saving this man’s watch, either,—though I don’t think I ought to be treated this way, as if I had stolen it.”

“Does he deny it?” cried Amy Canfield, eagerly.

“Oh, of course!” replied Mr. Hatville.

“Of course I do!” Perce exclaimed, raising his voice in vehement protestation. “I found it in the seaweed, on the beach. But he won’t believe a word I say!”

And he stood defiant, desperate, his eyes flashing through tears.

The most tender-hearted of the lady boarders couldn’t blame Mr. Hatville for declining to accept such a story as that. But just then another actor in the drama rushed upon the scene.

It was Olly Burdeen, himself, in his old clothes, his hair tumbled, his eyes excited, his voice choking as he tried to speak.

“The watch?” he gasped out. “He isn’t to blame! I—I took it!”

In his room, at the end of the corridor above, he had overheard enough to know that the watch was found, and that Perce was in trouble. Equally excited by the good news and the bad, he had obeyed an impulse of generosity and gratitude, and hastened to the defense of the friend to whom he owed his recent rescue.

But, strange to say, nobody believed him! He was delirious; he was telling a noble untruth; he was sacrificing himself for one to whom he fancied that he owed his life. Everybody believed implicitly in Olly; nobody believed in Perce.

Only Mr. Hatville, whose mind had reverted more than once to Olly, while considering the other’s strange story, listened carefully, thinking that the clew to the mystery might at last be coming.

“How is that, Olly?” he asked.

“I just put on the watch, to wear it a little while with my new clothes,” Master Burdeen confessed impetuously. “Then when the accident happened to me in the boat, I suppose the oar snatched it from my pocket. You didn’t find the whole of the chain, did you, Perce?”

“The hook and the seal are missing,” Mr. Hatville replied.

“Here they are!” said Olly, as he took from his pocket and held out the evidence against himself, glad enough now that he had not thrown it into the sea, when tempted to do so.

After that, nobody doubted his story.

“But why didn’t you tell me this before?” demanded Mr. Hatville, as he took the missing links.

“I thought the watch was lost, and I was afraid,” poor Olly confessed. “But I couldn’t bear to see _him_ accused!”

After this frank acknowledgment from Olly, Mr. Hatville forbore to utter a single reproach, and only said:

“You needn’t have been afraid, if you had only come forward and told the simple truth. The watch is found, and there’s no great harm done; though I shall have some trouble in regulating it again down to a second and a half a month. You’d better go back to bed, Olly.”

And Olly went; abjectly humbled, and blinded by tears of shame and contrition, yet almost happy in the wonderful relief the confession of his fault and the vindication of his friend had brought to his tortured conscience.

“I was sure he never took it!” he heard Miss Amy Canfield exclaim with glad vehemence; but he knew that she was speaking of Percival, not of himself.