CHAPTER VIII.

CONCLUSION.

TOM kept up an appearance of not caring for anything the policeman had said, so long as he was in the presence of his uncle and aunt, but as soon as he got up to his own room all his courage forsook him, and he burst into tears, and cried softly to himself for nearly an hour after he got into bed.

He was beginning to dread these restless nights with their hideous dreams, and he knew this would be, as others had been, a terror and a torment until morning came, and what awaited him in the morning he dreaded to think.

In the morning he found his uncle was fully determined to carry out his intention of going with him to the City, and speaking to Mr. Phillips of what had happened, and the two started out together.

Very little had been said at breakfast time, and the two walked silently along the road, for Mr. Flowers had made up his mind not to appeal to Tom's better feelings any more. In point of fact, since he had talked the matter over with his wife, and heard all she had to say, he had come to the conclusion that his nephew was very little better than this Jack himself, and that he had been altogether deceived in him.

They had walked some distance towards the City, when all at once Tom heard his name called, and looking round he saw Bob Ronan running towards him, and flourishing a red handkerchief, the one he had lost the previous day.

"I didn't know it had got money in it," roared Bob, as he came panting along, quite oblivious of the presence of Tom's uncle until he came up to them, and then he started with open mouth, as Mr. Flowers turned round, and holding out his hand said, in a severe tone, "You give me that handkerchief, my man."

Bob looked from one to the other and saw that things had gone wrong with his friend somehow, and thought his own love of fun might have caused the trouble.

"I hope you ain't angry with Tom because he lost this money, sir," he said, looking hard at Tom as he spoke.

"Never mind that now, you just give me the handkerchief, and tell me where you got it?"

"Why, out of Tom's pocket, to be sure," said Bob. "I only did it for a lark, just as we were going home last night, and if I'd knowed there was money tied in it, I wouldn't have touched it."

"What do you know about this money?" asked Mr. Flowers, rather severely, eyeing him as though he was as much to blame as Tom for what had happened.

"Why, I know it's his own," answered Bob, resenting the tone in which he had been addressed, and determined to defend Tom, as he supposed. "I suppose he told you it was his own—what he won on Tittlebrat the other day, I expect."

"You expect," repeated Mr. Flowers. "What do you know about it?"

"Why, I know he won a lot of money on Tittlebrat," avowed Bob. "Didn't he tell you so himself?"

"Never mind what he told me. What did you win on this race?"

Bob shook his head, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. "No more racing for me," he said. "I've given my mother my word, and I don't mean to break it for nobody. For I just chucked away her new shawl over this, and if that ain't enough to choke a fellow off, I don't know what is."

Mr. Flowers could not help smiling at the boy's rueful face as he said this. He admired him, too, for the determination with which he spoke, and he said, "Did you tell your mother what had happened, my boy?"

"Ah, that I did. I just had it all out, though I thought it would break her heart to hear that all the money I had saved to buy her winter shawl had been thrown away on these races."

"Then it was your own money you risked?" said Tom's uncle.

Bob stared at the question. "To be sure it was. Did you think I stole it?" he said rather resentfully.

"No, I don't think you would, my boy, but some other lad has been doing this, and I must find out how far Tom has mixed himself up with him in the matter."

As he spoke, he untied the corner of the handkerchief, and took out the money, looking at it carefully as he did so. "Have you touched this at all, my lad," he said, turning to Bob. He would not say a word to Tom again after the denials he had given last night about this money.

Bob shook his head. "When I found there was money in it—and I didn't find it out till I got home—I just stuffed the handkerchief into my coat pocket ready for the morning, and didn't take it out till I saw Tom coming along here."

"Very well; now, you see, I have tied it up again as you gave it to me. I may want you to remember this by-and-by, my lad."

Bob wished he could have a word with Tom about the matter, but he walked on as though the affair did not concern him at all, and yet his companion felt sure that something very serious must have happened by what his uncle said.

In his pity for Tom, and wishing to help him, he said at last, "You don't think Tom stole this money, do you, sir? Because I know he didn't. He told me all about winning on Tittlebrat when we went down Fleet Street."

"I wanted Tom to tell me all about the affair, but he said he had got no more money then."

"Well, hadn't Bob got it?" put in Tom.

"You know what I meant well enough. The policeman had seen you with this Jack very often lately, and wanted to find out whether he had given you any marked money. If you had told the whole truth about the matter, there would have been an end of it, but now I must go to Mr. Phillips and ask him to look into his accounts and make sure that he has not been robbed as well as this other gentleman."

Tom turned pale as his uncle said this, but Mr. Flowers did not notice it as he went on talking to Bob. Perhaps, if he had any suspicion of the real facts of the case, he might have acted differently, but he supposed Tom was afraid to tell all the truth for fear of getting his friend Jack into more trouble, and he thought the threat of going to Mr. Phillips would be sufficient to induce him to tell out all he knew about Jack, whom he felt sure had duped Tom as he had other lads.

But although Tom had turned a shade paler when his uncle said what he intended to do, he thought his theft would never be discovered now the ten shillings had been replaced, and so he walked on silently by his uncle's side until the warehouse was reached, and then, to his great relief, he heard that Mr. Phillips was not expected to arrive until late this morning, and so his uncle could not see him.

Tom walked to the desk feeling as though a load had been lifted from him, and thinking the matter would probably blow over now, for his uncle could not wait to see Mr. Phillips, and he would have left the City again long before his uncle could get away.

It was nearly twelve o'clock before that gentleman came, but just behind him walked the customer who had paid Tom the ten shillings a few days before.

"Thompson, why has Mr. Longton's order not been executed?" called Mr. Phillips, as he came in.

"Mr. Longton's order? I have none, sir," replied the foreman.

Mr. Phillips turned to the customer. "I told you I had heard nothing of it," he said; "your messenger must have forgotten it."

"But I gave the order myself more than a week ago. Let me see, why I paid the last bill to the lad at the desk at the same time, it was only a small item, but I wanted to clear that account off to which it belonged, and I dropped in one evening just as you were closing."

"More than a week ago," repeated Mr. Phillips; "then the lad who took the order is not here to-day, for he has been laid up with a bad cold."

"No, he's at the desk now," said Mr. Longton, looking round and seeing Tom as he lifted his head from his writing; "that's the lad I gave the order to when I paid him the ten shillings. Don't you remember it, my lad?" he said, walking up to the desk and confronting Tom.

But instead of owning that he had forgotten the order, as he clearly had, he stuck to it that he had never received it.

"Do you remember me paying you the ten shillings just as you were leaving the desk?" asked the gentleman.

No, Tom did not remember anything about it, he said; and Mr. Phillips felt sure the order must have been given to the absent desk boy, when the customer suggested that they should refer back to the book and they would see by that when the bill was paid, and whether this lad or the other was to blame for the neglect.

So the book was produced and the pages turned back to the day when Mr. Longton declared he had paid the bill and given the order. But the name of Longton or anything referring to a payment of ten shillings was not to be found.

"It would be the last thing entered for that day, I should think," said the customer, with a keen look at Tom.

Mr. Phillips ran his finger all down the page, but of course it was not there. "How is this, Flowers?" asked the gentleman, sternly.

"Perhaps—perhaps I forgot it then, and put it in afterwards," stammered Tom, feeling he must say something with those piercing eyes of Mr. Longton's fixed upon him.

"I'll run over and fetch the receipt," said that gentleman. "I should like to have this cleared up now," he added. "That young rascal has been tampering with the money, I know," he muttered to himself as he went out; "I wonder whether he has been dabbling in betting like that young fool of mine," for strange to say it was one of Mr. Longton's clerks who had paid the marked money to Jack.

He soon returned with the receipt and laid it before Mr. Phillips.

There was Tom's name written on it, as having received ten shillings on behalf of Morton & Co., but all the searching through the books for that day, and the one following, had not shown that it had been entered to the firm's account, and consequently it could not have been paid over.

Tom declared he had entered it and paid the money, but he would not say a word beyond in explanation of the fact, and so having looked through the whole of the accounts for the next day, and finding it was not there, Mr. Phillips decided in his own mind that the money had been appropriated by Tom for his own use.

Then Mr. Longton told him of how he had been served by a young clerk whom he trusted implicitly, until he had marked some money, and got a friend to pay it in to this young man, and only a small portion of it found its way back into his drawer.

Under these circumstances, Mr. Phillips decided to send for Tom's uncle, and he was locked up in the manager's room until his uncle came. Mr. Phillips explained something of the matter to him before he took him to his room, but when he brought him in he said, "Now, Mr. Flowers, unless he tells the whole truth about the matter, I shall feel bound to send for the police at once, and have him locked up."

"It is what I have tried to make him do," said Mr. Flowers.

It was plain that, bad as he might have thought Tom before, he had never dreamed it would come to this, and even Tom himself was touched by the despairing look in his uncle's face as he dropped into a chair opposite to Mr. Phillips.

"Now, Mr. Flowers, I have no wish to be hard on the boy, if he will only tell the truth about the matter; but, of course, with the number of lads we have here, I cannot pass it over. I have heard from one or two that your nephew has been betting on horses lately, and now I shall expect him to tell me the whole truth about it, or else the police must take it up. And when he leaves this room, it will be in the custody of a policeman."

"I will tell you," said Tom, with a gasping sob, "I used the ten shillings Mr. Longton paid, but I never meant to steal it, and I put it back as soon as ever I could get it from Jack. It wasn't the day after I borrowed it, but the day after that. I can show you where it is put down," added the wretched boy, for his cup of misery seemed full, now that the theft had been discovered that he had striven so long to hide.

So the books were brought and there he pointed out the entry placed in the midst of the day's transactions, that it might escape Mr. Phillips' notice when he looked over the books at the end of the day.

Tom was thankful indeed that he had been able to replace the money, but oh, what would he not have given to have the last three months of his life over again, or even the last month? But now he felt his chance of making his way in London was at an end for ever. He told his uncle and Mr. Phillips now all about his friendship with Jack, and how he had been persuaded to "borrow" the money to bet on Tittlebrat, and how difficult he had found it to get any of it back.

Then Mr. Flowers told what he had learned from the police that a good deal of marked money had been traced to this Jack, and it was probable that he himself saw the marks after he had taken it, and, so to get rid of it and screen himself from suspicion, he had paid Tom half his winnings with this marked money.

Then the gentlemen conferred together as to what would be best for Tom's future under these changed circumstances; for, of course, Mr. Phillips could not keep him, nor could he give him a character that would get him another place, so that his prospects in London were ruined.

"It is a mercy for him he was found out before things went any further," remarked Mr. Phillips, as he wished Mr. Flowers good-day.

His uncle had not made up his mind what to do with Tom, but as they walked through the warehouse, and he saw how his former companions now looked at him, he felt sure that Mr. Phillips was right, and that it would be impossible for him to stay any longer in London.

In spite of it being so early, his uncle took him home, and when he got there he said to him, "Now go and put your things together, my boy, we shall have to start early in the morning; it is Christmas day. A sorry Christmas you have made it for all of us."

"Where, where are we going?" asked Tom, with a half-scared look in his face.

"Home to Heatherdene, of course; there is no other place for you."

"Oh, uncle, pray forgive me, and give me another chance, and I will never do such a thing again," pleaded Tom.

"I hope not indeed, my lad. I trust that this will be a lesson you will never forget; but you must learn as others have had to do, that though some things may be repented of, no amount of repentance will ever do away with the evil they bring with them, and leave behind them. You must go to Heatherdene and see if you can live down this wrong-doing by learning to be as good a blacksmith as your father, for London and its temptations is no place for you."

In vain Tom wept and pleaded and promised. The time for promises had gone by, and though his uncle really felt sorry for the lad, and still more for his parents, yet he felt that it would never do for him to stay longer, and in this view of the matter his wife fully concurred.

So on Christmas afternoon Tom and his uncle arrived at the little village, to the surprise and consternation of everybody who saw them, for one look at Tom's miserable face was enough to convince them that something had gone wrong.

But who can describe the bitter grief of his mother when she heard the miserable tale! Her Tom, her darling, the one she had been so proud of, and who she felt sure would do such great things if he only had the chance—for him to be little better than a thief! Oh, it was terrible.

Tom never knew before how much his mother loved him, or how she had built her hopes on his future, until he saw her grief over his disgraceful return after three months' stay in London; and this grief he is never likely to forget.

The widow's prayers for the lad, whom her Bob had failed to help when help was possible, were heard and answered, though it was a long and bitter trial to Tom, the living down the miserable mistake he had made. The story of his grievous fall had to be told to one and another, and friends looked at him askance, even when he was striving by honest toil at his father's forge to atone for the past so far as he could.

But even this was made to work for good to the lad at last, for he himself learned to turn to God for comfort and help in his trouble, and He who was ready to forgive, was also ready to help him.

So far from sneering at the Sunday-school now, as he had done when he was in London, Tom was thankful to be admitted to the Bible-class again, and under the instruction of his teacher, he learned to conquer the pride and arrogance that had really led to his grievous fall.

But in spite of all this, it was uphill work for Tom to have to live among his old neighbours. They looked upon all he did with suspicion, for to them, the dangerous friend who had led him astray was a mere shadow, but it was a grim and awful fact that Tom only just escaped from being sent to the assizes for stealing his master's money, and this they were not likely to forget.

That Tom's repentance was deep and true and sincere was, however, soon tested by his treatment of his brother Dick, whom he had always looked down upon as being rather "soft," because he did not bluster and stand up for his "rights," as Tom had always done.

In point of fact, no one had appreciated quiet Dick except his sister Polly, until Tom came back from London, and then, after a time, the quiet, unobtrusive attentions of Dick, when everybody else had turned away from him, brought the first ray of comfort and hope to Tom's mind.

When he went out for a lonely walk to escape the cruel looks of the neighbours, Dick would steal after him, though Tom knew he would far rather have been at his books by the fireside, than wander up and down the wintry lanes.

At first Tom had felt too sick and sore to take any notice of this silent ministry of sympathy, and beyond clasping the hand that was slipped into his, he took no notice of his brother.

But by degrees, he began to talk to Dick of the books he liked to read, and so the boy's confidence was won, and then he began to think that Dick should have been sent to the grammar school rather than himself, until at last he decided to speak to his father about this, for it was plain Dick would never be strong enough for a blacksmith, and he had such a love of books, and especially those on chemistry and electricity, that Tom felt sure if these tastes of Dick's could only be cultivated, he would become a clever and a useful man.

But it was not easy to convince his father that it would be good for Dick to go to the grammar school. He had had too much of that already, he declared; Dick should not have the chance of ruining his life as Tom had done.

It was hard for Tom to go over the old, painful story, but he did it to convince his father that his education was not to be blamed for the bad use he had made of it. He even promised to apply himself more closely to the forge, in order to earn the money that was necessary to pay for Dick's schooling, if his father would only consent to let him go.

This promise of Tom's had the greatest influence with the blacksmith, for hitherto Tom had shown no liking for his father's trade, and had only done what he was obliged in a perfunctory sort of fashion, and unless he could be induced to take it up more heartily, and give more attention to it, he would be a very poor sort of blacksmith at the best.

So for Tom's own sake, his suggestion was at last taken up, and Flowers consented that Dick should go to the grammar school, if Tom would undertake to earn the money to pay for it. There was always plenty of work to be had if Tom would only stick to it, so there was not likely to be any difficulty on this score.

To see Dick's delight when he heard that he was to go to the school, where they taught the subjects that had been as a fairy tale to him, repaid Tom for the pain he had endured in talking to his father about it, and to think his younger brother was to have this chance of a good education, nerved him to overcome his dislike to being at the forge all day, as he must be now.

It was hard for him to overcome this distaste and pin himself down to work steadily under his father's direction, but by degrees the conquest was made, and he had his reward when Dick came home of an evening and told them of the wonderful things he had learned, and the experiments he had seen made in the course of the lesson.

By degrees the lad lost his shyness from his habit of now talking to Tom, while as for Tom himself, he actually began to take a pride and pleasure in his work, so that his father was able to trust him to do a job throughout without fear of the customer complaining that the work had been scamped.

It was by this means that Tom at last won back the character he had lost in London, though people were slow enough to trust him at first.

"Tell your father he must be sure and do this job himself," was a message Tom often had to deliver when he was left in charge of the forge for a little while.

Grim enough would Flowers look when he received such, for he knew all too well what it meant. "They don't believe you will give honest work, my lad," he would say with a bitter look at Tom.

But after some months, things began to change in this respect. To work for Dick's schooling had been a great sweetener of toil to Tom, but at last he began to take the same honest pride in his work that his father did, and people finding that his work was not scamped, soon ceased to give the offensive message, and at last one and another began to pass the time of day with him again, and some of the farmers as they stood waiting and watching him would remark, "Your son will make a good blacksmith after all."

To hear this was very sweet for Flowers, for he had always wanted Tom to learn his trade, and help him in it. And so when Tom began to give proof that he was likely to be a good blacksmith, he felt consoled for the failure of the London plan.

It was in Dick, however, that Tom felt the greatest reward for his toil and painstaking efforts to get on. The little, shy, delicate lad, who would never have been strong enough to wield his father's hammer, was making such good progress at school, that masters as well as friends began to feel quite proud of him, and in this Tom could feel he had a right to share, for had he not conquered himself in order that Dick might have this chance?

Slowly but surely public opinion began to turn towards Tom again, and people as they talked over the old story, as they would sometimes remember to have heard, said that Tom had been rather foolish than wicked over what had happened in London. But they all agreed that, for Tom at least, it had been a good job that he had had the bitter lesson, for he was less proud, less arrogant and exacting as to his own "rights" and far more considerate of the rights of others.

So God brought good out of the evil at last, although for this Tom had to wait and suffer many an unmerited sneer, and endure many a cold look. For the world is slow to forget such a slip as Tom had made at the outset of his life—a slip that is the ruin of many a promising lad, and might have been for Tom, if he had not bravely set himself to work to overcome all difficulties and all dislikes for the sake of his brother Dick—and by this means made his three months in London, and the acquaintance of his dangerous friend, a means of ultimate good by seeking the help and blessing of God in conquering himself for the sake of another.

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