CHAPTER XIII.

TWO WRONGS DON’T MAKE A RIGHT.

While Wade Brooks is resting his mind after the great trade he has made, let us follow his late companions back to Midhampton. Lon Trustleton had the feeling that all his fun had been nipped in the bud by Wade, when he took the money, which was to pay the expenses of the expedition to New York, from the place where Matt Swikes had put it. It is true, he blamed Matt for putting the wallet there, and thought he was a fool for doing so. He ought to have given it to him if he was afraid to keep it.

Then Matt had counted the money into parts, evidently to divide with him. He wondered why he had not given him his share, instead of sticking it in the bottom of the boat. Lon had no suspicion that Matt doubted his fairness in the matter, and that he might take all the funds from him; but this was the reason why Matt had put the money in what he considered a safe place.

The captured runaways had no chance to talk together till the train arrived at Midhampton, about nine o’clock. Capt. Trustleton was in favor, as before, of looking the facts squarely in the face. If his son set the barn on fire, he wanted to know it; and though he did not want the boy sent to prison, or any thing of the kind, he was disposed to punish him severely for the crime, as well as to pay Mr. Garlick the loss he had sustained.

Obed Swikes was glad to get his money back. He was not willing to believe that Matt had any thing to do with burning the barn; but Capt. Trustleton insisted upon taking the boys to the house of Mr. Garlick, and having the matter investigated. Swikes reluctantly consented to the plan, and they went directly from the station to the farmer’s house. The boys were left in one room, while their fathers talked the subject over in another.

“Here we are, Matt,” said Lon, who did not appear to be at all sorry for his evil deeds: “our fun has been spoiled by Wade Brooks.”

“I know it, and now we may be sent to the House of Correction for burning the barn,” replied Matt.

“No danger of that,” added Lon. “Your father will not let you be sent to any such place; and I know mine won’t. They say money will do almost any thing.”

“My father will not be willing to pay much money on my account.”

“Yes, he will: he will pay all that is wanted to keep you out of the House of Correction,” added Lon. “I am only sorry because we lost the good time we should have had in New York while the money lasted; and, when we came home, our folks would be so glad to see us, that they wouldn’t have said a word.”

“I don’t know about that; but every thing would have worked first-rate if it hadn’t been for Wade Brooks, confound him!”

“Don’t you think we can get hold of that money again, Matt?” asked Lon in a whisper.

“I don’t know: very likely I can. My father thinks Wade took it.”

“Wade will be back in the boat some time to-day; and he may steal it a second time, you know,” added Lon, with a wink. “We must have that time in New York, anyhow.”

“I’m willing, if we only get out of this scrape.”

“We shall get out of this all right; but don’t you make any blunders this time, as you did before,” said the cautious Lon. “Don’t answer any questions till you have thought about it. Stick to it that we had nothing to do with the fire. Your father does not know that you were out of the house before the fire; and I’m sure mine didn’t. Say we did not come out till the fire woke us, and went to the boat after it was all over. They will not believe Wade’s story, if we only stick to our text, and you don’t put your foot into it again.”

While these scamps were preparing for the worst, the trio in the other room were discussing the guilt of the boys. Capt. Trustleton called for the evidence that his boy had been concerned in setting the fire. Mr. Garlick had no evidence, except that he had horsewhipped the two boys, and Lon had threatened to get even with him. No one had seen the boys in the vicinity of the barn, either before or after the fire.

“Do you intend to proceed against the boys on this testimony?” asked the captain rather sternly.

“I have not said I should proceed against them.”

“The boys both denied that they had any thing to do with the fire.”

“Of course they would deny it,” replied the farmer.

“You may question them; and, if there is any thing to implicate them, I shall be willing to do what is right. Before we call them in, there’s another question which needs a little discussion,” continued Capt. Trustleton.

“What’s that?” asked Mr. Garlick curiously.

“You whipped these boys most unmercifully,” replied the captain.

“They had no business to burn my barn, if I did,” said the farmer.

“That’s very true; but two wrongs do not make a right. If you had not flogged them, you would not have suspected them of burning your building; and if they did the deed,--which I don’t admit,--they did it because you whipped them.”

“You hadn’t no business to lick my boy,” added Swikes.

“Now, if there is to be any law about the fire, there must be some more about this flogging,” continued Capt. Trustleton.

“Do you mean to prosecute me for that, after I have had my property burned by these boys?” demanded Mr. Garlick.

“If my boy is prosecuted for burning the barn, I certainly shall prosecute you for flogging my son.”

“And I shall do it for licking my boy,” added Obed Swikes, who began to see his way out of the scrape in the light of the captain’s threat.

“That looks a little as though you meant to scare me out of it,” added Garlick.

“Not at all; and I don’t mean any thing of the kind,” replied the captain. “If these boys set the fire, they did it under strong provocation. You had no more right to flog them than I have to flog you. You took the law into your own hands, and so did the boys; and you have got the worst of it, Mr. Garlick. I would rather have my barn burned than my son flogged as you flogged him. I do not believe in flogging: I saw enough of it on board ship when I was a young man.”

“You seem to think it was right for your son to burn the barn because I whipped him for stealing my peaches,” said the farmer.

“I do not say that; but I have no doubt my son Alonzo, who was never flogged in his life before so far as I know, thought the burning of the barn could no more than atone for the flogging you gave him.”

“I did not say I meant to prosecute the boys,” replied Garlick, who doubtless found by this time that there were two sides to the question.

“What I say is not to be considered as a threat. If my boy is taken before the courts on the charge of firing your barn, I wish the people to know why he did it, if he did it at all,” answered Capt. Trustleton. “Now we will examine the boys, one at a time.”

Lon was called into the room first, and questioned by his father and the farmer. He adhered to his story so well that he puzzled his father, who was prepared to see him convicted. Matt told the same story, as they had agreed beforehand; though a shrewd lawyer would perhaps have caused them to make more slips than they did.

“You see there is no evidence, Mr. Garlick, though the whipping can all be proved,” said Capt. Trustleton.

“It is a hard case that my property should be burned up by a couple of boys,” complained Garlick.

“And it is a hard case that two boys should be flogged as those were; and I think it is harder than your case,” added the captain. “If each party is to take the law into his own hands, he is also to do as much mischief as he thinks will cover the wrong he has suffered.”

“I suppose I shall get my insurance; but it will not cover the loss into five or six hundred dollars,” suggested Garlick, with this hint at a compromise.

The captain would not take the hint, and said nothing at all about paying any money to have the matter hushed up; for it was all over town now.

The conference closed with nothing done. The captain went to see his lawyer, and Swikes went home. Mrs. Swikes was delighted to see her son; and she would not believe that Matt had done any thing wrong. She was sure that Wade Brooks had taken the money.

“You must take good care of it, now you’ve got it back,” said the female Swikes.

“I’m goin’ to put it just where it was before; and when Wade comes back to-day, he will never think of looking in the same place for it,” said Obed Swikes, chuckling at his own cunning, as he put the wallet back into the closet.

Matt wanted his breakfast, and so did his father. While Mrs. Swikes went down cellar to get something, her husband had to see to the horse in the barn; and Matt was alone in the kitchen for a few minutes. Placing a chair in front of the fireplace, he reached up, obtained the wallet, and put it in his pocket. He was not to be cheated out of his fun by Wade Brooks. He was careful to put the chair in its place this time; and when his mother came back he was just where she left him.

When breakfast was ready, farmer Swikes was called. He was in a very happy frame of mind. His money had been restored; and when Wade returned he would get that dollar out of him, and it would pay the fares.