He passed his arm around his master, who was weak as a baby and glad to sit where Tom put him. “Does father know it?” Paul asked, and Tom replied, “No, I kept it from him, hoping nothing would happen. He ought to know it now. Shall I go for him?” “Yes, yes. Go for father. Max will wait,” Paul answered eagerly, bowing his head and resting his face in his hands. Several boys had come close up to him, wondering why Max did not produce handcuffs, as they supposed he would. These Tom dispersed with his whip and then the two black horses went tearing across the causeway towards the Ralston House, their feet striking fire on the pavement and their mouths white with foam. Mrs. Ralston was lying down in her room with something which threatened to be the Grippe, but the judge was sitting upon the side piazza waiting for Tom. The boat had been gone nearly an hour. It was surely time unless something had happened. Perhaps they didn’t come, he was thinking, when he saw the horses running at their utmost speed, the carriage rocking from side to side, and Tom evidently having some trouble to keep his seat. “Is he drunk, or what?” the judge said, hastening out to meet him and asking with some severity: “What’s to pay, that you are driving like this? I never saw the off-horse sweat so.” “The Old Harry’s to pay,” Tom answered. “They are arresting Mr. Paul down by the church for shooting Mr. Percy. You must go quick and stop it.” “Arresting my son for shooting Jack Percy! Are you crazy? The thing is preposterous,—impossible!” the judge exclaimed, with the voice and manner of one who does not think any great calamity can come to him because it never has. “It’s true, though, and the town’s alive with it. Jump in! don’t wait a minute.” The judge had come out without his hat, which, in his excitement, he forgot entirely as he sprang into the carriage and was driven bare-headed, with his white hair blowing in the wind, to the church where Paul was sitting on the steps, with Max beside him, a picture of perplexity and despair. “Oh, father, I am so glad you have come. You know it is not true,” Paul said, lifting his face, across which there flashed a ray of hope that with his father near no harm could befall him. “What does this mean? I don’t understand it,” the judge asked Max, who began to tell his story with a great many apologies for being mixed up in it and saying he didn’t believe it, but had to do his duty. Something the judge said made Paul exclaim, “Oh, father, you do not believe I did it either by mistake or otherwise!”