The Burden of Guilt

Do you remember when JiramyFinn, the town druukard, was burned to death in the calaboose? The caboose vicúni was not a citizen ; he was a poor stranger, a harmless whisky-sodden tramp. I knew more about Iris case than anybody else; 1 knew too much of it in that bygone day to relish speaking of it. That tramp was wandering about the streets oue chilly evening, with a pipe in his mouth, and begging for a match. He got neither matches nor eourtesy; on the contrary a troop of bad littlo boys followed him arounil and aniused theniseives with nagging and annoying hini; I assisted. But at last some appeal which the wayfarer made for forbearance, accompanying it ¦with a pathetic reference to his foriorn and friéndless condition, touched such sense of shame and remnant of right feeling as were lc-ft in me, and I went away and got him somo matches, and then hied me home and went to bed, heavily weighted as to oonseience and unbovant in spirit. An hour or two afterward the man was arrested and locked ap in the calaboose by the Marshall- large name for constable, but that was his title. At two in the morning the church bells rang for tire, and cverybody turned out, of oourse - I with the rest. The tramp had used his matches disastrously; had set his straw bed on fire and the oaken sheating of the room had caught. When I reached the ground, two hundred men, women and children stood massed together transfixed with horror, and staring at the grated window of the jail Behind the iron bars and, tugging frantically at them and creamin for help, stoocl the tramp. He seemed like a black object against a sun, so white and intense was the light at his back. The Marshal could not be found, and he had the only key. A battering ram was quickly improvised, and the thunder of its blows upon the door had so eneouraging a sound that the spectators broke into wild cheeiing, and believed the mereiful battle won. But it was not so. The timbers were too strong; they did not yield. it was said that the man's death grip still held on to tho bars when he was dead, and that in this positions the fires wrapped him about and consumed him. As to this 1 do not know. What was seen after I recognized the face that was pleading through the bars was see by others and not by me. I saw that face, so siuiated, every night for a long time afterward; and I bolieved myself as guilty of theman's death as if ï had given him the matches purposely that he might burn himself up with them I had not a doubt that I should be hangcd it my connection with this tragedy were found out. The happenings and the impressions of that fitne are burned into iny memory, and the study of them entertains me as much as they themselves distressed me then. If anybody spoke of that grizzly matter I was ali ears in a moment, and alert to hear what might be said, for I was always dreading and cxpecting to tind out that I was suspected; and so lino and so delicate was the perception of my guilty oonscience that it often detected suspicion in the most purposelessiemarks, and in looks, gestures, glances of the eye, which had no signifioance, but wbich sent me shivering away in a panic of fright, just the same. And how sick it made ine when 3omebody dropped, howsoever carelessly and barreu of intent, the remark that "murder will out." For a boy of ten years I was carrying a pretty weighty cargo. AH this timo I was blessedly forgetting one thiüg - the fact that I was an invetérate talkor in my sleep.. But one niglit I aivoke and found ujV bedmate - my younger brother -sitt.ing up in bed, contemplating me by the light oí the moon. lsaid: "VVhat isthe matter?" '¦You talk 80 mueh, I can't sleep." I carne to a sitting posture in an instant wHh'my kidneys in my throat and my liair on end. 'W.iat did i say? Quiek; out with it. What did I say? ' "Nothing much." "It's a lie! You know cverything." "Everything about what?" 'You know well enough about that." "About what? I don't know what you are talkiug about. I thiuk you are sick or crazy, or something. But anyway, you are awake, and Til get to sleep while 1 have a chance." He fell asleep, and 1 laid there in a cok! sweat, turniug this new terror over in a whirling chaos, which did duty as my mind. The burden of rm thoughts was, how much did I divulgo? How much does he know? What a (lis tress in this uncertainty! But by and by I evolved au idea, I would wake rny brother and probo him with a suppositious case. I shook him up and said: "Suppose a man should come to you drunk " "ïhis :s foolUh - I never get drunk." "I don't mean }'ou, idiot. I mean the man. Suppose a man should come to you drunk or borrow a knife or a tomahawk or a pistol and you forgot to teil him it was loaded, and " "How could you load a tomahawk?" "I don't mean the tomahawk, and I didn't say the tomahawk: I said the pistol. Now, doh't 3'ou keep breaking in, in that way becau?e this is serious. Tñere's been a man killed." "What! luthistown?" "Yes; in this town." "Well, go on; I won't say a single word," "Well, then, suppose you forgot 1o :ell him to be be careful with it, bL jause it was loadcd, and he went otï a,nd shot bimself with that pistol- fooling with it, you know, and probably doing it by accident - being dronk. Well, would it be murderP'' "No - suicide." "No. no; I don't mean lus act. I nioan yours. Would you be a murderer Lor letting him have that pistol?" Af ter deep thought carne thisanswer "Well, I should thiak I wasgiulty of something - may be murder. Ye3, probably murder, but I dont know." This made me very uueomfortable. Ho wever, it was a decisive verdict. I shoukl have to set out the real case; there seemod to be uo other way; but I would do it cautiöusly, and keep a watcli for suspicious eftects. I said: "I was supposing a case; but I ani coming to the real one novv. Do you know how the man carne to be burned up in the calabooseP" 'No." "Haven't you the least idea!" "Not the least." "Wish you may die in jour tracks if you have?" "Yes. I wish I may die in my tracks." 'Well, the way of it was this. The man wanted some matches to light his pipe. A boy got him some. The man set üre to the calaboose with thoso very matches and burned himself up." "Is that so?" "Yes, it is. Now is that boy a murdcrer, do you think?" "Let me sec. Tne man was drunk!" "Yes, he was drunk " "Very drunk?" "Yes." "And the boy knev it?" 4 "Yes, he knew it. " There was a long pause. Then camc this heavy verdict: "If the man was drunk and the boy knew it, the boy murdered that man. This is certain." Faint, sickening sensations crept along the fibers of my body, and I soemed to know how a person feels who hears his death sentence pronounced f rom the bench. I waited to hear what my brother would say next. I believed I knew what it would be, and I was right. He said: "I know the boy." I had nothing to say, so 1 said nothing. I simply shuddered Then he added: "Yes, before you got half through telling about the thing I knew perfectly well who the boy was; it was Ben Coontz!" I canie out of my collapse as one who rises from the dead. I said with admiration: "Why, how in the world did you ever guess it? ' "You told jt in your sleep." I said to myself : ' 'How splendid that is. This is a habit which must be cultivated." My brother rattled innocently on: "When you wero talking in your sleep you kept mumbling something about 'matches,' which Icouldn't make anything out of; but just now, when yon began to teil me about the man in the calaboose and the matches, I remembered that in your sleep you mentioned Ben Coontz two or three times, so I put this and that together, you see, and right away I knew it was Ben that burned the man up." I praised his sagacity, effuaively. Presently he asked: "Are jou going to give him up to the law?" "No," I said; "I believe thatit-will be a Jesson to him. I shall keep an eye on him of course, for thac is but right, but if he stops where he is and reforms it shall never be said that I betraycd him." "How good you are!" "Well, I try'to be. It is all a person can do in a world like this." And now, my burden being shifted to other shouMers, my terrors soon faded away.