Chapter 11.

Otago Witness, Issue 1160, 21 February 1874, Page 25

Chapter 11.

It seemed to the mistress of the house that she had slept so long that morning must be near, when she awoke with an inexplicable feeling of fright — a feeling of something or someone near her. "What is it?" she cried, starting up in the bed, and instinctively catching the sleeping child in her arms. No answer. Only a distinct sound of breathing, and then of a movement like a hand feeling along the wall — towards her ! She began to tremble violently ; nothing but the presence of the child on her panting bosom saved her from fainting. "Who is it?" she cried, her voice so shaking and hollow that it wakened Ruth, who clung to her, sleepy and scared. This time she had answer. " We will do you no harm," a voice spoke out of the darkness, "if you give up that money you've got," and then, before Mrs. Fergusson could muster courage and breath to speak, another voice, out of the room apparently, added in a rough undertone, " And tell her to look sharp about it, too." I " Two of them ! 0 God, help me ! " she whispered to herself, and Ruth began to break into screams and sobs. "Keep that brat quiet, " angrily muttered the voice on the landing, "and don't keep us here all night." Now, surely, if ever a woman was in a miserable plight, Mrs. Fergusson was that woman. Not a house nearer than the Hollands's, a full quarter of a mile off; no soul near to help her, for Jane, who worked hard by day, slept hard by night, and slept moreover in a queer little room at the very top of the house : all alone — worse than alone, utterly helpless, and a woman* who confessed to the usual feminine share of cowardice. Still, she drew her breath, and there flashed from her heart a cry for help ; and then, for a few brief moments, she thought — thought with all her mind and soul — Was there any way for her out of this? And her reason told her there was none. "Come," said the voice in her own room, " I'm a good-tempered chap enough but my mate's in a hurry : don't provoke him. Look alive, and tell us where to find the swag — money ! " She groaned and shook, and all her limbs turned cold as the voice drew nearer and nearer ; and at the last words a heavy hand was laid upon the bed. Then, further to torment her, came the thought that once this money was gone, there would be nothing to meet the people with — the people who had saved it week by week, day by day, all the past year ! Heavy drops ran down her shaking form; her hands turned numb, and her lips clammy and cold ; while the beating of her heart was like the quick tolling of a bell — louder and louder — till it deafened her. "I'll find a way to make her speak, " growled the second voice ; here's another kid in this room. " Then, in one instant, a thin streak of light shot across the landing, and the next — " Mother, mother, mother !" shrieked ' Rosie's voice ; and at that sound Ruth redoubled her cries, and the unhappy mother sprang up, clasping one child, mad to protect the other. " Silence, you fool ! " said the man by < her, speaking harshly for- the first time. • "You'll drive that fellow yonder to do i the child a misohief, if you won't do as I tell you. Keep down won't you." For she i was struggling wildly to pass him to, get < acrosstheroojnto ßosie — Rosie, ■vvhosecr^es ] were sounding strangely stifled. " Look ] here, if you don't give up this game, by the Lord he'll knock you on the head, if I i don't. And clasping one wrist like a vioe,, x the man held her fast, while with the c other hand he turned on the light from a t email lantern slung at his side. She lifted a her eyea slowly, as fearing whom she ' )

might see ; but there was little enough visible of the burglar's face — a wide hat, a thick reddish beard, and a loose rough, grey coat were all she saw.

" Hush, hush," she murmured to Ruth. " Mother will send them away ; don't look at him." And she turned the baby face towards herself ; then raising her trembling -voice, "Rosie, my darling, your mother is coming ! " But Rosie did not answer her. c ' Omy God ! " she panted and looked up wildly.

"Mate," said her captor, loud enough for the other man to hear, "take your hand off that child's mouth if you aren't in a particular hurry to be strung up." The strange muffled sounds upon this broke out again into the old cry, "0 mother, mother ! "

"Now," said the man, " one good turn deserves another ; your plucky enough for a woman, but I can't waste all the night talking to you ; " and then he gave a look that made her shiver from head to foot anew. "Bundle those two brats of yours into one bed, and come and get us what we want. " She seemed powerless now, and her very soul fainted within her as she crept after the tall dark figure, over the landing into Rosie's room. "0, my child ! " cried the poor woman, and essayed to run to the little bed where lay the small figure, pinioned down by the heavy grasp of a taller darker man than her own captor. " Hands off, missus," growled the jailor, while Rosie, uttering cries of mingled fright and joy, writhed and twisted like an eel to slip into her mobher's arms. " Hands off, now ! Just put that other one in here along of this one, and I'll take and turn the key on 'em both, while you take us yonder to what we're lookin' after." "No choice again but to obey : two passionate kisses and a low " God help you ; " and between the two men she was marched from the room, followed by the children' s pitiful cries, their wild frightened sobs. As she passed out "May I ?" she asked, catching at a shawl which hung over a chair. They assented shortly, and she wrapped it round her shivering figure, and prepared to take them to where their booty lay. She led them dov,n the first short flight of stairs to the door which, as we have already said, was partly overhung with a curtain. This door opened into a room which had been used by Mr. Fergusson's predecessor as an oratory. The rectory had been built in the time of the late rector, and built consequently very much to suit his tastes and fancies. He had belonged to that particular party in the Church which holds that no house is fairly apportioned which does not contain its room for prayer and meditation — a room, moreover, as ecclesiastical in appearance and appointments as can well be devised. In Mr. Digby's time, then, this room had been lighted by one small lamp suspended from the coiling, its walls adorned with paintings of saints and holy women. And in a deep recess, at the further end, had been placed a small altar, upon which had stood a tall bright crucifix. But now the room was bare and almost empty, the present holder of the living not holding exactly the same views which made such an apartment an apparent necessity to his reverend brother. One more peculiarity of the room to note : the doors — for there were two — fastened with a spring on being pushed to, and could only be re-opened by a hand accustomed to the task, and they also were furnished with heavy bolts on the outside ; one door opened on the landing ; the other, a smaller one, in one side of the recess at the further end, led into a bedroom which had been Mr. Digby's, cind whence he could go in and out of hia favourite oratory at any hour of the day or night, as it pleased him. He was a bachelor, and a man of singular habits ; it was rarely indeed, d\iring his life-time, that those bolts were withdrawn ta admit any one but himself, and neither friend nor servant ever ventured there unasked. Here, as the kitchen olock below struck the hour of three, stoo>dl the strange trio — themufflocl disguised 1 men, tho trembling white faced wojnaaw. But one o! them carried a light, the other ha,d: left his lantern outside. said the darker of the men, the room, you say ; we can finish bhis business pretty quick." And he added, with a rattling oath to his comrade, that they had been kept too long by half ilready. The small safe, let into the wall, was directly before them ; below it four drawls reached down to the floor ; in the awest of those, at tho back of it, Mr, Ferguason had laid the key. She painted silently to the drawer, vhioh they at once dragged out, with too mich strength, for they jerked it quite iut on the floor. One of them suddenly urned particular about making a noise,, >nd bade their unwilling helper "shut, hat door." A^ gjxe f e H> the spring c«#cji»

securely beneath her hand there suddenly flashed upon her a thought— a hope— a way of escape for herself, a -way of saving yet that fatal money. From the look the men had cast around the room Mrs. Fergusson was sure they knew nothing of their whereabouts. " Shut that door," the man had said, and never so much as cast a look towards where was the other door, completely concealed in the shadow of the recess ! Every pulse beating wildly, she glanced furtively across the room ; through the tall, narrow, church-like window yonder B he could see the moon struggling through thick clouds, and she could see— her sight quickened by the peril of the moment— she could see a faint thread of light on one side which told her that the further door Btood unlatched. "0 Heaven help me, and give me time !" she prayed ; but her hand shook so that it could scarcely obey her swift thought. Another moment, and she took in her exact position : the men stopping over the keys, the lamp on the floor, and the next she had flung her shawl over the lamp, darted across the floor, out into the room beyond, and flung to the door with all her force. Yet more to be done. She drew the bolts with frenzied speed, above, below— that way was safe ; then, with the passionate strength of the moment, she sped through the room, out on the landing to the curtained door, and made that fast from without while the furious captives beat at it from within ; and then— Ah, then, poor thing, her fortitude forsook her, and a thousand fears she had not counted on most cruelly beset her. The frightful oaths and curses that reached her as she leaned panting by the wall filled her with horror ; the heavy blows upon the panels filled her with dismay. They would escape yet ; her children—on them they would wreak their vengeance. At the thought her cries and tears broke forth. " They wil] die, and I shall have killed them ?" she cried out ; and then blindly reaching forth to feel her way back to their room, all sight, sense, sound, seemed suddenly to desert her. She slid down a few stairs, clinging to the rail ; then, losing her hold, fell heavily on the stone floor of the hall below.

Mr. Fergusson had reached his nearest station in safety, had sent back the wraps his careful wife had guarded him with, and started by the ten-oclock train to Fordham ; they had picked up the man ■who had taken the message to the rectory, and so saved him a heavy tramp back to Whoelborough. Thoughts of his wife and his home, left so suddenly, flitted across the rector's mind now and then ; but for the most part he was thinking of the coming interview with his dying father, for that he was dying there could be but little doubt. He leaned back in the corner of his second-class carriage, arranging what should be his own course of action and of speech, settling how far he could assert the propriety of the course he had pursued, how far and how much he should concede at such a moment to the wishes of his father. . The rain beat on the windows as the train flew along in the darkness, and presently a prolonged whistle told him they •were approaching a certain junction where he would have to wait some ten minutes Two or three lamps on the platform by which they drew up showed some few passengers and a couple of sleepy porters. Another train had just come in from the opposite direction, from Fordham, now only fifteen miles distant ; and some of its passengers had alighted and were making their way past the line of carriages. Looking out upon his fellow travellers, ■without much curiosity or interest, Mr. Fercmsson caught sight of a face which he hadlittle expected to see. Shouting to a porter to open the door of his compartment, he sprang out and grasped the arm of a man very much like himself — in fact, his own elder brother. "George," he exclaimed, "were you going for me ? Is my father worse ?" "What on earth do you moan, and wherever did you spring from I " was the answer he got accompanied, by a look of profound amazement. "Why, man alive, have you gone crazy that you stand staring at me so F And George Ferguason checked a disposition to laugh at his brother's bewildered expression only when he saw the pallor that overBpread his face. "0, George," he said, with a gasp, " did you not telegraph to mo this evening that my father had had another fit?" " Most certainly I did not." " 0, my wife, my wife !" said the clergyman ; and then he staggered up to a heap of luggage and sat down and hid his face in bis hands. His brother saw the matter was serious, so he let his own train pass on withoixt resuming his journey and was soon in possession of all the explanation John Fergusson could give

the night-mail go through to Wheelborough ?" " 1.25, sir," answered the man; "reach Wheelborough 2.15." The distance was nve-and-twenty miles; the present time a quarter, or, by the time the explanation was ended, half -past eleven.

"No help for it, John, we must wait for the down-train ; we couldn't pick up a horse, nor yet a pair, that would be ready to start at this time of night and get us to Wheelborough before a quarter past two. Come, old fellow, cheer up ; it's no use taking for granted everything you dread !"

But George Fergusson thought in his own mind that matters looked black enough to justify any amount of fears, and had hard work to find hopeful talk for the next two hours. Had it not been for the manifest absurdity of the thing, his brother would have started for his home on foot even ; to liis excited restless mind the minutes dragged wearily along, while to his heavy heart every moment added a fresh fear.

George Fergusson explained the business that was taking him to London at that time of night : an affair of some client, interesting to him, but mere empty words to his brother. Then he tried family matters— anything to pass away the time — in vain ; his brother's mind was filled with overwhelming anxiety, his eyes peering up the line to catch the first glimpse of the approaching train. At last, the shrill whistle, the glaring lights creeping nearer and nearer, the minute's stoppage, and then off again homewards — homewards ! — and he began to dread the moment ho longed for.

At Wheelborough more time would have been occupied in knocking up the hotel people and seeking a conveyance than would have been gained had they chanced to find a horse. So the two brothers struck out at once from the station on their live-mile walk ; and, as they left the further outskirts of the town the church clock chimed half-past two o'clock.

George Fergusson could barely keep up with his brother's rapid stride, and thought him half-crazy with excitement when he saw him lightly leap a ditch, and start running across a broken piece of heath.

"For Heaven's sake, man, stop," he cried. " "What are you after ?"

" A short cut !" shouted the other, and kept up running for nearly three-quarters of a mile.

The night had quieted, the rain had ceased, and gleams of moonlight showed them their way. Out on the road again, past the fourth milestone, passed a cottage where a shrill cuckoo clock sang " three;" then up a long hill that took what little breath they had left out of them, through the sleeping village, and—

" George," cried the rector, pointing to his own house, not a stones -throw distant, " look at that light !" And through the long narrow window of the oratory a light shone plainly. "Good God, if we are too late !" The brothers scarcely knew how they covered the short remaining distance. A blow at the hall window, and their united force at the shutters within, and they mado good their entrance to see— Kate Fergusson lying senseless on the floor ; to hear the wailing and crying of children overhead ; and a strange sound of low voices whispering and hands cutting away at woodwork.

Late indeed they were, but not too late. An outdoor bell, set clanging, soon called ready help from the village ; while Jane, already aroused by the sounds, but too frightened to venture from her room alone, busied herself over her unconscious mistress.

The captives in the oratory fought like cats, and one of them gave George Fergusson a bite in thus arm, the mark of which he will carry as long as he lives — that was "Rough Dick." "Gentleman Jim " turned sullen, and submitted to the force of numbers at the last, with a better grace. When on their trial, two months later, "Gentleman Jim" paid Mrs. Fergusson several compliments, and politely assured the judge before whom they wore tried that he esteemed it no disgrace to have been "trapped by such a brick of a woman !" The gang to which the two thieves belonged had received all their information from Sarah's brother, who was a sort of hanger-on to their brotherhood, and to whom had been intrusted the sending of the lying telegram which had so comfortably disposed of the master of the house.

"All's well," they say, "that ends well ;" and our tale is no exception to the proverb. It was rather a long getting well, though, in the caso of Mrs. Fergusson; still she was her own brave-hearted self again by Christmas time ; and — take note of this,' all wives— -never did she show her husband the letter she had found ; never did she tell him, or any one else, that his one tot oi (tyreLewmo&B hq4 probably

supplied the "correct time" to the intruders.

Rosie and Ruth were none the worse for their fright, but used to play at " robbers " with great spirit all through the winter and spring.

And, for a piece of happiness to end with, though Mr. Fergusson the elder did not have a fit and die, he did have a fit of another kind — of repentance for his prejudice against his daughter-in-law ; so he made reparation by a very haclsome increase to their income. And as for the rector, after the wild joy of having his wife safe again, he declares his " courting days " have all returned.