LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5219, 27 January 1885, Page 3

LITERATURE.

♦ THE UMBRELLA-MENDER'S QUEST —A DEI'ECTIVE STORY. (Continued.) The short and shabby sleeve was again drawn across his eyes, and again I studied the clock of St Giles' Churoh till he Bhould be able to speak again. " Prom that day, sir, the devil seemed to get into him, and i send him driving from bad to worse," ' softly resumed the old man 5 "he wor seldom at home, and I was I frightened to ask him how he liyed, I lest I should find him as bad as I feared. He wor alwayß drinkin', and b» furious that at times he thowt nothing o' beatin' me. I didn't mind that a little bit, for you know I loved the lad. He robbed me twice, but I said nothing about it to the police, for what good was there in'sending him back to gaol to learn more wickedness? Once when he was awful wild he struck me with the poker and broke my arm, but I went up to the Infirmary and had it sot, and no one knew nowt about it. Then I had to give up my shop and gel a living as best I could, and I lost sight of him, for he was fiow going about the country robbin' whoever ho could. He was often in the gaols, as yon may have heard, and was called ' Rattling Bob, the Newcastle Mumper/ " " Newcastle Bob ! Ah, I've heard of him, and seen him, too," I answered with quickened intei'est ; " a clever rascal, but rash — rash as fire." " You've seou him ! — whore P when ? was it hero P " breathlessly burst forth the old man in trembling eagerness ; " oh, I've been looking for him bo long — this three year and more ! Tell me whero I can find him ? " I shook my head sadly — " I wish I could, but he iB not in Edinburgh now, so far as I am aware. He generally haunts racecourses, and may bo in Glasgow, or the other end of England for that matter." The light died out of the old man's face-r-he shivered a little, and then resume d— " A year or two after he left me — or rather after I lost sight of him — a letter came to me one day saying my sister in America was dead, an' left him — that was Bob — all her money — fower hundred and seventy pounds. I cudiri; believe the news, but after a while th« money camo, and I sowed it all in 't liidu' o' my coat, and sot off to look for him. I didn't need much to keep me alive, nnd so I took to the road as a umbrella man ; for, says Ito inysbn, 'I'll find him now, nnd he'll turn scfuare and do what's right/ Afore I took to the road I spent a good many shilliu's I'd saved on advertisements, saying it wor nil forgiven, and to come whome to his father, who hud good nuwß for un ; but if he seed them papers he must have thowt 'em lies, for he never came nor never answered." " And you have never seen him ranee 1-" "Nover once, sir. I've heard of him often from tho characters he goos wi', and uinnv a kindly message I've left for him. If tears would wash out his uhb/ Ivo shed enough to mako him white. Hut I've never }\».iml him, nrd all tho money lying- idl**, n?ic? waiting him putting out his hand."' "And have you never needed the u:o»ojr for your own wants ?" I naked, more doojriy moved than I cared to shew. " I've needed it of tort, for the world i*n't near bo generous as bouio. think," he anuwerodj

" but tho money ia his, not mine, and it may savo him through nil time and eternity j no, Bir j I would drop dead on t' road afore I would apund a farthing of it ; he > shall have.it all— all to begin a new life | with j I sdmetimes think it can't bo bo , vory long now till I find him; I've trfivelled a weary way looking for him ; but when I was hungry, or wet, or cold, or faint, I just said to mysen, ' Pr'apa, Bob is at the end o't road — cheer up,' Geordie j tliou alumna deo till thou sooa thy son and aavcß him !' " Thoro are not many heroes in this world ; but I must confess that aa I looked down on this old umbrella-mender, I said to myself — " Well, haro is a hei?o, if ever there was one on earth, though he appears in strange guiae." I shook him by the hand again, gave him a few words of encouragement and advice aa to the places in Edinburgh where he was likely to hear of hi 3 son'a whereabouts, and then turned away to my own busineaa, whilo the old man moved off, looking sharply and eagerly into every strange face, as if Baying to hiin3clf, " I kuow I shall meet Bob 800n — it cun'b be very long now till I find him." I did not go away and straightway forget all about him. Tho simple relation of all his troubles had taken a firmer hold of me than many a more wonderful tale that had preceded it, and I made every inquiry aud search in my power towards ascertaining hia whereabouts. I often mot the old man, too, moving about tho low quartersyof the city, always with the sauio expectant look on liia worn features, aud always tottering manfully on, though seemingly wearied enough to drop and die by tho way. But a month passed away, and I not only failed to hear of tho Bon, but at length lost sight of the old man himself, and finally concluded that he had given Edin- ' burgh op in despair and wandered off to some other city. About this time one of the Leith police, in moving through St Andrew street one morning at an early hour, found a man lying in an insensible state underneath the windowß of a house having anything bnt a good reputation. The man waa not above 25, well-dressed, and not bad looking, but the mark of Cain — the stamp of oriuie — was on hia brow ; and, though hi 3 eyea were< closed, the policeman at the first glance at the face said — "A strange thief — got into hot quarters— bleeding at the mouth and covered with anow ; I wonder if he has been thrown out of one of thorn windows !" The. officer glanced up at the windowß above, but, of course, they were all donflurely closed, and told no tale. Then he - touched the prostrate form, to make sure that it had not stiffened with the frost into a pulseless corpse ; and then, finding that the man still breathed, he sprang his cattle for assistance, and had him carried, in Hhe first instance, to the police office, and then to the hospital. The medical report there waß to the effect that the man waa in a very precarioua condition, and Buffering not only from tho effects of exposure, and, perhaps, a fall, but from tremens as well, and that his recovery waa more than doubtful. Thuß stimulated, the Leith detective set to work to trace out the guilty parbiea, believing that the case might eventually resolve itself into a charge of murdor againab some person at present unknown. Three persona were arreßted on suspicion of being concerned in the crime j but these atoutly denied throwing tho man out of the window, and to that statement they firmly adhered, though kept in separate cells. According to these three — two women and one man — the injured man had taken up his abode in the house some time before, with " lota of money " in his possession ; but had drank so hard and got so " mad " that there waa no living with him, and many quarrels were the result. At laat, on the- night before he was picked up, he got outrageous, aud tried to cut olPthe head of one of tho women with a table-knife. The proprietor interfered, aud there waa a long struggle for the knife, during which the .man waa forced, in self-defence, to, give his infuriated ltfdger a blow in the mouth with hia clenched fiat, which caused hia gum 3 and no3e to bleed freely. Then the three succeeded in bundling the madman out to the stair, and down to the Btroet, whero they kicked him over in the snow, and left 4 him "to sleep it off." Now thia explanation, though it had a plausible appearance, by no means satisfied . the Leith detectives, and after repeated efforts to undermino the statements, they came up to Edinburgh to get my opinion on tho flubject. In the course of their description they had occasion to mention the name of the man found us "Robert Findlay," otherwise "Newcastle Bob." Then I started joyfully. " You do not mean to Bay that it i 3 the ' Mumper ?V-----the racecourao mobsman ? — Rattling Bob f " I exclaimed, and, then being assured of his identity. I added, "Well, I would have given anything to have^known that a month ago. I met his poor old father on the search for him, but now that I'vo found the prodigal, I do not kuow where to find the father." I dismissed the men with the promise that I would come down to Leith and see the injured man, and inquire fully into the case ; but it chanced that for two daya I waa more than usually busy, and so could not redeem my promise. At the end of that time the following note was brought up from Leith Hospital, and placed in my hands : — "■ Deah Sir, — I have heard from a police- . man that you have met my father and spoken to him. I am lying here ill, and the doctors aay I may die. Would you come and Bee me, and tell me what my poor father said? — Robebt Findlay, per Joseph. Jackaen, missionary." (To be continued.)