THE PENITENT THIEVES.
(The Golden Penny.)
It was in the smoking room, and we had been discussing the eccentricities of old, family servants. The topic had arisen from the fact that the butler had made his appearance among xis at half-past eleven, and after poking the fire and doddering about the room, moving first one then another of the numerous glasses of whiskey and soda that stood on the various tables in a nervous, restless way, which betokened a load on his mind, had turned abruptly to the master of the house and had said slowly, "Maister Charley, it's time you war in bed." He had then pulled himself as upright as his rheumatism would allow and shuffled in a halfdignified, half-comical manner out of the room, with an air of one having authority. As soon as the door had effectually shut out his white head, and we knew that his deaf old ears could no longer hear us, we burst into an hilarious guffaw. Then we all with one accord began telling anecdotes about old family retainers.
At length a portly-looking London stockbroker, who, we all knew, had seen more of. the ups and downs of life than most men, and who was stopping in the house for a week's shooting to freshen his financial brains for new struggles in the " Markets," took up his parable. He had kept silent, as was his wont, most of the evening, and when he commenced speaking we all wheeled round on onr chairs to face him, for we knew that when he chose he could tell as good a story as any : —
"I remember one night — it must ho thirty years ago now — just after I had made a bit of a pile through a sudden rise in Yankee rails. I was of course immensely pleased, and, being a young fool, took a house and a wife, and fitted them both up regardless of cost. I have never regretted the wife part of the^ business, but the house was a mistake. However, that's no matter. The house was in Eaton Square, and it-wasfairly well known that I was doing a splash. So I was scarcely surprised when, on the night in question, my newly-wedded wife woke me up and said, 'Hubby' — gad! how loving we used to be in those days — 'Hubby, there's someone in the house. Listen ! ' • So there is/ I acquiesced after a minute's suspense. Now, you all know I've seen a little of roughs during my life, and I wasn't much dismayed at the discovery ; for I was well aware that the average thief is a very small man but a very great coward. So while I was slipping on some clothes I told my wife not to be^frightened, but to get up without any noise and slip on her dressing gown. I hadn't even struck a light, for fear of letting our visitors know that we were getting ready to receive them. It was full moon, and our room was almost as light as at daytime. I explained to my bride that I was going downstairs to meet the gentlemen below, and that ehe was to do nothing till I called; then she was to blow the whistle that I handed her with all her might out of the window — we always slept with it open. She was not to be alarmed if it was long before I called, or if I called very loud— l should be all right in any case. As soon as she had whistled for half a minute she was to come down and open the front door and go on whistling till a policeman came. All this I said in whispers, and in less time than it takes to tell you. Then I slipped noiselessly downstairs, and I recollect so well I avoided the fifth step of the drawing-room flight because it had a habit of creaking, which I discovered the very first occasion I stayed rather late at my club after my marriage.
"When I got into the entrance hall I saw a light under the library door, and I thanked my lucky stars that that was tho room the intruders had selected, as it was the only one whose door opened perfectly silently. I turned the handle cautiously, and pushed the door open just the smallest chink, and peered in. There were two men of about medium height, very shabbily dressed, standing regarding the safe. As they had their backs to me I could not see their countenances. But as one had a jemmy in his hand I paused a while. Presently he flung the instrument with a gesture of disgust into a saddle-bag chair near by, and they both, stood there scratching their closely-cropped heads in evident perplexity. " I took in the whole situation at a glance, noted that the only light in the room — a candle — was out of their reach, that their boots were at the far end of tho room, and, in fact, that I couldn't possibly have a better opportunity. So I seized it [ —and them, too. With two steps forward I grabbed them each by the scruff of the necks and banged their heads violently together with all the force of which I was capable. I felt one of them a dead weight on my hand at once, and let liim dropstunned—to the floor. Then I got the other by the throat and shook the breath out of him, so as not to let him kick, as I knew he would try to. As soon as he was gasping sufficiently to satisfy me, I made him do a back somersault with the help-of my knee, and then sat down on ' his head. ' Right, oh !' I sang out, and I heard that whistle going like an express engine in distress. " Presently I heard two dainty bare feet paddling across the marble floor of the hall, and the front door opened, and my ears haven't ceased tingling yet after the noise that dear little frightened womanmada with the whistle. Then she asked timidly if she might come in, and in she came, pale and trembling, with three burly, bustling constables clanking after her. They all four burst out laughing when they saw me cahnly sitting on my struggling victim, with one foot on his- quieter pal's bread-basket, and of course- the wife couldn't let such a chance for a really effective fit of hysterics pass unnoticed. So I got up, handed over my two friends to the constables, and told them to wait a few minutes while I saw to my better half. " After dosing her with a sal-volatile mixture containing about equal parts of the spirit and water— sufficient to choke any ordinary mortal— l packed her off to bed again. When I returned to the library I found the previously-stunned gentleman very much alive again, with, an ostricht-egg protrusion over his left eye. " Well, to cut a long story short, and give ' Maister Chairley ' an opportunity of obeying his boss by retiring tothe-downey, I asked leave to have a little talk with the two burglars in private. So the three limbs of the law took a quarter of an hour in three ' Avatches ' — one on guard outside the door, while the other two were below, where the beer was, relieving the ttatoh
every five minutes. What I said to the burglars was briefly this: I had caught them square and fair this time. I did not want to be hard on them ; but it was only just to protect honest householders by making an example of dishonest housebreakers. Now, did they really like their calling, or would they prefer to gain a respectable livelihood if they were given the chance when they had done time ? " Up to now these two men — neither of whom had really wicked faces ; their expressions -were rather those of men who had been made hard and driven to crime by sheer force of circumstances — had stood sheepishly looking at their boots, with an occasional glance at one another and at me. When I mentioned a chance of a fresh start they both looked up, and they told me the most harassing tales of unchanging ill luck that I've ever listened to, and how they would do anything on earth to get a chance of turning over the traditional new leaf; they had longed for it, and striven after it, but had never had a helping hand offered them, and from the first time that as.mere boys they had together been sent to gaol for a trivial little scrape, they had been marked ont as doomed to crime. It was just a case of giving two rather wild young dogs a bad name; they had been driven from bad to worse by the necessity of keeping body and soul together, although life itself was a misery to them, and they had lost all hope of ever retracing their steps. " Well, the end of it was that I promised I'd do my best, for them as soon as they were out of prison, and those two violent criminals positively cried like babies with honest gratitude. " When their trial came on I managed to get the judge to take a lenient view of the case ; and by asking him to do so in open court, and undertaking to see that they did not return to their former occupation, I succeeded in getting him to give them the option of a fine, which I paid for them, and they came to me temporarily as two helps about the house and stables till I could find them work. When they came I gave them [a very straight talking to ; I told them that after this I should never again refer to their crimes, that they should be just as the other servants, that I should put complete trust in them, and not exercise any special surveillance over them, but that if they ever, either of them, so much as once abused my trust, the offender must not expect, and would not get, anything but the sternest justice -without a trace of mercy. " Well, I tell you, I am more than pleased ■with the result of my experiment. Those I two stayed on with me; their gratitude grew into perfect devotion, and many is the little act of loyalty of word or deed, performed under most trying conditions among their fellow servants, who always held rather aloof from them, that quite by accident came to my notice. And as time went on, and I had not found them any other situations, I began to give up trying 1 to do so, as both my wife and I grew very fond of them. They were blunt and rough, it is true, but they •were staunch to the core. And so by degrees as other servants left they got promotion, till when the smash came eight years ago, -which made a poor man of me once more, they had been with us twenty-two years or so, and were respectively butler and head coachman. Of I course at that time I had to give up my I town house and also Aldwyn Hall, and was I cutting down expenses right and left. I I sold all the valuable plate of my ancestors, I which I had purchased when I made my I money; the family portraits went to the I dealers whence they had come ; the f urni- ■ tore was put up under the hammer ; and I with a pang of something as akin to sorrow I a3 a stony-hearted stockbroker is supposed to ■ be capable of feeling, I perceived that I had I no further use for my two faithful old exI burglars, and that I couldn't afford even I their wages. I "I put off telling 1 them from day today, I and my wife cried a little when I told her I they must go. Her tears somehow riled I me, for I was as irritable as a bear with a I dozen sore heads at that time, and the I slightest thing got on my nerves. I got B cross with my wife ; said she was a silly to H mind two worthless fools going — H though all the time in my own heart H I felt it just as deeply as she, H only I would not admit it, and thought H it was -weak in me. So I steeled myH self, and determined to tell the old H chaps that they must go 'without H any more nonsense,' as I put it to myself. And yet somehow 1 could H never bring myself to actually say the H if ord ; always just when I had worked myself np to the requisite pitch of hardness, H either something happened to interrupt at the critical moment and break the spell, or else an idiotic boiled potato kind of thing -would come in my throat, and I had to blow my nose and look out of window. " Then I began to notice that these two were everlastingly hanging about me. All the week of the sales one or another of H| them was continually pottering about after me, doing this or doing that that didn't need doing in the slightest. They used to Tna.l.-ft insane remarks about nothing', and fidget, anfi begin a sentence and not finish it. Of course all that week I was more touchy and surly than ever, and I resented HJ their conduct, more especially as I knew they were simply doing it to try and make things smooth for me. I objected to being 'patronised,' as my beastly pride put it. And I got into a cross, snappy way with my twofold servants, and the climax came the day of the sale, when 1 saw my dearlyloved horses — most precious treasures of — go to the highest bidders, who would nothing of their dispositions or past and who woold only regard them so much machine-power. "I was mooning about in Black Boy's HUoose box, and feeling fit to cry at having welcoming whinny of recognition to j^^ppreet me, when old Jacob, the coachman, one whose head I had sat on, came in looked round, and then picked up a and began vigorously arranging the in one of the stalls. I fairly lost my at the incongruity of the thing. "'You good-for-nothing old lunatic,' I in a fury ; ' -what in the name of the use of pitching that straw when there isn't a horse to use |^H '"I'm very sorry, sir ; I thought I'd best doing- something, and not idling, sir/ he apologetically. 'Beg parding, but I suppose you won't want me now 'osses is gone ? he added awkwardly, ting about on his feet. Here was my — I would take it now while I was in sufficient rage. " ' No ; you'll have to go along with the of course/ 1 said sullenly. ( But what you driving at? You've got sonje j^^Hcheme on to get something out of me, I see.' " ' I was only thinking, sir — that is, I sir, I suppose it would be asking too of you ' "'Yes, it would/ I broke in brutally. something made me turn on my for I had been standing with my to Jacob whilst speaking, not trusting self to look him in the face. When I j^^Hirned round he was minutely examining |^Hie fastening of the pillar chain. " All the fiend in me rose up at this action of his. ' You want to steal now/ I said hotly, and a second after gladly have died to be able to remy words. " Cropping the chain like a burning but without looking up, the old man huskily, ( 1 suppose, sir, you give me and Thomas a character we goes, would you, sir?* And then stooped down and picked up a straw, thought I saw a tear fall. I could it no longer. ' Forgive me, I said with, that boiled potato choking me as I stretched out my ' Of course I'll give you the characof the best and most faithful servant friend a. tthiti ev-2r had., and nothing on but sheer necessity would bring me part from you. It's little enough I can for you, Heaven knows. But what I |^HHn do, I will, and you deserve a hundredmore. Give me your hand, Jacob, and mo you'll forget what I said just now temper, for I'm sore put about by all happened to me/ God bless you, sir; God bless you for-.
all your kindness to me/ said the old chap, gripping my hand and looking up with streaming eyes. 'You ain't said only wot I deserve, sir.' " 'Now, don't talk so, Jacob/ " ' If you'll forgive my makin' so bold sir, me and Thomas, we've been real distressed at your bad luck, sir, and we both 'opes it'll turn ; and we've been wantin' to say somethin', ony I ain't no 'an"d at torkin', and I arst Thomas to say it, but he wasafeard you'd be angry corse you were so upset, as you did ort to be. You see, sir, Thonns and me, we ain't got nowheres to go, and we're gettin' on in years, and not bein' so young as we onst was. And we thort p'raps as 'ow we might be some good to you yet, seem' we's both pretty 'andy, on'y we don't want no wages. We'd rather not leave yer and missus, sir, ef yer'd put up with us a while longer, sir. I ain't bin as thrifty as I orter bin, but Thomas he's saved enough for to keep us, sir, and wo would be no expense, sir, on'y we thort as 'ow the two on us together might save yer a hextry servant, sir. You stood by us when lnck was agin us, sir, and we ain't been nothin' but a nuisance to yer ever since. But if we'd be any service to yer, sir, w'y 'ere we is, and your welcome, sir — on'y we'd rather not ' have any wages, sir.' " Then, fairly out of breath with his long rhetorical effort — for Jacob was a man of few words — he stopped short and panted, and I looked at him in astonishment, and that potato got the best of me. I just broke down and bolted into the house without a word. *** . * * "Thomas and Jacob are with me still, and likely to be to the end of their days, and two better servants never lived." # * * * # After a pause, the squire remarked that we should have rain soon, as the glas3 was falling. And as no one seemed much inclined for further conversation, we lit our candles and went slowly and thoughtfully to bed, while the old butler began turning out the lamps and growling about "the late hours these London gents always brings with them, upsetting the 'ole 'ouse, and depriving honest bodies of their sleep." i Left growling.
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Bibliographic details
Star (Christchurch), Issue 5656, 29 August 1896, Page 2
Word Count
3,165THE PENITENT THIEVES. Star (Christchurch), Issue 5656, 29 August 1896, Page 2
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