A THIEF.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 37, 10 September 1892, Page 914

A THIEF.

BY L. FROST RATTRAY. ( Author of ‘ Such a Suitable Match,' etc., etc.) ESSIE, I promise you faithfully that I’ll act on the square if you marry me. Oh ! my girl, if a woman only realised what a fatefnl influence Zshe possesses over man to exercise for good or evil, how much more careful she would be how she treated him.’ Bessie Caiew snapped off a twig of willow, ■yt and ruthlessly strip ped it of its tender, newborn leaves. The two were standing under a willow tree at the corner of Mr Carew s gorsehedged paddock. Here, secure from observation, the farmer’s only daughter was wont to meet Henry Smithers, the outcast, the man branded as a thief, the pariah of the village. She knew all the charges which had been brought against him. She knew that on one or two occasions bis guilt bad been proved, and he had been sentenced to varying teuns of imprisonment in a Wellington and Auckland gaol according to the scene of his depredations. And yet strange, unaccountable caprice, Bessie loved him. Her instinct warned her against him. Her judgment recapitulated and approved the argument so frequently used by her father and friends against her ever seeing him again. And yet, and yet, Bessie loved him. Henry grasped the girl's hands firmly, and the willow twig fell to the ground. ‘ Bessie, my darling, marry me, and you can do what yon like with me. My future is in your hands. I was a gentleman once, at least I was a gentleman's son. I was sent out here to reform. They gave me next to no money. I could not work, I knew no trade. And then as you know, I was driven to help myself to other people s property. Had I a fair show, Bessie, had I ?’ Bessie dared not lift her brown eyes, now veiled in tears, to the pleading gray ones which she felt were fixed so intently upon her. • Answer me, Bessie. Will you marry me!' Like the sudden drawing back of a curtain hung before a picture, Bessie saw her future life. The canvas was divided by a high stone wall. Ua one side, in the picture, walked a man and a woman. They were picking their way cautiously amidst innumerable pitfalls. She seemed to be holding his hand and protecting him. Un bis other side was a terrible precipice towards which he was leaning. The pitfalls, as she gazed, seemed to yawn as wide chasms across their path. Un the other side of the stone wall, a girl was walking, alone. The road was straight and even, but terribly dull and lonely, the girl’s head was bent, she appeared miserable and depressed. Bessie felt that life along a good road without Henry was impossible for her at least. The girl sighed and murmured, ‘ Yes, I will marry you He caught her in his arms and rained kisses on her white face. ‘ I will be good,’ he cried, passionately. ‘ For your sweet sake I will lead a different life.’ And Henry Smithers meant what he said. Uf course they had to make a runaway match. Mr Carew was exceedingly angry with Henry's impudence, as he termed it, in asking a respectable man to consent that his daughter should risk her happiness in trying to reform a criminal. He ordered the man to leave the house and the neighbourhood. He forbade Bessie to have anything more to say to her unworthy lover. Poor Bessie cried and protested, and hesitated and yielded. She agreed logo to Auckland and stay with some friends, and her father was pacified. But one fine morning Bessie walked down tjueen-street, met her lover, and was married to him at the Registrar's. And then began love in a cottage. It was sweet at first, even to these two. And presently the money ran short. Henry found the billing and cooing becoming monotonous. He wearied for the excitement of his former life. One night he pretended he could not sleep—he would sit up in the kitchen and read and smoke a little, so as not to disturb Bessie. Mrs Smithers was very tired, and soon dropped off to sleep. Henry stole into her room, and shaded the light of his candle from her face. Yes, she was not shamming ; she would never miss him. Bessie did not wake till nearly eight o'clock the next morning. Then she stole softly into the kitchen and found her husband sleeping peacefully on the colonial sofa. Noiselessly she prepared breakfast, but he woke just as she was wondering whether she should make the tea. The meal was a silent one. Henry could not bear to meet his wife’s eye. He gave her money, at her timid request, to buy their dinner, and presently she went out to do her marketing. The room seemed very lonely after Bessie had quitted it, and Henry's thoughts were not happy ones. He had broken his promise to Bessie. He had deceived the girl who had trusted in him. And the fact that he had so easily yielded to the temptation which had assailed him, dispirited and disappointed him greatly, for he had fully believed in his own rapid reformation. As he sat there with bowed head, he bitterly wondered if any man who had allowed one passion to dominate him, ever succeeded in finally shaking off its evil influence. Unee a thief, always a thief, he muttered. What am I to do ? Shall I tell Bessie? Shall I get her to help me to overcome this fatal habit of mine ? He pondered this question deeply. Perhaps Bessie's sweet face would cloud* over as he proceeded with his wretched story. Her trusting eyes would look astonished, grieved, then disdainful. She would think him weak, perchance even intentionally dishonourable. She would say he had won her consent to marry him on false pretences. Would she leave him? Well, he could not risk that. But supposing she took it as some good women take such things. Supposing she was really sorry for him, and kissed him and vowed to help him to be true and good in the future ? Ah ! if he could believe that! If he could but be sure of that ! A light step and Bessie came in. ‘Aren’t you better yet ? she cried, gaily. • You must come out with me this afternoon, it’s so lovely and spring-like, and the fresh air

will do you good. See what a lot I’ve got for my money !’ She emptied out her purchases with childish glee, and Henry dragged himself to the table to look at them. What would she say if he told her they were all bought with stolen money ? No, he certainly couldn t tell her. ‘ Old Parker, the butcher, yon know, asked me how I liked matrimonv, and he even had the impudence to want to know if you were kind »o me !’ ‘ And what did you say? Bessie laughed joyously. ‘ I told him you were an angel. And just then old grumpy Mrs Parker came in and I heard her tell her husband give me no credit. So I said she needn't expect any more of our custom, for wed plenty of money to buy the best wherever we liked.’ ‘Yes?’ said Henry interrogatively. Every word simple Bessie said stabbed him like a knife, and he dreaded she might say next that Mrs Parker had asked her where the money canie from? This was, in fact, just what Mrs Parker had said, but Bessie intuitively felt that to repeat this would be to insult her husband. So she changed the conversation. After dinner she tried to induce Henry to go out with her, he hesitated for some time, and at length decided to go. He would know the worst, and see if people looked at him with fresh suspicion. He was used to being regarded as a black sheep ; it was strange he should mind it now. And yet, strange as it was, he felt as he walked along by Bessie's side, that he saw matters differently in the light of her sunny smile. He was accustomed to slink along the street —chiefly at night-and he felt uncomfortable in the garish day-time. The half-averted, half contemptuously wondering glances he encountered, hurt him, not for himself, but for Bessie. The better side of his nature—always uppermost when with her—experienced keen pain at the behaviour of his fellow men. Would she notice it ? Would she mind ? He could bear it all for himself, but he could not endure that Bessie should see for herself what people actually thought of him. The two wandered into the country, and Bessie was enchanted with some lovely camellias in a private garden. ‘ I can get them for yon,’ Henry cried, impulsively. ‘Can yon she demanded, delightedly. ‘ Do you know the people ?' ‘ N-no,’ stammered Henry. ‘ Then how ’ began Bessie.’ But she suddenly stopped. She had surprised a guilty look in her husband’s face which told her all. Slowly she turned her head away. The coveted flowers, the load, the peepof the distant blue ranges, grew dim. The tears trickled slowly down her face. Bessie knew now what her father had meant when he told her that Smithers should have begun to reform earlier in life, and that her father for one, did not believe he could ever completely give up stealing. It was a bitter blow. Slowly and in miserable silence the two retraced their steps. As they neared their cottage, Henry heard the newsboy crying Evening Star, and a fiesh dread seized him. Bessie might want to buy a copy. If she did, she would assuredly see an account of last night’s robbery. And then— Smithers quickened bis steps, and racked his brain for an excuse to get away from his wife and buy a paper without her know ledge. At length an idea came to him. ‘ We are quite close to the cottage, Bessie. Will yon go on ? I want to buy a little tobacco. I’ll follow you in a minute.’ She raised her white face with a pleading look. His suddenly quickened perceptions read in it an entreaty to abstain from further theft. The look stabbed him as no words could have done. ‘ Bessie, trust me just once more'.’ he entreated, and though the girl did not know how her previous trust had been betrayed, there was a depth of passionate craving for pardon which startled her. But she smiled back at him, and they parted. ‘ You’re watched,’ a friend murmured in his ear as Henry crammed the paper into his pocket. He did not dare to open and glance through it. He began to fear that his action in buying one in the street had been a mistake. ‘ It looked,’ thought the guilty man, 1 as if I were in a fearful hurry to see what they say about the little affair last night.’ And yet hundreds of people bought papers that way—ay, and began eagerly to read them with no dread of unpleasant remarks. But perhaps they were not troubled with sinburdened consciences. Tea was ready, and Bessie was trying to be cheerful, so Henry did his best to be pleasant also. But it was a ghastly failure. Between the two a barrier had been built by that look in Henry’s face which had betrayed him to his wife. Bessie resolved that she would not sleep that night. She feared what she dared not exactly formulate. That Henry would go out again she was almost certain, and she was determined he should not go without some protest from her. Again he declared he could not sleep, and this time Bessie said she would also sit up. Henry protested vehemently against her intention, declaring that she would make herself ill, and would render him so nervous and tidgetty that he would lose his only chance of getting a little sleep himself. But Bessie was firm, and he finally gave in, and they both retired to rest. So well did Henry feign sleep that Bessie was completely deceived, and her tranquil slumber enabled him to leave the house without arousing her. He placed a note on her table : ‘ Do not tell anyone I have gone. I will come back.’ Uut into the sheltering darkness stole Smithers. The paper, which he had stealthily perused, stated that a clue had been obtained to the perpetrator of the robbery of the previous night. Though, as a rule, Smithers laughed at these suggestions of ‘clues,’ yet on this occasion be felt strangely nervous. He was a suspected character, despite his intentions of reformation, and he fancied flight was his only safe move. His enemies would not think that he would run away from Bessie. Un, on ; he knew the roads perfectly, and the grateful darkness made him feel secure. Now he is in the eountrv, and he slackens his pace a little. He has started later than he intended. He will barely reach the sheltering ranges before daylight. But he does, and crawls in amongst the friendly ti-tiee, and falls asleep, utterly exhausted. It is dusk when he awakes. He sits up and gazes vacantly around him. Where is he? And then the miserable cousciousness of his position conies back to hint. He is a fugitive from justice. He has abandoned his home. He has forsaken his wife. Never again can he face her look of incredulous horror, of suddenly comprehended crime. He has made a mistake, and alas ! his mistake involves the happiness ot an innocent girl. She

did wrong, of course, in marryinghim contrary to her father's wishes. But what was her wrong-doing compared to his? Slowly the twilight deepened, and the intense stillness of the New Zealand bush settled all around him. Henry rose and stretched himself. He hesitated for some time, a terrible struggle going on in his mind. He knew this part ot the country well, should he or should he not avail himself of that knowledge to procure a good supper at the expense of another sin on his soul, or should he pass the night in honest hunger? He walked on a little, fighting bis way in the deepening gloom through the dense fern and ti-tree. Then be came to a rough track across which lay a fallen karaxa Here be sat down, and the terrible conflict between good and evil, checked for the time by physical exertion, began again. Then a desperate idea occurred to him. He had lost Bessie—he felt sure of that—what had he then to live for? Nothing. Then he would die. Surely a lingering, painful, voluntary death by starvation would atone for bis crimes, would make amends to Bessie for his cruelty in marrying her ! So he plunged recklessly and hopelessly into the forest. He climbed up one gully only to descend on the other side, then again up another ; but he gradually made his way over the ranges. And now the utter stillness began to be broken by the murmur of the Pacific Ucean as the incoming tide broKe in large waves against the rocks. The murmur grew louder as Henry turned his steps towards the beach. As he began to descend, and neared the sea, the noise increased to a sullen roar. There was now a famt wind stirring the tree tops, the precursor of the dawn. He hail been walking all night. Between him and the ocean a few smaller ranges intervened. He laboriously made his way up and down their rough sides until at length he stood on the edge of a steep precipice, against which the angry ocean was hurling itself in ineffectual fury. Here Henry lay down, moving aside the ferns, and peering out on the troubled waters. Vt’hat an easy thing it would be to slip down, down, down, and allow those fierce waves to take him in their relentless grasp, and dash him against the rocks. It could not be a lingering death. But afterwards ! What became of suicides ? AU day the unhappy man lingered by the cliff. Sometimes he dozed, sometimes he dug up a fern root with his knife, and tried to chew it. He bad dropped his matches in his scramble through rhe bush, and could not even indulge in the consolation and companionship uf a pipe. He began to brood over this leaser trouble. It seemed so hard that he should be obliged to forego the last luxury of a smoke. He could think of nothing else just now. If he had a cheering pipe he would be a new man. He could face his position better. He would certainly be able to resolve on some plan of action. He must procure matches. Almost mechanically he began to move away from the sea. He knew pretty well, as he looked at the sinking sun, whereabouts the nearest settler’s house should be. He was not lost, though he tried to so wander in the darkness that his w hereabouts would be unfamiliar, and the temptation of going that night and stealing food would be removed. Un he went. At midnight he was close to a solitary farm-house. Should he, or should he not, try and get matches. Cautiously he approached the building. And then the pangs of long - unsatisfied hunger seized him. He found the pantry, he knew how to get in. Food was there in plenty. He helped himself. They might have given him some had he appeared in daylight and asked for it. But this, of course, he dared not do. They might recognise him. Still he had no matches. He made his way into the kitchen, and fell over a pail of water carelessly left near the pantry door. The noise roused the house. Henry turned and fled, the precious food safe in a kit which he had found on one of the shelves. He made his way back to the lonely cliff without much thought as to his destination. It was dawn when at length he stretched his weary limbs on the fein he had collected tne previous day. He had taken a bite or two out of the meat pasty he had stolen, and now he spread out his treasures and enjoyed a good meal. Water was to be bad close at hand. All the next day he slept, and passed another miserable night. About noon on the following day he was roused from a feverish, unrestful sleep by the sound of voices. ‘ Tracked at last,’ he sard. • Now, Bessie, to save you shame and disgrace I will end my life.’ He crawled to the extreme edge of the cliff, and swung himself over, holding fast by a branch of the pohutakawa tree. Then he let go, and dropped into the seething waters below. And Bessie ! She had read the brief note left on her table, and had eaten her breakfast with a sad and lonely heart. Just as she finished there was a knock at the door, and she beheld to her dismay two officers of the law armed with a search warrant. They were very mnch disgusted when they found that Henry had left the house, and questioned Bessie very closely as to his whereabouts. But upon this point the unhappy girl could throw no light. She admitted he had given her money the previous day, and could not say how he had come by it, though she did not see why he should not have honestly-earned money as well as anybody else. Later, the policeman returned. They had followed up their clue and identified Smithers as the burglar. He had been seen near the ranges, and subsequently the settler, whose house he had robbed, was interviewed, and search made for the missing man. Bessie was horrified at his fate. Her father took her back, to his house, and for weeks the poor girl crept about the place, the shadow of her former self, suffering terribly for her fatal disobedience and for the misconduct of her husband. And on Sundays the old farmer read her many a sermon on the text, ‘ The wages of sin is death.’