Chapter XLVII…

Chapter XLVII

THE ATTEMPTED BURGLARY AT THE JEWELLER’S――PEACE HAS ANOTHER NARROW ESCAPE.

Charles Peace appeared to be like the tiger, who, after tasting human flesh, had an insatiable appetite for fresh victims.

He had contemplated the burglary he was about to put into practice for some weeks, and had well considered the matter before his interview with Laura Stanbridge.

Within a few doors of her residence was a jeweller’s shop.

Peace’s object was to obtain an easy access to this.

He had ascertained that the owner of the establishment in question did not reside on the premises――he had a house at Fulham for himself and his family.

After the day’s business was over he repaired thither, leaving his housekeeper, a maid servant, and one of his assistants in charge of his town residence.

The maid servant was constrained to sleep out of the house, having to attend upon her mother, who was dangerously ill; consequently the only occupants of the establishment after closing hours were a young man, who was the jeweller’s assistant, and an old woman, who acted in the capacity of housekeeper.

Peace, therefore, came to the conclusion that if he gained an entrance into the house there would not be much difficulty in obtaining possession of a large amount of property.

Between the hours of one and two o’clock in the morning he let himself into Laura Stanbridge’s house, and closing the street door noiselessly he proceeded upstairs, and reached the attic without disturbing any of the inmates.

Here he remained for some little time before carrying out his plan of operation.

He then ruminated for a brief period, and quietly opened the lattice window.

He peered forth――the noise of distant wheels of some passing vehicle was the only sound which broke the stillness of the night.

He crept through the open casement, and gained the gutter, then he closed the window and passed along till he reached the roof of the adjoining house.

He cast a hasty glance around, and came to the conclusion that his movements were unobserved by any prying or inquisitive eye.

He felicitated himself upon his success thus far, and so silently and stealthily passed on to the roof of the next house, and so on till he had reached the one upon which he had to perform.

His purpose was to effect an entrance by removing the trap-door in the roof; having reached this he at once set to work, but some little time elapsed before he succeeded in sliding back the bolts.

But he was, as we have already seen, an adept at this sort of business, and eventually the trap was removed, and he passed through the opening.

The rest was, of course, an easy matter. He placed the trap in its original position, and dropped into the loft.

He now felt assured that he was about to meet with triumphant success.

In this, however, he was greatly mistaken.

A gentleman in one of the adjoining houses, who had been working till a late hour in writing for the Press, had observed his movements from the top window of one of the houses which commanded a view of the jeweller’s.

His attention had been attracted to the figure of a man passing over the roof.

He rose from his seat, drew back the curtain of his window, and watched Peace’s proceedings.

When he saw him remove the trap-door and creep through the opening he naturally enough suspected that something was amiss.

He was well acquainted with the jeweller, and knew perfectly well that he was at Fulham; he knew, moreover, that there were but two persons sleeping in the establishment.

He at once put on his coat and hat and sallied forth, and bent his steps in the direction of the nearest police-station.

Peace in the meanwhile was busily engaged in collecting together all the valuables he could lay his hands upon. These he placed in a heap on the counter of the shop.

The housekeeper and the shopman were all this time sleeping soundly.

While engaged in his depredations he heard the sounds of voices outside and saw the fitful flashing of lights against the windows of the residence.

He closed the door of the shop, locked it, and put the key into his pocket, then he proceeded upstairs into the front room, first floor, and listened.

People were astir in the street.

He peeped through the window blind and saw three or four policemen in front of the house.

“The devil!” he ejaculated, perfectly astounded at the discovery. “Bobbies! Here’s a pretty go; I’m done as brown as a berry.”

He drew back from the window blind, and began to seriously consider what was to be done.

It was too plainly evident that the police, from some cause or other, were on the alert.

To return by means of the roof was now an impossibility, as his movements would be seen and capture certain. What was he to do?

It required all his fortitude to meet the urgency of the case.

Escape appeared impossible. Doubtless the back premises were being watched as carefully as the front of the house.

But Peace was equal to the occasion, and hoped to be master of the situation.

Any way he resolved upon a bold stroke of policy.

Several loud raps were given at the front door.

Peace took off his coat, and, opening the window of the front drawing-room, rubbed his eyes as if just aroused from slumber, and, peering forth, said, in a drawling tone――

“What is the matter, policeman? Is the house on fire?”

“No, sir,” answered one of the constables. “No; but you’ve got a burglar inside your premises.”

“Goodness me!” exclaimed our hero. “I’ll come down and let you in. A burglar, eh.”

He went to the front door, which he unfastened, and said, in a tone of well-simulated alarm――

“Don’t let him escape. Search the house, and――and place a guard at the door.”

Two policemen at once proceeded upstairs, another kept guard over the entrance, while a fourth was on the opposite side of the way, flashing his bull’s-eye on the screened windows of the establishment.

“There is a fire somewhere,” said Peace, in a confidential tone, to the nearest policeman. “Of that I am quite certain. Don’t you smell something burning?”

The man sniffed, and said he could not smell anything.

“It’s at the back――that’s where it is,” cried our hero. “Come this way, policeman.”

As he said this, he walked leisurely along the front of the house, which was a corner one, and led the way to the street by its side. The policeman followed.

At the back of the jeweller’s was a mews.

“There!” exclaimed Peace. “It’s there!”

The policeman, thrown completely off his guard――he was quite a green hand――walked a few steps down the mews, and looked about in the vain effort to discover the fire.

This was Peace’s opportunity――it was one he did not fail to avail himself of.

With the speed of an antelope he ran down the side street, turned the corner and was lost to sight before the policeman had retraced his steps and gained the corner of the mews.

He looked round for Peace, but even at that moment he did not suspect anything was amiss, concluding that he had returned to what he deemed was his own house.

The housekeeper and shopman were aroused from their slumbers by the constables who had been searching the premises.

No burglar was to be found, but a coat and hat were discovered on the sofa in the drawing-room; these belonged to Peace, who was by this time far away.

“Where is the governor?” inquired one of the policemen.

“Governor!” exclaimed the jeweller’s assistant. “He’s at Fulham.”

“It’s taken him a short time to get there,” cried the man at the door, “seeing that he was here not five minutes ago.”

“Here!” ejaculated the housekeeper. “Oh, it’s impossible――he left hours ago.”

The policeman exchanged blank looks――the truth for the first time dawned upon them.

“What sort of a man is the governor?” inquired one, quickly.

“A tall, stout gentleman, with big bushy whiskers,” answered the shopman.

“Well, this is a sell,” murmured another constable. “Why I’m blessed if that fellow wasn’t the burglar.” Then, turning to the man who had kept guard at the door, “You had no right to let him go, Jenkins. It was your duty to detain him.”

“Don’t blame me――it’s no fault of mine. Why I could have sworn he was the master; so would anybody.”

“You had no right to let him go.”

“But I don’t know that he has gone.”

There was a loud peal of laughter at this declaration. Everybody is so clever after a mistake has been made and discovered.

And this was clearly a very great mistake.

A search was at once made in every direction for the missing robber; bull’s eyes were flashed in all directions, the adjacent streets underwent inspection, as did also several houses which were known to be the resort of thieves, but Peace was by far too artful a rascal to seek refuge in any of these; it was not his practice to do so at any period of his life.

The police were at fault. There was, however, one consolation. Nothing had been stolen. Not an article of any description had been removed from the premises.

On the contrary, something had been left behind――this being our hero’s coat and hat, which the police took possession of as trophies.

They, however, could not conceal from themselves that they were greatly in fault. They had no right to allow anybody to leave the house without ascertaining whether he was connected with the establishment; but our hero, who was far more quick-witted and prompt in action than the constables, had thrown them off their guard.

His manner was so ingenuous and inspired such confidence that the police took it for granted that he was either the master of the house or else his confidential man.

Never surely did men make such a palpable blunder.

Peace having got once clear off, ran his hardest until he had reached Seven Dials.

Then he observed, at some little distance off, a policeman taking his lonely round.

As he was without his hat and coat, he deemed it expedient to seek concealment.

He went up a narrow passage and hid himself in a dark gateway till the patrol of the night had passed.

He watched him from his hiding place and saw him walk with measured steps on his beat.

Luckily for him, the policeman walked on without suspecting for a moment that anything was wrong, and Peace did not emerge from his safe retreat till he felt assured that the watchful guardian of the night was far removed from the spot.

He then sallied forth, and crept cautiously along a narrow dark street which led into Long-acre.

A four-wheeled cab, driven by a sleepy driver, drove into sight.

Peace at once hailed it. The cabdriver looked surprised, as well he might be, at seeing a man in such a strange costume.

“What’s up?” he cried, looking down at our hero.

“Why, I’m in a devil of a pickle; that’s what’s up,” returned Peace.

“I’ve been to a masquerade, and some vagabond has stolen my hat and coat. I haven’t very far to go, but don’t like to walk home in this plight. Drive me to the corner of Fetter-lane.”

“I’m taking the horse and cab to the stables, and don’t want another fare,” said the driver, who was evidently like the animal he drove――fairly done over.

“It isn’t far,” said our hero, “I’ll pay you well. Drop me at the corner of Fetter-lane.”

“You’re a rum un,” answered the man. “Jump in.”

Peace did not desire any further altercation――he opened the door of the cab and jumped in.

The vehicle rumbled over the stones, passed through Great Queen-street, then Little Queen-street, and proceeded along Holborn till the corner of Fetter-lane was reached; then it was brought to a halt.

“There you are,” cried Peace, handing the driver half-a-crown. “Now I am within a dozen doors of my own home.”

The cabman took the proffered coin and drove off.

Peace went up Fetter-lane, and looked to the right and left, but no one was visible.

He waited till the noise of wheels had passed away, and then he went back to the corner of the lane.

If he could reach his lodgings in Leather-lane without attracting attention all would be well. How to complete this he had not at that moment determined.

Should a chance policeman be in Holborn, or in any of the adjacent streets, a man without a coat and at that hour in the morning would be sure to attract his attention and excite suspicion.

Peace had been wonderfully successful thus far, but there was no telling what might follow; whether he had better walk leisurely along or make a bolt of it, he could not for the moment determine.

At length, after a little reflection, he thought it would be best to adopt the former alternative; he therefore crossed Holborn in a quiet, easy, self-confident manner.

A half inebriated pedestrian, who was reeling homewards, called out――――

“Halloa, governor, taking a moonlight airing?”

Peace made no reply, but passed on till he had reached the corner of Leather-lane, without attracting the notice of any one else. In a few seconds after this he gained the side door of his own residence.

But he would not enter without first of all ascertaining that no one was watching his movements.

He peered cautiously around. All was silent, not a solitary individual was visible.

He slid the key into the lock, opened the door, and entered. Then he closed it as noiselessly as possible.

He felt that he had escaped by almost a miracle, but did not at the same time feel assured that all danger was over.

He ignited a small hand lamp, which he placed in the grate, so that its rays should not be visible at the window of his room.

He began to reflect on the events of the past hour or two, and had some misgivings when he remembered that his coat and hat had been left behind in the house he had entered.

He was well assured that the former did not contain any papers or other articles which would lead to his identity.

[Sidenote: No. 22.]

The coat itself he had bought ready-made at a shop in Bradford, so that there was no fear of his being recognised by means of that garment, since he was not known to the shopman who served him.

The hat bore no maker’s name on the inside.

He was, therefore, well satisfied that he could not be traced by that means.

But there was no telling.

Clues to thieves were sometimes obtained in an extraordinary manner, and he did not feel altogether assured of his safety.

However, he had no alternative but to quietly await the issue.

If Laura Stanbridge rounded on him he was lost; but he did not for a moment imagine she would do so――certainly not unless she was hardly pressed.

He thought all these matters over before he turned in for the night, and bitterly regretted having attempted to rob the jeweller’s shop, since it had been attended with such disastrous consequences. The more he thought of the matter the more puzzled he was. He could not understand the reason for the sudden appearance of the policemen in front of the house.

Some one must have given an alarm.

Who could it be?

Not Laura Stanbridge. That was not probable, as she would thereby incriminate herself.

He was not aware that his actions had been closely watched from the top window of one of the opposite houses.

“Somebody’s pulled the string,” he murmured; “that’s quite certain. Who can it be? Ah, it never does for a man to trust to any one; and this is a lesson to me――a lesson I shall rarely fail to profit by.”

He was by no means comfortable when he retired to bed. He was troubled in his mind, and had in consequence but a restless night.

On the following morning, upon reviewing the events of the preceding night, he was forcibly impressed with the egregious blunder he had made, and his own want of foresight.

It is true he had successfully eluded justice up to the present time, but he did not feel in any way assured that the police would not yet find a clue to his whereabouts. He had a considerable amount of stolen property concealed in the premises he occupied. To dispose of this was his first consideration.

After he had partaken of a hearty breakfast, he packed up his spoils in as small compass as possible, and at once set out with the same to the Jew fence in Whitechapel.

Old Isaac was at his post, and upon the goods being handed over to him for inspection, he began as usual to deprecate their value.

This Peace was well used to; it was a way the Jew had. He had many pleasant little ways, which were at once tantalising and irritating. But it was now imperative for our hero to get rid of the articles, even if he had to make a greater sacrifice than usual.

Isaac was never at a loss to reckon up his customers; he saw that Peace for some reason or another was constrained to part with the goods.

The Jew offered about one-third their value.

This was indignantly refused, and their owner was about to replace them in his bag, when the Jew, after many shrugs and wry faces, made an advance in the price.

“I won’t take it; I’ll smash them all up first, you rapacious old sinner!” cried Peace.

“Vell, vell, smash ’em up; much good that’ll be. I thought you’d more sense than to talk in that way. S’help me goodness, I do my best for all of you. I always dosh my besht. You know that, Peace. You never find me anything but honest and straightforward in my dealings with you.”

“Leave honesty out of the question. It don’t sound well from your lips. Some of the watches are good enough, but the others――well, they’re such duffers upon my shoul they are――I wouldn’t tell an untruth, not for anything.”

“Get out,” exclaimed Peace, in an angry tone. “You not tell an untruth! Bah! You get worse and worse, and I shan’t come again unless you mend your ways. I know where to dispose of them, man. Don’t you think you’re the only bloke who does things on the cross.”

“Well, then, there――I don’t like to turn away a customer, particularly an old friend like yourself. I’ll give you thirty pounds for the lot.”

“What! for the clock and plate included? Vell, yes, of course I mean that. Be reasonable, don’t be too extortionate. Ve must all live.”

“Honestly if we can,” said Peace, with a smile.

“Yes, honestly, my son. As honest as the world will let us be. Lord, how people do try to best one another in this world! There, I’ll give you thirty quid. Vat say you?”

“I say I want more, and I won’t take thirty quid.”

“How much more? Tell me, how much more? Now don’t take them avay, I vant to do bishness if I can, even if it is but at a small profit. Ve must live.”

“I’ll take forty. I ought to have fifty at the very least, but I can’t do with less than forty, for I am just now very hard up.”

The Jew shook his head, and said he couldn’t give forty.

After a deal of haggling, a bargain was struck, Peace took four and thirty pounds for goods which were worth considerably more than double that sum in the very lowest market, but he had no alternative, and the rapacious Jew suspected this.

As a rule Peace generally managed to get more from the Israelite than any of his compeers.

In many cases old Isaac obtained articles purloined by professional thieves for a third or even a quarter of their value.

Peace pocketed the money and returned to his rooms in Leather-lane.

He, however, deemed it advisable to leave his lodgings for a few days, till the attempted burglary at the jeweller’s was not quite so fresh in the recollection of the police authorities.

He wrote a letter to Laura Stanbridge, requesting her to call and see him.

This he sent by a boy.

In less than an hour after its delivery, his old Sheffield companion presented herself.

“Well, Charlie! What’s up now that you have sent for me?” said Miss Stanbridge. “Anything amiss? Have they found your crib?”

“No, not at present,” returned our hero. “But you see, old girl, this little affair has been a great mistake. I managed to dodge them, but my coat and hat have been left behind; and, therefore, I think it as well to bunk――to leave this place for a few days.”

“Certainly; the best thing you can possibly do. Well!”

“And I was thinking, if you could spare that lad, just to take charge of it in the daytime, he could answer all questions, and say that I had gone into the country with some frames that had been executed for a customer. Do you see?”

“I see plainly enough. But, my dear Charlie, that would never do. The boy is known in my neighbourhood; and, if he were to be seen here by――by the police, they would suspect that I had something to do with the affair, and it would be my ruin if inquiries were set on foot. No, I don’t think we can risk that.”

“Oh!” murmured Peace, glumpily. “You won’t oblige me, then; that’s what you mean?”

“I don’t mean anything of the sort; but, for both our sakes, it is well not to put trust in the boy.”

“Has he peached?” inquired our hero, sharply. “If he has, I’ll ring his young neck.”

“Peached! No, certainly not. What on earth could have put such a thought in your head? Peached! No, of course not!”

“Who gave notice to the bobbies, then?”

“Who? Why, a gentleman who saw you climbing ever the roofs, from one of the top windows of a house opposite.”

“Hang it all, I have been a fool! Never thought of that.”

“That’s how it was. Everybody knows that in the neighbourhood.”

“Ah, then, it won’t do to leave this place in charge of the boy, I must get some one else.”

“You have had a narrow escape, and so have I,” said his companion.

“Do they suspect that I reached the roof from your house?”

“No, I am glad to say they do not; if they had I should have been sure to have heard of it. No one, I believe, suspects you were concealed in my house――nevertheless we’ve had a narrow squeak for it.”

“Keep dark――say nothing about the subject to anyone. Hear, but say nothing.”

“Trust me for that. You must manage your matters better next time; this has been a most unfortunate business; but never mind, you are out of the fire. I would offer to take charge of your place myself, but have other matters to attend to, and even if this were not the case it would not be prudent for me to risk being seen here.”

“Certainly not――I do not desire you to do so. You’ve said enough, Laura. I’m sorry any act of mine should have placed you in jeopardy, but there is now no reason for your being alarmed. You had better not remain any longer. Should I want to see you I will send a letter, and make an appointment for a meeting at some other place.”

“Don’t you think I am complaining, Charlie, or am likely to desert you. All that I can do to serve you at any time you may count on. Even now I don’t like to leave you to shift for yourself, but I don’t think they’ve got the faintest clue. The coat and hat are at the station, so I’ve heard, but they’ve not been able to trace their owner. So be of good cheer, old man, and better luck next time,” said Laura Stanbridge, as she took her leave.

In less than two hours after her departure Bandy-legged Bill, the gipsy, dropped in.

Peace was very glad to see him, and recounted all the incidents of the attempted burglary at the jeweller’s, which the gipsy listened to with evident interest.

“We’ll dodge them even if they do find their way here,” exclaimed the gipsy. “Let us consider what is to be done in this matter. Two heads are better than one.”

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XLVIII. JANE RYAN――THE CLOSE OF A TROUBLED LIFE

We must turn back to earlier scenes in our narrative that we may gather up the tangled threads of this tale.

The reader will remember the burglary at Oakfield farmhouse, described in the opening chapters. He will call to mind the Bristol Badger being shot down by the girl, Jane Ryan, who afterwards gave her evidence at the trial of Gregson, which went far towards ensuring the conviction of the hardened criminal.

Gregson had ruthlessly murdered the girl’s sweetheart some years before the period of the Oakfield House burglary.

Jane Ryan had watched and waited, and she had not done so in vain. An inward monitor had whispered to her that sooner or later she would be instrumentel in hunting down the man who had robbed her of one whom she valued beyond all else in the world.

She felt that her mission was fulfilled after Gregson had expiated his crimes on the public scaffold.

But the death of this wretch did not remove the canker worm which had found its way into the heart of the young girl. It did not blot out from her recollection the terrible and appalling scene of her lover being stabbed to the heart on the lawn of her master’s house.

Jane Ryan became an altered woman; she was, as we have already intimated, deeply embued with superstition, and, moreover, under the impression that her days were numbered. Nothing could dispossess her of this idea.

The last time we took a glance at Jane was in the fourth number of this work, when Richard Ashbrook told her the story of his love, and asked her to become his wife. The interview between the two was of a touching and tender nature. Jane did not positively refuse, but she bade her master seek somebody who was more worthy of him than she was herself. She told him also that she was mourning for one who was dead and gone.

All this was not particularly complimentary to the substantial and honest yeoman, who began to suspect that there was some other rival in the field. He could not for a moment understand that she could be so true and constant to the dead carpenter.

He was as honest as the day, would not wrong man or woman, or indeed any living creature, but his powers of perception were but limited, and Jane was a puzzle to him.

Poor man, his was by no means a solitary case; hundreds and thousands of women, both before and since, have puzzled and perplexed men of far greater intellect than he could boast of.

Richard Ashbrook considered the matter over. He reasoned with himself, and endeavoured to quench the fire which burnt within his breast.

He was advised to try a change of scene, and left Oakfield for a while upon a visit to Mr. Jamblin, of Stoke Ferry Farm.

He flirted with little Miss Jamblin, who was at this time not out of her teens. He went out shooting with her father and brother, and passed many jovial and enjoyable evenings with his old friends.

But despite all this he could not forget Jane Ryan; her image was for ever presenting itself to his vision.

His friends were discreet and considerate enough not to mention her name; they knew perfectly well his feelings towards her, and hoped that “he would get over it.”

But Ashbrook did not find it so easy to get over it as he had imagined.

“When a man is over head and ears in love,” said Mr. Jamblin, senior, “it takes a strong rope to pull him out of the pit into which he has fallen.”

“She be a rare good un of her sort,” said the old farmer to his son one day; “but she be naught but a serving wench after all.”

“And Master Richard can do better. He ought to strike at higher game.”

“Pipple ought to do a number of things they don’t do,” answered Young Jamblin. “It ain’t easy for a man to right himself when he be capsized by a woman, no matter whether she be a serving wench or a duchess――and for the matter of that in many cases one be as good as ’tother.”

“Eh, lad!” cried the farmer, opening his large eyes and staring at the speaker. “Them’s your sentiments?”

“Well, yes, and I aint ashamed to confess to them.”

“Don’t you tumble into the same pitfall as Richard Ashbrook,” said his father in a much more serious tone. “Mind ee don’t do that.”

Young Jamblin burst out into aloud fit of laughter.

“All right, father; you’ve no right to be afeard, as far as I’m concerned.

James Ashbrook now entered the room and cut short the conversation.

“Ah, Master Richard,” exclaimed the elder Mr. Jamblin, “Patty tells me you be home-sick and be goin’ to leave us. We can do a little longer wi’ ee.”

“I do not doubt that,” returned Ashbrook, “and the change has done me a world of good, but――――”

“Oh, aye, but I know what ee’s goin’ to say――you’ve got your own affairs to look after and all that sort of thing. Well, please yourself――every man knows his own bis’ness best.”

“He’s not going as yet,” cried Patty, who now entered.

“And why not, lass?” enquired her father.

“Because I won’t let him,” returned the young girl, perking up her pretty features in a most comical way. She was the pet of the family and her father doated on her. She was always good-humoured, and had withal a keen sense of humour.

Farmers’ daughters, as a rule are not lusty, broad-shouldered wenches with big red arms and necks like bulls, as some of you probably suppose, nor are they the unsophisticated creatures, green as their own meadow grass, soft as their own butter, the stereotyped guileless victims of stereotyped wicked squires, as dramatists and writers of rural tales would have you believe.

They can display as much finesse in their best parlours as any peeress in her gilded drawing-room; and although they might be at a loss to understand the intricate compliments of a Belgravian roué, they play their plebeian gudgeons with as light a hand as ever tortured a titled trout in a West-end mansion.

In describing Patty Jamblin I present to you a fair specimen of the class.

She was long-haired, and blue-eyed with a clear white skin.

Her hands and forearms were a little red and rough from manual labour, but her neck and forehead were like polished ivory.

Her eyes were mild and candid, and could be roguish when they pleased.

Her hair was chestnut, and instead of being tortured into ringlets, as is the fashion among farmers’ daughters, it was worn plain.

She was very partial to both the Ashbrooks, and during the sojourn of Mr. Richard in her father’s home had striven to make him as comfortable and happy as possible, by unremitting attention.

Indeed, her cheery manner and pretty ways had done much to dispel the gloom, which he had found it so difficult to shake off.

When left alone with her father’s visitor she besought him to remain a little longer as an inmate of Stoke Ferry Farm, and he could not find it in his heart to give a denial to the request.

He did remain for another week or so; nevertheless, despite the pleasant society in which he found himself, he could not forget the thoughtful pensive girl of Oakfield House.

Upon his returning home Richard Ashbrook found his brother and sister anxiously awaiting his return home. The greetings were cordial and affectionate, for the Ashbrooks were a most united family, and it was seldom, indeed, that anything transpired that in any way disturbed the harmony of the establishment.

Jane Ryan, as usual, was busily engaged in her household duties, which she went through in a mechanical unobtrusive manner.

She had never at any time of her life been loquacious, being in fact reserved and thoughtful in her manner; of late she was so to a degree which, to persons of a lively temperament, was in a measure depressing.

Upon seeing James Ashbrook her face became irradiated with a smile, which, if wan and faint, was ineffably sweet in its expression.

It was wonderous to see the tender solicitude, the care and consideration displayed towards her by the honest horny-handed farmer.

Rough man as he was, when in her presence he was as soft and gentle as a woman.

He watched her moving about the house in an abstracted, half-caressing manner, which it is not easy to describe by words, but which has been, nevertheless, felt by all who came within her influence.

Certainly, if ever a man was devoted to one of the opposite sex, that man was Richard Ashbrook.

His attachment was not so much expressed by words as by manner.

Weeks and months passed over, and his fondness for Jane became deeper and more intensified.

He made her a study――he strove to please her by numberless little acts of kindness and consideration, which were but little or nothing in themselves, but might be likened to straws borne upon the surface of the water, which showed which way the current ran.

Everybody knew perfectly well that matters could not go on thus for any great length of time.

Either the young farmer would have to press the question still closer, or else give up all thoughts of the girl.

As to sending her away, that was not to be thought of for a moment.

His brother and sister would not consent to such a course, to say nothing of Mr. Richard himself.

And so, after a long, and, it might be said, almost silent, wooing, and watching, Richard Ashbrook once more took heart of grace, and besought Jane Ryan to become his “for better or for worse.”

His brother and sister were at this time paying a visit to the Jamblins.

“Jane,” said Mr. Richard, one evening, when the day’s work was over, “I want to ha’ a word or two wi’ee, lass. So when ye’ve finished cleaning up, just step into the parlour for a while, will’ee?”

“If you desire me to do so,” returned the girl, with a faint flash.

“Yes, I do, if thee beest willing.”

She nodded, and said――

“I will be with you presently.”

“Aye, do, gell, the sooner the better,” cried the farmer, as he left the kitchen, and proceeded into the best room of the establishment.

In a few minutes Jane, having washed and touched herself up, entered.

Her master handed her a seat.

He was in a great fluster, and it was easy to see that he was but ill at ease.

Jane sat down.

“I dunno whether you guess why I ha’ desired to speak to ’ee,” he said, in hurried manner; “an it does not much matter whether ’ee do or not, for what’s to be sed can’t remain any longer unsed, and that’s the truth on’t. You see, Jane, it bean’t o’ no yoose for a man to fight agen anything he ain’t got any power to grapple wi’. It’s against common sense――we none of us can do it――a man aint no yoose agenst a ghost or speerit.”

“I don’t understand your meaning, Mr. James,” murmured Jane.

Neither did she, and to say the truth the farmer did not quite understand it himself. He had endeavoured to take a high flight――to make a simile――which now that he had uttered it seemed to be quite inapplicable to the subject in hand.

“I mean,” he said, endeavouring to come nearer to the mark, “you see, I mean, gal, we ain’t any of us got any control over ourselves as far as affairs of the heart are concerned. If a man loves a woman as I do you (this was a home thrust), it’s no yoose telling him to find somebody more worthy of him, and all that sort of thing, cause he don’t think anybody is more worthy of him――he believes the woman he loves is more worthy and better than any other in the world.”

Jane nodded, but made no other reply.

The farmer went on――he was certainly floundering a little, but had made one or two palpable hits nevertheless.

“And so, Jane, my dear gell, I ha’ thought over and over agen of what you sed when I asked you to become my wife, and I ha’ endeavoured to think no more of you, but find it ain’t of no yoose. Love is summat like the wire worm; when it once effects an entrance it aint so easy to extract it.”

The simile was not perhaps an elegant one, but it was pretty well for a farmer.

“Have you thought of what I sed to ye, now many months ago?”

“I have thought of it, master,” said Jane, with a mournful cadence in her voice, “and I’ve thought how proud and happy I ought to be, seeing how devoted, how kind you are in every way, but it is not so much on account of myself as it is for you that I have hesitated.”

“Hesitated?”

“Oh, Mr. Richard, you want a bright, cheerful companion, not a poor broken-hearted creature like myself. If I could forget the past――if I could be the same as I was a few years ago, the matter would be different. As it is, I know not what to do. Do you persist in pressing the suit?”

“Do I persist? Of course I do,” cried the farmer. “Shall always persist while both of us are alive.”

“Oh! while we are alive?” repeated Jane Ryan.

The farmer looked surprised――not to say a little alarmed.

“Well we are not going to die, as yet let us hope.”

“No; let us hope not.”

“And if you marry me,” he exclaimed, suddenly assuming a tone of confidence and cheerfulness. “You’re so good a girl that you’ll live for my sake.”

His companion smiled, and wound his arms round her neck.

“Now I’ve got ’ee,” he ejaculated, “and you consent to be mine for better or for worse?”

“I consent!” cried Jane. “It is to be, and I consent. How is it possible for me to do otherwise?” she ejaculated, looking up towards the ceiling. “Yes, Master Richard, I consent.”

Richard Ashbrook felt as if a load had been lifted off his heart. He clung to her, and covered her face with passionate kisses.

Thus ended his wooing. When his brother and sister returned from Stokeferry Farm he made them acquainted with all that had occurred, which did not at all surprise them.

Then the village gossips, as well as their more immediate neighbours, had prognosticated how it would end.

James Ashbrook purchased a farm adjoining Oakfield. He and his brother were partners, but Richard furnished the residence attached to the adjoining farm. To this he took his young wife after their union, which took place in less than six months after the proposal and acceptanoe of the same by Jane Ryan.

If Richard Ashbrook had been a devoted lover he was an equally devoted husband. He treated his young wife with uniform kindness, and indulged her in every thing.

In a twelvemonth she presented her husband with a daughter, which he declared was the image of herself.

After this the shadow which had fallen upon her, and which marriage had failed to dispel, became deeper and deeper still.

For her husband’s sake she endeavoured to assume an air of cheerfulness, and strove as best she could to make him believe she was happy. He did his best to make her so, but despite all this there were many in the neighbourhood who shook their heads, and said that Mrs. Richard Ashbrook was fading away. She believed so herself――had always been under that impression. What she told the farmer before her marriage was true in substance and in fact.

She was a broken-hearted creature, and not all the wealth in the world――not all the attentions of her devoted husband could remove the cankerworm which had crept into her heart.

Some persons are affected by sorrow for the departed in the smallest degree possible――they are enabled to forget the past and look hopefully to the future; while others are struck down with such force that they are never able to rally――people are so differently organised.

It is true Jane Ryan had lived on for some years, but it was a sort of living death. Even her marriage was but a gilt and painted funeral.

She had given her hand, and, indeed, her heart――or what remained of it――to the honest devoted man who led her to the altar, and since the union she had been a loving and exemplary wife, but she could not divest herself of the miserable fact that her days were numbered. The end came.

* * * * * * *

In a large darkened room of Richard Ashbrook’s house the wan figure of a woman is stretched.

The bedstead on which she lies, with its heavy hangings, presents something of a funereal aspect.

Its occupant is Jane Ashbrook.

She is calm, placid, and resigned. Her features wear a chastened and almost angelic expression. The ruddy hue of health has long since left them; this is succeeded by a delicacy of the skin which is something akin to wax-work.

She does not moan or murmur, but remains more like an immovable statue than aught else.

The dusky shadows of figures are creeping about the room. These are James and Richard Ashbrook, and their sister, Maude.

The sick woman has been dozing for an hour or more. Presently she opens her eyes, and murmurs the name of her husband.

He is by her bedside in a moment, and bends fondly over her.

“You are better, Jane――say you are better,” he says, in an anxious tone.

“Better, because nearer home,” was the response.

An expression of anguish passed over the features of the farmer.

He sits himself down in a chair by the bedside of the sufferer, and remains silent and thoughtful.

Maude creeps up to the sick couch, kisses her sister-in-law fondly, and in a minute or so after this leaves, in company with her brother James.

Richard is left alone with his side wife.

He is a strong, powerful man, full of robust health, but feels now so borne down as to be almost prostrate.

For weeks his wife had been thus――a mere shadow of her former self. Her malady appeared to be incurable.

Dr. Bourne, her medical attendant, had been unremitting in his attention; but he confessed himself quite unable to define the nature of the complaint――it appeared to him to be more mental than physical, and for that reason it was beyond the reach of medicaments.

He did his best, however, but failed to arrest the decay which was so silently and secretly taking place.

The door of the room was gently opened, and Doctor Bourne entered in company with the nurse.

He looked at his patient, felt her pulse, watched the expression of her countenance for some little time, and then shook his head.

“Worse!” whispered the parson.

“Weaker, decidedly weaker; you must give her as much nourishment as possible.”

He went to a side table and wrote a precription, then he left.

The nurse went down-stairs to show the doctor out. Mr. Ashbrook left the sick chamber and met her upon her return.

“What does he say about his patient?” he enquired anxiously; “anything else?”

“She is weaker, and requires careful watching and the utmost care,” returned the nurse.

“What is your opinion, Mrs. Deacon? Tell me candidly――for you have an opinion――and are a good judge in matters of this sort.”

“Well, sir, ‘while there’s life there’s hope,’” said the woman.

She did not compromise herself by giving expression to this hackneyed quotation.

“Yes, that we all know,” muttered the farmer, “That’s but a poor consolation.

“You had better get a little rest now, I will sit up for the next two or three hours with your mistress.”

The nurse retired, and Richard Ashbrook returned to the sick chamber.

He sat himself down in an easy chair. In a short time after this his wife sank into a sound slumber, and the farmer himself dozed.

He was awoke by the sick woman softly calling him by name.

“What is the day of the month, Richard?” enquired his wife.

“The day of the month; it’s the twenty-first.”

“The twenty-first of October, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Ah, nothing particular. You see, my dear good husband, I was not born under a fortunate star. I had my nativity cast a long time ago, and the horoscope proved that I was born under an unfortunate star. It showed also――” she paused suddenly, and closed her eyes.

“What, dear――what did it show?” inquired the farmer.

“That between the twenty-first and twenty-fourth of October, 1874, a change would take place. Now I know what it means.”

The farmer felt like one who had received a heavy blow.

He comprehended her meaning, and big beads of perspiration fell from his temples.

“She believes that she is about to die,” he murmured; “but this is very terrible.”

“Ye mustn’t gi’ way, Jane――mustn’t gi’ way to superstition,” he cried; “there beant a mossel o’ truth in these horeoscops――not a mossel o’ truth in anything o’ the sort. Don’t ’ee believe a word o’ such nonsense. May be after all it’s that what’s making ’ee so ill.”

His wife smiled.

“My own dear Richard,” she murmured, “don’t give way――be of good cheer.”

He wound his arms around her, and embraced her fondly.

Presently the nurse entered the room, and bade him seek rest.

He retired to a sleeping chamber adjacent to that occupied by his wife; the few broken sentences she had uttered troubled him much, but hope as yet had not deserted him.

The next day Mrs. Ashbrook appeared to be a little better――was more cheerful; but as it waned, and evening crept on, she seemed to be quite listless and heedless of all around.

Those about her thought she needed repose, and did not trouble her with unnecessary questions.

“Where is Maude――let me see her?” she said all of a sudden to her nurse.

Maude was her daughter, who had been so named after her aunt and godmother, Richard Ashbrook’s sister.

The child was brought in and placed in her mother’s arms.

She hugged the little thing, who gently sank to sleep on her mother’s bosom.

An hour passed――mother and child were still locked in a close embrace.

Doctor Browne came. He glanced at the two figures on the bed, and then looked eagerly at the nurse.

“I think they are both asleep sir,” said the latter.

“How long have they been so?”

“For nearly an hour.”

“Please remove the child? Mrs. Deacon.”

The nurse drew the little thing from off her mother.

“One is asleep,” said the doctor in a solemn voice, which seemed to go through the heart of Richard Ashbrook, who had followed the doctor into the room.

“But it is the sleep of death.”

Farmer Ashbrook uttered a terrible cry. He fell into a chair, and burst into an agony of grief, which was dreadful to behold.

His wife, Jane Ashbrook, was dead!

She had passed peacefully and silently away. There was no expression of pain on her countenance, albeit she had died of a broken heart.

The wretch Gregson had suffered death for the murder of young Hopgood, but the fatal blow received by that ill-fated young man was the cause of another death. Jane Ryan had perished therefrom.

It is true she lived for ten years after the loss of her sweetheart, but she never recovered from the effects of the terrible scene she had witnessed, and hers is not a solitary instance of cases of this sort――albeit, the world knows but little of them.

Life is like a fountain fed by a thousand streams that perish if one is dried. It is a silver chord twisted with a thousand strings that part asunder if one is broken.

Thoughtless mortals are surrounded by innumerable dangers that render it much more strange that they escape so long than that they almost all perish so suddenly at last.

We are encompassed with accidents every day to crush the decaying tenements we inhabit.

The seeds of disease are planted in our constitution by nature.

The earth and atmosphere, whence we draw the breath of life, are impregnated with death; health is made to operate its own destruction.

The food that nourishes contains the elements of decay; the soul that animates it by vivifying first, tends to wear it out by its own action; death lurks in ambush along the paths.

Notwithstanding this truth is so palpably confirmed by the daily example before our eyes, how little do we take it to heart!

We see our friends and neighbours die, but how seldom does it occur to our thoughts that our knell may give the next warning to the world.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XLIX. LAURA STANBRIDGE AND HER PUPIL

After leaving Charles Peace in Leather-lane, Miss Stanbridge came to the conclusion that for the future it would be advisable for her to be a little more cautious in her dealings with her old playmate and quondam companion.

She was a lady who had her own battle to fight in the world, and as far as want of principle was concerned she was quite adapted to hold her own against any odds.

Upon returning to her own domicile she found Alf Purvis in the kitchen, in company with Susan.

“You may have a holiday for the rest of this day, Alf, and to-morrow we will commence business again.”

“Thank you, marm,” cried Alf, “May I go out?”

“Yes, where you please; but mind and be home early in the evening. I don’t approve of late hours.”

The boy sallied forth and wandered about from one place to another, returning soon after nightfall.

“To-morrow you will have to go out lace-selling,” said his mistress, upon his entering the house.

“Yes, marm,” answered Alf, in a cheerful tone, “I’ll do my best.”

In the morning of the following day she brought down from the lumber-room a large tray filled with quantities of “edgings,” viz., the kinds of lace used for the bordering of caps, &c.; some braid and gimp, some lace articles――such as worked collars and undersleeves――and some lace of a superior quality, which, however, was English.

This latter kind, she told him, was called “driz” by the street sellers, and that he should offer it to ladies as rare and valuable lace smuggled from Mechlin, Brussels, and Valenciennes.

The braid and gimp, she said, was very little in demand, and the whole street-trade was now so indifferent that the only way a man could get a fair profit on what he sold was by “palming”――that is, giving short measure.

“Would you like to learn how to do it, Alf?” she inquired, and without waiting for an answer, she took a yard measure from the table behind, and cried, in a loud street voice:――

“Three yards a penny edging!” Then she measured three yards with her wand, and showed him how she “palmed” the lace by catching it in short with a jerk of the fingers.

“Let me try,” cried the boy, quietly, and in less than half an hour he palmed to perfection.

Young Purvis, when he had accomplished this important piece of manipulation, sallied forth.

He patrolled the favourite “pitches” of the lace business――namely, the Borough-market, Walworth-road, Tooley-street, and Dockhead, Bermondsey.

He told his customers that he was a lace-maker from Millyham, and that the edgings were his own and his old father’s work.

This tale, which he related with eloquence and sometimes with tears, worked largely on the feelings of his auditory, and whilst compassionate sailor-girls gazed tenderly on his handsome and grief-stricken features, his sobs extracted sympathy from their hearts.

The next day he went to the houses in and about Regent’s Park, and towards Maida-hill. There he sold his pseudo Mechlin to the old dowagers, and his worked collars or “edgings” to their housemaids.

He felt a pleasure in cheating these dames, who, while trying to cheat Government, were trying to cheat the whole of their fellow-countrymen; but he felt a pang in clipping the measures of those pretty servant-girls, who gave him such bright smiles and words, and to whom pennies were so precious because they were so hardly earned.

However, he consoled his conscience with the Machiavellian maxim, “All’s fair in Trade.”

It had become his motto, as it is the motto of those Jesuits of commerce, who say that all is fair which is foul, false, and thievish.

It was his panacea for the heart’s qualms, as it is the panacea, for heaven knows how many thousands in London who rise and fast behind their counters till they have stolen the price of their breakfasts.

He told his mistress how he had succeeded by chicanery in realising a good sum for her.

She complimented him.

“There’s no harm hoodwinking your customers,” she said. “Besides, all’s fair in trade.”

As he repeated this sentence after her he thought that the elder of the two women sighed.

He had ascertained from the servant girl that this lady’s name was Grover.

He lay awake that night, trying to guess who Miss Stanbridge and Mrs. Grover could possibly be.

He did not think they were real ladies.

In the first place he had met them in a house that was frequented by only the scum of the London streets.

Besides that, there was something very different about them to the young ladies who sometimes stopped him to ask questions about his nests in the Bayswater-road or in Grosvenor-place.

Miss Stanbridge, it was true, had the voice and manners of a lady, but in those of Mrs. Grover he had often detected something which reminded him of the rustics among whom he had been brought up.

And yet it was extraordinary that they should always go out in the afternoon, which he knew was the fashionable hour for ladies to go out, and dressed in gorgeous array.

It was singular.

They could not be bad women, argued the young rogue, but always stayed at home in the evening, and though a great many visitors (whom he was never permitted to see) came after dark, he was shrewd enough to understand that these could not be lovers, because his mistress always took off her fine clothes when she came home.

He also observed that these mysterious visitors were never shown upstairs, but always into a room on the ground floor, and that there Miss Stanbridge came down to them. Peace was the only person who was accustomed to go into the drawing-room, and the boy was under the impression that he was a relative of either one or the other of the two females.

Another singular thing was this: the room upstairs looked out upon the back yard, as did the kitchen.

He was always sent out by this back yard, which led through a mews into the street from which Peace had made his escape on the eventful night of the attempted burglary at the jeweller’s. He was told never to come in at the front door.

And the ladies themselves always went out and came in by the back way, which, although he was unacquainted with the manner of gentlefolk, appeared to him to be a very eccentric proceeding.

To show you how slight is the step from fraud to felony I will continue the history of this poor boy who had fallen into the power of one who knew well how to harden a heart for crime.

In Alf’s little garret there was an empty book-case. He had often wished there were books in it, and had often thought of asking his mistress whether she could lend him any, for he had no doubt there were some within the mysterious lumber-room, which seemed to possess almost everything that mortal man could think of.

One night he went to bed at eight o’clock, when, much to his surprise, he saw a number of odd volumes in the book-case.

This was a great boon to him, for as we have already seen he had always been passionately fond of reading.

He went to the case, and caught hold of one which first came to hand, and having undressed himself with a rapidity known only to boys, he sprang into bed and at once began to eagerly devour the contents of the volume, which happened to be “The Lives of Celebrated Highwaymen and Pirates.”

The work was exactly suited to his taste.

As he read the exploits of these lawless and daring men he was so fascinated that he read without interruption till the candle had died away in its socket.

He lay thinking of what he had read, and watching the thin dusky light as it crept towards him across the room.

He rose at daybreak with his eyes red and watery, and his mouth parched.

Slinging his lace bag over his shoulders, he went downstairs into the streets, where he walked for hours with his eyes now drooped upon the pavement, now raised towards the grey clouds of early dawn.

Two hours afterwards a woman stole into his room with a wolf-like step.

When she saw that the candle had quite burned down, and that there was a book lying on the bed, she gave a terrible laugh, and clapped her hands.

An hour afterwards, another woman entered the room.

But, when she saw the candle and the book, her wrinkled face grew painful, and she sighed deeply.

Then she drew a book from her bosom, and placed it on a table by the window, returning the other to the shelf.

When Alf came home to breakfast, Susan asked him what made him look so pale.

His eight hours’ work had never seemed so long and weary as they did that day.

He walked about mechanically, and sold but little, for in great towns customers have to be run after, and almost inveigled.

He was thinking of his book, and longing for the night to return.

He even took the precaution of buying a candle in case they gave him a short one to go to bed by.

At tea-time Susan complained that she could not make him understand a word that she said.

He told her that he was very tired, and went to bed an hour earlier than usual.

As he was undressing his eyes fell upon the book which was lying upon the table.

He determined to begin with that, and, as it was such a small one, he thought that perhaps he might be able to read it through.

The first few lines showed him that it was a moral book, which inculcated good principles.

He glanced impatiently down the page, intending to throw it aside, when a sentence caught his eye.

He turned the page, and read on.

It was a book which had been written by a good and earnest teacher for the assistance of those who might be under some peculiar temptation, or on the threshold of some great crime.

It was written in simple but beautiful language.

It was written with the heart as well as the pen.

Every word in the book was a good spirit, which flew towards the poor soul tottering on the brink of the abyss, and which held it back with tender arms, and whispered to it to turn back and be saved.

When he had read this book the poor lad sank into a calm and refreshing sleep, and awoke in the morning determined to be honest and industrious, and to think of thieving no more.

But he was still too proud to pray.

He relied upon his own heart, which he thought was strong, but which yielded and broke beneath him like a wooden plank which had been rotten and decayed.

He little knew how difficult it is to repent.

Remorse is only regret. Repentance is to regret and amend.

That very day he cheated a customer, and chose to believe that he had not done very wrong.

That very night he returned to his “Lives of the Highwaymen,” and felt relieved when he could not see his good book anywhere in the room.

Next morning as he went downstairs he heard female voices apparently in angry altercation.

He stopped at the door, and listened.

He heard his mistress say――

“I ask you again what made you put that book there?”

“I could not help it,” answered the other, which he knew by the voice was Mrs. Grover. “I can’t tell you how it is, but my heart kindles towards that boy; I feel as if I could look at him for ever. I tremble when I hear his voice. There’s something about him which makes me younger and sadder to think of. I don’t――nay I cannot――tell you what I mean.”

“You will, perhaps, have the goodness to answer my question,” said Miss Stanbridge. “What made you put that book there?”

“I don’t know. I tell you again that my heart warmed towards him, and I wanted to――to――”

“You wanted to baulk me; I know that perfectly well without your telling me so――to baulk me.”

“I do not want to do anything of the kind. I have no desire to interfere with you in any way.”

“But you do so, nevertheless. After all the time and money I have spent my plans are to be spoilt by a foolish old woman who does not even know why she wishes to spoil them.”

“You are quite wrong in your view of the matter.”

“Am I?”

“Most certainly you are.”

“Well, then, let me tell you that I’m of a different opinion――you have interfered in a matter which does not concern you.”

[Sidenote: No. 23.]

At the close of the day on which Alf Purvis heard the foregoing conversation he was called into the drawing-room, and his mistress congratulated him upon his skill in palming edgings upon the wives of Tooley-street, and Marlow lace as Valenciennes upon the dowagers of Maida-hill.

Alf felt flattered. It was not often his mistress praised him, and when she did so he knew he was in more than usual favour.

“Do as I tell you,” said Miss Stanbridge, in continuation, “and you will soon make money. I started in life as you are doing now, and you see that, though I am very young, I am not so badly off. I contrive to live respectably without the assistance of anyone.”

Her looks and manner were at this moment most deceptive; anyone who gazed upon her would have said she was a girl who had just been released from the durance of a boarding school.

She was young in face, but in heart she was old as a hag who had lived years in crime.

She spoke of the books he had been reading, and told him several stories about thieves with such eloquence that his interest was aroused, his imagination ran riot, and he was perfectly charmed with her discourse.

While all this had been going on the old woman kept glancing anxiously at Alf, trying to repress her sighs.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, “what a jolly time those highwaymen must lead of it! I should dearly like to lead such a life.”

“You would be afraid of the prison and the gallows,” cried his mistress, bursting out into a loud laugh.

“Not I, marm. I should have to take my chance like the rest of them. To be in prison is no more than being in the streets――so I’ve heard ’em say who have been there; and one may as well end one’s life in the air as on a mattress.”

His mistress again laughed as if he had said something marvellously funny, but Mrs. Grover was evidently greatly concerned and indeed hurt at the turn the conversation had taken.

A shade of displeasure passed over her features, and this was not lost upon Alf Purvis, who refrained from expatiating on lives of lawless robbers. Alf therefore lapsed into silence.

Mrs. Grover meanwhile watched his countenance with intent, so also did Miss Stanbridge, who said after a pause――

“Alf, have you ever been to a London theatre?”

“No, marm, I was never inside a theatre in my life,” he returned.

“Would you like to go to the play?”

“Oh, rather,” ejaculated the boy.

His mistress smiled, and went out of the room, taking Mrs. Grover with her. She returned and said――

“Well, Alf, you shall see a performance to-night. You have been diligent and deserve a little relaxation.”

She was about to put on her bonnet and shawl when Susan entered the room, and said a gentleman wished to speak to her.

Miss Stanbridge inquired the name of her visitor, and the servant girl said it was Mr. Peace.

Our hero was at once shown upstairs. As he entered he glanced furtively at the boy, who was told to go into the kitchen with Susan.

“Anything up?” muttered Miss Stanbridge.

“No, nothing fresh,” returned Peace. “But you are about to go out――I shall not detain you. Some other time will do as well.”

“I was going to take the lad to the theatre,” said his companion.

“All right, old girl, I’ll go with you if you’ve no objection.”

“I shall be most delighted to have your company.”

Peace, Miss Stanbridge, and the boy sallied forth. To the latter’s inconceivable awe, a cab was hailed and procurred.

Alf sat diffidently on the extreme edge of the back seat, and surveyed the gorgeous interior of the vehicle, from the ragged rug to its dingy roof, as a parson’s daughter views for the first time the vaulted expanse and the hollow-sounding stones of Westminster Abbey.

After half an hour’s ride the cab stopped, and the driver coming round to the door informed them that they had arrived at their destination.

They passed through the entrance and gained the hall. Miss Stanbridge paid for three seats, and they were shown into one of the private boxes.

The house was a very large one, and Alf as he gazed around was lost in wonderment at its gigantic proportions. He had never been in an establishment of this description.

The pit and gallery were crammed with people, those of the lower class predominating. Some of the men were in their shirt sleeves, many of the women carried in their arms babies with bald heads and sturdy lungs; many coster boys were also present, who were overflowing with merriment and wit, while the atmosphere reeked with the mingled fragrance of orange peel, stale ginger beer, and corduroys.

As the boy was gazing round the house the audience were beginning to grow impatient and personal.

Having discovered a gentleman in full dress in one of the boxes, a lubberly lad called out in the voice of a stentor.

“Three cheers for the bloke in white kids!”

This was responded to and assisted with cat calls and hootings as they observed the discomfiture of the used-up Belgravian, who had wandered among these barbarians to receive amusement, not to contribute to it.

This was followed by shrill whistling from the gods above, the stamping of feet, and conversation carried on by some of the occupants of the pit with those in the gallery. The noise was perplexing and almost deafening.

“Now, then, you catgut-scrapers,” exclaimed a voice, “tune up. If we aint a goin’ to have any acting to-night, play ‘God Save the Queen,’ and let’s go home.”

A costermonger in the gallery began to chant a well-known music-hall ditty, which was at this time enjoying an extensive share of popularity; numbers of men and boys joined furiously and tunelessly in the chorus, and this, together with the stamping of the feet of those who were endeavouring to keep time to the melody――if such a term can be justly applied to it――served to amuse the “gods,” as they are called, most immensely.

Peace could not refrain from expressing his disgust at these proceedings.

He had an ear for music, and the abominable din and clatter overhead disturbed his equanimity, and ruffled his temper.

To remonstrate with the noisy ruffians would be only making matters worse.

The leader of the band at length made his appearance from beneath the stage, and, just as his face filled the trap-door which led into the orchestra, it was struck by a sucked orange, thrown by some miscreant from the back of the pit.

The house laughed till it nearly cried. An effort was made by the police to find out the delinquent, but it was not attended with success.

Miss Stanbridge bought a bill of the play.

The first piece was one of those romantic dramas which small playwrights pillage from the French――a sin which is not visited upon the thief, but upon those who receive the stolen goods――with their ears.

The plot was of such an intricate and impossible nature that Alf Purvis was totally at a loss to understand the meaning of what was going on.

To say the truth, this was a matter of no very great moment.

If he did not derive much pleasure from the weary polysyllables and the heavy rant of the people on the stage, their spangled robes, the lights and the music, and the novelty of the whole scene, were sufficient to amuse him during its hour of performance.

The tongues of the coster boys had not been idle all this time, and while any good dramatic point was picked out with wonderful acumen, inefficiencies, either in the acting or in the stage management, were treated most unmercifully.

Nor would they permit the play to proceed till they had got a good view of the stage.

“Higher the blue!” was shouted when they found the sky too low; and “Light up the moon!” was the cry when they observed the chaste orbit growing dim.

“Did you ever hear a more uproarious ill-behaved audience?” said Peace, to Laura Stanbridge.

“It’s their way,” returned his companion. “If they were not permitted to express themselves after their own fashion the gallery would be empty.”

The scenes were shifted――not very accurately, it must be admitted. In a castle at the back of the stage a large gap was left.

An indignant chimney sweep called out――“Ve don’t expect no grammar here, but you might shove the scenes to!”

At this the people were convulsed with laughter.

Between the first piece and the heavy sanguinary melodrama which was to follow, the bills advertised a comic song by the celebrated Bill Rasper.

This was pretty sure to please the audience, as it was what is termed a topical song, consisting chiefly of hits at popular personages, and sneers at the aristocracy.

By this time the half price had come in, and the gallery presented an extraordinary appearance――a vast black heap slanting to the roof, dotted with faces, and striped with shirt sleeves.

When there was a clapping of hands the whole mass twinkled as if their dingy hands were so many rays of light.

The rails in front were adorned with the bonnets of the ladies, who did for comfort that which, in the dress circles of the West-end, is done for fashion.

These bonnets became marks for the boys at the back, who, seated upon the shoulders of their friends, or upon the spikes which crowned the partitions, played at pitch and toss with nut shells.

Once more greetings were exchanged between the gallery and pit, and sometimes family secrets were revealed.

“Then you aint brought Poll with you after all,” cried a voice from the pit.

“No,” answered a man in the gallery――“no, I aint. ’Cos why――she’s got the hump.”

“Oh! Jerusalem; that’s the time o’ day, is it?”

The comic singer, dressed as only a comic singer can dress, in a chocolate-coloured coat, a waistcoat with a large floral pattern, and pegtop trousers of the most ultra description, and a watch chain, as thick and massive as a ship’s cable, now made his appearance.

His nose was deeply tinged with red, and he had an old umbrella of the Mrs. Gamp species under his arm.

He was greeted with loud and prolonged applause.

The orchestra struck up, and the comic gentleman commenced his song.

As he finished his verse he looked up to the gallery to help him out of the chorus, saying, “Now, then, gentlemen, the Hexeter Hall touch, if you please.”

The song was called “Keep your weather eye open, my boys,” and it was vociferously “angcord” by the noisy multitude, who were flattered at being permitted to lend their services in the chorus.

The gentleman with the large umbrella had his work to do. He was called on again and again, and had to sing fresh verses containing more pointed allusions to persons and events of the time.

When the audience consented to part with their favourite, the curtain rose for the representation of a transpontine melodrama of the most pronounced and formidable description.

It was a little incongruous, but had, nevertheless, all the elements to commend it to the appreciative audience, for whom it had been written by a veteran playwright who dealt in such hotly spiced commodities.

It would be expecting too much of us or any other man to describe the plot after the fashion of the newspaper critics, for to say the truth the incidents in the drama were too chaotic and heartrending to admit of their being placed before the reader in black and white.

The leading personages may, however, be briefly described.

In the first place, there was a wicked baronet, who persecuted the heroine of the piece. She was, as a matter of course, an innocent and artless seraphic creature, entitled the “Lily of Ludgate.”

The aforesaid baronet suborns a ruffian of the deepest die, called “Black Hugh.”

This personage has committed an endless number of crimes; he is cast into gaol, from which he contrives, after the approved fashion, to make his escape.

He is followed by a detachment of soldiers (supers), who fire at him as he creeps over the castellated roof of his prison house.

To see him gain the rocks beyond this, and plunge from a giddy height into a foaming cataract beneath, was a sight which, happily, is only to be seen on the stage of a transpontine theatre.

He buffets the waves “with lusty sinews,” succeeds in reaching an island in an impossible sea; and from this he puts off on a raft, constructed by himself and a nigger, who is, like himself, a castaway.

He describes this in glowing language in the third act.

Eventually he is shot, and staggers on the stage. All of a sudden he becomes repentant, and makes a dying confession.

To see him point his accusing finger at the wretched baronet, and to see also the “Lily of Ludgate” let down her back hair by the footlights, and to hear the gasps and sobs she gives utterance to as she listens to the tale told by Hugh, who sets all things right before he dies, is altogether beyond our powers of description.

It had a visible and marked effect upon the house.

An itinerant vendor of lemons and oranges, who evidently belonged to the Hebrew persuasion, whispered to a companion in the gallery that the piece “wash very deep.”

After his confession, Black Hugh raised himself up, gave a gasp, and fell on his back as dead as a stone.

The baronet was loaded with chains, and the “Lily of Ludgate” fell into the arms of the rightful heir, who had been carried away in the earlier part of the drama by Black Hugh, who was evidently a favourite actor with the frequenters of the theatre.

He rolled his eyes, and pronounced his words as only an artist of his accomplishments and powers could pronounce them.

During the progress of the play the whole theatre shook with enthusiasm and applause, and when Black Hugh had safely escaped from his painted prison-house, the shouts of exaltation were deafening, and were repeated till the roof rang again.

But then we must remember that crime and the penalties of crime are so different in the world and on the stage.

On the stage there is not the cankering remorse, the ever-trembling fear, the start at each voice which speaks, the shudder under each hand which is placed upon the shoulder.

On the stage the prison walls are of wood and canvas, and the public will not permit hanging.

On the stage, then, the law has no terrors, the judge with the black cap is a jest, the condemned cell a jovial cider cellar, the gallows an empty puppet for a Christmas pantomime.

Alf Purvis had, during the performance of the melodrama, been most deeply interested with the action of the piece. His mistress placed her hand upon his shoulder, and asked him if “Black Hugh” was not a bold, and fearless man.

“He’s a brave chap, but the baronet was the worst of the two, and ought to have been shot instead of Hugh. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes, I do, my lad,” returned Miss Stanbridge.

“You’ll make something of that boy before you’ve done with him,” whispered Peace. “I dare say you find him an apt pupil.”

“And what if I do, Charlie?” said the woman, in an offended tone. “It doesn’t matter to you, I suppose.”

Peace shrugged his shoulders, but made no reply.

A cab was hailed, and the three playgoers were conveyed to their destination. Peace parted with Miss Stanbridge at the door of her house, and returned home on foot to his rooms in Leather-lane.

Miss Stanbridge poured evil words into the ear of the boy, who listened to them greedily. He was ambitious in mind――he was dishonest in heart. He longed to be one who was known and feared while he was alive, and who should be spoken of and written of after he was dead.

Upon his return home, Alf Purvis missed Mrs. Grover.

He asked his mistress what had become of her.

“She has gone away,” said Miss Stanbridge. “I had set my mind on something, and she was foolish enough to oppose me.”

“Oh,” murmured Alf, “I’m sorry for that.”

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter L

A VISIT TO THE BLACK MUSEUM――PEACE AND BANDY-LEGGED BILL――THE BURGLARY AT DENMARK-HILL.

After the attempted robbery at the jeweller’s Peace had deemed it advisable to leave his quarters for awhile.

Bandy-legged Bill had agreed to take charge of the premises till he returned.

Peace therefore betook himself to a coffee-shop at Putney, where he slept for several nights after his mishap.

He took the precaution, also, of altering his appearance as much as possible, and to carry this into effect he had made a suit of clothes dissimilar in every respect to those he was accustomed to wear; but, to say the truth, all these arrangements were quite needless, for the police had never had the faintest clue to the real culprit, and in a short time gave the matter up as hopeless.

Indeed, to say the truth, they were so ashamed of their own want of foresight, that they were but too glad to let the recollection of blundering die out as speedily as possible.

The constable who had but recently joined the force was made a scapegoat by his companions, who threw all the blame upon him.

He was reprimanded by the superintendent, who enjoined him to be more careful for the future.

The young fellow promised not to make such a mistake again if he could help it, and justice was satisfied, and the majesty of the law vindicated.

Peace’s coat and hat, which had been left behind at the jeweller’s, were for some time in charge of the police. When all hope of finding its owner had been given up the garments in question were conveyed to what is termed the “Black Museum” in Scotland-yard.

This place is one of the sights of London, but it is rare indeed that any stranger is admitted into its sacred precincts. The uninitiated may possibly feel some interest in a description of this receptacle for criminal curiosities.

We subjoin an account of the place, which the reader may rest assured is genuine.

“Take care how you step,” said a courteous official, who preceded the visitor up a staircase in one of the houses in Scotland-yard, and opened a door on an upper story.

“We are obliged to throw a great deal of this about;” the substance in question was a disenfecting powder.

The room into which we were conducted was a large bare-floored apartment, with barred windows, fitted up with wide shelves, which were divided into compartments, and their contents were liberally sprinkled with the all-pervading powder.

The room is that in which the articles of property taken from convicts are stowed away until they are claimed by their owners.

Of course there was not much chance of any one coming forward to claim Peace’s hat and coat from the stand in the centre of this receptacle, of the objects of the “unlawful possessor” class, to which a large room up stairs is also devoted.

Overhead is the “Black Museum,” in which during the last three years pieces de conviction, which until then had been kept indiscriminately with the other property of criminals, have been arranged and labelled, forming a ghastly, squalid, and suggestive show.

On entering the lower room the visitor is struck by its odd resemblance to a seed shop.

Hundreds of hooks stud the rims of the shelves and the sides of the compartments, and from them are suspended hundreds of little packets neatly made up in brown paper, tied with white twine, and severally distinguished by large parchment labels, each bearing a neat inscription.

The packets contain small articles taken from the prisoners, who in due course, after they are discharged from prison will be brought to Scotland-yard, and their portraits taken by force should they object to that process.

The larger things are deposited in the compartments of the shelves, and every item, no matter how insignificant, is entered into the proper register.

A motley collection are the larger articles, with a preponderance among them of grimy pocket-books and greasy purses.

But there are valuable things in some of those parcels, and downstairs in the officials’ room is a massive iron safe, fitted with sliding shelves, in which is kept a large collection of watches, rings, choice pins, scent bottles, pencil cases, and other jewellery, which are either the lawful property of prisoners or have been found in their unlawful possession and confiscated, but for whom no owners have been discovered.

Among the watches are some beautiful specimens. One in particular, taken from a costermonger, of exquisite workmanship and ornamentation, is valued at fifty pounds.

The prisoners’ property room is scrupulously clean and tidy, but the look of it is forlorn and squalid, the powder lying thick on everything, and the scent of moth and rot is in the air.

Great bales of cloth and woollen stuff occupy the shelves of the central stand.

They are shaken and beaten and turned, but all to no avail; the moth and rot get at them, and the unwholesome weirdness peculiar to once worn but long unused garments is upon the articles of wearing apparel which are hung or folded up in the room.

This impression comes more strongly upon the visitor when he goes up higher still into the topmost apartment, where heaps of clothing hang upon the walls――some new, some worn.

The heaps of shawls have a draggled and furtive look, and some children’s clothing has a touch of its inseparable prettiness, even here.

Old books, a picture or two, some worthless table ornaments, innumerable articles which could not be described or classed except as odds and ends, form a portion of the collection which goes on accumulating, and which has no ultimate destination.

What is to become of all this? asks the visitor, and is answered to his surprise that nobody knows, that the things are nobody’s property, and nobody has the power to do anything with them.

A piece of information which makes them more ghastly and nightmare-like to the imagination than before.

An ever-growing dust heap formed of thieves’ clothing and unlawful possessions, which nobody can cart away to distribute or bury out of sight for evermore――an accumulating banquet spread for the moth, the rust, and the rat――the contents of these rooms are far from pleasant to think of.

It seems supremely ridiculous, but it is a fact, that nothing but a legislative measure could rid the premises of these rotting garments, out of every fold of which one might shake with the dust an image of squalor, crime, and punishment.

Outside the door of the “Black Museum” is a shelf in the wall of the landing place.

The visitor passing it is aware of a huddled heap of dirty coats, a serge gown, and a coarse kind of rug――the skin of an animal, with red and white hair upon it.

Under the shelf, on the floor, lies some rough packing cloth.

He passes the heap carelessly, and enters the museum.

What are his first impressions of it?

They are various. That it is like a bit out of a gamekeeper’s room, with a bigger bit out of a smith’s forge, a touch of a carpenter’s workshop, a broad suggestion of a harness-room, something of a marine store complexion (and a good deal of its odour), a lump of an open-air stall in front of a pawnbroker’s shop, a little of the barrack-room gun-rack, with no bright barrels, enforced a general air of a lumber-room, with just a dash of an anatomical museum; but above all, and increasing with every moment’s prolonged observation, a likeness to the cutlery booth in a foreign fair, the articles being so rusty that the said booth might have been shut up for full half-a-century, and the salesman and his customers were all ghosts.

Opposite the door, and on the face of the wall to the right, are displayed on a wooden shelf with iron rings, which convey to the visitor a hint of the open-air stall in front of a pawn-shop in a very small way of business indeed, a common looking-glass in a wooden frame, four black glass buttons, two wisps of rope, a pair of trumpery ear-rings in card-box, two bullets, a pipe, a cluster of soft light brown hair wound round a pad, a comb, a pocket-knife, and a little wooden stand covered with glass, are the most noticeable articles. On the shelf to the right are a dirty Prayer-book, a pocket dictionary, a pair of boots, a gaudy bag worked in beads, and the crushed remains of a woman’s bonnet, made of the commonest black lace, and flattened into shapelessness.

In both these instances the other impressions of the place came in too, for over the shelf fronting the door hung workmen’s tools, hammer, and cleaver, and spade, and beside them to the right is just such a bundle as adorns the walls of a marine-store. It consists of a gown, a petticoat of cheap, poor stuff, bearing dreadful dim stains, and a tattered crinoline.

The visitor is in the presence of the objects which perpetuate the memory of two peculiarly horrible crimes.

The soft, brown hair is that of Harriet Lane, murdered by Wainwright; the buttons and the earrings are those which were found in the earth where her body had been buried.

The bullets were taken out of her skull. The object under the glass case is the several pieces of her skin which completed the identification of her body. The wisps of rope dragged her out of the earth under the warehouse; the cleaver, the hammer, and spade are the implements with which the horrible deed, which led to Wainwright’s detection, was done.

The knife was Thomas Wainwright’s, the pipe was Henry’s, and when the visitor is leaving the museum he will be shown in the pack-cloth on the floor under the shelf outside the door the wrapper in which the dismembered body was packed, and one of the dirty coats――a horrid thing, with its hideous rents and smears――Wainwright’s vesture on the occasion.

The coat of the captain of the “Lennie,” with the gash in the cloth, torn by the knife of his murderer, and eaten through and through with rot and moth, is not nearly so disgusting an object; and as for the serge robe of that poor rogue, “Professor Zandavesta,” and the little cloak of the confiscated “anatomical” wax African, who grins awfully in one corner of the museum, a real skeleton hand and arm considerably hidden behind him, they are quite cheerful to look at in comparison.

The Prayer-book and the other pitiful objects upon the shelf to the right were found on the body of Maria Clousen, who was murdered in Kidbrook-lane; the blood and mud-stained clothes were hers, and they contrast with grim-irony as evidences of an unpunished crime, with the all-gory objects which tell of one brother hanged and the other transported.

Along the wall, on the right side of the room, is ranged a choice collection of guns, crowbars, and “jemmies,” the latter implements of the housebreaking industry, which admit of great variety, and are susceptible of highly artistic handling; and among them is a pair of tongs unevenly rusted, and with a dirty paper book written all over with incoherent sentences attached to it.

The tongs are those with which a man named Macdonald killed his wife some four or five years ago. He was hanged, as also were many of the proprietors of the horrid labelled assortment of hammers, knives, including the bread-carving and pocket varieties, razors and pistols which suggest a booth in a fair.

There is dried blood on all the knives and razors, and some of the hammers also, and every one of them stands for a murder or suicide.

In a terrible number of cases they record the murder of a wife by her husband.

Several of the pistols, mostly beautiful weapons, are the instruments of suicide, and each is labelled with the name, date, and place.

The simple suicides are almost all among the higher class of society; and when the visitor asks how the pistol, with which a gentleman of wealth and station shot himself, came into the keeping of the museum, he is told――

“The family mostly do not like to have it, and so they ask the police to take it away.”

In a corner hang the clothes of the Rev. J. Watson, who murdered his wife at Stockwell, the horse-pistol with which he shot her, and the heavy hammer with which he knocked the nails into the chest, in which he proposed to hide her body.

So carefully had the murderer washed his trousers and his coat-sleeves, that the blood stains could only be observed with difficulty at the time of the investigation.

But since the coat and trousers have been hanging on the Black Museum’s walls, the stains have come out close and thick.

“We have often noticed that,” the visitor is told.

The frightful weapons used by the “Lennie” mutineers are here neatly ranged under the photograph of the ringleader, “French Peter.”

Hard-by is a bundle of letters, forming the correspondence which furnished much of the evidence against Margaret Waters, the baby-farmer.

How much sin, shame, sorrow, and cruelty that small dusty bundle represents it would be hard to say.

A small billycock hat, with a mask fastened inside the broad rim, into which is packed a purse, a comforter, a small lantern, and a life-preserver with a terrific lump of lead on it, is quite a cheerful object to turn to from all these grim relics of worse crimes, though the burglar who formerly owned the life-preserver informed the police――who seized but also rescued him, having come up upon hearing his cries when he was caught between the iron bars of a window, through which he was escaping on a false alarm――that he had thoroughly intended to “do for” anyone who should interrupt him with that convenient weapon.

A large assortment of burglars’ tools is not the least suggestive object here.

The weapons of the thieves’ war upon society are models of good workmanship, and of the adaptation of means to ends.

When the neatest “centre-bit” of the carpenter’s shop is compared with the deft, swift, noiselessly working instrument which goes into an iron shutter as a cheesemonger’s scoop goes into a “fresh Dutch;” when one looks at the wedges of finely-tempered steel working between the zinc side-bits; at the two home-made dark lanterns, contrived with extraordinary cleverness out of a mustard tin and metal match-box respectively; at the rope ladder and the “beautiful litte jemmy,” in a carefully buttoned red flannel case――this small, powerful tool is made of a piece of a driving wheel belonging to the finest machinery, and the metal was, of course, stolen to make it; at the bright, slender, skeleton keys; at the safe-breaking tools――which make one think that there is nothing like the old stocking in the thatch after all――one is amazed at and sorry for the misused cleverness and perverted inventiveness to which these things testify.

Among the skeleton keys is one delicate little contrivance which, at a first glance, one might take for an ornament to a lady’s chatelaine; it is, in fact, a double instrument for picking latch keyholes, one part forming the key and the other lifting the spring.

This pretty trifle was made from the brass clasp of a purse, and used with such success by the inventor that in a short time he found himself in prison.

While one is actually inside the Black Museum one cannot be amused at anything, but by the time we have turned into the Strand the impression of the dreary reliquary of crime has so far passed away that one can smile at the story told of the impudent simplicity of this poor clever thief.

“When he was discharged from prison,” said the curator of the Black Museum, as he restored the delicate dangling little bit of villainy to its place, “the man came here and asked us to let him have it back.”

* * * * * * *

In a few days Peace returned to his lodgings. He was informed by the gipsy that all was going on well. No stranger had been to Leather-lane to inquire for the industrious and exemplary frame-maker.

“And so, old man, you needn’t bother yourself any more,” cried the gipsy.

“There will be no more stir in the matter. But you’ve done me a good turn, Bill, and I shan’t forget it. How are you getting on?”

“How? Much the same as usual――anyhow. But I’m not driven so much in a corner as I have been once or twice in my life. I do a little with horses, and have got a swell as’ll fork out a couple of quid or so when I’m regularly hard up. He’s a rum sort though. I can’t quite reckon him up; he’s so ’nation sly and mysterious. He it was who set me to work to prig the jewels at the ‘Carved Lion.’ My eye, wasn’t he riled when he heard of the end o’ that night’s business; and it was all through you, you beggar,” cried the gipsy, with a laugh. “But Lord love ye, I don’t think any the worse on ye for it――not a morsel.”

“Oh!” murmured Peace; “he set you to work to get the jewels, did he?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder what that was for.”

“I don’t know.”

“But I think I do.”

“You don’t mean that!”

“Yes, I do. They were the chief evidence in proof of Aveline Gatliffe’s identity, and this swell, whoever he may be, has reason for not wishing that identity to be established. Who, and what is he?”

“Well, that I am not at liberty to make known,” returned the gipsy. “He’s a swell in his way, but he aint of much account as far as I can learn――leastways, he’s a hot-un in many ways, so I’ve been told. I met him by chance when I was with my first gov’nor, and he weren’t much to boast on.”

“Oh, he has a motive, depend upon that, and a strong one too, I should say; but it matters not――it does not concern either of us.

“Not a bit.”

Peace and the gipsy had now become what might be termed cronies or pals. To say the truth, the latter had displayed a considerable amount of faithfulness and disinterested friendship for our hero――much more than he really deserved.

In the afternoon of that day “Bandy-legged Bill” brought round his pony trap and took Peace out for a drive.

During this little excursion our hero had an eye to business. He never failed to look out for houses which he thought best adapted to his purpose. He preferred those which stood in their own grounds, detached from any others, and those also that were not near the high road, along which a policeman might be passing.

While out with the gipsy his attention was attracted to a handsome residence situated in the neighbourhood of Denmark-hill.

He noticed the place, and as he did so promised himself the pleasure of paying it a visit at no distant day, or rather night.

The gipsy, who had noticed the attention he had given to the house, pointed with his whip to the habitation in question and said, jocularily――

“The very place for you, old man――eh?”

Peace nodded.

“It’s a tempting-looking crib, I must confess,” he murmured.

“And is occupied by some wealthy bloke, I’ll wager,” said the gipsy.

“Oh, I dare say. No doubt.”

“I aint good at that sort of business, but I’ll drive you here any night you like, and wait for you with the trap till the job’s done. Of course for a consideration,” observed the gipsy, with great gravity; “business is business all the world over.”

“You shan’t go unrewarded, Bill.”

“I don’t expect half, but I must have something.”

“Agreed. To-morrow night will do.”

“Will it? Then I’m your man.”

This little matter being settled the two friends parted at the corner of Leather-lane, the gipsy promising to call for Peace at half-past ten or from that to eleven o’clock on the following night.

In tracing the lawless career of a great criminal like Charles Peace it is not requisite to trouble the reader with a full discription of all his depredations. The leading events in his career it is our business to chronicle.

As a rule he committed most of his daring burglaries without the assistance of confederates or accomplices; but this was not always the case.

In the earlier part of his life he had many lawless companions.

At Sheffield and Manchester he was associated with a band of desperadoes.

The burglary we are about to describe was not undertaken alone, and possibly it was for this reason Peace had made one or two signal failures, and in consequence had escaped in a most marvellous manner on both occasions.

He therefore gladly accepted the service of the gipsy, in whom he felt he could place implicit confidence.

From a psychological point of view the character of Peace presents rather a curious study.

He seems to have been one of those exceptional beings in whom there was an almost innate criminal propensity, and whose infamous practices were in themselves as great a source of pleasure and satisfaction as the booty derived from them.

Mrs. Thompson, his companion in the later period of his life, has declared that he committed lawless acts for the love of adventure.

Not long ago a distinguished German psychologist said that his studies led him to regard the impulses of criminal nature in the light of natural laws.

He said that an “anthropological change,” or, in other words, a defective organisation of the brain lies at the foundation of the criminal propensity of habitual thieves, murderers, &c.; that the cerebral changes were of so gross and palpable a nature as to admit of easy demonstration in the post-mortem room, and that they might even be recognised during life by a careful examination of the criminal’s head.

Whether the conformation of Peace’s cranium or brain was different from that of most people we will not venture to say, but, judging from his photographs, a man like Professor Benedikt, of Vienna, might certainly find some further data for his doctrines by an examination of Peace’s head.

Be this as it may, we have no doubt the cerebral organisation of such a hardened and determined fellow as Peace must have been very different from that of ordinary individuals, although we do not for a moment believe that the difference was of so gross and palpable a nature as to be detectable after death, much less before it.

None the less true, however, is the materialistic view of the criminal propensity――a view which, unfortunately, precludes all hope of our ever permanently ridding society of such characters.

As long as human nature is as it is, we shall have amongst us thieves, murderers, forgers, et hoc genus omne.

No amount of education, no penal codes, no force of example, no religious or moral suasion, will deter such men from their evil courses, or induce them to lead an honest life.

Indeed, the very propensity which seems to be “born and bred” in their flesh is fanned and encouraged by the morbid interest and sympathy of society, which considers itself outraged by their acts.

When well-dressed ladies contend for the opportunity of looking at these villains through their opera glasses, and “special correspondents” are “told off” to watch and record every change in the features of the criminal, and every word or whisper that escapes his lips, can we wonder that such men may even feel as much pleasure and pride in being infamous as their more discreet neighbours do in being honest?

Bandy-legged Bill kept his appointment, and on the following evening he drove up to Peace’s door at about twenty minutes to eleven.

Peace in the meanwhile had been reconnoitring in the course of that day, in the immediate vicinity of the residence upon which he was to perform.

From what he could gather in the neighbourhood he was led to the conclusion that there was a considerable amount of property in the house. The mistress and children were said to be away on a visit to a relative. The master, who was a rich city merchant, was at home.

All these facts he had wormed out of the idlers and gossips about the place.

Before the gipsy made his appearance Peace had stained his face, and otherwise disguised himself; his implements were brought forth from their hiding place; these were in a small box, which is thus discribed by Mrs. Thompson:――

“He always had with him a red box. This he generally had left at the nearest station to the house he was about to operate on, with a notice outside that it was to be called for.

“His tools consisted of a jemmy about fourteen inches long, having a screw at one end and a chisel at the other, which could be used as a plane also. He also carried a block of wood, which he required when using the jemmy, and a knife like a pork butcher’s, which he used in cutting through panelling.

“The screw end of the jemmy was for use when the chisel end could not get a purchase in a door.

“He seldom carried lock-picks, having a wonderful facility in making use of a piece of wire, with which he has been known to open locks of the most intricate nature.

“One great cause of his success,” says the woman Thompson, “was the fact that he wore small ‘fours’ ladies’ boots without nails; and the police, when they were put on his track, always thought the crime had been committed by a boy, judging from the footsteps.”

“Here I be, old man,” cried the gipsy, as Peace presented himself at the door. “Are you ready?”

Peace handed the red box to his companion, then went back into his room again, and returned with a bag and his dog Gip, both of which were placed in the cart.

In another moment the vehicle was rattling over the stones with its two occupants.

“What have you brought the dog for?” inquired Will.

“He may be of service; if we have to leave the trap I’ll warrant me that he won’t let anybody overhaul its contents.”

“All right, guv’nor; you know best,” cried the gipsy. “So on we goes, and may we be successful, and have good luck, which is what, I know, we both deserve. Eh, old man?”

“Oh, we both deserve it,” answered Peace. “But people never get their deserts in this world; they either get ten times what they ought to have, or none at all. However, it isn’t of much use complaining.”

The vehicle went rapidly over the stones till the macadamised road was reached, and in due course of time the travellers came within sight of the palatial dwelling which had lured them to the spot.

“Now,” said the gipsy, “where had I better wait with the trap?”

“There is a narrow lane runs by yonder house, wait there. If a bobby says anything to you, tell him you’ve lost your way, and are uncertain which road to take. But lor, it’s so far removed from the high road, and is, moreover, so dark, that you will not be seen.”

Peace alighted with his implements and bag, and crept through the shrubbery in front of the house.

The gipsy drove slowly on to the dark lane.

No other persons besides their two selves were to be seen.

Peace passed through the grounds unobserved by any one.

He then took a survey of the residence he was about to perform on.

No lights were visible at any of the windows, and to all appearance the inmates of the house had long since retired to rest.

Peace had been informed in the early portion of the day that the owner and his domestics were early people; he therefore concluded that the inmates were asleep.

But as he had met with one or two failures he was more than usually cautious on this occasion, so that he might render the possibility of discomfiture still more remote.

We have on a former occasion made reference to the long screw he occasionally employed in his predatory excursions; these were most ingeniously constructed. At the end of each screw was a sharp point, and the worm was so well made that the screw itself could be forced into the wood of a door without even making a hole first with a gimlet or bradawl.

A small screwdriver was the only implement required to drive home the screws.

They, however, worked much more freely or easily when a small hole was bored.

Peace was furnished with these on the night in question, and to cut off the retreat of the inmates, should any of them be aroused, and to baffle the police, should they endeavour to enter the premises without his permission, he thought it just as well to secure the front door.

He, therefore, at once proceeded to insert two of his patent screws――one near the top, and the other near the base of the door.

This done, he went to the back of the house. Here he saw two doors, one of which opened on to the lawn.

He secured both of these in the same way.

When this had been done, he climbed a spout and got on the balcony, which ran in front of one of the back windows.

He then proceeded to effect an entrance as speedily and noiselessly as possible.

He had but little difficulty in doing this, for the window had been left unfastened, owing to the carelessness of one of the maid servants, who had shot back the clasp presumably in a hurry, for it did not overlap the opposing window sufficiently to prevent its being drawn either up or down.

The shutters, however, were fastened, but very insecurely; Peace had therefore but little difficulty in throwing them back.

All this had not occupied the space of more than three or four minutes, and the movements of the burglar had not been seen by anyone, either from within or without.

Peace dropped gently on the floor of the apartment, which was covered with a thick Turkey carpet.

He had on at this time a pair of women’s boots, and his footsteps were almost as soft and noiseless as those of a cat.

The room in which he found himself was furnished in the best possible manner, but there were not many articles therein which were sufficiently portable to be transferred to the burglar’s bag, and Peace did not therefore waste much time in examining its contents.

He ignited one of his silent matches, and took a cursory but rapid review of its most noticable features.

Before leaving it, however, he drew back the shutters and opened the bottom window sufficiently wide to admit of his passing through in case of any surprise or alarm.

He crept downstairs and entered the front parlour. In this there were several articles of value, which he at once deposited safely in his bag.

He then proceeded towards the back parlour. This was fitted up as a library. To all appearance the owner of the habitation made use of it for business purposes, for on a library table there were spread out vast heaps of papers, tied up in bundles, with letters, ledger account books, and other objects usually found in a merchant’s counting house or a lawyer’s office.

In a recess at one corner of the room was a large iron safe; this at once attracted the burglar’s attention. Closing the door of the room softly Peace drew from his pocket a curled waxed taper, the end of which he ignited with one of his matches.

He then made a careful examination of the safe which, he felt assured, contained property――possibly notes and gold were encased therein.

Drawing forth his bent wire, he endeavoured therewith to pick the lock.

He twisted and turned the wire in every possible direction, but was not successful in opening the safe. But he was not a man, as we have already seen, to give up a thing easily.

[Sidenote: No. 24.]

He had set his heart upon ransacking the safe, and to leave the house without effecting this object was the very last idea that would enter his mind.

He persevered with most laudable ambition, but the lock was too much for him――it was of peculiar construction.

He tried his skeleton keys with no better result. He sat down in one of the library chairs, the very image of despair; he never remembered to have been so baffled.

He had another turn at the door of the safe, which was as immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar――a place, by the way, he was afterwards destined to become acquainted with.

He now made an attempt to force open the door with his jemmy and the piece of wood he carried with him, but it resisted all his efforts, and he at last began to despair.

A sudden thought struck him――the key of the safe was doubtless somewhere in the house. Probably the owner of it had it in his pocket.

Peace crept up stairs again. Not a soul was to be seen. No one was in either the back or front room first floor.

He went up cautiously to the next story. In the front room of this he heard some one snoring.

He concluded that this was the master of the house. He opened the door for about an inch, and peered in――a man, with a dark beard and a moustache, was in bed.

He was evidently sleeping soundly. On a chair, by the side of the bed, were several garments.

There was just sufficient light for the burglar to discern these.

He felt the time had come for him to make an effort. Grasping his revolver in his right hand he crept on all fours to the side of the bed, watching as he did so the face of the sleeping man with the eyes of a lynx.

He placed his hand on a pair of black trousers, and felt something heavy in one of the pockets. Gathering them together in a heap he crept back towards the door, which he passed through in safety.

When on the landing he rifled the pockets, in one of which was a large bunch of keys.

He slid downstairs and gained the back parlour, or library, as it was usually termed by the household.

Once more he ignited his wax taper, and breathed more freely.

To his infinite delight one of the keys fitted the lock, which was turned back; then the massive doors of the safe were thrown open.

Peace looked curiously at its contents. One shelf contained a mass of documents, some books, and other articles which were of no value to the burglar.

But on one of the other shelves there was a cash-box and two canvas bags.

“All right,” murmured Peace; “this is worth fighting for. My word, but it is lucky I thought of the keys being in the house.”

The bags were at once placed in the one he had brought with him, the cash-box was opened with a small key he had found on the bunch abstracted from the gentleman’s pocket.

Between fifty and sixty sovereigns were in the cash-box, together with a roll of notes. It is needless to observe that these found their way into Peace’s pocket.

A gold cup, a silver salver, and a box containing jewels were also in the safe. These were placed in the burglar’s bag to keep company with the other valuables.

Peace had been fortunate enough to have a good haul, and, having been so far successful, he thought it best to get clear off with his booty while the coast was clear.

He at once made for the back-room first-floor. From the balcony of this he let his bag gently down on to the grass plot beneath with a small piece of cord; then he climbed over the balcony, and hanging for a moment by his hands, he dropped from thence on to the grass.

Unfortunately for him, his coat-tail swept down one of the shrubs in a flower-pot; this fell on to a glass skylight over the back kitchen.

The crash of glass awoke one of the maidservants, who jumped out of bed, and, opening one of the back-windows, peered forth.

She saw a man running across the grass plot towards the shrubbery by the side of the house, and at once suspected that something was amiss.

Panting and almost breathless, Peace arrived at the spot where Bandy-legged Bill was awaiting his reappearance.

He jumped into the cart, and told his companion to drive off at once.

Bill urged on his pony to its fullest speed, and in a very short time he and his companion were far away from the scene of the burglary.

In a short time they reached Leather-lane in safety, without the faintest degree of suspicion being attached to them.

The burglary at Denmark-hill was pronounced to be a great success both by the principal and his abettor.

Peace presented his companion with fifty pounds as a recompense for his valuable services.

It was a great deal more than the gipsy had ever expected, and he expressed himself more than satisfied――indeed, he was modest enough to intimate that it was more than he deserved.

Meanwhile the inmates of the house at Denmark-hill were aroused from their slumbers by the screaming of the servant girl, who had seen the burglar make a precipitate retreat over the lawn in the rear of her master’s house.

Her fellow-servants jumped out of their beds, huddled on their things, and hastened at once to see what was the matter.

The owner of the establishment looked in vain for his trousers, which our hero had so cleverly possessed himself of.

The gentleman sought for another pair, but his wardrobe as well as the drawers in his room were locked, and his bunch of keys was not at hand.

Wrapping himself in his long dressing gown and drawers, and putting his feet into his slippers, he sallied forth.

The open safe, the black trousers on one of the chairs of the library, together with the missing property, clearly demonstrated that a burglar had been in the premises.

A search was at once instituted for the robber, but without any satisfactory result.

The merchant was furious.

He ordered one of his man-servants to hasten at once to the station and give notice to the police.

But here a difficulty presented itself.

The front door could not be opened. Peace had firmly secured it with his screws.

The whole party rushed to the back entrance, which was equally well secured.

Everybody was astonished, as well they might be. It seemed like sorcery.

One of the man-servants unfastened the shutters of the front parlour, and threw open the window, and by this means succeeded in leaving the premises.

In about a quarter of an hour he returned with three police officers.

The usual formula had to be gone through. A list of the missing articles, as far as these could be ascertained, was made by the inspector, who declared the robbery had been committed by a practised hand.

He was perfectly right, but this was but poor consolation to the owner of the property.

He asked the girl if she could identify the burglar. She answered in the negative.

She had only seen his back. His face she never caught sight of, and even assuming she had, identification would have been almost impossible.

There was not even a remote chance of discovering the depredator, and Peace was perfectly well assured of this.

The booty he had obtained by this burglary was considerably over two hundred pounds, after deducting the fifty he had given to Bandy-legged Bill, and as he had received a letter from his mother urging him in the strongest terms to return to Sheffield, he determined upon quitting the metropolis and taking up his quarters in his native town.

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Chapter LI

MISS STANBRIDGE AND HER PROTEGE――A VISIT TO A THIEVES’ HAUNT.

In a few days after our hero’s successful expedition to Denmark-hill he packed up his things, had them conveyed to the station by his friend Bill, and after calling upon Laura Stanbridge and bidding her farewell, he started off to Sheffield.

He gave the gipsy a pressing invitation to pay a visit to him soon after his return.

We have now to describe another phase in the history of the boy Alf Purvis. Since the departure of the old lady, Mrs. Gover, his mistress had been more than usually kind to him, making something like a companion of him during the hours of relaxation.

One evening she said to him “Alf, I want you to go with me to the east end of the town. I purpose taking you to a place which I think will be interesting to you.”

“Thank you, marm. When am I to go?”

“At once――therefore get ready without delay.”

Alf did as he was bid, wondering all the while what was up, but he said nothing, wisely keeping his thoughts to himself.

When ready his mistress led him to the door. There was a cab waiting outside, but Alf remarked that the horse was a fine animal and well groomed, and that the driver wore no badge upon his coat.

“Now, then, jump in,” cried his mistress; he obeyed, and was followed by Miss Stanbridge.

The driver of the vehicle, without waiting for the usual instructions as to where he was to drive to, set off at a brisk pace towards Trafalgar-square.

The cab rattled along down the Strand, which was full of noise and light, and through the ponderous arch of Temple Bar into the City, grave, dark, and silent as it is by night alone.

In a short time the vehicle passed along Leadenhall-street, Aldgate, lighted only by the street lamps, and here and there by a faint gleam from a window of some cigar shop or tavern; then they entered a street so broad, so bustling, that one would have fancied oneself in one of the great thoroughfares of the West-end, were it not for the small size of the houses and the squalid appearance of the inhabitants.

They had passed the boundary between wealth and poverty, between vice and crime.

They were now in a new world, among a race of men who were governed by different customs, by different fashions, by different codes of morality from those of civilised London.

They had crossed the frontier of Aldgate pump, and had reached the land of costermongers and thieves.

They were in Whitechapel.

It is strange what distinctive features different parts of London have.

There is a mixed population in every district, more or less, and there are unfortunately dishonest people in every quarter of this great metropolis; but the unrighteous congregate thickly in many districts which appear to be the homes of the lawless.

At one time Westminster had an unenviable reputation, at another time Whitefriars, which was known by the name of Alsatia. St. Giles’s, and the Dials, and many other parts of London have still an unwholesome odour.

An interesting book might be written by detectives, who are for ever engaged in searching for thieves in their well-known resorts.

It was Saturday night when the boy and his mistress arrived at Whitechapel, and the street they were in, which was as broad as Piccadilly, presented an extraordinary appearance.

Butchers’ stalls extended down to a considerable distance; the pavements were lined with retailers of fried fish and potatoes, of fruit and vegetables, and a thousand miscellaneous wares, which were displayed to view by means of stout brown paper candles, which, prepared in a peculiar manner, afforded an excellent light.

In some cases the vendors of wares made use of naphtha lamps in lieu of the candles.

Alf Purvis was watching this scene from the window of the cab with great delight, for he was familiar with the neighbourhood, which reminded him of the poor bird-catcher, who had brought him up to London.

“You know this part of London――don’t you?” enquired Laura Stanbridge.

“Yes, marm, very well. Whitechapel was the first place I came to after leaving the farmer.”

“Ah――so I think you told me.”

The cab now suddenly wheeled to the right, and went through a labyrinth of dark and wretched streets, in which nothing could be seen except a few shops full of rags and bones, and placards offering a farthing a pound for the bones, and a penny for the rags.

The cab stopped at the corner, and the driver came round and opened the door.

“Will you get out here,” said he, addressing himself to the young lady, “or shall I drive further on?”

“I think this will be near enough for my purpose,” she answered. “We are close to Little Mint-street?”

“Yes――quite close.”

“Good, then, we’ll alight;” and, springing out, the lady walked down the street with the assurance of one who was well acquainted with the locality.

Alf followed his mistress. He did not know what was about to happen, but had some misgivings.

For the locality he had no predilection, for his early experience of it had taught him that it was a place to be avoided; but, situated as he was, he had no other alternative left than to merely submit to the dictates of his patroness.

After a few minutes he heard a whistle and the rumbling of a train. He started, and said――

“There’s some railway here, I s’pose?

“Yes,” returned his companion, “the Blackwall. We shall get under it presently.”

By the light of a lamp he saw a smile pass over her features.

A strange feeling of doubt and mistrust took possession of him.

“Why was he brought hither? It seemed most singular.”

They were soon beneath the arch of the railway, when, instead of passing through it, Miss Stanbridge turned and pointed to the right.

Alf shuddered. They were standing at the mouth of a narrow street, as black and repulsive as a cavern.

It ran under the railway for some distance, the archway being propped up by iron posts.

Thus this street was always dark――it was a tomb; its inhabitants were buried alive, the only sun was the hot blaze of the engines which passed over their heads.

“What a queer street for people to live in!” exclaimed Alf. “I didn’t know there was such a street.”

“Didn’t you? Well, we live and learn. The people are as queer as the habitations,” returned his mistress, with a merry laugh.

Alf thought there was not much to laugh at. In fact, he was more disposed to feel dispirited and depressed.

This was not to be wondered at, for the locality was a perfect den of iniquity. The street was inhabited chiefly by women, who were the most abandoned and criminal of their sex; they were foul abusive creatures, and here they lived――a republic of demons.

The boy felt intuitively that he was in the unwholesome atmosphere which was breathed by the very worst of the human species. He shuddered and crept close to his companion, who took him by the hand and led him along the street.

“You seem to be a little disconcerted,” said she. “What’s the matter, Alf?”

“I shall be glad when we are out of this vile street,” he returned.

“Oh, don’t be alarmed, my boy――there’s no one will harm you.”

“I don’t like the place,” cried Alf.

If he had been disgusted with the place upon first making its acquaintance, he was still more so as he proceeded along.

At the sound of strange steps lights gleamed on all sides, and women emerged from every door. Many of them were only partially clothed, and the appearance they presented was perfectly loathsome. Their faces were swollen with drink, and the expression of their features was simply disgusting.

They surrounded Alf like a set of harpies, and he became positively frightened.

Laura Stanbridge, however, came to his rescue. She spoke to them in an authoritative tone, which could not be misunderstood by them, albeit the language she made use of was not comprehended by the boy.

Her words, however, seemed to have the desired effect, for the wretched besotted creatures parted on one side, and let the two passengers pass without any attempt at further molestation.

Alf Purvis was delighted when they came to a small lane branching out of the street under the railway. This was as dark as Erebus.

There were no lights and no houses, only a dead wall on each side.

“Well, this beats all,” cried the boy. “This is a place.”

“Yes,” murmured his mistress. “We must be careful how we proceed along.”

She produced a bull’s-eye lantern from her pocket, and made the light therefrom precede her as she walked.

“Isn’t there danger?” inquired her companion.

“None in the least.”

“Oh, I’m glad to hear that.”

The lane ended in a yard and in a tall dingy house, which appeared as if it had been uninhabited for years.

Taking a stone from the ground, Laura Stanbridge knocked several times against the door, and then, pausing for a moment, gave a single rap.

“Are we to go in here, then?” inquired the boy.

“Yes, certainly. This is our destination.”

The door swung open, and they entered.

But they had not yet gained the unhallowed precincts of the mysterious habitation.

Alf was watching the movements of his mistress with evident anxiety.

Another door was before them with a glass window above it.

Miss Stanbridge wetted her finger and rubbed it across the window in such a way as to elicit a loud screeching noise.

The effect of this was magical.

A face appeared at the window, which was protected by huge iron bars.

“Who’s there, and what’s your business?” said a voice.

“A lady and a lad on the fly,” returned Miss Stanbridge.

“It’s the voice of the duchess,” said the voice above.

“Yes, it’s the duchess,” answered Laura. “All right.”

The door was opened, and they went down some steps into a large room.

Alf’s eyes wandered over this with all the curiosity of a lad who finds himself in a scene which is new and strange to him.

His companion, however, seemed perfectly at her ease, and the most noticeable features of the apartment were quite familiar to her.

There were two long tables from fireplace to fireplace, running parallel with each other.

They were laid with greasy napkins, iron plates, chipped tea cups filled with salt, two small stone jars filled with mustard, and knives and forks chained to the table.

A number of candles in the shades nailed to the wall, lighted the room. These being never snuffed were appropriately invested with thieves, which streamed in large flakes upon the floor, the seats, and the backs of the guests.

In this place professional thieves and ruffians of every description were accustomed to congregate, and here numberless robberies were concocted. It was the resort of lawless men, who waged ceaseless war against society.

Here they were accustomed to boast of their exploits as if robbery was a thing to be proud of. The place was a foul den, a very plague-spot――which, however, it seemed out of the power of anybody to remove.

The police knew perfectly well that it was the resort of thieves, but for some reason or another it seemed to be beyond the reach of the law. There are hundreds of similar places in London.

One fireplace was black and empty, but the other blazed with an enormous fire――the temple of a blear-eyed salamander-like old woman, upon whom were fixed, in one long look of hunger and anxiety, the eyes of a vast assemblage of men and women who were seated at two tables, clad in disguises at once loathsome and appalling.

“He’s not a bad sort,” said a black-bearded man to Miss Stanbridge, “him as keeps this ’ere establishment――he’ll do a bloke a good turn at times.”

“Yes, so I’ve heard,” she answered.

The man went on:――

“He’s one of your rough and ready customers, but he’s none of your smile-in-the-face-and-cut-your-throat blokes, for all his ugly mug and swivel eye.”

“Where is he?” inquired Alf, who began to be interested.

“Aint here at present, young shaver,” answered the man; “leastways I don’t see him anywhere in the room.”

“And who are those persons?” inquired the boy, nodding towards the group at the table.

“Those? Oh, they are cadgers,” answered the man, with something like contempt in his tone, “only cadgers.”

The waitress of this delectable establishment, “Limpey Meg,” as she was usually termed, now came towards them, flourishing in her hand a brown napkin.

“Well, Meg; still as nimble on your pins as ever?” cried the dark-bearded man. What’s the news, lass? All quiet? Any ‘crushers’ been here?”

“No, never a one,” answered Meg; “all quiet, plenty of business, and no inquiries, that’s the way to say it,” she added with another flourish of the napkin.

In a few minutes after this a yell was raised, the tables were covered with joints and vegetables served up on iron dishes. It was not long before they were all served, and it was a strange sound to hear the noisy clattering of knives and forks upon the iron dishes, and the tinkling of the chains.

Laura and her protégé watched all these proceedings, none of the dinner party taking the slightest notice of them――indeed, they did not appear to be conscious of their presence, albeit, the boy’s companion was known to the majority if not to all of them.

Presently Limping Meg came forward again and spoke in a respectful manner, and in an under-tone to Miss Stanbridge.

“Ax yer parding, marm, but perhaps you might be a wanting to see the Smoucher?”

“Where is he, Meg?”

“He’s up in his room with the cracksman, and a lot more. They be full o’ b’isness.”

“He’ll find time to see me, I daresay,” returned Alf’s mistress.

She passed through a large apartment and went upstairs to a room on the first story, which was small and almost filled with ragged men and women.

In this room also was the dark-bearded man whom Alf had conversed with below.

“What are they doing, sir?” inquired the boy.

“Making a cadger,” returned the man who then whispered to a short, thick-set fellow next to him, who whispered to somebody else, and Alf heard them saying as they glanced at his mistress――

“That’s Laura Stanbridge, the most famous she-fence in London, and she cuts it fat at the West-end of the town.”

Then the men nodded mysteriously to one another.

Laura, however, did not seem to hear what they said. If she did she deemed it prudent to keep silent.

The most noticeable person in the room was a thin-featured man with a bushy beard, seated at a small table; low cunning was depicted on his ferret-like features. In front of him, on the table at which he was writing, was a bundle of papers; by the side of the man was a pale boy in rags.

Alf looked inquiringly at his mistress, who informed him in a low whisper that the man with the grey beard was known as the Smoucher. He was a writer of begging-letter petitions, and was employed in fabricating all sorts of documents for the brotherhood who frequented the establishment.

He was, in fact, the accredited secretary to thieves of all denominations. He was thoroughly versed in flash language, and sometimes the epistles he wrote were couched in language which, to the uninitiated, would be quite unintelligible.

We give two specimens, with translations of the same, of the phraseology made use of by thieves, and the reader may rest assured that these are reprints from documents which have been found on the persons of criminals.

FLASH LANGUAGE.

“DEAR DICK,――I have seen the swag chovey bloke who christened the yacks quick. I gave him a double finnip. I am now on the shallow. I have got the yacks, so do not come it fight cocum. I am at the old padding ken, next door to puddling crib. I am gadding the hoof, but quick be a duffer, now on the square. I want a stalsman buttoner to nail prads. I last week worked the nulls. I have lost my joiner mun now.”

TRANSLATION.

DEAR DICK,――I have seen the person who bought the watches, and he altered the name in them immediately. I gave him a ten pound note for doing it. I am now going half naked to avoid suspicion. I have got the watches back again――therefore do not turn informer. Be wary and sly. I am stopping at the old lodging-house, next door to the boys’ lodging-house. Do not say a word, but be very quiet. I am going about without shoes, but shall soon turn hawker. I am at present honest. I want a partner. Will you come and join me, and then we will commence stealing horses? I last week got through a great many bad five shilling pieces. I have left my fancy girl. Be sure you say nothing.

Another:――

DEAR BILL,――I have seen Cheeks. You must meet us at the old mushroom faker’s at eleven; if not there go to the old padding ken――bring all your screws. The case of a bloak is planted, to be cracked, plenty of finnips, also some long tailed ones; be mum with your joiner, fight cocum, and be cocum with boozing kens, only a bloak and a shikster in the case, except a pig. Be cocum crabshells; a goun off was last week booked by a fly through crabs. I have seen a kidsman, who will fence two finnips three finnips. There are no flys about.

TRANSLATION.

DEAR WILLIAM,――I have seen “Cheeks” (a flash name for an accomplice), and you must meet us at the old umbrella mender’s at eleven o’clock, and if we are not there go to the old lodging house. Bring with you all your housebreaking instruments. We have arranged to break the house of a gentleman who has plenty of five pound notes, and also some large bank notes. Be sure you do not name this to your fancy girl. Be careful what you do, and keep from drinking shops. There is nothing in the house but a gentleman and a lady and another person. Do not put on your own shoes, a brother thief did last week and was taken by a policeman. I have seen a person who trains boys to thieve, who will take all the five pound notes at ten pounds for fifteen. There are no policemen in the neighbourhood.

The den of mystery to which Laura Stanbridge had paid a visit contained ruffians of every conceivable description.

Lolling in an arm-chair behind the table, with a huge junk of bread and meat in one hand, and a glass of gin and water in the other, and a short black pipe in his mouth, was a burly ruffian, with strength written in his brawny arms and broad shoulders and prominent heaving chest, with villainy in his deep hollow eyes and his cropped black whiskers and eyebrows, which were half an inch apart.

This was the cracksman――a famous burglar, and a pal of the Smoucher in all the lays which the latter devised and the former accomplished.

This huge miscreant had been at one time a boon companion and accomplice of Gregson, whom he resembled in a remarkable degree.

The untimely end of the Bristol Badger failed to have the slightest effect in turning this callous criminal from his evil ways.

“Now, young man,” said the Smoucher, looking up from his papers, “you said you could read, I think?”

“Yes, a little, sir. I’ve been to school.”

“All right, so much the better; nothing like education. Your friends say you are to try your luck at cadging in the country, where people’s green and food’s cheap. Take this paper and chalk up on the post of every door you go to one of these marks, according to the character of the people you meet with there; that will act as a clue to any brother cadger who may chance to come after you as to what treatment they are likely to expect.”

The paper contained a series of marks or signs, which are known only to cadgers.

The boy took the paper and thrust it into his pocket.

The man at the table then gave him several recipes for disfiguring his body so as to present the appearance of burns or scalds, together with other accidents, all of which he laid down to his young pupil in a most systematic business-like manner.

Alf Purvis was astonished at these mysterious proceedings, but he remained silent.

A man now came up to the table and said to the Smoucher――

“What do you charge for a petition?”

“Eighteen pence,” was the answer.

“Well, then, let’s have one.”

The Smoucher placed two ink bottles before him――they were filled with ink of two different shades. He then spread a bit of paper under his hand and began writing.

“He’s a stunner at using the pen,” said one, looking on. I wish I knew how to do it.”

“You’d soon find yourself in the ‘steel’ if you did, old man,” cried one of the party.

The Smoucher, having finished the document upon which he was engaged, folded up the same, creased the paper as if it had been long written, and after examining the signatures attached thereto of ministers and church-wardens, he dipped his fingers under the fireplace, and smeared it with ashes, to the infinite delight of the lookers on, who swore that there wasn’t one in twenty who wouldn’t take it for a real concern.

The man, having folded this precious document in his green kingsman or green silk pocket handkerchief, and placed it in his hat, after the manner of the Persians, departed.

A little more business was transacted in the same manner, and then the cracksman, Laura, and the boy were left alone with the smoucher.

“Well, Laura,” said the latter, in a pleased tone, “who would have thought of seeing you here, and you’ve brought a stranger with you?” he added, glancing at Alf Purvis. “He looks too genteel for this place.”

“He’s sharp, and willing to learn.”

“Ah, I see; you want him taught――wish to have him put in training, eh?”

Laura Stanbridge nodded.

“Well, if you mean business, he must be brought regularly up to the trade――or profession, more properly speaking.”

“Certainly, that is right enough.”

“And who do you think of binding him to?”

“That’s just the question I was going to ask you.”

“Me? I don’t know what answer to make.”

The Smoucher leant his head on his hand and began to ruminate.

“There’s a gentleman we both on us know,” said the cracksman, “an’ both on us respect. His name is Mathew Furness. He began life as a half shallow in the streets; from a shiverer he became a cadger, from a cadger he became duffer (pedlar), from a duffer he became an area sneak, a shop bouncer, and a fogle-tugger. From a fogle-tugger he became a swell mobbite, and then a rampsman, and then a cracksman. He has ascended from the very foot to the very summit of his honourable and scientific profession. And besides that he is up to all the other little games of life that are worth knowing. He has been a ‘shoful man’ and a ‘smasher,’ and a racecourse flat-catcher, and he’s as famed a fence as Ikey Solomon or Laura Stanbridge, the Swell-street (West-end) Adam Tiler.”

“There’s no doubt Matt’s a great man――a very great man,” said the cracksman, meditatively.

“And who so well adapted to take my young gentleman in hand?” cried Miss Stanbridge.

The Smoucher had not vouchsafed any reply to the adulatory harangue.

“The only question is, will he do so?” said Laura.

“I’ll do my best,” returned the man of many letters.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort. Not if I know it,” cried a voice from the further end of the room.

The speaker was the landlord of the establishment. He had short black crisp hair, a swivel eye, and his features were certainly not handsome.

“Well I am blest, this beats cockfighting,” cried the burglar. “What business is it of yourn, Sam?”

“I’ll make it my business,” returned the landlord. “It shan’t be done, I tell ye. I wont have anything of the sort take place in my house. We all know what we are, but that’s no reason a younker like that, who in all likelihood is gently bred and born, should be ruined for life.”

“There’s an end of the matter, Sam,” said the Smoucher. “I for one wont have any hand in the business.”

The tables were suddenly turned. The landlord’s word was law; he held the life and liberty of his customers in his hand, and if he chose to round on them it would go hard with all.

Miss Stanbridge was unprepared for this issue. She took the boy by the hand and led him out of the room.

“I hope you’ll have a better office when you come here again,” cried the landlord as she descended the stairs.

She made no reply, but went into the room below.

While all this had been taking place a woman had been stationed outside the den of iniquity, clinging to the iron railings which ran round the front of the habitation; her eyes were directed towards the windows which shone so brightly.

She watched intently, but could not see the groups of persons in the large room, but she heard the confused sounds as of many voices.

She heard also obscene and blasphemous ribaldry, which were greeted with shouts of horrible laughter.

She clung closer to the railings, and heaved a deep sigh.

A boy’s voice clear and melodious rang from that abode of infamy and crime, and soared like a lark’s carol towards the sky; but although the voice was musical it was sullied by the words which it pronounced.

The woman heard the voice. In her eyes shone a strange and lurid light. She moaned upon the pavement, and tore her grey hairs while the tears poured down her cheeks.

Had any one seen this strange woman their hearts would have been moved to pity, so supremely wretched did she appear.

“He is there with the pestiferous odious crew of wretches,” exclaimed the woman. “He is there――I hear his voice. Ah, why do I love this boy? What secret and unknown power is it that draws me like a loadstone to this accursed spot? I cannot help it. Why do I take an interest in this poor lad? He is naught to me, and I dare not see him again. I am in her power, and she has neither pity or remorse.”

The woman arose, pressed her hands to her temples, and shuddered.

Taking one last lingering glance at the thieves’ haunt she turned, and hastily left the spot.

Laura Stanbridge and Alf passed through the den, and walked on till they came within sight of the cab, which was waiting for them. They entered the vehicle in question, and were driven rapidly home.

Soon after this the first streaks of dawn and yellow glimmers of light appeared above the housetops.

And the creatures of vice were creeping back to their homes with pale and haggard countenance; and the creatures of labour were rising while it was yet dark, and the great city was waking once more to its toils and its sorrows, its pleasures and its sins.

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LII. THE EARL AND HIS GRAND-DAUGHTER

We have now to return to other characters in our story.

Aveline Gatcliffe made a protracted stay at Broxbridge Hall. Like a giddy moth she fluttered around the candles of the rich and great, and in her new sphere of action felt something like pride and satisfaction.

She was made much of not only by the old nobleman, but by his visitors――by the vicar, the lawyer, and a host of other people――so that she was fain to stop very much longer than she had at first contemplated.

Lord Ethalwood talked to her of the great world――of its brilliant pleasures and its honours. He told her how such beauty as hers would command universal homage; that in London, even amidst the noblest of ladies, she would be a queen.

He tempted her with the most costly jewels, with the most magnificent dresses and lavished luxury upon her.

She had the use of a luxurious carriage; she had servants to wait upon her, hand and foot.

He tempted her through her love of the beautiful; he surrounded her with everything that was most graceful and choice; he cultivated her taste, and he spoke highly of her appreciation.

He tempted her through the innate refinement that had always distinguished her――he ministered to her in every possible way. He spoke always with the greatest contempt of poverty, of all approaches to vulgarity, and he spoke with the most condescending pity of those whose position in life was inferior to his own.

Day by day Aveline loved her new life more and more; it was so pleasant to wander in those splendid grounds, under the shade of the ancestral trees; it was so pleasant to live in those delightful rooms, with their thick, soft carpets, their superb furniture, those rare pictures and the profusion of flowers――to have carriages, horses, jewels, dresses, every luxury that imagination could devise.

It was so pleasant always to have a purse full of money, to know that she had never to trouble about ways and means, to have respect, homage, flattery shown to her.

She thought with a shudder of the little cottage at Wood Green; she contrasted her husband, in his working clothes, with the polished gentlemen she saw around her.

She was weak of soul, weak of purpose, weak of heart, weak of will. The past, with its poverty and privations, became hateful to her. She loved the present, she dreaded the thought of returning to her humble home, of giving up her jewels, of growing again accustomed to an obscure life. How she would miss the grandeur, the luxury, the magnificence of Broxbridge Hall!

Yet she loved Tom, loved him as dearly and deeply as her light nature would allow her to love. There were nights when her pillow was wet with tears, when she sobbed as though her heart would break, but with the morning sunshine these thoughts would be scattered and dispelled.

She never forgot her husband. There was hardly an hour in which her heart did not turn to dear Tom, but she was vain, fond of luxury, easily persuaded, and the love of self, the love of wealth and magnificence, was stronger than her love for him.

Then, when Lord Ethalwood thought the love of present surroundings had taken deep root, he again addressed her in reference to the all-important subject.

Aveline and her child had been looking over a book with characters cunningly wrought on vellum. It contained the chronicles of the house of Ethalwood, and had been the work of years.

The earlier chronicles dated back some centuries, and the missal, which was quaint and curious, had been originally commenced by an old monk. Lord Ethalwood explained to his grand-daughter the many parts of the volume which were to her unintelligible.

“My child, my own Aveline,” said the Earl, closing the volume, “it is fit and proper that you should know something of your illustrious ancestors, especially as this little fellow is destined, by God’s blessing, to carry on the line in his person. Have you thought, my darling pet, of what I hinted at during the first few days of your visit?” said he, in a more serious tone.

“Thought!” cried she. “Alas, my lord, I have thought of many things――indeed, to say the truth, I am always thinking.”

“You are now in your proper sphere,” he said, quickly, “and I hope and trust you have no desire to leave it.”

“No,” she answered, hesitatingly. “No, my lord, I should be ungrateful indeed if I did, but then there’s my husband.”

Lord Ethalwood held up his hand reprovingly.

“I charge you, Aveline, as you love this boy, as you respect me, not to mention that man’s name in my presence.” He said this in so severe a tone that Aveline grew alarmed.

She fell on her knees before the earl, and placed her hand softly on his.

“Oh, sir!――oh, my lord!” she ejaculated. “Pity and pardon me. I did not mean to offend you――indeed I did not, but――――”

“But what, Aveline?” he inquired, coldly.

“I fear you will be angered.”

“No, go on. Be frank with me.”

“I am sure, my lord, you are of too generous and just a nature to blame any woman having some consideration for her husband, whom she has sworn to honour, love, and obey.”

“This is simply ridiculous. You must have been reading some highly-coloured romance, or perchance a melodrama. Let us return to sense and reason. I will not attempt to influence you――will not make use of either threats or entreaties. I will simply lay before you both paths in life; you shall choose as you will. You must either give up your husband, or――give up me!”

“Ah! my lord, you cannot mean it?”

“I do. I am not accustomed to say what I do not mean.”

“I am well assured of that, my lord,” she answered; “but you are not unreasonable, and will have some consideration for your grand-daughter, who has every desire to please you and to act in accordance with your expressed wishes.”

“Pause, my child,” said the earl, “and sit ye down. If you have every desire――which I do not doubt――to listen to my counsel, I shall not have any reason to complain or be dissatisfied; but promises are one thing, and performance another.”

“I hope you do not think so badly of me as to suppose I should forfeit my word.”

“I have the best opinion of you,” said Lord Ethalwood, handing his fair companion a seat; “but for divers reasons, Aveline, I must be plain with you,” he added. “I shall not seek to influence you. I simply lay both paths in life before you. It is for you to make your election. If you make up your mind to return, and take your boy with you, so be it――I will not reproach you; but for his sake, if for none other, I charge you to duly consider this matter.”

“I have considered it.”

“With what result?”

“Oh, sir, I am in duty bound to obey you; but this is my first visit. You can have no possible objection to my returning to Wood Green for awhile, and consulting my husband.”

“Oh, as to that, I must admit that your request is but reasonable. You are at liberty to return whenever you please; but as to taking the advice of a man who is so immeasurably inferior to me and mine, that is not to be thought of.”

“I do not mean to take his advice. All I desire is to explain to him how I am situated.”

“Ah, I understand. You can explain to him, but I suppose you propose returning to your proper sphere. I have already told you that your fate is in your own hands. You have to choose between rank and wealth, poverty and obscurity. Do not think I shall ever change, my dear Aveline. If you desire to remain with this young engineer, so be it. If, on the contrary, you decide to remain with me, I will make you heiress of all my fortune, and your son shall be my heir-at-law. You shall have every advantage I can offer you. I will find some lady accustomed to the usages of good society and the ways of the world, to give you two or three months’ instruction, so that you may be fitted to mix with the proudest in the land, and then next season you shall go to London. You shall be mistress of Broxbridge Hall and one of the most magnificent mansions in the metropolis.

“You shall be a queen, a leader of fashion, you shall have unlimited wealth, more than you can possibly desire, and your boy, your beautiful child, shall succeed to a large fortune.”

The face of Aveline Gatliffe flushed as she listened, and then grew suddenly pale.

“And what is the condition of all this, my lord?” she inquired.

The earl did not make any immediate reply. He gazed intently in her face as if he would read her innermost thoughts――then, after a pause, said, in a firm tone of voice――

“That you give up your husband, who――but I need not tell you what he is――and be with me, be my adopted daughter.”

“The proposal is cruelly hard.”

“Not so hard as you think,” he rejoined. “Rank always has its penalties. How many queens have married for the good of their kingdom, and have given up the men they really loved? How many noble ladies at the call of duty have married men whom they have positively disliked? You do not understand these things, my dear Aveline. Not at present, but let us hope you will do so in good time.”

“I confess I do not,” she answered, sadly.

“Well, my darling, you are not required to suffer in a like degree. You have but to leave a man whose tastes, habits, and manners do not and cannot possibly accord with your own.”

“I have never had any reason to complain of my husband,” she answered quickly.

“Bah!” he ejaculated, “do not offend me by laudatory encomiums on one who is so far beneath you; but enough of this. You must think this matter seriously over, my dear Aveline. You know my wishes, and I do hope and trust you will endeavour to act in accordance with them.

“I shall do my best,” she answered, sadly; “but I suppose you will not forbid my returning to Wood Green for a short time――only for a short time?”

“I should not be justified in refusing this request,” he murmured, bending over her and kissing her fondly. “I am an old man, Aveline,” he observed, thoughtfully, “and the few years that may be yet in store for me would be brightened by your presence. Think of that, my child, and do not deem me harsh or exacting. Your husband I can never receive. Weigh the matter well over before you decide. For both our sakes it would be desirable that you should follow my advice, but I leave it for you to determine; and so, my child, return to your home at Wood Green as soon as you please, but remember all I have said to you.”

Aveline Gatliffe rose from her seat, embraced the old nobleman, and crept softly out of the library.

Later in the day Mr. Chicknell made his appearance at Broxbridge――the earl had sent a telegram to him to come down as soon as possible to the Hall.

“I am glad you’ve come, Chicknell,” said Lord Ethalwood, when the lawyer entered the library――“glad for many reasons.”

The man of parchment rubbed the palms of his hands together, and smiled grimly.

“Be seated,” said his patron.

Chicknell drew a chair towards the table and sat down.

“Well, my lord,” he murmured. “Is everything going on as you desire?”

“Pretty well. You have not seen this young man, I suppose?”

“I have not deemed it expedient to do so at present――not till I received further commands from your lordship.”

“You have acted with your usual discretion.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“But a truce to compliments. Let us to business. My grand-daughter is desirous of returning to Wood Green.”

[Sidenote: No. 25.]

“Ah!” ejaculated the attorney.

“Yes, but only for a time. Understand that, only for a short period.”

The lawyer nodded.

“I think she is disposed to accede to my wishes――at least, that is my impression.”

“I am delighted to hear it.”

“Well, this being so, I have thought it best to humour her; let her have her own way; she’ll soon be glad to return to Broxbridge.”

“You think so?”

“I feel assured of it; but that is not of any immediate moment. What I have sent to you for is to beg a favour.”

“There is no favour Lord Ethalwood can possibly require from so poor an individual as myself.”

“Aye, but there is. What I want you to do is to escort my grand-daughter to her husband’s house. After then it would be advisable for you to see Mrs. Maitland, who, from what I have heard, is a sensible worthy woman. Wrench spoke in the highest terms of her.”

“I will make it my business to see her.”

“Yes, and you can explain many things which may be most important for her to know――such as our relative positions, my determination as regards this low-bred fellow, my wish to place Aveline in her proper sphere; and in addition to all this you may tell her that the only way open to effect this desirable object is for this young man to give up all claim upon the lady who has demeaned herself by becoming his wife. I leave the matter for you to arrange. I don’t mind allowing this young fellow a handsome income; in point of fact I commission you to arrange with him. If he is open to reason I will settle a certain sum on him for the remainder of his life, provided he agrees to sign a deed of separation.”

“I’ll do my best to carry out your wishes, but the task is by no means an easy one.”

“Tut, man, I’ll dare be sworn it is much easier than we either of us anticipate. Fellows of his class are not likely to refuse a competency for life. If you play your cards well the matter will be easy enough. A deed of separation, signed by both parties, would be most desirable. Don’t you see that, Chicknell?”

“Doubtless it would, as far as you yourself are concerned.”

“You are not wanting in penetration, and are well adapted to bring this affair to a successful issue. Nay, I am sure you will be able to do so if you choose,” said Lord Ethalwood, with pointed emphasis.

“If I choose,” repeated the lawyer. “I do hope your lordship will do me the justice in believing that I shall not shrink from the performance of what I deem a duty.”

“I am sure of that; pardon my expressing any doubt, but to say the truth, Chicknell, I appear to be full of doubts and fears. Aveline must return――that is quite certain. She must see this low-bred fellow whom she calls her husband, but she will return to Broxbridge. I feel assured of that, for she has pledged her word, which I do not think she is likely to forfeit, and in addition to this there are other cogent and weighty reasons for her to seek the hospitable walls of her ancestors.”

Mr. Chicknell bowed, and said he quite coincided with his lordship in the opinion he had expressed.

In two days after this conversation Aveline Gatliffe and her little boy left Broxbridge under the charge of Mr. Chicknell, who accompanied them to Wood Green.

Upon arriving at their destination they found nobody at the little cottage, save a little girl, who had been engaged by Mrs. Maitland to wait upon Gatliffe, who was expected home in about an hour.

Aveline took off her things, and awaited the return of her husband.

The lawyer paid a diplomatic visit to Mrs. Maitland.

Tom Gatliffe’s joy knew no bounds when he beheld his wife and child seated in the parlour.

The meeting between husband and wife was of a tender and touching nature.

The former seemed almost beside himself with joy――the latter, however, although as affectionate as could very well be desired, displayed at times a certain restraint.

“You have come back, my own darling Aveline,” exclaimed Gatliffe, “and will, I think, never leave me again.”

His wife made no reply to this.

“Eh, dearest?” he again murmured. “Do you mean never to leave me again.”

“Well, Tom, that depends upon circumstances you know. I cannot promise――indeed it would be unjust and wrong to do so. The earl, my grandfather, is an old man, and old people are at times whimsical. I fear I shall have to return.”

A dark shade passed over the features of the engineer, who looked hard at the speaker.

“Have to return?” he murmured.

“I suppose so; but don’t let us trouble ourselves about that.”

She placed her arms round the neck of her husband, who for her sake forbore from asking any further questions.

For some days after Aveline’s return nothing occurred to disturb the harmony of her small domestic circle; albeit the engineer could not fail to note the air of refinement which seemed to surround his wife, and pervade all her actions. He grew alarmed.

There came one evening when Tom Gatliffe sat in his garden a prey to most anxious thoughts. The sun was setting, and the birds were singing in the green depths of the trees.

He had returned home that evening, and had found Aveline with a sad pale face standing listlessly at the cottage window.

The smile that usually greeted him was absent from her pale face.

He loved her too fondly to offer any remonstrance――he went up to her and embraced her tenderly.

She appeared listless and abstracted, and took but little notice of his endearments.

He was pained and troubled, and said, after a pause――

“My dear, you don’t appear to be well. Are you poorly?”

“No――oh, dear, no,” she exclaimed, flinging her arms round his neck, with a low passionate cry, and hiding her face against his shoulder.

“I am sure you are not well,” he repeated. “Something’s the matter.”

“There is nothing the matter――nothing at all. What puts such a thought into your head? You seem to have such strange fancies.”

“Me, fancies?”

“Well, yes――more than you used to have.”

“My dear girl, what will you say next?” he exclaimed, with a hollow attempt at a laugh, which, to say the truth, was a dismal failure, for deep down in the bottom of his heart sat fear――a terrible, nameless, ill-defined fear.

“I cannot quite understand you, Aveline,” he said sadly. “You are so changed, so variable, so unlike your own sweet self. One moment you are here with your arms clasped round my neck; the next, you are cold and reserved, and as haughty as though you were a princess and I your slave. At times you seem to love me; and then, again, you seem to despise me. I cannot make it out. One day I think you are perfectly happy; the next, you are silent and engrossed with melancholy thoughts. Aveline, there must be a cause for all this. You are tired of your husband, and feel it hard to dwell in this humble abode. Tell me if this is not so? I can bear it. Do not hesitate to speak the truth; for it is far better for me to know the worst than be kept in a state of suspense.”

She clasped her arms round his neck and said he was the dearest, best, and truest of husbands.

He sighed deeply as he soothed her. What had come to this lovely young wife of his?

He little dreamed of the terrible struggle in the heart of her whom he had believed at one time to be all his own.

“I am afraid to say what I think,” cried Gatliffe, “and perhaps it had better remain unsaid.”

“I wish you to say what you think. Nothing would please me better,” she answered. “Tell me what it is.”

“Why, that you are more attached to your grandfather than your husband.”

“Ah, shame upon you to make such an observation!” cried she.

“I hope I am not mistaken. But tell me, has this proud earl ever invited me to his grand house?”

The young wife’s face became suffused with a deep blush. She hardly knew what reply to make.

“Oh, I am convinced he has not,” said Gatliffe.

“No, he has not.”

“He need not be afraid. I am not good enough for him, and shall never trouble him,” he exclaimed, with something like bitterness in his tone.

Aveline was pained. She could not find it in her heart to make her husband acquainted with the insurmountable barrier which separated him from the earl――a barrier which nothing could remove.

It seemed to her that her very soul was rent in twain.

She longed, with an intensity of longing, for the wealth, the position, the grandeur, which she had left behind at Broxbridge.

It seemed so cruel that she should be deprived of all these glorious advantages because she loved her husband, and was constrained from a sense of duty to remain with him.

How happy would she be, installed at Broxbridge as mistress of the grand old mansion!

No wonder, when she thought of this, that she grew sad, silent, and unhappy.

The little cottage became unbearable then, the needful little economies most hateful, the husband for whom she was sacrificing so much a source of aversion.

Then a sudden fit of remorse would seize her――she would prove her love for him by every possible means――she would laugh and sing, all to show him that she was happy――she would utter a thousand little extravagances about their little home and her affection for it.

And then would follow the reaction, and she would be intensely wretched again.

So matters went on for three long weeks, until her health began to give way.

A nobler woman, having once determined to make the sacrifice, would have abided by it; not so with her, however――she wavered even while she believed herself most firm.

She looked ill――her face was always either flushed or white, her hands trembled; she was nervous, hysterical, and unlike herself.

In vain her husband tried everything to please her; he was, if possible, more unhappy than herself.

She could not be contented with her lot at Wood Green. It was not possible for her to forget Broxbridge and its surroundings.

It had been such a glimpse of paradise to her. Now the gates were shut and she was debarred from entering.

So the fourth week dawned.

She was in receipt of a letter from the earl. It was couched in the most affectionate terms. In it the writer inquired when she would return to the home of her ancestors.

She did not deem it prudent to show this epistle to her husband, as his name was not mentioned therein, but it contained an intimation that Mr. Chicknell would pay her an early visit.

Meanwhile the astute lawyer had been endeavouring to bring Mrs. Maitland over to the earl’s way of thinking.

He had not as yet made known to the lady his client’s proposition for a deed of separation.

Matters were not ripe enough for that at present. He must play with fish before he landed it.

Mrs. Maitland, who was honest and straightforward, besought him to speak plainly but kindly to the young engineer. She said that perhaps it would be best for all parties if Tom Gatliffe consented to Aveline taking up her abode at Broxbridge――that is assuming the earl was obdurate, and no other course remained open.

Mr. Chicknell paid many visits to Mrs. Maitland, and felt assured she would do her best in bringing matters to a satisfactory issue.

While all this had been going on, Tom Gatliffe could not conceal from himself that his wife was in a great measure estranged from him.

It was painfully evident that she yearned to be again at Broxbridge.

How all this would end it was not so easy to say.

One morning, before Gatliffe had started to the works, Mr. Chicknell presented himself, and demanded to see the owner of the cottage.

Gatliffe received him stiffly, but courteously.

The lawyer was a wary old soldier, who was not accustomed to jump at a sudden proposition or conclusion.

After some preliminary remarks he told Gatliffe that Earl Ethalwood was ill, and that he most particularly desired to see his grand-daughter.

He laid a great stress on this last word.

A feeling as of sudden faintness came over the engineer.

“Wishes to see my wife, sir?” he said quickly.

“Yes, if you can spare her for a few days, it would be deemed a special favour. You see, my young friend, the earl has been accustomed to receive homage and obedience from his inferiors, and, indeed, from his equals in many instances, and he is, from this very circumstance, exacting and uncompromising. I don’t say it disrespectfully――for a more honourable gentleman does not live――but he is headstrong and self-willed, and cannot brook contradiction.”

“Ah, indeed! That is but natural, I suppose. Well, sir, what do you require――my consent to the absence of my wife?”

“Well, yes, if you have no objection.”

“Since our marriage she has been accustomed to have her own way in everything. I have never thwarted her or offered any opposition to her expressed wishes. If she wishes to go, there is an end of the matter.”

“Better ask her――hadn’t we?” returned Chicknell.

“As you please.”

Gatliffe arose from his seat, opened the door, and called his wife by her Christian name.

She hurriedly entered the parlour. At the sight of the lawyer her face became irradiated with a smile, which was not lost upon her husband, who explained to her the reason for Mr. Chicknell honouring them with a visit.

“The earl ill?” cried Aveline, in a tone of alarm. “I’m sorry indeed to hear that. Anything serious?”

“Ahem! No, nothing very serious. His medical attendant says he requires rest, and a change of air when he gets better. There’s nothing to be alarmed at――that is, as far as I can learn. And so what say you, my dear lady?” inquired the lawyer, in oleaginous accents.

“As far as I am individually concerned, I should hasten at once to Broxbridge,” answered Aveline; “but I leave it for my husband to determine.”

“He will not offer any opposition to that, I am well assured,” returned Chicknell, with a winning smile, who, throughout the interview, did his best to conciliate the engineer.

“You had better go, dear,” said the latter.

Aveline went to his side, and placing one arm round his neck as he was seated in his chair, she then, addressing the lawyer, said――

“I hope you will tell the earl, my grandfather, what a good, indulgent, kind husband I have got, for it is but right and proper he should hear this from other lips beside mine own.”

“I will tell him so, rest assured of that. Shall feel a pleasure in making this known to him,” said the lawyer.

“I cannot remain longer. My time is up, sir,” observed Gatliffe.

“Then I will not detain you,” said the lawyer. “I shall, I dare say, have occasion to see you shortly upon a little matter of business, and so farewell till we meet again.”

Soon after Gatliffe’s departure his wife and little boy started off in company with the solicitor, and reached Broxbridge Hall early in the afternoon.

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LIII. THE ALLUREMENTS OF WEALTH AND RANK――THE DESPAIRING HUSBAND

When Aveline Gatliffe arrived at the earl’s residence she found its owner by no means so poorly as she had anticipated.

Her grandfather had a slight cold, which for obvious reasons had been magnified into an attack of a much more serious nature.

His cold soon disappeared after Aveline had taken up her abode once more at Broxbridge. It was a ruse on the part of the attorney to excite sympathy――a ruse which answered his purpose very well.

Now that Earl Ethalwood had his darling Aveline once more with him he was determined not to part with her, not if he could help it, and seeing that he had wealth, station, and power, the chances were that he would be able to hold his own against any odds.

Her stay at Broxbridge was much more protracted than it had been on the occasion of her first visit, and gradually the truth began to dawn upon the engineer. Mrs. Maitland had pointed out to him the desirability of not offering any opposition to the expressed wishes of so great and influential a personage as Lord Ethalwood.

She told him that if he had proper consideration for his wife, and care for her future prospects, he would let her remain as mistress of the earl’s establishment.

At this Tom Gatliffe burst into a fit of passion, and vehemently anathmetised, not only the earl, but the aristocracy generally. He was so violent that the good lady had considerable difficulty in pacifying him.

“If she chooses to stay away of her own free will, so be it. She’ll be no wife of mine if she does――that’s all I have to say.”

“Don’t be unreasonable, Tom,” cried Mrs. Maitland. “The earl is now stricken in years, and in the common course of nature he cannot be long here. If only for your boy’s sake, you ought to give way. A grand future is before him, if the earl chooses to make him his heir, which he has promised to do.”

“What have I done that I should be cast adrift? Why am I not permitted to enter the house of which my wife is supposed to be mistress? Tell me that.”

“You have not done anything, but the earl has a prejudice.”

“Against whom?”

“Against all who are not nobly born. It is altogether most unfortunate as far as you are concerned, but you must remember, Tom, I never deceived you. I told you all about Aveline when you proposed and asked my consent. You knew perfectly well that there was a dark, impenetrable mystery hanging over her at that time. We cannot see into futurity, and not anyone of us could have guessed that she was nobly born. Think of all these things, and be patient.”

“Patient, mother! When a man is robbed of a wife whom he dearly loves, you preach patience? I will write and ask her to come back.”

“It would not be wise to do so, but you can of course do as you think best.”

“I will write. She has been gone away seven weeks, and in none of her letters does she make the slightest allusion to returning home.”

“Well, then, write to her,” said Mrs. Maitland hastily; “write.”

Tom Gatliffe wrote a somewhat hasty epistle to his wife, in which he expressed a wish for her return. If she had made up her mind to desert him, he besought her to let him know.

In reply to this Aveline informed him that she could not leave Broxbridge without incurring the displeasure of its owner, as she had promised to obey him in all things.

At the same time she informed him that her love was as strong and powerful as ever, and that she would never voluntarily desert him. Still for the present it was expedient that they should remain separate and apart.

It cost her many a pang to indite this epistle, but the urgency of the case required it, and she had no other alternative.

The letter bewildered him. At first he could not realise it, but in a little time slowly and clearly the terrible truth came home to him.

Aveline had forsaken him for mere vanity, wealth, and luxury.

She had given him up and left him for ever.

When his mind had quite grasped that truth, a terrible cry came from his lips, and he fell into a chair in almost a prostrate condition.

When he recovered he sat for long hours in that room which was never again to be brightened by his wife’s presence.

Then hot anger, fierce invectives succeeded――anger so wild, so frantic, that he was for the time like a madman.

Who had taken his darling from him? She would not have left him of her own free will――he felt convinced of that.

Who had tempted her? He cursed the proud lord who had robbed him of his treasure.

Then he was reminded by her letter that it was of her own free will that she had done it.

She had left him that she might enjoy wealth, luxury, and splendour.

She had left him and blighted his life――had broken his heart; had slighted his love for――money!

“And what will not either man or woman do for money?” he cried, with supreme bitterness. “Anything――everything!”

He struck his forehead with his clenched fist.

“Had I handed Peace over to justice, which I ought to have done, the chances are that this fatal discovery would never have been made――for fatal it has proved to me; but it is right that I should be punished for my dissimulation and falsehood on the night of the burglary committed by that scoundrel, Peace.”

Gatliffe knew perfectly well that there was legal redress for him. He could claim his wife and claim his child, but he would not resort to such a course――he was too proud. If she had voluntarily left him, let her go.

The law of the country might force his heartless wife to return――might compel her to come back to him; but he disdained any such assistance――he held the law in contempt.

“She was light and vain,” he murmured. “She was always that ever since I’ve known her. She had my heart in her hands――that she knew well enough; she has broken it, and thrown it away. For her sake I would have borne starvation, ignominy, and death――she, with a few cool words, gives me up for money!”

Tom Gatliffe’s trouble seemed to warp and change his whole nature――it hardened him as nothing else could have done; yet to no living man did he make any complaint.

He said nothing of what had happened; he went about his work for some days as usual, but with a grim determined look on his face.

He had a strange desire. He wanted to see Peace――not that he had any respect or friendship for the man――far from it――but he wanted to know how the discovery relative to Aveline’s paternity first came about. Peace would be able to give him this information.

Meanwhile his wife was in the enjoyment of wealth, luxury, and every earthly delight and comfort; if these could give her happiness she ought to be well satisfied, and to a certain extent she was. It is true at times she confessed to herself that the part she was playing was not altogether without its darker aspects.

She had not used her husband well, and she was much surprised that he had not chosen to answer her last letter. She thought he would be sure to write――there would perhaps be a passionate appeal to her to return――a passionate cry for love and pity.

She must answer that as well as she could. The die was cast now. She was as inflexible as the earl her grandfather――for she was an Ethalwood. Poor thing, she was proud when she thought of this――it was the very nature of the Ethalwoods to be uncompromising and unyielding――therefore, come what would, she could not alter her decision.

Still it was somewhat singular that Tom should have not thought it worth while to make an appeal――it was annoying.

She waited in vain for a letter from her husband. She would have been glad to have heard from him, if it were only two or three lines just to say how he was. She was piqued, and not a little vexed; she felt hurt.

She longed to know what he thought of her conduct, what he suffered, if he was unhappy. Unknown to herself in the midst of the splendour with which she was surrounded, she was still longing for his love. What strange inconsistencies there are in the human character! Any way she could not fail to acknowledge to herself that Tom was not selfish, and she did not feel that she could say the same of those by whom she was surrounded. Her mind and thoughts might be said to be in a state of transition.

It is true that she was made an idol of in her new home――she was surrounded with stately grandeur.

If her head ached every remedy and every luxury was offered to her, but there was no Tom to soothe and comfort her until the pain had ceased.

She missed him more than words can tell, and for some little time after her last letter to him she was undergoing the pangs of remorse.

The earl, who was an adept in reading characters, saw this. He judged that the young wife could not give up her husband without experiencing some sharp pangs, and in this he was not mistaken.

He did all he could to rouse her. He gave a grand dinner party, to which the leading notabilities of the county were invited, who paid homage to the mistress of Broxbridge, to whom they were most profuse in their compliments.

The earl ordered a magnificent costume from Paris for his grand-daughter, who was delighted.

In the novelty and excitement she forgot her sorrow, and from that hour the world took possession of her.

Lord Ethalwood kept most faithfully every promise he had made her. In this respect he was the soul of honour.

He busied himself in getting together every legal proof of her identity, and in this he succeeded even beyond his anticipation.

No one could for a moment question the fact of her being veritably his grandchild.

But as the world is censorious, he deemed it advisable to put the question beyond the reach of cavillers.

Then he formally declared his great grandson his heir, and made his will, bequeathing to Aveline, his beloved grandchild, a fortune, which was to have been divided between three of his children, and which would have made each of them rich.

These arrangements seemed to give him more pleasure than they did Aveline, who felt that after all she was but a mere puppet in the hand of her courtly relative.

Nevertheless, she was thankful for the consideration displayed in so profuse and munificent a manner by the earl, who seemed so solicitous for her welfare and happiness.

Indeed, to say the truth, she seemed to be his idol.

He proposed introducing her into fashionable and aristocratic circles, but before doing this he was impressed with the necessity of placing her under the care of some experienced lady, who would induct her into the usages of what is termed good society.

At present she was natural and unsophisticated. These qualities, excellent as they were in themselves, were of no great value to one who was destined to mix with the upper classes.

No one knew this better than Lord Ethalwood, for, as we have already observed, he was a close observer of human nature.

He therefore looked about for an instructor and companion for his well-beloved grand-daughter, and he succeeded in finding the very person of all others he most desired.

Lady Marvlynn, relic of Sir Eric Marvlynn, was a lady most admirably adapted for the purpose. She knew everybody “who was worth knowing,” to use her own words, had the history and genealogy of every titled family by heart, was good-natured, loquacious, courtly, and a gossip; and the earl felt assured that she would take a pleasure in preparing his grand-daughter for the new sphere of action in which she was destined to move.

Her ladyship consented to educate the beautiful girl so as to fit her for her new position.

“She will never be accomplished,” said Lord Ethalwood. “That we cannot help. It would be useless to attempt to teach her French and German; but she knows something of music, can play tolerably well, and sings very sweetly. As for other accomplishments we must dispense with them. Teach her to take her place gracefully as mistress of my house; teach her all the little details of etiquette that every lady ought to know, and she will be no discredit either to me or her tutor――at least, I hope not.”

“She’s a charming girl――a loveable creature; so unsophisticated――so ingenuous; so much warmth of temperament――so much refinement. I am most delighted to take her under my charge, my lord; most flattered that you should have entrusted me with the pleasing task.”

“I am glad you like her, for without all would be of no avail.”

“Oh, my dear Lord Ethalwood, I undertake my duties con amore. It will be a labour of love. What am I saying? Labour, indeed; it will be recreation――a pleasant pastime for me. You know since the death of poor dear Sir Eric I have had but little to engage my thoughts――have sought in vain for an object upon whom I could place my affection. Pardon my blunder. Your grand-daughter is not an object. Ah-ah!”

And the dowager laughed immoderately at this sally.

The earl joined in chorus.

“She’s a wonderfully good-natured creature,” he murmured to himself, “and Aveline will doubtless get on very well with her.”

He was quite right in this surmise, Aveline did get on exceedingly well with the gossiping, merry, elderly lady, who had always something pleasant to say; sometimes it was about the movements of the upper ten――sometimes it was biographical or anecdotal.

In her society Aveline found the hours pass gaily and merrily away.

The result of her companionship with Lady Marvlynn was a perfect success.

The little deficiencies of manner were soon toned down, the musical voice took a more delicate and silvery tone――the actions and movements, always graceful, became more graceful in their high-bred elegance.

Aveline was so quick in learning to adapt herself to her new sphere that Lord Ethalwood wondered at her marvellous progress.

When she had been with Lady Marvlynn for three months, one might have thought that her whole life had been spent at Broxbridge.

“You have produced a visible change in the manner and demeanour of my pet,” said Lord Ethalwood; “I cannot sufficiently thank you for your valuable instruction.”

“Don’t thank me, my dear Lord Ethalwood,” exclaimed Lady Marvlynn. “She has natural grace, is so remarkably impressionable, so easily moved――her appearance is so distingue and her manners so winning, I assure you that she will bear the very highest polish. She is a diamond――a very gem of the first water. Still I do flatter myself she has greatly improved since I first became acquainted with her. I admit that, but at the same time am not vain enough to suppose for one moment that it is attributable altogether to me. I’ve done my best, and now the dear girl will be an ornament to any society or coterie.”

The earl smiled――he liked to hear Aveline praised by others besides himself.

When the London season opened Lord Ethalwood took Aveline to his town residence in Mayfair.

She made her début in the great world, and was received there with every flattering demonstration.

The earl’s prophecy was realised――her marvellous grace and beauty created a perfect furore.

More than ever he at this time regretted her unfortunate and ill-assorted marriage; but for that there was no rank she might not have attained.

The only thing that reconciled him in the least to it was the fact of the child’s existence.

There opened then to Aveline Gatliffe a most brilliant life. Nothing she had ever dreamed of equalled the magnificent reality.

There was, however, one drawback.

She had one dispute with her grandfather――he was desirous that she should relinquish the name of Gatliffe, and that she would not consent to do.

She looked at him with flashing eyes, and her face flushed up with anger as he made this proposition.

“I have broken my husband’s heart,” she said, in a tone of sadness; “I have deserted him, my lord――I have embittered his life. All this is bad enough, but I will not give up his name. I was proud enough the day I bore it first, and you have no right to ask me to give it up.”

These were the first angry words she had spoken to the proud old earl――the first that had ever fallen from her lips since he had known her.

He was astounded at her boldness, and murmured, “The Ethalwood spirit. I could never have believed it had I not heard her utter such a bold defiance.”

He saw it was useless to urge the point――she had evidently more determination and spirit than he had given her credit for.

Nevertheless he was deeply mortified.

Aveline was known as “Mrs. Gatliffe,” Lord Ethalwood’s beautiful grand-daughter.

People at first used to ask where was her husband――who was he?

And the answer was――

“She married a man much beneath her, and is separated from him.”

After a time they ceased to ask, and the beautiful Mrs. Gatliffe became one of the queens of the fashionable world.

She enjoyed life, she gave herself up heart and soul to the spirit of gaiety. No party, no ball or soirée, was complete without her.

She was indefatigable in the pursuit of pleasure.

Lord Ethalwood smiled as he watched her.

“I was not mistaken in my estimate of her character,” he thought. “She has forgotten her husband.”

He became warmly attached to her, chiefly because her great beauty and popularity flattered his pride.

He loved her, too, because she so closely resembled her mother.

There were times too, when Aveline Gatliffe, looking around her, said to herself――

“I did well. If the time and the choice were to come again, I should do the same. It would have been cruel, such a life as mine in a mechanic’s cottage; it would have been cruel and unjust to deprive my darling boy of this grand heritage.”

Such is the sophistry people use in cheating themselves into the belief that they have acted right in casting aside their natural ties for the blandishments of the world――for the acquirement of wealth and power. We shall see in good time if these brought happiness and a contented mind.

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