THE BURGLARS
It was much too fine a night to think of going to bed at once,
and so, although the witching hour of nine P.M. had struck,
Edward and I were still leaning out of the open window in our
nightshirts, watching the play of the cedar-branch shadows on the
moonlit lawn, and planning schemes of fresh devilry for the
sunshiny morrow. From below, strains of the jocund piano
declared that the Olympians were enjoying themselves in their
listless, impotent way; for the new curate had been bidden to
dinner that night, and was at the moment unclerically proclaiming
to all the world that he feared no foe. His discordant
vociferations doubtless started a train of thought in Edward's
mind, for the youth presently remarked, a propos of nothing
that had been said before, "I believe the new curate's rather
gone on Aunt Maria."
I scouted the notion. "Why, she's quite old," I said. (She must
have seen some five-and-twenty summers.)
"Of course she is," replied Edward, scornfully. "It's not her,
it's her money he's after, you bet!"
"Didn't know she had any money," I observed timidly.
"Sure to have," said my brother, with confidence. "Heaps and
heaps."
Silence ensued, both our minds being busy with the new situation
thus presented,--mine, in wonderment at this flaw that so often
declared itself in enviable natures of fullest endowment,--in a
grown-up man and a good cricketer, for instance, even as this
curate; Edward's (apparently), in the consideration of how such a
state of things, supposing it existed, could be best turned to
his own advantage.
"Bobby Ferris told me," began Edward in due course, "that there
was a fellow spooning his sister once--"
"What's spooning?" I asked meekly.
"Oh, _I_ dunno," said Edward, indifferently. It's--it's--it's
just a thing they do, you know. And he used to carry notes and
messages and things between 'em, and he got a shilling almost
every time."
"What, from each of 'em?" I innocently inquired.
Edward looked at me with scornful pity. "Girls never have any
money," he briefly explained. "But she did his exercises and got
him out of rows, and told stories for him when he needed it--and
much better ones than he could have made up for himself. Girls
are useful in some ways. So he was living in clover, when
unfortunately they went and quarrelled about something."
"Don't see what that's got to do with it," I said.
"Nor don't I," rejoined Edward. "But anyhow the notes and things
stopped, and so did the shillings. Bobby was fairly cornered,
for he had bought two ferrets on tick, and promised to pay a
shilling a week, thinking the shillings were going on for ever,
the silly young ass. So when the week was up, and he was being
dunned for the shilling, he went off to the fellow and said,
`Your broken-hearted Bella implores you to meet her at sundown,--
by the hollow oak, as of old, be it only for a moment. Do not
fail!' He got all that out of some rotten book, of course.
The fellow looked puzzled and said,--
"`What hollow oak? I don't know any hollow oak.'
"`Perhaps it was the Royal Oak?' said Bobby promptly, 'cos he saw
he had made a slip, through trusting too much to the rotten book;
but this didn't seem to make the fellow any happier."
"Should think not," I said, "the Royal Oak's an awful low sort of
pub."
"I know," said Edward. "Well, at last the fellow said, `I think
I know what she means: the hollow tree in your father's paddock.
It happens to be an elm, but she wouldn't know the difference.
All right: say I'll be there.' Bobby hung about a bit, for he
hadn't got his money. `She was crying awfully,' he said. Then
he got his shilling."
"And wasn't the fellow riled," I inquired, "when he got to the
place and found nothing?"
"He found Bobby," said Edward, indignantly. "Young Ferris was a
gentleman, every inch of him. He brought the fellow another
message from Bella: `I dare not leave the house. My cruel
parents immure me closely If you only knew what I suffer. Your
broken-hearted Bella.' Out of the same rotten book. This made
the fellow a little suspicious,'cos it was the old Ferrises who
had been keen about the thing all through: the fellow, you see,
had tin."
"But what's that got to--" I began again.
"Oh, _I_ dunno," said Edward, impatiently. `I'm telling you
just what Bobby told me. He got suspicious, anyhow, but he
couldn't exactly call Bella's brother a liar, so Bobby escaped
for the time. But when he was in a hole next week, over a stiff
French exercise, and tried the same sort of game on his sister,
she was too sharp for him, and he got caught out. Somehow women
seem more mistrustful than men. They're so beastly suspicious by
nature, you know."
"_I_ know," said I. "But did the two--the fellow and the
sister--make it up afterwards?"
"I don't remember about that," replied Edward, indifferently;
"but Bobby got packed off to school a whole year earlier than his
people meant to send him,--which was just what he wanted. So you
see it all came right in the end!"
I was trying to puzzle out the moral of this story--it was
evidently meant to contain one somewhere--when a flood of golden
lamplight mingled with the moon rays on the lawn, and Aunt Maria
and the new curate strolled out on the grass below us, and took
the direction of a garden seat that was backed by a dense laurel
shrubbery reaching round in a half-circle to the house. Edward
mediated moodily. "If we only knew what they were talking
about," said he, "you'd soon see whether I was right or not.
Look here! Let's send the kid down by the porch to reconnoitre!"
"Harold's asleep," I said; "it seems rather a shame--"
"Oh, rot!" said my brother; "he's the youngest, and he's got to
do as he's told!"
So the luckless Harold was hauled out of bed and given his
sailing-orders. He was naturally rather vexed at being stood up
suddenly on the cold floor, and the job had no particular
interest for him; but he was both staunch and well disciplined.
The means of exit were simple enough. A porch of iron trellis
came up to within easy reach of the window, and was habitually
used by all three of us, when modestly anxious to avoid
public notice. Harold climbed deftly down the porch like a white
rat, and his night gown glimmered a moment on the gravel walk ere
he was lost to sight in the darkness of the shrubbery. A brief
interval of silence ensued, broken suddenly by a sound of
scuffle, and then a shrill, long-drawn squeal, as of metallic
surfaces in friction. Our scout had fallen into the hands of the
enemy!
Indolence alone had made us devolve the task of investigation on
our younger brother. Now that danger had declared itself, there
was no hesitation. In a second we were down the side of the
porch, and crawling Cherokee-wise through the laurels to the back
of the garden-seat. Piteous was the sight that greeted us. Aunt
Maria was on the seat, in a white evening frock, looking--for an
aunt--really quite nice. On the lawn stood an incensed curate,
grasping our small brother by a large ear, which--judging from
the row he was making--seemed on the point of parting company
with the head it adorned. The gruesome noise he was emitting did
not really affect us otherwise than aesthetically. To one who
has tried both, the wail of genuine physical anguish is easy
distinguishable from the pumped-up ad misericordiam
blubber. Harold's could clearly be recognised as belonging to
the latter class. "Now, you young--" (whelp, _I_ think it was,
but Edward stoutly maintains it was devil), said the curate,
sternly; "tell us what you mean by it!"
"Well, leggo of my ear then!" shrilled Harold, "and I'll tell you
the solemn truth!"
"Very well," agreed the curate, releasing him; "now go ahead, and
don't lie more than you can help."
We abode the promised disclosure without the least misgiving; but
even we had hardly given Harold due credit for his fertility of
resource and powers of imagination.
"I had just finished saying my prayers," began that young
gentleman, slowly, "when I happened to look out of the window,
and on the lawn I saw a sight which froze the marrow in my veins!
A burglar was approaching the house with snake-like tread! He
had a scowl and a dark lantern, and he was armed to the teeth!"
We listened with interest. The style, though unlike Harold's
native notes, seemed strangely familiar.
"Go on," said the curate, grimly.
"Pausing in his stealthy career," continued Harold, "he gave a
low whistle. Instantly the signal was responded to, and from the
adjacent shadows two more figures glided forth. The miscreants
were both armed to the teeth."
"Excellent," said the curate; "proceed."
"The robber chief," pursued Harold, warming to his work, "joined
his nefarious comrades, and conversed with them in silent tones.
His expression was truly ferocious, and I ought to have said that
he was armed to the t--"
"There, never mind his teeth," interrupted the curate, rudely;
"there's too much jaw about you altogether. Hurry up and have
done."
"I was in a frightful funk," continued the narrator, warily
guarding his ear with his hand, "but just then the drawing-room
window opened, and you and Aunt Maria came out--I mean emerged.
The burglars vanished silently into the laurels, with horrid
implications!"
The curate looked slightly puzzled. The tale was well sustained,
and certainly circumstantial. After all, the boy might have
really seen something. How was the poor man to know--though
the chaste and lofty diction might have supplied a hint--that
the whole yarn was a free adaptation from the last Penny Dreadful
lent us by the knife-and-boot boy?
"Why did you not alarm the house?" he asked.
"'Cos I was afraid," said Harold, sweetly, "that p'raps they
mightn't believe me!"
"But how did you get down here, you naughty little boy?" put in
Aunt Maria.
Harold was hard pressed--by his own flesh and blood, too!
At that moment Edward touched me on the shoulder and glided off
through the laurels. When some ten yards away he gave a low
whistle. I replied by another. The effect was magical. Aunt
Maria started up with a shriek. Harold gave one startled glance
around, and then fled like a hare, made straight for the back
door, burst in upon the servants at supper, and buried himself in
the broad bosom of the cook, his special ally. The curate faced
the laurels--hesitatingly. But Aunt Maria flung herself on him.
"O Mr. Hodgitts!" I heard her cry, "you are brave! for my sake do
not be rash!" He was not rash. When I peeped out a second
later, the coast was entirely clear.
By this time there were sounds of a household timidly emerging;
and Edward remarked to me that perhaps we had better be off.
Retreat was an easy matter. A stunted laurel gave a leg up on to
the garden wall, which led in its turn to the roof of an out-
house, up which, at a dubious angle, we could crawl to the window
of the box-room. This overland route had been revealed to us one
day by the domestic cat, when hard pressed in the course of an
otter-hunt, in which the cat--somewhat unwillingly--was filling
the title role; and it had proved distinctly useful on
occasions like the present. We were snug in bed--minus some
cuticle from knees and elbows--and Harold, sleepily chewing
something sticky, had been carried up in the arms of the friendly
cook, ere the clamour of the burglar-hunters had died away.
The curate's undaunted demeanour, as reported by Aunt Maria, was
generally supposed to have terrified the burglars into flight,
and much kudos accrued to him thereby. Some days later, however,
when he hid dropped in to afternoon tea, and was making a mild
curatorial joke about the moral courage required for taking the
last piece of bread-and-butter, I felt constrained to remark
dreamily, and as it were to the universe at large, "Mr.
Hodgitts! you are brave! for my sake, do not be rash!"
Fortunately for me, the vicar was also a caller on that day; and
it was always a comparatively easy matter to dodge my long-coated
friend in the open.
