Chapter IX: Front Matter (9)

"Don't think he could have been quite old enough for it," he replied, turning again to look at the little man. "They cut a man down from the gibbet on the sand hills yonder," said he, pointing in the direction of Deal, "when my father was a boy, and he used to say that, when the man got sprung, he'd relate, in beautiful language, how he felt when he was turned off."

"A dose of turning-off would do that gent in the sou'-wester a great deal of good," said I. "He's a sort of man, you know, to murder you when you're out fishing with him. He's a sort of man to stab you in the back with a great clasp knife, and drag your body into the empty house, which never lets ever after."

"Old Jim Mason's just the worst-tempered man on the coast. His heart was turned black by a disappointment," said Thomas.

"Love?" said I.

"Why, not exactly love," he replied; "it was more in the hovelling line."

"Is it a good yarn?" I asked. "If so, I'll stand two drinks; a pint for you and a half-pint for me."

"It might be worth recording," said Thomas, taking the time occupied by the harbor clock in striking twelve to reflect. "Anyways, pint or no pint, here it is," and, folding his arms, this intelligent "longshoreman" started thus:

"Some years ago, a gemman and a lady went out for a sail, and, as is not always customary in these 'ere parts--though we've got some thick heads among us, I can tell you,--they were capsized. The gemman was drowned, the lady and the boatman saved, and the boat was picked up and towed in--there she lies, "The 'Arbour Bud."

"The widder, as was natural, was in dreadful grief; and, in a day or two, police bills was pasted about the walls, offering a reward of 50_l._ to any one who should recover the body. That there Mason, as you see a-leaning agin that house, was just the party for a job of this sort. He called 'em soft jobs. He was one of them men as would walk about the rocks and sands arter a breeze of wind, hunting for whatever he might find--be it a corpse that had come ashore to keep him in good spirits, or the 'arf of a shoe. Him and Sam Bowler was a-huntin' arter jewelery down among the rocks one day, and that there Mason picked up a gold ring. He offered it to Bowler, who gave him five shullens for it, and that night, at the sign of the 'Welcome 'Arp,' that there Mason swallowed some of his front teeth, and got both eyes plugged, for Bowler, who weighs fourteen stun, had discovered that the ring was brass.

"Well, that there Mason takes it into his head to go for a walk one day arter the bills about the body had been pasted on the walls. He walked in the direction of Broadstairs, and, comin' to the coastguard station, he falls in with one of the men, a sort of relation of his. They got yarning. The coastguard had a big telescope under his arm. That there Mason asked leave to have a look, and he levels the glass and begins to work about with it. The line of the Good'in Sands was as plain as the nose on his face. It was low water, the whole stretch of the shoal was visible, and it was a clear bright afternoon.

"'What's taken yer heye?' says the coastguard presently.

"'Nothen, oh, nothen," answered that there Mason. 'Sands show oncommon plain to-day.'

"He handed back the glass to the coastguard, and then, instead of continuing his walk, he returned to this here yard, and got into his boat and pulled away out of the harbor.

"Now what do yer think he had seen in that telescope? A dead man stranded on the Good'in Sands. There could be no mistake. That there Mason belonged to the cocksure lot; _he_ never made a blunder in all his life. It mightn't be the body as was advertised for, but, if it was, 'twas a fifty-pound job; and that there Mason, without a word, pulled out o' 'arbor feelin', I daresay, as if he'd got the gold in his pocket, and the heavens was beginnin' to smile upon him.

"'Tis a long pull to the Good'ins, tide or no tide. None took any notice of his goin' out. There was some boats a-fishin' in Pegwell Bay, and if any man looked at that there Mason a-rowing out to sea, he'd expect to see him bring up and drop a line over the side. He rowed and rowed. The body lay upon the edge of the Sand, a long distance away from the Gull lightship. He rowed and rowed. By and by, standin' up, he pulls out a bit of a pocket-glass, and then discovers that what he'd taken to be a man's dead body was nothen but a small balk of timber, black with black seaweed, stretched out on either side, so that at a distance it looked exactly like a corpse on its back with its arms out.

"That there Mason might ha' burst himself with passion if he hadn't been too dead beat with rowing. Even in them times he wasn't no chicken. Well, thinks he to himself, since I've had all this here labor merely to view a balk of timber, I may as well step ashore for a spell of rest, and take a short cruise round, for who knows what I might find? So what does the joker do but head his boat right in for the sand, and then he jumps ashore. He made his boat fast to the balk of timber. It was arter five, and the sun westerin' fast. He drives his 'ands deep into his pockets, and slowly meanders, always a-looking. What was these to find? He couldn't tell. There was expectation, yer see, and that was a sort of joy to the 'eart of that there Mason. Y'u'd hardly think it of a boatman, but it's true: whilst that bally idiot was a-wandering about them sands searching for whatever there might be, his boat, giving a tug at her painter, frees the rope and drifts away on the tide, with that there man as you are now a-looking at walking about the sands, his 'ands buried deep and his eyes fixed, dreaming of lighting upon a sovereign or a gold chain--you can never tell what passes in such an 'ead. Bym-by he turns to look for his boat, and lo and be'old she's gone. There she was half a mile off, quietly floating away to the norr'ard. The sun was beginning to sink low; the night was coming along. The people aboard the Gull lightship didn't see him or take any notice; what was that there Mason going to do? There was no wreck to shelter him. It might be that at Ramsgate they'd see a lonely man a-walking about, and send a boat; but, as I've said, dusk was at 'and, and he knew bloomin' well that if they didn't see him soon they'd never see him again.

"He'd taken notice afore the darkness had drawn down of a cutter bearing about northeast. He watched her now whilst it was light, for it looked to him as if she was making a straight course for the sands. It was plain she wasn't under no government. The wind blew her along, and at eight o'clock that evening, when the moon was rising and the tide making fast all about the sands, I'm blest if that cutter didn't come quietly ashore, and lie as sweetly still as if she was a young woman wore out with walkin'.

"I allow that it didn't take that there Mason a lifetime to scramble aboard of her. She was a fine boat, 'bout sixteen or eighteen ton, newly sheathed, and her sails shone white and new in the moon. When he got aboard he sung out, 'Anybody here?' and he received no reply. There was a bit of a forehatch; he put his 'ead into it and sung out, and several times he sung out, and got no answer; he then walked aft. I must tell you, it was a very quiet night, with a light breeze and plenty of stars, and a growing moon. He looks through the bit of a skylight, and sees nothen; puts his head in the companion-way and sings out as afore. An abandoned wessel, he thinks to himself, and his 'eart, you may be sure, turns to and rejoices.

"What should he do? Try to kedge her off himself? That was beyond him. Send up a rocket, if he should find such a thing in the vessel? S'elp me, he was that greedy he couldn't make up his mind to ask for 'elp. He took a look round the sea and considered. There was some big lump of shadow out behind the sands--she looked like a French smack; his boat was out of sight in the dark, but the cutter, he noticed, carried a little jolly boat, amidships, right fair in the wake of the gangway, easy to be launched, smack fashion, so that there Mason felt his life was saved.

"He carried some lucifers in his pocket for lighting his pipe; he stepped into the cabin, and struck a light. A lamp was hung up close against his 'and; it was ready trimmed, and he set the wick afire, and looked round. What did he see? As beautiful a little cabin as the hinvention of man could figure. The sides of the wessel had been picked out by artists, and that there Mason swears no man ever saw finer pictures in his life--ladies a-bathin', gentlemen chasin' with hounds, a steamer going along; both sides had been picked out into pictures, and that there Mason looked around him with his mouth opening and opening. There was likewise lookin' glasses; a thick carpet; the lamps seemed to be made of silver, and there was such a twinkling of silver all about, what with the 'andles of doors and a lot of forks and spoons on the table, that Mason's eyes began to dance in his evil old nut, and he reckoned himself a made man for life. Look at him as he leans there.

"But what else did he see? The door of a cabin right aft stood open, and half-way in and half-way out lay the body of a man; his throat was most horribly cut; not by 's own 'hand. No man could nearly cut his own 'ead half off as that chap's was. He'd been murdered, and there was no man in that beautiful little cutter saving that bleedin' corpse. It was a sight to have thickened the wind-pipe of most men, and set them a-breathin' hard and tight; but he saw nothing but a man with his throat cut. He took a look at him, and reckoned him to be a furriner, as, indeed, the whole little ship seemed. It was a very quiet night, and he stood looking at the dead body considering what he should do. If he brought assistance from the shore, and the cutter was towed into port, his share of the salvage money--for the rewards are small in jobs of this sort when the weather is fine and there is no risk of life--his share, I says, of the money would be scarcely worth talking about. Same time, if he left the cutter to lie, and it came on to blow, she'd go to pieces afore the morning. That wasn't his consarn, he thought; he had come to the Good'ins on the look-out for a job, and had got one, and he made up his mind to make the most of his chances.

"So the first thing that there Mason did was to stoop down and plunder the body. Plenty was on it. I can see in fancy the looks of his face as he 'elped himself; he found a beautiful gold watch and chain, a diamond ring, and another ring, a lot of gold coins in French money in one pocket, and French money in silver coin in another. He found a silver toothpick, an eye-glass, and I can't tell you what besides. He was in high feather, a very 'appy man; he fills his pockets with the forks and spoons, supposing them silver, tho' they wasn't. He looked into the cabin where the dead body lay, but found nothen but bed-clothes and male wearin' apparel hangin' to the bulkhead. There was a chest of drawers full of good linen shirts and vests and the like of that. But that there Mason thought of Cocky Honour, the Customs man, and abandoned the idea of makin' up them shirts into a parcel.

"It was his notion to get away in the cutter's jolly boat or dinghey, and he stood looking about him to see if there was anything else he could put in his pockets. All at once he heard a noise of men's voices alongside, and, immediately arter, the 'eavy tread of fishermen's boots over'ead. Afore he could get on deck, a big chap, with a red night-cap on, came down the little companion-ladder, and instantly roars out something in French. Down comes others--three or four. 'Twas a minute or two afore they took notice of the Mason, who stared back. They then set up a howl, and fell a-brandishing their arms, as if they were gone stark mad.

"'You killee him!' roars one.

"'No, no,' sings out Mason, 'me no killee, me find him killee.'

"'You killee him,' roars the great man with the cap, lookin' most ferocious, for that here Mason says his face was nearly all hair, besides that he squinted most damnably, beggin' of your pardon. And then he began to shout to the others, who shouted back at him, all talkin' at the top of their voices, as is the custom in France when excited, and all lookin' at that there Mason.

"Suddenly they all rushed at him, knocked him down, overhauled his pockets, and brought out the spoons and forks and the dead gent's gold watch and chain, and the rest of the plunder.

"'You killee!' roared the big man in the cap, and layin' hold of him, they ran him into the cabin where the corpse was, and locked him up with the body, and presently that there Mason, who was next door to ravin' mad, felt that they was warping the cutter off--that, in short, she was off, and, by the noise of passin' waters, either sailing or in tow.

"And now to end this, sir, what do you think happened to that there Mason? She was a French smack that had sighted and boarded the cutter; that was a Frenchman likewise, and they towed her straight to Boulogne, at which place they arrived at about ten o'clock in the morning. Numbers was on the pier to see the uncommon sight of a smack towing an abandoned cutter. That there Mason was handed over to the authorities, charged with murder and robbery. The British Consul took up the case. When the facts were stated, and inquiries made, his innocence was established; but not afore he'd lain three weeks in a beastly jail, fed on black bread, and denied his pipe. I don't say he came home much changed; but I allow the disappointment sunk as deep as his heart, and blacked it. And to this hour he's not fit company for man nor beast. Look at him as he leans!"

Laughing together, we strolled off for our drinks, and I saw Mason turn his head to watch us as we walked.

The Hand on the Latch

BY MARY CHOLMONDELEY

There came a man across the moor.
Fell and foul of face was he.
He left the path by the cross-roads three,
And stood in the shadow of the door.
MARY COLERIDGE.

She stood at her low window with its uneven wavering glass, and looked out across the prairie. A little snow had fallen--not much, only enough to add a sense of desolation to the boundless plain, the infinite plain outside the four cramped walls of her log hut. The log hut was like a tiny boat moored in some vast, tideless, impassable sea. The immensity of the prairie had crushed her in the earlier years of her married life, but gradually she had become accustomed to it, then reconciled to it, at last almost a part of it. The gray had come early to her thick hair, a certain fixity to the quiet courage of her eyes. Her calm, steadfast face showed that she was not given to depression, but nevertheless this evening, as she stood watching for her husband's return, for the first distant speck of him where the cart rut vanished into the plain, a sense of impending misfortune enfolded her with the dusk. Was it because the first snow had fallen? Ah me! how much it meant. It was as significant for her as the gray pallor that falls on a sick man's face. It meant the endless winter, the greater isolation instead of the lesser, the powerlessness to move hand or foot in that all-enveloping shroud; the struggle, not for existence--with him beside her that was assured--not for luxury--she had ceased to care for it, though he had not ceased to care for her sake--but for life in any but its narrowest sense. Books, letters, human speech, through the long months these would be almost entirely denied her. The sudden remembrance of the larger needs of life flooded her soul, touching to momentary semblance of movement many things long cherished, but long since dead, like delicate sea plants beyond high-water mark that cannot exist between the long droughts when the neap tide does not come. She had known what she was doing when against the wishes of her family she of the South had married him of the North, when she left the busy city life she knew, and clave to her husband, following him over the rim of the world, as women will follow while they have feet to follow with. She was his superior in birth, cultivation, refinement, but she had never regretted what she had done. The regrets were his for her, for the poverty to which he had brought her, and to which she had not been accustomed. She had only one regret, if such a thin strip of a word as regret can be used to describe her passionate controlled desolation, immense as the prairie, because she had no child. Perhaps if they had had children the walls of the log hut in the waste might have closed in on them less rigidly. It might have become more of a home.

Her mind had taken its old mechanical bent, the trend of long habit as she looked out from that low window. How often she had stood there, and thought "If only we might have had a child." And now by sheer force of habit she thought it yet again. And then a slow rapture took possession of her whole being, mounted, mounted till she leaned against the window-sill faint with joy. She was to have a child after all. She had hardly dared believe it at first, but as time had gone on a vague hope, quickly suppressed as unbearable, had turned to suspense, suspense had alternated with the fierce despair that precedes certainty. Certainty had come at last, clear and calm and exquisite as dawn. She would have a child in the spring. What was the winter to her now! Nothing but a step toward joy. The world was all broken up and made new. The prairie, its great loneliness, its deathlike solitude, were gone out of her life. She was to have a child in the spring. She had not dared to tell her husband till she was sure. But she would tell him this evening when they were sitting together over the fire.

She stood motionless in the deepening dusk, trying to be calm. And at last in the far distance she saw a speck arise, as it were, out of a crease in the level earth--her husband on his horse. How many hundreds of times she had seen him appear over the rim of the world, just as he was appearing now! She lit the lamp and put it in the window. She blew the log fire to a blaze. The firelight danced on the wooden walls, crowded with cheap pictures, and on the few precious daguerreotypes that reminded her she too had brothers and sisters and kin of her own, far away in one of those southern cities where the war was still smouldering grimly on.

Her husband took his horse round and stalled him. Presently he came in. They stood a moment together in silence as their custom was, and she leaned her forehead against his shoulder. Then she busied herself with his supper, and he sat down heavily at the little table.

"Had you any difficulty this time in getting the money together?" she asked.

Her husband was a tax collector.

"None," he said abstractedly, "at least--yes--a little. But I have it all, and the arrears as well. It makes a large sum."

He was evidently thinking of something else. She did not speak again. She saw something was troubling him.

"I heard news to-day at Phillip's," he said at last, "which I don't like. If I had heard in time, and if I could have borrowed a fresh horse, I would have ridden straight on to ----. But it was too late in the day to be safe, and you would have been anxious what had become of me if I had been out all night with all this money on me. I shall go to-morrow as soon as it is light."

They discussed the business which took him to the nearest town thirty miles away, where their small savings were invested--somewhat precariously as it turned out. What was safe, who was safe while the invisible war between North and South smouldered on and on? It had not come near them, but as an earthquake which is engulfing cities in one part of Europe will rattle a teacup without oversetting it on a cottage shelf half a continent away--so the Civil War had reached them at last.

"I take a hopeful view," lie said, but his face was overcast. "I don't see why we should lose the little we have. It has been hard enough to scrape it together, God knows. Promptitude and joint action with Reynolds will probably save it. But I must be prompt." He still spoke abstractedly, as if even now he were thinking of something else.

He began to take out of the leathern satchel various bags of money.

"Shall I help you to count it?"

She often did so.

They counted the flimsy dirty paper money together, and put it all back into the various labelled bags.

"It comes right," he said.

Suddenly she said, "But you can't pay it into the bank to-morrow if you go to ----"

"I know," he said, looking at her; "that is what I have been thinking of ever since I heard Phillip's news. I don't like leaving you with all this money in the house, but I must."

She was silent. She was not frightened for herself, but it was state money, not their own. She was not nervous as he was, but she had always shared with him a certain dread of those bulging bags, and had always been thankful to see him return safe--he never went twice by the same track--after paying the money in. In those wild days when men went armed with their lives in their hands it was not well to be known to have large sums about you.

He looked at the bags, frowning.

"I am not afraid," she said.

"There is no real need to be," he said after a moment. "When I leave to-morrow morning it will be thought I have gone to pay it in. Still--"

He did not finish his sentence, but she knew what was in his mind: the great loneliness of the prairie. Out in the white night came the short, sharp yap of a wolf.

"I am not afraid," she said again.

"I shall only be gone one night," he said.

"I have often been a night alone."

"I know," he said, "but somehow it's worse leaving you with so much money in the house."

"No one knows it will be there."

"That is true," he said, "except that everyone knows I have been collecting large sums."

"They will think you have gone to pay it in as usual."

"Yes," he said with an effort.

Then he got up, and went to his tool box. She watched him open it, seeing him in a new light, which encompassed him with even greater love. "If I tell him to-night," she thought, "it will make him even more anxious about leaving me. Perhaps he would refuse to go, and he must go. I will not tell him till he comes back."

The resolution not to speak was like taking hold of a piece of iron in frost. She had not known it would hurt so much. A new tremulousness, sweet and strange, passed over her--not cowardice, not fear, not of the heart nor of the mind, but a sort of emotion of the whole being.

"I will not tell him," she said again.

Her husband got out his tools, took up a plank from the floor, and put the money into a hole beneath it, beside their small valuables, such as they were, in a biscuit tin. Then he replaced the plank, screwed it down, and she drew back a small fur mat over the place. He put away the tools and then came and stood in front of her. He was not conscious of her transfiguration, and she dropped her eyes for fear of showing it.

"I shall start early," he said, "as soon as it is light, and I shall be back before sundown the day after to-morrow. I know it is unreasonable, but I shall go easier in my mind if you will promise me one thing."

"What is it?"

"Not to go out of the house, or to let any one else come in on any pretence whatever, while I am away," he said "Bar everything, and stay inside."

"I sha'n't want to go out."

He made an impatient movement.

"Promise me that come what will you will let no one in during my absence," he said.

"I promise."

"Swear it."

She hesitated.

"Swear it to please me," he said.

"I swear that I will let no one into the house, on any pretext whatever, until you come back," she said, smiling at him.

He sighed and relapsed into his chair, and gave way to the great fatigue that possessed him.

The next morning he started soon after daybreak, but not until he had brought her in sufficient fuel to last several days. There had been more snow in the night, fine snow like salt, but not enough to make traveling difficult. She watched him ride away, and silenced the voice within her which always said as she saw him go, "You will never see him again, you have heard his voice for the last time." Perhaps, after all, the difference between the brave and the cowardly lies in how they deal with that voice. Both hear it. She silenced it instantly. It spoke again more insistently: "You have heard his voice, felt his kiss, for the last time. He will never see the face of his child." She silenced it again, and went about her work.

The day passed as countless other days had passed. She was accustomed to be much alone. She had work to do, enough and to spare, within the little home which was to become a real home, please God, in the spring. The evening fell almost before she expected it. She locked and barred the doors, and closed the shutters of the windows. She made all secure, as she had done many a time before.

And then putting aside her work, she took down the newest of her well-worn books lately sent her from New Orleans and began to read:

Oui, sans doute, tout meurt; ce monde est un grand rêve,
Et le peu de bonheur qui nous vient en chemin,
Nous n'avon pas plus tôt ce roseau dans la main,
Que le vent nous l'enlève.

Que le vent nous l'enlève. She repeated the last words to herself. Ah! no. The wind could not take her happiness out of her hand.

A wandering wind had arisen at nightfall, and it came softly across the snow and tried the doors and windows as with a furtive hand. She could hear it coming as from an immense distance, passing with a sigh, returning plaintive, homeless, forlorn, to whisper round the house:

Pai vu sous le soleil tomber bien d'autres choses
Que les feuilles des bois, et l'écume des eaux,
Bien d'autres s'en aller que le parfum des roses
Et le chant des oiseaux.

That wind meant more snow. Involuntarily she laid down her book and listened to it.

How like the sound of the wind was to wandering footsteps, slowly drawing near, creeping round the house. She could almost have fancied that a hand touched the shutters, was even now trying to raise the latch of the door.

A moment of intense silence, in which the wind seemed to hold its breath and listen without, while she listened within, and then a low, distinct knock upon the door.

She did not move.

"It is the wind," she said to herself; but she knew it was not.

The knock came again, low, urgent, not to be denied.

She had become very cold. She had supposed fear was an emotion of the mind. She had not reckoned for this slow paralysis of the body.

She managed to creep to the window and unbar the shutter an inch or two. By pressing her face against the extreme corner of the pane she could just discern in the snow light part of a man's figure, wrapped in a long cloak.

She barred the window once more. She was not surprised. She knew now that she had known it always. She had pretended to herself that the thief would not come; but she was expecting him when he knocked. And he stood there, outside. Presently he would be inside.

He knocked yet again, this time more loudly. What need was there for silence when for miles and miles round there was no ear to hear save that of a chance prairie dog?

She laid hold upon her courage, seeing that it was her only refuge, and went to the door.

"Who is there?" she said through a chink.

A man's voice, low and feeble, replied, "Let me in."

"I cannot let you in."

There was a short silence.

"I pray you let me in," he said again.

"I have told you I cannot. Who are you?"

"I am a soldier, wounded. I'm trying to get back to my friends at ----." He mentioned a settlement about fifty miles north. "I have missed my way, and I can't drag myself any further."

Her heart swung violently between suspicion and compassion.

"I am alone in the house," she said. "My husband is away, and he made me promise not to let anyone in on any pretence whatever during his absence."

"Then I shall die on your doorstep," said the voice. "I can't drag myself any further."

There was another silence.

"It is beginning to snow," he said.

"I know," she said; and he heard the trouble in her voice.

"Open the door and look at me," he said, "and see if I can do you any harm."

She opened the door and stood on the threshold, barring the way. He was leaning against the doorpost with his head against it, as she had often seen her husband lean when he was talking to her on a summer evening. Something in his attitude, so like her husband's, touched her strangely. Supposing he were in need, and pleaded for help in vain!

The man turned his face toward her. It was sunk and hollow, ravaged with pain, an evil-looking face. His right arm was in a sling under his tattered military cloak. He seemed to have made his final effort, and now stood staring dumbly at her.

"My husband will never forgive me," she said with a sort of sob.

He said nothing more. He seemed at the last point of exhaustion. Through the dim white night a few flakes of snow fell upon his harsh, repellent face and on his bandaged arm.

A sudden wave of pity carried all before it.

She beckoned him into the house, and locked and barred the door. She put him in her husband's chair by the fire. He hardly noticed anything. He seemed stupefied. He sat staring alternately at the fire and at her. When she asked him to what regiment he belonged he did not answer.

She set before him the supper she had prepared for herself, and chafed his hard, emaciated dirty hand till the warmth returned to it. Then he ate, with difficulty at first, then with slow voracity, all she had put before him.

A semblance of life returned gradually to him.

"I was pretty near done up when I knocked," he said several times.

She dressed his wound, which did not appear very deep, wrapped it in fresh bandages, and readjusted his sling. He took it all as a matter of course.

She made up a little bed of rugs and blankets for him in the back kitchen. When she came back to the living room she found he had dragged himself to his feet, and was looking vacantly at a little picture of President Lincoln on the mantel-shelf. She showed him the bed and told him to lie down on it. He obeyed her implicitly, like a child. She left him, and presently heard him cast himself down. A few minutes later she went to the door and listened. His heavy, regular breathing told her he was asleep.

She went back to the kitchen and sat down by the fire.

Was he really asleep? Was it all feigned--the wound, the story, the exhaustion? Had she been trapped? Oh! what had she done? What had she done?

She seemed like two people. One self, silent, alert, experienced, fearless, knew that she had allowed herself to be deluded in spite of being warned, knew that her feelings had been played upon, made use of, not even dexterously made use of; knew that she had disobeyed her husband, broken her solemn oath to him, plunged him with herself into disgrace if the money were stolen. And in the eyes of that self it was already stolen. It was still under the plank beneath her feet, but it was already stolen.

The other self, tremulous, inconsequent, full of irresistible tenderness for suffering and weakness even in its uncouthest garb, said incessantly:

"I could do no less. If I die for it, still I could do no less. Somebody brought him into the world. Some woman cried for joy and anguish when he was born. He would have died if I had not taken him in. I could do no less."

Through the long hours she sat by the fire, unable to reconcile herself to going upstairs to her own room and to bed.

Once she got up and noiselessly took down her husband's revolver from the mantel-shelf and examined it. He had taken its fellow with him, and apparently contrary to his custom he had taken the powder flask with him too, for it was gone from its nail. The revolvers were always kept loaded, but--by some evil chance the one that remained was unloaded. She could have sworn she had seen her husband load it two days ago. Why was this numbness creeping over her again? She got out powder and bullets from a small store she had of her own, loaded and primed it, and laid it on the table beside her.

The night had become very still. Her hearing seemed to reach out till she felt she could have heard a coyote move in its hole miles away. The log fire creaked and shifted. The tall clock in the corner ticked, catching its chain now and then, as its manner was. The wooden walls shrunk and groaned a little. The small home-like sounds only accentuated the enormous silence without. Suddenly in the midst of them a real sound fell upon her ear; very low but different, not like the fragmentary inadvertent murmur of the hut; a small, purposeful, stealthy sound, aware of itself. She listened as she had listened before, without moving. It was not louder than the whittling of a mouse behind the wainscot, hardly louder than the scraping of a mole's thin hand in the soil. It continued. Then it stopped. It was only her foolish fancy, after all. There it was again. Where did it come from?

The man in the next room?

She took up the lamp and crept down the narrow passage to the door of the back kitchen. His loud, even breathing sounded distinctly through the crannies of the ill-fitting door. Surely it was overloud. She listened to it. She could hear nothing else. Was his breathing a pretence? She opened the door noiselessly, and went in, shading the light with her hand.

She bent over the sleeping man. At the first glance her heart sank, for he had not taken off his boots. But as she looked hard at him her suspicions died within her. He lay on his back, with his coarse, emaciated face toward her, his mouth open, showing his broken teeth. The sleep of utter exhaustion was upon him. She could have killed him as he lay. He was not acting. He was really asleep.

She crept out of the room again, leaving the door ajar, and went back to the kitchen.

Hardly had she sat down when she heard the sound again. It was too faint to reach her except when she was in the kitchen. She knew now where it came from--the door. Some one was picking the lock.

The instant the sleeping man was out of her sight she suspected him again.

Was he really asleep, after all? He had not taken off his boots. When she came back from making his bed she had found him standing by the mantel-shelf. Had he unloaded the pistol in her absence? Would he presently get up, and open the door to his confederates?

Her mind rose clear and cold and unflinching. She took up the pistol, and then laid it down again. She wanted a more noiseless weapon. She got out her husband's great clasp-knife from the open tool box, took the lamp, and crept back to the man's bedside. She should be able to kill him. Certainly she should be able to kill him; and then she should have the pistol for the other one.

But he still slept heavily. When she saw him again, again her suspicions fell from her. She knew he was asleep.

She shook him by the shoulder, noiselessly, but with increasing violence, until he opened his eyes with a groan. Then only she remembered that she was shaking his wounded arm. He saw the knife in her hand, and raised his left arm as if to ward off the blow.

"Listen," she whispered, close to his ear. "Don't speak. There is a man trying to break into the house. You must get up and help me."

He stared at her, vaguely at first, but with growing intelligence. The food and sleep had restored him somewhat to himself. He sat up on the couch.

"Take off my boots," he whispered; "I tried and could not."

Her last suspicion of him vanished. She cut the laces with her knife, and dragged his boots off. They stuck to his feet, and bits of the woollen socks came off with them. They had evidently not been taken off for weeks. While she did it he whispered, "Why should any one be wanting to break in? There's nothing here to take."

"Yes, there is," she said. "There's a lot of money."

"Good Lord! Where?"

"Under the floor in the kitchen."

"Then it's the kitchen they'll make for. You bet they know where the money is if they know it's here. Are there many of 'em?"

"I don't know."

"Well, we shall know soon enough," said the man. He had become alert, keen. "Have you any pistols?"

"Yes, one."

"Fetch it, but don't make a sound, mind."

She stole away, and returned with the pistol. She would have put it into his hand, but he pushed it away.

"It's no use to me," he said, "with my arm in a sling. I will see what I can do with my left hand and the knife. Can you shoot?"

"Yes."

"Can you hit anything?"

"Yes."

"To be depended on?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's darned lucky. How long will that door hold?"

They were both in the little passage by now, pressed close together, listening to the furtive pick, pick of some one at the lock.

"I don't think it will hold more than a minute."

"Now, look here," he said, "I shall go and stand at the foot of the stair, and knife the second man, if there is a second. The first man I'll leave to you. There's a bit of light outside from the snow. He'll let in enough light to see him by as he opens the door. Don't wait. Fire at him as he comes in, and don't stop; go on firing at him till he drops. You've got six bullets. Don't you make any mistake and shoot me. I've had enough of that already. Now you look carefully where I'm going to stand, and when I'm there you put out the lamp."

He spoke to her as a man does to his comrade.

That she could be frightened did not seem to enter his calculations. He moved with catlike stealth to the foot of the tiny staircase and flattened himself against the wall. Then he stretched his left arm once or twice as if to make sure of it, licked the haft of the knife, and nodded at her.

She instantly put out the lamp.

All was dark save for a faint thread of light which outlined the door. Across the thread something moved once--twice. The sound of picking ceased. Then another sound succeeded it, a new one, unlike the last, as if something were being gently prised open, wrenched.

"The bar will hold," she said to herself, and then remembered for the first time that the rung into which the bar slid had been loose these many days. It was giving now.

It had given!

The door opened silently, and a man came in.

For a moment she saw him clear, with the accomplice snow-light behind him. She did not hesitate. She shot once and again. He fell and struggled violently up, and she shot again. He fell and dragged himself to his knees, and she shot again. Then he sank gently and slowly down as if tired, with his face against the wall, and moved no more.

The man on the stairs rushed out and looked through the open door.

"By G--, he was single-handed!" he said.

Then he stooped over the prostrate man and turned him over on his back.

"Dead!" he said, chuckling. "Well done, Missus!--stone dead!"

He was masked.

The dirty left hand tore the mask callously off the gray face.

The woman had drawn near and looked over his shoulder.

"Do you know him?" said the man.

For a moment she did not answer, and the pistol which had done its work so well dropped noisily out of her palsied hand.

"He is a stranger to me," she said, looking fixedly at her husband's fading face.

The Stories of the Three Burglars

FRANK R. STOCKTON

I am a householder in a pleasant country neighborhood, about twenty miles from New York. My family consists of myself and wife, our boy, George William, aged two, two maid-servants, and a man; but in the summer we have frequent visitors, and at the time of which I am about to write my Aunt Martha was staying with us.

My house is large and pleasant, and we have neighbors near enough for social purposes and yet not too near or too many to detract from the rural aspect of our surroundings. But we do not live in a paradise; we are occasionally troubled by mosquitoes and burglars.

Against the first of these annoyances we have always been able to guard ourselves, at least in a measure, and our man and the cook declare that they have become so used to them that they do not mind them; but to guard against burglars is much more difficult, and to become used to them would, I think, require a great deal of practice.

For several months before the period of this narrative our neighborhood had been subject to visits from burglars. From time to time houses had been entered and robbed, and the offenders had never been detected.

We had no police force, not even a village organization. There was a small railway station near our house, and six miles away was the county town. For fire and police protection each household was obliged to depend upon itself.

Before the beginning of the burglarious enterprises in our midst, we had not felt the need of much protection in this direction; sometimes poultry was stolen, but this was a rare occurrence, and, although windows and doors were generally fastened for the night, this labor was often considered much more troublesome than necessary. But now a great change had taken place in the feelings of our community. When the first robbery occurred the neighbors were inclined to laugh about it, and to say that Captain Hubbard's habit of sitting up after the rest of his family had gone to bed and then retiring and forgetting to close the front door had invited the entrance of a passing tramp. But when a second and a third house, where windows and doors had not been left open, had been entered, and, in a measure, despoiled, people ceased to laugh; and if there had been any merriment at all on the subject, it would have been caused by the extraordinary and remarkable precautions taken against the entrance of thieves by night. The loaded pistol became the favorite companion of the head of the house; those who had no watch-dogs bought them; there were new locks, new bolts, new fastenings. At one time there was a mounted patrol of young men, which, however, was soon broken up by their mothers. But this trouble was unavailing, for at intervals the burglaries continued.

As a matter of course a great many theories were broached as to the reasons for this disturbance in our hitherto peaceful neighborhood. We were at such a distance from the ordinary centers of crime that it was generally considered that professional burglars would hardly take the trouble to get to us or to get away from us, and that, therefore, the offenses were probably committed by unsuspected persons living in this part of the country who had easy means of determining which houses were worth breaking into and what method of entrance would be most feasible. In this way some families, hitherto regarded as respectable families, had fallen under suspicion.

So far, mine was the only house of any importance within the distance of a mile from the station, which had not in some way suffered from burglars. In one or two of these cases the offenders had been frightened away before they had done any other injury than the breaking of a window-shutter; but we had been spared any visitation whatever. After a time we began to consider that this was an invidious distinction. Of course we did not desire that robbers should break into our house and steal, but it was a sort of implied insult that robbers should think that our house was not worth breaking into. We contrived, however, to bear up under this implied contempt and even under the facetious imputations of some of our lively neighbors, who declared that it looked very suspicious that we should lose nothing, and even continue to add to our worldly goods, while everybody else was suffering from abstractions.

I did not, however, allow any relaxation in my vigilance in the protection of my house and family. My time to suffer had not yet arrived, and it might not arrive at all; but if it did come it should not be my fault. I therefore carefully examined all the new precautions my neighbors had taken against the entrance of thieves, and where I approved of them I adopted them.

Of some of these my wife and I did not approve. For instance, a tin pan containing iron spoons, the dinner bell, and a miscellaneous collection of hardware balanced on the top stair of the staircase, and so connected with fine cords that a thief coming up the stairs would send it rattling and bounding to the bottom, was looked upon by us with great disfavor. The descent of the pan, whether by innocent accident or the approach of a burglar, might throw our little boy into a fit, to say nothing of the terrible fright it would give my Aunt Martha, who was a maiden lady of middle age, and not accustomed to a clatter in the night. A bull-dog in the house my wife would not have, nor, indeed, a dog of any kind. George William was not yet old enough to play with dogs, especially a sharp one; and if the dog was not sharp it was of no use to have him in the house. To the ordinary burglar-alarm she strongly objected. She had been in houses where these things went off of their own accord, occasioning great consternation; and, besides, she said that if thieves got into the house she did not want to know it and she did not want me to know it; the quicker they found what they came for and went away with it the better. Of course, she wished them kept out, if such a thing were possible; but if they did get in, our duty as parents of the dearest little boy was non-interference. She insisted, however, that the room in which the loveliest of children slept, and which, was also occupied by ourselves, should be made absolutely burglar proof; and this object, by means of extraordinary bolts and chains, I flattered myself I accomplished. My Aunt Martha had a patent contrivance for fastening a door that she always used, whether at home or traveling, and in whose merit she placed implicit confidence. Therefore we did not feel it necessary to be anxious about her; and the servants slept at the top of the house, where thieves would not be likely to go.

"They may continue to slight us by their absence," said my wife, "but I do not believe that they will be able to frighten us by their presence."

I was not, however, so easily contented as my wife. Of course I wished to do everything possible to protect George William and the rest of the family, but I was also very anxious to protect our property in all parts of the house. Therefore, in addition to everything else I had done, I devised a scheme for interfering with the plans of men who should feloniously break into our home.

After a consultation with a friend, who was a physician greatly interested in the study of narcotic drugs, I procured a mixture which was almost tasteless and without peculiar odor, and of which a small quantity would in less than a minute throw an ordinary man into a state of unconsciousness. The potion was, however, no more dangerous in its effects than that quantity of ardent spirits which would cause entire insensibility. After the lapse of several hours, the person under the influence of the drug would recover consciousness without assistance. But in order to provide against all contingencies my friend prepared a powerful antidote, which would almost immediately revive one who had been made unconscious by our potion.

The scheme that I had devised may possibly have been put into use by others. But of this I know not. I thought it a good scheme and determined to experiment with it, and, if possible, to make a trap which should catch a burglar. I would reveal this plan to no one but my friend the physician and my wife. Secrecy would be an important element in its success.

Our library was a large and pleasant room on the ground floor of the house, and here I set my trap. It was my habit to remain in this room an hour or so after the rest of the family had gone to bed, and, as I was an early riser, I was always in it again before it was necessary for a servant to enter in the morning.