‘Nature often enshrines gallant and noble hearts in weak
bosoms—oftenest, God bless her! in female breasts.’
Quite close to the gardens Susan meets one of the under-gardeners at
Crosby Park.
‘I suppose Master Jacky and I can go in and see the gardens, Brown?’
‘Oh yes, miss, o’ course. But I’m afraid there’s no one there. As it
happens, no one’s working there to-day. ’Tis a holiday, you know, miss.
An’ the gates are locked.’
It happens, indeed, to be a saint’s day, or holiday—one of the
innumerable saints’ days that are held sacred in Ireland, and on which
no man will work, if he is a Roman Catholic labourer, though the loss of
the day’s hire is a severe strain upon his slender resources. And the
funny part of this arrangement is that, though they are too religious to
support their families by working on these days, they never know what
saint’s day it is, or anything in the world about him—or her.
‘Oh!’ says Susan; she had forgotten about its being a holiday, though
both the maids had gone to chapel in the morning, leaving her and Betty
to make up the many beds. Her tone is so disappointed that Brown drags
out a key from his trousers pocket.
‘If ye’ll take this, miss, ye can let yoself in, an’ ye can lave it at
the lodge wid Mrs. Donovan whin ye’re goin’ back.’
‘Oh, thank you, Brown!’ says Susan joyfully; and diving into her pocket,
she produces twopence (it is quite a sum for Susan, whose pennies are
very scarce), and gives it to him, an instinct born with her—a sort of
pride—compelling her to reward the underling. And yet she had refused to
give Tommy—the baby, the youngest of all, and the dearest to her of the
children after Bonnie—a halfpenny out of that twopence only this
morning.
‘Thank you, miss,’ says Brown, with considerably more gratitude than he
would have shown another if she had given him half a crown, and Susan,
who had paid for the key quite as much for her own sake as for Jacky’s,
goes on her way rejoicing.
Yes, the gate is locked. Susan, having unlocked it, carefully removes
the key, locks it on the other side, and goes down the broad, beautiful,
scented path with Jacky beside her. Some of the houses are near, but not
so worthy of notice as those that come after, and through these they
hurry to the great glass ones beyond—where the roses are all a-growing,
all a-blowing, in magnificent profusion—that are always kept up in a
very perfect state, though the master of them be in the Soudan or North
America, or among the highest peaks of the Andes.
Between these two sets of houses runs a wall, now laden with
cherry-trees in full fruit, and as Susan and her brother emerge from the
seedling-house into the freer air, she catches sight of something that
brings her to a standstill.
Against the wall where the cherries are growing stands a ladder, and on
the top of it—a man.
Now, Susan knows all the gardeners at Crosby Park, and even those
beneath them, and certainly this man is not one of them.
She turns and retreats on Jacky, who is just behind her, and for a
moment fear covers her. She has never been brought face to face with a
thief before—few girls have been—and a desire to fly is the thought
uppermost in her breast. She glances upward fearfully to the figure on
the top of the wall, who is hastily pulling off the cherries and
dropping them into the basket he has slung on to the top of the ladder.
She draws her breath quickly. Could anything be more premeditated—could
anything show more plainly what a determined rogue he is? And to-day of
all days! A holiday, when, of course, he knew that all the gardeners
would be away, and the place safe to him! No doubt he had climbed the
outside wall—thieves can do anything—and had found the ladder inside
with which to rob poor Mr. Crosby, who is now goodness knows how many
miles away.
Susan stands rooted to the ground, not knowing whether to stay or fly.
Old stories of heroines return to her, and it seems to her that it would
be base to steal away now and say nothing; even if she happened to gain
the walk outside, it is doubtful whether she should meet any servant,
this being a saint’s day; and if she did, would he be willing to tackle
a real live thief single-handed? As she hesitates, she again looks at
the man, and notices that he is glancing from right to left, hesitating,
as if either uneasy or else with a view to choosing the best fruit. Both
ideas anger her, but the second more than the first. Uneasy? of course
he is! And no wonder, too! A thief must necessarily be uneasy. And to
attempt to steal here, in this lovely secluded place!
The owner of Crosby Park has been so long away that Susan has almost
adopted his place as her own. Many years ago Mr. Crosby, who had been a
pupil of Mr. Barry’s, had given directions that every member of the
Barry family should have free right to his grounds, and Susan, once come
to years of discretion—not so long ago—has taken great advantage of this
kindly permission. It is so near to the Vicarage, and so lovely! All its
walks and pretty windings are so well known to her. They have been much
to her, indeed, during all these years, though so little to the actual
possessor of them, who has evidently found more pleasure in shooting
grizzlies than in cultivating cherries.
That now someone has come to steal these cherries seems dreadful to
Susan. With that poor man away, too—at the end of the world probably,
shooting, or being shot by, some of those awful Indians! Again she casts
her frightened glance at the thief, still high on his ladder and secure
from detection now that all the servants are away; and something in his
air—an insolent security, perhaps—drives her to action.
No, she will not fly! She will tell him, at all events, what she thinks
of him before flying. She makes her way straight to the foot of the
ladder, wrath in her bosom, and addresses him.
‘I wonder you aren’t ashamed of yourself!’ cries she, righteous
indignation in her tones and in her lovely uplifted eyes.
The sweet voice rings up the ladder. The start that the thief on the top
of it gives, when he hears her, condemns him to all eternity in Susan’s
eyes. ‘No one,’ argues Susan to herself, ‘ever starts unless he is
guilty.’ Susan is very young.
The man casts a sidelong glance at her. It is so one-sided that Susan
hardly sees him, but evidently he is trembling, conscience-stricken,
because he makes no reply.
‘Come down!’ says Susan again, her courage mounting with the occasion.
Her tone is now severely calm, and without a vestige of fear. After all,
he is a poor creature whom even a girl can frighten, so small is the
courage of the unrighteous! ‘Do you know what you are doing? You’—with
accumulated scorn—‘are stealing!’
This terrible charge brings the culprit round. He sinks upon the topmost
rung of the ladder, as if overcome, and pulls his cap over his eyes,
evidently to avoid recognition. Says Susan to herself: ‘He is ashamed,
poor creature!’ and seeing the abject attitude of the wretch, she grows
bolder, and presses the wondering Jacky to her side, and tells him to
take courage. This poor man will not kill them. No—no, indeed.
‘Yes, stealing,’ repeats she, her fair, beautiful face uplifted to the
sinner’s above her. There is a second pause, during which, perhaps, the
sinner takes note of it.
‘I——’ begins he, then pauses. Susan’s eyes are looking into his, and
Susan’s face, implacable and austere, no doubt has daunted him. But
Susan tells herself that conscious guilt has rendered him silent. After
awhile, however, he makes another attempt.
‘I——’ says he again, and again stops. It is contemptible! Susan turns a
scornful glance upon him.
‘It is not to be defended,’ says she. ‘To steal from a garden like this!
From a garden that the owner has so kindly left open to many people—who
has besides been so kind, and who has helped all the poor in the
district. He has given forty blankets where another has given ten, and
coals without restriction everywhere. And these beautiful gardens,
too—he has given these as a recreation to some who have no lovely
gardens of their own; and now you take advantage of a day like this,
when all the servants are away, to defraud this kind, kind man and steal
his cherries. Oh, how can you bear to be so bad?’
‘If you would hear me!’ begins the man on the top of the ladder, in a
low tone. He is evidently immensely touched by the scorn of the young
evangelist below, because his voice is very low and uncertain.
‘There is nothing to be said,’ says Susan, her eyes gleaming with honest
disgust. ‘There is no excuse for you. You are here stealing Mr. Crosby’s
cherries, and, as I said before, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
‘Still, miss, if you would listen a moment!’ He has pulled his cap even
closer over his brows.
‘You needn’t do that,’ says Susan. ‘Poor creature! you need not be
afraid of me; I will not give you up to justice!’
‘Thank you kindly, miss,’ comes from the wretched creature behind the
cap. He is evidently struggling with emotion.
‘I don’t want you to thank me,’ says Susan, who is feeling inclined to
cry. She has often read of thieves, but never met one until now, and it
seems to her, all at once, that they are decidedly interesting, so ready
to hear—to receive admonition, too. ‘I want you to promise me that for
the future you will abstain from—from thieving of any sort.’
‘I’ll promise you, miss—I will indeed. I’d promise you anything.’ Poor
thing! he seems quite overcome. ‘But, miss, I wasn’t really stealing
just now.’
‘Oh, nonsense!’ says Susan; a revulsion of feeling makes her once again
hard to him. Confession is good for the soul, but denial—and such a
useless denial, too, caught in the act as he is—savours of folly, that
worst of all things, for which there is no forgiveness.
‘Do you think I did not see you? Why, look at that basket; it is nearly
full. How can you say you were not stealing those cherries? Better to
show some regret than to carry off your crime in such a barefaced way.’
It is hardly barefaced, the unhappy culprit’s face being now quite
hidden by his cap.
‘Just think,’ says Susan, her clear, sweet voice trembling with grief
because of this sinner; ‘if you had a garden, would you like people to
come into it and steal your fruit?’
The poor thief is evidently beginning to feel the situation acutely. He
has taken out his handkerchief in a surreptitious fashion, and is
rubbing his eyes with it.
‘I shouldn’t mind if it was you, miss,’ says he, in a stifled tone.
Poor thing! he is evidently very sorry.
‘You won’t give me up, miss?’
‘No, no!’ cries Susan hastily. ‘But I do hope you see and are grieved
for what you are doing. When people are so good and so generous as to
let other people go through their grounds and get a great deal of
enjoyment out of them, I think the least those others may do is to
respect them, and their shrubs, and fruit, and flowers.’
‘You’re right, miss. I seem as if I never saw it like that till now.’
‘Ah! that’s what they all say,’ says Susan sadly, and with a sigh. She
has a good deal to do with her father’s impenitent penitents. ‘But you
are no doubt from some distant parish. A tramp, I suppose,’ says Susan,
with another sigh. ‘At all events, I am sure you do not belong to this
part of the world, as your voice is strange to me.’
‘I’ve come a long way, miss, indeed.’
‘Poor man! Perhaps you are hungry,’ says Susan. Again she searches her
pocket, and produces the last coin in it—the last coin she has in the
world, for the matter of that—and lays a sixpenny bit on the lowest rung
of the ladder.
‘Perhaps this may help you,’ says she. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t any more,
but I haven’t. And now remember I expect you to keep your promise. I
shall not report you, or get you into trouble of any sort; in fact,
this’—gently—‘shall be a secret between you and me; but I do expect you
to go away without those cherries, and with the promise never to steal
again.’
‘I promise you that, miss, most gratefully. I’ll never steal again. But,
miss, might I give the cherries to you or the young gentleman?’
‘No, no!’ says Susan in horror. She catches Jacky’s hand and draws him
away from temptation. After going a yard or two, however, she looks
back; and the thief, who has been looking after her, again pulls his cap
hurriedly over his guilty face.
‘The gate is locked,’ says she; ‘how will you get out?’
‘The way I came, miss,’ says the bad man, with open signs of contrition.
‘I see—yes,’ says Susan sadly. ‘But go at once. I trust you—remember.’
‘I’ll never forget it, miss,’ says the unhappy man, sinking down upon
the ladder and covering his face with his hands.
‘Jacky,’ says Susan, when they have left the garden and locked the door
carefully behind them, ‘if you ever say a word about that poor creature,
I’ll never think the same of you again. Do you hear? He is a wretched
thief; but I have given my word not to betray him, and you must give
your word too. Poor man! I think he was sincerely sorry. You won’t say a
word at home or anywhere, Jacky?’
‘No,’ says Jacky. He looks at her. ‘Why couldn’t you have taken the
cherries?’ says he.
It takes the entire remainder of the walk home to make the ‘why’ clear
to him.