For a short space we must not only leave sweet Helen Barham in the
house of Yelverly, but Lieberg, with all machinations in his head, and
turn to schemes of a different kind, and at a different spot. It was
in the back room of a low public house that, on the very day which
witnessed Lieberg's arrival in London from the town of Deal, there sat
together four as powerful and determined-looking fellows as ever
perhaps met, with a view of consulting upon the grand purpose of
cutting a purse, or proving that there are other people, as well as
the little god of love, who can laugh at locksmiths. In the chair--for
it will always be found, in civil and political matters alike, that
the meetings which assemble for the purpose of setting all laws and
regulations at defiance, must have their laws and regulations
likewise--in the chair of this gallant and respectable assembly, was
placed that worthy gentleman, Harry Martin, whom we have had the
honour of bringing before our readers on more than one occasion. On
his right was a gentleman who was delivering himself with a great deal
more eloquence than is usually met with, either on the hustings or the
Commons House of Parliament--though, like the oratory of those places,
his had its peculiar characteristics, which suited it to the auditory
who were to hear it--he was delivering himself, I say, of a speech, to
which I can only do partial justice, both from a want of a thorough
knowledge of the copious tongue in which it was composed; and also
from lack of space to give all the figures of rhetoric, the tropes,
the metaphors, the similes, with which it was ornamented. The tendency
of the speech, however, was to incite his hearers to undertake a great
enterprise; and an expedition against Carthage, or a war against
Philip, was never debated with more vehemence and animation.
"I'll tell you what, Simes," he said--"you think that Martin and I do
this out of regard to Bill Barham; but I tell you it is no such thing.
I do it only because I think that such good luck does not fall in a
man's way every day. Did you ever see a blackbird, on a sunshiny
morning, sitting upon a bough, and singing as quietly as I might do at
the club? Well, if he sees a great fat worm wriggle out his head, down
he pounces upon him, and never ceases pulling till he has got him all
out of his hole. Well, I am the blackbird, and this Old Miser Carr is
the worm. I have sat cherupping here in London for a long while, till
I got scent of this old fellow, and now I'll pounce upon him just like
a sparrow-hawk upon a ground-lark. We will get help enough, if you
don't like to go; it's not every man that has the same liberality of
feeling as you think you have, to refuse his share of four or five
thousand pound, just for a little bit of a smash that can be done in a
minute, and we can be all over to Sheffield again, and then to London,
before any one knows that we have been in the place at all. If the
thing were to be done near town, I would not press it upon you,
gentlemen, for there's all the risk in the world of being trapped, if
we do such things too near home. But down there it's easy to do, and
not easy to discover; and when four or five thousand pound is to be
got, it's worth the touch of a crow-bar, or ten minutes' work with the
centrebit."
"Ay, but there's the job!" cried the man he called Simes; "I want to
be made sure that the thing's worth the journey. I can pick up a nice
little living here in London, without going down into Yorkshire, and
perhaps getting myself hanged into the bargain; so let me be sure, I
say, that there is this tin, or I shall say, I would rather be
excused. I am not fond of eating an empty pudding, and do not
particularly like the cordwainer's company. I don't choose to be made
a freeman of it, and wear the riband upon the jugular; not that I am
afraid, when there's anything really to be done, but I should like to
know more about the money first."
"Why, as for that, Mr. Simes," observed a stout man, with a hawk's
nose, on his right hand; "you see I knew the country well enough, not
long ago, when I used to do a little with the thimbles, at Doncaster.
You may recollect that we, one time, had an engagement with the other
gentlemen of the course; but they were too much for us, and drove us
off with the butt ends of their horsewhips, and then we scattered
about the country. Well, I had a gossip with one of the maids there,
and sold her some real French muslin, which I picked up at York, and I
asked her all about her master, Old Carr; the miser, as they called
him in those parts, and she said he was prodigious rich, and never had
less than two or three thousand pounds in the house, besides lots of
plate."
"You hear, Simes," said Harry Martin; "so you see, whatever you may
think, we don't stand only upon what Bill Barham says, because Bill
does not know whether the man's rich or poor, and only knows that he's
called Carr, the miser. However, you shan't want for full information;
Bill has promised to bring some one with him here to-night who knows
the whole place, and the people round about, for he was the Squire's
groom at Bingley, which is close by. His name's Andrews, and he's now
in another way of business, as a horse-dealer--and has done a clever
thing or two."
"Oh, yes," replied Simes, "I know him very well--a pleasant gentleman
he is. He sold old Major Groundsell the same horse three times over;
first, as a black horse, with not a spot of white about him; then with
the two fore feet white; and then he shaved him, docked him, and made
another creature of him; but the Major could never ride him first nor
last."
"No, nor anybody else," said another of the men present, "for he was a
plunger, a bolter, and a rearer, and when he couldn't get you off he
went over with you."
"A pleasant chap to be on the outside of," said Harry; "but let us
have some more lap. Mr. Simes, may I trouble you to ring the bell. Oh,
here comes Bill, and Mr. Andrews too! Mr. Andrews, good evening to
you--I hope you're well, sir."
Various civilities now took place between the whole party, for the
meeting was evidently a formal one, and gentlemen of that class are
generally much more ceremonious on such occasions than people who
consider themselves better bred. Fresh supplies of drink were brought,
and as soon as the room was again clear, the subject matter of the
debate was once more brought forward, and the account given by Mr.
Tony Andrews was so conclusive, that even the cautious soul of Mr.
Simes was fired with generous ardour, and it was determined, nem.
con., that the thing should be undertaken. As soon as this was
settled, William Barham--who occupied a seat by the side of
Harry Martin, but a little behind the general line, not being one of
the active participators in the enterprise--whispered a word or two in
his friend's ear, who immediately pronounced a new oration upon the
occasion. The tendency of the harangue was to shew the absolute
necessity that there existed of setting about the thing at once; but
in this, Martin met with no opposition whatsoever, for every man
present was a veteran in his profession, and knew well that in great
undertakings promptness of execution is only secondary to maturity of
deliberation.
"I'm ready this minute," said Simes--"I only want to go home to get a
tool or two."
"And I think there's no time to be lost either," said the man with the
hook nose. "But," continued he, turning his left eye downward, and
looking with that orb alone into the bottom of his glass with an air
of deliberate wisdom--"but how are we to go? If we four get upon the
mail together, the guard will be in such a fuss about his bags, that
he'll blow who we are, all the way down. Then, I think, Harry, you
talked of your mare and the gig; but your mare can't run half the way,
and the gig wont hold four, though I've seen you put three into it,
and bad enough it looked."
"Oh, I'll lend you a phaeton for one horse," cried Mr. Andrews--"and
if Mr. Martin can make him run forty miles before this time to-morrow,
I'll give you a note to a friend of mine at ----, who will contrive to
horse you on. You see, gentlemen, I shall expect a trifle--not so
much, in course, as if I went out of town myself, but say a tenth, and
upon honour."
The claim was agreed to, upon the condition of the horses being all
ready and no mistakes made; and then the gentleman with the beak again
brought his peculiar eye to bear upon the lump of sugar at the bottom
of the tumbler, and remarked--"What I said myself, just now, gives me
a good hint. Suppose we were to get Jerry Knowles and Sam Harrison
to----"
"Oh, that will never do," cried Mr. Andrews, who was a man that stood
upon his reputation, "those gentlemen have such a bad character that
we must not bring them into the business, for there's always somebody
looking out after them."
"That's the very reason," said the other. "You gentlemen from
Yorkshire are so quick, that you see gooseberries upon cherry trees.
These are the very men who ought to be employed for what I mean. The
worse, the better for my purpose. We put dung upon a field, to make it
bear, not ice cream. What I mean to say is, that everything is good in
its way, and these gentlemen, though they certainly have gained
themselves a reputation, may very well serve my purpose."
"Well, well! what is it?" exclaimed Harry Martin, impatiently, for he
loved long speeches in nobody's mouth but his own. "Speak out, and let
us hear!"
"It is," answered the hook-nosed man, "that they should be sent down
by coach to Doncaster, with a promise of a five-pound note each, if
the thing answers. They can go down by coach, you know, and be absent
for a day or two, and go back again, taking care to get into mischief,
and to have proof of where they were."
"Oh, I understand--I understand!" cried two or three voices at once.
"As a blind," said Harry Martin--"a devilish good plan; and then if
they get into the brown jug, we must give them a trifle more."
Some farther conversation in the same strain took place; and then
Harry Martin said in a low voice to William Barham--"But what share
are you to have, Will?"
"Not a farthing," answered the boy eagerly, "not a farthing. If you
get me those papers that's all I care about. He always carries them in
a Russia leather pocket-book, in a pocket inside his coat. It is a
brown pocket-book, you know, with a steel spring and clasp."
"But are you sure he is there?" asked Martin.
Bill nodded his head, saying, in a low tone--"Helen is there, and
he'll find a way to fix himself where she is. But the papers are all I
want."
"Well, well, you shall have them," answered Harry; "and if I find the
fellow himself, I'll put my mark upon him. Now, Simes, you get your
tools, and I'll get mine and have the horse in the phaeton before a
couple of hours are over. Let's all meet and have a little supper here
at ten o'clock, and then we can drive out pleasant by the moonlight."
The rest of their arrangements were soon settled, and the party
separated; William Barham returning to his own abode, where he
remained for several days, waiting, with no light anxiety, to hear the
result of an enterprise which was first devised for his benefit.