run somewhat more than usual. He was by no means displeased at this,
but rather encouraged it. I was at a loss how to introduce the robbery.
I wanted to get at the gossip and opinion of the office on the subject;
but it was a ticklish matter to begin upon, when the difficulty was
solved by Mr Picknell mentioning it. Mr Thurles had told me that only a
few of his people knew all the facts of the burglary; but if he thought
such a thing was possible, I did not, and would have betted that every
man in the concern knew quite as much about it as did his master.
‘Through the window under which you are sitting, David,’ said Mr
Picknell—I was ‘David’ as the new porter—‘some thieves broke into the
office a little time back. We had a most mysterious robbery here.’
‘Then that must have been what I heard two of the gentlemen talking
about the other day,’ I answered. ‘Did you lose much, sir?’
‘I believe not a great deal,’ continued the clerk; ‘and why such expert
burglars as these must have been, should not have arranged for a
greater haul, no one can guess.’ He went on to tell me, very clearly,
how all was supposed to have been done, and in telling me this, he
mentioned Mr Godfrey’s name. He showed me where the young man sat, and
explained his duties. He touched only slightly upon these things; yet
it was quite clear from what he said that no one had such facilities
for knowing what was in the safe as Mr Harleston, and no one could so
easily have taken a cast of the keys. He did not say this right out,
yet he contrived to impress it all upon me as clearly as though he had
put it down in writing.
I was easily led, you may suppose, to talk upon this subject, and he
led me on accordingly. But, of course, if you lead a man anywhere, you
have to go first along the same path, hence, naturally, he had to dwell
upon the matter just as much as I did. Having learned so much, I wanted
to hear more about Mr Godfrey.
‘Why does not the young gentleman come here now?’ I asked. ‘I
understood he was engaged in the office.’
‘So he was,’ returned the clerk with a queer smile; ‘but things are not
pleasant just now.’
‘I should have thought Mr Thurles would have liked some confidential
person in his establishment,’ I continued; ‘it would be very
convenient.’
‘Perhaps he would,’ said Picknell, with another smile; ‘but sometimes
confidential persons know too much, and then, you see’—— He broke off
here, but of course I understood his hint.
Well, the day wore away pleasantly, after a fashion, and I strove to
see something like the ghost of a clue in what little I had already
gathered. It certainly looked rather suspicious as against Mr Godfrey,
and I resolved to pay some attention to him and his associates. And
then there were other things to be thought of, because I am not one of
those men who, having taken up an idea, try to make everything fit in
with that, instead of making my ideas fit the facts.
The first thing now to be done was to ascertain what expenses young
Mr Godfrey was running into and what companions he mixed with. It was
certain that it was not he who had paid in the forged bills; and as
those were lost, a good deal of the regular way of proceeding was of
no avail. Here, too, a hint or two from Mr Picknell came in useful. It
appeared that the young fellow had a great taste for horseracing—or for
betting on horseracing, which is not altogether the same thing. This
was important, and so were several other scraps of information I picked
up from the clerk.
In the little time that I was at home, I was sorry to see that Winny
was not yet her old self; and I determined that as soon as this
business was over, winter-time though it might be, she should take a
holiday, and we would go to some sheltered place on the south coast for
a fortnight, as I feared she was working too hard.
I now learned that Mr Harleston was supposed to be entangled with some
disreputable female acquaintance. Mr Picknell let this fall as though
by accident. I did not greatly believe in the accidental character of
the information, for I had soon decided that the clerk did not like
Mr Harleston; nevertheless, such news was valuable, as my experience
had long taught me that such an entanglement was enough to account for
anything.
I had not seen Mr Godfrey. This was indispensable, so I resolved on a
bold stroke, and determined to call at the house of Mrs Thurles with
some excuse, to ask for him. Well dressed up, I thought I was safe; and
luck befriended me. I had got up a clumsy story: it was to the effect
that I heard they were taking on people at Thurles & Company, and I
had been recommended to apply to him. It was absurd enough, I know,
to go to a gentleman in the evening on such an errand; but in my case
it did not matter, as the stroke of luck I referred to saved me all
trouble. I was opposite the house, at the foot of the steps, turning
over the beginning of the story in my mind for the last time, when the
door opened and a servant looked out. Seeing me, by the light of the
street-lamp, he beckoned and said: ‘Do you want to earn a shilling, my
man?’ I said ‘Yes’ promptly enough, and went up the steps; while the
man, turning to a gentleman whom I now saw in the hall, said: ‘Here is
one who will go, Mr Godfrey. The very chance! A tall, fine, handsome
young fellow, but without that air of resolution I like to see in a
man’s eyes and mouth.’ ‘A good enough fellow you are,’ I thought; ‘but
could easily be made a tool of by man or woman either.’
It appeared he had an appointment with a gentleman, but being detained
at home, would be an hour behind time; and to send word to this
effect was why he wanted a messenger. Mr Godfrey was man of business
sufficient to make sure of my doing my errand properly, by adding a
line to say I was to have a shilling on my giving the note in. He told
me this with a smile. As nothing particular came of the message, I
will merely say that I delivered it promptly and got my money.
Now I had seen Mr Godfrey, I should not forget him easily. But what
struck me as strange was the feeling that I had seen him before. Of
course one may meet anybody, casually pass him in the street, and so
forth, retaining a vague recollection of his features; but this was not
altogether like that. I seemed to have some recent knowledge of him,
but where, or how, I racked my brains in vain to find out.
My plan was to watch Mr Godfrey. I had learned, I considered, all I
could at the office; the only thing to be done now was to find out more
concerning his habits and associates; therefore I gave up the porter’s
livery next day. To do this was not difficult, as one of the out-door
men was ordered to take my duty until the return of the regular
official.
I felt in duty bound to return Mr Picknell’s liberality, and to ask him
to have a glass with me at my expense; but I would not do this before
the other clerks, as the young man might not like it; consequently,
I waited until the men had left, and then, lingering outside for Mr
Picknell, I intended to speak to him when a little way from the office.
As I knew where he lived, I took up a position accordingly; but he
turned in an unexpected direction, and went quickly away from me. This
might easily happen from his having a special engagement; but there was
something in the manner of his crossing the road, and then hurrying
down a bystreet, which looked like a man endeavouring to escape notice;
and I made up my mind to follow and watch, instead of speaking to
him. It was not easy to keep him in sight, so quickly did he go, and
so suddenly did he turn down unexpected streets, but I managed pretty
well, until I found, much to my astonishment, that we were drawing near
the neighbourhood in which I had earned my shilling on the previous
evening, and, in fact, were close to the house of Mr Godfrey Harleston.
It was surely impossible that he could be going _there_; but he kept
on until we were almost in the street, when he entered a low-looking
public-house which stood in a mews close by. I waited, hidden in a
neighbouring doorway, to see him come out. A long time passed; and as
he did not appear, I began to grow uneasy. At last I went into the
house, and found, to my disgust, that it opened on the other side
into a bystreet near the mews, and by this way, no doubt, Mr Picknell
had gone. This was surprise enough; but, to add to my astonishment, I
saw, leaning against the bar, smoking, and with a half-emptied tumbler
before him, Sam Braceby, the Long-necked Sam whom I had saved at the
Old Bailey. I knew him at once, and the recognition was mutual. Sam
had nothing to fear from me now, but I could tell that he was rather
staggered by seeing me. Of course I could not consider him as being
after any good, see him where I might, and he knew that as well as
I did. He touched his cap, and asked to be allowed the pleasure of
standing a glass. When I declined this, he said he had been to the West
End on a profitable bit of business—indeed, he thought he was going to
take a snug little beerhouse there, which a friend had promised to put
him into. I looked at him steadily while he said this, and smiled when
he had finished. In spite of himself, Sam could not help smiling also,
although he tried to disguise it by drinking some gin-and-water.
AN ANCIENT SPINNER.
In the ‘good old days’ before the invention of the spinning-jenny and
the steam-engine, when working-men were slaves, and the rich had not
the luxuries they have now, spinning was the work of the mistress
of the house. Many good stories begin with an account of a fair
maiden at a spinning-wheel, and a very ancient rhyme refers to the
days ‘when Adam delved and Eve span.’ When a young lady was growing
of a marriageable age, in the days of the spinning-wheel, she made
preparation for her nuptials by spinning the material for sheets,
tablecloths, napkins, and all manner of household necessaries; hence
she was called a ‘spinster.’
Words change in their meanings with the changing fashions of a
changeful world. There is one class of spinners, however, to which the
whir of the loom and the steam-engine has made but little difference.
‘Men may come, and men may go, but _they_ go on for ever.’ All the
changes of our complex civilisation make but little difference to these
little spinners. They live in their dark little houses; spin their
threads; live their lives; die in peace, or else get eaten up, and pass
off the scene, making no fuss, seeking no honour. Some people call
them mussels; scientific naturalists call them _Mytilus edulis_. They
deserve a good name, for they are an ancient and honourable family,
that have fought a good fight in the fierce battle of life, and have
endured through long ages, while many others have perished.
Every one who has visited the seashore must have noticed at times a
little mussel forming the centre of a tangled mass of threads, shells,
stones, and all sorts of fragments. These are bound together by the
labour of the black-shelled spinster. Instead of anchoring to a rock,
as a well-behaved little mussel ought to have done, this one has gone
off and anchored to all sorts of rubbish, and been driven and tossed
by the waves of the sea in all directions, until it has formed the
centre of the tangled mass we find on the beach. In the natural way,
a mussel settles between high and low water mark. When covered by the
tide, he opens his doors, and angles for a living with his wonderful
fishing-apparatus, for the spinsters of the sea are all born fishermen.
When the tide is going out, the little angler closes the valves of his
house as tight as a steel safe, and keeps his mouth shut, with a lot of
water inside, until the tide covers him again.
How the Frenchmen have learned the habits of this well-known little
spinner, and cultivated him, and made of him a cheap and nutritious
article of diet for the French nation, is fairly well known. How the
little fellow builds his house and weaves his ropes, is not quite
so well known. The house itself, with its black outside, and the
beautiful sky-blue, pearly inside, is a work of the greatest skill,
while the mechanism by which it is opened and closed forms a chapter
in the world’s wonder-lore. The little spinner lives in a soft, fleshy
‘mantle,’ inside of his stony house. On the edge of this mantle are
tiny fingers (_cilia_) and little pigment cells with which he builds.
The material—carbonate of lime—is extracted from the clear sea-water by
a simple process in the life of the animal. Just as our food goes to
form blood and bone, muscle and sinew, so does the food of the little
spinner go to form his delicate tissues and his hard shelly house.
The mussel-house is as much a part of the mussel’s life as our homes
are part of our lives, and the processes of building are not so very
different either; both are simple, both are mysterious.
To watch this little spinner make his thread is very interesting.
From one side of his house protrudes a curious little pad of flesh, a
quaint, pointed sort of a tab. This is called his ‘foot,’ though it
might just as well have been called his hand. He touches the rock,
or whatever he desires to attach himself to, with this foot, then
withdraws it, leaving a tiny thread, which he has made by some mystic
process, in his own body, just as a spider makes her silken cord. The
foot comes out again and again, always leaving a thread, until a strong
rope is woven, which binds him securely to his chosen home. He can
shorten or lengthen this cable by a simple contractile motion, which
allows him a little play; but he may be said to be fixed for life, once
he settles down. After a severe storm, some of them will generally be
found on the shore, driven from their moorings, helpless and homeless
on the strand; but they can stand the storm as well as the ships of
more skilful people, and their disasters at sea are probably less
numerous in proportion than ours are.
I had one little fellow in an aquarium, who had been gathered from
a spot where the tide left him for a long period every day. He did
not care to be under water all the time, so, by the aid of his foot
and his wonderful home-made thread, he climbed up the glass to the
surface of the water. There he attached some threads above water to the
glass, leaving some below. When the little spinner felt like having a
breath of fresh air, he ‘hauled in’ on his upper guys, and rose above
the surface. When tired of that, he ‘slacked off,’ and took a turn
underneath, thus making something like his accustomed tidal habit.
Watching these little animals in their daily movements, one grows to
have a fellow-feeling for them. Some of their actions seem almost
human, and they form a part of the household, just as the cat, the dog,
or the canary. One day a conscienceless sea-pirate known as a dog-whelk
settled on this little spinner, and began to bore through his shell
with murderous intent. The whelk was taken off, and removed to another
part of the aquarium. On the morrow, he had found his way back and
settled down again on the innocent little victim, so he was sentenced
to death as a murderer, and paid the penalty with his life.
This mussel has inherited the spinning business from a long line of
ancestors; for when the coal-forests bloomed where the iron furnaces
now roar, in the ‘Black Country’ of England, the forefathers of our
little spinner were inhabitants of the fresh-water pools in the
carboniferous forests. Ages have come and gone since then; the stony
remainders of the ancient spinners are dug from out the deepest
coal-mines, but the clever little fellows still spin their simple
threads along our shores as of old. We sometimes weave their threads
into gloves and hose, as a matter of curiosity; but few ever seem
to have time to listen to the wonderful story that can be told to
listening ears by this Ancient Spinner.
AN ESCORT ADVENTURE.
‘Sergeant, you have been detailed to proceed on escort with the
prisoner Scales. I would advise you to keep a sharp eye upon him. He is
a desperate character, and if he gets half a chance, will endeavour to
give you the slip,’ remarked our adjutant to me.
‘Very good, sir,’ I replied.
‘Here is your paper,’ said the officer, as he handed me the warrant
which bound me, under severe penalties for non-fulfilment of its
provisions, to take private Jeremiah Scales ‘dead or alive’ to the
district military prison.
I saluted the adjutant, and was turning to leave, when the colonel
entered the orderly-room.
‘Good-morning, colonel,’ said the adjutant. ‘This sergeant is going on
Scales’s escort, and I was just warning him to take great care of the
rascal.’
‘Confound the fellow!’ grumbled the colonel. ‘After all, it seems the
scoundrel is coming back to me. The court-martial that tried him—very
properly, considering his antecedents—sentenced him to be discharged
on the expiry of his term of imprisonment; and now the general,
presumably acting on superior instructions, remits the only part of
the punishment that is likely to benefit the service. During my twenty
years’ experience, I have always found it the same in the army. Last
spring, for instance, during the wholesale reduction that took place,
we had, perforce, to send away a number of good men, infinitely better
than this blackguard. Now, the Franco-Prussian business comes on the
boards, and the authorities at the Horse Guards are moving creation
to obtain recruits in order to get the regiments up to full strength.
Every broken-down scarecrow in the kingdom is being enlisted, at least
if I may judge from the precious specimens sent up to me. Besides,
the recommendations of courts-martial with regard to the discharge
with ignominy of the scum of the army are not being given effect to,
and the rascals are allowed to remain in the service.—Yes, sergeant,’
resumed the commanding officer, addressing me, ‘you’ve got a cut-throat
incorrigible blackguard to deal with; and if you don’t look out, he’ll
give you some trouble.’
I then saluted the officers, and leaving the orderly-room, retired
to my quarters to make a few preparations for my journey, which was
a tramp of about eight miles along the seacoast. These finished, I
proceeded to the room of the private who was detailed to accompany me,
in order to have a consultation with him on the subject. This man, a
Welshman, named Williams, was a veteran whose period of service had
almost expired. He was, speaking literally, the ‘hero of a hundred
fights;’ his experience of active service beginning while a boy in the
second Sikh war. He subsequently was engaged in Kaffirland, the Crimea,
and in India during the suppression of the Mutiny, finishing with the
Abyssinian expedition, which took place two years prior to the time of
which I write.
I narrated to Williams the remarks of the colonel and the adjutant
regarding our prisoner; but the veteran affected to treat the matter
very lightly. ‘I’ve had tougher jobs than this in my time, sergeant,’
he said; and then added significantly, pointing to his Snider: ‘Just
let him try to bolt, and my word, he won’t get very far!’
The prisoner, Scales, was a repulsive-looking fellow of about
twenty-five. He was more a lithe and active than a powerful man, but
was nevertheless, by reason of his brutal and vindictive disposition,
the terror of all the peaceably disposed men of the corps. He had
served in the army for about three years, during which period he was
always in trouble. On the return of the regiment from abroad, he came
to us from the depôt with an extremely bad character; and this evil
reputation he afterwards consistently maintained. At the reduction
of the army referred to in the colonel’s remarks, the services of Mr
Scales would to a certainty have been dispensed with had he not at the
time been a deserter. Being apprehended and brought back to the corps
at the beginning of the scare occasioned by the disturbed relations
of Prussia and France, he received two months’ imprisonment, and was
sent to his duty. Three days after his release, an officer’s room was
broken into and all his valuables abstracted; and in this business
it was supposed Scales was implicated conjointly with a comrade of
equally had repute. This private deserted with the booty, and Scales
was apprehended on suspicion and handed over to the civil authorities;
but he was liberated owing to no sufficient evidence being forthcoming
to warrant his being sent to trial on the charge. His next feat was
striking a non-commissioned officer, and for this offence he was now
sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment; the further recommendation by
the court-martial for his dismissal from the service with ignominy
being remitted by the general commanding the district.
No wonder that our worthy colonel was indignant at the prospect of
having such a character sent back to the regiment! Blackguards of his
description, in regard to the relations of soldiers with civilians,
invariably bring the regiments which have the misfortune to own them
into general discredit. The great majority of soldiers are respectable
and well-conducted men, and to such it is very galling and annoying
to be subjected to a social ostracism as rigid, in some cases, as
that experienced by a time-expired convict, because of the excesses
committed by a disreputable minority of their number; the civil
community being addicted to the belief that all who wear the red coat
are bad alike. It is to be regretted that the commanding officer of a
regiment has not the power of summarily dispensing with the services of
an incorrigible ruffian by having him kicked out of the barrack gate.
In the afternoon, Williams and I, equipped in marching order, and
provided each with ten rounds of ammunition and a day’s rations,
made our appearance at the regimental guardroom. The sergeant of the
guard gave me a word of caution, and informed me that Scales had been
boasting to the men that he meant to make his escape.
Our man received us with a stolid look, and mechanically held out
his wrists for the reception of the handcuffs; and after a word of
farewell to the other prisoners, he took his place beside the private,
who had his bayonet fixed. I then marched them out of barracks into
the principal street of the town. Perceiving a man of my own regiment
who was engaged on garrison police duty, I asked him to accompany us
to the outskirts, in case the prisoner took a fancy to bolt down one
of the numerous tortuous alleys that led to the wharfs near the pier.
Having reached the limits of his beat, the private returned, and I was
congratulating myself on having nearly reached the open country, in
which Scales would run a poor chance of escaping from our custody, when
we were met by a large drove of oxen. In spite of the exertions of the
drovers, the cattle passed on either side of us, and Scales, handcuffed
though he was, watching his opportunity, suddenly sprung aside, and
dodging among the animals, gained the footpath, and ran townwards with
the fleetness of a hare. Disengaging ourselves as quickly as possible
from the cattle, we started in pursuit; but as we were encumbered with
our rifles and knapsacks, we made but little headway, only managing to
keep the fugitive in sight. We shouted to a few rustics to intercept
him; but the yokels perceiving that it was only a soldier running
away from an escort, greeted him instead with cries of encouragement.
Suddenly, to my delight, a policeman appeared ahead, who spread out his
arms and tried to catch the runaway; but Scales, dropping his head,
butted him like a ram, and knocking over the guardian of the peace,
turned to his right, and disappeared down a lane a little distance
ahead. This lane led into a yard, which was situated at the back of
a row of warehouses, and which was a _cul de sac_. Reinforced by the
policeman, we followed close on the heels of the fugitive, feeling
certain that as there were no means of exit, we would speedily capture
him. Meeting at the entrance to the yard a drayman with his vehicle
loaded with barrels, we eagerly asked him if he had seen a soldier.
‘Yes,’ the fellow replied with a grin; ‘I guess you will find him in
the farthest cellar.’